Indefatigable

more pictures, less rants

2012-01-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

Hey, I promised you earlier this week beautiful pictures taken by my friend and here they are.

Baby (black collar) & his new sister Lola (red)

Lola is a convenient chinrest.

Here's Darwin. There were mice, moles, voles and birds to occupy his little brain. I love this shot of my favourite little bird dog!

Bear spent most of his time mooching cookies.

I'm old and tired. Feed me!

(honestly, he is not fat. He just sits splayed out like a puppy & it makes his butt look ginormous. Baby & Lola's mom even remarked on his svelte physique...)

And here are Daisy & Zyra, playing up a storm, and Lola on the peripheries, curious & trying to join in but not sure how this game is played. These Canadian gals are tough, Lola! But Lola is from Texas so I'm betting next time around she'll be in there playing up a storm with the girls!

It's my blog and I can rant if I want to....

2012-01-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

So, a self confessed newbie to the rescue world posted a small observation which turned into a bit of a lecture about how there was too much politics and drama.

'Cause you know, when you join a new group, a great way to make friends and influence people is to lecture them. Or better yet, judge them and then lecture them.

One wouldn't want to sit back and decide a) you all are nuts, this is not the group/activity for me & I'm leaving quietly before someone makes eye contact or b) you seem nuts but I'll quietly stick around to see why, because I like to live dangerously. (By the way, if you choose b), you run a real risk of being infected by crabby rescue disease and soon you too will become political and once in a while, you might be party to some drama.)

No, what's better is to leap in and try to kumbayah your way to a better, brighter, more butterflier world, the one with rainbows and unicorns shitting gold bricks! Hugs! Kittens! Savasana!

Actually, I do think a lot of rescue is messed up. Because as someone smart noted, rescue is made of people. And people are like this. Messy.

There's always this weird disconnect for me when people get all hot and bothered about the fact that people get hot and bothered. Did you know even yoga & meditation message boards have huge flame wars? Yes, really. So it doesn't really seem surprising to me that animal rescuers would have serious disagreements. And there was an element to this obsevation/lecture that we were on the receiving end of, which bothered me more and more, the more I thought about it.

Because we were being accused of being shallow ego driven harpies (I paraphrase with great abandon & harpies were not mentioned. Ego, however, was. Several times). That got me riled enough to pen this - reproduced here for those of you who are not on this secret facebook group of harpies who argue.

Complete with any typos but as a bonus benefit for blog readers, I'll actually put in paragraph breaks. The poor FB audience had to muddle through this mess with no white space!

I think you're unfairly judging & characterizing some of the conflict in terms of ego. I'll be the 1st to admit that some rescuers have atrocious people skills & come across like hyper leash reactive terriers :D But to say 'aren't we all here for the animals? why don't we get along?' is as naive as saying "aren't all MP's here for the good of the country? why don't you all get along?"

The fact is that every decision you make in rescue is fundamentally a question of ethics, & what I see is not people arguing ego, but rather passionately striving to find the ethics in what is a bloody, dirty little war. For every dog you help, there are thousands you do NOT help & so how do you justify what you do?

The ethical choices & decisions are HUGE and we do a disservice to characterize them as some sort of immature squabbling. If you stay in rescue for a while you'll have to grapple with really, really difficult issues. Whom do you help? This or that breed? The mutts? The one that is in front of you, or another one who might be in bigger need? Do you spend $5000 of hard, fundraised money on 1 dog's "necessary to survive surgery or do you put that dog gently to sleep and spend it on getting 25 dogs spayed/neutered and adopted?

Do you 'rescue' from a pet store? Do you 'rescue' from a breeder? Do you 'liberate' a neglected animal? Where are your lines?

Every rescuer that I've grown to know for any length of time has had to figure this out, has had to find a place where they can live with their decisions, at least for a little bit....but the good ones are always questioning, is this the right thing to do? What is the impact? What will have the greatest impact? Sure, buying that dog from a petstore saves THAT dog, but I think we all know it doesn't actually have the impact we all want to have.

There are some general accepted ethical guidelines but there's an awful lot of grey & that's where you find the friction. While I sometimes wish it could be expressed better, I do think that expecting it all to go away is completely unreasonable and frankly, not helpful to the animals in the long run. Sometimes we need to question what we've always done, consider whether different approaches are more fruitful & ponder our bigger goals of how to achieve a society where every pet has a home.

And a propos of nothing really but I've been reading economist jokes and I like this one ...

The First Law of Economics: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.

The Second Law of Economics: They're both wrong.

*ps. if you haven't seen the Shelter Humor video with the unicorns shitting gold bricks, you really must click on that link above

park day!

2012-01-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Last week, before all the crazy snow stuff started, we went to the park.

Wheeeeee!

Darwin was happy.

I was happy too. But less so when I downloaded the pix off my camera.

Hi! Am I in focus? This is cute eh?

Would have been cute! But no, not focused.

This better?

Yes, this is better.

And this is good too. Mostly because Bear, unlike the other dogs doesn't actually move much. This camera can handle stills, just no movement please.

Here's Daisy rolling in something gross. It makes me laugh how happy she is when she finds something dead or stinky. Or dead AND stinky.

She was SO stinky, H had to climb up to get away..... nah, just kidding.
He climbed it cause it was there.Daisy got leashed because it was surprisingly busy at what we've grown to consider our own private playground, and Daisy does not always play nice with strange dogs.

But she had no problems at all with this new friend.

Seeing double?

Yes indeed, there are TWO of them! My friend who adopted Baby, the maremma we fostered, has adopted another maremma, from Texas. This was our first meeting with her and everyone LOVED Lola.

OK, I'll stop torturing you with my bad photos. In my next post, I've been given permission to put up my friend's excellent pictures of the outing. SHE has an awesome eye and a skookoom camera but no blog, no flicker account, no photobucket. Her pictures are gorgeous so tune in tomorrow!

Is this a good photo? I'm smiling!

Um, well, it would have been, but that focus thing again......

Oh wait, not finished torturing you yet with my photos.

Spot the dog!

Yup, it was Lola running back to mama & new brother.

belated Hapee Holidays!

2012-01-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

Frank, why is the water not so clear anymore?

Ummmmm.....

Frank? Frank! You didn't? You did? Oh. this. is. so. gross.

Oh come on! We've been in here for over FIVE years! What was I supposed to do?

Hold it.

For that long? Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, it's your fault. You're the one who said we should volunteer to go in the globe. I wanted to be on the outside. Would have been lovely out there, playing with the little toboggan by that tree. Outside! In the air! But no, you had to be in the special place!

Frank. I cannot. believe. this.

Jean?

What.

Um. The little sparkles?

Yeah.

They're not all sparkles......

Hope you enjoyed a Happy (or hapee) Holiday & wishing you all the best for 2012!

Coolest 5 Science Demo's

2011-12-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Something to do over the holidays.

& we've done the 'unsafe' grape plasma one & lived to tell about it!

The coolest (if not the safest) five science demonstrations you can do at home

RIP Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

And let's remember him by appreciating and reading his book list for smart kids - of all ages.

The Hitchens Reading List & more than that, a wonderful story of a generous encounter

oh yeah baby, yes she can!

2011-11-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

Lest We Forget

2011-11-10T22:10:00.001-08:00

Sorry if this is truncated or staccato but I'm in the midst of NaNoWriMo & roof repairs & general life chaos & blogging time has fallen to <0.

But since Remembrance Day is almost here & we're almost wrapping up our studies of World War 1 this term, I wanted to jot down a few of the resources I've found helpful:

The Teaching Company World War 1 by Liulevicius
36 lectures, large focus on social & political history. You'll want to supplement with maps & good chronologies of the various battles & main theaters of the war (this supplemental stuff is readily available online in numerous places)

John McCrae's War - NFB documentary about the author of In Flanders Fields. Note, this does have a few photographs of the excruciatingly brutal wounds that McCrae, as a doctor, would have been treating. They're brief and black & white of course, but they are horrific. As far as I'm concerned, very important for kids to see the real effects of a war. Also briefly mentioned is the fact that venereal disease was a large problem for the military, and that Canadians beat everyone (even the Aussies!) for their rates of VD. Ahem.

A copy of In Flanders Fields. I like this book version by Linda Granfield which includes biographical and historical notes, photographs and evocative paintings to accompany the poem. Ds did feel that it was a mistake for the editors to decide to break the poem up with the notes, rather than having them in front or back. Covers similar ground to the NFB doc. Technically this is a children's book, well suited to elementary, but I would not hesitate to give it to a highschooler, esp one who is not familiar at all with the subject.

Online: World War 1 movie clips from Canada at War. All are worth watching.
Most are under 10 minutes and cover life in the trenches, the nurses roles, battle scenes from Arras, France (location of Vimy Ridge).
The single long film is an NFB docudrama about Billy Bishop, the flying ace; very well done.

For the teens:
Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth
and/or Robert Graves' Good-Bye to All That
and/or Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

For youngers & olders:
the last book of the Anne series, Rilla of Ingleside deals with life in Canada during WW1
Dear Canada: No Safe Harbour (Halifax explosion)
I Am Canada: Shot at Dawn

film:
Lawrence of Arabia
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Gallipoli (1981)

More problematic for younger or sensitive viewers: Passchendaele. I'm a sissy & haven't seen it but mention it because it keeps popping up on lists.

Poetry - Loving this anthology: Anthem for Doomed Youth - Twelve Soldier Poets of the First World War by Jon Stallworthy. Excellent biographical sketches of the poets, photographs, illustrations, copies of their handwritten poems and analysis of style and viewpoints.

Combine it with Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook for a poetry unit.

World War 1 is one whose scale is hard to comprehend. For instance, in the Battle of the Somme, British casualties were 60,000 in ONE DAY. I type this out to remind myself because the mindnumbingly huge numbers somehow just do not want to register.

We have studied history pretty much every day this term but I've been careful to always schedule something lighter & completely different immediately after. For many weeks it was Great Ideas of Classical Physics. It doesn't matter what it is, but I think you need something to move the mind away after a while....

If you have other resources to share, please add them to the comments. Thanks

& at 11 am on 11/11/11, there's only one thing to do: REMEMBER

I have a visitor!

2011-11-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

I have a little smooshable puppy!

From 2011-10-31

A little muffin is staying with me for a few days while her owner is in hospital & her regular backup caregiver is holidaying in sunny California.

Notice the look on Darwin's face? Not only is he being asked to look at a camera (whaaaaa!) but also? Puppy? Mooooooom doesn't looooooove meeeeeeeeeee anymore?????? (whaaaaa!)

Darwin, the very sensitive boy, has older sibling syndrome so he needs lots of extra attention.

Bear is all Grumpy Old Man: 'young lady, show some respect to your elders! The youth of this day .....' grumble, grumble, grumble.

Daisy has been trying to get the pup to play but pup is a bit scared of big, big, big dogs and she's been trying to get the cat to play with her instead. Her method is to walk up to the cat, say Hey! You're my size! and start to bark at her. PLAY, PLAY, PLAY? Hasn't worked so far :-)

DIY grooming

2011-10-14T03:23:00.001-07:00

This was the dog's pre-camping trip grooming. You can see a small pile of fur behind Bear's butt. It just came off Bear's butt, which I clippered a bit in order to keep him cool & clean. I did such an awful hack job on his arse that I didn't take any photos of it. Fortunately, he is a supremely confident animal & completely unconcerned by the disarray of his hairy bottom.

I'm doing Daisy's nails with the dremel - hence all the extenion cords. I'm not actually pinning her down, it was just the most comfortable position for my leg. She's pretty ok with having nails done, esp since Amelia doles out cookies to dogs who are good & calm while having their pedicures. Darwin is waiting his turn. Bear just wants the cookies.....

camping grammar & spelling

2011-10-13T06:04:00.000-07:00

This thing is posted in all the bathrooms & by the entry gate of the campground. Next year I'm bringing a sharpie.

there was fishing

2011-10-11T04:04:00.000-07:00

The new p&s camera (sony dsc-w510) has this fun panorama feature. It is neat. Click to enlarge & check it out.

all catch & release. No fish were harmed. Really. They said they ENJOYED the experience of being caught, dragged around for a bit on a fun ride, massaged by human hands, and getting a free dental check up.

cat goes camping!

2011-10-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hello blog readers? Rescue me! I'm in prison! Is this some sort of G8 holding cell?
It is true that I'm an anarchist.
But I'm a cat! I can't help it.
Let me out!

Ha. Rachel LOVED camping & she was actually rarely imprisoned. Mostly she had a long line attached to her harness, and she took herself for little walks.

I was gazing at the lake. I could go fishing. If I wanted to. Yawn. But it's time for my nap.

This was one of her favourite napping places - inside the tent, midday. It's about 35C outside and inside the tent, oh, about 1000 degrees, and if you ever actually had to go in there, you told people so that they could start a countdown & send a rescue party if you didn't reappear in sixty seconds. This photo is not so great because the lens is sweating, that's how hot it was inside.

Finally someone turned the thermostat to the right setting! I'll just lie down on this nice warm fleece blanky!

She was so nice and warm and relaxed that she did these amazing cat stretches with Amelia.

Look! I'm a young and nimble cat!

Rachel had a wonderful camping trip & she was a good trooper on the drive as well. On the drive up, the only problem was that she forgot to use her potty before leaving home (though I TOLD her to) and so she fussed around on Amelias lap & finally retreated into her carrier & aromatherapied the car. Quick clean up at the first rest stop (Hope slide viewing area) and we were fine for the rest of the trip.

On the return trip, she decided to barf on Amelia's lap. Why? Nobody knows. There was nothing wrong with the cat, she was not ill and she's never been car sick before. Maybe she was just indicating her displeasure at leaving the campground. Anyway, Amelia's lap got the brunt of it & after a clean up at the first rest stop back (Keremeos fruit stands), we had an uneventful drive back.

why nobody else makes their bed either

2011-10-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

Excuse the blur but I couldn't sneak any closer or use the flash or I would have woken sleeping beauty up. This is Amelia's bed (where PB used to sleep all the time!)

the slouch and not in style edition

2011-09-09T09:37:00.001-07:00

Hey Bear, aren't you embarassed to be seen with such a dorky woman?

What to wear to take the dogs to the beach at low tide for rambles through tidal pools.

Start with black shirt & quick dry running shorts (from MEC!) Good start. Can't go wrong with basic black.
Make first questionable decision with red baseball cap because I couldn't find my drab olive green one.

Try to recover from by coordinating Darwin's grey long line with my grey strapped LeSportSac purse (in the My Buddy pattern with dogs all over it, of course.)

Wreck it all with adding another color in the mandatory glove. The glove - dorky as it is - is required if you're going to keep a dog on a long line in wet & sandy environments, and want to actually be able to a) hold the line and b) keep skin on your hands. Outings to the beach with Darwin involve gloves. Purple was an interesting choice as it happens to be the color of my Pam Dennison Recall Whistle (around my neck) and my box clicker (on my right wrist and so not visible in top photo.) See, I was trying to pull the look together with accessories!

Well on my way to dressing with lots of bright colors like a demented 5 year old, notice the bright orange poop bag sticking out of my pocket; I've coordinated that with my crocs, which yeah, are hideous shoes, but are just perfect for tidal pools. You can see them below & you can almost see my purple clicker but not quite; it's on that black wrist wrap.

Add interest to the lower half of the outfit & improve your hip line by making sure pockets are bulging.

It's a nice addition to have ziploc bags of sausage actually half falling out of your pockets. You know those peekaboo silk hankies in a men's suit jacket? SAME principle.

And hey, remember when I posted about dog training being a pain in the neck and said I slouch? You probably thought I was exaggerating. Hah. I offer you proof of my super duper slouchy power.
'Cause you know, posture makes the outfit!

August Beach Day

2011-09-05T10:06:00.003-07:00

Our American friends came up for a beach day recently. Daisy & our former foster Baby, aka Polar Bear, aka PB, were SO happy to see each other.

I'm floating on air!

Bird, bird, bird. Great blue heron bird.

There were birds all over & that played a bit with Darwin's little bird brain but he did manage to get it together every once in a while & actually listened to me.

Darwin tricks.

Sproing!

I love this trick :-)

My pretty trick!

Daisy learned this by watching Darwin get paid for it & she started offering it a couple weeks ago.

PB's cute tricks.

I love you mama.

PB says: Um, I don't love you that much. It's too deep here!!!!

Everyone swam, even Daisy! I think she's finally realizing that she knows *how* to swim. Usually when she charges into the water after Zyra, she's so hyped that she just panics and retreats. This time she went in more calmly and just swam. PB had been following us & then he turned around and changed his mind LOL

He did eventually think about it some more and DID decide to follow mama after all.

Hey! I can't feel the ground!

Even Bear swam!!!! For a supposedly newfie x he has been very reluctant to get into water. We've noticed that due to limited range of motion on his front legs, his head sinks quite low which must make him feel a bit panicky. For real swimming, I think he'd definitely benefit from a life jacket for safety and comfort.

why I need a new roof

2011-09-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

During last big rain, at end of August.

Babeeeez!

2011-07-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

We are fostering 14 babies (& mom) from Little Mischief Rescue.

This little one fell asleep during his photo shoot.

By the time we got to #14, (259 mostly blurry photos) we were all pretty tired but this one was still perky.

Don't you just wuv them?

Sand, wet, wind, & some sun

2011-07-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hi! I went to the beach! It's a super secret place & if I told you I'd have to kill you. Well, at least bark at you lots & maybe chase you a bit. No really. You know how I feel about strange dogs. We love this place because there aren't many people and strange dogs here so we can go with our friends and play!

Darwin has to stay on leash. Ha ha.

Why? Why do I have stay on leash?

Oh yeah, it's because I would run away. All the way to Saskatchewan maybe!

Actually, we practiced some whistle recalls for the 1st time in such absolutely insane high distraction area, and Darwin actually didn't do too badly. 10-20 feet were very successful, closer to 30 was too much. I also noticed that Daisy sucked at whistle recall. She obviously needs some intensive work. The only time she recalled well was when my friend, who was nowhere near me, was trying to call HIS dog and mine went galloping over. I can come! I know how to come! I love you. Look, I'm sitting in front of you. Take me home with you. It was pathetic.

Bear and the little yellow lab Zyra are out there somewhere. Daisy says: And so is my friend. He's out there. I love him.

Yooohooo Darwin, pose for a picture.

I'm coming!

Ok, now we're posing nicely & what do you know? The photographer dork forgot to bend her knees & take our photo from straight on instead of down.

no unicorns yet

2011-07-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

& no elephants either!

But we like to hum cats, rats and elephants while we do our pet chores......

We have a fresh batch of ratties - a mama and her 14 babies plucked from a pretty sad and awfully smelly place.

Mama is convinced that newspaper is a good bedding material & has been ignoring the fleece scraps I gave her. I'm trying to dig out as much of the really smelly stuff as I can without making her too mad. Don't want mama to wig out and hurt her babies which can happen if you mess with their nests.

For the same reason, they're staying in this nasty icky smelly aquarium thingy until they're bigger and we can safely move them to a proper nursery.

Mama is a hooded rattie; she has dark eyes and her color is a kind of silvery beige. The babies are all blue, grey and black; 10 boys, 4 girls. They'll all be available for adoption through Little Mischief Rescue eventually.

And this little pirate I scooped up last night in our neighbourhood. No collar and a messy eye. I can't even tell if the eye is there & it's just infected, or if it out altogether (but then the lids need sewing shut). Either way, the street is no place for a kitty with an eye injury so it came to stay in Casa Crazy Zoo overnight & is going to the shelter today where good people will help it get whatever it needs.

A lovely cat, very friendly & enjoys petting though wasn't too keen on being picked up. I love the mustache & goatee markings!

wordless wednesday

2011-07-06T00:15:00.003-07:00

why I don't make the bed

how to garden with a jackhammer

2011-07-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

So, yes, I left you last time with a good plan, right? Trees are in the yard, deck is broken but no worries about that. We just need to dig holes, pirouette the trees into them, put dirt back and presto! We'll be done!

I took Hugo to his fencing class on Saturday morning. Roo was busy ripping out the old ones and digging the big holes. When I returned home, Roo was not so happy.

In a totally unexpected setback, the shovel hit something hard, about 2 feet under ground.

Ayup. A concrete slab.

A huge concrete slab, running the length and width of the area which we needed to dig.

We have no clue what it is. A patio? A walkway? A slab for an oil tank?

And why is it two feet under ground?

It's a mystery. We don't even know how big it is as we gave up trying to find its other edges.

The gardening project now required a quick trip to the tool rental place for a jackhammer.

Bonus pile of broken concrete which will all need to be hauled by hand out to the front of the house, and then we'll.... I don't know. Maybe the local dump will take it if we load it in the van in small batches.

It could have been worse. It could have been an erratic, like this one recently dug up in Vancouver.That would have been a real challenge.

And finally, eventually, the trees were planted.

Big V's filled, and now just little V's left! Yay!There's still a little gap right in the middle but we fidgeted a bit with the plants, and the branches have loosened a bit so even a few days later, things are looking better.

Now we're babying them. They need extra care for about 2 years. Their roots are not well developed and the tree can end up acting as its own umbrella so they need a drip hose placed at the trunks. We've also been told that sometimes the trees are not very efficient at bringing moisture up to the branches so they need misting to help keep the foliage humid.

If you give a mouse a cookie....

2011-06-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Some people are not familiar with this great children's story, so here you go.

Last weekend we decided to finally tackle the hedge & privacy issue. The neighbours's gardeners had planted 11 foot tall cedars.

Nice.

But the V's! See all those gaps in the V's at the top of the trees. Yeah, they'll fill in, but when?

We pondered this for a while & decided that we would plant a second row of hedging, zig zagging it on our side to fill in the V's a bit. Not only would this speed up the filling in of the hedge, it would have the added benefit of having a hedge on OUR side of the fence, and as we've discovered, that's a big deal to us. "On our side" means we can decide how tall to let it grow, and "on our side" means that neighbours (these or new owners down the line) can't decide to just chop it down.

After much to'ing and fro'ing, we finally got things sorted out, got the name of the nursery where one can buy these giant trees, and rented a truck to pick some up. (we did briefly consider having them a) delivered and b) installed but the price was too high, and once it became clear that no heavy equipment can get in that area & this is a job that needs to be done by hand, the price went even higher.)

Roo went to pick them up & as an added benefit got to actually select them, picking nice and healthy ones, and one especially large one for the big hole we were particularly bugged by. The nursery loaded them into the truck with a giant claw thing.

Of course the first challenge was to get them out of the truck. We had this idea that we'd just pull them out on tarps and drag them to the back. There was a bit of a set back when both Roo and I put our backs into it, gave it the big heave-ho - and didn't even budge the tree. See, the damned things weigh about 300 lbs and the big one was probably closer to 400. They're big, and long, and don't really seem to have anything to hang on to.

Eventually, with the help of levers and wheels, and inclined planes (science rules!), we figured out a method of getting them off the truck & moving them the 60 feet to the back. There was much grunting and sweating but we were doing quite well and overall feeling pleased with progress. Until, on the last tree, the deck collapsed.

This is the small deck out the back door from the garage (& it's the one that I had planned to use as a grooming platform in my last post)

Fortunately nobody was hurt and we stood back to take pictures and ponder our next step, which ended up being ripping it out and just using the ramp which we had been placing on the stairs to drag the last tree to the yard.

Here Roo & Hugo are dismantling some of the bolts holding the old railing on.

So now, our hedge project had grown to include rebuilding a deck.

But the trees were finally in the yard, and the truck was cleaned & returned.

There they are, parked against the fence (pretty much where THEY chose to land because moving these suckers around is like dancing with King Kong. Seriously, our best method of moving them on grass involves pirouetting them into position. Let me tell you they tread on your feet & stick their arms in all sorts of private places....). Hugo who is I think around 5'5"/164 - is standing by for scale.

We knocked off on Friday night just a bit bummed by the broken deck but philosophical about it. It had needed some work anyway as I've been trying to find ways to stop the dogs from 'dock jumping' onto the grass instead of using the stairs when they got the zoomies. Large chunks of the deck are salvageable and we'd just need new supports and stairs.

The one who missed the deck most was Darwin as he loves that little side yard & races around there looking for birds. It's now off limits, gated off with the old screen we use to keep the cat from going off the deck (benefits of having an ancient arthritic cat is that a 1 m barricade completely locks her in). Darwin keeps looking hopefully over the edge, puzzled at the huge hole at his feet.

On Saturday I took Hugo to fencing class in the morning. Roo was going to dig out the old hedges and park them somewhere, and start digging the big holes. Once I got home at lunch, we'd start planting the big trees.

That was the plan.

two interesting stories about oceans

2011-06-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

On the heels of our trip to the Vancouver Aquarium, these two stories caught my eye:

Oceans' decline outpaces predictions, report says
Overfishing and habitat loss are biggest threats, followed by climate change

The health of the world's oceans is declining much faster than originally thought — under siege from pollution, overfishing and other man-made problems all at once — scientists say in a new report.

The mix of interacting ingredients is in place for a mass extinction in the world's oceans, said a report by a top panel of scientists that will be presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.

and

Predators migrate en masse to Pacific hotspots

Huge numbers of sharks, seals, turtles, whales and other ocean predators converge on two regions touching on B.C.'s coast at certain times of year, an animal tracking study shows.

After analyzing data collected over a decade from 4,306 tracking tags placed on 23 species in the North Pacific Ocean, scientists likened the mass migrations to the seasonal journey of vast herds of zebras and antelopes across the African savannah. They published their results Wednesday in Nature.

Vancouver Aquarium visit

2011-06-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

When the kids were really young (like toddlers and preschoolers) we had memberships at the Vancouver Aquarium and Science World. They were both great places to hang out on rainy days, meet up with friends with their own kids, lots of room for kids to run around, check out animals, and learn things too. We used to go so often, in fact, that we kind of burned out. Well.... at least, I did.

But Hugo has been asking go to the Aquarium for months & we finally snuck in a trip yesterday. I probably should have tried harder to do it in May because the crowds are already picking up, but we still had a great time & renewed our membership. I'm not sure if we'll go back much during the summer but I anticipate a number of outings in the next school year.

The Vancouver Aquarium is a non profit research and conservation facility. While I have some quibbbles about their housing of large marine mammals (& that is also part of the reason we didn't renew - the deaths of the killer whales & Whitewings saga really bothered me) amd I still think the habitats should be larger, way larger (seemed to me that during past renovations they made bigger habitats and then got more animals. Um?), I do accept that this facility does offer some terrific opportunities for research, education, and conservation, and in the end, I do find that I can support a lot of what they try to achieve.

The parking though - holy $10 for all day! When I was bringing the kids out there for a fun play day several times a month, it was free. At ten bucks a pop, there's no way I could have afforded that back then.