My grandparents bought a cottage at Moose Lake in 1960. Later my parents owned it for many decades. Now my brother and his wife own it. This week my siblings and I gathered there with our Dad and some of our partners to plan my father’s 90th birthday celebration this fall.
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Filed under Nature
God sets out the entire creation as a science classroom, using birds and beasts to teach wisdom. – Job 35:9 (The Message)
Giraffe- photo taken at the Taronga Zoo Australia
Reach for new heights. Don’t be afraid to stick your neck out.
Bison- photo taken at Fort Whyte Nature Centre Winnipeg
Have a tough hide. Roam wild and free.
Butterfly- photo taken in Phoenix Arizona
Look for the sweetness in life. Let your true colors show.
Owl- photo taken Fort Whyte Nature Center
Glide through the dark times. Remember life’s a hoot.
Dragon Fly- photographed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival
Keep your eyes open. Zoom in on your dreams.
Alligator- photo taken in the Florida Keys
Keep an eye out for opportunities. Take a bite out of life.
Horse- photo taken in Iceland
Loosen the reins. Carry your friends when they need it.
Heron- photo taken at Hecla Island
Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet. Look below the surface.
Elephant- photo taken at the Barcelona Zoo
Don’t work for peanuts. Be all ears.
Lion -photo taken in the Phoenix Zoo
Roar with confidence. Show your pride.
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Can This Necklace Save the Elephants
The polar bears in the Journey to Churchill exhibit at Assiniboine Park Zoo were swimming on Sunday. I have been to the exhibit on numerous occasions and have never yet been fortunate enough to view the polar bears from the clear tunnel that allows visitors to watch them as the paddle through the cool water. I’m glad they saved their show for my most recent visit because I was at the zoo with my two grandsons and they were as excited as I was, to watch the polar bears’ antics in the water. My daughter-in-law wondered how the polar bears came to be in the zoo and I wasn’t sure so I did a little research. 
A Global News article in January of 2018 says the bears in the exhibit are all orphans who were found in the Churchill area when they were under the age of 16 months. They would have had no chance of surviving on their own in the wild.
I also learned that all nine bears currently living at the Assinboine Zoo have names. Thank you Juno, Nanuq, Siku, York, Blizzard, Star, Kaska, Storm and Aurora for providing an exciting experience for zoo visitors.
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One of my most popular recent blog posts was about my husband Dave becoming a guerilla gardener by planting some tomatoes in a flower bed near our house. I thought it was time to check in and see how his plants are doing.
This is how his tomato plants looked just after he planted them. 
And this is how they look now. In this photo Dave is showing off his tomato plants to our brother-in-law. 
There are lots of green tomatoes on the vines already. Won’t be long before we are having some fresh tomato sandwiches.
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Filed under Nature
We saw First Reformed on Wednesday night. In the film a young man Michael who cares passionately about the environment commits suicide because his wife is pregnant. He feels the world is doomed because we humans have harmed its climate past the point of no return. He doesn’t know how he will respond to his child when she will confront him someday and ask how he could have brought her into the world when he knew about the cataclysm that was coming.
Philip Ettinger plays Michael in First Reformed. He asks priest Ernst Toller played by Ethan Hawke if God will forgive us for what we have done to the earth.
Michael kills himself to make room for his child on earth. He leaves so his child can take his place because having a child is apparently the most damaging thing you can do when it comes to the future of the earth. Each human being’s carbon footprint is so huge that no matter how much we recycle…. and bike or walk instead of taking the car….. and buy local….. and conserve water it doesn’t nearly begin to balance the harm we do to the environment by having a child. In the film Michael leaves the world to make room for his daughter to enter it. Some people would agree he did the right thing. This article on NPR for example Should We Be Having Kids in the Age of Climate Change addresses the very thing Michael is so concerned about.
I understand all that logically but….. having children is way to invest in our hope that the world can still be saved. Perhaps the next child who comes into this world will be the one who will figure out how to reverse climate change. Perhaps they will be the one to figure out how to survive the coming cataclysm.
Having children and now grandchildren has been the richest, most meaningful and most fulfilling aspect of my life but I know that is not the case for everyone and…… for some not having children is the right choice both for personal reasons and to save our earth. I’m just glad its a choice I didn’t have to make.
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Moose Lake- 1960-
I am from skinny- dipping in the dark, gin rummy games in the glow of the kerosene lamp and six cousins up on skis behind the boat
I am from horse flies and fire flies and dragon flies and mosquitoes and the wooden table with the secret drawer
I am from the time a mouse frightened Auntie Margaret in the outdoor biffy and she ran out screaming- her bum as bare as could be
I am from swimming through seaweed, the lake itch, a salt- shaker for the eels, washing and drying dishes, building forts, planting pines, swamping the Pepper and catching frogs
I’m from charades, jig saw puzzles, Monopoly, the sand pile, the tire swing and my nose in a pile of Readers Digest condensed books and old National Geographics
I’m from collecting shells and driftwood at Lake of the Woods, walking to the store for ice-cream and the stranded buck we guided to shore by the antlers
I am from Segne Vater, Komm Herr Jesu, Johnny Appleseed and God is Great before meals, church at the camp on Sunday morning, and the neighbor coming to ask Dad to get the fishhook out of his hand
I’m from coffee and cake at Auntie Selma’s– “walk backwards and sing if you see a bear”- from “swords into ploughshares”- “be happy”- “wear a life jacket” - “let’s go to the north end”– and “it will be better by the time you’re a grandma”
I am from hot nights and canoeing down the path of the full moon, chocolate chip cookies, Dad making eggs to order with bacon, and roasted marshmallows
I am from Grandpa dog paddling and telling us stories of his life as a prisoner and baker in the Russian army- trying to tip the boat in a bout of rebellion, loons calling, gartner snakes writhing, fish jumping and spotting the bald eagle’s nest
Hanging on the wall was the cabin journal adorned with birch bark and berries- stories from a family haven- the one constant place in my life.
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Lord You Have Come To the Lakeshore
Wild Flower Inspiration- Moose Lake
My husband Dave became a guerrilla gardener last week. According to the online definition guerrilla gardening is the act of gardening on land that you don’t have an actual legal right to. Last summer Dave noticed a woman from our condo building working in some of the raised flower beds around our parking garage and on our street. He stopped to chat and she told him she was a guerrilla gardener. She enjoyed gardening and had planted things in our neighbourhood on her own. He asked if the following spring he could put a few tomato plants in one of the beds.
Dave checks out his tomato plants
She figured that would be just fine so on Saturday he planted his tomatoes.
Dave and me on the tractor on the tomato farm where Dave grew up
Dave grew up on a tomato farm and although he swore he’d never grow tomatoes again after working so hard on the farm as a kid, by the year we celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary he was digging up a patch of grass in our backyard to plant tomatoes. He’d become nostalgic for the crop whose care and tending had occupied so much of his time during his growing up years.
When we moved to Hong Kong and then to a condo building in Winnipeg he thought his tomato growing days were over……. that is until he discovered guerrilla gardening. I’m looking forward to seeing how his plants do.
A sign left by a guerrilla gardener in a flower bed on our street
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