Happy Valentine's Day

Mourning Doves at a local feeder

Love life and life will love you back.

Love people and they will love you back.

Arthur Rubinstein

A gift of flowers from Sandland Brother in the United Arab Emirates

More Adventures with Food

Greens at the Chinese Market

I find my exploration of vegetarian meal options very interesting and have discovered that many ethnic cuisines feature vegetables, grains and legumes served in tasty combinations. One of our larger local supermarkets has two rows of international foods including ingredients for Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Central American, and South Asian dishes. I like the bags of rice and chick pea flour, the many varieties of rice, beans and lentils as well as the pouches of unfamiliar herbs and spices.

Vegetables Bahjis with lime and hummus

The Becka has perfected vegetable bahjis which are made with chick pea flour or besan. This week, I bought a colourful bag of mixed lentils and used them in a vegetarian version of my mother's ground beef goulash recipe. The experiment turned out well and the recipe is posted on Come Home for Supper. There is a Chinese supermarket downtown which has the largest selection of reasonably priced fresh green vegetables I have ever seen. Last week I bought a large bunch of mustard greens, a vegetable I have never found in our regular stores. It has a peppery flavour and is tasty in soups and stir fries.

Rice and Lentils with mustard greens

My daughter and I spent two weeks last fall in Nevada, Arizona and California. I managed to find healthy vegetarian food most of the time. Las Vegas was the most difficult place to find a good restaurant so I drank a lot of Odwalla smoothies and ate fresh fruit from a nearby Walmart. California is a very vegetarian friendly state and even the ferry we took across to Alcatraz sold vegan lunches at their snack bar.

Roasted Vegetable Fajitas, El Torito, Monterey, CA

We ate at a Mexican restaurant near Cannery Row in Monterey and enjoyed a well presented vegetarian fajita sizzler. Served with rice, beans and tortillas, it was so big that we enjoyed another meal of leftovers the next day.

My main complaint with restaurant meals is the high sodium content of almost every dish. I really notice salty foods because we use few processed foods or canned soups at home. So I prefer to spend money on good ingredients and experiment with herbs and spices instead of relying on salt for flavour. I am enjoying this food adventure very much!

Remember Whensday: Green and Warm

(click to enlarge)

Winter has been long enough but it is not going away any time soon. Before our children were born, I visited my family in Mexico every March or April and looked forward to the trip during the cold months in Canada. There is no warm destination in my immediate future so my pictures from our fall vacation in the sunny south west of the continent will have to suffice. I have hundreds of pictures and haven't taken the time to post many here. My daughter took this picture of me walking down Lombard Street, the crookedest street in San Francisco. I would go back to this city in a moment!

Follow this link for more Remember Whensday posts.

Cold as Ice

Ice buildup at Webster's Falls, Hamilton, Ontario

A strong high pressure Arctic air mass pushed down from the north this weekend protecting us from the bad snow storms south and east of the Great Lakes. Along with very cold temperatures, we enjoyed bright sunshine and clear skies. We have so little snow that winter boots are not necessary in the city but they are needed for warmth if you are outdoors for any length of time. I bundled up in several layers of clothes and actually went to a store to buy a warm winter hat this weekend. Hats are not my favourite accessory and I usually manage with just the hood of a jacket if the wind bothers my ears. But this cold demands some extra precaution.

Webster's Falls

The Niagara Escarpment winds its way around the Niagara peninsula, through Hamilton and Milton and north through Orangeville up to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. We are in easy driving distance of many sections of the escarpment. Many creeks drop over the limestone cliffs creating picturesque waterfalls. Niagara Falls is the most famous escarpment cascade, but there are many others worth visiting. I heard about the ice formations at Tiffany Falls in Ancaster near Hamilton and set out to visit it on Saturday. It is the only area waterfall where ice climbing is permitted. The falls are about half a kilometer in from the road and I made it two thirds of the way before sheer thick ice on the trail slopes made me turn back. I watched three people in a row fall hard while trying to walk on the ice. I did see one climber on the ice as he made his way up the falls.

Ice Climbing at Tiffany Falls, Ancaster Ontario

The Dundas Peaks have several spectacular waterfalls and the Bruce Trail allows safe viewing access. Webster Creek falls 30 metres over the escarpment and nearby Tews Falls drops 41 metres into the Spencer Gorge. The trails were easy to walk because of the lack of snow yet the cold air turned the spray from the falls into interesting ice shapes.

Deer along the Bruce Trail

The Escarpment is home to many wild animals yet the urban sprawl of Southern Ontario is encroaching on it in many places. Iroquioa Heights Conservation Area is bordered by new housing developments, an expressway and big box stores. The deer population has grown and the animals have no place to go outside the park. They have become used to human contact and look for handouts of food from people who use the trails. I came across three deer and expected them to run as I approached. Instead, they came toward me expectantly but I had nothing to offer them except sunflower seeds. While this was a interesting experience for me, it is not a good situation for the deer.


I like old cemeteries and the plot of the Webster family is near the falls of the same name. Old epitaphs were often written as moral lessons and warnings to the living and George's tombstone is a good example. He was a young man when he died but he is not forgotten as his grave is viewed by all who walk this section of the Bruce Trail.

Come near my friends and cast an eye
Then go your way prepare to die;
Learn here your doom and know you must
One day like me be turned to dust...

...or on this winter day, be turned to ice!

MY WORLD TUESDAY

Blogging is so last year!

Thanks to Jayne for directing me to Despair.com

I offered to drive her to the bus terminal on my way home and she accepted the offer gratefully. Young and pretty, she held her PDA in one hand, plugged the end of an earphone in the unit and the other in her ear. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she moved her thumbs with amazing speed and sent text messages to an invisible recipient while listening to her music. A few seconds later the PDA vibrated, a response was acknowledged, and her thumbs went into action again. Five minutes of silence passed and more as we waited at a red light near her destination. I am comfortable with companionable silence and did not interrupt her social networking agenda. I am older than her mother, but right now am also a person who can pass or fail her on the final placement of her course. She is fashionable and bright but interacting with real people in new situations makes her visibly nervous and anxious. She has difficulty engaging in small talk.

I watch teenagers in church as they text their friends during the sermon. Others text while driving, putting their lives and the lives of others at risk.

I dropped her off and she thanked me politely for the ride. The news came on the car radio and the announcer said,

"Blogging is so last year... A study has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits have become increasingly brief and mobile." (source)

Writing and commenting on blogs is taking a back seat to other forms of social networking with people under 30 years old. I have a Facebook account and interact with family and friends daily on this platform. But I have avoided Twitter and texting, accessing the internet from my computer only. I still read real books but all types of print media are struggling to make a profit these days. I doubt this young student opens a book outside of school. Another news report this week said,

"Little or no grammar teaching, cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, all are being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who can't write properly. (source)

I got a "fashionable" Razr cell phone three years ago which is now a relic in the fast changing world of electronic devices. (It is a really lousy phone too!) My cellular provider has sent me letters advising of the opportunity for a "free" iPhone or Blackberry with my next contract. Do I want to enter this portable internet world, a world requiring good eyesight, fast thumbs and multi-tasking prowess? Will I have to own one eventually? Technology prophets predict that PDAs will be used instead of credit cards before long.

For the time being I will continue to read books, write blog posts, use Facebook moderately, and buy a basic cell phone. I will be sure to engage in face to face conversations with people each and every day, but the world is not following my example.

Olympic Countdown

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are almost here and the theme song "I Believe", performed by 15 year old Montreal singer Nikki Yanofsky, is featured on the YouTube clip. The Olympic Torch has travelled across Canada and I wrote this post when it came to our community in December. The video shows footage of the Olympic Torch Relay. I have mixed feeling about the "amateur" status of the Olympic games but I will watch for stories of courage and perseverance which will undoubtedly emerge in the next couple of weeks. Today the torch was carried by Sarah Doherty, an amputee from United States. Her story is inspiring and she is the type of champion I cheer for, one who embodies the Olympic spirit. This was taken from the Olympic Torch Relay website.

Paralympian Sarah Doherty is the final torchbearer and cauldron lighter in Sechelt. She has competed in athletics throughout her life. At age 14, she was struck by an impaired driver while riding her bicycle, resulting in the amputation of one of her legs.
Doherty was a member of the United States Disabled Ski Team from 1983 to 1985 and a member of the 1988 United States Adaptive Ski Racing Team. She is the first woman to summit Mount Rainier on crutches. She has also climbed Mount McKinley — the highest mountain in North America — as well as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Doherty also competes at the international level in adaptive paddling and participates in kayaking and outrigger canoeing.
She holds a degree in occupational therapy from Boston University. She has worked on the development of specialized sport crutches, called SideStix, to help people with mobility challenges lead active, healthy and productive lives.
Doherty works as a pediatric occupational therapist. She is a role model to her clients and their families, demonstrating what a person with mobility challenges can accomplish.

Half way through winter

February 2, 2010 ~ 9 hours 50 minutes of daylight

Today marks the half way point between winter solstice and spring equinox. Wiarton Willie is our regional groundhog and his annual prediction about the end of winter is highly anticipated. Today dawned cloudy and grey and the chances of Willie seeing his shadow were most unlikely.

No shadow=early spring
Shadow seen=six more weeks of winter

Truth be told, spring does not arrive here until the first or second week of April which is a good eight weeks away. Most of us would be happy with only six more weeks of winter. Wiarton is about a three hour drive north of our city and it was overcast there as well. Imagine my surprise when I heard that Willie had seen his shadow! I left for work shortly after the 8:00 AM announcement and sure enough, the sun was visible behind high clouds and cast enough light to make a faint shadow.

No one knows if cold winter weather and snow will persist past the third week of March, but it is certain that the days will continue to lengthen. I took the picture below on January 14th on the way to work and the sun was much lower in the sky. Today, at the same location, the spectacular sunrise was missing, but the sun was noticeably higher. The days have lengthened about 40 minutes in the past two and a half weeks.

Life goes by fast enough so I resist wishing winter away. We are planning a visit to Algonquin Park in a couple of weeks and nice winter weather would be most welcome. And I also look forward to Red Maple blossoms and Snowdrops by this day in April regardless of Willie's prediction.

Happy Groundhog Day!

January 14, 2010 ~ 9 hours 8 minutes of daylight

January Bird Count Final Tally

Wild Turkey

January 2010 was sometimes bone-chilling cold but we had less snow than usual. Toronto is an hour east of us and I was surprised to see they had no snow at all on Saturday. In the past week we have had persistent flurries off Lake Huron making driving treacherous and visibility poor, but actual accumulation of snow has been just a few centimeters. Because of the extreme cold with windchills in a dangerous range, I did not do any birding in the past week. I dragged The Becka on a fruitless drive through farm country looking for Snowy Owls which are there, but they stayed hidden for me. Unless they are perched on a pole, silo or hay bale, they are difficult to see in the fields.

Look up for a big woodpecker

I looked hard for a Pileated Woodpecker and startled one who was drilling fresh holes in a tree in a bush near our home. I didn't get a picture of the bird but I did catch its handiwork. This is a good time of year to see Wild Turkeys foraging in corn fields for grain and several flocks are found consistently just north of the city.

Pileated Woodpecker Wood Working

I have never spent much time identifying gulls. Winter is a good time for gulls in Southern Ontario and areas like the Niagara River are popular places to look for migrating species. Acting on a tip on our local birding forum, I stopped by a field near our home which is being cleared for a new mall. I would never have noticed anything but Herring Gulls but with help was able to see some white-winged gulls, the Glaucous and Iceland Gulls. There were juveniles of several species in the mix which made identification even more confusing.

So my final tally was 56 birds, 5 short of last year, but 11 more than my goal for this month. Winter finches are still absent around here this season and I had several of them on my list in 2009. I added four birds to my life list which was unexpected.

Here is my final list:

Northern Cardinal

Blue Jay

Goldfinch

House Finch

Black-capped Chickadee

White-breasted Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Mourning Dove

American Crow

Dark-eyed Junco

Coopers Hawk

Common Merganser

Hooded Merganser

Mallard Duck

Canada Goose

Ring-billed Gull

American Tree Sparrow

Brown Creeper

House Sparrow

Rock Pigeon
Red-tailed Hawk
European Starling
Purple Finch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Snow Bunting
White-throated Sparrow
Herring Gull
Rough-legged Hawk
Horned Lark

Merlin

Belted Kingfisher

Bufflehead Duck

Goldeneye Duck

American Kestrel

Mute Swan

Trumpeter Swan

Black Duck

Red-breasted Merganser

Northern Shoveler

Bald Eagle

Greater Scaup

Long-tailed Duck

Canvasback Duck

White-winged Scoter

Black Scoter*

Surf Scoter*

Redhead Duck

American Coot

Northern Shrike
Wild Turkey
Great Black-backed Gull
Glaucous Gull*
Iceland Gull*
Pileated Woodpecker

*life bird