Entr'acte

While my life is full of interesting interactions with people and I feel like there's plenty I could write about. Somehow, I'm not feeling the blog. Something's a miss. Perhaps it's a purpose. In the Yukon, I felt a need to connect and I felt connected to other bloggers. Here, it's not happening. I've lost whatever was driving me to share my thoughts.

So this is where is ends. For now.

Militant Moms

When you tick off a mom that has a kid with special needs, you get a militant mom.

Go moms, go! I hope you get the funding your children badly deserve.

http://momsnetwork.ca/

The power of the glue gun

I worship the person who made the glue gun accessible to the masses.

Items I glued today:
2 ping pong balls on an octopus costume
2 googly eyes on a metal spider
1 Halloween cat and pumpkin garland
1 broken-off ceramic whale tail
1 broken-off wooden fish tail
1 broken-off wooden dolphin fin
1 split marine animals puzzle frame
3 pop-up book pages, and
2 snow white heads on a pair of red plastic high heels

Number of fingers burnt by hot molten glue today: 2, repeatedly.
A happy imaginative three-year-old: priceless.

Weekend plans ruined

It's been snowing from more than a week. It doesn't stay on the ground but still, the leaves are still on the trees and for the most part, they're still green. Though a yucky lettuce-frozen-at-the-back-of-the-fridge kind of green. Mother nature is barring us from enjoying a normal autumn this year. And I was so looking forward to more than the Yukon's usual 2 weeks of Fall.

Tonight, I had my first hockey practice. I hadn't laced up my skates in over two years because of the pregnancy. Driving back home, I had that post-drill glo. I was immersed in As It Happens when bright red and blue lights flashed in my rearview mirror. Shit, an $198 ticket. Who drives 60 on a country road, anyways?

My husband had just finished a grueling research grant application this week and he was really looking forward to a weekend at a rental cabin in Waskesiu, complete with bugling elk in the front yard. He'll be crushed.

Maybe the City of Saskatoon does installments?

Let's keep it in the ground

Saskatchewan has oil potential, in an area roughly the size of lake Erie.
But let's not kid ourselves, there is no such thing as "sustainable" oil sands development. Extracting bitumen from the ground is like tearing up the street and refining the asphalt. It's a dirty process that has serious environmental repercussions.

Alberta's oil sands development has created havoc for people, wildlife, and the environment. Namely, it has fractioned forests; acidified lakes; affected the health of people in Northern communities, and disempowered the citizenry as oil royalties are more important than the taxes Albertans pay.

Will Saskatchewan learn from Alberta's mistakes?
Will the province consult, and more importantly listen to its citizens?
Will it act as a responsible owner and not a blunderer of the resource?
Will it seek ways to reduce our current CO2 emissions - some of the highest in the world!

If our existing technologies do not allow us to exploit this underground resource responsibly, that is without destroying ourselves and our other resources above ground, than it would be wiser to reduce our energy use and keep our bitumen in the ground.

More info can be found in the Pembina Institute's recent report:
Carbon Copy: Preventing Oil Sands Fever in Saskatchewan

Children at risk

My nephew William is 3 years old. He was diagnosed with autism. Three weeks ago, after 1 year on a waiting list, he was accepted into an intensive intervention program that will allow him to learn to socialize and hopefully integrate the regular school system with other children. This type of program is CRITICAL for children with autism in the early developmental years so they can enter kindergarten at 6.

Incredibly this week, the B.C. government decided to cut funding to these types of programs.

The Ontario government made a similar decision a few years ago, forcing many families to move to other provinces, such as Alberta, in order to receive the appropriate developmental care for their children.

I don't think it's too far fetched to say that the future of children with autism is on the line. Early developmental autism programs are incredibly important to set these children on the right path.

I just thought all of us should know what's going on.

This Alien Landscape

We explored the Beaver Creek Conservation Area over the weekend. As we walked along the gravel road and trails we couldn't help but feel clueless. We knew nothing of the plants around us. Is this a grass or a sedge? An Indian Paintbush and something else? What about this tree, it's a cherry but what kind? Is it native? The Manitoba maples I know are more shrub than tree, but not here. And cougars! Are you serious, we have cougars here?!!!

Cougar warning

Nope, they weren't kidding!

It's a whole new world out here. One I know virtually nothing about. I need to re-learn my birds and my plants. I need to know what kind of crop I'm driving by; the name of the different types of farm machinery, and knowing the different types of clouds now seems all the more interesting and pertinent.

If this is what my girls are going to grow up knowing, then I need to brush up fast on all of this to be able to teach them.

Just when I thought I knew a lot, I find myself ignorant again.

Redberry Lake

With a name like that, you know I was going to investigate!

Redberry Lake is named for the abundant bushes of Shepherdia argentea growing in the area. It's also one of 15 UNESCO biosphere reserves in Canada; protected for its patches of natural prairie.

S. argentea (or Buffaloberry)

Beach boodoole

Undisturbed prairie

In addition to buffaloberries, chokeberries and currants abound. Too bad they're protected as well!

Grapes

My neighbour is awesome. She let us pick the last of her grapes. I used to grow Concord grapes when I was a graduate student in Waterloo, Ontario. Our vine would make more than enough grape jelly for us for an entire year. My new yard here in town has great southern exposure and a great big fence, perfect for a vine or two. Can't wait 'til next spring.

After the asbestos, it's the sewer pipe

After the asbestos-laced attic insulation, it's now our sewer pipe that needs removing. Ah! The joys of owning an older home. For the past 10 days, we've had to choose between taking showers, starting the dishwasher, or washing clothes to make sure our grey water wasn't coming back up the floor drain in the basement.

Saskatoon may have great big beautiful trees but it's an arid climate and tree roots need water. Our sewer pipe is clogged with them. The city spends much of its time uncloggging water pipes and tearing up residential streets - like ours this morning.

I'm hoping they massacre my front lawn so I don't have to mow it anymore. I'd like to xeriscape the whole thing next spring.

We've moved.

It's hard to believe but we've traded our log home in the Yukon for a 1960's vinyl-clad bungalow in the prairies. This weekend, while most Yukoners are out hunting moose, we're grilling bison smokies and mowing our lawn in 30 degree weather. Aren't we the Pleasantville pair!

Actually, I haven't thought much about the Yukon since I left 3 weeks ago. It's probably as well. I need to be looking forward.

But for all it's worth, I think I'm really ok with this new path. My husband has started an awesome job. We've met most of our neighbours, interesting and friendly folks. My tot has started preschool while the baby and I have explored the city in search of stuff and stuff to do. Saskatoon is very nice. It reminds me of Kitchener-Waterloo in many ways.

Now, if I could only understand this suburban lawn obsession. I just don't get it.

Berry sampler

The Copperbelt Railway and Mining Museum is not only a good place to spend a half hour with the kids, it's also a great location to sample a variety of Yukon berries. I don't normally disclose the whereabouts of berry patches but this area is really more of a "sampler" than a productive patch.

If a handful is all you want, wild strawberries are found abundant in the parking area. The wooded property has recently been thinned, which makes it ideal for cranberries and crowberries to grow. A few raspberry plants can be found along the main road and I've even found a few Northern black currants (R. hudsonianum) around the day use area. One berry I wasn't expecting to see were Northern gooseberries (R. oxyacanthoides). A half dozen bushes are found scattered along the train tracks.

One Gooseberry plant had particularly plump berries which had a great pulpy plum taste. With a yield of only a few handfuls, I decided to make tarts.

Cleaning fish

A berry nice gift

This is my husband's last week at work. You know you must have done something right when an elder brings you, as a parting gift, a Mason jar full of fresh juicy berries from the Dempster.

Cloudberries and bog blueberries on vanilla ice cream.
Soooo good!

Pulling into traffic

I drive down 12th avenue in Porter Creek almost everyday to get to the College. Friday morning at 10:30 am, a 33-year old woman was in a car accident at the intersection of Pine and 12th. She died.

There is a seriously dangerous driving habit many Yukoners have. I see it every single day I drive down the Alaska highway. People turn onto the highway in front of me. I have to take my foot off the gas and sometimes even put on the breaks not to slam into them.

Why on earth do they do this?! It caused the death of this woman and I'm really concerned one day it'll cause mine.

What is with these morons?!