“Do we want the local (conventional) milk, or the large-scale organic (shipped 2500 km) milk this week?” In case you were wondering, we’re not actually planning on getting a cow. We only have an acre and a half cleared, and the cow would need most of it for pasture. It’s swampy and we’re near a [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: PostADay2011, self-sufficiency | 22 Comments »
Where we went when he asked for the beach on a blustery day: The rail car in the front is an old coal car. The windmills in the background adjoin the Lingan coal-burning power plant, the largest power plant in Nova Scotia. The old schoolhouse is now the visitor information centre, at least in the [...]
Filed under: Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, photo, PostADay2011 | 3 Comments »
In the beginning… We start as a DNA blueprint, a set of instructions for how to construct the magic of consciousness from nothing more than the molecules that surround us. The environment is not just a soup that we swim in. It’s what we are made of. We are built entirely from materials that we [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: environment, philosophy, PostADay2011, science and religion, storytelling | 7 Comments »
So I said, ” As long as the peas are staked by the time I get home, I don’t care if there is a giant pair of pants in my front yard…”
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Family | Tagged: garden, photo, PostADay2011 | 8 Comments »
After I wrote my very long post extolling the virtues of cake (1), I went out to obtain ingredients for supper (2) and arrived home to discover that the power was out. After a couple of minutes (3), I realized that there was an easy solution to this problem, picked up the not-cordless phone (4) [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: PostADay2011, SolarPowered | 3 Comments »
Oooh! Ocean! I have one of those! (You know, the same way that one can have a sky, or a constellation, which is that I can look at one with a reasonable expenditure of energy) Our ocean is moody and cold: There is honesty in naming in action, at the Polar Bear Beach. I didn’t [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, ocean, photo, PostADay2011, spring | 3 Comments »
On the occasion of my 39th birthday, allow me to wax philosophical. Really, how are you going to stop me? I’ve made it around the sun one more time. This is apparently an accomplishment that warrants cake. Go, me. Just keep breathing, breathing, breathing. Don’t get me wrong; I love cake. But it is an [...]
Filed under: WorldView | 12 Comments »
Well, I’ve written 1700 words so far, but I’m not finished and it’s 11:56. So, in lieu of a MASSIVE post, an argument: What’s different about it is that it is NOT a copyright infringement. That’s right. It’s the honest to goodness Monty Python channel! On YouTube. With links on which they encourage us to [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: PostADay2011 | 2 Comments »
Why is that young man serenading the blueberries with his guitar? Why are cactus spines as likely as stings for many bee researchers? What can each of us do to improve the situation for pollinators in our world? What I didn’t know about bees could fill a book. Fortunately, Laurence Packer has provided exactly that [...]
Filed under: Reviews, Rural Living | Tagged: bees, books, PostADay2011 | 4 Comments »
When I started writing this post, I felt pretty good. I had a great day. I made the pickles that have been sitting in brine for the last 5 days. I wrote about nuclear physics for 2 hours, refreshed my memory on alpha and beta decay, and came up with a good analogy. I had [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day | Tagged: discipline, PostADay2011, self, Writing | 4 Comments »
