Harry’s birthday party
24/06/12
Here’s some shots from Harry’s birthday last weekend. It was overcast when we set up and there were a few spots of rain, but it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon.
We played other games including Musical Statues and Tug of War, which was far less chaotic than last year as we actually thought up some basic rules beforehand. And I had a whistle.
Tumble Rumble
23/06/12
Lily had her end-of-year gymnastics show last weekend, the Tumble Rumble.
Harry’s birthday
22/06/12
Some photos from Harry’s birthday two weekends ago (I hear that you can get cameras that produce photographs almost instantly nowadays! Whatever happened to good old fashioned waiting?). Harry opened his presents at the sunny end of the kitchen, made some calls, and then had a few friends around to make cupcakes.
Save Jarvis!
15/06/12
On wednesday evening me & the kids joined a protest ride against the planned removal of bike lanes on Jarvis Street. The plan to replace the bike lanes with a fifth traffic lane has been on the cards for a year. It’s the first time I’ve actually cycled on Jarvis but I went on principal. If the city wants to reduce congestion they should spend $200,000 on encouraging cycling!
It’s bloody madness!
12/06/12
I just called 1882-DONATE to find out about registering as a blood donor. After a brief wait I got through to a nurse.
“Were you in the UK between 1987 to 1996?” she asked
“Yes,” I confessed.
“Yeah sorry, then we can’t accept you. Because of mad cow disease” she said.
She told me the policy is going to change sometime but she couldn’t say when.
“I’m tainted!” I laughed.
“Yeah you’re tainted!”
Harry’s gallery
02/06/12
Harry has been doing lots more drawing recently – they are ace!
Spectral serendipity
01/06/12
This morning we had a serendipitous moment that I wanted to record for posterity.
I love answering Lily’s questions about things, about anything. It makes me realise that by teaching we also learn.
As I’m answering it gets me thinking, both about the subject and about a good way to demonstrate or illustrate the answer. Often I’ll try and use some nearby thing to help.
The school is closed for a PA day today but Harry’s daycare is open, so we headed to drop him off just before 10. It’s rainy & grey out so we had raincoats on. Just as we arrived Lily asked why raincoats are often yellow. I told her it probably came from fishermen’s bright yellow sou’westers, and as I told her I thought about why that might be.
“Maybe it’s because yellow stands out well against blue, so if a fisherman fell in the sea he’d be easier to spot. The same way lifejackets are often yellow,” I said.
Lily thought for a moment and added “yeah, because yellow and blue are opposites.”
“Yes they’re opposites, they’re opposite each other on the colour wheel,” I said, opening the school building door. And right inside, on the floor, was an open umbrella which was basically a giant colour wheel! So we were able to check that, yep, yellow and blue are opposite each other.
We dropped Harry off and he got upset because I’d forgotten to bring indoor shoes for him, so we left him in Andrea’s arms and headed back home in the rain.
Postscript
I carried on thinking about colour wheels and the electromagnetic spectrum and it occurred to me for, I think, the first time, how curious it is that red and violet are quite similar colours.
They blend into each other even though they’re at opposite ends of the particular chunk of spectrum that our eyes and brain can perceive.
It’s amazing enough that visible light is part of the same physical mechanism as heat, radiowaves, microwaves, x-rays etc.
But also amazing that our brains have mapped this particular chunk of the spectrum so neatly to the colours that it can “display” that our visible colours appear to smoothly cycle.
Natural science is… just… wow!
Hawk 2: Breaking news
31/05/12
By amazing coincidence Caroline spotted another hawk an hour ago!
“It was massive! It was the size of a small dog… ” she said, struggling to express its size. “…bigger than a miniature dachshund” she continued.
“It was the size of an osprey really” she added, a moment ago, after having run through various other animal comparisons which I didn’t have time to record here.
Yikes, it’s a beast! Gruesomely, it was eating a live pigeon while the pigeon’s distraught mate squawked in a nearby tree.
We’re not really sure what this one is… it may be another Red-Tailed Hawk.
Perhaps it’s following us…
Hawk!
31/05/12
The other weekend at the Kortright Centre we had a close encounter with a hawk.
We were on the viewing platform at the end of a long wooden walkway.
I had been scanning the whole forest with binoculars in the hope of seeing some wildlife when a lady who had left a minute before returned and whispered to us “Come and see this big bird!”
We walked quietly back along the walkway and there it was sitting dumpily on the fence scanning the forest for prey.
Occasionally it glanced over at the small group of humans which had gathered but it didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
Lily quietly went back to our bag to fetch the bird book and returned saying “It’s on the cover!”
It appeared to be a Red-Tailed Hawk. It sat there for a few more minutes watching and waiting.
Suddenly it swooped down and caught something out of our sight. It flew up again holding its prize, then settled on a high branch a way off.
As it began eating, small clumps of fur fell silently to the forest floor below.
An unwelcome guest
07/05/12
There have been some odd goings on in the garage recently. Things have been tampered with, tipped over or moved.
The door from the garden doesn’t click shut – we just push it to and it usually stays there. But the recent warm weather has warped it and now doesn’t stay shut so well. Several times I’ve discovered it wide open.
On Friday I found Lily’s scooter had fallen off its hook narrowly missing the car.
On Saturday I found a piece of lumber and two 5 litre containers of paraffin had fallen from a high shelf.
Yesterday we discovered the cause: a raccoon has been living in there! I’ve no idea for how long… Caroline saw it first and I confronted it with a broom.
It seemed very frightened but determined not to leave. I tried to reason with it but it just stared at me blankly and shuddered.
Once I was sure it wasn’t about to pounce (I don’t know if sprightly raccoons exist. This one however was sluggish) I let the kids come and have a look – they thought it was cute but it was actually pretty mangey looking. I sent them away so that the raccoon and I could continue our negotiations.
It squeezed itself behind a wall of the boxes against the back wall, so I moved them away until its hiding spot was dismantled.
It tried to climb back up into the rafters but I blocked its way with the broom and compelled it to reluctantly descend.
Then it wedged itself in the corner and clung to the wall. I tried to prise it loose with the broom but the timbers of the garage wall provided perfect purchase for its long claws. It snarled and nipped at the broom but was otherwise quite docile.
I tried another approach: Lily had been to a birthday party, so I left a tempting morsel of birthday cake near the open doors. It didn’t apparently like birthday cake, or at least not enough to leave its cosy spot.
I tried a sonic assault, banging a metal baking tray with a wooden spoon, but it just gazed wide-eyed and cowered.
I brought out the hose and sprayed water at it. The raccoon held its ground, got wet, and then eagerly lapped water from the floor around it. It seemed grateful for the drink and ventured from its corner towards another pool.
That was enough for me to get the broom behind it and start shoving!
In the end a combination of broom shoving and more baking tray clanging drove it out into the lane. I shut the doors triumphantly and drank some beer to celebrate.
This morning the door from the garden was wide open again…