New Color in the Front Yard

First bloom for the canna.




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Little Green Moth

On the way to Mass…



Two of them, actually…




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I See the Moon…

This time from the parking lot at Felton Faire.



And when I hopped out of the Burb to get the gate when I got home, it looked even better:




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I See the Moon…

Was out checking up on the watering, looked up, and there it was!!



And as if to rub it in that timing is everything, about seven minutes after I took the shot, another bank of clouds rolled in, from wherever it is they’re been rolling in all day, and you’d never know the moon had been there.





A little more than an hour later, thunder started rolling in along with rain.


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Spring Has Sprung

Various of the yard denizens:




















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The Return of Three

There were three mallards in the pond this morning, two drakes and a hen. Hopefully, Bob got a good shot.

Curtis Was Introduced…

…to the Curlys this morning. I spotted them from the window.

Dog-Shy

Bob reported that Glenkerry wandered past the pond and scared the Curlys off…

Still Shy

Between snoozes on the alarm clock this morning, I heard one or the other of the Curlys down in the pond. When I got up, I didn’t see them; under the deck, maybe?

Camera-Shy

Woke up early, and Bob wasn’t in bed; figured he had wandered down the hall, and rolled over, and there he was, looking out the window (not very nice to startle his wife like that)!

Turns out the mallard hen, Mrs Curly as we’ve taken to calling her (from the curly tail feathers on the mallard drake) (the same Mrs Curly from last year?), was in the pond, quacking insistently. All in good time, Mr Curly appeared from under the dock and joined her.

When I got up, Bob’s Nikon was out, armed with the big, long lens, but to no avail; by the time he got ready to go, the ducks were gone.

Ding, Dong, the Duck Is Back!!

Dustin walked around the corner down to the pond and scared the poop (you should excuse the expression) out of (our?) mallard hen!

I was hoping they'd be back this year.

Duck!!

Saw a mallard pair in the river from the bridge on the way to Mass; suppose they’ll be showing up in the pond soon?

More Signs of Spring

Saw an orange-ish butterfly outside the slider in the bedroom this morning. By the time I got out on the deck and started getting close, it fluttered off… :-(

Get This Unicorn

On abc News yesterday:

Single-Horned ‘Unicorn’ Deer Found in Italy

Never did see one when I was in Italy…

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Now playing: Stephen Hough (piano), Bryden Thomson; Halle Orchestra - Piano Concerto No. 21 in C “Elvira Madigan”, K467, II. Andante
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Slow Down, Yes…

…but don’t stop, or worse yet, start moving in reverse.

Moderation in all things: I don’t know about anybody else, but I have no intention of totally buying into any scheme(s) that guarantees I’ll be (physically) stuck where I am right now with no hope of ever leaving until I’m buried.

As it intimates in the warnings in this article, think; use common sense.

How to Get Started in the Slow Food Movement

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Slow Food is good, clean and fair food. We believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.[1]
The slow food movement is a reaction to a fast food lifestyle predominant in many modern cultures. By choosing to become a part of the Slow Food movement, you are making a choice to be a co-producer rather than a consumer; an active, proactive and informed part of the food chain that recognises the “connections between plate and planet”.[2] This article discusses a few ways to become involved and become a Slow Foodie yourself.

Steps

1. Understand what slow food means. Slow food is about more than food; it is about a lifestyle that connects our food consumption to the wider social, ethical, lifestyle, political, environmental and spiritual elements around us. Slow food is about eschewing haste and recognising that over-reliance on fast food damages our health, social fabric and cultural food traditions.
   
2. Join a Slow Food group in your region. The Slow Food movement has enlisted over 80,000 members in at least 122 countries, so it's probable you have a group near you.[3] Your local group will be known as a “convivium” and you will find your local group via Slow Food – Where To Find. Of course, you don’t have to join to be a part of the Slow Food movement; it is just a chance to be with like-minded people and to have the chance to share ideas and to participate in events together; benefits that may enthuse you.
   
3. Get cooking. That’s right. Stop buying the pre-made selection and start pulling out your recipe books. Look for family heirloom recipes passed down through the generations; many of us can recall delicious meal occasions prepared by family members, or even by ourselves before the need for speed overtook us. Be careful about your recipe choices, however. The fancy cookbooks might call for ingredients that need to be imported from many thousands of miles away; avoid these and favour recipes that let your local produce take centre stage, including veggies and fruit from your own garden.
   
4. Shop locally. Shopping locally is a key element to being a Slow Foodie. Shop at your local farmers’ markets, your local fruit and vegetable store and even consider asking for veggies from your neighbours if they’re growing some. Not only do you save the wear and tear on the environment from all the energy consumed in long-range transportation but you also know where your food came from and that’s a very reassuring feeling. The greatest benefit of shopping locally though? The food is as fresh as possible and that just tastes the best.
   
5. Avoid genetically modified food. Whilst some companies may put forth a vision that genetically modified food is the promise of the future, there remain many questions about the speed at which such modification is occurring and the means by which it is being achieved. Certainly, we have been modifying our food for centuries but the key word here is centuries, not a matter of years. The Slow Food movement has a fundamental opposition to the use of genetically modified food products because in making a large swathe of common food sources generic, we risk losing the all important diversity and quality of food available around the world and replacing it with mono-crops that become more susceptible to disease, providing less healthy variety and possibly increasing the chances of human-induced disease through over-concentration on a few food types.
   
6. Buy organic. Where possible, prefer organic produce over conventionally grown food. You reduce your exposure to pesticides, fungicides and fertiliser chemicals and you get produce that many studies have suggested are higher in nutrients that bolster the immune system, presumably because plants not treated with pesticides must produce more antioxidants to protect themselves.[4] Organic food is an important part of the Slow Food movement because organic food is low impact and harm reducing, especially when practiced on a non-industrial scale.
   
7. Grow your own food. Whether you have space only for a container of herbs or space for a large veggie patch, you can become a direct force in your own food production. For dwellers in small residences, use the window sill and balcony to grow herbs and fruit trees in pots. For those with larger gardens, plant vegetables in seasonal rotation and enjoy the freshest there is. It is really important to involve children in gardening, to aid their understanding of the connection between soil, food and their own health. Start children with easy-to-grow plants, such as radishes, herbs and peas. Encourage children to eat some of their crop raw, straight from the garden, so that they can taste just how delicious a fresh pod of peas or cob of corn really is.
   
8. Share your home-cooked meals. Not everybody can cook. Those who are infirm, disabled or simply too busy to consider the value of slow food are just some examples of people who are not in a position to cook. Share your cooking talents around to help out those less fortunate; and if you are trying to convince others about the message of slow food, what better way than by setting the example with your own delicious food? Tempt them…
   
9. Cook with the kids. The earlier that children get involved in the kitchen, the better. Children who know how to cook are not at the mercy of the fast food industry and know automatically how easy it is to whip up their own fresh food at home. Moreover, in teaching kids how to cook, you share a family tradition together that will bind you closer together and this helps to pass on traditional family knowledge. Encourage kids to enjoy cooking at home by letting their imaginations take a key part in the cooking process; creating shapes and food themes is a fun part of making food for the table, as in this image.
   
10. Pack a healthy lunch. For work, school, outings and play, take a home-prepared lunch. Soup can be kept warm in a thermos, sandwiches can be kept fresh by pre-cutting the filling but only adding it to the bread at lunchtime and homemade baked goods, cut fruit and veggies, salads and leftovers can contribute to a well-rounded and tasty lunch that lets you spend more time enjoying your lunch hour and keeping extra money in your wallet. Save that extra money for a delicious meal once a month in a restaurant that follows Slow Food principles.
    

Tips

• The Slow Food movement began in Italy, in 1989. Carlo Petrini advocated against fast food and was the founding member of the Slow Food movement.[5]
  
• Drink municipal water where safe; bottled water requires high energy usage to bottle and transport and there are concerns about leakage of chemicals from the plastic bottles. It is better to agitate for sustained municipal water supplies than to pay more per litre for water than for fuel; water that often is filtered municipal supplies anyway! Add a filter to your home taps and enjoy what you are already paying for and support the local waterworks.
  
• Many traditional cooking methods have fallen into disuse because of the time that they required to prepare and cook. Many people have solved this problem by preparing large quantities of old-style food in one day (imagine that you were going to have many guests), then freezing it in meal sized containers for easy defrosting and consumption. Freezers are very useful tools for the modern kitchen.
  
• Never forget that your slow cooker can be started in advance and allowed to cook all day, maintenance-free; and that when in a rush, a pressure cooker can greatly reduce the time necessary to cook items or entire meals! (Pressure cooking a half gallon of fresh-snapped green beans requires less than 10 minutes, and entire roast beef only takes 15 minutes per pound of meat.) Additionally, a huge “bale” of fresh spinach microwaves in minutes! Not all “slow” cooking has to be inconvenient or a long ordeal -- the word “slow” refers more to Anti-Fast-Food.
  

Warnings

• Test your soil for toxins. If you live in an urban area, or anywhere that may have once been industrial you would be well-advised to test your soil before growing vegetables. Even healthy looking soil could be contaminated with lead, mercury, zinc, cadmium, or PCBs. In the US, the local Agriculture Office should offer these testing services to their residents, along with relevant advice concerning growing things in your immediate area.
  
• It is easy to believe that organic farming and fair trade products are safer and better for the world. However, many experts disagree with the hype. Remember that “organic” is a business model just like any other, and presents its own problems and challenges.[6]
  

Things You'll Need

• Time
  
• Farmers’ markets, local fruit and vegetable stores
  
• Garden or container garden
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Choose the Most Important Organic Foods
  
• How to Start an Organic Garden
  
• How to Save Money at a Farmers’ Market
  
• How to Avoid the Temptation to Eat Unhealthy Foods
  
• How to Be Green
  
• How to Live a More Environmentally Friendly Lifestyle
  
• How to Practice Sustainable Agriculture
  

Sources and Citations

• Official Slow Food
  Web site
  
• Slow Food USA
  
• Slow Food UK
  
• Slow Food Canada
  
• Slow Food Ireland
  
• The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity
  

1. Å™ Slow Food, Our Philosophy


2. Å™ Slow Food, Our Philosophy


3. Å™ Where We Are


4. Å™ New York Times: Is Organic Food Provably Better?


5. Å™ Wikipedia, Slow Food


6. Å™ http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8380592

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Started in the Slow Food Movement. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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A Blessing

Gratefulness.org’s Word For the Day today:

May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being.

-Apache Blessing

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Quacking About

Just as I woke up this morning, I heard an odd noise out the bedroom window; sounded suspiciously like quacking. Sure enough, the mallards (a pair of them) from the river were back in the big pond, paddling about like they owned the joint.

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The Wildlife Brigade

I looked out the bedroom window at the big pond this morning, and lo and behold, there were three ducks paddling around, two mallard drakes and a hen, undoubtedly from the river. This was a pair and a third wheel, according to Bob. Wikipedia has a very interesting article, with great photos, on mallards.

About the same time there was a whole herd (comparatively speaking) of deer lounging on the point, basking in the sun. From the bedroom, I could make out a couple of what seemed to be fawns; Bob reported there were several more deer, including a buck. I hope his photos turned out; stay tuned.

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Now playing: Wright Sisters - Orange Blossom Special
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I Saw Old Faithful Go Off!!

And from my very own living room!

Bob spotted a short piece in the Senile this afternoon about the National Park Service’s new streaming Webcam for the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

To get to the new camera, point your browser to the Yellowstone Web site and click on the Photos and Multimedia button on the left side. That takes you to the Photos and Multimedia page, but also drops down the Photos and Multimedia menu. From either the page or the menu, click Webcams, which takes you to the Yellowstone Webcams page.

From here, you can look at the original Yellowstone Webcam. This shows real-time still images of Old Faithful which update every 30 seconds. It also shows the predicted time for the next eruption. Just below the Webcam image is a little graphic from The Weather Underground that shows the time and the temperature in ° Farenheit and Centigrade.

Back on the Yellowstone Webcams page, clicking on the Old Faithful Geyser Live! link near the top takes you to the page for the new and improved streaming Webcam.

Before clicking on the Launch Old Faithful Geyser Live!—Video WebCam link, please note that Windows Media Player (or equivalent) is required. ::::rolling eyes::::

I’m using the VLC media player from VideoLAN; it’s available for Windows, Mac (OS X only), and a ton of UNIX and LINUX flavors. VLC just works. I clicked on the live Webcam link, and it took over from there. What more can you ask for?

If you’re running Mac OS 8.1 through 9.x, VLC isn’t available, and I’m not sure what options other than Windows Media Player there are… Any road, Windows Media Player 7.1 is still around.

Once you’ve got your video viewer set and ready to go, click the link and enjoy!




Did you know? There are more people hurt by bison than by bears each year in Yellowstone. Park regulations state that visitors must stay at least 25 yards away from bison or elk and 100 yards away from bears.

First Snowfall in the Corporation

It started before 1:30 this morning, and by 9:00, there was 4" of snow on top of the Rav4 (awfully good thing we got to Hertz Saturday and traded in the Honda for the Rav…). Stan did get Brett to the airport on time, however.

We debated driving up Hilliard-Rome Rd. vs continuing on Broad St. to 270, and turned onto H-R behind an Ashley Furniture delivery truck; hey, if a vehicle that size can make it, so can we, right?

Ha!! As soon as we got onto H-R, we slowed to less than 5 mph. As soon as we could, we turned around and got back on Broad St. Traffic on northbound 270 was going about as slowly as it had been on H-R, but what is a mother to do?

All the excitement seems to have been gawkers at a van and a Freeway Patrol vehicle parked on the left shoulder up near Cemetery Rd., sitting there doing nothing. Ho hum.

We passed a little field with spruce-looking trees at the back, and the bare-bush screen in front. The field was under snow, the trees had the perfect Christmas tree snow look, and the bushes in front had every branch topped with snow. Where’s the husband with camera when you need him???

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Listening to: Miles Davis - Blue Christmas
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