"If the intent is there...

 It will come... Every single day is a gift." - Logan@clearwatercreation

Rustic Tiny Home built inside a box truck (budget $17k)

Snowperson in October

 PATIENCE, HARD WORK, DETERMINATION, TEAMWORK... A bunch of grade 6s built huge snow people yesterday. (The girls asked why they should be called “snowmen”!)The middle part/ball got too big and heavy for them to lift that it took them many trials and errors until I gave them a hint to roll it up instead. (I remembered rolling heavy balikbayan boxes from the basement into the car years ago; now I can’t do that anymore.) Then they remembered their simple machines and created an inclined plane with snow. Success! The first snow person was thawing and getting skinny with the sun shining and it was leaning towards doom, so they made a wedge at its base. Experiential learning at its best! MLJ/10/2019/StJohnPaulII

"They aren't indigenous, but they live in First Nations..."

 "... and have a unique view on reconciliation"

Thank you for your music and movies

 

Thank you, Dame Maggie Smith

 

Are clinical trial results reliable?

Human Guinea Pigs

 

Insulated Listening

This song reminds me of some couples’ typical exchange at dinnertime:
Wife: Prices are so high! We can’t afford beef this time. I just got fish. I hope you like it.
Husband: Hmm…
W: Also we haven’t bought all the kids’ school supplies.
H: Hmm…
W: School bus fees went up, too.
H: Hmm…
W: When will you check the leak in the bathroom?
H: Hmm…
W: Have you been listening? I’ve been talking and talking here. You never listen! (Walks out.)
H: ???
MLJ/14/09/2024

Credit: Shutterstock

Thank you, James Earl Jones

 

Did salaries go up?

 

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/01/23/canadian-grocery-price-comparison-2019-2024/

GENERATION SWIPE

 No attention in the classroom. No learning. No education. No...

Where is this world headed? Psychological cases keep on rising. 

And no more doctors available. Hospitals are closing. 

Will this generation beget another swipe generation?

"Horse" by Geraldine Brooks

 I normally don't read fiction during a school year, but it was the long weekend and I couldn't resist "Horse". I couldn't put it down, but had to discipline myself and go back to my paperwork. Zzz...  

"One job should be enough."

 

Suddenly!

Suddenly, there are lines.
Straight, wavy, curved.
Laugh lines, deep or fine.

Suddenly, there’s thinning.
Going gray, silver or white.
No telling if they’re hiding!

Suddenly, there are accoutrements.
A cane. A power wheelchair or scooter.
For limbs. For eyes, ears, mouth, heart.

Suddenly there’s tripping.
On even ground. Imagine!
And your middle expanding.

Has it been 42 years of adulting?
Of responsible citizenship?
A sweat for every earning?

Soon it’s the end of scrimping and saving
For it’s the last of your payday,
And the federal gods will be saying
How much more you should be breathing!
MLJ/28/08/2024

How sweet thou art?

Sow thistle, what a sight it’s been!
With hoverflies hovering,
Red-belted bumble bees buzzing,
Cabbage whites silently slurping
Your sweet, sweet nectar flowing
And on your stems sticking
Spiders and ants wishing you’d stay
A never-ending summer they pray
For you morph into seeds
On white, feathery pappuses.

Oh, well. No use complaining
For henceforth we’re all wintering.
Thanks to your stubborn roots clinging,
Wicked winds blowing, seeds scattering,
Your sweetness we’ll be sucking next spring.
MLJ/23/08/2024/EastLakePark

From Deserts to Grasslands

Our Planet / From Deserts to Grasslands / NETFLIX

“Today, however, most of the prairie is silent. Humans slaughtered the great herds. Less than 30,000 wild bison remain, and 90 percent of the prairie has been lost, most of it to agriculture. What we eat, and how we produce it, will determine the future of our planet’s grasslands. Our past could show us how we can feed ourselves and still leave room for nature.”

“Protect the precious space that grasslands and deserts provide, and the animals will bounce back.”

Fresh Water

 Our Planet / Fresh Water / Netflix

“We are not alone in our need for water, but we have the ability to ensure the fresh waters of the world do flow, and we alone can determine how they are shared.”

Looking After Our Elders

 A multigenerational longhouse in Derbyshire

Grand Designs

Mike and Sarah wanted a multigenerational and energy-efficient longhouse they would share with their octogenarian parents and adult daughters. They believe that children should care for their parents when they can. Their vision was turned into reality through Grand Designs. Now they have peace of mind having their parents around.

This reminds me of a friend's compound where the main house used to be shared with her brother and their mother and single aunt while their father worked abroad. It remained everyone’s home when her brother got married and had six children which my single friend helped send to college. One by one, these children had their own families and built their own homes with everyone’s help on this ancestral land. DIY construction, that is. The remaining ground in the middle retained its smooth, concrete-like texture as children’s feet from many generations past had played games on it using rubber slippers, empty cans, sticks, and marbles, long before the digital age.  

In this intergenerational abode, it’s not infrequent to see a child walking to the main house with a bowl of freshly cooked meal to share with their grandma, great aunt, and great-great aunt. One’s “specialty” food, in particular, ought to be shared with everyone, and profuse thanks and compliments follow. This specialty becomes the expected dish during regular potlucks on special holidays and gatherings such as Christmas and New Year where the aroma of a suckling pig being roasted wafts in the air all day. The made-up “rotisserie” is manned by two or more topless male adults as they drink the local beer and take turns turning the poor piglet on a bamboo culm with its limbs tied tight, making it appear like it’s holding on to the bamboo so as not to fall into the fire pit dug on the ground. Before dawn, the squeals of this pig reverberated in the air and signaled to everyone in town that it was time to get up and start all the peeling, chopping, and cooking that should be done for the Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve feast, which every family enjoys after the midnight mass. After Noche Buena, my friend who loves to play Santa Claus gathers all the children around the Christmas tree and hands out their presents. Every year, she happily starts shopping when the “-ber” months come (September, October, November & December) and checks off the names of nephews and nieces on her list, and later their children, making sure that everyone happily goes home with something.  

On this family compound, when a child or an adult falls sick, an aunt, the great aunt, the grandma, or the great grandma is usually there to lend a hand, helping care for the sick or looking after the family if one is in hospital. They bring their usual home remedies such as Vicks VapoRub and liniment oil, and of course, hot soup. From their kitchen or garden, there are also medicinal plants such as ginger and guava whose preparations and benefits are known to the local population. In this clan, there doesn’t seem to be a lack of traditional knowledge and caring hands.

These caring hands seem to be in short supply now, especially in places where adults work in shifts or multiple jobs, children are left in the care of older siblings or in front of screens, minimum wage is never enough, inflation is constant, politics and economy are unstable, and the elderly are left to fend for themselves. MLJ/18/08/2024

Jungles (Thanks to NETFLIX.)

Our Planet / Jungles / NETFLIX

“In the last 50 years, Borneo has lost over half of its jungle. And it’s even worse on the neighboring islands of the Philippines. Here, 90 percent of the primary rain forest has gone.”

“But today, the diversity of the world’s rain forests is falling at an alarming rate, and that is because of us. We have now replaced up to 27 million hectares of virgin jungle with a single species of tree. This is oil palm, one of the world’s most productive crops… and it is pushing many animals to extinction.”

“It’s now estimated that we lose 100 orangutans every week from human activity… In the last four decades, the pristine lowland jungle that orangutans depend on has declined by a staggering 75 percent. Across the world, we are losing tropical forest at the rate of nearly 15 million hectares every year, and with it, the planet’s treasure trove of diversity. Jungles store and capture more carbon than any other habitat on land. They cool our planet, provide food and medicines. We lose them at our peril."

The High Seas (Thanks to NETFLIX.)

 

Our Planet / High Seas / NETFLIX 

“The deep sea plains cover more than half the Earth’s surface, and yet we now more about the surface of the Moon.”

“Blue fin tuna are not the only ones in peril. Decades of unsustainable fishing have left many fish stocks in serious decline. A third have collapsed altogether. Plastic pollution is a grave issue for the oceans, but industrial overfishing is far more dangerous. If we continue to harvest the seas this way, it’s not just fisheries that will collapse. The whole ocean system could follow.”

“One hundred million sharks are killed every year, just to make shark fin soup.”

“We now know that a healthy community of great hunters, whales, dolphins, tuna, and sharks, is essential for a fully-functioning ocean. And a functioning ocean is vital to the health of our planet and humanity.”  

“…But during that time, we have done more harm to the oceans that ever before in human history. Only with global cooperation will our oceans recover and thrive once again… Now, it is time to save our oceans.”

https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2020/06/30/6-ways-support-sustainable-fisheries-home/ Support Sustainable Fisheries

https://sustainablefish.org/ Sustainable Seafood Means Healthy Oceans

https://livingporpoisefully.com/2018/08/19/make-your-plate-ocean-friendly-sustainable-seafood-infographic/ Make Your Plate Ocean-Friendly

Something Nice

STAR 95.9: What's that sound?

Sebastian: Opening and closing an umbrella quickly. 

STAR 95.9: What would you do with the $13,000 if your answer is right?

Sebastian: I don't know. Maybe get my Mom something nice.  

Now, how many children would get something nice for their parents, brothers or sisters?