As something of a humbug, I make sure to stay away from shopping malls in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The music, the promotions, the crowds… It’s all a bit overwhelming and commercialized for my personal taste. I prefer a lower key approach to the whole thing, and when it comes to gift giving, [...]
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Last Sunday’s class at WCS was a sheer pleasure. There weren’t a lot of students, but the ones that came got a hands-on lesson about mason bees as only Brian can give. Brian loves bees. He seems to live for bees. He’s actually kind of bee-like in some ways. But his passion, his gentle sense [...] I’ve become a real geek when it comes to tiny animals. I spend so much time in gardens, in their territory, that I kind of feel obliged to know who I’m dealing with. Having a macro lens helps, of course. This little fellow is quite likely Harpaphe haydeniana, a kind of millipede that was out in [...] I’ve made a commitment this summer to photograph as many bees and other pollinators as possible, inspired in part by my friend Nathalie Chambers’ earnest dedication to the Pollinator Enhancement Project with the Land Conservancy of BC. There are around 400 species of wild bees in BC – I must have counted about 30 in [...] One of the finest, greenest, and most forward-thinking steps our local urban management has taken in recent years is surely the household compost collection program. Did you know that Burnaby, Coquitlam, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, and Langley Township already collect all food scraps at curbside pickup? This includes greens for composting as [...] My friend Nathalie Chambers from The Land Conservancy of BC sent me this photo a couple of weeks back. She took it out at Madrona Farm. I’ve been gazing at this image several times a day, and felt that it needed to be shared. Like all of the photos on this blog, you can click [...] The Environmental Youth Alliance is looking for 8 organic fruit and/or vegetable farmers in the Metro Vancouver are to participate in their Pollinator’s Paradise program. This Vancity-funded initiative seeks to assist local farmers and residents in building up native bee populations through habitat creation. Native bees are very effective at crop pollination and through minimal [...] This bit of lawn has been totally destroyed by European chafer beetles and the urban critters that eat them. Take a bike ride through the Marpole or Mount Pleasant neighbourhoods in Vancouver right now, and it’s almost hard to find an area of lawn turf not affected by the European chafer beetle. If you happen [...] Sarah is a barn owl. You can see these birds if you travel the farm roads in Delta, usually at night or in the early morning. Today we held the grand opening of the WCS retail shop in Ladner, and it was pretty fun. Beautiful, unexpectedly nice weather shone down on a whole lot of [...] |
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