Don Tai (Canada) Blog

The ritual of Walk to School is an important one, long unappreciated.

Neither difficult nor excessively long, the walk to school has always been an excellent way to start learning for the day. In a way I am thankful I am able to participate and guide. We neither rush nor dally, allocating sufficient time to allow for the mind to wander at will. The environment, grass, trees, the weather and sky are our teaching aids. There is the important skill of safely crossing the street to learn, one which needs to be learned well. Handling vehicular traffic is also covered. There is the final wave. I then return, thinking of how to plan my day.

Squirrel hangs upside down to eat birdseed

A neighbour has a couple of birdfeeders that are always stocked with birdseed. I always see local squirrels hang upside down in order to eat the birdseed, dropping excess seeds to the ground for the birds.

___There are many squirrels that use this feeding station, jumping from the neighbour’s roof to nearby tree branches, slowly shimmy backwards down the birdfeeder and hang by their hind legs. This allows them to use both hands to eat at their leisure. Maybe only young squirrels are able to feed this way.

Female cochineal beetle, 5mm long, ground up is used as a red dye in food and cosmetics

Interesting. Here’s an organic additive that creates deep and rich reds for your food or cosmetics. Ground up female cochineal beetles. I’ll be looking for these 5mm critters the next time I go shopping and begin reading packaging ingredients.

GE Compact flourescent bulb, Made in China

My brothers in China have purchased 2 Philips brand compact flourescent bulbs from Walmart China, one which burned out after only a month and another which burned out in less than a week. These bulbs should last for 10,000 hours, or over 6 years. His case is well documented.

___He paid 30.80RMB each, for a total of 61.60RMB, for which he received 1 month and 1 week’s worth of light, all in an effort to be more environmentally friendly. Due to terrible quality control in Philip’s China factory these bulbs were shipped to Walmart stores in China, where my brother purchased them and was cheated. That is a lot of money to lose.

This morning the sun arose just a little bit earlier. It was brighter outside than usual. The kids were just a little happier, and walk with a little more skip in their step. They are more eager to go to school and play with their friends. In fact we are all a little brighter than usual. It snowed last night.

___It’s magical that a sprinkling of 5 cm of new snow can transform our landscape, and with it the spirits of our neighborhood. New snow is pristine, covering everything with a whitewash of, well, white. It’s as if some gigantic bottle of baby powder was evenly sprinkled on everything. A landscape of white greets your senses, with only a hint of green showing from our evergreens, who have the ability to partially shed their coat of snow.

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They are so very interesting. Icicles look like they have concentric rings, but are formed by single drops of melted water that refreeze as it gets to the tip. The wind and temperature influence their shape. Don’t they look like limestone stalactites, the ones you find in caves? They have a screw shaped design. Quite pretty and very organic. One icicle at the side of the house is quite long and needs to grow only about 3 feet before it becomes an ice column.

Maybe we should call them winter carrots because of the resemblance. The kids want to eat them.

Gonggong's bicycle snowed in

A whole lot of snow has fallen in Toronto, and I’ve been shoveling once last night and twice today. While the temperatures are -4C and the snow is fluffy, it looks like around 20cm, which builds up and becomes heavy. It is not cold outside.

Crabapple tree in winter

The trees have snow but not ice.

Icicles by security light

We have some icicles growing from various parts of the eavestrough that are melting, so there’s a constant drip, drip onto the snow outside. They will freeze solid tonight. The kids want them to eat, but they’re too high up and when you crack them off you don’t want to be underneath when they fall.