About

Artist Ann Morash (that's me!), creator & webmaster of LearnPysanky.com and several gift shops, shares my unfolding life through my words and photographs. Welcome!

Topics include:

FOOD! - my favorite recipes, both home-cooking and more exotic fare, and Halifax and area restaurants

Green Living: urban homesteading, birdwatching, gardening (my annual struggles & triumphs with veggie gardening, are called BeanDreams), and environmental issues

Life in Canada - special events and little glimpses into daily life both here in the Halifax area, and in Canada in general

Japan - news, food, and a little entertainment. We'd love to live there one day, so we learn as much as we can.

Ukrainian heritage - holiday celebrations, more food! & cultural observances stemming from my Ukrainian heritage.

My furry family - two dogs (one big, one tiny), and three rescued-from-the-wild, spazzy cats (but aren't all cats at least a *little* spazzy?)

• Updates on my art, photography and my gift shops


Here's a cast of blog characters :


Ann Morash

Dave - my honey since '93

Baby Boy - our cuddly, but thuggish, cat. Born feral, we caught him as a kitten in our backyard, tamed him through vet-recommended "forced cuddling", & have loved him ever since. He's addicted to getting petted and rubbed, and catnip. And eating. And sleeping. AKA "Thugsley", "Lardo Calrissian" ('cause he thinks he's all sexy like Lando, but he's too tubby for that).

Peepers - one of two stray cats that came to live with us in 2007. He showed up mysteriously one day, staring in our back window for hours and hours, unblinking. We fed him, and he never left again (except to hunt a few hours each night in a nearby swamp). Moved indoors with us in July 2007. He's a very odd character, who seems to have developed a HUGE man-crush on Dave. Huge. Likes to spend a lot of time staring at lights outside reflecting on the walls - for hours. He isn't right in the head, really...

Kuroi, aka Pretty Kitty - our latest furry addition, showed up about a week after Peepers came indoors. We brought him indoors before the snows started to fly in November, 2007. His name means "Black" in Japanese. Can you tell why he's called that? :) He's so black, it's hard to get a good pic of him because the camera can't focus! He was much wilder than Peepers, and is still very frightened of just about everything. But when I go to bed, and it's dark, he jumps up, walks partway up my body and slams his butt against my side, so he's as close as possible, curls up and sleeps. So it's not *all* bad for him...

Molly - our cranky-old-lady cat, who could still be sweet at times! Named for Paul Molitor's nickname. She passed away in February 2010.
Casey - a sweet, goofy oaf. Our best girl, our huge German Shepherd Dog. She *looks* so dignified and noble...don't know what went wrong there... :)  Died suddenly of that affliction that hits many GSDs, bloat, one day short of her 10th birthday, in May 2013.Lila - Jack Russell Terrier. Like Casey, an utter fool. Unlike Casey, really fiesty - she doesn't seem to understand she's a tiny dog. Came to live with us via Dave's mom, and is now part of the family. Died after never really recovering from cancer surgery, at the young age (for a Jack Russell) of 10 years old, the week before Christmas 2012.