Kotatsu time is quickly coming to a close...

I don't know who'll miss the kotatsu more, the animals or us! Now that it's springtime, it'll soon be time to put away winter things.

Baby Boy was the biggest fan amongst the cats, enjoying sleeping on it while the sun was up, and staying under it the entire evening before bed. Whether it was on or off, Baby would be there, secure in the hope that at some point it would get turned on, and would get toasty warm. Lila was the biggest fan amongst the dogs, but didn't realize it could be turned on even when a person wasn't sitting at it. When we were sitting at it, she'd come in from the cold outdoors and dive right under, but if no one was, we'd tell her to go under, and even put her under, but she'd come right back out again, looking at us wonderingly, "Why aren't you going to sit down? I'm cold!". She always falls asleep under there, and you eventually either hear her snoring contentedly, or panting because she got too warm, but doesn't want to leave. Pretty cute.

We put the kotatsu together ourselves, using our old coffee table as the base. We bought a kotatsu heater off of eBay (from shop owner gyatei), and a stepup/stepdown power converter (from export depot). We used a large bedspread/duvet, but never did get around to getting a proper table top made for over it. We plan on getting a piece of MDF and painting and varnishing it for next winter. Hopefully it'll get done! Otherwise the duvet gets pretty dirty from us eating over it all the time. :) The heater was very easy to install, a few screws were all that was needed. It provided us with a great place to all sit down together as a family, bundled up and warm and toasty to watch tv, eat, or do hobbies. Good way to save on oil heating too! ;)

Want to make your own kotatsu from scratch? mantilo: a miscellany has a great post on his own adventures in kotatsu-ing.

Savings (with a little decluttering thrown in)

I love reading Maki's informative and entertaining blog Just Hungry. This month, she's doing some posts about financial frugality, and she did a nice little review of the Japanese educational manga Savings Techniques for Women Who Can't Save. She mentions something I've heard many times before, that reducing the physical clutter in your life can help reduce the mental clutter, and helps you financially, too. Check it out!

Pysanky Final

And here's the finished product! There are some things I'd change about it, like varying the line widths a bit more - but considering I was able to dig out only two sizes of kistky to use, I think it turned out pretty okay! Happy Easter Everyone!

Finally, Pysanky!

The sad thing is, I don't have as much time as I'd like to devote to pysanky these days - this is the first one I made all Lent! Spent a couple hours doing the white tonight, hope to finish it before Easter! :)



As per usual with the ones I make at the end of Lent, I didn't follow a set design, I prefer to make it up as I go along. Hopefully, it'll turn out pretty!

Change of Direction

For the last several years, this blog has been focused specifically on my ruralish life - nature photography, bird watching at our bird feeder, walks in the woods, and so on.

Moving to the city (and winter) has changed those aspects of my life. I still cherish many of the same things I did before, I just don't get to explore them much these days. And if I keep the blog as it is and only talk about those things, it'll be months between postings. So I think I'm going to move the focus to include a few of the other things that interest me, too:

Japanese television - they have some amazingly creative storytelling on Japanese TV, that you just don't see much of anymore on North American tv. I'll also discuss good foreign (well, foreign to North America) :) films I come across.

Organization - I'm trying to focus on reorganizing my space, and my time, to fit everything that I have to do, in! Somehow! BIG fan of Peter Walsh.

I'll still give regular updates on my gift shop, my art, and any ruralish behaviour I get up to! Hope you will enjoy the journey with me!

Its a brave new world

This is so awesome. I've been a fan of Obama's ever since I saw him give that amazing speech at the DNC back in '04. And he and his wife have taken it up yet another notch by planting a White House organic kitchen garden. Their main aim is to start dialogue regarding the fast-food/obesity issues many Western countries face, but it also sends a great message about consuming locally grown/seasonal produce and good-for-the-earth organic farming methods. All around, a great addition to the White House property, and a wonderful example for others to follow!

Read more.

Sardines, watch out!

This is truly amazing video. A school of sardines is attacked by dolphins, sharks and birds, ALL AT ONCE! It's freakin' crazy!!

I don't usually watch "hunting" videos (I feel too bad for the hunted - I know it happens in the wild, I just don't want to see it), but since (1) the fish are teeny-tiny (2) there's tons of them and (3) there's no blood, I made an exception in this case. So glad I did, it is really must-see video.

It's like "Wild Kingdom" on steroids. To watch the school twist and turn in unison to evade, the birds turning into missiles diving into the water, the sharks NOT eating the birds, it's just...wow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7921119.stm

Local Restaurants & Farmers Meet

A good idea, I hope more places can come up with programs like this. It's a meeting where farmers, Nova Scotia chefs, government marketing representatives and a group representing restaurant owners all got together, with the aim of getting local restaurants to use more locally-grown produce. Getting everyone to meet face to face like that is great, everyone gets to meet and know each other, opening up new networks of local supply that everyone can trust and feel comfortable with.

Read about it on the Chronicle-Herald.

I can't resist good design!

I saw this at work today, and HAD to get one myself and give it my own tiny financial support.



It's called a "Wishbone" soap dish, and I wasn't surprised to see on the packaging that this design was the winner of the Umbra-Pratt Design Competition. It is a fantastic looking design, and if I guess right, it'll be wonderfully functional, too. Instead of like many soapdishes, this one won't have a sloppy mess underneath, because the air will be able to dry most of the bottom of the soap, through the "ribs" of the fish. Very cool!

www.umbra.com

Moonlight through trees

Spooky-looking night out there tonight...

The Future is Now: Tracking Songbirds

It's pretty amazing how small we can make trackers for wildlife these days. All the miniaturization in technology is enabling researchers to get new insight into the travel patterns of many animals, including tiny songbirds.

The more we learn, the more we can see how environmental changes, airplane traffic patterns and more are affecting the wildlife around us.

Learn more on the BBC!

Site Down for a time

As I discovered while I was trying to update my shop today, my hosting provider is having some hardware/network issues which has caused my site to slow down, and now stop loading completely. I think it was out long enough it might have lost its DNS entry, so it might take some time after they get the servers up and running again for everyone's computers to be able to see my sites again. This affects shop.learnpysanky.com and www.learnpysanky.com, as well as some of the images on this blog.

I'm very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause!

Stoats 'n' Stuff

Dave had a ferret several years ago. Her name was Jessica, and she was the sweetest little thing. If you want an entertaining pet, get a ferret. Unlike kittens, who keep their playfulness while young, but often grow lackadaisical when older (like Baby Boy, who prefers to just roll over and get a belly rub rather than chase a string), ferrets stay just as active and crazy when they're in old age as they were when they were young.

I remember seeing a video of wild cousins of the ferrets sitting together out in the wild, then one of them darting over and giving a young bear (minding his own business eating berries in a field) a bite on the butt! Then the ferrets ran off, chortling and bouncing away like it had been the best joke in the world. That's a ferret mentality for you: fun first, think of the consequences later. The bear was annoyed, but didn't chase them for long. :)

Stoats are also wild cousins of the ferret, and this really cute video shows him gamboling about in a garden in the UK. It's pretty hilarious!

Chickens in Halifax, update

I got an update the other day from the Facebook group set up for people in favor of being able to raise chickens in Halifax. The study done by the city is nearly complete, and they say the study looks like they're going to continue to ban raising chickens locally, which is really unfortunate. Read about the slowly ongoing saga:

chickens-in-city.html
chickens-in-city-update.html
chickens-in-halifax-update.html

If you happen to live in a place that does allow chickens, why not consider raising some? You get a great source of fresh eggs, that have been produced by chickens you raised and feed yourself - talk about quality control! And often, you'll have enough extra eggs to offer to neighbours - building community relations!

Mother Earth News has an article on raising chickens for first timers, check it out for more information. I think it'd be a lot of fun - I would if I could!

Shipping Less Water Around the Globe

A very interesting article on the BBC today about the ripple effect of removing a lot of the extra water from products like clothing detergent - the containers are smaller, which means less plastics to be recycled, shipping costs (and fuel use) are less, and on it goes.

I learned that it's not just me, modern detergents actually do make less foam. But it's on purpose (not a lack of quality, which I was thinking) - it's a water-saving measure, so you don't have to use as much water when rinsing out your clothes.

So, have a read, it's quite interesting!

Sunny Afternoons

Everybody loves the bright afternoon sun we get here in our new place. There's always a jockeying for position on the coffee table, couch...



...even the bookshelf, which is popular enough we've added a little piece of carpet to one of the shelves for kitty comfort.

Lila puppy (our possibly-permanent houseguest) looks up expectantly, hoping we'll move the sun around to the couch so she can get comfy. All in due time, puppy, all in due time. :)

Happy Cows, more milk?

It makes sense, really. A cow that doesn't feel like "just a number", produces significantly more milk in it's lifetime than a cow that's shoved in a stall and basically ignored.

So cows, like people, like to feel noticed and appreciated. :) It leads to more productivity, which is good for both businesses AND people (and cows!). Good stuff all around!

Read a little more about it on CNN.

Merry Ukrainian Christmas

Things still haven't gotten to what one would call a steady, regular pace here in our new home - I hope to reorganize in the new year and get back to regular blogging updates! Sorry it's been so long!

Had a lovely haddock dinner for Ukrainian Christmas eve - haddock encrusted with parsley, served with roasted garlic on the side. Yummy!



Krystos Razdayetsia everyone!

Photo: End of Fall

Bare trees against a backdrop of falling autumn leaves, as a crow family calls to their members at a distance.

"Zoo Poo" to Energy?

Toronto Zoo wants to turn poo into energy

It's an interesting idea - as I have purchased poo from the Metro Toronto Zoo in the past (they sell small packs of it as "Zoo Poo", to use as fertilizer), I was glad to see they were thinking of other good uses for all the poo generated by the zoo - it makes sense to find some way to convert it to energy! As long as they still sell it for fertilizer too... :)

The Zoo is a really fun experience, btw, and I highly recommend it the next time you're in the Toronto area.