The Moss Garden

Week 3 in photos

2012-01-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

Read more about Project 2012 here

January 15: Caprese salad (tomatoes, bocconcini, parsley, olive oil). An excellent side to Italian sausages!

January 16: dicing up veggies for steak rolls.

January 17: fastidiously organizing families of viruses

January 18: curried squash and orange soup

January 19: this square of floor is different, therefore it is mine.

January 20: Guelph Gryphons vs. Wilfrid Laurier (the home team won).

January 21: on my bag of Salt Spring Coffee

Steak rolls

2012-01-17T20:24:00.003-08:00

Can I just reiterate how much I love Pinterest?

Although I already knew about Steamy Kitchen, it was on Pinterest that I found this great recipe for steak rolls. It can sometimes be hard to find recipes that fit our no-grains, no-starch, no-bread diet and that keep us full, since it's so easy to use potatoes and rice as a filler. My pictures don't do the recipe justice because I'm a sloppy cook, but it tasted really good, which is probably more important than presentation anyway.

Week 2 in photos

2012-01-16T06:41:00.001-08:00

Rise again

2012-01-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to a lot of folk music lately - Gordon Lightfoot, Peter Paul & Mary, and of course, Stan Rogers.

The first time I remember listening to Stan Rogers was at Thanksgiving dinner at my friend's house when I was 16. Her parents had Northwest Passage on, and we thought the acapella harmonizing was nothing less than hilarious. Nearly 10 years later, I took a natural history class in university and our professor was a big Stan Rogers fan - so much so that one of our final exam questions included: "Provide the title of a Stan Rogers song and explain the ecological significance of its lyrics." I believe he had been referring to Tiny Fish For Japan.

In any case, I have been listening to a lot of Stan Rogers lately. Northwest Passage is now a favourite, along with the one below. If you like folk or maritime music, give it a listen, it's a great song with a great story attached to it.

Week 1 in photos

2012-01-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

Shortly after Christmas, I was browsing Pinterest when I came across an intriguing pin:

Incited by Tiffany Dahle at Develop & Inspire, Project 2012 is a challenge to take a photo a day, a week or a month - whatever timeline best suits you. The photos can be of anything you like - your children growing, your fitness goals, every tea in your pantry, every shoe in your closet - anything! There's a Flickr pool to upload them to, but I'm also keeping track of mine in my own set, and I hope to share them every weekend on my blog! This will serve to both keep me on track for this project, and try to keep my blogging up as well.

The theme of this first week was, evidently, Instagram. This was for two reasons: one, I got a new iPod touch for Christmas, and I am in love. I don't have an iPhone because I can't afford the data plans, but the iPod touch lets me do everything an iPod can except make phone calls (and even then, if I'm on a network I just Skype). Two, I can't find the battery charger for my Nikon D60. I know it's around somewhere, but I had a virology exam on Thursday and I have a pathology exam next week, so I haven't made time for a thorough search.

January 1: New Year's Day brunch, made by me and my sister-in-law for the family. Featuring homemade crepes, sausage, cheese, maple syrup, real whipped cream, berries, bananas, and nutella. Yum!

January 2: Before Christmas, I bought a set of three prints by Mae Chevrette that I had been coveting for some time. This one is my favourite.

January 3: I'm going to a veterinary symposium next week, and Saturday night is a cocktail gala. I fulfilled my gender stereotype by going out and buying shoes. I also found an exciting new tea at David's Tea: it smells like the forest, and tastes like one too! (much yummier than you might think)

January 4: study buddy Ariel! She's actually being well-behaved here... usually she insists on using my laptop as a pillow, which results in random songs playing and illegible typing and my computer blipping at me.

January 5: virology exam today! We have probably 100 different viruses to memorize, along with the diseases they cause and their symptoms, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment in varying levels of detail. It always helps me to draw things out in colour... so I have lots of these diagrams lying around at the moment.

January 6: Davis's birthday! I made beet ravioli and sweet potato ravioli, which we enjoyed with a lovely riesling from Blackwood Lane.

January 7: breakfast today was inspired by this recipe for quinoa cakes with poached eggs. So yummy!

(ps... I did find my Nikon battery charger today in my bedside dresser of all places... so hopefully next week's pictures will be a little less grainy! I see such wonderful Instagram photos all over the Internet and I can't figure why mine come out so grainy... I guess I need more practice!)

Thirty-five questions

2012-01-03T18:13:00.001-08:00

I think I've done one of these on my blog before, but you know - I think I'm going to do one again. I loooooooove these little questionnaires that go around... I remember they were really popular when email started to be common-place when I was 16 or so and my friends and I were constantly sending these little quizzes back and forth. I'm sure it's partly ego on my part that I love talking about myself (ha ha) but I also, oddly, love forms. I have since I was small... I'm always the one that fills out address forms, payment forms, insurance forms, etcetera for my boyfriend and me.

So, here is my guilty pleasure, which I pinched from the beautiful Cupcakes & Corsets blog. If you decide to fill it out for yourself, leave your blog in the comments and I'll swing by and read yours too!

What time did you get up this morning? 9:55.
How do you like your steak? Medium rare
What was the last movie you saw at the theater? The new Sherlock Holmes movie. I very much enjoyed it!
What is your favorite TV show? Fringe. Glee. But if I had to choose, Fringe. Which is too bad, because I have a baaaaaaaad feeling about the prospects for season 5.
If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Vancouver. I'm easy to please, I just have to wait 2 1/2 more years!
What did you have for breakfast? Cheese and a tomato. We've been away for two weeks and have yet to do groceries. It was really good cheese, though, that we accidentally left in the fridge... we were supposed to bring it to Davis's parents for Christmas. It's a delicious Welsh cheddar.
Do you wear glasses or contacts? I have both, but I wear contacts more often.
What food do you despise? I'm not a fan of green peppers, and I (usually) don't eat seafood for ecological reasons.
Favorite Place to Eat? Norwoods in Ucluelet. Which contravenes what I just said about not eating seafood because their fish is always freshly caught across the road that morning and it is SO GOOD.
Favorite dressing? This. Follow the link, you won't be sorry.
What kind of vehicle do you drive? Um. I own a Volkswagen Golf. But I can't drive it, yet. It's a long story...
What are your favorite clothes? Dresses! I wear them more often than I should. I also love tunics with leggings, and tall socks under tall boots.
Where would you visit, this weekend, if you had the chance? Hmm, I'm not sure. I'm probably overthinking this, but knowing that I'll be home soon for the summer anyway, I won't say Vancouver... and most of the other places on my to-go list (Yukon, Galapagos, Scotland) are not weekend getaways. So, I guess my final answer would be Nova Scotia.
How many tattoos do you have? None! I can't think of anything important enough to permanently inscribe on my body at the moment.
Where would you want to retire? One of the Gulf Islands off British Columbia.
What is your desktop photo? This. It's a gorgeous nudibranch (less romantically known as a sea slug) taken by one of my favourite photographers, John Rix.
Where were you born? Ottawa, Ontario
What is your favorite sport to watch? I guess I would say hockey. It's fun to watch (especially if the home team is winning, of course) but I can't say I follow it very closely.
How many siblings? Just me! I'm an only child, and it shows.
Favorite pastime/hobby? Oooh, so many. Depends on where I'm living - out west, we love to go rock climbing, scuba diving, surfing, and hiking. When I'm back east for school, I do more indoor pursuits... cooking, jewelry-making, and photography. Well, photography all year-round, really.
Coffee drinker? I love coffee and tea! My favourite coffee is Salt Spring Coffee (all the eco, fair-trade, organic certifications you could ask for, plus it tastes awesome!) but we drink a LOT of tea as well - I love happy kombucha and glitter and gold from David's Tea.
Are you a morning person or a night person? Neither really.... I love getting up early and having the whole day ahead of me, but I'm always too tired to do it. And conversely, I often find myself staying up too late even though I'm exhausted and should really go to bed.
Do you have any pets? Two cats, affectionately known as the wee beastums, or the shittens when they're being bad, or twittens when they're being silly.
What did you want to be when you were little? Most of my career choices were based on the TV shows I was obsessed with at the time. When it was Star Trek, I wanted to be an engineer. Days of our Lives, a psychologist. The X-Files, a pathologist. When I was a teenager, I figured the best way to accomplish all of these things was to be an actress.
What is your favorite color? Robin's egg blue.
Are you a cat or dog person? Definitely a cat person. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this as a vet student, but I just don't feel any connection with most dogs. It's strange because most people say this about cats, but I just feel like dogs are so unpredictable... I never can tell what they think about me.
Are you married? We're in a domestic partnership. One day when we stop being poor students, I have been assured we will be married. Yes, we could do it now on the cheap, but I'd rather wait a couple more years and get married in style, since I'll only be doing it once!
Always wear your seat belt? 99% of the time. Oddly, I didn't wear it for the 6-hour drive back to Guelph yesterday... but that was due to extenuating circumstances (cat on lap).
Been in a car accident? Yep, I totaled my mom's car when I was 16. Not my finest moment.
Any pet peeves? Loud chewing.
Favorite Pizza Toppings? Pepperoni. Just pepperoni.
Favorite Flower? So hard to choose! I've always loved daffodils, and dogwood flowers, and cherry blossoms, and chrysanthemums, and lotus flowers, and lilacs, and wisteria, and....
Favorite ice cream? It's always a tie between Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia.
Favorite fast food restaurant? I have to say, I'm a sucker's for McDonald's breakfast.
From whom did you get your last email? Probably someone from school.

Be it resolved

2012-01-01T13:06:00.001-08:00

I'm not certain I actually made resolutions last year, but I rarely formalize this kind of stuff anyway. These goals are things I've been working on for a while and are somewhat ongoing, but there's no time like the first day of the year to put them in writing. So, in no particular order, here are my ambitions for 2012:

Frown less
Pay my bills on time. Actually, be it resolved to procrastinate less in general. If I'm looking at an email that I need to reply to, I need to stop being lazy and think, meh, I'll reply later and then go on Pinterest for ten minutes. Because later turns into two weeks, when there was no good reason I couldn't have done what I needed to right then and there.
Come to think of it, I should spend less time surfing the net in general. I need to spend more time relaxing productively, not relaxing wastefully. Perez Hilton is wasteful. Crafting is productive. Both are relaxing.
Take fitness more seriously. I'm pretty good about going to CrossFit regularly, but it's like there's this magic filter at the doors to the gym, and mature, intelligent, capable Victoria is replaced by inept, forgetful, ditzy Victoria. I'm not sure why it happens (maybe a defense mechanism my brain constructed to try and seem like less of a fool when I don't know something, because hey, I never took it seriously in the first place, right?). But it needs to stop.
Eat less sugar. The covert purchasing and consumption of chocolate bar 4-packs? Gotta stop. If I have an overwhelming chocolate craving, be it resolved to only eat high quality, 70% stuff.
Actually start my online ArcGIS courses.
Swear less.
Take veterinary medicine more seriously. Just because I will never practice clinical medicine, doesn't mean I shouldn't learn all that I can while I'm at school (which I'm doing a pretty piss-poor job of at the moment).
Be kinder and more patient with people. Especially certain nameless people, who are big-hearted and well-meaning and generous and don't deserve my occasional snappy and pissy and stand-offish attitude.
Speak honestly. I have a bad habit of sometimes playing dumb to prove a point or just to be contrary, which is immature and unhelpful. Be it resolved to stop that crap. I also need to speak honestly in terms of being true to who I am - I remember recently someone commented about a pair of earrings I had made and said, "hey, you should sell those online!" And instead of mentioning my Etsy shop, I just nodded and agreed that it was a great idea. So, finally, be it resolved to live truthfully and openly.

I think those will do for the time being. I am a believer in constant self-improvement, so hopefully I will actually make good on some of these resolutions this year. If I remember, it would be fun to revisit these in 6 months and note my progress - I'll let you know!

What are your resolutions this year?

two thousand and twelve

2011-12-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

I've started to write this post twice now, and it took me that many tries to come to a realization:
2011 changed my life. I thought 2010 was a good year (and it was) but I had a major epiphany this past summer that may redirect the entire course of my future career.

When I was doing my undergraduate degree in wildlife biology, I hate to admit that I was a little holier-than-thou around all the wannabe field biologists - not me. I was going to vet school and I was going to be a real scientist and work in a lab... who wanted to muck around in a forest chasing animals and counting plants all day? Not 2010-me.

Then I got to vet school, and my contrary nature reasserted itself. Who wants to practice medicine and spay cats and bandage wounds and give injections all day? Who wants to be a clinical researcher, trapped in a sterile lab all day? Apparently, not 2011-me.

I started out the summer working in a university research lab, and I distinctly remember looking out the window, washing up the beakers and flasks, and having the feeling that my whole life was passing me by without being able to breathe fresh air, feel the sun on my face, and look at the mountains. I felt choked, suffocated, and disconnected from nature and reality.

So I applied for and got my dream summer job working for Environment Canada. And guess what I was doing all day? Running around in a forest chasing birds, or slogging around marshes counting plants. And guess what else? I loved every minute of it. I was frequently dirty, smelly, muddy, burnt, sweaty, sore, tired, hungry and shabbily dressed but I was living.

Consequently, I no longer want to work in a molecular biology lab, peering at cells down a microscope or running never-ending assays. It's important, critical work to be sure - but I want to hike through forests, know my native trees, read tide charts, take GPS points, kayak down rivers, and identify birds by the songs they sing. Instead of specializing in reproductive medicine, I want to go to grad school and do my PhD in wildlife ecology and learn about the way the animals and plants in our world work together.

So that was my 2011. How was yours?

Spoiled rotten

2011-12-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Christmas break is sadly drawing to a close for me, but as usual it was a lovely vacation with Davis's family. After our last exam on the 16th, we drove to Montreal where I spent the next few days birding and baking - what more could I ask for!

In addition to the usual gingerbread cookies, Linzer cookies, Christmas cake balls, and orange double chocolate chip cookies, Davis requested sliders and bacon sweet potato pucks for Christmas Eve. His family has a Christmas Eve dinner tradition of a smorgasbord of cold cuts, cheeses, pickles, crackers, pate, and hors d'oeuvres which tend to last for days afterward and make good snacking.

On Christmas Day, Davis's sister and her husband came by to open presents with us and his parents. I was a lucky duck again this year - among other things, I received a beautiful ceramic teapot from Davis's parents:

And (because he knows me so well) Sibley's Guide to Trees from Davis:

Davis's sister and her husband super-generously bought us a Blu-ray player (which, unfortunately, we kind of predicted based on the Blu-rays in our stockings!). But because that was really about 70% a gift for Davis, my brother-in-law also bought me... a labelmaker!

It was kind of a joke (because Davis's sister has one that she used to label all the Christmas presents with things that they weren't) but also kind of awesome. It's also kind of turned into:

Meme by Hyperbole and a Half

... including people, highlighters, cats, electronic devices, and candy boxes.

And finally, in case you couldn't tell by my crappy Instamatic photos, I also got..... a new iPod touch!

Davis had bought me a red iPod nano for my 23rd birthday, which unfortunately kicked the bucket this past summer. I had been bemoaning the lack of click-wheel iPods because I'm prejudiced against touch screens, but I couldn't be happier with my iPod. Spoiled!!

What was your favourite Christmas memory this year?

A Christmas message

2011-12-26T11:52:00.000-08:00

Words of Wisdom

2011-12-21T08:57:00.001-08:00

Who knew Pinterest could help you face your fears?

Little ones, like arachnophobia:

Photo originally from here.

Or fear of the dark:

Photo originally from here.

To those big, pervasive fears... like the fear of growing old.

Photo originally from here.

I love that rendition of the Galileo quote. I tracked back through what felt like a billion Tumblrs to try to find the original original source, in hopes that they might sell prints of it or something, but no such luck. I think it's a beautiful idea though... that there are beautiful qualities and positive aspects to anything you can be afraid of.

This concept has helped me to be less violent toward spiders as well... I love all other creepy crawlies and think most bugs are fascinating, so I've been working on trying to extend that same scientific curiosity to spiders. I'm happy to say I haven't killed one in recent memory... if they're smaller than a centimeter I just let them be, and if they're a little too big for comfort, I do the cup-and-cardboard method and escort them outdoors.

What are your favourite fear-busting tactics?

The birds and bees at the Toronto Zoo

2011-12-05T19:20:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Toronto Zoo with the theriogenology club at school - one of the many perks of being a vet student! Although, considering I spend an hour every other Monday with my arm up the wrong end of a cow (is there a right end?) I think we deserve these small bonuses. :)

We started off with a chat about camel insemination, with baby Kumar being the product of such a procedure:

Here's one of the daddy camels, who unfortunately has not 'taken' to any of the female camels... possibly because he finds his food bowl overwhelmingly attractive instead (honestly, that's how they collect his, uh, gametes).

This was a massive, massive animal - Bactrian camels weigh up to 1000 pounds. For some reason, I kind of expected them to be llama-sized. Sadly, they are critically endangered, with only 800 animals remaining in the wild.

We then got to tour the reproductive physiology unit, where veterinarians and researchers are learning more about how these exciting animals breed! This is not just neat because you get to help make cute baby animals, but the Toronto Zoo is also involved in a number of conservation programs, breeding endangered species to help preserve their genetic diversity and raise enough animals to return them to the wild. This is something that I've always wanted to be involved in, and I'm so excited to get a chance to meet some of the leaders in this field. I think the amount that we still don't know about these animals is amazing - it was fascinating to hear the staff talk about how difficult it is to get these animals to breed. Reproduction cycles of species like the cow have been so thoroughly mapped out that it's relatively easy to follow a protocol to get your cow pregnant - in some of these exotic species, we have no idea how often they come into heat, when they ovulate, what their hormone levels are, how to maintain the pregnancy, what the animal needs for a successful birth... there's so much to be learned, and I can only imagine how rewarding it must be to put that knowledge to use and one by one help build up the populations of some critically rare species.

After that, we got to visit one more animal - the Indian rhinoceros! We met a young male rhino who was about 2000 kg in weight, but who calmly lay down on his side when asked by his handler. This isn't just for tricks - these animals are taught how to respond to simple commands like this in order to facilitate their handling and treatment by veterinarians. With the rhino on his side, we were able to touch and examine his feet - to my surprise, they were warm and soft... softer than mine! We then got to feel his tough, boulder-like skin and feed him apples, which he scooped up with his extremely mobile, triangular lips. Sadly I don't have any pictures of him!

We were then free to tour the zoo on our own, and the first animals we visited were the lowland gorillas. This species is also critically endangered due to bushmeat hunting, the pet trade, and habitat loss.

We saw some slender tailed meerkats:

A pygmy hippopotamus!

THIS IS A RED PANDA IT IS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD

Some Barbary apes:

Have I ever mentioned I'm a little afraid of monkeys? These apes aren't so bad because they don't have those creepy, clingy tails, but macaques and stuff just give me the heebie-jeebies. I think it's because of the movie Outbreak.

And finally, the breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly endangered snow leopard.

That's a negatory

2011-10-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have an exam on Monday - I should probably sit down and start reviewing my notes.

Well, I guess I have been working a lot lately. It would be nice to get creative and do some crafting.

Jeez. Maybe I can just sit down and -

Pause

2011-09-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

So once again, as seems to happen this time of year, I've hit a blogging lull.

I think about writing a lot - I've been keeping busy and there's so many times when I think "oh, it would be fun to blog about this", but when I sit down and try to write, I just feel bored and uninspired and can't find the drive to follow through.

I started my second year at vet school a few weeks ago, and I'm having trouble staying focused. Spending the summer outside with the birds and bugs has made me wonder if veterinary school was really the right thing for me, and when I'm sitting and reading about anesthesiology and pharmacology and theriogenology and radiology and all the other ologies, all I really want is to go muck around in the mud some more. I started following a researcher at school who is working on diseases in raccoons and skunks, which is pretty interesting, but I still am more focused on the destination of being done vet school, rather than the journey.

I have learned that I really, really, really dislike radiology, though.

I'm also a bit cranky because I ordered this gorgeous coat from Victoria's Secret and was super excited to get it in the mail today, when I noticed it was a petite. "What the hell," I thought. "They must have sent the wrong one." But nope, apparently I had a brain fart while I was ordering and got the petite instead of a regular - so of course now I have to pay to send it back for an exchange. I keep telling myself this is most definitely a first-world problem. :)

Oh, and (this may be TMI) I decided to go off the pill recently, for a variety of reasons that don't include trying to have a baby. And my face just exploded with acne, which I've never had to deal with and it's also making me grumpy. Probably another first-world problem, though.

Davis and I have also started cross-fit, which has come with its own set of ups and downs. Maybe that's something I'll find the drive to blog about soon.

Well, now that I've whined and complained in what was supposed to be a quick update post, I think I'll go have some perogies. That will make me feel better.

And because I don't want to end this post in a trainwreck of negativity, I leave you with:

(which is very difficult to credit through a circular trail of tumblr accounts. Start here.)

Eye see you

2011-09-03T11:14:00.002-07:00

Marsh wren (Cistothorus palustris), Iona Beach Regional Park, Richmond BC

Saving Shelter Pets fundraiser!

2011-08-22T05:32:00.002-07:00

Just a quick blog post to let everyone know that from August 22 to 31, I'll be participating in my third annual Saving Shelter Pets fundraiser, where 20% of the proceeds from my nature-inspired jewelry shop during this time period will be donated to help fund low-cost spay and neuter clinics. As a veterinary student, this is a cause that is pretty close to my heart, for many reasons. An intact female cat, for example, can produce over 100 kittens over her lifetime - and that's not counting her kittens' kittens, or the number of kittens that a male can produce with multiple females. Most of these kittens or puppies won't find homes, and will end up on the streets or euthanized in a shelter. We adopted our cats from the SPCA, and sometimes I think about what might have happened to them if nobody had wanted them, and it makes me pretty bummed.

Spaying and neutering is also in the best interests of both you and your pet - it can help eliminate unwanted behaviours such as urine marking by toms, howling during heats, and blood spotting by female dogs. Additionally, health benefits for your pet include reducing mammary tumors and reproductive tract infections - some of which I've seen first-hand, and are really painful for the animal and just gross for us.

So, if you're interested in supporting this cause, please check out some of the great shops that are participating in this fundraiser over the next two weeks:

And to find out more information about Saving Shelter Pets, check out their site.

Thanks guys!

Oh, one more thing: how do you know I'm actually going to donate this money? Last year I had some questions from buyers about how to know that I was donating the money as promised. I assured them I would send them a copy of my donation receipt at the end of the fundraiser, but forgot, which is terrible. So, here is a screen shot of my Paypal receipt:

And a newsletter after the fundraiser, acknowledging my participation (my name is Victoria, by the way).

Takeoff

2011-08-18T13:09:00.002-07:00

I can now die happy a.k.a. peregrine falcon

2011-08-10T22:48:00.001-07:00

Alaksen National Wildlife Area, Delta BC, August 2

Peregrine falcons are among my favourite birds - I can't say they're always at the top, but they do spend a good deal of time there. I'm not sure why I love them so much - it might have started when I learned to fly a falcon to a lure while I was working at a raptor rehabilitation centre. Her name was Bertha, and we taught her how to chase a bird-shaped piece of leather with some meat on it in order to test her flight and hunting skills. Afterwards, she would sit on my glove and snack on chicken bits. Even though she was recovering from injuries, her eyes were still fierce and she was happy to take a chunk out of your finger if you got any crazy ideas like stroking the top of her head.

Afterwards, I read a book on the peregrine falcon recovery project by Jim Enderson and wrote a lit review on adaptations of the peregrine falcon for a natural history class. When the peregrine hunts small birds, it ascends high into the sky and comes plummeting down at speeds conservatively estimated at 252 km/h but could be as fast as 560 km/h. The impact of the falcon on its prey is usually enough to kill it instantly.

This is the first peregrine I've seen in the wild.

Light painting

2011-08-02T20:35:00.001-07:00

Things you will need:

* digital camera capable of long exposures or, preferably, a bulb setting
* tripod
* light source (i.e. flashlight)
* dark area (a room, a park far from the city)
* remote shutter release for your camera (not strictly necessary, but makes life easier)
* friend

Set up your camera on its tripod, and make sure it's on bulb and set to your remote. Get your friend to stand approximately where they will be painting, and make sure you're properly focused.

Right before you start painting, open the shutter using your remote (you can do this without a remote by just pressing the shutter release, but there might be some blurriness due to the camera shaking). If there is any ambient light at all (like there was in our pictures) you'll need to paint fairly quickly, or have a smaller aperture (these photos were all f2.8). When you're done painting, close the shutter.

Ta-da!

Here are our efforts, done at Iona Beach after an aborted attempt at photographing stars. It's still a work in progress.

Now here it is, done right:

credit: rafoto

credit: minamac88

credit: The Areographers

credit: Atton Conrad

Powell Street Festival

2011-08-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, Davis and I went to the Powell Street Festival, a celebration of the Japanese community in Vancouver.

On our way, we passed this beautiful mural in Chinatown:

with a very thought-provoking quote

The festival is held in Oppenheimer Park in the somewhat infamous downtown east-side. But families and locals were mingling and enjoying the sunshine, music, and food.

I just noticed the colourful and interesting houses behind the tents in this photo - I wish I'd had a closer look!

Davis of course was mainly interested in the martial arts demos, but a fairly large crowd had already assembled by the time we got there, and it was hard to get a good look.

So, we headed over to the food area! These are called manju, and they're a variation of a Chinese pastry that contains red bean paste.

A similar item is the fresh imagawayaki, which is also filled with red bean paste.

YUM!

As, uh, fascinating as it seemed, we did not visit this tent.

But we did try some tofu yaki with Asian slaw, and matcha smoothies.

As we left, we were serenaded by Nish Rawks, a Toronto-based rapper of Japanese descent.

I was pretty impressed.

Hummingbird

2011-07-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Alaksen National Wildlife Area

2011-07-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, my poor quads got a break from the mud slogging this week - instead, we split our time between invasive plant removal (broom, loosestrife, and thistle) and bird surveying. Sorry, I just have to say that again - they are paying me to walk around and look at birds. I'm not gloating or anything... I just have to remind myself from time to time because it seems so unreal. :) Of course it's not all fun - the plant removal is pretty hard work, especially in the hot afternoon sun. So I enjoy the birds all the more when I get a chance to see them.

Here are some of the birds I saw last Monday:

Black-headed grosbeak. This was a first for me! We saw two males chasing each other around the trees.

American goldfinch. These guys were everywhere - mostly flying overhead calling "potato chip! potato chip! potato chip!"and chowing down on thistle seeds. I sometimes get these mixed up with yellow warblers (next) because they're about the only bright yellow birds that tiny. Apart from the black marking on the goldfinch that set it apart, I also find the posture to be different - the goldfinches stand more upright, whereas the warblers are more tilted forward.

Yellow warbler!

Spotted towhee. These striking birds are everywhere in this area, and aren't shy about hopping out onto branches and getting their picture taken. They have really strange and varied calls (what I thought for years to be squirrel chatter actually turned out to be a towhee), and you often hear them scratching around in the brush.

We weren't able to identify this guy for sure - I think it might be a Western wood pewee, but I'm not very familiar with flycatchers. If anyone has any ideas, I would be grateful for the insight!

Downy woodpecker. Downies look a lot like their slightly larger cousins, the hairy woodpeckers. Apparently the best way to tell them apart is the length of the beak relative to their head - if the beak is about the same length as the head, it's the bigger Hairy, but if the beak is shorter than the head, it's the diminutive Downy. The bright red patch on this guy also indicates he is a male. :)

Cedar waxwing. These birds are also super common in the area, especially around berry bushes! I often hear them before I see them - they make a high pitched, almost digital insect sound. I think these birds are so pretty - they look so much better put-together than other birds, like they're made of painted ceramic.

Juvenile bald eagle. Young eagles take up to 5 years to attain sexual maturity and get the famous white head and tail.

More pictures (including a groovy orange slug) to come!

Salt marsh

2011-07-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

This week, we've been working out on the salt marshes off Westham Island. A salt marsh, in case it isn't obvious, is the upper part of the intertidal zone where salt-tolerant plants such as worts, sedges, and rushes can be periodically covered at high tide. In the delta of the Fraser River, the marshes and mudflats extend out for probably a couple of kilometers at least. We've been working with a government biologist, counting different types of native vegetation out there in order to assess how much the marsh has eroded over the past thirty years - and the answer seems to be a lot, in some places. From what I understand, the erosion of the marsh is mainly due to rising sea levels and over-grubbing by snow geese.

It's muddy, dirty, exhausting work - it's a 45 minute slog through the mud and a short canoe ride across a channel just to get to the site, and then we're on our knees in the muck all day getting poked in the eye (or nostril) by bulrush stems. But the sun is (usually) shining, we can see all sorts of birds (harriers, yellowlegs, sandpipers, bald eagles, swallows, wrens, herons, etc), and there's something about working outdoors, especially by the ocean, that really connects you to the planet. Measuring the workday by high tides and low tides and sun and rain makes me feel like I'm remembering something more elemental that I'd forgotten along the way. And the landscape is beautiful - I find it really interesting to see the different vegetation zones change as you move away from land, as different species adapt to different water and salinity levels.

This is prime real estate as far as eagles are concerned... this pair built their nest on an old navigation tower, and are raising two young that are about to fledge. This particular site comes complete with adjacent tower (excellent for stretching your wings and letting the wind take you off), multiple perch sites, breathtaking views, and even a small live tree growing out of the corner for shade.

Coyote?

Mallard nest.

A hanging marsh wren nest, woven around and suspended by cattail stalks.

Our accompanying government biologist suspected this was a harbour seal placenta/birth sac... and NOT the plastic bag we all initially thought it was!

Tomorrow is our last day working on this project, and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) a more relaxed week of bird counts next week!

The British invasion

2011-07-08T22:55:00.002-07:00

I started a new job this week - it's going to be a hodgepodge of things, I think, but all conservation-oriented, and with hopefully not a few bird surveys. For the past two days, however, we've been mapping Spartina grass on the Roberts Bank mudflats near Tsawwassen, BC. Spartina is an invasive grass from England that's been found up and down the western coast. Like all invasive species, it seems, Spartina spreads rapidly and is a pain in the butt to get rid of, outcompeting local plants and decreasing habitat for marine invertebrates, fish, and birds.

Roberts Bank is a very alien, very magical landscape. Walking toward the water from the dikes, you wade through a few metres of vegetation before coming out onto a muddy soup, which lasts another few metres. Then finally the ground hardens, and what looks like a prehistoric or lunar terrain emerges with cracked mud and channels and pools everywhere that the tide has formed. The oozy mud under the pools and rivers is also strange... there's a thin brown surface layer, but the sludge below is a soft black colour and actually feels really lovely on the skin.

Sadly, I couldn't bring my beloved SLR and 200 mm lens out in the muck with me, which was disappointing because I saw so many amazing birds that I just couldn't capture with my point & shoot. Of course there were gulls and swallows everywhere, and little sandpipers that were too far away for me to identify. There was also a small family of killdeer that would shriek and suddenly lift off if we got too close to them, and tons of herons and eagles doing flyovers. The first morning, we also saw a Northern Harrier swooping over the shore grasses looking for a snack. I also identified my first Caspian terns, and solved a bit of a puzzle - Davis and I had been hearing their strange raspy scream all over Richmond but we were never able to get a good look at them to figure out what was making that noise. Mystery solved!

~~If you roll over the images there should be some text popping up - the pictures were just so cruddy in the first place that I didn't want to clog them up with too much writing.~~ Okay so the rollover thing doesn't seem to work. In the first picture, there are some Caspian terns mixed with gulls in the foreground - the terns have a black crown and a bright red beak. In the distance, what I initially mistook to be a fleet of small sailboats is actually a bunch of great blue herons, fishing out in the shallows. In the second photo, the flagged plant is that dastardly Spartina, and a killdeer.

UBC botanical gardens

2011-06-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago, Davis and I went to the botanical gardens at the University of British Columbia, which are both extensive and diverse. They're not on the scale of anything like the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, of course, but I really enjoyed the walk through the tall conifers, smelling everything in the medicinal herb garden, rambling through the alpine terraces, and inspecting the vegetable garden (the produce of which is donated to local charities). We also did the canopy walkway, a series of suspended bridges through the treetops. I actually really enjoyed this too - we did the one at the Capilano Suspension Bridge a few years ago and it really didn't feel like much of an adventure at all. But this one puts you pretty high up in the treetops, it's much less crowded, and you even have some thrilling moments of mild peril as the bridge lurches beneath your feet and you peer down at the forest floor 50 feet below.

I was hoping to see some birds on this trip - last time we went I saw a creeper - but other than a bald eagle surveying its domain, I was out of luck. I saw lots of beautiful flowers and some neat insects but I am sadly lacking in knowledge of both botany and entomology so, without any descriptions to get in the way:

Breakfast salad

2011-06-19T15:00:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago, Davis decided to seriously cut down on carbs in his diet on the advice of Tim Ferriss, and I kind of went along for the ride. This made breakfast a little more difficult, since my breakfast traditionally involved a bagel, toast, or pancakes. For a couple of weeks I did fried eggs and sausages - hey, no carbs, right? - but feeling queasy for the rest of the morning cut that trend short. I also tried shakes with berries and protein powder, but it never really kept me full.

Thankfully, a few weeks ago through the miracle of Pinterest, I found this gorgeous recipe for a breakfast salad. It's so simple and relatively quick - the longest part is poaching the eggs, but I start them first and then chop up everything else and make my coffee while they're cooking.

The base of the salad is one chopped tomato, half to one avocado (depending on the size), and some shredded prosciutto.

I mix these up in a bowl, top with some grated cheese, ground pepper, and fresh herbs (basil, yum!) and two poached eggs.

Poached eggs? Scary!

The last time I tried to poach eggs for a yummy openfaced sandwich, I ended up with a pot full of egg foam and two poached yolks. Fortunately, the recipe for the breakfast salad also included a link with ridiculously simple instructions on how to poach eggs - and seriously, I've perfectly poached dozens of eggs with this method.

To reiterate: find a small pot and fill it about halfway with water. If you underfill it, I find the egg doesn't thoroughly cook. Boil the water, then bring down the heat until tiny bubbles are just rising off the bottom of the pot. Add one tablespoon of white vinegar.

Crack your egg into a small measuring up or teacup, and lower it into the water and slowly tip the egg out.

Set your timer for four minutes, and watch your egg poach!

When the time is up, remove the egg with a slotted spoon to a paper towel to remove the excess water.

YUMMY!

30 days of animal doodles: hedgehog + lion

2011-06-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

I am falling disgracefully behind.

Find out more about Paper Sparrow's 30 days of animal doodles here.
Previous drawings in the series: kangaroo and sheep, bear and llama.
Take a look at all the doodles!

style around town

2011-06-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination... spending most of my time chasing feces-smeared animals while wearing super sexy men's sized coveralls will pretty much kill anyone's sense of style. But for the past few weeks since school's been out for the summer and before I start my new job as a field technician (in super sexy rain gear and hiking boots), Davis and I have been taking advantage of our free time to gallivant around town, and I've been taking advantage of the opportunity to wear cute things again.

Here are some rough approximations of my recent outfits:

This outfit was based around this new shirt I got from Forever 21. With its flowy lower half, it seemed like a good choice to wear to an event where I'd be stuffing my face silly. I also wore slim-cut jeans and my new pair of sandals from Aldo - good for walking around in all day. The accessories are total fantasy... I wish I owned bamboo bangles. In reality, I had a yellow purse, yellow teardrop jewel earrings, and a grey cardigan.

This outfit was based on a simple, loose, striped tank also from Forever 21. I ended up swapping the silver ballet flats for a pair of flip flops (because my silver flats pinch just a little) and I couldn't find my star earrings, so I wore seahorse ones. But I did keep the silver glitter liner, and it didn't look as trashy as I thought it might! I just used a tiny bit on my lower lid, and I think it was subtle and summery enough to be acceptable for a 26-year-old.

I'm working temporarily in an office until my other job starts. This isn't the same shirt, but I found a flowy coral-coloured top with lacy cap sleeves for $8 at RW&Co. I liked the combination of the coral pink with a teal cardigan, and accessorized with gold sparkly sandals (not the ones pictured) and a swooping swallow necklace similar to this one in my shop (shameless plug). This is also not my bag, sadly, but one that I covet very badly from Roots.

Yet another Forever 21 item - a gauzy floral dress. Actually, other than the dress and a similar-looking purse, this outfit turned out nothing like I'd planned. I couldn't find white lacy tights - only black ones - actually I couldn't find any white tights at all - so I ended up buying some navy coloured ones which picked up the dark blue flowers in the dress. I then thought the red shoes and yellow purse would be too much, so I wore yellow flats instead. Oh, and those earrings are not mine... I don't own anything you can buy from Net-A-Porter. I don't remember what I wore instead.

Well, this was kind of a fun post, and probably the last of its kind for a while... unless anyone is actually interested in the sexy rain pants and hiking boots outfit?? :)

Eat! Vancouver food + cooking fest

2011-06-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

As you probably know by now, I love to eat. So when I heard about the food and cooking festival happening this weekend in downtown Vancouver, I more-or-less commanded Davis to go with me.

And it was awesome.

We started off, naturally, in the wine+beer+spirits tasting area. This was probably not the brightest idea as I'd had two pieces of toast for breakfast and Davis had had nothing. But our light buzz probably made the crowds more tolerable.

There were so many things to taste, from local wines to wines from as far away as Hungary, delicious microbrews, vodka, spiced rum, sake from Japan, locally-made mead, a seminar on how to make the perfect Caesar - and absinthe:

After our liquid indulgences, we decided it would be a good idea to get something to eat - fortunately, we had plenty of options! We wandered up and down the booths, snacking on beef jerky, yogurt, ice cream, honey, Korean rice cakes, coffee, candied salmon, turkey sausages, barbecue sauce, olives stuffed with lemon and orange, chocolate:

and delicious Tête de Moine cheese from Switzerland:

And we weren't just concerned with filling our own tummies - there were also rows of pet food vendors, all happy to talk about their products and give us some samples for the beasts.

Even though we were unhappily regretting our decision to not wear elastic-waisted trousers at this point, we waddled over to the restaurant booths, where local restaurants were serving up sample-sized portions of their most popular dishes.

There were also celebrity chefs giving demonstrations, and different seminars on cheese and how to describe and pair wines and beers with food.

EAT! Vancouver also runs tomorrow - so if any of you reading this are in town, I highly recommend you drop by!

Surf's up!

2011-06-10T19:43:00.001-07:00

Finally - my last blog post in my Tofino/Ucluelet series! I have dragged this on, haven't I... we left over a month ago, and it's taken me this long to digest and regurgitate the trip.

Tofino is famous for its rugged coastal beauty and all the opportunities it provides for visitors to get outdoors. Arguably the most famous scenic destination is Long Beach, a 16-km stretch of sand, sea, and sky.

Although Long Beach is part of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, many of Tofino's other beaches are not. Cox Bay beach, hidden behind the aptly named Cox Bay Resort, is one of my favourites - and it's also a great place to learn to surf!

Davis and I took surfing lessons for the first time last year, and we loved it! The water temperature is usually about 12C in the spring, which is only a degree or two lower than the ocean off Los Angeles. But the air temperature is of course much cooler, and that's what necessitates the neoprene getup!

Both times we've taken surf lessons in Tofino, we've gone with Pacific Surf School. I can't say why I chose them initially, other than maybe they offered a 3-hour lesson instead of 2 and a half. In retrospect, if you're moderately out-of-shape like me, 3 hours might be a little long anyway. But we love the instructors at Pacific, plus they give you awesome stickers, so you can put them all over your stuff and pretend you're a super pro west coast surfer too. And yes, that's exactly what I did.

On our last trip, we decided to actually rent some surfboards and go out on our own. Davis is an impressively good beginner surfer - I was able to stand up the first time we went, but this year was a total flop. But, it's still a LOT of fun, and I promise you don't even notice the cold.

Neoprene. The new Spanx.

The other thing that we love love love doing in Tofino is scuba diving! Davis has wanted to dive for years, so three years ago we did a discover dive with the local dive shop, Ocean Planet. We were insta-hooked. Last year we went back to do our open water certification, and this year we intended to do our advanced open water, but student poverty prevailed and instead we just did a day trip.

I can't say enough how much I love this dive shop - the owner, Andy, is super nice and has the cutest baby I've ever seen. All his divemasters and instructors are equally as awesome - we have never had a bad time, even the time I lost my fin and had to limp back to the boat along the sea floor. I definitely recommend trying a discover dive - breathing underwater is frightening at first, but I always get so quickly distracted by the bounty of life under the waves - the delicate sea pens, opalescent nudibranchs, feathery plumose anemones, starfish of every shape and colour, crabs scuttling here and there and - if you're lucky - giant pacific octopi.

In Ucluelet, we usually try and walk the Wild Pacific Trail, a non-strenuous trail that winds along the cliffs and through the rainforest. Trees dripping with moss line the path, and suddenly open into breathtaking ocean views.

There are so many other amazing activities I want to try in Tofino - sea kayaking, fishing, revisit the hot springs, go whale watching, and one day (when I'm in better shape) hike the arduous West Coast Trail.

What would you do first on a trip to the coast?

Previous Tofino posts:
Eating
Wildlife watching
Road to Tofino

30 days of animal doodles: kangaroo and sheep

2011-06-07T18:53:00.002-07:00

Find out more about Paper Sparrow's 30 days of animal doodles here.
Previous drawings in the series: bear and llama.
Take a look at all the doodles!

Ships to shore

2011-06-06T11:18:00.001-07:00

The weather this weekend was forecasted to be the warmest and sunniest in a while, so Davis and I decided to get out of the house and visit Steveston village, a pretty little fishing community south of Vancouver. As we approached, we noticed traffic getting a little heavy - "I guess everyone wants to get outdoors today," I remarked. "Don't worry though, I've never seen the parking lot full."

Well, it was - and so was every side street in a four-block radius. "Is there something going on today?" Davis asked, somewhat rhetorically.

Yes, as it turned out. We finally found a parking spot and started walking toward the village along the dikes when we spotted signs for the Ships to Shore festival - a tall ships celebration featuring four schooners, a Viking longboat, music and food and dancing. This used to be an annual event in the city, until it was suspended to make way for preparations leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is the first year it's run since 2002.

Passes were on sale to tour the boats and take a 3-hour sail around the area, but we opted to just look at the boats from the docks. Another bit of luck was that although most ships required prepaid tickets just to get on board and look around, the Adventuress, a 133-foot schooner out of Seattle, was letting people walk around the ship for free. We took a look at all the intricate rigging, posed at the helm, chatted with the sailors, and toured the lower decks.

We also got introduced to a really neat band, the Rakish Angles. They're a 4-piece string band with a bass, violin, guitar, and mandolin. They describe their music as "Newgrass, Latin, Gypsy-Jazz and Oldtime." The music was really interesting, so if you like fiddle music or anything similar to that, definitely check them out!

After checking out the ships, we headed over to the village proper, where vendors and artisans had set up tents for the every-other-weekendly farmer's market. We tried some ridiculously delicious flavoured ganache by La Chocolaterie:

Davis's mission of the day was to visit Bell's Bake Shop - which he had read about in the paper - and get himself a Stanley Cupcake. Sadly, they were sold out. :(

But we shared a yummy coconut cupcake instead.

Steveston Village is one of my favourite places to visit, even when (or especially when) there's no festival going on. I love seeing the fishing fleet, eating fish & chips on the dock, walking down to the beach and watching dogs play in the surf. The Canada Day salmon festival in Steveston is always a lot of fun - we're more than likely going to be heading there on July 1 and I definitely recommend you do too!

30 days of animal doodles: llama

2011-06-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

Two hours late!

30 days of animal doodles: bear

2011-06-03T22:50:00.001-07:00

Here's how it started:

I submitted a blog post to Ana's Friday archive dive (this week's topic was 'away'). Browsing the other entries, I came across Caren's blog, tea & chickadees and left her a comment about running away. Caren then added me on Twitter, and as I was poking around her profile, I found her tweet about Andrea's Paper Sparrow blog and the 30-day animal doodle project.

Got that?

I've been thinking about undertaking some kind of doodling challenge for a little while now - I found this one floating around Pinterest and thought about doing it with our new tablet, but I never really got the initiative to start. But the animal doodle challenge is right up my alley!

I'm not an artist - I really can't draw, and it's not really something I'm focused on spending a lot of time on improving. But I do like to doodle, even if I'm usually limited to flowers and stars.

This was definitely a challenge from the start... I'm a few days behind, but the first animal on the list is a bear. I decided to start off with simple line drawings - I figured I couldn't really mess up with plain but bold outlines. But I apparently could. In desperation, they started to morph into more complicated sketches, but the more details I added, the more each one looked like a severe genetic mutation.

Well, I thought, looking sadly at all the lovely submissions in the Flickr pool. I guess I might as well stick with what I know.

So I drew a bear skull.

Well. It's different.

Eating in Tofino & Ucluelet

2011-06-02T22:36:00.002-07:00

For such a small area, Tofino and Ucluelet have some seriously good eats that, as far as I'm concerned, stack up quite well to some of the posher restaurants in Vancouver. Not that I'm a food critic or anything - as a poor student my gastronomic forays have been quite limited. But I do like eating and trying new things, and I'm always happy to eat in Tofino... although, since your dinner was probably swimming that same morning, how could you not be?

The first year we went to Ucluelet, we really didn't know the area at all. Our hosts had left some cards for various businesses in our cabin, including one for Norwoods. "Sure," we thought one night. "Let's try it."

The restaurant was pretty busy when we got there, as I recall, so we were seated at the bar in front of the kitchen. It turned out to be the best seat in the house, as we got to watch all the amazing dishes being meticulously prepared, and chat with the owner Richard and his chef Phil. The food is all ridiculously fresh - I usually order fish (albacore tuna is amazing), and it was usually swimming that morning. Most of their ingredients are locally sourced from the Island or in province, and are perfectly assembled and cooked.

On our last trip, we started with a pomegranate cosmo and a caramel apple martini:

Davis ordered an octopus appetizer in a ginger chili sauce. I felt a little odd about eating octopus, but all the seafood is certified by the Vancouver Aquarium's OceanWise program, and it was delicious - buttery soft and full of flavour.

My appetizer was thin slices of pacific salmon in a mustard dill sauce, which was also very tasty.

As an entree, Davis and I both ordered fish - what else can you get on a trip to the ocean? Davis chose the halibut:

And I got albacore tuna:

For dinner, we each had the goat cheesecake. Although the rest of their menu changes with the seasons, the goat cheesecake is thankfully something that seems to have staying power, for which I am very grateful!

Of course, Norwoods isn't cheap, and although one year we blew our budget by eating there three nights in one trip, there are other excellent, less expensive places to eat in the area. Our usual breakfast choice, Rooster's, has since sadly shut down (which is very sad because they had excellent and economical smoked salmon eggs benedict), but Ukee Dogs is always a great breakfast choice. Almost everything there, even breakfast, is served hot-dog style on a toasty, soft homemade bun. We always get the Maple Scrambler, which features breakfast sausages smothered in cheese and maple syrup. Yummy!

In Tofino, we usually stop at the Common Loaf Bakery and coffeeshop for lunch - I think their giant salmon salad sandwiches fueled my entire open water scuba diving course. It can be a little slow during busy hours and, heads up, they only take cash, but the lemon cranberry squares are worth it.

During our most recent trip, we discovered a new (to us) restaurant: Shelter. We'd seen it the previous year and it looked pricey, but we were looking for somewhere to have lunch after our surf lesson and our instructor recommended this place to us. The giant fireplace is perfect for warming up after a post-ocean dunking, accompanied by a bowl of salmon and clam chowder and coffee served in a French press. It was also at Shelter that I found a new love: The Tofino Brewing Company. I tried their most recent beer, the Hoppin' Cretin IPA. My only complaint is that they apparently sell out almost as fast as they make it, so we couldn't take any home! And, it turns out that Shelter is not as expensive as it looks - our lunch bill probably would have been under $30 if only we'd been able to stay away from the basil-infused Caesars.

Photo via Shelter.

I'm looking forward to discovering even more places to eat next time I'm in the area but jeez... I'm really hungry now.

eh to zed

2011-05-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Succumbing to a rash of thievery, I liberated this A-to-Z quiz from the always-interesting Kelli of Bug Miscellany (my diet thanks me for not liberating the wonderful photos of cupcakes and macarons she has, too). I have some more Tofino pictures to post (mostly food) but I'm starting my summer job tomorrow so it might be a couple more days until I get those up. In the meantime -

Age: 26.

Bed Size: Double/full. It's still a bit of a mystery how we ended up with this instead of a queen. We originally wanted a queen, but there was some mix-up about what bedside cabinets we were going to get, and what size bed-frame they had in stock, and for some reason we came home with a double. A few days later we realized there was no reason why we couldn't have gotten a queen, but we didn't feel like renting a van again and going out to exchange the mattress, box, and frame. So instead we elbow and kick each other all night.

Chore you hate: Cleaning the bathroom. Ick. I'd rather scoop kitty litter.

Essential start of your day: Shower and shampoo. I don't feel human without it.

Favorite Color: I can't choose between robin's egg blue and plum.

Gold or silver: Silver.

Height: 5'6"

Instruments I play (or have played): I started off with the clarinet in grade 10, and switched to French horn the next year. But I was not very disciplined, and never learned to play a lot of the notes, so I would just sit there and pretend I was playing and rely on my more talented French horn-mates. I also took voice lessons last year, and hope to continue.

Job Title: Student veterinarian. Also, temporarily, research assistant.

Kids: Jasmine and Ariel, nine-year-old long-haired tortie cats. I love them to bits.

Live: All over Canada! I go to school near Toronto, Ontario - spend the summers with my family in Vancouver, BC - and all other holidays with Davis's family in Montreal, Quebec.

Mom’s Name: Nora.

Nickname: Friends call me Vic. Davis and I have all sorts of nicknames for each other, mostly "Snout" or "Snouter" (long story...).

Pet Peeve: Loud chewing noises.

Quote from a movie: "This is the captain. We have a... little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then... explode."

Right or left handed: Right!

Siblings: Zip.

Time you wake up: When I have class? 6:30. Naturally? 10:30.

Underwear: Pink.

Vegetables you dislike: Green peppers. Raw broccoli. Cauliflower in any form.

What makes you run late: Forgetting multiple miscellaneous things. At the door - forgot my travel mug. Down the parking lot - forgot my cell phone. Halfway to school - forgot my lecture notes.

X-rays you’ve had done: Foot, when I was twelve, after a horse stepped on it. And teeth, of course.

Yummy food you make: Umami eggs!!

Zoo animal: I ♥ sea otters.

Birds and beasts

2011-05-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

On day two in Tofino, we woke up to a steady rain. It sounded lovely on the roof, but it didn't bode well for outdoor activities.

Even this harbour seal seemed unimpressed...

Fortunately by the afternoon the rain eased up a bit, and treated us to some lovely island skies. Davis and I decided to go for a walk on the beach and see what creatures we could see...

A ton of little shorebirds foraged in the sand, and I saw a few species I'd never seen before including dunlin -

- whimbrels -

and semi-palmated plovers.

We also saw a couple different species of sandpipers, but I don't have any good photos of them. There may be a couple hanging out with the dunlin. We were however graced by the presence of an osprey, floating up and down the beach for over an hour, looking for prey.

The sun started to set...

The tide started coming in...

So we left the osprey to his search -

...and went back to our cabin, where we were greeted by the usual chorus of sea lions.

Up next... adventures in surfing!

To the sea

2011-05-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

We've been back from our seaside adventure for a few days now, long enough to recover from our vacation (it was not a restful, lying on the beach with margaritas trip, let me tell you) and for me to go through our photos a little. I won't bore you with an endless slideshow of getaway snaps, but here are some of the highlights of day one.

We stopped as always in Cathedral Grove, a set of trails through MacMillan Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. This place always seems a little supernatural, a little primeval, a little Lord of the Rings - full of towering trees draped with moss and ferns crawling all over the ground. And the smells like you wouldn't believe - cedar and fir and wet growing things and (maybe my imagination) but a little bit of salt from the sea.

We found a stream with a large log crossing it and stopped for a photo op. I don't know what was on the other side of the stream... maybe next time we'll find out.

We kept driving along the highway, crossing the island, when we came to a pullout next to a bend in the river with large, flat rocks and rapids running between them.

There were tons of little waterfalls leading from one level to the next, it was a great place to practice the effect of shutter speed - but that's another post.

When we got to our cabin, we were greeted (as always) by a chorus of barking sea lions from the docks and eagles soaring overhead. And, a first - by a female common merganser paddling around the harbour.

To be continued...

Depth of field

2011-05-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

Having completed my sixth journey across Canada (we arrived in Vancouver on Friday), Davis and I left this morning for our third annual vacation to Ucluelet/Tofino on Vancouver Island. The weather today was lovely - unfortunately, I fear, the only lovely weather we might have this week... but I guess a little rain doesn't matter much when you're soaking wet from surfing and scuba diving anyway. At least, I hope I'll be scuba diving... I'm still coughing up some nasty things and my congested nose is making a reappearance from a cold I picked up on our drive out west, so we'll see what the divemaster has to say about that. Here's hoping it magically disappears before Wednesday, although ~~dunking myself in the cold Pacific~~ surfing for three hours tomorrow may not be the best way to have that happen.

I have tons of photos to share with you, from our road trip and from Ucluelet, but instead of posting all the highlights of the day like I did last year, I think I'll save them until after we get back to Vancouver and settled in... it's a little too manic processing and posting them each night since I am technically on vacation. But here's a little something I took today in Cathedral Grove... I think I should have tried a few more shots, but it's kind of interesting looking. :)

New toys

2011-05-01T11:58:00.003-07:00

We may experience some slight turbulence and then... explode.

2011-04-30T09:53:00.001-07:00

After being told for years and years to watch Firefly, I finally sat down once I finished my exams and blasted my way through the episodes and movie in less than three days. It took me a couple of episodes to get into it, but once I did I was hooked. The dialogue - like anything Joss Whedon - is snappy and catchy and the characters are well-developed and compelling. I think it's the characters that really draw you in - after finishing Firefly I started on the first season of V, and while it's got much slicker production, I'm three episodes from the finale and I just don't feel very invested in any of the characters... I actually read ahead on Wikipedia (a terrible habit) to find out what happened and I feel just as satisfied as if I'd watched the show itself. But Firefly is different - I'm forcing Davis to watch it while we're on the road next week and I will happily re-watch the entire thing with him.

This show really deserves all the hype its rabid fans give it. This Etsy treasury is my contribution. :)

one-quarter veterinarian

2011-04-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it through another final exam season more-or-less intact - although with eleven exams in two and a half weeks, I think both my mental and physical health took a bit of a beating. But I'm happy beyond words that the year is over, that I'm a quarter of the way through vet school, and that I'll soon be on my way out west again.

There hasn't been much else going on - we're in Montreal at the moment visiting Davis's family, and next week we'll leave for another cross-Canada road trip to Vancouver, where we'll take a few days to do some more surfing and diving in Tofino.

I also got a couple of early birthday presents that I'll be sharing with you soon - I'm pretty excited!

Hope everyone else is having a lovely spring. :)

tide pool

2011-04-14T07:50:00.002-07:00

I saw a plaque with this quote at the Ucluelet Aquarium on Vancouver Island, and I loved it so much I took a photo of it. I'm over halfway finished my exams - only 5 more to go - and I took a little brain break this morning and created a starfield background to go with the quote to share with you guys.

And now, back to vital signs of the dog...

Giant xylophone?

2011-04-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Saw this on Facebook today - was totally amazed. Had to share. :)

p.s. 4 exams finished, 7 to go in the next 2 weeks. :)

Finals

2011-04-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

I really intended to follow up on my last post and share some recipes and photos from my sheep cupcakes and moo shu pork dinner, which was pretty epic. Unfortunately, that 3-week morass known as final exams has stealthily crept up on me, and I find myself surrounded (not literally) by bones, cows, cells, blood, chickens, how to greet clients, muscles, nerves, hormones, molecules, organs, pigs, x-rays, lung fields, etc., etc.

So it might be a couple of weeks until I post anything interesting here... unless you find Crayola-assisted anatomy diagrams to be interesting (I never thought Crayola and a professional program would be such a great combination).

See you on the other side!

Features of the pelvis:

Major nerves supplying the hind limb:

Blood supply to the fore limb:

Blood supply to the hind limb:

Landmarks of the femur:

The guttural pouch, one of many particularities to horses, is a chamber just below the ears that contains a variety of important nerves, arteries, and other structures. The guttural pouch is a modification of our Eustachian tube - the connection between middle ear and throat. Both humans and horses are susceptible to infection in this area, but because there are so many critical structures in the horse's guttural pouch, infections can be more life-threatening.

The larynx and associated hyoid bones. The larynx is made up of three important cartilages: the thyroid cartilage which is shield-shaped, the arytenoids that nestle within the thyroid cartilage, and the ring-shaped cricoid cartilage. The larynx is important for vocal production - a series of muscles that interconnect the three cartilages are responsible for opening and closing the vocal folds to change the quality of sound.

Nina's birthday

2011-03-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Or, how I went from this:

To this:

Answers coming soon....

There goes the neighbourhood...

2011-03-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

Actually, I can think of a few neighbours I'd rather replace with geese...

Supermoon: March 19

2011-03-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

A supermoon (or more accurately a perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system) occurs when the full moon coincides with the point of the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth. The term "perigee" means the point when the moon is closest to the Earth, and syzygy is a full or new moon. Hence, perigee-syzygy = supermoon.

This also applies to studying for finals...

2011-03-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

[Source: Murray The Nut]

Growing in The Moss Garden

2011-03-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

I so rarely talk about my shop on here - even though I initially set this blog up as a promotion for my jewelry, I guess I mostly get side-tracked by cows and birds and earth-shattering umami eggs (I may have eaten five for lunch the other day. Five eggs, not five halves. I'm a little ashamed).

But I thought I would give a little update about some new things happening in The Moss Garden.

I started making rings! The idea has been percolating for quite a while now, but I could just never commit to it - I thought it would be prohibitively expensive, and the glue stuff intimidated me, and I just didn't take the plunge, until now. I was also unsure about these lucite flowers that are so popular... I've never really liked plastic as a material, I much prefer cold, hard glass or metal. But these flowers are so cheery and fun, it's hard to say no!

I've also been inspired by the sea a lot lately - maybe because it's nearly spring, which means I'll be heading home to Vancouver in a couple of months. I love the verdigris patina, which makes me think of something you'd find in a treasure chest, long forgotten on the ocean floor...

And, as always, I love making anything with animals. I really miss working with wildlife - in vet school, of course, the focus is mainly on domestic companion and food animals, which is understandable. I've applied for a few summer positions in wildlife though - fingers crossed! And in the meantime, I have these little brass creatures to work with. :)

And that's what new! Thanks for reading. :)

Salmon cakes a la Nina

2011-03-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

My good friend Nina (and I'm not picking a fake name for her because this is a good post) first made these salmon cakes for me when we were studying for... something... in our last semester of undergrad. I think it might have been virology. Anyway, when she said 'fish cakes' I was a little suspicious - I think I'd had a bad experience with cod cakes as a child that probably involved (shudder) tartar sauce.

But these salmon cakes were lovely - fresh and nicely flavoured with bursts of ginger and scallion. I like them so much that there are times when I make them every week. And they're fast.

I usually use salmon - wild Pacific if at all possible because I'm not a fan of farmed - but rainbow trout also works nicely. I toss my fish in the food processor, cut up into chunks to make it a bit easier, but otherwise intact skin and all [the skin doesn't always chop up... but I just mix it in regardless, as you'll see in the photos]. If your fishmonger sells it ground, that's fine, and I've even minced my salmon up by hand with a large sharp knife during a dire period when I didn't have a food processor. Nina says she'll also use canned salmon, but I haven't tried it.

I don't have any set amounts of anything for this... I just kind of eyeball it. In a bowl with the ground salmon, I add some Panko bread crumbs... usually about a half as much as there is salmon. I'll also put in some minced garlic and ginger, chopped scallions, and cilantro. Mix it up, and shape it into cakes - I usually make two puck-sized cakes per person.

(p.s. that's not onion you see - that's the aforementioned salmon skin)

I'll also make this part ahead and refrigerate it; I usually leave out the Panko crumbs and add them in right before cooking though. I have a theory they'll get soggy if I let them sit in the salmon too long, but I haven't proved it.

To cook, I just fry the cakes in sesame oil... maybe 5 minutes each side on medium-high, until they're cooked through.

Sprinkle sesame seeds on top (I forgot this time) and serve with a dipping sauce - I like equal portions rice vinegar and soy sauce with some ginger slivers or the white parts of scallions floating in it.

These are really versatile too - you can add any sorts of spices or ingredients you would like. But I find this combination works well for me. :)

Bon appetit!

my tunes

2011-03-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

Things that are ranking high on my playlist lately.
Bandits by Midlake [kind of reminds me of Fleet Foxes]

Valerie by Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse [I actually first heard this song as a cover on Glee... but I can't find a video of that, which is disappointing because Heather Morris and Harry Shum's dance routine was sick]

Only The Ocean by Jack Johnson

Bones by Little Big Town
[I took a jazz dance class last semester, and this was one of our choreographies. It was pretty fun.]

Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars[love this video!]

Study aids

2011-03-03T19:00:00.002-08:00

Umami eggs

2011-02-28T09:55:00.001-08:00

I can't emphasize enough how awesome these umami eggs from TasteSpotting are. They changed a gloomy, first-day-back-at-school-after-break Monday into

super duper awesomeness

Okay, it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but let me tell you that I boiled seven eggs - so fourteen halves - and I couldn't get Davis to stop eating them fast enough to get a picture of more than two halves.

The ingredients are super simple, and these take a minute to make once the eggs are boiled. You will need:

Hard boil and peel your eggs in whatever way you like. The recipe I linked to has a good how-to blurb at the bottom which I tried and liked. Davis swears by this method, but I think it's because he's in love with Tim Ferriss.

Next:
Cut the peeled eggs in half.
Add a few drops of soy sauce over the yolk of each egg half. You don't want it to overflow - just soak into the yolk.
Next add a squirt of Sriracha.
And top with the furikake.

Donezo!

Update: deluxe umami eggs with smoked salmon!

Care instructions

2011-02-21T16:17:00.002-08:00

Found this on Pinterest a little while ago. Thought it described me pretty well.
You?

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T09:33:00.002-08:00

Valentine's Day is not really a big deal to me and Davis. On our first Valentine's Day together, he made a trail of chocolates and gummy lips in our house that led to a giant teddy bear. That was pretty cute. The next year I think we went out to some overpriced restaurant in downtown Montreal. It was probably about -30C out, so I wore a turtleneck sweater. I felt like a nun compared to all the other girls there - strapless tops in February, really? - and although we had reservations we had to wait at the bar for an hour and rang up a huge, overpriced drink tab until we got to sit down. Since then, Valentine's Day has been more about scoring discount chocolates on the 15th than anything else.

But, since this is our first Valentine's not living with one of our families in six years, I thought I'd at least make an effort. I got up early and made breakfast.

This was the plan:

[from left: image by New York Examiner, heart pancakes from 24/7 moms, berry smoothie by Make & Takes]

This was what I got:

I would say I scored about 2/3 on this breakfast. The smoothies were wonderful and so easy to make with just berries and soy milk. I've been practicing the pancakes for a week or so and they turned out all right - I dropped chocolate chips and frozen raspberries in the batter as they were cooking and that tasted pretty awesome, but I couldn't stop the raspberries from burning on the surface. It was also really hard to make the heart shapes - I used a large cookie cutter that I put on the pan and poured the batter into that, but even though it was oiled the batter kept sticking to the cutter which ripped off huge chunks as I pulled it off - and that cutter was HOT!

The eggs were not a success - I tried doing them the same way as the pancakes, but the white seeped out from under the cutter. I then tried to just fry the egg normally and used the cutter afterward, which worked fairly well except I didn't know what to do with the excess whites - I felt guilty throwing them out, so I hid them underneath the egg heart and it just looked a little odd and lumpy. Oh well!

I took the morning off of school (I used to go to class religiously in undergrad, but now in vet school I'm finding that I'm much happier if I just study from home) and tonight we're going to make a nice Italian dinner - gnocchi and proscuitto wrapped around melon and bocconcini on tomato - and have some wine.

Update: dinner was a success!

What are your Valentine's plans? Fancy dinner or a cozy night of TV on the couch?

Random hearts

2011-02-05T18:37:00.000-08:00

Aegean blue five stone band ring in argentium silver by Garnet Girl Designs

Little mint green felt bird by Sea Pinks

Forest sprite bronze leaf hair comb by Penny Masquerade

In The Sea print by Mae Chevrette

Flower child vintage necklace by Domenica's

Snow day!

2011-02-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

Seriously, the snow's not even that bad - they told us we could get up to 40 cm (15 inches) but it doesn't even look like 10 cm out there. But I'll take the day off. :)

Weekend project - diy chalkboard

2011-01-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

Since we moved into our ~~cave~~ townhouse, we've been trying to figure out what to do with the long wall that stretches from the entry, past the kitchen, and leads to the living room. It's dark, and it would be nice to put some lamps or a little table, but the hallway is narrow, there's a heater smack in the middle of it, and no plugs.

A couple of weeks ago when I joined Pinterest, I noticed a chalkboard trend emerging, and I immediately knew I must jump on board and have a chalkboard on that wall. Davis, of course, had to be practical.

"We can't hang anything really heavy from that wall," he said.

I found chalkboard contact paper.

"We live in a cave," he said. "We can't put that much black anywhere."

Finally I triumphed, with Martha Stewart's help: custom colour chalkboard paint. Davis had no more rebuttals, and on Saturday afternoon we went to Home Depot to buy the following supplies:

thin wooden board
unsanded tile grout
paint
painting supplies (roller, tray, drop sheets)
sand paper
screws and anchors to hang
chalk

Our paint colour is called Ships At Sea - not black, and picked to complement the Hokusai prints we have hanging in the kitchen.

Martha recommended a ratio of 1 cup of paint to 2 tablespoons of tile grout. In retrospect, I would recommend sifting the grout to get the chunkies out, but we found another way to deal with them. Because we thought we'd use a fair amount of paint, we poured it into an empty container which made it easier to stir the grout in.

Then we got to painting!

We did four coats - we sanded after the second coat and found some of those grout chunkies I told you about, and they made nasty white streaks across the paint. For the next two coats, Davis just rolled the paint really hard and squished down the chunks and then painted over them right away - but it probably would have been easier to sift the grout at the beginning.

We also didn't want to leave out the wet board overnight (see above picture) so after the third coat was dry we wrapped up the board in drop sheets and started the last coat Sunday morning.

Once the last coat was dry and sanded (no more streaks!), we had to prime the chalkboard - which is something you're supposed to do even with pre-made chalkboards - by rubbing a piece of chalk over the entire surface and wiping it off.

Et voila! Davis hung the chalkboard, and we were done.

I'm very happy with my chalkboard - it works really well, although it doesn't wipe quite as clean as a normal chalkboard would. But it's totally worth it to have a blue chalkboard.

All together, the materials cost about $60. This was a little pricey, when a pre-made chalkboard that was a few feet larger was the same price. I think the biggest cost was the tile grout at $20 - because it only came in a giant box, and I only needed a few tablespoons. If they'd had it in a smaller size, that would have saved some money. The boxes of screws and anchors were probably about $15 together too, so if you already had four screws lying around you could also save that amount as well. Otherwise, the rest of it was pretty cheap - $5 for the board, $13 for the paint, and less than $10 for the painting supplies. Even with the $60, I still think it's worth it - paintings can cost that much, and this will be a constantly evolving creative space - like having a different artwork every day!

Loot

2011-01-29T16:59:00.000-08:00

Davis and I went to the mall so he could get some protein powder.

I came home with two shirts and some candy.

It was a successful trip.

Pinterested?

2011-01-28T03:58:00.000-08:00

My schoolwork productivity has taken a nosedive, and now I can shift some of the blame onto Jen from jdavissquared for introducing me to Pinterest - a website where you can pin and repin all sorts of inspiring, amazing, intriguing, and beautiful images. But, although I'm studying less, I have tons of new delicious-looking foods to try, ideas for my future home, clothes I want to buy.......

Here are some of my favourite pictures from Pinterest.

From Flickr.

From Project Foodie

From it's designed

From Whispering Pines

From tumblr

From afinidades eletivas

From Daily Diva Dish

From Design Fetish

From pretty things

Day in the life of a vet student - sheep tipping edition

2011-01-26T06:33:00.003-08:00

For real, this is a legit sheep restraint method, and goes something like this:

1. Chase sheep around a pen until you're sweaty and tired and they're just getting warmed up.
2. Grab a sheep by its jaw. This will stop the sheep from going forward.
3. Put your leg behind the sheep's butt. This will stop the sheep from going backward and might also leave a nice rorschach smear on your pant leg.
4. Flip the sheep onto its butt, like a judo twist.
5. The sheep will sit quietly between your knees, and will mostly allow you to examine it.

[Disclaimer: don't try this at home unless you're an experienced sheep tipper or are being supervised by one. Also don't try this with anything other than sheep, such as cows, bears, or cats. Also, it goes without saying, but no sheep were harmed during this exercise - just cuddled a bit.]

The spice of life

2011-01-24T08:44:00.001-08:00

I've been buying spices in bulk for a couple of years now, because I can't bear to spend $5 on a little glass bottle of paprika at the grocery store. But this meant that I unfortunately had a basket full of little baggies twist-tied with spices in them - not the most attractive or organized presentation.

When we moved to Guelph, I decided to buy a spice rack to fill with bulk spices - we found a really cool magnetic system that stood on the counter, which seemed like a good idea because we didn't have much cupboard space (we don't have much counter space either, but it didn't seem like much of an issue at the time). We bought a few extra tins that we figured we'd cram onto the easel, and went home.

I'm not sure how it transpired that Davis figured out that - being magnetic - the tins would also stick to the fridge, but as far as I'm concerned this discovery is right up there with penicillin, flubber, and the theory of relativity. I still remember the dawning look of revelation on his face as he stood there, still holding the tin stuck to the fridge door. We returned the easel set, and bought a bunch more individual tins. And they've been multiplying ever since.

[note also Davis's hercules beetle magnet and the requisite bird on top of the wine rack - well, I assure you it's a bird, it looks more like a blob]

I've labeled the back of each of them and arranged them in alphabetical order - primarily because I'm a nerd, but it also makes things easier to find.

I love my spice rack. Realistically, I'll never run out of room, the tins are just over a dollar each, and if I decide for some unknown reason I never want to eat cardamom anymore, I can just wash the tin and stick a new label on. And most importantly, I can buy spices in bulk without sorting through a bunch of baggies every time I want to cook.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

2011-01-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what we could reuse her for... although I always say I vacuum enough cat hair each week to make a brand new cat. That sounds like a kind of never-ending cycle though - creating a new cat out of the old cat's old fur? And then, you can make a new cat from the fur from the cat you made from the old cat's fur, and then before you know it your cats have multiplied every 20 minutes like bacteria and then they build an evil cat army intent on chewing your toes through the blanket at four in the morning and coming out of the litter box to park their butts straight on your school assignments.

I think I need another coffee.

Crimson and cerulean

2011-01-19T18:19:00.002-08:00

These past few days have held some firsts for me - my first Etsy team, and my first treasury! I'd tried to join teams in the past but both times there was some miscommunication or some reason that it never worked out. I heard about the Fancy Pants Treasury Team through a couple of blogs, and it seemed full of nice people so I took the plunge and clicked join!

This is the first treasury I've made so far. If you like what you see, I'd definitely appreciate any clicks or comments!

Avoid responsibilities.

2011-01-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

That is the moral of the story.

I walked out of school at 5 p.m. today after intensely observing the genitalia of a 4-month-old bull (really, that was our lab) and the first thing I saw was the moon - nearly full and low in the sky, looking like I could reach out and poke it and have it roll off its perch and stop at my feet.

"I wish I had my camera," I thought. "This would make a really great photo."

"I could walk home right now and grab my camera and tripod," I thought. "It's a 15 minute walk. The moon won't change that much in 15 minutes."

"You have to buy tomatoes and soy sauce," I told myself firmly, looking at the grocery list scribbled on my wrist. "You can't eat photos of the moon."

Unfortunately the grocery store is in the same general direction as our house, so for 15 minutes as I walked in the nose-sniffling cold I flip flopped. Tomatoes. Moon. Soy sauce. Creativity. Food.

But, as I kind of suspected all along, my feet took me home to my camera and my tripod.

So, today's life lesson?

Creativity first. Groceries later.

I'm pleased with this photo especially because I've never had a good opportunity to take low light photos before (other than when we were running through the forest at night trying to see owls and making coyote calls), and I was able to play around a bit today. The sky wasn't nearly this black - in fact, it was still relatively light out, but I had to make the shutter speed a lot faster than I expected (about 1/400) in order to get the details of the moon - otherwise it was just a bright smudge. I wish I'd remembered to try a few different f-stops, but that will be a goal for next time.

Some crows flew by. There are a couple hundred roosting next to our house at the moment, but that's for another post.

Mojito cupcakes

2011-01-16T13:56:00.002-08:00

I don't remember the first time I had a mojito, which astounds me, because in retrospect it had to be love at first sight. What's not to love about this wonderful Cuban drink? Rum - good. Sugarcane - good. Lime - good. Mint - good. Sparkling water - good.

Davis and I frequently drink mojitos in the summer when mint takes over the backyard garden with a vengeance and sugarcane juice is obtainable at ethnic markets. So when I found this mojito cupcake recipe by Lolo at Vegan Yum Yum last week, it was a match made in heaven.

I made the cupcakes using Amy Sedaris' cupcake recipe, substituting the vanilla extract with dark rum and lime juice, adding the zest of a lime to the batter, and infusing the milk with a few sprigs of fresh mint.

YUMMY!

I tried to go with a buttercream recipe for the icing, substituting more rum and lime juice for the vanilla extract, but because I don't have an electric mixer, my icing never turns out as beautiful and fluffy as it looks in the books. But, the cupcakes tasted amazing - as much like a mojito as a baked good can! I definitely recommend this recipe if you love mint and lime as much as me.

Threadless

2011-01-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

While I'm sure many of you have heard of this t-shirt company, I didn't learn about it until a year or so ago, when it became trendy in my small class at university.

Since then, I've acquired five shirts from Threadless, and each one makes me smile.

[It is necessary for me to point out that each one has an animal, or do you know me well enough by now?]

A Birth Day by Jean-sébastien Deheeger (I love this shirt because, in addition to being a student veterinarian, I'm also interested in studying reproduction...)

Blooming by T. J. Zhang

Kiwi Anatomy by William McDonald

Ocean Breath by Chalermphol Harnchakkham

Jump by Enora Josse

This t-shirt actually has a bit of a funny story attached... we have viva voces in school, which are basically group oral exams. In Davis's anatomy viva, the professor was pointing out a structure in the pelvis of a cat where the abdominal aorta (a major artery) terminates by branching into the external and internal iliac arteries that run into the legs. Davis was asked the clinical significance of this area, to which he replied, "blood clots can travel through the aorta and get trapped at the branching of the iliac arteries and form a thrombus, which is called saddle thrombus because it can be caused by a tight-fitting saddle."

To which the instructor said, "well that's partly true... but it's not caused by a saddle as this condition is prominently seen in cats, who don't wear saddles."

And Davis rebutted, "actually..."

And then he made me wear this shirt to class.

Vet student super hero

2011-01-10T08:06:00.002-08:00

Most of the time, I love vet school. But sometimes... I feel like this:

"The new vet student action figure from Mattel: it has foldable legs for long periods of sitting and studying. You can watch its hair turn grey before your eyes. Comes complete with 40-pound backpack and scoliosis. Happiness not included."

Which is why (and also because I have only two hours of class today - three hours apart!) I am playing hooky. I have decided to get more efficient things done today such as:

list some new things in my Etsy shop
go wine shopping
make cashew chicken curry
pay bills
do laundry
pay attention to cats
make a Simon & Garfunkel CD for my mom

And, okay, maybe a leeetle bit of studying. Because I have no other employable skills. ;o)

Christmas cooking recap

2011-01-06T10:28:00.001-08:00

Every year I get drafted into making two things at Christmas: our now-traditional Christmas day breakfast crepes, and cookies.

This year, along with the usual gingerbread and sugar cookies, I decided to try something a little fancier, and found Martha Stewart's Linzer sandwich cookies. They looked complicated, but ended up being not much more difficult than gingerbread cookies.

Here's what you'll need:

1 cup raw hazelnuts (I ended up adding some almond to mine because the bag of hazelnuts I bought turned out to be slightly less than a cup)
1/2 pound unsalted butter (it's so much easier if you take this out a few hours before...!)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
confectioner's sugar
jam (raspberry or cherry will do, but I was told that red currant is traditional so I hunted all over {okay in three grocery stores} for some. It was delicious, so I do recommend it if you can find it!)
you will also need two cookie cutters - one that is large and round and one that is small (see pictures)

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. When the oven is ready, spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them though... mine could have used a couple more minutes, but you don't want them to burn! When the nuts have cooled, rub the skins off using your fingers or, for more stubborn ones, a clean towel.

Using a food processor, grind the nuts as finely as possible. I didn't have a food processor, so I destroyed the motor of my mother-in-law's coffee grinder instead. Fortunately she wasn't upset because it was only $10 and she ended up getting another one for Christmas, totally coincidentally. If there are some chunks left it's not a big deal because it'll be interesting in the finished cookie... but try to get most of the nuts to a salt-like consistency. Set aside for now.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. If you are so privileged, you can use an electric mixer. I used my good old muscles. Add egg, and beat until smooth. Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In parts, add to butter mixture and stir until combined. I had to use my hands at the end.

Get two large pieces of plastic wrap, and divide the dough onto each piece. Flatten to form a disk, then wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out the cookies using the large circular cutter and place onto a baking tray. Using the small cutter, cut out the centres of half of the cookies. Bake for about 12-16 minutes, checking to make sure the edges don't get too brown. Cool on wire racks.

Separate the whole cookies from the cookies with the cut-out centre. First, sift some confectioner's sugar over the cookies with the cut-out centre. Then, spread some jam on the whole cookies. Then make a sandwich!

I thought these cookies were super tasty - a nice break from all the chocolate we had, and the nuttiness combined with the tartness of the currant jam was delish!

Christmas bird count

2011-01-04T04:28:00.000-08:00

This is the third year we've taken part in the Audubon Society's Christmas bird count, where for over 100 years groups of ornithologists and bird-lovers count each and every bird they see on one day in a specific area in a specific time period. All the sightings are compiled for one region and eventually form one giant database that allows researchers to look at large-scale trends in bird populations to see which species are doing well and which are decreasing in certain areas.

The weather was mild this year but the snow was falling thickly, which made for a beautiful winter wonderland as we walked through the forest, listening for the soft phoe-bee of black-capped chickadees or the clear birrrdy birdy birdybirdy of northern cardinals.

Oh right, but we were also looking for birds.

This was a record year for me - we saw 23 different species of birds including common goldeneye, mergansers, a merlin, two red-tailed hawks, three types of woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, greater black-backed gulls, robins, sparrows, pine siskins and my personal favourite: the eastern screech owl (can you see it?).
And here's a little white-breasted nuthatch, and below him a downy woodpecker.

I wasn't able to get as many photos of the birds as I would have liked because we saw so many of them from far away, but my little owl more than satisfies me.

2010 in review

2011-01-02T04:15:00.003-08:00

I was browsing Janna Bissett's LilacPOP blog the other day and enjoyed reading her highlights of 2010, so I thought it would be interesting to do something similar. 2010 was one of the the most life-changing, amazing, stressful, tumultuous years of all twenty-six so far, and I think it's a good idea to ruminate (ha - see item 10) and reflect on all the events that have altered our path, however large or small. It's so easy to forget things that have happened to you in the mad rush to always be moving forward and onto the next thing.

So, here my noteworthy moments of 2010:

1. Obviously, getting accepted into vet school.

Unlike a lot of the people in my class, I hadn't wanted to be a vet since I was in the womb. When I finished high school, I was sure I was going to be a famous actress and I spent two years running to auditions, rehearsals, call-backs, etc. Would I have ever been successful? I don't know. I knew that I didn't want to still be struggling when I was 30, and my volunteer work at the SPCA prompted me to go back to college. It took me 5 years to get my BSc because I'd slacked off so much in high school, and the application and interview process was the most stressful thing I have ever been through.

I remember the day I found out I was accepted - Davis and I were on vacation in Tofino, and we had just gotten out of the water and onto the boat when I saw I had a text message from our good friend who had also applied, saying that our statuses had been updated. But before we could rush back to our cabin and check our email we had to finish cleaning and putting away our gear, have lunch, and then drive 45 minutes. It was the most nerve-wracking two hours ever, and when we got home and checked our status with shaking hands to see that we had been accepted - BOTH of us - I remember the only feeling I had was relief.

2. Getting scuba certified.

Davis has been interested in scuba diving as long as I can remember, and in the summer of 2009 when I took him to my favourite place in the world - Tofino, British Columbia - we tried an introductory scuba session, just an hour mucking around under the docks. But it was enough... after seeing a giant pink sea star two feet across, I was hooked. The next summer we signed up for our open water certification, completing five ocean dives and learning - essentially - how to breathe underwater.

I also conquered a fear. Although I loved scuba diving, it's somewhat unnatural to open your eyes under the waves and take a deep breath. The first couple of times I was so panicked I used up my air in half the time the others did. But I was so fascinated by the life underwater - the feathery sea pens, the colourful variety of sea stars, the opalescent nudibranchs, and the intelligence in the eye of the giant pacific octopus peering out from its den that I forgot to be afraid, and by the time we emerged from the water the fifth time, the only thing I wanted was to go back under.

3. Getting my Bachelor of Science.

For someone who technically failed math in grade 11 (my professor made me promise I wasn't interested in going into any science-related field and bumped me up to a pass - the irony!) walking across the stage and graduating on the Dean's list with a convocation award was a pretty big deal.

4. Hitting a personal sales record in my shop

I wasn't able to get a summer job this year since everything was so mixed-up from moving between Montreal to Vancouver to Toronto in four months, so I decided to focus on my little Etsy shop. By August, it had paid off - I had my best month ever with 22 sales. The bonus was that I was involved in the Saving Shelter Pets fundraiser during that month, so I was able to make a nice donation to them!

5. Publishing my first scientific article

In the summer of 2009 I had a research job working on gyrfalcon genetics. It took over a year to write up the research and edit the paper and get it through a peer-review committee, but in the fall I was able to say that I am a published scientist!

6. My first car

Partly because of my graduation and partly because I think she feared Davis's old Honda was going to break down on the highway, my mother very generously offered to co-finance a car for me. Davis did a lot of research and we eventually chose a Volkswagen Golf. I love everything about that little car, but especially that it's a gift from my mom.

7. Road trip across Canada

Because we bought the car in Vancouver, and we were about to move to Guelph, we had to drive across the country. It's the fifth time I've made the trip, and it never ceases to be less than breathtaking. From the dramatic Rockies to the sweeping prairies and the never-ending forests of Ontario, we spent seven days on the road and I can't wait to do it again next summer.

8. Wine tour in Niagara-on-the-Lake

I liked wine before this trip in February 2010, but I had never visited a winery and I really didn't know much about wine - much less the delicious icewine! We rented a vacation house with three other couples and spent the weekend touring wineries and tasting all sorts of ice wines and regular wines, with delicious pairings like salmon chowder (with a vidal icewine - amazing!), homemade marshmallows, icewine cupcakes, and apricot biscotti. I still don't know a lot about wine, but I do love it!

9. Moving to Ontario

After being accepted to vet school, we had to pack up all our stuff and find a new place to live. It was a lot of fun feathering our new nest as best as we could, but less fun driving back and forth in the rented moving van and then with the cats in the car. Our first stop in our new town? To the emergency vet to make sure Ariel wasn't going into cardiac arrest from freaking out in the car for six hours.

10. Putting my arm up a cow's butt

This was a big deal to me, and to the rest of my future since I'm interested in reproductive medicine... chances are I'll be palpating more than a few cows in my life!

The first time I got to do it was as part of an artificial insemination course during my last semester of undergrad - we learned to located the cervix, and pass the AI 'gun' containing the semen into the uterus to impregnate the cow.

More recently at vet school we got to do a wet lab as part of the repro club, where I palpated five or six different cows - I learned to feel the ovaries, and I was able to use the ultrasound probe (which I apparently had good technique on!) to look at all the different structures of the reproductive tract. It was probably the highlight of my first semester of vet school.

So, those are my top 10 moments of 2010! What are yours? If you have done a similar post or plan to, please leave me the link - I would love to read them!

And here's to an even better 2011!

A Fresh Start

2011-01-01T07:30:00.002-08:00

First of all, let me wish a happy new year to all my blogger friends, and anyone who may have wandered by!

I'm starting the new year with the goal of getting back into blogging, among other things. With one semester of veterinary school under my belt, I hope that I'm able to better manage my schedule now that I have a better sense of what to expect... in order to spend more time doing the things I enjoy, such as sharing my experiences with you!

As I mentioned in my last post, which was eons ago, the first semester of veterinary school was a challenge... not so much academically as most of it was review from undergrad, but getting used to such long days in the classroom, then having to come home and study... plus, Davis and I have been living on our own for the first time since before we started school, and keeping even a tiny townhouse in order adds to our day!

But hopefully all that will improve this year.

Although it had its ups and downs, my first semester at vet school was definitely... educational. We've so far covered a lot of the basics, such as simple genetics and biochemistry. We've covered the first level of cardiology, neurology, and gastroenterology by looking at the physiology, anatomy, and histology of these systems. I learned to take blood from a sheep, and do a physical exam on a dog.

Next semester will, I think, be even better, since we'll be covering immunology and reproduction (two of my favourite subjects) and also I'll be learning more large animal stuff, and more hands-on work with horses and cows.

Well, this has been a long post with a lot of text - which you are NOT supposed to do - so I'll leave it there for now.

But it's nice to be back.

So, no zoo pictures were forthcoming

2010-11-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

I lied. This blog might be on its way to defunct.

Vet school is... challenging. And not in the ways I thought it would be. The days are long, but I feel like there is a disproportionate amount of filler and not as much meat as I thought there would be. Yet I still get home at 6:00 each evening mentally and physically drained. This doesn't leave me with much energy to study, let alone eat and blog.

I can't/won't complain too much. The destination is what matters, and it hasn't all been discouraging. I blood sampled sheep this week, which was pretty awesome. So I am learning some things.

Maybe it's just that the transition period is lasting longer than I anticipated. Thanks for listening to my truncated whine and moan.

This is not a defunct blog

2010-11-02T04:29:00.000-07:00

It just belongs to a very tired, somewhat demotivated, overworked, anxious yet lethargic, and procrastinating vet student.

I have big plans though. Plans that involve photos of lions, and baby seahorses.

Seven random things about me

2010-10-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

(aka I feel massive amounts of guilt for not having updated recently but I don't have the time or brain power to write a real post)

1. I used to ride horses when I was a teenager, from when I was about 12 until I was 18. At school, we have a program where the first-year students have to socialize the teaching horses every day to provide environmental enrichment. I'd forgotten how much I missed the smell of horses. {Photo by Doug Wheller}

2. I am badly addicted to banana chocolate chip muffins. I've baked 24 in the past 24 hours and I am too ashamed to reveal how many are left.

3. I used to take classical voice lessons. I'm a soprano. I'd love to get back into it but.... time.

4. When I was 17 I went through a phase where I was obsessed with Russian culture. I'm not even a smidgen Russian. I read all the Tolstoy I could get my hands on. My angelfish were named Dmitry and Vladimir and my hamster was named Anastacia.

5. I have been spending a lot of my spare time at Hyperbole and a Half. Don't read it with a full bladder or you'll regret it.

6. I took up fencing this semester. I've never fenced before. My thighs will never forgive me.

7. My cat is sitting on my cardiology notes (which I am supposed to be studying) and generally being an adorable little pest.

Ratatouille and Riesling

2010-10-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

From Easy Mediterranean by Rachel Lawrence.

You will need:
1 eggplant
1 1/2 bell peppers (not green)
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed or pressed (I heart my Ikea garlic press)
1 tsp coriander
3 tbsp white wine
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp sugar
15 black olives
salt and pepper

1. Cut the eggplants into chunks less than 1 inch cubed. In a colander, sprinkle them liberally with salt and let them sweat for about an hour to get the bitterness out. Rinse and pat dry.

2. Cut the peppers into strips, removing the seeds and membranes.

3. In a large saucepan, flameproof casserole dish or in desperation a wok, heat the olive oil and fry the onions, garlic, and coriander seeds until soft but not brown. Add wine and heat to reduce.

4. Add bell peppers and eggplant and cook for 10 minutes until soft, but again not brown. Add tomatoes, sugar, olives and salt/pepper to taste and simmer for 25 minutes. Served two plus leftovers the next day. The book advises to serve with crusty bread - we had a rice blend. Yummy!

The morning commute

2010-09-27T06:45:00.001-07:00

I couldn't ask for a better one.

Living room: virtual vs. reality

2010-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

We just moved into this townhouse a month ago, and a couple of months before that I posted a photoshopped image of what I imagined my living room would look like. Now that we've more-or-less finished unpacking and decorating and setting all our stuff up, I thought it would be interesting to see how my imagination compared to the real thing.

This was my dream living room:

I think the overall look is similar, but there are some major differences, the most obvious being paint. Painting this rental unit would have been a giant pain in the butt because we'd have to pay a fee when we move out to get contractors to repaint the place, and no one seemed to be able to tell us how much the fee would be. So we kept all the walls the odd beigey colour they came in. It's actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

We ended up not being so hot on the Ikea loveseat we originally liked, and ended up getting a great deal for an actual sofa at Leon's. We also ditched the coffee table for one we already had, and I ended up using prints by Chelsea Groves at BirdNerd in the living room, not because I like them better than the ones in my mockup by Sarah Knight, but because I just ran out of wall space and I'd already ordered the BirdNerd prints.

We also swapped the papasan chair for an Ikea Poang, because the papasans turned out to be twice as much as I'd thought, and because I totally fell in love with this Poang cushion. How can you not??? There's acorns on it!

The TV and surround sound were Davis's contributions. Mine was the metal blossom branch from Pier 1 and the ridiculous amount of bird books.

Overall I am very happy with what we were able to do on a very tight budget. I wanted a living room that was bright, fresh, and happy looking, and I think we managed to accomplish that.

A day at Marineland

2010-09-20T14:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Davis and myself and another veterinary student had the amazing opportunity to spend a day shadowing one of the veterinarians at Marineland in Niagara Falls.

I'll preface this with a short blurb saying that I have worked with marine mammals before during a summer as a research assistant at the Vancouver Aquarium. I wanted to visit Marineland because I am interested in working with wildlife - though not necessarily in a zoo or aquarium, more likely with wild animals in a research setting.

I do have an ethical stance on keeping animals in captivity in zoos and aquaria that I won't delve too deeply into at the moment. Suffice it to say that I don't personally believe that zoos and aquaria are inherently cruel, and I believe that captive animals can serve a greater good for their species in the wild, however for me to be morally comfortable with it I have my own minimum requirements in terms of educational and conservation goals of the institute, as well as habitats for the animals. I have visited places that I felt met these standards, and others that really did not. Again, this is just my own beliefs, and in no way do these reflect those of Marineland or the vet college, nor are they a judgment or exoneration of these places.

Anyway. The veterinarian at Marineland was really excellent, and was kind enough to take us around on her day. We started off with breakfast for belugas, and were able twice in the day to feed them! We were each assigned a beluga and mine, serendipitously, was named Tofino. I was shown how to scratch them under the chin to signal the start of mealtime, then slide the fish into his pink and fleshy throat. Beluga skin is quite soft and yielding, and they peer at you with mischievous and intelligent blue eyes. We followed the trainer and vet as they checked over the orca, and were shown where you would take blood from - it's the tail fluke vein and (thank you fotolia) can be seen in this photo crossing the tail from the corners diagonally to the centre.

Between beluga feedings we went to visit the pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), walruses, and dolphins. The vet stopped to check out one of the dolphins who had been reluctant during the morning's show, but fortunately she was given a clean bill of health. These are bottlenose dolphins of the Black Sea subspecies, and enjoy getting a head scratch. Dolphin skin is a little firmer than beluga skin and more rubbery - apparently they are always shedding dead skin and love getting it rubbed off - like me and my Biore exfoliator, I guess.

In the afternoon we went to check on some bison that had been injured in fights. Bison are massive animals - males can weigh nearly a ton with huge shaggy heads and pointy horns. To treat them you have to get them in a chute much like you do with cattle - our squeeze looked much like this one and basically secures the animal so you can examine it. All the wounds we saw were pretty superficial and were treated with a thorough antiseptic wash, skin regenerating cream, and antibiotics.

After the bison, Davis decided he wanted to end our day with a ride on the Sky Screamer. So we voluntarily catapulted ourselves 450 feet in the air.

It gave us a nice view of the belugas.

Don't Google "adult slumber party"...

2010-09-17T08:34:00.002-07:00

When I was younger, I hated slumber parties. Actually, that's not quite accurate - I hated the morning after slumber parties, because I've always been fastidious about personal hygiene, so while the other girls were rolling out of bed with mussed hair and morning breath to have some Froot Loops, I'd be sneaking home so I could jump in the shower.

That really hasn't changed at all. It's a good thing I decided not to be a field biologist.

But, I've been invited to an awesome virtual slumber party (the best kind) hosted by Diana, who is One Crafty Fox! Whew, now no one will even notice when I surreptitiously get up to brush my teeth at 6 am. :)

I actually just bought these awesome pajama pants from Cows featuring, well, cows - and the words "udderly exhausted" everywhere! (you know how I feel about cows). So I would definitely pair those with a pretty lacy tank top (such as this one from Old Navy) and my favouritest pair of sea otter slippers (I got mine from the Vancouver Aquarium).

And what's a slumber party without Molly Ringwald, ice cream floats, and silly games?
Thanks for the invitation, Diana! Hop on over to see what everyone else will be wearing and bringing!

(oh, and I'm serious about the post title. I didn't even think about the implications - I just wanted some pretty photos of women in pajamas (entire pajamas) throwing pillows at each other or something, just to set the mood of the post. That's not what I found.)

Random August Photos

2010-09-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

... of fireworks in Montreal that I never had a chance to post due to moving, etc. I wish I'd had my SLR with me, but even with a point-and-shoot I think these turned out okay.

One week down, four years to go

2010-09-12T11:20:00.001-07:00

It seems as though it may be a couple of weeks before I get back to a regular blogging schedule - between moving and starting school, things have been hectic and I've come home every day emotionally exhausted.

That's not to say it hasn't been awesome, this first week of veterinary school! We had orientation for three days, getting tours of the facilities (which are amazing) and hearing from the different chairs and professors about what the next four years will be like. We finally started classes on Thursday - this year I'm taking veterinary biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, genetics, art of veterinary medicine, histology, health management, and clinical medicine.

By far the most outstanding thing has been the new Primary Health Centre which cost, I believe, something like $25 million paid for by the federal and provincial governments as well as Hill's pet food. It is jaw-dropping - I wanted to post photos but I don't want to infringe on my new school in the first week, so check out some of these sites:
http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/phc/
http://vetschooldesign.com/project_pages/pp_ug-PHCC.htm

I wish I had more photos of the interior, but there is a large rehabilitation area with a dry room (traffic cones, exercise balls, trampolines) as well as two pools with underwater treadmills so that dogs with mobility issues following surgery or something similar can regain some movement in a low-impact way. There's also an amazing doggy daycare/endowment room - basically aging dog owners can set aside an endowment fund for their pet if they think the pet will outlive them, and the animal can come live at the hospital until it has a foster home. But these are some fancy digs - a large indoor playroom with a giant skylight and a flushable turf floor surrounded by individual dog rooms with wrought-iron fence doors and a mailbox for personal effects; a cat room with individually ventilated spaces for litterboxes and a ton of cat trees.

From a learning perspective, I cannot wait to start in the hospital. The surgical suite is surrounded by glass walls, the x-ray room with leaded glass, and all the exam rooms are video and audio recorded so students can observe all the procedures that are going on. And us first-years get to start working in the hospital this year, shadowing fourth-year students and just generally assisting throughout the semester.

Although the reality of actually being a student veterinarian has not really sunk in yet, I am starting to get more and more excited about all the things I'll be able to learn and do over the next four years!

Not dead yet.

2010-09-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry if it seems as though I've dropped off the face of the planet. In fact, I've only relocated to Guelph Ontario.

Moving is never fun. Moving with cats is less so. I think I'd rather have a root canal.

Last Monday we drove from Montreal to Guelph (about 6 hours) with a rental truck and all our stuff which amounted to about 25 boxes and a dining table. That evening we went to Ikea, found about half of what we needed, ran around their warehouse trying to find stuff that was mis-stored, and got back to our place close to midnight.

Tuesday we drove back to Montreal.

Thursday we packed the cats into the Volkswagen and drove back to Guelph. Our cats don't travel well, even 15 minutes to the vet there's panting and howling and sometimes peeing in the carrier. So I did a lot of research, I nixed sedatives since it said it can augment emotions such as fear, I bought homeopathic remedies and synthetic comfort hormones and covered the backseat with drop sheets.

They howled and panted 6 hours to Guelph. In the last hour or so Ariel started to get really distressed, from thrashing around inside her cage to lying down and refusing to stand up. I pulled her out of her carrier but she wouldn't lift her head and her eyes started to get heavy. We stopped at our future vet college to take her to the emergency clinic, and as soon as we forked over $90 she stood up, shook herself off, and looked as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. At least she's all right.

Much Ikea furniture building has ensued.

The cats haven't quite gotten used to the place yet, there's a lot of skulking around belly-down and some hissing and growling. We separated them for a few days but are giving them the run of the house now. Hopefully in a couple of days things will start to get better.

Saving Shelter Pets fundraiser!

2010-08-17T18:20:00.001-07:00

Hello dear readers, I just wanted to let you know about a fundraiser that my Etsy shop and I are currently participating in. Until August 26, I'm donating 20% of my sales to Saving Shelter Pets, an organization that is focused on getting abandoned animals into no-kill shelters and promoting spay and neuter programs to help reduce the number of unwanted companion animals.

Please do visit all the lovely sellers who are participating in this fundraiser by clicking the banner, and if you find anything you like you can know that part of your money is going to make the lives of dogs and cats a little easier!

Spaying and neutering programs are critical to help keep numbers of unwanted cats and dogs down, in turn keeping them off the street or off a vet's table to be euthanized. Did you know that in a single year, an unspayed cat and her offspring can produce over 450 000 cats?? That's crazy! Spaying and neutering your pet can also help prevent unwanted behavioural problems as well as health issues such as certain cancers and uterine infections.

I've also been working on a ton of new pieces since returning to Montreal, which I will be listing in my shop soon, along with some holiday designs (shh, don't worry, Christmas is still a long way away)!

Chipmunk in the garden

2010-08-15T18:25:00.001-07:00

Hi.

Oh. Hi.

Teeny tiny chipmunk paws!!!

Arrival at destination: on schedule

2010-08-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

I have been negligent in posting since our return to Montreal. We got back here on Sunday after an uneventful overnight in Guelph to check out our new place, only to find out the campus housing office didn't have our key. *teeth grinding in frustration*

But it's all right.

Since we've been back we've been doing a lot of sleeping, a lot of relaxing, a lot of reading (I polished off two Michael Crichton novels since Sunday) and a minor amount of shopping for townhouse stuff, which has been a little frustrating as well.

For instance, where do you buy kitchen curtains? We can only find long ones, and it feels wasteful (and expensive) to buy them and chop off 3/4 of them. Our kitchen window is only 2 1/2 feet in height. At this point I imagine I'll end up sewing them, which I envision to be a complete disaster.

I'll keep you updated on that.

Trans-Canada, day five

2010-08-09T08:04:00.001-07:00

Driving through northern Ontario at night is an interesting experience. The towns are quite small and far apart, with dense boreal-deciduous type forest in between. At night, there is danger from moose and deer which can total your car and kill you if you run into them on the highway. Add to that limited cell reception and if you run out of gas or your car breaks down, you're pretty much all alone until a car or truck drives by possibly hours later.

Because of this, caravans tend to form along the highway, often consisting of one or two freight rig trucks and a small assemblage of cars. It reminded me of the little fishes who swim along with sharks to be protected from bigger fishes, with no one knowing who the others are or where their final destinations are, only that there is safety in numbers.

Trans-Canada, day four

2010-08-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

Trans-Canada - day three

2010-08-05T22:39:00.001-07:00

Trans-Canada, day two

2010-08-04T22:33:00.003-07:00

Trans-Canada, day one

2010-08-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Departures

2010-07-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, bright and early, we are packing up the Golf and heading east.

Classes don't start until September 6, but because all our stuff is still at Davis' parents' place in Montreal, we have to drive there and pack everything up and then turn around and drive back to Guelph, and then set up our townhouse and paint and unpack - and I want to be done by the first day of school!

This is my fifth time crossing the country. It's a wonderful drive, with soaring mountains and glacial rivers and rocky badlands and rolling prairies and wide open skies and dense forests and tumbling waterfalls and a highway that goes on and on.

It should take us about seven days to get to Montreal from Vancouver. Davis did it once in three, but we want to take our time, especially through the Rockies, to stop and look and take pictures and say goodbye to British Columbia, at least for a little while. We also want to stop in Drumheller Alberta to visit the Royal Tyrrell paleontology museum.

We will hopefully be staying in motels that have wireless internet, so I can hopefully post updates and tons of photos from the road. In the meantime... back to packing!

My birthday at the Vancouver Aquarium!

2010-07-29T09:26:00.001-07:00

This post took a few days to write... I've just been bone-tired lately. This is our last week in Vancouver, we're leaving for Montreal on Monday morning, so of course this is the week all our friends demanded to see us and do lunch and dinner and going-away parties and barbecues. But Davis is still working full-time, which means I've been volunteered to do all the packing and road-trip planning. So... bone-tired.

But, I did get this awesome birthday present from Davis before all the madness began... a trip to the Vancouver Aquarium and behind-the-scenes encounters with the sea otters and sea turtle!!! I am seriously contemplating specializing in aquatic medicine when I finish vet school, and sea otters are my favourite animal, so this was the most perfect gift.

We had an hour or so to look around the aquarium before our programs began. One of the things I really like is the local exhibits - apart from featuring polar regions and tropical regions, the aquarium has huge tanks with local fish and invertebrates like plumose anemones, bat stars, green sea urchins, and a giant pacific octopus!

During our sea turtle encounter, we learned all about the 7 different types of sea turtles, including the well-known leatherback, loggerhead, and hawksbill and well as the green sea turtle, which is the species that the aquarium has. Schoona was found off the coast of B.C. which is much further north than she should have been. She was emaciated and had an injury to a hind flipper, which ultimately made her unreleasable. She gets fed a variety of veggies that closely mimic the properties of seagrass, her natural food, and some small fish. We also learned about the hazard that sea turtles face, including habitat loss due to beachfront development, poaching, and ingesting plastic bags that look like jellyfish.

Me and Davis feeding Schoona

The sea otters were adorable! We fed them bits of surf clam which they held on their bellies while they chew. The piece of blue fabric in the tank comes from a car wash - in the wild sea otters will wind themselves up in pieces of kelp to prevent them from drifting off while they sleep... so these two will use the fabric for the same purpose.

After leaving the aquarium we took a nice long walk around Stanley Park, saw some cormorants and raccoons, and watched the sun set on English Bay. I'll be sad to leave my city on Monday.

Towhee Thursday

2010-07-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Chicken fajitas

2010-07-21T18:12:00.001-07:00

I had some tasty chicken fajitas at the Cactus Club after going to the Star Trek convention a few weeks ago, and have been meaning to try and duplicate them ever since. I found a great recipe for Louisiana-style blackened chicken, which turned out incredibly... mine differed somewhat from the original, so this is how I made it:

1 package of chicken breast, cut into strips
Olive oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin

Mix all spices in a bowl. Pour 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, and heat on medium. One by one, coat each strip in the spice mixture and put it right away in the frying pan. Turn over the strips until they're blackened on each side, and then remove to a baking dish. Once all the strips have been seared, bake at 350C for 20 minutes.

The fun thing about fajitas is that they are fun to eat - I set out the chicken along with grated cheddar, fried peppers and onions, black beans cooked with garlic and cumin, sour cream, the Pioneer Woman's pico de gallo, and some warm tortillas. People can then put whatever they like inside - I'm partial to beans and cheese, but not a fan of cooked peppers or onions. It was definitely a success - I put the leftovers in Davis's lunch wraps the next day and Davis, who is always on the verge of becoming a vegetarian, said they were the best wraps I'd ever made. The chicken came out flavourful and moist on the inside and crispy on the outside. This is definitely going on my repeat list!

Richmond Night Market

2010-07-19T16:40:00.001-07:00

One of the many things I love about Richmond - aside from Asian grocery stores, Japanese dollar stores, green tea cream puffs (and Blizzards!), fish n chips on the dock, daily eagles, and a plethora of farm markets - is the summer night market. All night every weekend during the summer, what seems like hundreds of booths set up in a huge lot in an industrial park on the river, drawing enormous crowds.

You can get pretty much anything at the night market - handmade incense burners shaped like houses from South America (the smoke comes out the 'chimney'), grasshopper hats, bootlegged Korean DVDs, exotic fruit, underwear both scandalous and matronly, live goldfish, and knockoff Gorillapods.

But the food is the best part - and the most packed with people. At times, trying to navigate through the food tents, we would just spend a few minutes standing still waiting for space or movement in the crowd. The variety of food is amazing...lamb skewers from the Middle East, marinated and barbequed octopus from Japan, airy pancake-like egg puffs from Hong Kong, pho noodle soup from Vietnam, dragon beard candy made from spun sugar and peanut paste from China, deep-fried Mars bars from Scotland, and a hundred other things that I can't even describe or remember. It was as common to see someone walking by sucking on an octopus tentacle as it was seeing someone drinking from a coconut. It was a little surreal.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend! Davis booked my birthday present for next weekend - I am pretty much rolling on the floor squeeing in excitement, but I think I will wait to share until I have photos. :)

twenty six

2010-07-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

I am one year older since the last time I wrote - which is a little strange, considering that was five days ago.

It was my birthday on Tuesday, and I am officially past my mid-twenties. We didn't do much on the day itself... but Davis did bring me home a nice raspberry cheesecake ice cream cake. He's planning something major for my birthday - I know what it is, but until I can post photos of it, I'm keeping you all in suspense. :)

Yesterday my dad took me out for dim sum and a visit to my grandparents for yet more cake. Dim sum, if you don't know, is like Cantonese brunch - served traditionally from carts pushed by waitresses, it consists of little dumplings or buns or similar items in bamboo steamers. It's a lot of fun to eat at a dim sum restaurant - the waitresses will lift the lids of all their pots and you can pick and choose what you want to try.

These are some of my favourite dishes... on the upper left is har gao, shrimp dumplings in a thin, translucent wrapper. Clockwise, cheong fun, which are thin rice noodle rolls with shrimp inside, although you can also get chicken or beef, with a sweet soy sauce poured on it. Below, siu mai, a pork and shrimp dumpling with roe sprinkled over top. At the bottom, char siu bao, barbecued pork buns and finally lo mai gai, which is sticky rice with some kind of filling, usually sausage, chicken, mushroom and egg, wrapped in a lotus leaf.

Also, thank you to the lovely Kelli at Bug Miscellany for passing on the Sunshine Award! Please do check out her blog full of pretty things and funny kitties:

I do need to choose some people to pass this on to, but I've been sitting out in the sun reading The Custodian of Paradise by Wayne Johnston... well, I was mostly in the shade but I'm still feeling a little heat-addled. Time for some ice cream.

Saturday afternoon book cave

2010-07-10T16:43:00.001-07:00

I love used bookstores, and I love Booktown in particular - it's everything a used bookstore should be. Overflowing shelves, dark basements, creaking chairs and two elderly men taking care of it all...

Unfortunately, they're closing at the end of the month, but in the meantime all their books are 50% off... which was like a siren's song to me, Davis, and my mom. We all headed down there today and came home with an embarrassing amount of books.

It's a familial thing, I think, possibly genetic... my grandfather had to custom-build his own bookshelves in order to accommodate his enormous collection, which my mother inherited to add to her considerable stock when my grandfather passed away last year. Davis's family must have the same genes... I'm a little worried for our future children, I think their collection will probably rival the national library.

Well, there are worse addictions.

Tree swallows

2010-07-07T22:17:00.002-07:00

Surprisingly, way more difficult to photograph than hummingbirds.

I think this proves what some people say is a key to great photography... take lots of pictures! I took almost 200 to get these 4 that I like. I can't imagine being into photography before digital cameras... I guess that was incentive to get good fast!