We All Buy Stuff – Be Proactive About It

Editor’s Note: Happy Saturday! This morning Gayle Bates is here discussing the mass media and the role it plays in consumerism. Here she is:
Oh my, does the media ever affect the environment. We are exposed to more than 3000 messages every single day, and the vast majority of these messages are telling us to consume, [...]

The Cultural Value of Garbage

Editor’s Note: Good morning. Today we have Gayle Bates with us discussing cultural perspectives on things that are headed for the trash can and how different societies deal with it. Here she is:
How waste is a part of culture is a huge and fascinating topic. There are a number of cultural and traditional forms of development and sustainability across [...]

Think Green for Halloween

Editor’s note: Today we have the fantastic and energetic Gayle Bates and the debut of her green education column. She’ll be here once a month to talk shop about how families can walk more gently on the Earth by reducing, reusing and recycling. Tips and tricks abound! Here she is:
Oh Halloween and the thrill of [...]

Get Water Wise, Turn the Tap Off on Your Hydro Bill

Editor’s Note: I very much believe that it is up to us to make sure our children’s Earth is alive and well. We are the keepers of the future. If we live for today, that’s not good enough.
I could, and often consider, going on a mad tirade about it all. But, we all know [...]

Little Green Books

Hi. My name is Robin…and I’m a book-a-holic.
It doesn’t matter, really, what kind of book it is. I more than likely get an e-mail newsletter about it. I love to look through lists, check out what’s new – and I love kids books most of all at my current place in life.
The only problem is [...]

Summer NeighbourWood Walk No. 4 – Fanny Bay

Note to self: wine with the girlfriends after a long day on the trail is excellent fun at 9 p.m., not so excellent fun at 6 a.m.:)

A small group of super intrepid walkers made it out to our fourth NeighbourWood Walk yesterday, which took us to the far south end of the Valley and a [...]

Paradise Meadows

With the wet, cold, L-O-N-G Winters we’ve had the last couple of years, we can only hope that Summer lingers a bit longer than usual.
Personally, I hope the sunshine puts in some overtime this year so we can spend some long days wandering the forest of Strathcona Provincial Park taking in the absolute magic that [...]

Book Review – Running Through The Meadow

Since I finished reading Food Not Lawns by H.C. Flores I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the changing face of yards.
When I was a kid, a big yard, perfectly mowed and glistening green was the envy of every parent in the neighbourhood. But, it wasn’t the manicured lawn I loved.
I spent most of [...]

Books that Make Home Life Inspirational

I have a crush.
Not really on a person, but a lifestyle – a way of being that is both simple and magical. It pulls together all of the homemade goodness of our childhoods with the purposeful parenting partnerships of today’s generation of moms and dads.
It’s one of those things that I’ve been in denial about [...]

A Home Museum with Shadow Boxes

Zoology, Botany and Forestry aren’t exactly in the vocabulary of the under-5 set.
Yet, every time we hit the beach, the garden or the trail, science is following us around.
Each pine cone or shell tucked in a tiny pocket reveals something significant about a place we’ve explored. (Yes, OK, I am total science nerd.)
And I’m pretty [...]

The Science of Beans

As the tiny person gets older, her curiosity in the checking-out-how-it-works realm grows exponentially.
Catch her out on the trail and she’ll be the one digging through the dirt, picking up creatures to examine and – in yesterday’s case – experimenting with the whole theory of velocity when pitching her boots into the marsh.
At home she’s [...]

Discovering Living Books

When we first started talking about homeschooling our daughter, I started to read.
I researched nearly every homeschooling philosophy out there, scanned blogs, subscribed to newsletters, checked out and pored through a huge pile of books from the library and realized pretty darn quickly that we are an eclectic secular homeschooling family.
There are bits and pieces [...]

Build A Pollinator Garden

The first year we lived in our house, the bees were everywhere and our apple trees rewarded us with the biggest, juiciest apples I’ve ever had the pleasure of biting into.
Last year, for some reason, the bees came in much smaller waves, and our apples were nearly non-existent. It was sad and a bit baffling, [...]

Bee-Free Backyard BBQ

* Fact: Most flowering plants require pollination in order to reproduce.
* Fact: The relationship between plants and their pollinators dates back 140 million years. Dinosaurs, bees and butterflies once lived together.
* Fact: Pollinators bring the pollen from one plant to another and in return get food in the form of nectar that the plants [...]

The Birds and the Bees Pollinate Please

The rather frigid nature of our Spring this year may have you thinking twice about the season (although the shot above from local mom Krista gives me hope). But, even as we continue to scrape the occasional frost off of our windshields in the mornings, Mother Nature is waking her kiddos up from their long [...]

Spots to Watch Spring Migration

Today’s comment challenge: Where are some of your favourite wildlife watching spots on Vancouver Island and other places around the world?
Did you check out the great thread about food and your family yesterday? Thanks to everyone who jumped in. And the winner of a cool dino puzzle is…Stacey. Wahoo. Boynton books up for grabs today.

There [...]

Marine Habitats: A Natural Classroom

While I know that a January beach run may not be way up on your list when the skies are gray the temps are hovering around 0, this is the time of year (low tides) when a spectacular, mild, sunny day is the perfect time for exploring local shorelines. Getting out onto the beach with [...]