This is Ollie’s new grass bed. He loves it.
It’s a dishpan that I drilled full of holes in the base, added soil and some shade-loving grass seed. Add a little water, and a few days later (4 days), you see the results above.
I made it on a lark, hoping that Ollie would like it. Seems like he does. Heather showed it to him this afternoon, and after we came home from the dog park, Ollie crashed in it. Fun!
Caught a posting about this urban art experiment on blogto.com. Eight people strapped papier-mâché deer heads to their, well, heads and proceeded to walk around Kensington Market and the like.
The artistic statement behind this deer crossing was to “to address urban wildlife following the trail of development in cities.” Being someone who is interested in urban animals, I was interested to see that their are others thinking (and doing something) about this.
I do find it interesting that all the deers have antlers–making them male. All the same sex and less likely to ever be crossing together. Call it artistic licence, but having a variety of heads would have made the display a bit more true to the idea behind the display. That being said, in it’s intention to capture people’s attention and raise the issue of urban wildlife, I say good on ’em.
Got an empty envelope yesterday mailed from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I have no idea why…
It was mailed on June 30th and arrived on July 6th. My address is printed and taped to the envelope.
Witness the crappy web cam screen grab below (click for full size):
Here’s a photograph that I took while Heather, Dad Ollie and myself were away over the Canada Day long weekend. We were camping and kayaking on Georgian Bay, leaving from Byng Inlet.
I took a lot more photographs than this one, so have a look.
I got an email from Leon (a director at the camp where I worked for over five summers) with the following photo attached:
Make sure to look at the full sized photo. It’s a neat beetle. Seems as they have an infestation of the things. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I posted the photo to BugGuide, a neat website that I discovered today. Turns out that this beetle is a member of the Silphid family, known by the more colourful name, the Carrion Beetles.
As Eric Eaton suggests at BugGuide, it is a male Necrodes surinamensis otherwise known as a Red-lined Carrion Beetle, so-called because of that red (though I would have called it orange) line along the back of it’s elytra (back “wings”).
Seems as though there are dead things at camp!
As you can see from the photo above, Ollie passed his puppy obedience class. We’re all so proud of him (too bad he can’t read yet).
If you follow the photo above, Dad’s got a nice set of pictures from the whole class.
Originally uploaded by corbeau_du_nord.
Ollie snuck a second round on me and I had to unwrap the sealed poo bag. Never a good thing.
I went to Woofstock with Heather, Ollie, Dad and Sue today. It would be an understatement to say it was an experience. Ollie had a blast-so many dogs to meet. It also seemed like Heather really enjoyed herself. Highlight of the day? Doggie Ice Cream. Who knows what the stuff is made of, but the sight of a dozen dogs enjoying the creme glace is too much to handle.
Click on the image above to see all the photos I took of the event.
Had a great weekend at Camp. Ollie went for his first swim and canoe ride! Have a look at the rest of the photos.
Originally uploaded by Gavatron.
