We put out a box for blue orchard mason bees on our balcony, along with some cocoons, but we hadn’t seen any action. The cocoons were all holed and empty, and we feared predators like wasps had gotten all the bees.
Today I was happy to see a slow-moving, but live, mason bee. Hope to see more as the days go by. We’ve set out lots of flowers on the balcony of various species.
I bought a BC Non-tidal Angling Licence and a Fisheries and Oceans Canada Tidal Waters Sport Fishing Licence today, both with salmon stamps. Such licences expire at the end of March, and renewing them around this time of year has become a rite of spring.
I am by no means an avid fisherman, but I enjoy hiking, camping, nature photography, streamkeeping and other outdoor activities, so I like having the proper licences if the opportunity arises to wet a line. I have a couple of inexpensive rods and reels, and a small tackle box with an assortment of enough lures and accessories to be suited to most fishing in western Canada.
I have a cousin who loves fishing, and I’m always learning when I go out with him.
I have store-bought canned fish in the cupboard and frozen fish in the freezer, so I figure if I’m eating fish I might as well kill some myself. It’s a reminder that cans and plastic wrap do not insulate us from nature, though nowadays lots of folks have no idea where their food comes from.
I attended a mason bee workshop sponsored by the City of Burnaby today. I’ve been to these before, but I always learn something new. Today’s speakers were bee expert Margriet Dogterom who runs BeeDiverse Products and bird box and bee box builder extraordinaire Joe Sadowski.
Margriet in action
Joe mentioned that he turned “83 years young” the other day!
When he saw me, he gave me a punch in the shoulder by way of greeting. I may have a bruise coming on 🙂
Organizer Melinda Yong of the City of Burnaby Parks Department
Time to enter the 21st century, Rona.
Promoting “disposable” items? Sheesh.
How about you start sourcing recyclable and compostable items?
I love celebrating New Year Japanese style.
We tape the entire Kohaku Red (Women) vs White (Men) NHK song extravaganza to our PVR, and watch it at our leisure over the course of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. It’s always a bit over the top, a tish maudlin, and with few actually gripping or moving performances, but it’s a fun way to stay somewhat in touch with contemporary Japanese music and culture.
The food is great. Sushi, sashimi, chawan mushi, and a couple of bottles of choice nihonshu (sake) shared with friends.
Ringing the temple bell at midnight at Tozenji in nearby Coquitlam is always fun, too. Out with the old, in with the new.
Returning home at a crazy hour and cooking and eating toshi koshi soba for long life and prosperity.
Here’s Yumi’s Japanese-Canadian fusion tableau in our foyer:
Being of Ukrainian descent, I spell борщ as borshch in English. Ain’t no “t” in Ukrainian borshch.
So what’s in my borshch?
It varies by what’s in the fridge, and I have no fixed recipes or quantities or proportions of ingredients. Whatever looks good. But I do make it on the filling side, almost like a vegetable stew, though I never add a thickener like flour.
I am proud of my hearty peasant borshch. It’s nearly a meal in itself, not like that pale pink, liquid-only stuff served at some hoity-toity Ukrainian events.
You know, the stuff that looks likes someone wiped an empty borshch pot with a wet dishrag, then wrung out the dishrag into a small bowl or cup, and served it to you : -).
Today’s borshch began with a tablespoon of beef bullion in a fairly large pot of water. A big onion, diced. Two large beets sliced and diced. A couple of chopped carrots. About a quarter of a small green cabbage, shredded.
Something that was a bit different this time was a handful of sliced shitake mushrooms, which add a distinctive, but not overpowering flavour.
And I usually add some sort of canned or fresh beans or peas to give the soup more heft. Today I tossed in a can of chick peas, rinsing them first.
It was very good, and healthy, too!
Someone destroyed a mason bee condo that my wife and I volunteer to take care of in Ron McLean Park in SE Burnaby, BC.
Mason bees are beneficial pollinators and are no threat to anyone.
This is so sad. I cannot comprehend such wanton destruction. There was even a sign that explained the program, and that mason bees are no threat to anyone.
I am including the “food” category in this blog, because without pollinators like mason bees, we would have little or no fruit and many vegetables.
I bought our first wild sockeye of the season at Save-On Foods in Burnaby, BC, today.
It was small, weighing in at 0.686 kg, or about 1.5 lbs. Of course that’s sans head and guts, but it still appeared undersized. All of the sockeye at Save-On looked small. Certainly way smaller than the pinks I fished on the Fraser last year.
Come to think of it, the fish looked not much bigger than a coho jack — a male coho salmon that returns to spawn a year early.
According to the DFO Tidal Waters Sport Fishing Guide, a sockeye “usually weighs between 2.2 kg and 3.1 kg, but can reach 6.3 kg.”
UPDATE: I’ve been looking into this online, Googling and reading academic papers, and have come to the conclusion that while small, this fish was likely not an outlier.
Most research and reporting on fish sizes and weights presents “average” ranges, and it’s hard to find information about what the usual minimum weights are. However I did find the following on the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada government website:
“Commercially caught sockeye range in weight from 2 to 9 pounds and are graded according to size: 2-4 lbs., 4-6 lbs., and 6-9 lbs.”
So I guess that 1.5-pound dressed fish was not an outlier.
For lunch today I made zaru soba (Japanese cold buckwheat noodles) with a garnish of chopped nori (seaweed), dipped in tsuyu. Also had a bowl of sliced English cucumbers, and added a couple of sardines (canned in water).
My calorie counter puts the grand total at 250 calories.
A nice cool lunch on a hot day.