Are you a cat or dog person?

The answer is very obvious in this post which is a total PHOTO blog of my two dogs and a few others!

 Nanuq  is a husky-lab cross now about 7 years old, originally rescued from one of my work stints in the arctic. Nanuq is Inuktituk for “ polar bear “   and she has always been my baby polar bear! 

Dysis, lovely Siberian Husky, came to us as an older rescue before Nanuq

These two were always companions  both for romps in the snow,  lazying in my office or the back garden, on trips to Nunavut or with fresh hair cuts and neck scarves.

 Dysis left us all, this past January 2014 at age somewhere between 10 and 14 years.

Nanuq still does vigils on the back porch and now alone fights off the magpies, who try and steel her food. 

Maggie, a young lab and great hunting dog lives with her family just outside of Calgary and forever will chase the ball. 

Ilala, a young Rhodesian ridgeback, belongs to my daughter. Amelia and her husband Sean in Vancouver  and even attends church! 

Kittens and cats have only been temporary residents of my primarily dog household

BUT

Our relationship with cats evidently began 12,000 years ago at Gobekli Tepe,

the oldest known stone religious building, a Stonehenge built before metals. Here is a ferocious lion, on a small pillar

Source: http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/1236649

Recently during the SOCHI games, I marveled at the cats of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum,…

Check out this lovely video!

http://youtu.be/LaTU93l4dmA

Some seventy former street cats live at the Hermitage, where, they have their very own underground cat infirmary and three full-time volunteers to care for them.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/09/russias-museum-cats.html

The Minister's Cat game was one of those games, which we often played on long car trips to entertain children and ourselves and produce abit of creativity with the English language....

1. The Minister's cat was an adventurous cat she ate avocados atrociously ...
2. The Minister's cat is a busy cat she beats beets.
3. The Minister's cat is a clergy cat who creeps churches cautiously.

Take the alphabet and add an adverb, verb, noun and adjective to the sentence all-starting with the same letter of your turn. Often some hilarious results or re-use of certain words like x-ray and zapped on the more difficult letters.

Do you remember such games on longer summer trips? I–Spy. Counting out of area license plates?

In these days of connection to cell phones, I-pads and other electronic devices I wonder what has been lost in family communication?

Are you a cat or dog person?

The coming of the blogs. Someone, somewhere created the very first Web log…The term was created to reflect the process of “logging the web”.  Would be interested dear readers, what triggered you to start blogging?

Xanga the original provider of this site was started in 1999. In 2004, both my daughter Amelia and I created blogs on Xanga… my blogging here has recorded not only family journeys, but my own work journey to the Canadian arctic and back!

Indeed, my Xanga blog,became a friend as did the community here.

Things changed in mid-2013 with the launch of Xanga-2 and move to WordPress. many bloggers moved on or closed accounts. My subscription runs out in July 2014.

Must confess that only return occassionally and log daily into my Facebook account. Formatting since the change does not seem to have the same flexibility but still enjoy a few of the " OLD FAITHFULS ". such as slmret.xanga.com and fauquet.xanga.com/   Take some time to browse their entries.

My daughter Amelia charted her travels to Africa and adventures at university WVU as a Canadian on the women's rowing team in http://that-canadian-rower.xanga.com/….and  currently now marrried  from Vancouver as an inner city RN and tri-athlete blogs  always a good read http://dreamingovertheocean.blogspot.ca/

This is one of my favorite shots from the Pentiction Challenge when a stolen kiss from her husband Sean.

Start beginning April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.  It doesn't even have to be a word--it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself.  The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

See more at:

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/what-is-blogging-from-to-z.html#sthash.RhoGexF2.dpuf

 A is for apple and so I begin the first day of my month of blogging contest…working my way through the alphabet!

Apple Blossom time is right around the corner, I promise!

That is despite Alberta is still covered in snow and below freezing temperatures.

Apples play a major part of my summer activities, not only the lovely blossoms in my yard but picking and harvesting unwanted apples in the city.

As a board member of a local fruit rescue association OFRE.

.our motto is Finding  the Hidden fruit in our City,

local apples are the most common fruit.

http://operationfruitrescue.org/

We will send volunteer pickers to private residences to pick fruit upon request of the home owner, share it with the volunteers, home owner, charitable organizations like the Food Bank & Salvation Army and also organize canning & preserving events during the fall harvest season.

MUCH to look forward as the weather warms!

Cold but beautiful in Alberta country...we are warming up now by end of week but last Saturday when out on my bird count it was -30 oC or -22 degree Fahrenheit!

Initial meeting at the Fallis Store at 0900 to coordinate the count for our zone. A very cold day of -25oC to -30oC so needed to be prepared. Mostly driving, about 2 hours, but there were some areas of bush/lakeshore that can be covered on foot or snowshoes given the amount of snow we have had this winter. However a 25 minute walk with the dog was more than enough. We saw a pileated woodpecker, hordes of black capped chickadees, 3-5 bluejays, and odd magpie and raven.

In one day last month, October 25,  we got our first snow that stayed. Starting from drizzling rain to sleet and finally overnight a blanket of white. Finishing my outdoor task ended up planting bulbs: tulips. daffodils and garlic, wet and cold but done!!!

This past weekend was visiting family. actually a memorial due to an unexpected death , my brother in law Allin died tragically in an accident in the mountains last week.  doing what he was absolutely passionate about. Sadly, an avid hunter and outdoorsman,  he died of hypothermia during an expedition west of Nordegg on Tuesday, November 5, 2013...The family on both sides, gathered from all over North America.

The following photo

are from their farm,west of Calgary. looking towards the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

One is reminded of both the beauty and the power of nature.

Just wanted to wish all my Canadian blogging friends a Happy Thanksgiving! will catch you up soon on some of my fall activities, but in interim, here is lovely autumn bouquet with some of the canned spicy tomato and pepper sauce,

and some of the excess from my little back yard spots!