Convergence

On Saturday, ADW and I had plans to bring our parents together to meet. *deep breath* and you know what? It didn’t explode in my face like I was anticipating it might have. Instead, I was surprised in a whole other way… I’ve never been to the Double Tree Chinese Dynasty restaurant near the Airport. The reason for this get together can be found here.

I thought that this might be a nice quiet brunch/lunch that would be pretty uneventful and very normal. Well, it was far from it! we arrived and were surrounded by hoards of costume donning teenagers?? We accidently picked the weekend (and location) for the annual Anime North Convention. This event brings thousands of young people together to share and enjoy something that they have in common: Japanese Anime. I’m not a big fan, myself but I do understand the appeal of a fantasy world and the chance to meet strangers who have similar perspectives and likes as you do. The wonderful thing about these types of events is that it brings together people who are otherwise marginalized by the general population because this world appeals to certain groups of people and not the masses.

These types of events have become more popular in the recent years and the FanExpo of Toronto which started over a decade ago, continues to draw huge crowds of people together to share a common interest. It’s even grown to satellite out in Vancouver! I think it’s amazing that an idea or story can bring so many people together to share and enjoy the I felt it was very fitting that in the background of our own coming together of sorts was another type of coming together of people. I think that we get too wrapped up in the whole business of our own lives that we forget to recognize the importance of families, community and great ideas!

Cheers to the good, courage and amazing, in people!

Riding Out in Caledon with My Mom

I'd like to start this post off by wishing all those awesome moms out there, a great Mother's Day! As much as mine often drives me to drink, I (suppose) wouldn't have it any other way. Today, I took my mom (aka Captain Obvious, sometimes) north and west to the Caledon area. We started out the early day by heading out to Greyden Farms for their Mother's Day Ride. Students ride a regular lesson and mom's ride for free.

Unsurprisingly, the weather was as unpredictable and unpleasant as a mother's wrath! Believe me, I know first-hand. Hail, snow, rain, wind... It was as if spring decided to head back south. After warming up at the nearby Tim Hortons (along with pretty much everyone else), we headed to Greyden to tack-up and get suited up for the ride. I rode Nifty today and my mom was on Nikki.

We rode indoors with another mom and daughter. The young girl (like 12??) has been riding for 3-4 years and was riding cantering circles around the rest of us like it was nothing at all! And I get the rockiest canter ever. Everytime Nifty took a stride, I felt like I was going to be launched out of the saddle! Not as I was expecting but certainly a good step forward seeing as I didn't fall off and was able to control him enough to transition up and down--though let's not get ahead of ourselves and say I was doing so gracefully.

Nifty and me

Captain Obvious was riding at a slower pace with Nikki who seemed very content to just hang out and take her time. Good thing too! Because it was the first time the good Captain had been on a horse. Despite this lack of exposure, she did pretty well for herself and remained seated firmly on Nikki for the hour lesson.

Having a great time!

After lesson, we headed to Spirit Tree Estate Cidery for lunch. They're known for their wood burning oven pizza and we were really excited to have some but they opted for a special Mother's Day menu instead. But, they did feature some of their wonderful hard (and non) cider in cocktails for moms. My mom tried their orangey mimosa alongside her salmon quiche. AAAnd! We had an amazing fiddlehead puree soup! DELISH! Totally in-season, local and wonderful for you.

We rounded up our day by visiting the Cheltenham Badlands to see what all the fuss is about. Every time I've visited this site, I've always gotten this idea that aliens came by and had a party there but it's entirely man-made (by accident) due to poor farming practices.

Captain Obvious told me that she had never known that so much interesting sites and places were within an hour of the city. There's one place that I wish we had the time to go and see and that's Andrews Scenic Acres--another time! This is a great agri-business that brings families closer to the agriculture sector by making it fun.

It's always nice to get out of the city and explore the country--there's a lot to see and do! Driving out this way is incredibly satisfying because there are so many curves in the road and lots of wonderful scenery. Whatever you did with your mom, I hope it was as enjoyable as our day!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Detritus Catastrophe

This has been a long winter. It even snowed earlier this week and it's nearly spring. I got started on some gardening related activities indoors this year: I got worms! I've started vermicomposting and it was pretty easy at the get go. I would take some kitchen scraps and bury them into the bin and then close it again and go to bed. It was really low maintenance and they were going through the vegetation pretty quickly. In fact, it seemed like they were even multiplying quite quickly.

Captain Obvious was at first a bit put off with this new addition into the house and was not particularly helpful; especially when I told her how much my pound of worms cost. But, she soon realized that they would have to multiply and then I would have more and more offspring coming to age. Which meant that I would in essence obtain more and more worms and might be able to make a side business of this!

The other day, she gave me some broccoli that was kind of off and we both shrugged and added the food into the bin. A few days later, my brother came home and told her that things smelled a bit iffy. She didn't notice but told me to check anyways. The bin smelled pretty bad and I noticed that the worms were trying to crawl out and there was condensation on the bottom of the lid.

  

It was all out war with this rotting vegetation which has now ruined my worm bin! I spent the better part of the evening clearing out the old stuff (even tossing the castings I did get :( ) that was wet and/or dead and then creating a new bin with newspaper and a spray bottle. 

My next steps will have to be to monitor the worms that I do have left since I don't want them all to die and I really need to figure out how to do this right. I will get around to photographing my efforts but at this point, it feels pretty futile since I'm struggling to keep them alive. Seems like keeping non-mammilian pets is not something I'm excelling at.

What's black, white and blue all over?

Me.

I wasn't sexually harassed but something worse happened: I found out that Bonnie has been sold! I was planning on inquiring if I could part-board her for this spring, too. There's a barn-full of horses who are available and happy to move... but I assure you that each and every horse is an individual with their own quirks and personalities and there won't be another quite like her. Despite all this, I know that she helped me progress and that she'll now be helping someone else get the confidence they need, to ride.

And a smile just cracked across my face because my mom (aka Captain Obvious) is listening to Eye of the Tiger...? :| Somehow seems a fitting way to end this post...