The Sound Around You

On the way to my writers' group Monday night, I heard an interview on CBC's As It Happens about a project at the University of Salford in Manchester called Sound Around You

The idea is to collect soundscapes from all over the world in the hope that what we hear become as important as what we see when planning living places. The site is fascinating. You can select a location from a map, or hit 'shuffle' and see where it takes you. Along with the sound, the site provides you with a panoramic view of the approximate location; also, the contributor has a small comment about why they sent the sound in. Yesterday, I listened to a train coming into a station in Paris, an accordion player in Russia, a snippet of a pub in northern England and the wind blowing through grasses in Norway. As of the interview, Canada was sadly under-represented (I think there were four). Yesterday morning, a grey, cool November day, I took my trusty laptop outside and recorded the noise outside of my house, and sent it in. You know I think the world needs more backyard chickens:

Why not take part? The link above tells you how; share your recording here, too, or post in on my Facebook page here

I can't wait to hear from you.

Keeping Up With What's Her Name

It's true. I'll confess. I am a person capable of sub-human bouts of jealousy.

I nearly swooned when I saw this : Here's the original post

When I saw this on a friend's Pinterest board, I nearly died. I have been wanting a greenhouse for ages, and have spent many hours wondering how long my children could go without shoes and boots in order to raise the funds for a greenhouse of my own. The sight of an underused greenhouse in a neighbours' yard (or worse! filled with junk!) makes me weep.

With this post, I was saved! I spent a long time scouring the neighbourhood for discarded storm windows. It just figured: I saw them all the time around here, but the very time I wanted to actually have some, there were none to be found. Thankfully, an older home down the road sold in the fall, and the new owners were putting in new WINDOWS. I loaded up the Volvo with their old windows and brought them home.

I'm not sure my husband was as happy as I was.

I gamefully got to work. I set the windows up the way I wanted them and used whatever I found in the garage to screw them together. I soon had a 4X8 foot greenhouse, miraculously the same size of my garden beds... give or take. Then, I got stumped with the roof, ran out of screws and also spare timber.

Have I also confessed that while I'm a great starter, I'm a horrible finisher?

So there it sat until today, when my husband came out to where I was digging up gladiolus bulbs and asked me to help him get something out of the garage. He'd finally had enough: he'd finished the greenhouse, added some wire for strength, and it was ready to be moved out into the garden.

This will be moved as the crops are rotated. It will also keep the chickens out of the seedlings.

Admittedly, it's not so grand or beautiful as the one above, but it's mobile, mine, and it means I can go out and buy boots for my boys.