- I’m horrible at drawing animals. While playing Pictionary I drew a whole scene for the word “jungle” and my brother-in-law thought my monkey was a koala, my jaguar was a raccoon, and my parrot was a meerkat.
- I can do 87 jumping jacks in 60 seconds. This results in sore shoulders for days afterwards.
- Mini chocolate chips create the perfect distribution of chocolate in a homemade muffin. If you’re looking for a healthy muffin, try this recipe. If you’re going for decadent, try this one.
- The wasps come out in August in Calgary. I’ve never seen so many as the Saturday we visited the Calgary Zoo with friends. I got stung twice, and I wasn’t even swatting at them or jumping up and down.
- Don’t wait two days to pop some antihistamines if your wasp bites are itchy. I’m told they work better when taken right away. I hope I don’t get the opportunity to test this assertion.
- Athabasca Falls (Jasper National Park, pictured above) and Marble Canyon (Kootenay National Park) are both stunning spots that don’t require much of a hike from the main road. Bonus: they’re much less crowded than Johnston Canyon (Banff National Park), which incidentally is also absolutely worth visiting for the one-kilometre catwalk through the canyon to the Lower Falls (plus optional longer hikes to the Upper Falls and Ink Pots).
- Don’t use bubble bath in a Jacuzzi. Enough said.
- The mascot of the town of Beiseker, Alberta is a skunk named Squirt. This is a trifle hard to believe, but you can’t deny it when you see the 13-foot tall statue in the local campground.
- Alberta Transportation operates seven ferries in the province. We crossed the Red Deer River on the Bleriot Ferry (and then turned around to cross again). It’s named after Andre Bleriot, brother of Louis Bleriot, the first person to fly across the English Channel (1909).
- It’s often best – in speaking and writing – to project confidence. I’m working on expunging phrases like “I’m thinking about,” “maybe,” “it seems like.”
What did you learn this past month?
I learned a handy way to include fresh herbs in biscuits and breads.
Just throw a handful of herbs together with some of the flour into the food processor and they get nicely (if rather finely – don’t do it too long) chopped. This worked great with those stiff rosemary needles and a bunch of sage leaves. Yummy cheddar-herb biscuits resulted!
I learned that King Darius (yes, THAT King Darius) dug a canal linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean millennia before the modern Suez Canal was dug by the French. Incidentally, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman responsible for the Suez Canal, subsequently lost his shirt, his reputation and his health when he tried and failed to duplicate his achievement in Panama.
Fascinating! Did you read a book about de Lesseps? I vaguely remember writing an essay about the Suez and Panama Canals in high school.
I took your advice and baked banana muffins with mini chocolate chips, this morning. I also sprinkled a few chocolate chips on the tops just before baking, and they look like Tim Horton’s muffins. 🙂
I hope they taste as good as they look!
Stephen’s comment on the Suez Canal reminded me of another amazing engineering feat – Hezekiah’s tunnel in the 8th century BC. Apparently they started to dig at the beginning and the end of this tunnel which was intended to bring water into the city in the event of a siege. It was 1700 feet long. I gather this is an astonishing endeavour even for today
Ancient engineering feats is sounding like a good topic for a blog post!