Canadian Politics - A Lesson

As an American currently living outside of the U.S. in Canada, I find myself involved not only in what is happening in my own country, but the political goings on of Canada as well. For those of you in the U.S. who haven't been following Canada's politics lately, it has gotten pretty wild around here too. In fact, I guess you could say that Canada has it's own government crisis going on right now. In fact, the government is 'shut down' until the end of January. Yep, shut down; in the middle of an economic crisis; just a day or so before the unemployment figures came out that show Canada lost 71,000 jobs last month, mostly in Ontario.

Now, believe it or not, many people (including many Canadians) don't seem to have any idea of exactly how the Canadian government runs, or the rules that the government follows. We Americans may have a bit of an excuse (Not really. We should know how our neighbors govern.), but in the past week or so, I've learned that many Canadians don't know the rules and procedures of their own government, so I'm about to send you to a blog that explains it very well and very simply in plain English. The really funny thing is, I'm sending you not to a political or government site. I'm not even sending you to an educational site. I'm sending you to a knitting blog. Yes, a knitting blog!

The Yarn Harlot (AKA Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) is a Canadian blogger out of Ontario who is an accomplished knitter and blogger. She has also written several books on knitting. Believe it or not, this (in my view) has made her a good source for learning. Think of it this way. She has had to learn to write books teaching people to knit and showing them how to follow knitting patterns. That's not always easy to do. Knitting can be very complicated (frustrated knitter/crocheter here) so as an author she has learned to take a subject and explain it in easy terms that the average person can understand. She would make a great teacher, whatever the subject. So, head on over to the Yarn Harlot's blog using the two links below and enjoy your civics lesson on Canadian politics. I'll go ahead and mention that I think she is right on in her thoughts of what is happening in Canada right now.

What is Happening in Canada

And Update the Next Day

And for those of you who are interested in knitting and would like the main page of her blog, here is the link for that too. Enjoy!

The Yarn Harlot

Spring Fever

Spring Fever has hit us all hard this week. It's finally warm and beautiful outside so we have started doing some morning nature/dog walks to see what is up, flying around and back from the south. We've seen many song birds back. I think the ospreys are back, but we haven't been to the nesting sight yet. We've just seen what I think are them flying in the distance. We've also seen yellow finch, red-winged blackbirds, robins, sparrows (of course), starlings, a tit mouse, and many more.

The grass is turning green, the river has flooded (big time) and is starting to subside, and the tulips, crocuses and daffodils are flowering now. This is the best time of the year to be homeschooling because, unlike the classroom teacher, we can take out studies outdoors which I plan to do some next week. I think we need to see what the flooding did to the park It really flooded this year, right up to the baseball grandstand on the other side of the park. It should make a good nature assignment. We can discuss the good and bad effects of spring flooding on the land, etc. It should be a fun week.

Family Day

We have a new holiday here in Ontario...Family Day which we will celebrate tomorrow. All schools in the Province will be closed and many businesses will be also.

My family will be home tomorrow. We plan to take a quiet day and just enjoy the day. The weather probably won't be good enough to get out. We are having freezing rain right now, and it is supposed to change over to heavy rain later today and then snow flurries tonight and tomorrow, so inside we will probably be.

I like the idea of Family Day. Many business owners are fussing about it because it takes away a day of work and/or sales, but I think it is important to have some time together as a family, which can be hard in today's work and play society. I plan to enjoy the day. I hope you have a good day too.