Waiting to board...

...the ferry to Powell River and it's cold outside, -7 with a brisk wind...my face is frozen as I try to catch the waves pounding the shore.

Happy Birthday...

Mia did not want to wear her birthday hat but Seiko felt very stylish with it....

Genetically modified food...

Did you know that the PLU code on your fruit and veggies can tell you how they were grown? It's really very simple...

Click on the following link for the full story  http://www.plantea.com/genetically-modified-foods.htm


...and I also copied it below...

Talking Fruit How to de-code the information on those little stickers By Marion Owen, Fearless Weeder for PlanTea, Inc. and Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul While unpacking groceries, you pull out the bag of apples and decide to eat one then and there. You take it over to the sink, wash it off and -- with some effort -- peel off the little sticker. Pausing to look more closely at the sticker you wonder, "What do those numbers mean?" As much as we may dislike them, the stickers or labels attached to fruit do more than speed up the scanning process at the checkout stand. The PLU code, or price lookup number printed on the sticker, tells you how the fruit was grown. As reported by Maria Gallagher, in the June 26, 2002 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, by reading the PLU code, you can tell if the fruit was genetically modified, organically grown or produced with chemical fertilizers, fungicides, or herbicides. Here's how it works: For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU code on the sticker consists of four numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9. Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8. For example, A conventionally grown banana would be: 4011 An organic banana would be: 94011 A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) banana would be: 84011 The numeric system was developed by the Produce Electronic Identification Board, an affiliate of the Produce Marketing Association, a Newark, Delaware-based trade group for the produce industry. As of October 2001, the board had assigned more than 1,200 PLUs for individual produce items. Incidentally, the adhesive used to attach the stickers is considered food-grade, but the stickers themselves aren't edible. Do you REALLY know what's in your dinner? Today, 7 out of every 10 items on grocery stores shelves contain ingredients that have been genetically modified. In other words, scientists are using new technology to transfer the genes of one species to another, and these altered foods are in the market stream. And yet many scientists have concerns about the safety -- to people, wildlife and the environment -- of this process. That's why consumers in Asia and Europe are demanding that their food be free of genetically modified ingredients.

A gift of snow

It doesn't snow in my part of the world all that much...and if it does...the snow quickly turns to rain because most of the time the weather warms up when the clouds move in.

Not today... the snow fell, the clouds moved out, the sun moved in, the cold temps remained and the snow did not melt, well not all of it, a real gift.

The bathroom can wait...

I have a day off today and cleaning the bathroom is on the ...things to do... list. But guess what? After days of rain I woke to a clear and sunny day. The bathroom will still be there tomorrow dirt and all but my friends the sunshine might not be...so I'm playing hooky today and going for a long walk.

Vancouver Island snow covered peaks in the distance with Savary Island to the right.

Glorious!

Vancouver Skyline

Christmas Eve on the Vancouver Waterfront...beautiful!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Are you all ready for Christmas? I don't get too crazy so Christmas for me is a peaceful time, I'm not by nature a material girl and gift giving/receiving is not high on my priority list. My youngest son and his family live in Newfoundland so it seems crazy to buy cheap crap here, pay shipping, to send said cheap crap there. I just email him some money and let them go crazy in the malls. My oldest son and his family live just a block from us and we do exchange gifts but small, preferably hand made, and we do not spend alot of money.

This Christmas is a little different because my sister and her family have come for a visit from Australia so we are all getting together for Christmas dinner, that's our present to each other, at last count there will be 28 of us around the table...perfect!

Christmas Eve will be with my in-laws and that to will be big affair, not sure how many will be in attendance but it will likely be 20 to 25...it can't get any better!

So what am I doing back? Well not blogging is killing me. I have pictures, stories, musings, crafts, cooking ....to share and I can't keep it in any longer, so you will be hearing from me, not as often as I would like but I am back.

Margaret