a peek inside the fishbowl

• I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People, huffingtonpost.com
• Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children, theatlantic.com
• The Insatiable and Unknowable Anthony Bourdain, nytimes.com
• ‘I Want to Hate …’, nytimes.com
• Act of love: The life and death of Donna Mae Hill, theglobeandmail.com

On the nightstand: The Quiet Game (Penn Cage Book 1)

In a recent post about our garden, I mentioned that squirrels have been digging into my containers. It’s really frustrating. It’s not like I’ve been stashing peanuts in there or anything. It’s not like those plants are EDIBLE, but they’re dug up and disturbed and don’t get a chance to grow. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Step one: research a natural squirrel repellant.

I read that they don’t like human smells so I grabbed a ball of dryer lint and liberally sprinkled it with cinnamon for an extra touch. Some people use ground chili peppers but I didn’t want to hurt the poor things.

I buried it in one of our containers. 24 hours later, I found this:

I totally understand if you’re not sure what you’re looking at there, but it’s my ball of dryer lint, dug up and discarded in a way that I was SURE TO SEE IT. Those squirrels sure know how to play with your mind, don’t they?

So, that didn’t work. Obv. I was still reluctant to pour cayenne pepper into my flower beds but I happened to be at the grocery store when I spotted these:

… they were on the “last chance” produce rack at my local Loblaws, which means they’re one step away from developing green fuzz. At 50% off, I grabbed two packages, thinking that I could bury one or two peppers in each planter. And so I did. (This is the scene before I buried the pepper, for scale.)

That photo was taken before I buried the peppers, and before the huge rainshower we had the other day. I’ve been patrolling the containers and so far so good. I am hoping that the smell of the peppers will send them into spasms of worry and will cause the little varmints to redirect their energies elsewhere.  If my plan fails, I’ll have no choice but to put them all in a blender (er, the peppers, not the squirrels) and for a DIY pepper spray kind of concoction. Stay tuned!

This topic MIGHT be far from everyone’s mind at the moment, especially with the provincial elections happening today, but I wanted to plant this seed in your brain before it was too late.

Once upon a time I was that parent, running around the night before camp begins, digging old sunscreens out from under the bathroom sink and panicking while I sorted lids of various sized lunch containers looking for the ones that didn’t have to be tied on with an elastic. ALSO, one year I opened a kid’s backpack only to find a sandwich that had been rotting in there for WEEKS. Then there was the time one kid announced her shoes were suddenly too small and couldn’t wear them anymore. Sigh.

Save yourself the anxiety attack and check all your supplies now, before your kid actually needs them for camp. I asked a local expert (read: my daughter the camp counselor!) and got her input for my latest post on the terra20 blog. Spoiler alert, she gave me some great feedback and I know it will be useful to parents out there! Take a look and let me know if you have anything to add to the list.