a peek inside the fishbowl

Ottawa is a great city for kids and families, and (if you haven’t already noticed) it’s one of my favourite things to write about. This is the kickoff post to what I’m calling “Ottawa Attractions,” a series of “discover your city” kinda posts about some great summertime places and activities for families in the Ottawa area.

The four of us will be exploring different corners of the city and reporting back on what we found there. I will do my best to highlight free stuff you can do with kids in Ottawa too (because everyone likes free, right?) and I hope that this series will help moms and dads discover a few of the things that Ottawa has to offer, whether you live here in Ottawa or not. :)

I think I’m going to need to divide this first post into two parts because I have too much to say. (Ha. What else is new??)

Awhile back I was approached by the kind folks at the Ottawa Marriott. They wondered if I would like to bring my family to stay at the hotel for a night or two and check out the scene. I was happy to do so for a couple of reasons. A lot of people ask me to recommend a hotel in Ottawa… either (a) parents of families who are coming from out of town or (b) people who live in Ottawa and are looking for a good recommendation on behalf of visiting relatives.

I am glad to be able to give a knowledgeable recommendation now! Also: It is nice to get a little vacation from your life, even if it’s in your own city. So Ottawa people, keep that in mind while you’re reading this. We only stayed one night and I felt like I’d had a mini holiday… !

Cue angels:

Another reason I was excited to stay at the Marriott: its proximity downtown. It is right on Sparks Street, an easy couple minutes walk from Parliament Hill. Perfection.

Transparency alert: before I go any further I would like to state for the record that the Ottawa Marriott covered the costs of our stay, WIFI, on site parking, and breakfast for four, but as always, opinions are my own.

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So the City of Ottawa has increased the number and type of plastics we can throw in our blue bins. Hooray! Garbage reduction excites me. What can I say, I am an eco nerd!

A long time ago I posted about composting and the green bin. I would like to take a moment to make some additional observations now that we’ve been using it for awhile:

• Good lord, do we ever create a lot of kitchen waste; mouldy stuff that’s forgotten in the back of the fridge, freezer-burned fish, uneaten sandwiches and crusts, etc. It’s unbelievable. And kinda sad.
• After dinner we scrape our dishes right into the kitchen bin (the little brother of the Green Bin).
• The Green Bin needs to be emptied almost every night, not because it stinks necessarily, but because IT IS FULL.
• I have not been brave enough to put things like shrimp shells in our bin yet. Those get tossed in the regular garbage. Some people wrap them in newspaper and freeze them, and put them in the green bin the morning of pick-up. I am not this organized.
• That being said, I’m tired of people complaining about Green Bin Stink. IT IS A TRASH CAN. YOUR TRASH WILL SMELL.
• To cut down on smells and absorb some of the moisture you will want to cover food with dead leaves, newspaper, or plant matter. This sounds like a bigger deal than it really is. Lately whenever I dump some compost in the green bin I have been doing a quick weed of the front garden and throwing that stuff in there on top. It’s so satisfying.
• For those who were concerned about the compost freezing to the side in the winter, you needn’t have worried.
• Some of the things we’ve been putting in the bin include toilet paper tubes, pencil shavings, hair from hair brushes, dryer lint, paper towels and kleenex, flour and breadcrumbs (tainted from having rolled chicken in it) mouldy bread (which cannot be fed to the birds), the gunk that has collected at the bottom of the kitchen sink after the dishes are washed, lettuce soaked with salad dressing (a backyard composting no-no) and much much more. It’s amazing how much this baby can take.

Mark, who is responsible for the collection and taking-out of said garbage, has reported that our output has been reduced by HALF.

No squirrels or raccoons have discovered our bin. We are lucky on that front I guess. I’ve taken preventative measures so it doesn’t become a maggot incubator. How? I washed it. And it wasn’t a big deal. It probably took me 15 minutes. I used a couple of buckets of water, a few drops of dish soap, and an old mop. The water got dumped in the clover patch (see previous post about our clovered lawn) and everyone is happy. Including me.

Here’s a photo of the before. (I used someone’s hockey stick to loosen the mucky parts at the bottom. Shh.)

And here’s what it looked like after. (It’s hard to get into the corners, and there’s no way I’m sticking my head down in there):

Not perfect, but not bad either.

How are you doing with your green bin? Loving it or hating it?

I like this motto: Always believe that something wonderful is going to happen.

This holds especially true for the family hike.

We went on a post-dinner hike around Shirley’s Bay the other night. We left the dinner dishes in situ, grabbed the dog, the bug spray, and a couple of water bottles and flew out of the house faster than you can say HEY THERE ARE STILL DIRTY DISHES ON THE TABLE.

Piper enjoyed herself immensely, but honestly, I think she found us to be a bit of a burden.

It was rather uneventful terrain. We’re used to more exiting stuff. At one point one of our children voiced her disinterest. It came out as a sigh, and a quiet this walk is boring. That’s when I reminded her… you never know what you’re going to see on a walk like this one.

We’ve seen some pretty spectacular things, right here in urban Ottawa. I can’t even remember them all. Let’s see… we’ve seen a porcupine sleeping in a tree, mysterious poop (spoiler alert, it turned out to be porcupine poop), birds of all kinds, deer, a coyote (!), “ancient” ruins, dead cars, beavered trees, frogs and fairy rings and fairy steps (a.k.a FUNGII), cool bugs of all kinds … and much much more.

Trail #10 at Shirley’s Bay is an easy 4km loop which meets the shore of the Ottawa River. Good shoes are a must because part of the trail is lined with very chunky gravel and other parts are muddy and swampish, so you’d be smart to prepare for whatever comes with this. (That would be bugs and dirt, but nothing that could kill ya.) Next time I would wear longer socks in case of mosquitoes and poison ivy. Note to self: invest in some lightweight hiking boots.

Also, it occurred to us that it might make a very good mountain biking trail.

Eventually you’ll reach a tiny little “beach” that peeks out onto the water, where the the stones are worn smooth by water and time.

The terrain along this whole trail is totally flat. There are no hills to speak of. There will be little glances of water here and there, which is gratifying:

Near the end of the loop we heard a big rustle in the trees somewhere nearby. I saw a large black shadow fly through the air. Was it a raven?

I only had a minute to switch lenses on my camera.

Here’s a fuzzy crop:

We all stood there, agog.

“IT’S A TURKEY!” It was a biggie. A Christmas special.
Sarah was incredulous. “I DIDN’T KNOW TURKEYS COULD FLY?!”

And before we knew it, Tom Turkey had flown away (albeit not very gracefully) and we were left standing there.

See? I said, feeling a teeny bit smug because Tom had just proved my point. You never know what you’re going to find.

Want to try this trail? Refer to the NCC’s PDF map of the Greenbelt. Park at P2 and look for Trail #10.