Deer hunting season begins - slow down

A scary story:
Deer hunt proposed for city
The Chronicle Journal
The number of deer in and around the city has led to problems such as increasing deer-vehicle collisions. The limited hunt is being proposed after the city ...

I would not want anyone hunting near my house. It is too dangerous, with our cats, and wildlife. Many do not understand, in the adrenaline of the hunt, how far a bullet can go.
I'd prefer some pros called in, the experts who write about safe hunting practices, and caution potentially dangerous citiots in rural place, like Muskoka Outdoors, or The Outdoors Guy, to cull the herd.
I've had friends with near-misses, and a bullet in their eavestrough.

Drive safely on our roads - somebody out there loves you

She was munching beside the highway

The deer are on the move. While they are busy into their rutting (mating) season, just to add to the chaos, hunting season begins in many places this week. Not yet gathered into their winter yards, where they huddle for warmth, they are roaming and skittish. There have been reports of incidents caused by deer on the highways and biways.

Foggy fall morning

It is no wonder, with the speed that some travel.

This morning brought a lovely touch of fog into the mix. P.S. For those who continue to use my intellectual property: All of these photos are mine,

© JENNIFER JILKS

Deer hunting season begins

Clever signage

There are tricks to figuring out if it is open season in your Ontario area. Not being a hunter, I simply wanted to know if our neighbour's buddies were on the warpath. He has 35 acres, and allows someone to hunt on his land, adjacent to ours. After a couple of calls to the OPP, we have determined that he lets them have a blind, and leave a canoe to get onto the Tay River. Unfortunately, neither of us know the edges of our properties. I have heard them duck hunting at 5:00 a.m. during that season. It was scary. Someone was there prior to deer season last year. It sounded terribly close.

The process?
Firstly, one visits the WMU maps to find your Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) on the map, e.g., WMU 67 (PDF).

Whitetail bound

Then you go to the Hunting Regulations Summary page [e.g., Deer (PDF)], to find the individual animal that they are hunting. Finally, I found that in our area, eastern Ontario, deer season is Nov. 7 - 20.

Eastern Ontario established a Deer Advisory Committee (EODAC), according to outdoors guy. The reason being that MNR data shows that deer densities in Eastern Ontario is at an average of 2.5 deer/KM2 in 2009 following two killing winters.

When deer populations were at their peak in eastern Ontario, deer densities got as high as 12 to 14 deer/km² in suitable habitat. The 2009 data shows that deer densities have declined to an average of 2.5 deer/km² in the WMU’s in eastern Ontario. The target population is from 5 to 8 deer/km². This target comes from the province’s Cervid Ecological Framework [PDF], a provincial policy document that guides the wildlife management in Ontario.

Jeff Morrison, of Outdoors Guy, told me that based on his experience, Eastern Ontario has seen a 25- 50% decrease in deer population over the past 3 - 4 years.

When driving keep your eyes moving and ensure you check the roadway ahead and ditches on either side as you travel. Remember to slow down, you can only see what your headlights illuminate and if you see a deer near the roadway there is probably another one nearby.
Be prepared to act because domestic and wild animals may be dazzled by headlights and freeze on either the road or ditch as your vehicle approaches, then suddenly bolt in an unexpected direction.
Motorists who collide with a wild animal must report the collision to the police if the damage is in excess of $1000. Anyone wishing to keep the animal that has been killed as a result of a collision must contact their local Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) office to obtain a Certificate of Reporting.

 Cervid

Spring formation of antlers on buck
-note his wound

-a term used to describe members of the cervidae family; a ruminant, the male having antlers.  The doe cares for the fawns alone. Male and female are segregated into gender-based groups. The antlers are shed in January or February in this part of S.E. Ontario.

Ontario has four wild cervid species: moose, white-tailed deer, woodland caribou and American elk.  Cervids are a highly valued and unique species group of Ontario's wildlife heritage.  They are considered by many as symbols of wilderness and are an important component of Ontario’s biodiversity. I posted previously about a memorial: a moose collision that took the life of an OPP member.

They are also very dangerous on our roads, if drivers do not drive proactively. Even deer weigh in at 100 - 300 lbs., never mind moose, and cause a great amount of damage to person and property.

Algonquin moose -from my photoshoot

Read my guest post: one victim had 50 - 75 pieces of glass shards taken from her face in the ER after a deer collision.

Watch the ditches, they often leap at intervals from the ditch.
Use your high beams at night; slow down. Expect the unexpected.

Elk tracks from our Algonquin Park trip
-just HUGE!

It could be bear, or wild turkey, too.

My Gravenhurst bear sighting

Yo, woman. What you want?

Turkeys are HUGE, too.

Full-day kindergarten in Ontario

Music and fun

I want to weigh-in on this one. Retired, you may think I have no reason. But I do. I see what my grandchildren are doing at school and I shudder. I see where my tax dollars are going and I shudder.
I see faux activity-based curriculum and I shudder.
I have written in my blog: *Thank Your Teachers, several posts about full-day kindergarten.

The Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB.ca), where I taught for 25 years or so, has been debating, with parental input, on how to manage full-day kindergarten (ages 4/5) with parents who need day care. The provincial government has been spending a lot on this initiative.

I am really opinionated about this and totally against it.

dress-up

You see they are holding info sessions, bringing in outside 'experts' to celebrate an integrated system, whereby the school board will be the day care provider, rather than having an outside provider chosen by parents, or third party providers in the school. Is it day care or is it pre-school?

Having taught Junior Kindergarten and all the grades up to gr. 8, including many split-grade and special education classes, I do not believe that keeping a child in a school-based institution from age 4, all day, up to grade 12 is a good idea. Too much politics in education these days. Politically driven agendas and decisions. The costs to taxpayers for full-day kindergarten are incredible, too.  Trustees were also expected to vote on adding five more full-day kindergarten classes, at a cost of $750,000.

Reading buddies: gr. 4 read to K
This is great pre-reading interest-based learning.

As a teacher, the continual ringing of the bells, the constant interruptions by the PA system, the fire drills, lockdown practices, fundraising, inflexible routines, full-school assemblies, not to mention the student-teacher ratio (1:20 or 25) in many classrooms isn't right for many a youngster. I've seen them. Especially the kids who are active, and need truly play-based activities.

Parents have choices, from nursery school to non-profit, for-profit day care, or home day care. There is a huge myth that children in school will learn more. Research does not support this notion. It supports play-based learning.

Worksheets
Children are being coerced to do homework/worksheets in JK, when many are unable to hold a pencil properly or well. Pre-reading and pre-writing skills do NOT look like this! Fun for some, but not a prerequisite to writing and small-muscle coordination.

This is art: doing a free drawing.
This is representation of an experience.
This is pre-reading: having a scribe to write your story.

Pre-school 'worksheets'
this is NOT learning

The teacher doesn't have time to watch children develop proper techniques, not with a 1:25 teacher/student ratio. There are many who hold a pencil awkwardly, or haven't developed the fine muscle skills, or eye-hand co-ordination to trace the letter 'T', or to use scissors. They simply are not ready.

Play-based Learning
I have a degree in Early Childhood Education. I know what Play-based Learning is all about. It is NOT these wrote exercises. Children need to be drawing freely, drawing what they want, when they want. The whole premise of play-based learning is choosing the activity: the dress-up centre, puzzles, books, art activity, not teacher-directed activities. Teachers haven't mastered this in the education system in many circumstances.

open-ended nature studies
-a teachable moment possible in day care

Too many teachers pre-cut figures, in order to allow the child to do 'cut and paste' well before a time when they are able. Early on kids learn that their art doesn't quite look like another's. Because these are cookie cutter activities. Everyone's art looks the same at the end of the activity. This is NOT play-based learning. Gender issues alone indicate that learning is achieved on an individual basis.

Play-based learning means integrating the Key Experiences in early childhood: active learning, exploration, using language (receptive and expressive), classification, seriation, numeracy, literacy, spatial relations, temporal relations, representation of experiences and ideas.

Research-based Decision-Making
The Kate Hammer, at the Globe writes:
Ontario’s program is the most ambitious because it includes four-year-olds as well as five-year-olds, and aims to bring before- and after-school care as well as year-round child care to every school.
But it will be years before there’s conclusive evidence as to whether the investment of billions of dollars by the Ontario Liberal government in full-day kindergarten is justified.

Sand play!

Hammer tweets a comment by Annie Kidder (People For Education), Annie asks- Have we moved from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making in education?#p4e2011
Yes, we have. But it isn't new. We do more research in education and we ignore much of it, as well. The pendulum ever swings in curriculum design.

normal drawing development
begins with the mandala
a universal trait
open-ended, free drawing

In fact, there is little proof that early forcing of reading and writing works for many children. Children, in a play-based learning program, ought to be developing at their own speed. Gender research shows that boys read and write later. The proof is in long-term testing, which our politicians little understand.

Education vs. play-based learning
We know how the 1965 Head Start programs in the US failed to show an impact in many circumstances. These programs work for high-risk kids, ESL kids, kids without the basic background knowledge, and pre-literacy knowledge and education of the average family. But Head Start is a far cry from full-day kindergarten.

Program Costs
The cost of day care to working class families can be exorbitant. OCDSB is suggesting $26/day for before and after-school care. What happens in summer, when kids should and can hang out, away from an institution? We need intimate, caring caregiver sites, where children are treated like children, not students. This is where the best learning takes place. I've seen it in day care, home day care and early learning centres. I have seen little of it in school-based institutions.

More forest walkies - buster in the trees

You can't see me!

I can see you, though!

They love tree climbing!

Most of the leaves have fallen!

I thought something up in the garage.

Buster in the corner.

Felix sitting on the open garage door,
where Oliver used to play!

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First snow crystals are beautiful

Snow crystals, nature's beauty.

Beautiful

The cats are non-plussed. :-)

Yes, the first snow. Birds are more frantically seeking food.
The deer graze in the grass that grows in the warm sunshine. At night, they creep in the shadows, turning on the motion floodlights, eyes glitter in the light.

Such a contradiction, yet promise, that life still continues, and nature adapts to the changing seasons.

By the frog pond, the fall crocus still blossom. 

Jack Frost paints pictures on the glass.

Deer watches me from the lawn.

Last night's sunset

Lady Beetles seek the warm sun.

Evidence of animals in the forest
-on the move to find food.

Milkweed seeds flying like snow!

Is that you, Mommy?

I love the cycles: soil, plants, food cycles are all concepts I've taught during my elementary teaching career.

Much too late, I have photos to show all of these!
This is the story of the milkweed.
I begin with the monarch butterfly, who depends upon the milkweed. This is what the caterpillar eats. The monarch butterfly lays her eggs, and the caterpillar munches happily.

I just happened to be in my backyard when I captured both the butterfly and the caterpillar on the same plant. This was in Bala, Muskoka, Ontario, July 8th, 2007.

Milkweed are rare in some parts, as farmers cut the weeds around their crops. In my front and backyards, however, they thrive.

The blossoms are there in June.
By July 15th I could smell their incredible aroma. If only you could smell them!

everybody likes milkweed

The ants milk the aphids on milkweed. IRONIC?

Buds are growing.

The aroma is AMAZING!

This one grew in my front garden.

I captured it munching, with my new camera. An early birthday present (Dec.!). You can see its little parts moving away. It froze when it sensed I was watching.

Monarch caterpillar

You can see it munching!

Here are my still photos:


By this time of year, fall, the seeds are flying. Felix came to watch what I was doing.

Book Review: Still Alice

According to the publisher (Amazon.ca):
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease.

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@Barrie Summy!

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease (EOD). Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...

I agree with all of this, however, I'm two-thirds of the way through and I find it contrived, somehow. As if the author, Lisa Genova, holds a Ph.D in neuroscience. Oh, she does!
Or the author is trying to pack in all of the information she knows about Alzheimer's Disease (AD) into a novel. Well, she is!

There is a bit of a mystery to this novel, which would be a terrible spoiler, and I won't write about that. It is an excellent trick to making this a novel, rather than a documentary. But there are parts of the professor that comes out in the character, and the information herin.

It is full of excellent information. Having cared for my father who had dementia, and volunteered in several long-term care (LTC) centres with a wide number of dementia sufferers, I find the behavioural characteristics true. I also find it heartbreaking to read, for we all know that there is only a gradual decline with this disorder. You read each new symptom, as she descends into her foggy mind, and the angst is palpable. You recognize it, as you've seen this in your family or clients. It breaks your heart.

I would find it hard to read this novel if I had a family member who had AD. This depicts EOD and it is even more difficult to see a life diminished by the disorder chapter by chapter. I would find it hard to read if I had lost a family member to AD. In fact I find it hard to read. You know that the gradual decline will continue. You know that the brain loses executive function (the ability to think, use abstract concepts, etc.) long before the autonomic function (breathing, normal bodily functions) ceases. This is why these clients live so long.

Don't get me wrong, it is well-written, beautifully set, realistic, engaging. It rings true for me, with my professional and volunteer caregiving experiences, but I still find it emotionally difficult to read. You know how it will end. I've seen AD patients in LTC. They can have fun. Most are treated well by caregivers, but the emotional toll of family is immense.

Facts about STILL ALICE:

• debuted at #5 on the New York Times Bestseller list
• spent 40 weeks on that list
• won the 2008 Bronte Prize and the 2011 Bexley Book of the Year
• nominated for the 2010 Indies Choice Debut Book of the Year by the American Booksellers Association
• #6 Top Book Group Favorite of 2009 by Reading Group Choices
• 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick
• 2009 Indie Next pick
• 2009 Borders Book Club Pick
• 2009 Target Book Club pick
• over a million copies in print
• translated into 25 languages.

Lisa Genova is a young, well-educated, professional woman. She is current in social-based media, and knows, or has great advice, on marketing. Check her out on Facebook!

Lisa Genova

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More about Lisa Genova:
Lisa Genova graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is the author of the New York TimesBestselling novels Still Alice and Left Neglected. read more.

Delightful deer decides to descend

Good old Buster. The second time he has seen a deer. He knew what to do!




Oliver's deer hunting videos!