Flying squirrels

Whenever we find a dead critter I use the opportunity to photograph it, to learn more about how it

looks. This is the case for this flying squirrel. They are more than just tree rats, as their skin folds allow them to glide (but not truly fly)!

Sat. Critters #30

Predators include similarly nocturnal owls, of course, as well as other tree climbers such as weasels, fishers, and snakes. While they are susceptible to all sorts of predators, sadly I've found a drowned mouse and a chipmunk in my water barrel. I've since covered the 2" drainage spout with mesh. Who knew they'd climb up that spout?

We've found a Barred owl, Flicker, as well as a deer carcass on the property. Some hit by cars, some smuck into the glass, but not often.

 I use the opportunity to learn about them. 

Here are my photos from one dark night, when Sadie told us we had company. I'd never seen one, nor knew they were nocturnal.

 

Two Different Species in NA

I did some more research, just for my own curiosity.
There are two species on this continent: Northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans) and Southern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus). The Northern inhabit all of Canada, right up to the Yukon, as well as Alaska. The Southern can be found in the Eastern part of the continent, from Florida up to Michigan.
They are about the size of a red squirrel, about a foot long including the tail, with lovely fur flaps or membranes that allow them to glide. No, they don't fly, but they can steer with their flaps, up to 50m diagonally from a tree to the ground, able to make turns.

Scent glands

They have scent glands in their cheeks, to help them find their way, and they live in tree hollows of one sort or another. Nesting materials, like many tree rats, includes soft, cozy mosses and shredded tree bark.
The are omnivores, eating just about anything in season: berries, lichen, fungi, insects, worms, slugs, bird's eggs, tree buds and even sap. There are horror stories of them drowning in open sap buckets.

Impacted by Climate Change, Habitat Loss, Species Interbreeding

As with many species, of both flora and fauna, they are believed to have been impacted by both Climate Change and Habitat Loss. Scientists have found that the Northern and the Southerners have crossed paths, and some research shows that about 5% of the study population had mixed genes.
Now, you know governments, and lobby groups. They are arguing about what to call the mixed breed. The US  National Flying Squirrel Association, wants it to be more American, according to the 72-year-old co-founder. 
According to an October article...Southern Flying Squirrels Land in Canada
Southern flying squirrels are moving into the habitat of Northern flying squirrels. Now people are debating what to call the hybrid offspring. 

Steve Patterson, a Canadian educator who uses flying squirrels to teach ecology to school kids and other groups, says in presentations he already refers to the Northern species as "Canadian" because they're "quiet, reserved and peace-loving," he says. "The Southern, on the other hand, is noisy and boisterous, and bullies the Northern flying squirrel," which is the larger but more docile of the two, he says.

Harbouring a Wild Animal

There is, of course more controversy. In Canada it is illegal to keep wild animals without special accreditation. The same is true in some states. Steve Patterson, around 2004, tried to adopt a young squirrel for educational purposes. THAT is a long story, but he did, finally, win. His web page is fabulous, featuring many topics on this little critter: taxonomy, anatomy, predators, life cycle (about 5 years),  parasites (e.g., lice, mites, fleas), range maps, 

Book Review: Plotting the Course: Life Lessons from the Sport of Sailing

rickarneson.com

Each point is matched by a tracker.

I've waited till sailing weather to read this book, I've had a few family events to work through! The cover shot of the sailboats is lovely.

Coincidentally, my SIL has been out on his dad's boat in the US for a last June father/son trip. It is a last sail before his dad sells the boat. We tracked him, using his GPS and an app. It was comforting to my daughter, here in Ottawa, whilst home with her two babes!

You can view the map or satellite
using this app.

The Arms Race

There are some excellent life lessons in this book. A couple rather hit home. He writes about staying within your means when furthering your hobby. This means find a boat you can manage, do not over-extend yourself, and don't buy into the latest technology if it doesn't mean real gains. Arneson used some examples, such as the USA sailing team at the 1987 Australia America's Cup, which installed a new, state-of-the-art keel. They failed to use it to advantage, without the triad of a good boat, teamwork, practice. As well, he writes of preparing, planning, and self-reflection, as well as having a respectful captain (read Leader not just a boss).

Sailing in our family

My extended family has had a number of sail boats at our cottages on 2km-long 'Long Lake!'
First, my Uncle Fred bought one, then his son bought a bigger one. Uncle sold us his old boat, to buy one bigger than his son's, keeping up with their race for the best. My cousin ended up selling his cottage, as the boat he bought needed to be sailed on Lake Ontario. He now lives on Vancouver Island!

My late dad had a blast sailing the old hand-me-down boat for hours at a time. He didn't mind having a small, succinct boat.  The funny thing was that mom and dad sent me up to my Uncle Fred's cottage, 4 doors up the lake, to bring the sailboat back to our cottage. I'd never sailed before! I loved that old boat!

Dad and my brother sailing, sometime in the 70s!

Long Lake had several sailors

Perfect peace and quiet

Target Audience

These are, indeed, life lessons for many people: hobbyists, sports enthusiasts, but also entrepreneurs, and employers. He would agree with what my late mother always said, 'Prioritize your crises!' Arneson is a smart man, who has incorporated his societal knowledge, and his life experiences in competitive sailing, into a plan for life. He also uses many examples of real-life successful people in all walks of life, quoting from a wide body of work; from sailing experts, Eisenhower, Sarah Ban Breathnach, to Stephen King, to Robbie Burns!

This book's premise is that your can steer your life, and your business, the way you steer your craft! It's a good read, I'm happy to steer you in its direction. I quite enjoyed it. It's darn good for a first book!

Plotting the Course: Life Lessons from the Sport of Sailing (May 2014, Makai Press), applies the core principles of sailing to fundamental principles of developing, building, and maintaining a healthy business. 

Author Rick Arneson does an incredible job of weaving business, politics, and history into his narrative as a world-class competitive sailor. 

rickarneson.com

Hubby, before I met him, out sailing!

Cottage country fun and water frolic

We're off to the city for more medical stuff. I doubt I'll have time to canoe on this, National Canoe Day! The appointment isn't until the afternoon, they always run late, and it takes us 2 hours to get home from the city. Here is a post for canoeists...

Bambi peeks out from behind a tree,
Buster watches, wagging his tail.
I posted the video of it below!

It was a good day's work outside.
My cap caught 22 deerflies!
Popped my cap upside down
 in the goldfish pond,
they had a feast!

Sadie on the path leading to the meadow.
She was watching for her friend, Chipmunk.

Bambi following Buster
Buster and his twin, Felix, used to go walkies with me.
Buster wasn't the same when Felix was killed.

Off I went for an afternoon canoe ride. Four loons, boaters, worried Eastern Kingbirds nesting on an island in a tree, and a heron flew by.

Hubby bought me a 'close eyes!'
He made me go out to the car,
while I closed my eye,
he opened the trunk!
What a treat!

Daisy in the daisies.
I couldn't get her any closer. The deerflies are
totally harassing her, she preferred the shade.

Back home, there was a surprise!

Bambi followed me an' Buster on our walk

Bambi and Buster from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Bambi and Buster go walkies. Bambi followed us down the hill, across the meadow, through the forest. She seemed to be intensely curious, while stamping a bit, and snorting once.
Buster seemed to know it was a game. I let them play, since they seemed to respect one another.

Six-figure salaries by those who raise money from you and me

Having sat on a number of boards, I find it interesting how quick people are to vote for pay

raises for those making more than 6-digits, while lower level staff earn a mere pittance. It is shocking comparing MP and MPP salaries, these fundraisers. Ontario's Sunshine List, names those earning above $100,000 per year. This information is available through Canada Revenue Agency.



I wrote a post awhile back, commenting on top salaries for physicians in publicly-funded hospitals.

 While CCACs cut Home Care services, CEO salaries increase on the sunshine list:

•  For 2013, these 14 CEOs were paid a total of $3.5 million. 

  

  There are 14 regional LHINs
  with the responsibility of distributing
  Ontario healthcare tax dollars.
  The total budget for LHINs is $68-million

• Nearly half made annual salaries in excess of $250,000 – more than any provincial premier. CCACs in turn report, at least on paper, to another marvelous bureaucratic invention known as Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). 
• The 14 CEOs earned a total of $3.8 million, ranging from $231,000 for the CEO of South West LHIN to $328,000 for the CEO of Mississauga-Halton LHIN. 
• Twelve of the 14 CEOs made in excess of $250,000 in 2013. 
•  The CEO of Toronto Central CCAC made $180,000 in 2009. Her successor pulled in $306,000 in 2013, an increase of 70%. 
• In 2009, the CEO for South West CCAC (London/Middlesex)  made $180,000. Four years later, she received $288,000, an increase of 60%. 
• In 2009, the CEO of Champlain CCAC (Ottawa) brought in just over $168,000. In 2013, her successor was paid $315,000, a jump of 88%. 

Six-figure pay at charities the cost of giving and getting by Kelly Egan 

Charities are generally reluctant to release salaries of senior executives but the Canada Revenue Agency requires annual reports that include the compensation of the 10 highest-paid employees, without naming them. Quite an eye-opener.

Book Review: Deadly Errors

Deadly Errors 

This book, originally out in 2005, is a great read. Now released in eBook, and all that jazz, it is easily accessible. Published by Astor and Blue, they seem to carry a lot of great mysteries, with several physicians in their stable of writers.

A mystery, I found the prologue a bit confusing, and yet, to quote my hubby, "Soon all will be revealed!" It deals with something that is a huge problem on this continent, medical patient-care errors. There is much written and posted about preventing errors. (You can read more on my healthcare blog:
20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors)

Wyler has 
6 books out!

This author is a "neurosurgeon pioneer," according to his bio. This is evident in the detail of the book. He knows the ins and outs of a hospital, especially when speed and stealth are of import! The hero, Dr. Tyler Matthews, experiences trials and tribulations, with a great plot that had me sitting reading all afternoon! He retired from his profession in 2007 to write full-time. You can tell that he loves the genre, as with any good writer, he understands the skill and has mastered his writing craft.

You can read an excerpt here, but, like this well-read author, I've read a fair number of mysteries, and you should just jump into this one!

Re: Medical Errors From the author: 

In November 1999, the Institute of Medicine (USA) concluded a study entitled "To Err Is Human: Building A Safer Health System". It focused attention on the issue of medical errors and patient safety by reporting that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in hospitals each year from preventable medical errors. This makes medical errors this country's eighth leading cause of death — higher than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS. About 7,000 people per year were estimated (at that time) to die from medication errors alone. In spite of efforts by health care providers to decrease the rate of these preventable errors, they are still a cause of morbidity and mortality.  

Our Toronto ER physician, Dr. Brian Goldman, is calling up Canadian doctors to come to terms with errors. (You can view Dr. Brian's TED Talk here.) This is a problem in the US, where their litigious society depends upon lawsuits in order for patients to get recompense. It's not the same in Canada, where we have universal healthcare.
Patients must be proactive in this day and age of large hospitals and complicated healthcare practices. We've been confronting cancer for more than a year, and it pays to make notes, ask and prepare questions, and do a certain amount of research.

Garbage dump - take it home, tourists

No, we're not a garbage dump. Our county limits garbage to two bags per week. Otherwise, we can purchase extra tickets for them. This is why we pay our taxes, for services like this.

I go ditch diving 3 or 4 times a year to pick up the crap other people chuck out of their vehicle. No one likes to see this at the side of a highway. Garbage attracts the critters; crows, raccoons; and the bears simply turn boxes over.

That said, there are weekend tourists who like to dump their garbage with a local home's garbage at the end of our driveways. I caught one guy doing it once. He moved on from ours and went up to the next house. I wish I'd gotten his licence plate #.

I am so very angry. He doesn't deserve this.

Garbage provides a risk for critters, too.

Hubby is careful about the recycling. He washes everything to prevent bugs and critters from being attracted to it. He separates out kitchen garbage from other garbage. I put out the recycling on Sunday night (for Monday morning), as well as the non-kitchen stuff in a metal garbage can. This prevents the dang crows, or the bears, from getting into it. We know from Muskoka how bad the bears can be.

Unfortunately, in Cottage Country, the arse tourists think they can dump their garbage with ours and it won't hurt anyone. This is not true. I remember during the Toronto garbage strike, tourists would fill parks garbage cans with their refuse. Disgusting and horrible for both residents and animals.

Hubby, trying to keep up his physical fitness routine, despite not feeling very well, he took off at 7 a.m. with the remaining kitchen garbage. He found that someone had dumped a bag of garbage, and Butch Raccoon had gotten into it. It looked like raccoons. I told him to hustle off to swimming and I would take care of it.

This is the mess hubby found this morning. Gross.

Donning gloves, as well as bug protection, I went out to pick up the mess. This arse had dumped a garbage bag, including styrofoam meat trays, recycling, hot dog wrappers, lots of fruit remains, and a plastic bag full of blood-soaked paper towels, with our garbage. I hope he gets sepsis. It would serve him right.

This someone had a new boat, too, as there was an instruction booklet. I checked for any identification, but it had to be a weekend tourist at Murphys Point Park.

This is perfect for attracting critters. They love the smell of meat packages. This is what bears do: overturn boxes when they are hungry.

There are lots of bears about.

Bala Bear did this!
A heavy box for weekend garbage.

This is what raccoons do!
They lick the cans.

Chaffeys Lock on the Rideau Canal - a lovely spot

As was their way,
the mill was expropriated.

Gillian GPS tracked us

from Kingston north to the lock.

Rideau Canal

It was a lovely day to get out of the house. We'd had some bad news, and wanted to get out and about.
The greens are so bright, with the rain we have had, although we need more now.

The locks are now on limited hours, which has ticked off some users. Unfortunately, the feds have cut funding and they need to stay within their budget. Small towns cry for financial support, since the user-pay system doesn't
bring in enough money to support the infrastructure required to run the recreational system. Either the users, or taxpayers, have to cough up the cash.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

June 23 UPDATE: 

After much lobbying by town mayors, and those depending upon tourism, Parks Canada has back tracked and extended Rideau Canal hours.
"We listened to the people along the Rideau Canal," Brown said of consultations about hours, the season and fees, which have been frozen for five years. Brown said of work done promoting the four pillars of the Rideau Canal experience: season, fees, infrastructure and hours of operation."

HOURS OF OPERATION UPDATE

limited hours

As of June 27, 2014, Parks Canada will be adding 1 hour to their daily summer lockages. In addition, Beveridges will now operate on the same schedule as the other Rideau lockstations. Fridays in the fall season have been reduced by 2 hours. This is shown in the schedule below.

Parks Canada's budget was cut by $29 million in 2012, resulting in job losses among park staff.

From The Ottawa Citizen: Last year, Parks Canada said the decision to shorten the lockstation hours was unfortunate but there just wasn’t the money to operate them longer. Particularly, when a plan to increase the locking fees was scrapped by Peter Kent, who was then the minister in charge of Parks Canada. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~
We know that PM Harper has seriously cut funding in the area of the environment, flora and fauna seem to hold little import for him. Or, perhaps, its the boys in shorts who believe this.

The federal government has set aside $391.5 million to upgrade Parks Canada infrastructure. Recent reports tell us that the bridges are in serious disrepair, and this was not factored into the mix. Don Butler writes that new funding will benefit communities along the canal.
Some claim that many communities depend upon the canal for tourism. The tourists and locals, who want to go up and down the canal, have been frustrated with the condensed hours.

In 2000, UNESCO named the system as a World Heritage Site. The Rideau Canal system is 182 years old, and was built in the days of water being the major, most efficient, transportation system. The government wanted a safe, defensible inland route for troops and military supplies. It is 202km long, across a series of 47 lakes and rivers, built in the winter and spring of 1831/32, in unsettled, swampy, buggy wilderness. There are no records of those who perished building the canal. The tradesmen (masons, carpenters, blacksmiths) and primarily French-Canadian and immigrant Irish labourers who used picks, shovels and wheelbarrows who built the canal.

Early settlers became the main users of the system, as people sought land for settlement. Prime lands, nearest to the St. Laurence were picked up early. The canal ended up being a trade route for Eastern Ontario. Tourism, pleasure boating and cottagers now use it for recreational purposes.

Bridges over historic Rideau Canal in bad shape: Parks Canada report

Ottawa Citizen-Jun 9, 2014