Toronto Gardeners! Please kill your Ragweed NOW!!!

OK. I love the fact that there are so many garden addicts like myself who live in my area. I’ve been noticing that many lovely flower gardens have huge thickets of ragweed growing amongst the cosmos, daisies, coreopsis, etc. Keep the goldenrods and KILL THE RAGWEED NOW before they go into flower. About 20 to 25% of the population will get bad allergies to the pollen (including myself, of course) I even noticed a huge vegetable garden in the Dawes/Dentonia area with a row of ragweed left with the melons and squash. WHY? Are the gardeners only selectively pulling out certain weeds and keeping others? In case you aren’t sure what this plant looks like, here are all the specs on ragweed.

Be vigilant because it grows in grass and can flower at a very short height (about 4 inches) but usually it grows taller than that. I can remember playing with it when I was younger and thought the leaves looked a lot like a carrot. Basically, you must pull out the entire plant to kill it. This is more easily done when the ground is wet . Put on gloves and get working. Make sure to sleep with your windows closed, if possible, because the pollen is released during the night and early morning. Good luck.

What kind of flower are you?

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

More Ojibwe Language Resources

I found some video language resources on You Tube.  These are in a dialect similar (Northern Ojibwe) to but not the same as the one highlighted in my language handouts/resources (also Northern Ojibwe).  I hope that these will be helpful for people into teaching and preserving First Nations culture through language. 

Ojibwe language: basic vocabulary

Ojibwe language: Counting to ten

Handouts for First Nations Identity course

These are the lessons and handouts that go with the course outline in the “For Teachers” section of this blog. They go along with the lessons and modules for a course called First Nations Identity.  Please click on “For Teachers” to understand the background and context of these handouts and to view the entire document with the proposal. There are units/modules and rubrics for many different assignments and projects. Help yourself to these handouts and charts for yourself and your students!

• Ojibwe language handouts and games
• More Ojibwe stuff
• nish bingo
• Syllabics
• More handouts!
• The Great Indian Bus Tour of Toronto: student version
• Final project/summative

Steve Irwin was amazing

Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter was probably one of the craziest, yet coolest naturalists ever.  My brother was the first person I knew who knew this guy (from his T.V. show).  I finally watched an episode and I was freaking out and laughing because of the things he would do with the crocodiles.  I think he wrestled one just like Ace Ventura did in the second Ace movie.  The strong Australian accent along with his use of WOW and BEAUTIFUL and LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HER TEETH made me a hardcore fan.  I love taking risks with my little wild animals at home (Chaz and Maggie, two cats) and I’ll tackle them whenever I get the urge for a cat fight.

  Too bad that Steve Irwin is gone, RIP.         This is Chaz!