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Showing posts with the label pelicans

Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 77: pelicans, pellucidity, peloton*

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Bonjour tout le monde! Here are three things that made for some happiness and gratitude last week, not because there’s not a pile of other crap out there, but because there is.   Three Things podcast, episode 77:                          1. Pelicans   They are remarkable looking waterbirds, pelicans are. For the last two summers, every time I pedalled across, I made a point of glancing over the railing at the north end of the Quesnell Bridge to see if they were back. I first saw pelicans down there by the mouth of the storm sewer, where the fishin’ is good, in 2019. It was in June of that year that my binoculared friend Nicola pointed out 10 of them as they soared over the downtown farmers market.  That same summer was the first time I saw them at the outfall. I would stop and watch them from above on the bridge deck while eight lanes of traffic streamed by on Whitemud Drive. They were there the next day, an...

Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 51: air drop, big save, grade memories

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Happy end of the week, happy end of the year, friends! Once a week I try to unwrap three things that made me happy or grateful, and then say them out loud. Three Things podcast, episode 51 . 1. Air drop When I was a boy, I had an Astronauts lunch kit. It was still the Cold War. Simpler times. Carrying that lunch kit to school as I balanced along windrows of snow left by the graders on 66th Street made me feel like I was on a top secret mission. The kit was metal, not plastic, and on each panel was a scene from the Apollo 11 story. The rocket blastoff…the lunar lander detaching from the service module…the touchdown on the moon…the splashdown with the red and white parachutes. The lunch kit came from Aladdin Industries Incorporated, Nashville, Tennessee. Inside the lid was a poem from the National Safety Council. One of the couplets: There's really no need to play in the streets Since playgrounds are better places to meet! I know the lunch box so well because I’m looking at it ri...