DEN Enews

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day. Today DEN celebrates this incredible nation outlined in the second verse of our national anthem.

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!

Take three minutes to enjoy this video celebrating Canada:

Today, as always, DEN celebrates you and all you do to advocate for and protect this land we call home. We celebrate every action taken to live out the baptismal covenant to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation and respect, sustain, and renew the life of the earth.  We celebrate every petition you have signed, every yard sign, every protest you attended, every letter written, every rare lichen found, every plant and tree carefully nurtured in gardens, every wetland, watershed, every-everything you have been called to protect.

May today your hearts be light with the glory of this land. Tomorrow is another day.

Celebrate Canada Day by celebrating a Green future:

General Synod just finished and this resolution was passed: Adopt the Feast of the Creator as a Major Feast within the liturgical calendar of The Anglican Church of Canada, to be celebrated on September 1, transferrable to a Sunday within the Season of Creation.

Wonderful way to kick off the Season of Creation!

More good news…….

The World Council of Churches announces the launch of an Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action. Read more here:

with thanks to Eva Evans & Jesse Hamilton

Prime Minister Carney made some ambitious promises during the federal election, including an East to West electricity grid and a new Crown corporation to build affordable homes. However, his current proposals also include billions of dollars in corporate handouts. In the crucial first 100 days of his administration, Carney will announce more details about his plans. Mega-corporations, including the fossil fuel industry, are already doubling down to advance their agenda. That is why we need to speak up now and demand the Prime Minister and his new cabinet end the era of fossil fuels for good. We can ask our government to champion a renewable energy transition, to invest in our future by taxing the ultra-rich and mega-corporations, and to uphold the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. Let's make it clear that the Carney government must put the public good ahead of corporate profit.

 Bill C-5 has passed, but together our voices can fight to repeal or amend it. Please take a moment to stand with the environment and for Indigenous rights. This Bill is about pushing through any project deemed in the “national interest”. We can use this petition to clarify that any project holding Canada back from meeting our climate goals is ineligible to be considered in our national interest, that any project must have the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of impacted Indigenous communities to be considered in the national interest, and that Bill C-5 not allow projects to circumvent important federal environmental statutes like the Species at Risk Act, the Fisheries Act, or upcoming regulations like the emissions cap on corporate oil and gas emissions. Did you know 67% of Canadians prefer renewable and clean energy development instead of oil and gas development, and fewer than 1 in 5 Canadians want their tax dollars going to largely foreign-owned companies to build more LNG projects. National interest should include listening to our nation and while protecting people, rights, and the nature we depend on.

Coca-Cola's plastic pollution kills more than 1 million marine animals every year! They are one of the worst plastic polluters and are busy breaking their promises while our planet pays the price. In 2022, Coca-Cola vowed to address the global plastic crisis by committing to 25% reusable packaging by 2030. They have quietly abandoned this commitment, removing all mention of it from their website and shifting their focus to recycling instead of re-use. Help by signing this petition demanding Coca-Cola honour their promises and stop their ever-worsening plastic pollution. Plastic never disappears; it only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. The impact it has ripples throughout ecosystems and impacts all forms of life, including humans. Reusable packaging is a proven solution that reduces waste at the source. Coca-Cola's reputation as a corporate giant fueling the plastic apocalypse will only continue while they prioritize profits over sustainability. Sign the petition saying they need to reinstate their commitment to 25% reusable packaging by 2030.

Prey Land is the largest and most significant lowland rainforest in Cambodia. It was designated a protected area in 2016 due to its rich biodiversity. However, concessions for agriculture and industry are still being granted here. The forest covers nearly 500,000 hectares in northern Cambodia and is the last large evergreen lowland rainforest on the Southeast Asian mainland. There is still one small herd of Asian elephants living here, along with endangered species like the giant ibis, the Sunda clouded leopard, pangolins, and Malayan bears. At the start of this year, the government awarded another land concession covering 99 hectares of the Prey Lang forest to a cement company, one that was already granted a 938-hectare concession here a few years earlier. While this area may seem relatively small, it has young people, Indigenous groups, and citizens across the country demanding to Save Prey Lang!  Join in to further the call to enforce environmental laws and to show there is international support in keeping this forest intact.

with thanks to Claudia Zinck

HEAT – July 1

SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gardens are in. The yard is starting to look decent. Grandma can hear the voices of children from the beach across the road. Finally, it is warm but not the hot we know will come.

Expecting things to only get hotter in the next few months but also in years to come, Grandma and Nana had a roof built over their front deck, an 18 x 22 shade spot. It can be a bright and sunny day, but the moment you step under that roof, the temperature drops.

There are no fans and no light-coloured roofing material that bounces sunlight away instead of absorbing it. Well, unless you count the two clear panels near the windows to let more light in.

It is just a solid roof instead of sun tents, sun sails and canopies used in the past. Just that easy, we are comfortable. Even rainy days give us a place to sit out and have tea to the sound of rain on a tin roof.

What else can we do to make summer more comfortable?

You could plant more trees. It takes years to enjoy the benefits, but trees provide shade. When the wind does blow, you get more breeze as the leaves wave the air around. They also gobble up carbon, so greenhouse gases are less.

Grandma loves the idea of green roofs. Grocery stores with gardens growing on their roofs sound sensible. They are an extra layer of insulation that uses up stormwater that would drain off to sewers.

Splash pads or misting stations provide cooling and hydration with minimal water use. A fire sprinkler spitting out spurts of water mounted on a basketball court makes a DIY splash pad.

Community cooling stations and shade structures are a great way for rural communities to beat the heat. Even if there isn’t any AC in the building, opening doors and windows or under sun shades makes life a bit better.

Reflective window coverings reduce indoor heat gain. They cut down on AC use. Grandma opens all the windows in the morning (6 AM). By 10 AM, all sun-facing curtains are pulled. The house is cool for a long time and keeps from turning on the AC (that we do have for the hottest days). Why pay for cooler temperatures?

 

A Garden Box (when you appear to have nothing to build one)

You don’t have the power tools to build elevated gardens, but you want a garden box. Hammer and nails are in the shed, along with an odd assortment left over lumber from other removals or projects. Here is a way to make a raised garden using a pallet.

I start with a pallet that is often 36 x 36 inches square.

Each corner gets an upright. I suggest 2 x 4 if you have them. If not, use any board or stick that is at least 3 feet tall.

This usually leaves you with sides 36 x 38 inches to fill in.

Add boards until you get the height you want

Sounds too easy, right?

Grandma comes from that era where the girl passed the hammer to her father or brother. She never actually hammered anything bigger than a tack to hang a picture. This Grandma also knew that if she didn’t make the garden boxes herself, she probably wouldn’t have any.

This box started as a pallet. Grandma even learned to cut strips of board from leftover plywood for the top row. Fill the bottom with books, newspapers, cardboard, Styrofoam, pieces of pruning or old boards. Then fill the last foot or more with mulch and compost. Here is my new asparagus garden (which I grew from seed). It will look pretty with a coat of paint.

Then there was the old bookcase that, when the back was removed, made a three-compartment garden. Dresser drawers with the bottoms out make great beds.

Get creative with what is thrown out near you. Old chairs missing seats can be filled with a basket to plant lettuce on your front porch.

Grandma’s favourite is what some call “disposable” coolers. They are made of Styrofoam, an insulator. So, if in early spring you fill an old styrofoam tub ¾ with soil, plant, water, cover with kitchen film and place it out on a back step, what happens? It grows things like lettuce early and late in the year.

Gardens need soil, water and sun to grow seeds. What do you use to make a garden? Tell Grandma at [email protected]

 

Paper Collages

Want to do a fun, creative craft that turns your head off for a while? Do a paper collage!

How do you do that?

You need a base. It could be the cardboard from a cardboard box. Perhaps you have some scrapbook pages or even an old poster board you can recycle.

Then you need pictures, be they from magazines, old calendars, or even old picture books. Grandma loves old coffee table books full of pictures.

Next, you start building a display of overlapping pictures using things that strike your interest in the picture pile.

Why?

The exercise is to just find things you like or hate; perhaps they fit a theme or are a collection of items that don’t correspond to any idea. The idea is to let loose and see what turns up on your college surface.

If in a group, you start conversations, learn more about each other, or just let a bit of the real you out. If alone, it allows you to create, to make something that only needs to make sense to yourself. It is pure, selfish, time to be you. We all need a little of that.

A great tutorial can be found at https://artfulparent.com/collaging-my-life/

 

 

Something to eat

Grandma and Nana are lucky to have new neighbours who like to drop over for a visit. This gives Grandma more opportunity to do a bit more baking. This week, it was lemon cookies. Most recipes add a cup of coconut to this recipe, but I like mine plain.

Lemon Cookies

½ cup sugar

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp lemon zest

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp of baking powder

Dash of salt

Mix your wet ingredients (butter, sugar, lemon and egg) in one bowl.

Measure your dry and mix with the wet.

Drop by spoonfuls on baking sheets and cook 10 minutes at 350°F

A prayer for Canada Day from Children’s Prayers with Hope Bear.

Have a great Canada Day!