What is the difference between a Crow and a Raven?

Two all-black birds, both inhabiting the West coast of North America – the common crow inhabiting all of North America – how can you tell which species you are looking at?

I just stumbled across the answer to that question last weekend!

I was walking in a park in downtown Vancouver about 3 weeks ago and I heard what I thought was someone talking excitedly in a language I didn't recognize. I looked around to see who it was, but there were no people close to me in the park! I followed the voice to a light post. Sitting on top of the light post was a black bird. I stared at the bird, and yes, it was the bird talking! It was all black, so it wasn't a parrot. It had a puffed up throat, which looked odd for a crow. I wondered if it had swallowed something odd that was making the noise, but it seemed to be a happy bird. It was doing quite a good impression of a laughing human actually!

Then last weekend I was reading a book on birds of BC, and I found the answer: I saw a Raven! In downtown Vancouver!

This bird is often found on first-nation totem poles, and it has a long history along the Pacific coast. It is known as the “trickster” bird because it does mimic human speech. And I saw one! I'm jazzed!

Oops! Did I just kill my plants?

Sad to say, battle plant may be compromised.

We went away for a week, and I didn't want the plants to dry out, so I gave them lots of water before we left. Too much water.

When we returned, I had a colony of mould growing on the surface of the soil. I've removed the mould as best I could, but I removed some of the plants too. I'm not sure if they will recover.

When you display a Mohawk hair style what do you do for a living?

Beyond spending a great deal of time putting various products in your hair to keep it standing straight up, what do you do for a living when you have a Mohawk? Mothers everywhere ask their children this when they come home with the shave-the-sides to leave a broom-on-the-head, stripe-up-the-middle, colourful-blue-bristles-from-the-brows-to-the-top-of-the-backbone hair display. But there ARE adults who proudly display their skulls with this Mohawk stripe to the world. So what do they do for a living? They can't all be in punk bands.

Last night we got a clue to this mystery.

The construction workers working on the outside of our building have been filling a dumpster outside our building with their debris. This dumpster was taken away and replaced by an empty one last night.

A yellow truck with an empty dumpster pulled into the alley. Carefully, but not so quietly, the empty dumpster was dumped in the middle of the alley – an argument may have started between someone trying to drive a car down the alley, but the driver who got out of the truck sported the ever-feared tuft-on-top Mohawk and car drivers found another route to take for the next half hour. The noise caught our attention so we watched the event.

The truck driver skillfully backed the truck up to the filled dumpster, with the truck bed angled up at about 45 degrees, and got out to prepare the dumpster. He jumped into the dumpster to flatten down and rearrange the contents, then he jumped out and got out a cover for the dumpster. After tightening the cover, he hooked the winch on the truck bed to the dumpster. Getting back into the truck cab he drove ahead a few meters, dragging the dumpster behind – yes, you can see the mark on the pavement from this, but there are other older marks, so what's one more. He then jumped out of the truck and unhooked the dumpster. He jumped back into the truck and skillfully angled it to the front of the empty dumpster. He then even more skillfully positioned the empty dumpster into the place where the full dumpster had been – in one shot – he got out to check the placement, and it was spot on, so he unhooked the dumpster. He then jumped back in the truck and angled it in front of the full dumpster, jumped out, hooked the full dumpster and then loaded it up onto the truck bed which lowered from the 45 degrees to a flat surface. After securing the load, he jumped in the truck and drove off. It had been a masterful performance of skill and choreography.

So that's what you do when you display attitude and defiance of societal norms. You aren't an average construction worker who spends all day going up and down the sides of buildings drilling and making noise while talking about the sports you played on the weekend. You are a lone worker who dances through your work with skill and style, and an attitude that makes others leave you alone to do your job. Gee Mom, I think he wins!

Do I really want to know the construction workers that well?

Outside my window now, and for about the last year or so, there are construction workers working on my apartment building. Yes, a Vancouver condominium that needs repairs done on it from water damage, what a surprise! (Heavy on the sarcasm there, ALL buildings in Vancouver's West End neighborhood need repairs done on them due to water damage. No, we haven't had a flood or hurricane or any other natural disaster, we just live in a rain-forest area and no one can make a building that won't be damaged by the rain, which we get for six to seven months at a time. It's a soggy place.)

These construction workers talk a lot. They talk on the way up the outside of the building on the swing scaffold. They talk on the way down the outside of the building on the swing scaffold. They talk when not moving and the drilling momentarily stops (it's an occasional reprieve, they are replacing all of the tiles on every balcony, and drilling and refilling all of the joints between all of the wall panels out there).

The building walls are mostly glass, and they are also spending a lot of time replacing all of the caulking around every single glass pane. Glass is not a good sound barrier. So there is a looming shadow behind the blinds as the swing scaffold stops, they remove the old caulking, clean it out, and put new caulking on. This is not an engrossing task for them, they tend to talk the most when they are on the other side of this non-sound-proof glass.

It's a lot of talk about nothing in particular. Hockey is always a popular topic. Food – what should they have for lunch today. Games of various sorts. No debates about the dichotomy of good and evil, why don't humans have tails, or what is “colour” and is black a colour?

The problem is, I'm not trying to listen in. I really don't want to hear it. And I'd rather do my work without the chatter in the background. But I'm getting to know all about these men, and I don't want to. When I see them down in the lobby when we're all coincidently walking about, do I really need to be wondering which one had a great game of softball on the weekend? I'm going a bit nutty, and my ears hurt from listening to my Ipod all day! I'm beginning to think it would be quieter if I worked in an office building - at least it wouldn't be one conversation at a time going on! As a recent escapee from the corporate world, this makes me shudder!

Should I label seeds when I plant them?

In my second installment of battle plant, you can see from the May 2nd picture that both sets of seeds have sprouted. Well, if you look closely you can see the small ones, they are up, but they seem to be lagging behind the bigger ones.

So I'm wondering which is the mint and which is the bachelor buttons. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough, but perhaps I should have labeled them...

When was my birthday?

Yes, I tipped over into 42 at the beginning of this week. I can't honestly say I woke up and knew the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything - to which the answer is 42. Oh well. I will continue searching, maybe I will run into it later this year.

I will report that turning 42 is no where near as traumatic as turning 40. My spouse and I almost missed it actually, it was a non-event event. We are considering getting something for it, as a present, you see, but I haven't thought of anything I really want, nothing leaps out... I wonder if there is anywhere you can buy questions?

Will my housekeeper get a housekeeper?

Nothing grandiose or elite about it, I have a housekeeper who comes in to clean once a week. She's quick, efficient, and does in 3 hours what it would take me days to do, so it's a bargain. Now she is seriously considering getting a housekeeper for her own home.

Why would my housekeeper want to hire a housekeeper? It's not laziness. It's just easier for a person who has no personal attachment to a place, and the things in it, to clean it! There is no rearranging because this might work better over there. There are no thoughts about when this should be replaced because it's worn out. There is no finding something you had been looking for so you drop the cleaning and go off to do what you wanted to do with it. It's just stuff you clean, and then you move on.

The other aspect of the problem is that when my housekeeper works all day cleaning other people's homes, and then goes back to her own home, it's depressing that HER home is not clean. She's been cleaning all day! Everything should be clean, and it's not! That's just a mean occupational hazard for a naturally clean person.

I have encouraged her to do what may seem silly to others – get a housekeeper!