Susanna McLeod's Blog

Posted by Susanna McLeod

The leaves on our neighbour's tree have already turned a wonderful reddish-orange colour, the veins standing out in yellow relief. Surrounding tree leaves still flap in their green shades, but it's only a matter of time until their hues change, too.

Though I look forward to summer each year, the popping of new leaves, the blossoming of bright flowers and the aroma of herbs and veggies growing in the garden, Autumn has stolen its way into my heart. It has an aura of renewal, with the beginning of school for kids of all ages, but it also has the serenity of the end, a time to relax and let the summer hustle and bustle disappear.

The fall air is easier to breathe, with a crisp nip and scent of wood burning in woodstoves wafting into the breeze. The rainy days are welcomed after what is usually a dry summer (this year excepted, though, since it was more rain than sun) and the gardens seem to take on a final push in the cooler temperatures. More lush, just before the end, and less bugs to nosh on their final leaves.

Our neighbour's tree is just the advance colour brigade - soon jewel colours of bright red, flaming orange and lemon yellow leaves will be blowing down the street interspersed with still-green and crunchy, dead leaves from other neighbourhood trees. I make the effort every day to absorb the changes, the colours and hues; it'll be another year before it happens again. It is dazzling to the eye.

With the Canadian Thanksgiving just around the corner in a few weeks' time, on October 12, 2009, autumn provides a dazzling display of colour to touch off the celebrationof gratitude.

Posted by Susanna McLeod

Browsing through websites and books, I was trying to find information for a local weather history article, searching for history facts on meteorology. My questions remain unanswered, but in the meantime, topics for other articles popped up. Sometimes, I feel like a kid with a net in a field of flowers, ideas like butterflies, flitting in front of me and flying off in all directions to new destinations.

Printing out what I thought was weather station information, the paragraphs instead were about a Canadian astronomy observatory in Ottawa, Ontario. Oooh – a new topic that I hadn't thought of myself. Googling for more, I found a wealth of fascinating information about the observatory and the dedicated scientists who played the crucial parts in its creation. The details formed themselves into my Dominion Astronomy Observatory article.

In smaller print att the bottom of one research page on the observatory, the name Dr. Helen Sawyer Hogg caught my attention. On the closing of the Dominion Astronomy Observatory, the telescope was moved to new digs, and that observatory named in her honour. But who was she? Not in the science community, I was unfamiliar with her. Ah ha! Another history topic in the making, and the article discovering the prestigious astronomer Dr. Sawyer Hogg was written.

And then a surprising fact came to light, one not to be formed into an article, but very interesting. After the two astronomy articles were completed, I found that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. Coincidence lead me to write on the captivating science of sky-watching, something in which we can all participate and enjoy any time. Now, if I could only chase a butterfly toward the meteorological article... but who knows what great topic will fly into my butterfly net next.

Posted by Susanna McLeod

A woman's day, a day to press the issues was needed, announced Clara Zetkin in 1910 at the International Conference of Working Women held in Denmark. Clara was the German representative speaking to 100 women from around the world, encouraging women's right to vote, maternity benefits, better working conditions, and equality. Her suggestion of a special day was given a unanimous vote, and the first International Women's Day was held on March 19, 1911.

This year's Canadian theme is Strong Leadership. Strong Women. Strong World: Equality. Income inequality, violence against women, and childcare issues are a few of the sticklers still unsettled in Canada. But women have made many gains, too, with a narrowing of the wage disparity in many sectors and in political representation: in the recent election, more women were elected than any other time in Canadian political history. Women comprise over 50 percent of university students in most programs. While life is not equal in our society, it is much closer than in some countries:

• There are 1.5 billion people living in dire poverty on $2 or less a day; seventy percent are women.
• Women are two-thirds of the one billion people unable to read in the world.
• Women are 80% of the world's 27 million refugees.
• In developing countries, it is the women who must carry the water up to 6 kilometers from source.
• In Afghanistan, women were stripped of their human rights when the Taliban seized control in 1996. Even with outside support, they are far from regaining those rights.

On this International Women's Day, let's celebrate the great achievements by women, and give support to those struggling for a better life. Placing women as equals makes a better world for all people.

Posted by Susanna McLeod

Anything that encourages kids to read is a good thing, and a program that encourages exercise and then puts a good book in their hands is bound to be successful. The Running and Reading program is now operating in schools across Canada, even in our local area. Aimed at "economically challenged" kids whose schools have been forced to cut back on gym classes, arts and reading classes, the program operates as an after-school series.

The Running and Reading program is "...taking children on an 'adventure' that improves their physical, mental, emotional and social health, and increases their love of reading, thereby positively impacting their literacy skill level." The local news featured a neighbourhood school with kids running every direction in the gym, laughing and getting good exercise. The next segment showed the boys and girls reading and taking delight in the words, enjoying and absorbing the stories. There wasn't an unhappy face in the crowd, only smiles and giggles, and a true interest in the books. It looks like such fun and is bound to have a more positive, lasting impression of the joys of reading than the mesmerizing reading of texts, line by dire line, that bored kids to death in other eras.

Books are a fascinating link to our past, the direct observation of the present, and an imaginative link to the future. No matter what technology brings, reading, holding a book in one's hands, and absorbing the messages word by word, is a wonderful experience in which everyone should be able to indulge .

Posted by Susanna McLeod

The Canadian groundhog Wiarton Willy was once again dragged out of his toasty home to the rousing applause of fans of Groundhog Day. He did see his shadow, meaning no early spring but six more weeks of winter. I wonder what the little critter actually thinks of the event? Does it anger him or is he still in a grog from sleep? I imagine that he is quite frightened, actually.

Groundhog day has been a Winter institution in Canada since at least the early 1950s when Wiarton Willy made the news. The occasion has become a weekend-long festival in Wiarton, Ontario, where 20,000 tourists drop in for the formal forecasting. In the United States, the tradition has been around since 1887 in Punxutawney, Pennsylvania when German immigrants gave the groundhog credit for weather predictions.

The chubby rodents are not so great at foretelling the weather though. Statistics show they have a dismal success rate of about 37 percent. At that rate, we can all make a good guess at the forecast, but it's not as much fun as having a real groundhog see his shadow, even if he does have bed-head and is a little testy about the whole thing.

Happy Groundhog Day!