Living rural in the city is great – you can do it, too.

Category: Landscapes and Road Trips (page 2 of 2)

A Point Pelee Pictorial

This post was updated in 2024 by consolidating an unpublished 2011 trip report into it. I really didn't know how to blog back then! I also added my 2013 Big Day birding list, so it should actually be an interesting read, if you're a birder. 

I’m not that much of a birder, but I do like to take on a birding challenge once in a while. I used to recognize fewer than 20 species of birds, but now it’s somewhere between 50–80.

Two years ago, in 2011, I took my first trip to Point Pelee National Park, where thousands of humans flock to see millions of migrants come in at this time of year (between April and June for the northward journey, and again around September for the southward).

Point Pelee is the southernmost part of Canada. It is the heart of Carolinian Canada, representative of an endangered ecotone — a region of similar ecology, with populations of hallmark species that interact in an ecological community. Much of the Carolinian and Mixed broadleaf forest in Canada has been needlessly destroyed by agriculture and urban development. The swath of land between Windsor and Toronto — with pockets all the way to Montreal — is heavily populated and what remains of this ecotone are only small patches and vestiges.

Canada’s 42nd parallel (42º N on the map), the furthest south we go!

I submitted a trip report for a newsletter, and I’m free to share it with you:

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Don’t use the oven for Just One Thing – recipes (and fall photos)

I brought three pumpkins back from Ontario, and two evenings ago, I baked one of them. As the fastest way to process a pumpkin is by baking it, I just cut it in half, scooped out the seeds and pulp, and put it in the oven with a little water. But the baking takes an hour and a half, and The Most Important Rule For Cooking that I learned as a child – which it floors me that more people don’t know – is… well, the first rule is, don’t use the oven in summertime, but… When You Use The Oven, Bake More Than One Thing.

In fact, bake three: 

  • Meat loaf or chicken or quiche, scalloped potatoes, and custard
  • Squash, a casserole, and a cake
  • Pot roast, baked potatoes, and pie

With Pizza…

… well, that takes only 12-16 minutes to bake (in a hot oven!), but make a batch of cookie dough to have on hand for times like this. Cut the dough into portions you’d make at any one time and freeze the portions (i.e. if the recipe is for three dozen, cut it into sixths for six cookies each. You could also shape the cookies and freeze them on a tray, then keep them in a tupperware in the freezer ready to go). Thaw and shape the cookies and put them in with the pizza (but watch them; pizza heat is hotter than cookie heat; it’s better to undercook them and then put them in again to finish them off. Which is why they’re called biscuits: cooked twice). You could also add tarts, or store-bought rolls of any kind.

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