Showing posts with label caribou. Show all posts
Showing posts with label caribou. Show all posts

Friday, August 24, 2007

The Call of the Caribou

"Caribou are usually quiet, but they may give a loud snort. Herds of snorting caribou may sound like pigs. Especially vocal are the bands of cows and new-born calves, constantly communicating with each other."

In the past week, I've eaten caribou twice: in steak and stew form. This consumption of red meat has emphatically ended my years of vegetarianism. It's been a slippery slope lately. I went to wing night a couple of weeks ago, and, well, did what one does at wing night (besides drink lots of beer) and ate wings. I also ate an arctic char a couple of weeks after I arrived, along with a number of other fishy friends since then - none of which were caught by me, despite my efforts.

Considering the resources used to ship fresh vegetables up here, I don't feel all that bad switching to more local sources for food. (If you ignore the chicken wings.) I would like to take a moment to thank the caribou of the north for helping to fill my belly lately.

Also this week, I learned that caribou taste better when you shoot them while they're calm, rather than when they're running, such as when they're chased by a skidoo. Apparently, the acid builds up when they're running and it ends up affecting the taste of the meat.

I have as of yet, however, not put this knowledge to the test.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Invasion of cats!

Over the past couple of days, I seem to have been stumbling across stuff to do with cats all over the place.

The other day, on CBC radio, I heard about Oscar the cat. Oscar lives at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island, and can apparently sense when people are going to die. He regularly curls up next to patients a few hours before they pass away. For a harbinger of death, he's incredibly adorable.

I also stumbled upon this site of pictures taken by a "CatCam" hung around the neck of Mr. Lee the feline. It takes shots randomly throughout his day.


I'm not sure if this is frightening or hilarious - a little bit of both, I think. Those tiny, cute kittens look terrified - as they should be. No doubt, the next legislation Harper introduces will endeavour to help the homeless by feeding them those kittens. (Sorry, that's going a bit too far - Harper clearly doesn't care that much about poor people.)

Luckily, as far as I know, despite all of these cat-related phenomena, no cats have been struck by lightning recently. The same, however, can't be said for caribou.

Anyway, here's a picture of Minty, one of my brother's cats, who I miss terribly (although I can't say I miss her shedding).