I love making samples, so working up 8 x 8” / 20 x 20 cm samples of a lot of different stitches is fun for me.
There’s an old Bernat pattern that I have for an Afghan made of squares of very many different classic crochet stitches. It’s a great practice and skill building project.
If you choose a good palette of solid colour yarn, it works out nicely. If that kind of throw isn’t the kind of thing you like in your home, they’re always a gift or charity option.
Another excellent European product is Weleda from Germany.
We switched to that for lip balm because Burt’s Bees has soy in it and we had a family member with a sensitivity.
For hand and body cream, we’re just trying Nova Scotia Fisherman now. So far, after just a couple of weeks, it’s great.
For facial skin care, have been using Maritime Naturals for a couple of years. Excellent product.
Haven’t tried this one.
Can recommend BioVert. We’ve used their fragrance free laundry detergent for many years.
Nature Clean, another Canadian company, has oxy bleach and stain remover strips that we like too.
Ling is a tool for advanced learning in my experience.
Excellent at what it does though.
Camino is a Canadian brand brings in fair-trade and organic chocolate. Gluten-free also.
They have semi-sweet, bittersweet, unsweetened and vegan white chocolate chips.
https://camino.ca/product-category/baking-products/chocolate-chips/
Available widely.
Although you didn’t ask, there is a fantastic Canadian cake decorating brand that has sprinkles etc. Many are free of major allergens too.
Parksville is likely far more commercial and developed than you recall.
But the beaches remain.
Here are some suggestions with a kids lens:
Vancouver Island
get mid Island then over to the west coast
Parksville - large sandy beaches to dig in
ferry to Denman Island and then to Hornsby Island - fossils! https://hornbynaturalhistory.com/category/fossils/
Qualicum Beach - gravelly and lots of seniors, but a great place to see bald eagles picking up clams and oysters, dropping them to break them open and diving to eat.
Cathedral grove on Hwy to Port Alberni, accessible old growth forest
Alberni - old forestry interpretation site with a logging train in the Cherry Creek area
Drive to Tofino - an adventure in itself
Long Beach
whale watching
If you go to Vancouver, many of the classic stops are worth it
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Mapping and confirming the existence of a system larger than the world renowned Castleguard Cave system is the story here.
I think that may be US labeling still in use in Vermont and New York.
Canadian maple syrup hasn’t been graded that way for some time. We’re in a syrup producing region and get it locally from producers.
That seems to be regional.
Perhaps there’s some interprovincial barriers that we’re not aware of.
Growing up on the west coast, real maple syrup was a luxury.
Where we are now in Eastern Ontario, we buy it by the litre or even by the case. Our teens pour it freely all over their plates.
We use the medium or amber at the table, and the darkest we can get for baking.
Grade B is now called amber, I believe.
But whatever, the darker coloured syrup has more flavour and is better value.
Did I miss the actual Protostar announcement?
Well, there was something of the kind of CANZUK sharing earlier. But that included SA and India in a kind of outer layer with less complete access.
There’s absolutely no incentive to log in to YouTube now that subscriptions and bells do nothing to control your feed. End stage enshittification.
This is very cool. 😎
I do know about the latter. Knew some folks that taught there.
Few courses are taught by tenured faculty at the Ivies. Junior faculty have to justify final grades, PhD students and sessional have to justify any grades lower than B- on any assignment.
Coupling that with the ‘legacy admissions’ where children of alumni have a lower bar to admission, anyone with a B- average has a questionable degree.
No matter how good their programs are, for the lowers tier of students, they’re just institutions of transmitted privilege. Which is why the complaints about DEI mechanisms to balance that are so suspect.
I wasn’t aware whether UPenn was on the same system but it’s a huge thing for private universities reliant on tuition fees and big alumni donations.
It’s interesting how California is shutting down the practice of legacy admissions, and Stanford and USC are feeling the sting.
But Trump was able to graduate?
Is Wharton one of those US schools (like Harvard) where anyone lower than a tenured professor has to write justifications to file anytime they give a student less than a B-?
Both Trump and Musk have degrees from the supposedly reputable Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
If these two are evidence of their quality of graduates, it really raises questions about whether it was another US institution where ‘legacy’ and money buy admissions and it’s impossible not to graduate.
Just be sure to wash and block before connecting the blocks.