The McKenzie’s Blog…

Today I took the girls to Welcome to Wild Britain - Bedfordshire’s Butterfly and Conservation Park.

Yuki was working and I needed to get out of the house today with the girls, so I decided to take the to this park.  We’d talked about it for a while but today was the day.

You can see the photos from the Flickr Gallery.

The girls had a great time.. they even did some crafts there too.. they painted some paper butterflies, they did some drawing and coloured in a small bit of paper that was then pressed into a badge with a pin in the back to put on their clothes.

On June 26 Lisa’s pre-school, Ladybird Pre-School, had a day out at Wicken Fen.  This is a National Trust owned Nature Reserve near Cambridge.

The weather couldn’t have been better for the day.. it was a little overcast, but that kept the heat down which was good.

(click to see full sized images)

You can see the rest of the pics taken yesterday by CLICKING HERE

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The Register has a story today about a Canadian bloke named Daniel Burd.  He’s discovered how to dissolve plastic bags in around 3 months.  Take his magic “goo”, a bucket and plastic carrier bags, mix and watch the microbes go to work and get rid of all those bags. 

Dissolving the plastic bag problem | The Register

The BBC is carrying a story about biologists calling for a ban on mass balloon releases.  I must say, after reading the article it makes perfect sense.  I’ve seen plenty of huge balloon releases and likely only pondered where all those balloons would end up, but never gave any thought about it beyond that.  It would make perfect sense they would end up some where on the ground, after all, they don’t float around forever.  They will climb until they pop then the rubbish will drift around before falling back to earth (isn’t Gravity wonderful).  Well, its never once occurred to me that these would land and endanger animals.  Perhaps, had at some point in my life I’d been walking along and had the remains of a balloon fall on or near me it might have come to mind that these could fall into wild animal habitats.  I suspect if people are honest with themselves they’ve never thought about this either. 

BBC NEWS | UK | Biologists call for balloon ban

As cool as big balloon releases look, I have to agree with these guys.  I think it’s a bad idea.  Not to mention the general environmental impact all this rubbish will have.  Which is something else I’ve started to become a lot more conscience about recently. 

I found this while looking around for some new podcasts/vodcasts to watch.

Urban Forest 2.0, come from KQED in San Francisco. I’ve been listening to their NPR mp3 stream for a few weeks.. it’s quite an entertaining broadcast covering pretty much much everything imaginable.

I’m not a tree hugger by any means but I do like green space. One thing that really impressed me when I moved to the UK was how much green space they have in their cities, towns and villages. Every village it seems has a “village green”.. these are usually lined or ringed with trees along with a large area of grassy area. In a lot of villages they will have fairs or carnivals come and setup in these greens, as well as they will hold local events in them. You will have no doubt seen a number of pics from events we’ve been to in Cottenham on it’s village green.

KQED have a story about a new database that is trying to catalogue every tree in and around San Francisco, a monumental task to say the least. They’ve then stuck this on the net for all to access. From the KQED website they have the following to say.

In the past, San Francisco’s long-term urban forest planning was hindered because there was no way to share information, much less get the community involved. That’s all changed, thanks to a significant partnership effort between Friends of the Urban Forest, the City and County of San Francisco, and Autodesk. By working together and leveraging new technology – MapGuide Open Source – the project team has created an Urban Forest Map, which digitally pinpoints the location of each tree, maintains tree data in a consistent database, and offers web access to the tree data – key for maintenance and planting efforts. The community can get involved by posting photos and stories about their own trees that they plant and map online. With the launch of this collaborative effort and the support of the Mayor’s Office, a critical step has been taken to move San Francisco’s urban greening efforts forward.

Check out the video: