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When the red, red robin comes bob, bob bobbin’ along…

birds of the glebe

By Jeanette Rive

Spring has arrived, the American robin is foraging among the leaves, perhaps in lawns, hopping about, peering sideways, watching for any slight movement of the soil, then pouncing, pulling out a worm.

Robins are seen all winter although they are mostly migratory. If there are enough berries available to survive the winter, they will stay and patiently wait until their favourite food – earthworms – is available. Earthworms thrive in our lawns, are essential to our gardens and provide food for the birds, but they are not native to North America. They were introduced from Europe as early as the 1700s as unexpected passengers in the horticultural trade between the two continents.

In the thrush family, our robin is not related to the smaller European robin but was named American robin by early settlers because of their similar red breasts. Common throughout North America, they can be found everywhere, whether in urban areas or rural forests.

The American robin pairs up every spring with a new mate. Their eggs are “robin’s egg blue,” a lovely green blue. Rescued robin nestlings need food!

PHOTOS: JEANETTE RIVE

Dedicated to Glebe resident Mary Marsh, committed nature and animal lover, friend to many.

Robins pair up every spring. The male courts the female by serenading her with song at dawn and proudly puffing up his white-striped throat. They are quite indiscriminate in where to build a nest. Outside cities, they’ll build in any protected area, typically in a tree or large shrub. At city homes or cottages, nests can be found on upper window ledges, above doors, right outside a kitchen window. The female takes charge of nest building, which can take up to a week; the male helps by getting supplies such as twigs and grasses. The first of three or four eggs per brood will be laid about three days later. Robins typically have two broods

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Robins’ eggs are a lovely greenish-blue colour. Perhaps you’ve found eggshells on the ground? They are usually tossed far from the nest, so predators are not alerted to the location. If you find shells that are cleanly split, it’s from a hatched chick. If the shell is crushed and unevenly broken, it’s probably a victim of a predator – many animals welcome a meal of bird’s egg.

How do eggs get their colours? Egg formation from yolk to laying is a 24-hour process. (Bird reproduction varies from species to species and can be quite astounding. Interested readers can look this up!) Seasonal hormonal changes trigger egg production. The yolk is released from the oviduct where it is fertilized during mating. Then albumin, the egg white, forms around the yolk, which takes about four hours. It then travels to the uterus where glands in the lining expel calcium carbonate to form the shell, which takes another 15 hours or so. Then finally colouration, another five hours. A single egg can weigh up to 12 per cent of a bird’s weight – only one egg is produced at a time so the female can still fly without being weighed down by eggs!

Birds are the only backboned animal that lays coloured and patterned eggs. The colours and patterns depend on the species and, more importantly, where they nest. Species such as shorebirds that lay their eggs on the ground produce speckled or streaked eggs that blend into their surroundings, so well camouflaged that they can barely be seen among rocks, pebbles and leaves. Those that lay all-white eggs, like owls and woodpeckers, don’t need to colour their eggs because their nests are safe in a tree cavity. Songbirds that lay coloured eggs, such as the robin, tend to have open nests. The colour plays a protective role: darker surfaces heat up faster and protect more against harmful UV rays; lighter shells keep them cooler but protect less against the sun. Brown pigment patterning has also been shown to strengthen the eggshell.

Despite the wide variety of patterns and colours, they come from only two pigments produced from the lining of the uterus after shell formation – blue (biliverdin) and reddish-brown (protoporphyrin). The resulting colours are dependent on the proportions used. Precisely how a bird produces colours that seem almost spray painted on the white calcium carbonate shell is still one of the mysteries of bird biology.

Fun facts: The ostrich produces the largest egg, weighing up to 1.35 kg and measuring 15 cm in length. The smallest egg comes from a hummingbird, weighing 0.56 grams and about the size of a coffee bean.

It’s a great time to watch birds in our gardens. Say goodbye to some you’ve been watching over the winter as they head north and welcome the new birds arriving for the summer.

Jeanette Rive is a Glebe bird enthusiast and regular Glebe Report contributor.

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Medivnyk:

Ukrainian honey cake

Medivnyk or Ukrainian honey cake is a traditional Ukrainian favourite that gets even better over time. PHOTO: MARISA ROMANO

By Marisa Romano

Ukrainian potato dumplings are served more often these days, a sign that world events are once again shaping our dinner tables.

While we in Ottawa were unwinding after the liberation of our downtown from the truck convoy, tanks were rolling into the Eastern Ukraine republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. It was February 22, the dawn of a senseless war and an attempt to eradicate a culture.

The response from Ukrainian expats and supporters has been to turn towards that culture under threat and preserve its richness. Varenyky (as pierogis are known in Ukraine) and pysanky (decorated Easter eggs) are words now familiar in many Canadian households. Together with the Ukrainian choral tradition, they embody the taste, colours and sounds of a land and a people with a long history of struggle for their independence.

I connected with an old friend of Ukrainian descent for a closer look at her ancestral culture and spent an afternoon in her kitchen with recipes and personal stories about her cherished heritage. When choosing a dish to prepare on our culinary afternoon, Kim Ostapyk proposed Medivnyk, the Ukrainian honey cake – her baba’s favourite.

Key ingredients of this symbol of Ukrainian households – wheat and honey – represent major products of one of the world’s richest agricultural lands. Known as Europe’s breadbasket – but a source of wheat for African and Asian countries as well – Ukraine is one of the world’s top wheat exporters. Ukraine is also Europe’s largest producer of honey. The beekeeping tradition in Slavic-Baltic regions goes back millennia, back to the time when beekeepers tended wild bees nested in natural hollows of trees. Nowadays, wild-hive beekeeping is a tradition still practised in northern Ukraine where hives are made from hollowed out logs hung on forest trees. The honey harvested from these hives is praised for its special flavour.

Medivnyk is a dark, spongy cake with a decisive taste of the precious golden nectar. Buckwheat honey, reminiscent of molasses, is one of the most popular sweeteners for the batter, but the cake can be baked with other dark or light and sweeter honeys like clover. There are many versions of this recipe, as many as there are Ukrainian babas (grandmothers). Various spices, nuts and dried fruits can be added to the basics, but the simplest – the one we baked – is the one Ostapyk’s baba loved.

Ostapyk’s mama, Sally, joined us for tea as soon as our baking was out of the oven. She brought with her the photos and the memories of her trip to the little Ukrainian village where her mama came from. As an active member of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Sally honours her heritage by helping with the activities organized there and the popular Ukrainian festival where visitors line up for bags of handmade varenyky and enjoy traditional singing and dancing.

Honey cake was also the favourite of Michael Koros’ baba Zelinsky. Like Ostapyk’s baba, she also left western Ukraine and found refuge in Canada with her husband. A neighbour and first tenor in the Ukrainian Men’s Choir of Ottawa, Akord (akordchoir.ca), Koros honours his heritage by bringing traditional songs – “musical pieces from the fields, steppes and mountainous Carpathian regions of Ukraine”– to audiences across Canada. “It is a tragedy and crime beyond comprehension,” says Koros about the current situation. “Pray for Ukraine, that is all we can do.”

Marisa Romano is a foodie and scientist with a sense of adventure who appreciates interesting and nutritious foods that bring people together.

Medivnyk: Ukrainian Honey Cake

This is the gluten-free version of the traditional Ukrainian honey cake. In this recipe, two cups of white flour are replaced by gluten-free alternatives. We baked both versions of the cake to compare. They both received two thumbs up from all who indulged.

Ingredients:

¼ lb butter, at room temperature ½ cup brown sugar, packed 1 cup liquid honey (buckwheat honey is the traditional choice, but other honey is good too) 5 eggs 1 cup sour cream, full fat 1½ cups gluten-free flour ½ cup almond flour 2 tsp baking soda 1 cup walnuts, finely crushed

Directions:

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy; beat in the liquid honey, then the eggs. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream and mix it into the batter, alternating with the flours, ending with flour. Stir in the walnuts. Pour the batter into a prepared 9x13 baking pan. Bake at 350F for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cut when cooled.

The taste improves with time and is best after two or three days, but how would I know? Our cakes were all gone by then!

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A Syrian refugee family six years later

By Marjorie George

The third time Ahmed had to move his family after an Ottawa landlord sold the unit they were living in, he decided he needed to buy his own home. He went to the bank to find out about down payments and mortgages, then set to work. He worked 12 to 14 hours seven days a week, driving for Uber and doing whatever other jobs he could get. In early 2020, he had saved enough to buy a house in Orleans – mercifully before the 40-per-cent increase in housing prices in Ottawa.

All of this within four years of arriving in Canada from Syria!

Ahmed (a pseudonym) and his family were sponsored by an organization called FACES, to which I belong. We are a group of people from St. Matthews, St. Giles and Glebe-St. James churches along with other members of the community, which has raised over $300,000 to sponsor more than 75 newcomers to Canada.

Ahmed’s family were the first refugees that FACES (First Avenue Churches and Community Embracing Sponsorship) helped settle in Ottawa. They arrived in 2016 from a Turkish refugee camp where they had spent three and a half years after fleeing western Syria in 2012. Ahmed had been in the Syrian army, which he deserted when he saw the atrocities he was expected to commit. (A cousin in Syria who shares his name was recently jailed for three months until he could prove his identity, so even in Canada Ahmed is wary of his name being known.) At the refugee camp, Ahmed says he saw Prime Minister Trudeau on a TV news channel announcing that Canada would welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees. He was very pleased when his application was accepted by Canada.

When Ahmed and his wife arrived with

Ahmed’s youngest Adam (1) with mom for a

check-up. PHOTOS: COURTESY OF FACES

onechild, she was pregnant with their second. FACES arranged for a furnished apartment in downtown Ottawa and helped them set up banking, medical care and the myriad other things that need to be dealt with when you move to a new country. Ahmed says he had no idea they were being sponsored or would get so much help until he saw the phalanx of volunteers at the foot of the escalator in the Ottawa airport!

They have since gone on to have two more children and say this is their finished family. With very little English and knowing no one, they had to learn to adapt to the cold weather, the language and the job market. Ahmed quickly learned English, bought a car and started working hard. Three years later, he was ready to help integrate

Ahmed’s children are Canadian citizens growing up in Ottawa. From left, Maya (4), Riyad (7) and Mariam (5).

his extended family who arrived as government-assisted refugees. They included his parents, a disabled sister, another sister who is currently at school and a 20-year-old brother who is working as a delivery driver. Ahmed has leveraged the flexible hours of his job as a driver so he can be available to help them out.

He and his family have had a nightmarish time during the pandemic. They caught COVID last spring, a week before they were due to be vaccinated. Both Ahmed and his wife were very ill. His wife was hospitalized twice, and Ahmed had to manage on his own with his baby son screaming for his mother. Because they didn’t want to infect anyone else, they could not get any help. They both had long COVID and Ahmed was unable to work for months. In addition, he had a cancer scare that has only recently been resolved. A year later, they

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are beginning to feel normal again – two of the children have returned to school and things are looking better.

Despite these difficult times, Ahmed says that he feels very lucky to be in Canada and is deeply grateful for all the help that FACES gave his family during their first year here. Canada has helped them have a better life and a future. They are all very happy to be Canadian citizens. Ahmed hopes one day to have a business, perhaps selling Middle Eastern foods. In the meantime, he is saving up for a trip to Turkey so that his wife can see her parents and they can meet their grandchildren.

FACES is very proud of this couple, and we know that they and their children will be strong contributors to Canada’s future.

FACES is currently raising money to bring a young Iraqi couple living in Turkey to Canada. If you would like to contribute, please visit www.stmatthewsottawa.ca/index.php/ outreach/refugee-sponsorship.

Marjorie George is a FACES community representative and volunteer.

FACES (First Avenue Churches and Community Embracing Sponsorship) seeks justice by assisting refugees to come to Canada and by supporting the refugees’ transition to a new life here� FACES is committed to being inclusive and open in refugee sponsorship regardless of faith, ethnicity, health condition or sexual orientation� FACES also believes there are benefits in working together and in reaching out to the local community for commitment and support in the pursuit of its purpose�

Blind Date a page-turner set in the Glebe!

Review by Sharon McCue

Sometimes, when you’re snuggled up with a mystery, it would be nice to have a better sense of where it is all taking place. Oh sure, Paris is great, but when was the last time you wandered around le Marais in the Fourth Arrondissement? Well, get ready, gentle readers, because Brenda Chapman has written one just for us Glebites. Yes, you will recognize the streets, you will recognize the architecture, and if you cannot find the ash trees, well, she’s not an arborist!

Many will remember her fine Stonechild-Rouleau series that preceded this one. We mourned its ending and could not imagine what the follow-up might be. Well, Chapman has spent her COVID time well and come up with another winner. Blind Date will hook you from its early pages and reel you in, holding on until its final page.

The author has created a family of characters with whom you will bond. This time, the two sleuths are not both police. Ella Tate is a down-onher-luck, recently down-sized crime reporter living on peanut butter sandwiches and trying to make a go of her own podcast. Her apartment is in the Glebe (Third and Lyon at a guess) in a house with a wacky, charming, totally loveable gay neighbour who refuses to allow her to become the curmudgeon she wants to be.

The mystery begins when Tate receives a puzzling message suggesting that she follow up on a rape that has taken place in the Civic Hospital area. A young teacher has been brutally assaulted and before Tate or the police can interview her, she leaves (or is abducted from) the hospital and commits suicide (or is murdered).

Tate has a long-established relationship with Paul O’Brien, a detective in the Ottawa Police Service. Because he trusts her integrity as a journalist and admires her doggedness going after a story, O’Brien is prepared to share (off-the-record) a certain amount of inside information, especially if it will beat the bushes to get even more information in the air. Tate has her own reasons for trusting O’Brien, so it’s a workable relationship if not a match made in heaven.

Liam Hunter is O’Brien’s temporary partner in the rape investigation and, as the story progresses, he learns to respect, if not exactly like, Tate. Hunter also comes to trust that he can share information with her without jeopardizing his career, important because of his acrimonious relationship with his boss. After two more murders, Hunter wants to tie them together, but the boss won’t hear of it; later she wants to point the finger at Tate for all three. While Tate is in some way connected to these murders, Hunter is convinced that she is more victim than murderer.

The story picks up speed when it starts bouncing between Ottawa and Almonte, and we get a taste of the Valley as well as the Glebe. There is action off the Carp Road as well as in the Byward Market and the Mission. Chapman puts a human face on homelessness and makes the reader think twice before judging people’s choices.

There is a really good mix of characters here – not everyone is middle class and beautiful nor are they all prostitutes and grifters. Her shading of the folks that she portrays is admirable. Even the villains have mothers.

Chapman is a solid writer. She includes enough description to give us a sense of place without making us want to skip whole paragraphs of colour commentary. Her character sketches detail portraits of people for whom we come to care. We care about what they do and what is done to them. While she is not Agatha Christie (but then, who is?), Chapman takes us on the twists and turns that are the bread and butter of a good whodunnit.

So go buy a copy of Blind Date at your local independent bookstore and give Ella Tate and Liam Hunter a try.

Sharon McCue is an avid mystery reader, especially those by Canadian writers, and has reviewed books for the Canadian Library Journal. She has lived in the Glebe for more than 30 years.

Blind Date

by Brenda Chapman� Ivy Bay Press, 2022� ISBN 978-0-9784284-0-2

Sunday, May 1, 2022

By Véronique Dupuis

There is something about walking a city street in spring that makes one feel buoyant. Some delight in the rebellious feeling of leaving the house without a coat and boots. Others are eager to display their best fashion-forward look as well as enjoy some people watching. Most welcome the many elated smiles (or at least, smiling eyes) that cross their path and reply with a similar expression. And some appreciate having their sense of smell being tickled once again – for better or for worse.

Here are some picture books that will stretch out the pleasure of your spring city walk even after you get back to the comfort of your home with your little ones.

These titles are all available from Ottawa Public Library at your Sunnyside branch at 1049 Bank Street. See you around the neighbourhood!

Wake Up, City! by Erica Silverman and Laure Fournier A girl walks through her city from the early morning hours when most are still sleeping to the time when class starts. She will see the early risers like herself clean the streets, bring products to the market, sweat at the gym.

My City, by Joanne Liu In this wordless book, a boy is tasked by his mother to deliver a letter to the mail. His wide-eyed experience through his colourful city is depicted in bold gouache art.

Windows, by Julia Denos and E. B. Goodale An evocative book that follows a boy who takes a walk in the evening. Seeing through undraped windows, he finds that even when the streets are empty, life goes on all around him in the houses that make up the

HOPE AND JOY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

neighbourhood. A great book to combat feelings of loneliness!

Maybe Something Beautiful, by F. I. Campoy, T. Howell, and R. López This picture book is inspired by the true story of the authors, who are artists who transformed their neighbourhood in San Diego by creating a community-wide mural. In the book, Mira, a young girl, starts giving out her colourful drawings to people in the street, then sticking them on the sad walls of her grey city, until she meets an artist, and everybody starts painting everywhere!

Anywhere Farm, by Phyllis Root and G. Brian Karas A book that shows you don’t need a whole lot of land to start a farm!

Home, by Jeannie Baker In this extraordinary wordless book by collage artist Jeannie Baker, we witness the transformation over three decades of what was a less-than-inspiring street corner into a lush environment where families, friends and neighbours live in harmony.

Last Stop On Market Street, by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson A boy and his grandmother take the bus after church and as he observes things around him, he realizes that there are many things that his family doesn’t seem to possess. This award-winning book can help you teach children that some wonderful things in life are actually free!

Véronique Dupuis works at the Ottawa Public Library. She enjoys reading travel memoirs and richly illustrated books.

What Your Neighbours are Reading

Here is a list of some titles read and discussed recently in various local book clubs: TITLE (for adults) AUTHOR

The Salt Path Raynor Winn

Five Little Indians Michelle Good

Full Disclosure First Snow, Last Light The Strangers Five Little Indians Beverley McLachlin Wayne Johnston Katherena Vermette Michelle Good BOOK CLUB

The 15 Book Club The 35 Book Club Abbotsford Book Club Broadway Book Club Can’ Litterers Book Club Helen’s Book Club How to Pronounce Knife Souvankham Thammavongsa Seriously No-Name Book Club Light Perpetual Francis Spufford The Book Club

The Cameraman - a rarely seen Buster Keaton masterpiece

(US, 1928) Directed by Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton

Review by Barbara Popel

I’m a big fan of Buster Keaton. My favourite Keaton feature film has always been The General, the spectacular melodrama about a railway engineer, his beloved train “The General” and the Southern belle he’s trying to woo during the American Civil War. But a few weeks ago, I had to reconsider my ranking of Keaton’s films when I saw one I’d never even heard of – The Cameraman. It’s supplanted The General as my favourite Keaton feature film.

Keaton stars in this silent comedy about a photographer who takes up filming newsreels to impress Sally, a beautiful office worker played by Marceline Day, and to get hired as a newsreel photographer by her boss, played by Sidney Bracy. He buys an ancient, rickety movie camera. After several aborted but hilarious attempts to capture some interesting footage, Keaton finds himself in the middle of a major news story – a pitched battle between rival Chinese Tongs, complete with knives, pistols and Gatling guns! After further mishaps and misunderstandings, Keaton achieves the fulsome praise lavished on the other “daredevil(s) who (defy) death to give us pictures of the world’s happenings.”

Let me whet your appetite with one of Keaton’s first forays as a newsreel cameraman. He’s supposed to film interesting events. What about a Yankees’ baseball game? He heads to Yankee Stadium for a game that afternoon but finds out the Yankees are actually playing in St. Louis! Undeterred, Buster mimes playing baseball – three minutes of the most sublime miming I’ve ever seen.

On Sunday, Keaton takes out Sally, the girl he is besotted with, on a date. They go to a public swimming pool where there’s another brilliant scene. Keaton goes into a tiny closet of a change room, but a large man barges in and insists on using the same room. The two of them proceed to get undressed, tangling up in each other’s clothes, arms and legs. Most of this is done in one amazing two-and-a-half minute take. I’ve never seen anything like it.

When Keaton emerges in a gargantuan swimsuit (he seems to have put on the other guy’s suit), what happens next in the pool is hilarious. It definitely predates the censorious Hays Code.

One of the things that impressed me about The Cameraman was how modern it is. If you swapped the newsreel cameras for handheld video cameras and iPhones and updated the clothes, the entire story could be set in 2022. Well, except for one of the minor but essential characters – a very clever organ grinder’s monkey. I’m not sure how you’d update this little fellow to 2022 – not too many organ grinders these days! However, the storyline and most of the performances are what you’d expect from today’s best Hollywood actors.

Oh, one other exception – no one has ever equalled Buster Keaton’s daring stunts and graceful physical humour.

Running time: 76 min Rated: PG Available: Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube, the Criterion Collection

Barb Popel has lived in the Glebe since 1991. At university in the early 1970s, she was introduced to the joys of film. She’s been an avid filmgoer ever since.

This year’s The Batman long and unmemorable

(US, 2022) Directed by Matt Reeves

Review by Angus Luff

The Batman is an American comic book action film directed by Matt Reeves. The film follows Robert Pattinson’s interpretation of the beloved hero as he attempts to track down a mysterious figure in Gotham named The Riddler (Paul Dano), who is killing important political figures and leaving behind clues for Batman to figure out. He gets help from Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and tries to get answers from crime bosses The Penguin (Colin Farrell) and Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). The Batman also crosses paths with Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) – she is caught up in another mystery that involves her missing friend, but she ends up helping him try to figure what the Riddler wants and how to find him.

The first thing I think of when looking for positives in the film is the visuals. The cinematography, colours, lighting, staging and movement make for such a captivating experience. More than any other Batman film (of those I’ve seen), this one has the best mix of brutal, gritty realism, and stylized, corny comic book adventures – the bright, unfamiliar yellows and oranges in a sick, lived-in world. It’s very gritty and tangible, and it is a serious story, but it never forgets that a Batman film needs a bit of stylization.

But what everyone’s talking about is its length – just four minutes shy of three hours. I think an overarching mystery should be long, so you have time to get invested and be right there in the film, cracking codes with the characters. But three hours does seem to be a little bit of overkill. At three hours, you must really justify that length, and I don’t think this movie did, but I’m not as against it as many people on the Internet. The time didn’t really go by that slowly, the pace felt consistent, the performances and mystery were engaging enough to go on; by the end, I really didn’t feel the runtime that much. The middle of the film lost me a little, the repetition got to me. Also, the story development didn’t interest me that much since I’m not really a fan of this character and world, so I did not get emotionally invested when the film wanted me to.

The performances were good, but maybe not great. The main cast is pretty solid – Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis and Jeffrey Wright do decent jobs but nothing very memorable. As a fan of Pattinson, I was disappointed, as this is one of his weaker performances in recent years. The performance that was memorable for all the wrong reasons was Dano as The Riddler. I simply couldn’t buy him as a threat or a villian or as someone who seemed tortured and “wronged by the world.” In fact, in later scenes, I was actually laughing because his performance was so funny to me. What they were going for with the character feels way too similar to previous villains played by Heath Ledger or even Joaquin Phoenix. I know you can only portray the crazed, unpredictable Batman villain in so many ways, but that’s one point where I felt the film was derivative or unoriginal.

Again, I’m not at all a die-hard Batman fan, so I wasn’t rushing to see this before it came out and I’m not rushing to see it again. It’s a superhero story, so naturally I roll my eyes. That said, this is a pretty solid Batman movie. Visuals, tone, the mystery and action all work well to create an entertaining, well-rounded, alive film. It’s maybe not super original or a break from the formula, but it shows that these films can be solid as their own contained thing. I probably won’t remember this film very well in the upcoming weeks, but I’m overall glad I saw it.

Running time: 2 hr 56 min Showing in theatres

Angus Luff is a student at Glebe Collegiate. He grew up in the Glebe and is obsessed with movies.

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