Ellie Kennard
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elliek.zeroes.ca.ap.brid.gy
Ellie Kennard
@elliek.zeroes.ca.ap.brid.gy
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Vegan for the […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://zeroes.ca/@elliek, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
There must be a better way to remove cat hair from a washing machine after washing pet blankets, other than running a dark fabrics wash immediately afterwards.
I did put them all though a cold drier for 20 minutes, hoping to get rid of it. But.. no. Some still remains.

Anyone?

#fedihelp #pets […]
Original post on zeroes.ca
zeroes.ca
December 24, 2025 at 10:54 PM
@FediTree
Please generate my tree!
December 24, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Ellie Kennard
Timeline Cleanse

Swans & ducks on a drizzly day
#birds #photography #nature
December 23, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Now Chris Rea? No!
He was only 74.
Passed away in hospital after a short illness.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c0q5g3v02qjt

#soundtrackofmylife #crisrea
December 22, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Ellie Kennard
George Monbiot makes his point with a dash of meatless humour and legislative somersaults today.
#EuropeanUnion #vegan
https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/22/mincing-our-words/
Mincing Our Words
The absolute madness of the proposed new food rules. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th December 2025 Most of what you eat is sausages. I mean, if we’re going to get literal about it. Sausage derives from the Latin _salsicus_ , which means “seasoned with salt”. You might think of a sausage as a simple thing, but on this reading it is everything and nothing, a Borgesian meta-concept that retreats as you approach it. From another perspective, a sausage is an offal-filled intestine, or the macerated parts of an electrocuted or asphyxiated pig or other animal – generally parts that you wouldn’t knowingly eat – mixed with other ingredients that, in isolation, you might consider inedible. For some reason, it is seldom marketed as such. But to the legislators of the EU, a sausage can now have only one meaning: a cylindrical object containing meat. Never mind that cylindrical objects containing no meat have been marketed under names such as “Glamorgan sausage” (_selsig Morgannwg_) for at least 150 years. Never mind that even Germans once felt the need to call animal sausages _mettwurst_ , to distinguish them from other kinds. Never mind that almost everyone knows what “veggie sausage”, “vegan sausage” or “plant-based sausage” mean. A recent survey of 20,000 Dutch people found that 96% are not confused by such terms, which is probably a higher percentage than those who can readily distinguish left from right. The consumer must at all costs be protected from an imaginary threat. For the same reason, members of the European Parliament decided, burgers must also contain meat. It happens that no one is sure why a burger is called a burger. They were once called “Hamburg steaks”, but no clear link to Hamburg has been established.Nevertheless, before the term was abbreviated, meat patties were widely known as hamburgers, whose literal meaning is an inhabitant of Hamburg. If “veggie burgers” are misleadingly marketed, so is any burger not made from the minced inhabitants of a north German city. Last week, the European Council and European Commission tried and failed to make sense of all this. They were unable to agree a common position with the European Parliament, and bumped the decision to January, when a new council presidency will have to deal with it. I can’t blame them. You cannot make sense of a senseless policy. The parliament’s food literalism is remarkably selective. Given the time of year, perhaps I should point out that there is no meat in mincemeat, which is used to fill mince pies. Many years ago there was, but the meat component fell out of fashion. Minced meat, by contrast, _is_ meat – I’m sure that’s not confusing. Similarly, sweetbreads are meat, but sweetmeats are not. None of these terms appear to cause any problems for legislators, though they have insisted that the only permissible definition of meat is “edible parts of the animals referred to in points 1.2 to 1.8 of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004”, which is, let’s face it, how it’s commonly understood by shoppers across the EU. If a vegetarian hotdog is to be ruled out, as the parliamentarians demand, on the grounds that it contains no meat, the meat version should be ruled out on the grounds that it contains no dog (hothorse should in some cases be permissible). They might also be shocked to discover that there is no beef in beef tomatoes, butterfly in butterfly cakes, cottage in cottage pie, baby in jelly babies or finger (mostly) in chocolate fingers. And don’t get me started on buffalo wings. All this must be deeply confusing to shoppers. Like Wednesday Addams, who, when offered girl scout cookies, asked whether they contain real girl scouts, we puzzle every day over what such names really mean. Human beings are entirely incapable of pattern recognition, derived and secondary meanings, metaphor or conceptualisation. Language never evolves, and nor does food. This is why, when confronted with “pigs in blankets”, “toad in the hole” or “spotted dick”, people curl up on the floor, banging their heads and moaning weakly (OK, there might be other reasons). Everything can have only one meaning, and this meaning must be what legislators say it is. If you are thinking “benefit of Brexit”, I’m sorry to disabuse you. If the European Council and Commission eventually decide that terms such as veggie burgers and vegan sausages are to be banned in the EU, they are likely to be banned in the UK as well, for fear of jeopardising trade agreements. Already, after a court interpretation of a previous European decision, terms such as oat milk, soy butter and vegan cheese are prohibited on UK labels, but not – because consistency is for suckers – coconut milk or peanut butter. So what explains the selectivity? Lobbying. The decision in the European Parliament is a response to pressure from the meat and dairy industries, which have long been seeking to stamp out competition. It has no more to do with preventing confusion than a Rocky Mountain oyster has to do with a marine bivalve. It’s about protectionism. This is why peanut butter and coconut milk are still legal: they seldom compete directly with animal products. These anti-competitive practices have a long history. In the 19th century, the US dairy industry managed first to get margarine declared a “harmful drug”, then had its sale restricted under the 1886 Oleomargarine Act. It’s reassuring to know that legislators made just as good use of their time then as they do now. The livestock lobby is immensely powerful. Its campaigns are reinforced by rightwing influencers, who wage war against a wide variety of plant products (vegetable oil, soya, almonds, avocados, any plant-based meat substitute), often on entirely spurious health or environmental grounds, while conveniently ignoring the far greater impacts of animal products on human bodies and the living planet. The food industry knows that words are a powerful weapon. If Moses had promised the Israelites a land of mammary secretions and insect vomit, I doubt many would have followed him to Canaan, though these are accurate descriptions of milk and honey. It knows that if plant-based foods have to be marketed under alien and alienating names, this will depress their market share. The livestock lobby seeks to normalise and naturalise the cruel, grotesque, planet-wrecking realities of its industry, while casting plant-based foods as unnatural and wrong. As usual, it has made minced meat of European legislators. Though I should point out that I don’t mean that literally. www.monbiot.com ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads * Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn *
www.monbiot.com
December 22, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Springhouse Market #halifax spirit of giving

This wonderful little restaurant business has a community minded program in place to help people in need of food or a warm drink. It's their community meals program. As they put it:

'...we’re thinking a lot about how […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 21, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Ellie Kennard
The foxes have been fairly quiet of late. That's not entirely true. We can *hear* them calling, but we're seeing them less frequently as they get down to their winter business. Lopa the vixen is still showing up on a semi-regular basis and she's looking in […]

[Original post on social.vivaldi.net]
December 21, 2025 at 3:18 PM
This is such a delightful short video, from a creator whose work I love.

Duck player link (I hope)
duck://player/A223dbGhcJk

Enjoy!
December 20, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Sometimes I simply can't believe the incredible privilege it is for us to live with such wonderful creatures as our cats and Joni. I look at their characters, their physical beauty and their natural grace, and I feel the gentle affection and kindness they give us […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 17, 2025 at 8:51 PM
When you're not well, and of course your (non) Instant Pot (actually Breville) is suddenly broken, out of warranty. And a vegan friend who knows the food were life, prepares a home made chili as a takeout for us so we have lunch. She packed everything, a delicious […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 15, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Zaz wants to wish a happy #caturday to all! She's been busy housekeeping, it would appear, as she's thrown most of her blanket out of her bed. She's such a helpful, busy girl.
I hope everyone's day is peaceful and warm.

#caturdayeveryday #catsofmastodon […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 13, 2025 at 4:46 PM
It's happy anniversary to us!
44 years married. Love him even more than I did back then!
I had a Eureka moment on the way to meet him to watch a move 45 years ago: I suddenly realised that I could be happy in my life. That was a new concept to me and he made it come true.
Thank you […]
Original post on zeroes.ca
zeroes.ca
December 11, 2025 at 2:39 PM
So I'm trying to recover from an infection, just sitting quietly by the fire with Zaz sleeping on my knee when the thought of #whiskerswednesday passed through my brain (surely I didn't say it out loud) when this happened.

(Follow her immediate - and predictable - […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 10, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Kestrel Cam

For a couple of moments of pure joy!

Top 5 highlights from the season of the Kestrel cam.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/top-5-highlights-from-the-2025-american-kestrel-cam

Or on the duck player:
duck://player/XZk1yHqMKPg

Or on the YouTube link […]
Original post on zeroes.ca
zeroes.ca
December 7, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Happy Caturday to all who celebrate!

Zaz is determined to lift my spirits and entertain me.

She's doing a good job. Who wouldn't feel better watching her have fun?
And did you catch that flash of toe beans? Such a coy madame. (And of course the whiskers...)

Have […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 6, 2025 at 5:14 PM
My friends should be glad that we mask!

I was too sick to eat much yesterday (a bad flare that's lasted over a week now) and this morning I realised how strong our breath must smell of garlic! Steven did eat our usual, so I got a good chance to smell his unmasked […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 5, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Perhaps not the best thing to do when I'm not well, but it seems that now is the time to switch from forwarding to Gmail to using Thunderbird IMAP for our website emails.

Any tips or pitfalls I should be aware of anyone?

#elliekposts #fedihelp #thunderbird
December 4, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Ellie Kennard
I realised the other day that this year in December will mark 10 years since beginning this little vegan experiment. I know how many years you've stacked up isn't the important part. But it's nice to mark the occasion.

This article my wife sent me holds quite a bit of truth.

“Our evolutionary […]
Original post on masto.byrd.ws
masto.byrd.ws
July 5, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Okay, Zaz is beginning to be annoyed with me now.

Zaz: "Is it #whiskerswednesday or isn't it? What's wrong with my whiskers? Aren't they good enough for your catty friends on Mastodon? Well....?"

Me: "I know what side my bread's buttered (margerined) on. Here you […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 3, 2025 at 10:48 PM
For #tongueouttuesday and #tabbytuesday I present to you:
Zaz
She's enjoying the sun on her back on her favourite human's chair while he's somewhere else. The sun shows off her lovely flame bits in her curly coat, too. I think she knows that, don't you?

Enjoy […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
December 2, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Fragile

An Italian musician I really enjoy is Claudio Constantini. He plays bandoneon and piano and shares beautiful reflections on music and life in general in his newsletter.

He's just released his 15th album, "Fragile" and these are some of his thoughts on the […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
November 30, 2025 at 5:00 PM
November 30, 2025 at 2:48 PM
What makes you think I might be reluctant to admit that summer's gone?

Actually, I think faded and 'dead' flowers are rather lovely.

I think I have to accept it, summer is over.

#elliekposts #flowers #driedflowers #winter #bloomscrolling
November 29, 2025 at 6:38 PM
I have a feeling that Zaz is a bit fed up with Ping Pong getting all the attention for the past couple of weeks, so she's showing off her athletic prowess.

I think she's hoping to bring a smile to anyone who needs one right now.

Have a happy #caturday everyone! […]

[Original post on zeroes.ca]
November 29, 2025 at 2:13 PM