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A Greener Start to the School Year
2025-11-24
<p>Can you feel that back-to-school crispness in the air? As September rolls in, so do cooler temperatures and preparation for another busy school year. Throughout the course of the year, kids will utilize a lot of school supplies and materials but that doesn’t mean there has to be a lot of waste produced as a result. This month’s Take Five focuses on helping you make eco-friendly shopping choices that can minimize your environmental footprint.</p>
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All the Trimmings
2025-11-24
<p>All the wrapping paper, tags and trimmings involved in gift giving makes for a lot of wasted paper come Christmas morning, after the kids have torn apart their presents. With this bow tutorial, you can have an eco-friendly holiday while wowing your tikes in just 12 minutes flat. </p>
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Catch the Chill
2025-11-24
<p>After ringing in the New Year, Canadians are preparing to face some of the coldest temperatures of the year. With that in mind, are you ready for the cold, or better yet, can you capture it? CWF’s monthly photo contest By Popular Vote is celebrating January with the theme “Catch the Chill” which encourages photos of Canada at its coldest. Brrrrr….we’re already feeling the chill over here! </p>
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Celebrate Parks Day!
2025-11-24
<p>It wasn’t until two years ago that I had my first real camping experience. Although growing up I spent most of my summers around lakes, it wasn’t until I moved away from home that I decided I was ready for a real outdoor adventure – and I loved it! </p>
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Dream your Dream Green Home
2025-11-24
<p>Two former Montrealers share the trials and rewards of building their dream mountainside eco-home. Of course, not all of us can build a house on a mountain, but there's nothing stopping us from imagining what our ideal green home might look like. After all, every good greening project begins with an idea and every perfect home starts out as a dream.<br></p>
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Five Activities for Your Walk
2025-11-24
<p>Don’t traipse along without purpose! Get a mission and carry it out! We’ve got five activities you can do along your walk—for wildlife and for yourself.</p>
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Five Alternatives to Pesticides
2025-11-24
<p>Spring has sprung, and along with the flowers in our gardens and buds on the trees can also come weeds through pavement cracks and mischievous insects that may dampen spring excitement.</p>
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Gifts You Can Give to Wildlife
2025-11-24
<P>Have you made your list and checked it twice? Don’t forget the critters in your own backyard! Here are five ways that you can support wildlife this Christmas. <BR> </P>
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Good News!
2025-11-24
<p>Each November we recognize those who have given us the free country we love today. As we take time to remember, we wanted to share some stories of hope and inspiration for this issue of Take Five. We encourage you to check out our Facebook page and share stories that inspire you with all of the other fans of CWF!</p>
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Great Bouquets with Native Plants
2025-11-24
<p>One of my favourite reasons for watching the current plethora of home-design TV shows is the chance to see endless new and exciting ways to use flowers to dress up a room. The one-upmanship of the designers has led to some really fun and interesting cut flower arrangements that help us look at colour and combinations in a whole new light. No longer are we tied to rules in proper use of the colour wheel and the rigid shapes formerly thought to be acceptable for floral design. Moreover, the types of plants used have expanded to include everything from houseplants to bulbs to shrubs and every plant part from the stems to flowers to leaves.</p>
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Green Your Halloween
2025-11-24
<p>CWF wants to help you get green for Halloween – and we don’t mean the ghoulish green of your costume! Climate change is scary enough on its own; let’s do what we can to reduce our impact every day. </p>
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Halloween Central
2025-11-24
The year’s most frightful night is rapidly approaching and CWF is offering you some spooky treats to help celebrate!
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Halloween Central
2025-11-24
This Halloween turn your pumpkin into an amazing wildlife-inspired work of art using one of CWF’s carving templates.
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How to build a balcony garden
2025-11-24
Living in a condo or apartment building doesn’t mean you can’t surround yourself with a garden. Your balcony may be the perfect spot to create that oasis!
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How to make your own herbal tea
2025-11-24
Discover how you can grow plants to both benefit wildlife and help you enjoy a lovely cup of tea!
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Keep Birds from Hitting Windows
2025-11-24
<p>It can be heartbreaking when a bird hits a window, which sadly happens to millions of birds every year. Fortunately, there are now things we can do to our windows that are proven to effectively reduce bird strikes. </p>
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Let It Snow
2025-11-24
<p>Although winter doesn’t officially arrive until December 21, we can safely say that it’s felt like winter in Canada for a while now. For this month’s chilly Take Five, we’re featuring five nifty facts about snow, thanks to Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips. Bundle up!</p>
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Love is in the Air
2025-11-24
<p>For this edition of Take Five, we’re getting lovey-dovey about nature. These couples are fetching aren’t they? Snap your own pics of wildlife in love and enter our February By Popular Vote contest. The theme for this month is “Love is in the air.” </p>
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Make Your Home Energy-Efficient This Winter
2025-11-24
<P>Does your blood pressure rise with energy prices at the thought of heating your home this winter? Instead of pumping money into heating fuel, make your home more efficient this winter. </P> <P>There are four main sources of energy-loss in the home: air drafts, lack of insulation, heating and lighting. Completing and acting on a home energy audit is a small task that can add up and make a big difference. By taking steps to increase home energy efficiency, the average household could save roughly $400 a year and eliminate two tonnes of carbon emissions —actions that not only save you money but also the environment and wildlife. </P>
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Natural Garland
2025-11-24
Making a garland can be a fun way to create a decoration for your trees (inside or out), mantel or windows.
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Only You
2025-11-24
<P>By April Overall and Sarah Jones<BR>In a wild world that condones roaming eyes, pairs that stick it out for the long haul are a dime a dozen. They might not send Valentine’s Day cards, dine by candlelight or listen to Barry White to set the mood, but these couples know how to keep the love alive.</P>
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O’ Christmas Tree
2025-11-24
<p>Christmas crunch time. You’ve got five holiday parties to attend in the next three days, Fido has ripped apart the gifts you just finished wrapping, and you’ve eaten half your stash of shortbread cookies from the stress of it all. If it seems like nothing’s going quite right this festive season, get some good holiday karma by greening your Christmas tree. </p>
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Staycationing in Style
2025-11-24
<P>Staying home for your summer vacation is a great way to discover adventure in your own backyard. </P>
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Sweet Spooky Treats!
2025-11-24
<p>With Halloween just around the corner and fall already at the door, it’s the perfect time to head out to the local pumpkin patch to nab the biggest Halloween pumpkin you can find. Some local farms will also offer hayrides, petting zoos, corn mazes and more so you can make a whole day of it! After you carve ‘er up, creating the spookiest Jack o’ Lantern on the street, why not create a snack the whole family can enjoy? </p>
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The Christmas Party Hop
2025-11-24
<p>Plan a holiday party that Martha and Mother Nature would tip their hats to.</p>
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The Five Greatest Migrations in the World
2025-11-24
<p>Being born. Taking your first step. Losing your first love. Getting married. Giving birth. We’re no strangers to journeys. They propel life forward. Take Five’s regular contributor, Stephanie Bonner, is taking a grand journey of her own this October—from Miss to Mrs. Her leap into matrimony has gotten us thinking about all the great journeys that life has to offer. Let’s delve in to nature’s top five greatest journeys: the ones that bring species thousands of kilometres from home.</p>
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The Green Party
2025-11-24
<p>The holidays are about living large: lots of fun, food and festivities. Still, you don't have to turn into an über-consumer. If climate change is on your mind, here are a few simple ways to trim carbon emissions from your get-togethers and keep things stylish and seasonal</p>
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Turn the Tide on Water Pollution
2025-11-24
From coast to coast to coast, it’s easy to do your part at home, work or school to protect Canada’s water. You don’t need to uproot your life to make a difference; small changes have a big impact.
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Twig Tree Decoration
2025-11-24
How better to celebrate our beloved trees than to make one as a decoration.
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What’s in Our Water?
2025-11-24
<P>Ahh, finally! June is here! Time to embrace summer’s warmth and cool off with a mad dash through the sprinkler. But have you ever wondered how people’s everyday actions are affecting water quality before it gets to the sprinkler? In this month’s Take Five, we’re taking a look at a recent study from the Ocean Conservancy International Coastal Cleanup survey.</P>
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Wild Nights
2025-11-24
<P>What could be more romantic than running away with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day? We’ve got the top five romantic retreats that have got CWF’s stamp of approval (all having been certified as wildlife-friendly by CWF’s Backyard Certification Program), where you can escape the bright lights of the city and cozy up with your honey. </P>