More progress, and stuff learned while cleaning garlic...

Watch out world, she's back! I drove us to the market yesterday and walked all over with just a cane. It sure feels good to be mobile again. Tomorrow we get more X-rays, and we see the MD on Wednesday. I jumped the gun on weight bearing, it feels right.

Have I told you lately how much I love my internet? :) I love doing chores while listening to something interesting.

I have always enjoyed doing this with certain radio programs.  Many a dish has been concocted during CBC's Sunday Morning. But now we have podcasts. Joy!

Done today: Prepared the garlic for storage indoors. It has been hanging outside since harvest in August. At the time I ran out of energy to clean it after a few bundles. Chris just hung the rest up with dirt clinging to it. I was afraid it would be hard to clean later and keep less well as a result. Thanks to the long September drought it was a cinch. A gentle brushing removed all dirt without damage to the bulbs. This is one well-cured batch.

This was the entertainment:
http://www.extraenvironmentalist.com/2012/07/28/episode-46-recovering-environmentalists/

I found this one because TED introduced me to Dmitri Orlov. And Dmitri Orlov gave an interview to the people on this site. 
Thought-provoking interviews that take their time. Good stuff. 

To give a brief idea: the surf on Facebook today tossed up a picture of Tar Sands destruction with the caption: If this is good for the economy, we need a new economy. AMEN.

Up there and apples!

This post is duplicated from the garden blog. It is sort of half life and half garden progress.

YEAH! I made it up to the big fenced garden with my trusty young helper. Outside on the uneven ground I use the walker and put my weight on my arms instead of on the right leg. In the house I can now walk around as long as I wear  the Zimmer splint. The wheelchair still serves for 'long distance' travel such as the long hallway between bathroom and living room. "Let pain be your guide" was the sensible advice the doctor gave me when I went for the 6 week check-up. I just needed to know if this was a "Don't do this yet!"  kind of pain, or if it was telling me to get off my butt already and get in shape. It was the former. The leg and I are working out constructive compromises.

Michelle followed behind with the wheelchair so I could sit down just in case. I hobbled all the way up, and then sat down inside the garden. I watched her weeding the double row of leeks that was about to be smothered. They will keep growing well into fall and even survive winter. They could do with a top dressing of COF, but first we have to make a fresh batch. Chris was up there too  digging potatoes. I couldn't help myself. While he was gone to get a snack I just had to grab the fork and dig up a few plants. I also yanked out a few weeds in the carrot square and removed the bottom two thirds of the Brussels sprout leaves. The next day the leg told me in no uncertain terms to take it easy OR ELSE. So I did. 

When Michelle came again I stayed below and she got to pick apples from the volunteer trees. Apart from the fact we don't like to waste food we need to get them before the bears come around. It is a good thing I could not see what she was up to. It turns out she had climbed into the trees to shake them from the top. No wonder we have such a bumper crop! There were two more pails. M. took one home and one is in the kitchen. These are not great for fresh eating and they don't keep well. We will be busy the next few days juicing and saucing. 

Too bad my sister is not here this year, she makes a mean Dutch style apple pie. This was her handiwork.

I have never understood the expression "easy as pie". 

The bucket list is a garden

Originally posted to Multiply June 28th, a week before a car accident changed the face of the summer even more drastically.

The main item on my 'bucket list': Just once, I'd like to have a really beautiful and productive garden. 

It may seem a small  wish and not much of a story. But really, there are no unresolved family dramas to heal, no unfinished manuscripts in a drawer, no big task I have set myself that must be accomplished.  

I know people whose marriage is better than ours, and people who have done worse. At this stage of  life we are  treating each other with kindness. I treasure the continuity of shared history and ask not for more.
The children are both doing great and are good friends. 

Travel? Sure, it would have been nice to travel all across Canada or see Chartres and Stonehenge, or to revisit the place in Southern Spain where we lived for three summers.

But I cannot feel cheated if that does not happen. I have been granted more natural beauty in this life than most people see in several.

We have seen large parts of the Western USA and Canada. We have driven the Oregon coast both ways, several times. We have crossed the Golden Gate, looked down into the Canyon de Chelly, seen Monument Valley and the Carlsbad Caverns. We were in Big Bend National park in Texas when the cactus was blooming. 

We have crossed the mighty Mackenzie where it flows out of Greater Slave Lake. We have followed the Skeena to its end near Prince Rupert. We have felt the magic of Writing on Stone park and seen the place where mountain and prairie meet near Waterton.

Earlier in our European years we spent our honeymoon in Paris, swam in the Mediterranean, walked through Alhambra and saw the glory of Norway. 

And that is apart from living across from the Wester toren in Amsterdam, and spending most of our adult life in the mountain paradise that is the Kootenays.

I feel kind of satisfied. If I am stuck here for the remainder of my days I can so live with that.

But you know how in the garden you keep seeing things you should have done differently, and you think: "Wait till next year! I will get it right!" 

Just once, I'd like to approach that, in  my own imperfect way. Already it looks like this will not be the year. Details can be found at the garden blog. http://kootenaygarden.blogspot.com

Something's gotta give

Originally posted to Multiply July 28 2011

July is flying by in a blur of work and a feeling that we are still waiting for real summer to start. This is so wrong! This is the summer we are given, here and now. There is no snow on the ground and things are growing, even if other critters are eating too many of them.

It is last year's next year. Every year halfway the growing season I start translating this year's disappointments into next year's dreams. My epitaph will read: "Here lies Ien. Next year she will have a perfect garden."

It has NOT been a good year so far.  

Part of the reason for that is the cold spring and the plague of slugs, but let's face it, part of it is my own fault. I am simply over-extended. Now some people, blessed with more energy, design sense and organizational skill may be able to create and maintain lovely flower borders, do the chickens, get the herb garden/nursery beds organized, take care of the greenhouse, pot up plants for market and have a thriving food garden. 

I am not, especially since my right hip has developed a mind of its own lately and occasionally slows me down.

Something has to give. The something will be plants for the market. Sales are slower by now anyway. It is just too time consuming, not to mention the exhausting shlepping involved. I left them at home during Music Fest. It was such a cinch to load and set up!

It seems every time I start doing something gardenish I find myself at the sink in the greenhouse potting up some suffering plant in a container.

I'll just do Reflexology for the last month, and perhaps leisurely create a bunch of stuff for a last-day half price table on Labour Day weekend. It gets chilly by then.

Tomorrow is the weekly free day, mine to spend entirely as I please. The intention is to go up to the fenced veg garden and work like crazy. It is PATHETIC. The potatoes were a bright spot, but now there are signs of rodent activity. Wilted leaves that turn out to have a chewed-up stem somewhere. I'll take some pictures tomorrow. To be continued.

The Edgar Principle, and some garden doings

Originally posted to Multiply May 7 2011

The good news is: we have a new washing machine. The old one died. In spite of all the warnings from sources both esoteric and mundane about imminent Collapse we're betting on civilization continuing. I have done laundromats and hand washing for years in the past, and sure appreciate at-home mod-cons while they last.


This is what we call the Alan Edgar Principle. Alan was a fellow counter-culture member who lived here in the seventies, during our tipi time. We worked together for a while in the same restaurant. Nice Californian guy with a great sense of humour and a beautiful Latina wife who had a hard time in the long grey Kootenay winters.
Once on the way to work we had a conversation about the impending doom mentality that was quite common in those days, and he said something that stuck with me: "If these are the last of the good old days, shouldn't we be....ENJOYING them more?" What a concept! Brilliant! I have dubbed it the Edgar Principle and invoke it frequently, especially in these days when we have a fresh wave of folks moving to the land to get ready for Collapse. 


Shortly afterwards  Alan and family went back to CA, where they built a successful business in solar energy and had a great life. Some common friends are still in touch. That is the trouble with geological and psychic time: In those terms California may well be swallowed up by the Pacific any day now, but a human life can fit entirely in the space between seconds.


Back to the here and now. The bad news is: in order to deliver the washing machine and get it up the steps to the deck the truck would have to drive over my flowering daffodils and primroses. So I spent all yesterday morning digging them up.  I stuck the dafs in another bed, but had a wheelbarrow full of primroses in full bloom. That sheltered flowerbed has been creeping outwards, time to re-do it so we don't have to deal with this again when the ancient stove bites the dust. So today I wasted all day on flower stuff that was not on the priority list.


The good news: it is perfect transplanting weather.


The bad news: that means it is cold and rainy.  Yesterday was decent. Cool,  but mainly dry with the odd bit of watery sun.  We have had a total of  6 or 7 days so far that could qualify as spring, and nowhere near real warmth. I keep reminding myself that the woods are rejoicing. They are overdue for one of those cool wet non-summers we get now and then in B.C. At this time of year garden work gets done rain or shine.


At least I made focaccia loaves and tomato sauce before I went outside so we could have pizza tonight, with baby kale and green onion salad from the garden. I am tired of eating overly fast improvised meals because by the time I stop outside I have no energy left to cook.


More good news: The 4 middle-aged hens laid 4 eggs yesterday! I have not had egg layers for ages. Some time in the nineties we had a series of predator disasters, and I finally gave up. After a hiatus I did just meat birds for 5 years. This was during the time that deer were devastating the veg garden in spite of fences, so filling the freezer with chicken was a compensation. After a few years off from that I am totally in a fowl mood again.
More good news: the asparagus I planted along the fence last fall is showing signs of life. The shoots are tiny but all they have to do this year is survive. I used to have a big asparagus bed, but ripped them out years ago because they were not yielding all that much considering how much space they were taking up.


And so it goes.......on and on....

March 2011

So that was March 2011.

Full of violent happenings in the world, quite peaceful here in my blessed neck of the woods. We had a classic Kootenay winter this year with lots of snow. Traditionally March is the month that it melts, and so it was. The beginning of the month was still quite wintry, but with some lovely sunny 

days.

.s

The snow roof does a beautiful job of shedding the load, without anyone having to climb up on it.

We did have quite a pile in front of the porch.

I have been scandalously lazy this winter. Even the planned indoor chores, like getting the scanner/printer installed, did not get done. Daily yoga is a fond memory but alas, also on the list of "ought to". But I enjoyed the leisure. I did spend quite a few afternoons with my Parkinson-afflicted friend, so my existence had some use beyond pure self indulgence. Now the snow is almost gone.

Some bare ground is visible in the left for-ground. This is a block from home.

Here is some more. Believe it or not, if you have not seen the ground for a full four months this is an exciting sight. OK, when it comes to Nature I excite easily.

And what is this? A blade of grass? Trumpets please!

Eranthis, snowdrops and crocuses almost start blooming under the snow. The moment the load is lifted there they are.  Eranthis make me smile not only for their own sake but because of the fond memories. They came from the garden of a special local lady, now long gone. 

Edna Irving used to be the matron of our local hospital in its heyday, when surgeries were performed there and babies were born. When I got to know her she was well into her nineties, still living in the home she and her husband had built, and suffering from Alzheimers. She had other helpers, I just filled in now and then during the lunch hour. In spring we'd leave the house behind and walk in her garden, full of hardy perennials. She never lost her joy in Nature and life in general, and was a pleasure to be with. 

Wherever Edna is, I am sure there are flowers around, and she just might bump into my dear mother while tending the garden. They were both daughters of an all-girl family, had 2 boys and 2 girls, were head nurses and passionate gardeners, and lived well past 90.

 I can think of no nicer way of being remembered than by blooming in someone's garden.

Edna and Elizabeth, these are for you.