The rogue mother of all vinegars

Making herbal concoctions, usually tinctures, is one of my passions.

Usually I use Smirnoff 50% wodka, but for this batch of fall-dug Dandelion root I choose organic unpasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar, or ACV. A squirt of it makes a nice winter drink mixed with honey and hot water. ACV tinctures only lasts a year, but it is cheap and it has all sorts of health benefits as well.

Live vinegar still has some strands of Mother of Vinegar in it. That's fine.

But this mother went absolutely nuts on the Inulin, the precious sugar compound that is to the Dandelion what fat is to a bear. It helps it get through winter. Last year when I didn't wait as long to decant the tincture the Inulin showed up as a nice white layer at the bottom of the jar.

Inulin is not digested in the small intestine, so if all is well it makes it into your colon, where it becomes food for good bacteria like bifidus. That is known as a Pre-biotic. Food for the good wee beasties, the Pro-biotics.

If you are severely depleted in intestinal flora it may give you gas.

Anyway, look what this crazy Mother did. It ate most of the Inulin, and grew to monstrous size. You could peel layers off, a lot like a Kombucha culture.

Is it good for anything? Apart from making more vinegar, which doesn't interest me.

The Joy of Farmers' markets (again and more)

Guess what: I just got my first batch of SEEDS in! Can spring be far behind? Actually it can, but I am chomping at the bit to get started. As soon as the Moon is past full the first seeds will go into their baby pots. Leeks take forever and are quite demanding, so they need a good long headstart.

I have big plans this year, not only for my own use but also for the farmers market. We had a shortage of vegetable bedding plants last year, so this year I'll start some extra for sale. The weekly market is the highlight of my life in summer. I started going with my Amazon Rainforest business, and brought a few plants along. To make a long story short, the plants took over. Last year I started doing Reflexology demonstrations as well, a dollar a minute. It was a big hit on warm days! The picture above has been posted before. It is a few years old, when I still had the Amazon business and would pour samples of Rainforest Treasure Tea. For the record: I did not quit the business, the Canadian government made things too hard for the company. I am still choked about it.
This is the ancient Subaru that I used to call the Silver Wreck, but have recently started to call Survivor. My husband's tender handling and sheer willpower has kept it going well beyond its expected lifespan. It is used mainly to take plants to the market and garbage to the dump, and as extra vehicle for Chris in case I am off with the good car.

Detail. It truly is a miracle the thing is still going.








Chris starting on the canopy. It is old, but still perfectly fine. Next year I might get one of those easy things that just unfold. It is really nice to have help in getting the booth up and ready to go.

No matter how early you start, some "early birds" will be running around trying to beat everyone to eggs, fresh bread or tomato plants.The market is underneath some glorious big Acacia trees. This is what you see in June when you look straight up. The smell is incredible. I heard that the trees were planted by returning WWI veterans, who had gathered seeds at the Champs Elysées. I would have to check with our local historian, but doesn't it make a great story?

The market on a busy summer morning. People come and hang out. It is getting busier all the time!

The booth of my best market buddy. Colette is a market onto herself. She has plants, produce, bread, relishes, hand-made crafts ranging from Moon pads to juggling sticks and gorgeous baskets, massage lotions, you name it. Our lines overlap but we are always helping each other out. The whole market is like that. We all try to help each other. I love it, and I can hardly wait till we get going again on the Victoria Day weekend!!

City of my heart

Some of my Dutch pictures. I have not the slightest desire to return there to live. But Amsterdam will always tug at my heartstrings. I was happy there in my early twenties.

My family of origin is all in the Netherlands, so I have made regular visits back.

Amsterdam was a very different town back in the sixties. The place has always been liberal, and the red-light district in the "walletjes" has been there for ages. But the walk from Grand Central Station to Dam square was not an assault on the senses with ugly blaring blatant sex ads everywhere.

The Jordaan, now a gentrified prize location, was still a working class neighborhood, albeit with a sprinkling of students and artists.

I'll do more another time, but I just had to post these pictures I found on the "miscellaneous"CD that was made from old regular negatives.

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Happy Obama Day!

Just a quicky note to congratulate all my American friends on a peaceful transition of power. So much for all the conspiracy doom sayers who were predicting martial law etc by now.

We were glued to the TV, watching history in the making.

There is hope for the world!

Wasted time, and some gelo-therapy

I am really ticked off.

I spent several hours on a thoughtful essay on the definition of racism. One of those rare times when I don't just dash it off, but actually polish the style, move blocks of texts around, decide a big chunk should become an essay of its own, and so on.

Just before the end I got tired of it and stuck it in Draft. And decided to do a little fluff piece, started on it, but didn't feel like getting the camera for the picture that was part of it, and stuck it in Draft too.

It turns out you cannot do that. Only the fluff piece remains. DAMN.

But I did get a chance to do a bit of blog visiting, and a friend's religious jokes prompted me to finally post this one. It cracks me up every time I tell it.

Some Gelo-Therapy*

*Healing through humor. Taking ourselves too

seriously is the cause of much suffering.

Saint Peter has been manning the Pearly Gates for

many centuries, and the novelty has worn off.

He goes to see Management and says: “I really need

a break. Any chance Junior here could fill in for

me for a while?“ Jesus being the good sort that

He is agrees to take over and reports for training.

“It’s pretty straightforward”, says Peter. “We have

all the records in this big Akashic filing system here.

All you have to do is ask who they are, the rest is

on automatic Karma pilot.”

And so it proves to be. All is well till a dignified

elderly man with handsome Mediterranean features

shuffles forward.

“I can’t remember my name” says he. “The whole

recent past is a bit fuzzy. But I do remember this:

“I worked with wood.

I had a son who became very famous.

My son taught many people important moral lessons…”

Taken aback, Jesus looks into the old man’s eyes.

“DAD??” he asks.

And the old man replies:

carefully crafted pause.....

“Pinocchio?”

Snowy heroism

We finally got CABLE!!! Yeeha!! The router connection seems to flicker on or off a lot, I will have this machine hard-wired soon. That means a bunch of ugly wire strung along the ceiling from the living room to this back bedroom, but it will be worth it. This is an old trailer anyway, not exactly Martha Steward or Colin and Justin territory.

Anyway......It has been snowing. And snowing some more. For almost a month now.
Husband Chris has been doing a heroic job keeping the driveway and parking space clear. Today we are expecting a professional with a machine, only the second time this year. It was insane yesterday. It snowed the way it rains near Vancouver: there is less space between the drops there. Then it got too warm and wet, heart attack snow.
So, with the new ability to post pictures quickly, here are some pictures of the man at work.
He has it down to a fine art. Goes out for a half hour, comes back in to rest for an while, and so on. Scoop it, push it around, pile it on top of an ever-growing pile.... and start all over again. I would feel guilty if it were not for the fact that I do 90% of the outside work in summer. That is a choice, I live to garden. But still. Anyhow, it sure is nice to not have to worry about snow removal, and I appreciate it!

Lifestyle choices

The pictures that went with this blog disappeared during the Multiply Meltdown.

Two pictures of homes, representing two life paths.

The first one is our humble mobile home, on our land in paradise, an area where most people only spend a few weeks on vacation. The place is in desperate need of some fixing up, we are working on it. Almost everything in it is secondhand or old. Not antique,  just old.

We have just had a snowroof put over it, so we can now look at the crack in the ceiling without worrying that the roof will come down around our ears.

The mansion belongs to our young relatives near Calgary, a city where people work.

The owners of the big house work hard at high-stress professional jobs for what they have. They are good generous people with a social conscience whose taxes help to keep the welfare state, such as it is, happening. 

I do not begrudge them their more lavish lifestyle one bit.

Nor do I envy it. 

During my weeks as fill-in Nanny I got some idea of what it takes to maintain 2 fulltime jobs and a young family. It made me all the more grateful that we have never tried to do this.

I’d rather live in a tipi again than have every moment of my day scheduled like that!

Our area has some new retirees who have worked hard in the city all their lives and are now enjoying life’s last season here. Financially they are much better off than we are. But if I had to do it all over again, I would choose the same path. Apart from the fact that I am not organized and competent enough to pull off the Super Mom act, no amount of money now can compensate for all those years that we got to spend here.

Exit Auntie Ien, humming "I did it my way".

How I spent my fall vacation

Here’s what I was doing in Calgary: playing nanny to two very special girls, my great-nieces-by-marriage. I think I'm in love. This picture shows Shanna and Florianna, aged 5 and 4.

Yup, we actually have family in the country, to my total joy. Chris’ nephew Tim has moved to Calgary. Tim and his wife Marjel are both geologists. It seems to be the family profession. The very first post on this blog mentioned the severe lack of rocks in our native Holland. For the same reason Tim and Marjel have lived and worked in Scotland, Texas and the Philippines, but the most recent move brought them to our part of the world. YEAH!

Marjel has a good professional brain and she likes to use it. After 4 years doing the soccer mom thing she is back at work, so a live-in Nanny was hired as the most child-friendly, least stressful solution to childcare. Legal red tape around immigration and work permits is keeping her away till December. In the meantime grandmothers came to the rescue. I filled in a gap between her Mom and his.

Quite frankly, I was thrilled to be asked, but somewhat worried about my ability to deal with small kids. It has been a while, and I have never been what they call “good with children” that are not my own. (I wasn’t good with children when I was one either.) Tim assured me that pedagogical skills were not required, “as long as the kids didn’t run out into the snow in their bare bum”. That ought to doable.

Shanna and Florianna made the job pretty easy. The sisters are the most open, welcoming kids ever. They live in a pink little girl world rich in mermaids, fairies and princesses, crafts and music. There are NO video games. TV is limited to one hour a day, devoted mainly to the Backyardigans, a really neat creative and musical kiddie show.

This picture shows a soccer game that Floortje and I laid out for the Backyardigans in their stuffed manifestation. We spent hours acting out scenarios with them. The most complicated one involved the Backyardigans, puppets in the form of wild animals, as well as Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, Sinterklaas' horse in Lego form, and a supporting cast of mermaids. I didn't know I had it in me. Overall, I love being "Auntie Ien"!

That Fresh Alberta Air

I have just returned from 2 weeks in the Calgary region. The trip yielded food for thought on different topics, but I'll start with some observations about the place.

The region where mountains meet prairie is stunningly beautiful. I love that sense of space you get in the rolling open land, combined with the drama of the mountains in the distance.

This picture was taken along the TransCanada on the way home from a trip, getting closer to the mountains.

From just West of Calgary they are barely visible some days and loom clear on other days.

Calgary was our first Canadian home, in the spring of 1969. At the time it had about 300.000 inhabitants and the downtown skyline was just being constructed. Now it is a booming city of over a million, sprawling out into the seemingly endless prairie space around it.

The climate is awful, but they have a lot of really nice weather. That may sound like a contradiction, but it is like this: Snow is possible almost every month of the year, but Chinook winds can bring balmy days in midwinter. You never know what to expect, but overall the sun shines a lot.

Alberta is colder, dryer, sunnier and windier than most of B.C.

We always feel the difference as soon as we cross to the Eastern side of the mountains. Alberta air has a clear, crisp, invigorating tang to it in any season.

Dare I say it? The average Albertan probably works harder than the average British Columbian. B.C. is the California of Canada, while Alberta is more like Texas North. Oil, Cattle, Bible. Not necessarily in that order and of course with endless variations.

I wonder if there is a connection between that crisp air and the more vigorous work ethic? Our small village has had an influx of fresh folk from Alberta in the last few years. Like it or not, they are making things happen. That is a whole other topic for another time.

Entering The Long Grey

Ask me how I am, and you get a weather report. I don't get clinically depressed when the days get short, but my energy sure picks up the moment the sun comes out. Winters here are GREY. The only way to keep your sanity is to make your peace with clouds between Halloween and Imbolc (AKA Groundhog Day), the dark time of the year. Be mentally prepared for endless grey, and consider every appearance of sun a total bonus.

Periods of high pressure result in blue skies for the heli skiers, but a ceiling of low cloud over the valley. Temperature inversion creates a narrow band of fog that hangs halfway the mountain. Or is it the other way around? Whatever. We call it "Flat Cloud" and it is my least favorite feature of the local climate. It makes you feel like you are in a pot with the lid on top.

It just needs a breeze to lift, but our deep valleys tend to be sheltered from the wind. The best cure for 'Flat Cloud Blues' is a trip to higher altitudes, so you get above it. I cherish a beautiful picture by Rosie of the view from a logging road high above the lake, looking down on the sea of clouds, with the mountain tops forming a different coastline. Alas, it doesn't exist in digital form.

Right now we are in the season when the snow line starts coming down the mountains. We had the first token fall on the land the day before yesterday. It is all gone, but soon the landscape will be a subtle symphony of black and white. I took this picture in mid October, on the first day the mountains started getting their winter look. Too bad about the power lines, it was just a quick shot while driving to town.

Snow makes it all brighter. So here's my firm resolution to get my lazy butt out there during the dark times, even if it is just for 15 minutes, FlyLady style.

Welcome Back, America!

If the world could have voted Obama would have won by a landslide months ago.
We all held our collective breath yesterday, and let it out with big cheer when the only country with a real say in the matter agreed to give Hope a chance.

http://economist.com/ had a place where people from all over could vote. I can't find it anymore.
Canadian votes were 89% in favor of Obama, perhaps surprising from a place that just re-elected conservative Steven Harper, albeit still with a minority. Merci, Belle Province! But we digress.
Yesterday on CBC radio Diana Francis, a dual citizen who considers herself conservative in Canada, explained why she supported Obama in the USA. According to her even a rightwing
Canadian is still to the left of the Democrats. Interesting.

The world desperately needs the BEST that America has to offer. It needs the openness, the sense of possibility, the egalitarianism, the inventiveness, even the sheer exuberance and goofiness. It does not need the paranoid bully that maskeraded as USA during the Bush years.

Yes, we know, 911 really happened. Welcome to Planet Earth. The fact that you're paranoid doesn't mean no one is out to get you, and vice versa.

Anyway, America, it is great to have you back.

(Deity of Choice) bless America.

Men at work!

Today the place was alive with the sound of saws, hammers and a backhoe and swarming with busy guys! I am totally impressed with how fast things can get done with the right combination of skills and tools. I used to be more into leisurely messing about with hand tools, but we are learning that it pays to just hire the man and machine power. We are having some badly needed work done on the homestead.

The most important project is a snow roof to preserve our ageing mobile home. I used to joke that while they are not made to last centuries, neither are we. But we do intend to keep going for another twenty years or so, and the place has been showing serious signs of strain. Husband Chris has been doing a heroic job shoveling the snow off the roof in winter, but it is time for more drastic measures.

I used to resist the idea of a snow roof because I didn't like the looks of them. Well, that can change. I never liked the looks of fenced-in gardens either, but now all I see is the joy of a deer-proofed vegetable patch! So this roof will mean sturdy shelter, and the ugly vertical poles can be a trellis for something flowering.

The other project is the revival of the chicken facilities. I would like to start a laying flock again. Alas, the fence around the outside run had fallen apart. Untreated poles made from local trees will eventually just rot. I also want to bury chickenwire a foot down all the way around to discourage digging critters.

The project included taking down some trees that used to be handy as fenceposts, but they got too big and were shading the veggie garden. That is the ultimate sin a tree can commit. Sorry trees, but the garden was there first.

We ended up with one guy on the roof, and three clearing away the trees. You have no idea of the mess that one fallen tree leaves behind. In other years we had some selective logging done with a team of horses. It took days to clear away the slash after the main trunks were hauled away.

This time our friend Neil with his intrepid little blue bobcat dragged all the trunks to one place close to the old house and neatly piled all the slash, ready for burning one of these days. Then he dug a trench complete with post holes for the future chicken run. Less than 4 hours of men and machine time for work that would have cost WEEKS of backbreaking human labour.

Son Alex is temporarily living in the old house, which is still heated with wood. He is getting handy with a chainsaw.

Here's a toast to men with machines!

Sailing to Self Sufficiency

We are starting a loose network of cooperative neighbours with the aim of being more self sufficient in the coming hard times.

For example, I used to keep chickens, and wouldn't mind doing it again if I could count on "chicken-sitters " when we want to go away on a trip. I have a date this Tuesday to pick the brains of a lady who used to run a barter bank. It may well be an idea whose time has come.
Printing money, why let the government have all the fun? But that is a whole other topic.

This item was on the local news. We are a region of deep valleys mainly filled with lakes.
Places to grow grain are far and few between, but Creston at the South end of Kootenay lake
is such a place. Locally grown food is making a come-back, yeah!

Read this story and rejoice.

October 20, 2008Press Release
ATTENTION NEWS EDITORS:
CANADA'S FIRST INLAND DISTRIBUTION OF GRAIN BY SAILBOAT?
www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/thelocalgrainrevolution.htm

Living with the Wheel, Giving Thanks, and a kitchen brag

The children are long grown and doing well, my Old Dutch and I settled in a peaceful routine. No drama, no soap opera, no clawing our way up any career ladder. Just daily life with some part time money earning endeavors.

The heart of my life is really just deeply experiencing Nature's Wheel. As mentioned before, ask me how I am, and you get a weather report. For some people it would be the most abhorrent boredom, but I find it totally satisfying at soul level. The picture was taken on Friday October 10, on a walk in the neighborhood. After more than 30 years I still walk around full of wonder and amazement that I have been allowed to live my life here.

A report of the season just past. Spring was icy, the worst we have ever seen. But once it started in mid-June the summer was quite pleasant. The weather was a bit more changeable than we are used to here.

In these deep valleys weather has a tendency to get stuck. Whatever it's doing, it doesn't know when to quit. You welcome the ending of a drought, but then it pours for three cold weeks. Or you enjoy the coming of beach weather, but the next thing you know the woods are burning.

This year we saw an alternation between sun and rain that made the gardens grow and saved the woods from burning. The end of August was disgusting, but we got some nice weeks in September to make up for it. All in all a good season. I had a bumper crop of raspberries and took the trouble to freeze the best ones on a tray, so they stay separate. The blueberries are store bought.

Just layering the berries in a tall glass with Olympic's Organic French Vanilla Yogurt makes the most delicious desert. We had it for Thanksgiving yesterday. .

Thanksgiving is my favorite event of the year. Christmas is too much, and at that time of year I feel like hibernating anyway. TG is hype-free, and because I try to grow much of our food it means a lot. If the garden yields only one serving of a vegetable it gets served at this dinner. It is a way to honor the devas.

So here is my kitchen brag, served to an appreciative small party of neighbors.

Appetizer: zucchini and carrot sticks with dip, raw sliced Jerusalem Artichokes in vinaigrette.

Dinner: small bought turkey, I took a break from raising chickens this year. Stuffed with 4 whole bulbs of home-grown porcelain garlic, the garlic got mashed into the gravy.

Stuffing made with bread crumbs from the crusts I can never throw away and keep in a bag in the freezer, sage and onion from the land, lovage from the land, small tomatoes from the market.

Parsnips from the farmers market roasted together with the bird. YUM.

Green and wax string beans, the only baggies from the garden. It was not a good year for beans.

Salad of finely chopped young kale leaves with grated carrots and finely chopped multiplier bulbs, the rest will be planted for next spring. For some reason I grow great multipliers and garlic, but ordinary onions and leeks don't like me. Kale and I have a love affair going.

Desiree potatoes. Nice variety with red skin and yellow flesh. We got about 100 pounds of spuds, excellent year for them. Plenty of parsley to sprinkle wherever.

Apple sauce from one of the volunteer trees.

Desert: I cheated and bought the pie crusts. Pumpkin pie with pumpkin from my market buddy Colette, yogurt and homegrown raspberries.

All in all a nice little feast, and today is the best: leftovers!

A special quote for this day:

You ought to be Thankful,

a whole heaping lot

For the places and people

You're lucky you're not

Dr. Seuss

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO MY FELLOW CANUCKS!

Digging New Ground

We finally had a wonderful stretch of sunny dry weather. The summer company is gone and plant sales at the farmers market are done till next spring. Time for some serious land work.

What this land wants to do is grow coniferous forest. Anything else is a struggle. You can take any young tree, dig it up and transplant it, and it will say "Oh, you want me here? No problem!".

The trees near the old house in the picture above were not there when we bought the place in 1970. The 10 acre (4 hectare) plot had been a hayfield, but was too rocky to be productive farmland. We were told so honestly. We had no ambition to farm, just to garden. You can see the tall grass, weeds and above all bracken fern that covers the ground before we start digging.

Originally the vegetable patch was an open space in front of the house. Deer might wander through and take a nibble occasionally, but it was no big deal. Somewhere in the early nineties the deer population exploded. It became necessary to build fences. Son Alex did a heroic job of building fences with young trees from the land. Cut tree, strip off branches, drag it over, dig the hole, all by hand. It was his summer job while he was in high school. Alas, an untreated pole will eventually rot. Last spring we bit the bullet and actually paid someone to come over with a machine and put treated fence posts into the rocky ground. Chris did the job of extending the fence upwards. Deer can JUMP.

In the process the garden space was enlarged. Black plastic was put over a strip of the extension. This week I finally got around to start digging the new stretch. We're talking back-breaking labour here. Stick fork in, pull up bracken root, remove rocks, repeat...

The picture above shows the junk that comes out of the ground. For a raised bed of approximately 5 by 7 feet I removed five, yes five, of those five-gallon pails full of bracken roots and 4 pails of rocks of various sizes. Some were big like this one, though I have dug out bigger ones in the past.

It took more than a day of work, but here is the result: a raised bed, double-dug, enriched with dolomite lime and composted manure. A worthy home for soon-to-be-planted garlic. The area surrounding the bed is covered first with flattened cardboard and then with cut grass/bracken etc. I used to use landscape fabric to keep down the weeds but stuff always ends up growing through it and then you have to remove this tangled mess. Cardboard or newpaper just dissolves into organic matter. Thanks to Mike Groarty's terrific newsletter for that tip.



There is even a creative use for all those rocks. The big pots that people gave me at the market this year are held in place by the rocks that came out. The edge will bloom with marigolds and nasturtiums next year. I can hardly wait!

A wildlife calling card

Many years ago, on our very first trip to Banff, I barely dared to leave main street for fear of running into a bear.
If someone had told me back then that I would comfortably live with bears in the backyard I would never have believed it.

I am still chicken about going into the mountains to pick berries or mushrooms, unless there is a small group. Every dark tree stump looks bear-shaped. This is totally irrational, since my chance of running into one is just as great right here at home, especially at this time of year.

The apples are almost ripe. Judging by the appearance of this "calling card", as the old timers so delicately put it, the bears are not waiting around for perfection. This one is right by the side of the driveway. Piles like this get put on the compost heap. Just so I can smile smugly and say: "The secret to a good garden is bear manure".

There have been quite a few bears in neighbourhoods at the edge of the village too. They have become like the kids at Halloween: don't waste your time on the outlying districts, go where the goodies, in this case fruit trees, are most dense!

We usually just see the evidence. Knocked-over garbage containers, not that we leave anything remotely edible in the garbage. A garbage can lid with teethmarks in it. Apples gone from a volunteer apple tree, and so on. Occasionally we see one for real. They are awesome to watch.

They have this wonderful fluid bouncing way of walking. Yes, I do shake in my boots when I meet one away from a car. The funny thing is that I feel quite safe here on my own acreage. Almost as if the land itself is protecting me.

Once we had a young bear, probably in his first year on his own, systematically decimating the chickens. He'd eat one or two a day. We finally had him trapped and removed.

That was a few years ago, the provincial budget for wildlife management has been gutted since then, all in the name of fundamentalist capitalism. But that is another topic.

But before he was trapped, I noticed him climbing into the chicken run while I was working in the vegetable garden. Filled with righteous indignation and with manure fork in hand I actually

ran out there screaming and frightened him away! Once he was gone I started shaking.

At least a bear will actually eat a chicken before killing another one. Domestic dogs will just go nuts and kill and/or wound the whole flock. They are worse than any wildlife.

Human/bear encounters seem to be increasing, and old remedies to keep them away don't work so well anymore. One of my old timer friends explained it like this: "In the old days, only prospectors and hunters went into the mountains. They carried GUNS. These days everybody and his brother is going to the wilderness for recreation. They carry LUNCH. Animals are not stupid."

A private note to my sister, who stays in the motor home when she comes to visit from Holland.

Marg, de drol ligt op de voorgrond van deze foto. Hoe vind je dat, precies op de weg naar huis! Kan je mooi op het werk laten zien. Wie durft er tegen de beer?

Self portrait on a good hair day

I am not photogenic. I have never been a great beauty and that's alright. My only ambition is to not look outright repulsive and more or less like a person you might enjoy having a coffee with. The one I have been using for profiles, in the blue dress with the Echinacea in the background is a favorite. But it is three years old. This one was taken on August 23 2008, at the leanest point in the annual fat cycle with the summer glow still intact. No hair dye, no make-up, just summer and Lluvia skin care.

I like it because it feels like me and in all modesty, it is not bad for an old dame of 65.

The joy of Reflexology

Wow.
After 18 years of practice I am falling deeply in love with the profound and humble art of Reflexology all over again.

I have done booths at farmers' markets for years, with health products and bedding plants.
But this summer I have taken a zero gravity recliner to the market and offered Reflexology demonstrations.

It has been a hit, and several people swear they will now look up a reflexologist in the place where they live!

What really brought the visitors to the booth was the sandwich board with the huge laminated map of the feet on it.

If nobody "bites", try inviting a friend to have a free treatment to prime the pump so to speak. It works. Once passers-by see a relaxed person in the chair getting done they want to try it too.

I started charging $10 for 15 minutes, but changed to a dollar a minute. Apparently it is the going rate.

You lose a lot of time with the format, with people getting settled in, getting their feet clean etc.
I use diluted witch hazel tincture and paper towels to wipe sandaled summer feet, and baby wipes on my own hands followed by witch hazel in between clients.

The last time the weather was nice enough for this I had 3 people in a row sitting down in pain and get up feeling great.

The most memorable was a young woman with 4 small children, who was in excruciating pain after throwing out (her term) her back. She had no idea how she would drive back home to Calgary, a challenging 8 hour trip.
Contrary to my usual "work the whole" method, we went straight to the spine reflex. The kids were restless, but we managed to put in a good 20 minutes. When she got up she was pain free. I ran into her a few hours later and she was still beaming.

Three cheers for reflexology!

Convocation in the Fog

Happy New Year everyone! This time of year always feels like the true start of the new work cycle. Summer is time out of time, whether you are involved with school or not. September has that fresh Monday morning feel of new beginnings about it. Is that my Venus in Virgo showing?
Summer has been too busy with visiting relatives, farmers' markets and gardens to do any blogging, so it is high time to fill in some gaps. Just because. Not that the world can't do without it.
As mentioned in the last post, spring was icy and the whole growing season was at least 4 weeks behind. Early June saw us at the coast to attend the graduation ceremonies at Simon Fraser University, where our daughter was honoured for her PhD. The convocation took place in the Mall, not a hall. An open space between two buildings, roofed over but otherwise open to the elements. On the big day the elements were freezing cold with occasional drizzle and FOG.
Our girl likes her privacy so there will no bragging photoos of her. But here is a picture of the procession of PhDs, and that is how foggy it was.

A very short trip

Good grief. We have been back for WEEKS, but I have been so busy in the garden and with a few other things that I only posted half our small adventure on Multiply, and never did get it on here. Just duplicating often results in weird looking posts. Here goes, posted on Multiply May 5th.

Sunday already, and we have been back since Thursday. The trip got cut short because of vehicle trouble, alas! But I have that nice refreshed 'been away' feeling anyhow, and I am just itching to get into the garden.
We set out on Sunday April 27th. Normally by this time of year there is a spell of warm weather, the trees are that luminous early green, and the spring sunflowers are in full bloom in the drier parts of the Southern Interior.
This year everything was still bare, even South in Washington State. We covered some of this ground several years ago, at the end of March. Everything looked exactly like it did then, a full month behind schedule.
We crossed the border near Grand Forks. I hate getting questions about where we intend to go and why. It makes me want to make flippant remarks about free countries. It doesn't pay to antagonize border guards whose job description includes paranoia, so I bit my tongue.

When you cross from Canada into the USA, you go from the extreme South of one country to another's extreme North. Grand Forks is a thriving, fast growing town. Cross into the USA and suddenly the scenery is more rural and laid back. It reminds me of the Kootenays when we first came here.

May I put in a plug for the neighbors? Washington is such a neat little state. The incredible variety of landscapes never ceases to amaze me. You can cross the state in any direction in a one day drive.
If you can’t decide between dramatic rainforest, huge sandy beaches, volcanoes, the gentle warm mountains of the North East and all sorts of lakes and even open prairie type landscape, Washington offers it all. The system of State parks is excellent and reasonably priced.
The trip along the Kettle River, which merrily crosses the border several times, is a relaxing pleasure. Hills, small towns, lakes, woods. We drove through the Colville federated territory (there is no such thing as a Colville Indian, but that's another story) and took the free ferry across our very own Columbia river. There is a state park on the other side where we spent the night. Note how bare the trees are.

The view from the campsite over Lake Roosevelt, which is the Columbia River, dammed to within an inch of its life. The water was really low to make room for the spring runoff.

Chris, my "Old Dutch" enjoying a simple but sustaining meal of brown rice, black beans, salsa and early kale greens. Why is playing house in a tiny space so much fun? I still get a kick out of transforming the dining corner into a bed and vice versa, every time.

We woke to an icy cold but clear morning, and climbed up to the plateau. This is the Washington wheat belt. Bingo, my prairie fix! I need to see wide open spaces and big skies now and then. This picture was taken a bit later near Ritzville but it is typical of the wheat belt.

Inside the farm land is a surprise: a wild area of sage brush and weird geological phenomena. We stopped to walk around the Cache Crater. 

 Alas, in order to show the shape of the crater with the flowering Saskatoon bushes in it, I had to shoot against the sun, and I haven't figured out how to correct the overexposure yet. Or rather, I haven't figured out how to get into the program that allows one to do that. No patience right now.

 There were flowers blooming that we don't have at home.

By this time it was around 9, the wind had shifted and turned warm. We spent a pleasant hour or so poking around the desert landscape, taking pictures and feeling like we really were away from home.

Alas. The joys of travel were short-lived. Somewhere past Odessa something went "clunk", and the engine stopped driving the wheels.
Fortunately it happened within sight of a travel center, a half hour walk at the most. We consulted phone books there and eventually called Pete's garage and towing in Ritzville, who came to the rescue.

For the next two days the spot behind the garage was home. By the way, these are the nicest guys. If you ever get stuck in that region, call Pete's Garage and Towing in Ritzville. They made sure we could stay at "home" while they waited for the needed part, hooked us up with electricity, got us as level as possible and provided water. It wasn't their fault that the train tracks ran close by and the engineers really enjoy tooting their horns every hour or so in the middle of the night.

Next installment: The unexpected joys of getting stuck in small towns.

I DO want to write it, but right now, the garden takes priority.