No money? try Barter!

The small Interior towns of B.C. are getting clobbered by the economy and by a government that ignores us, except when it makes useless regulations that limit self-sufficiency. Like outlawing small-scale butchering which limits on-farm meat sales.

It will take a lot of ingenuity to keep the villages going. All government attention is on the (expletive deleted) 2010 Winter Olympics that are costing, surprise! more than expected. Isn't it time to give those games a permanent home somewhere and stop beggaring local populations in an endless game of one-upmanship? We digress.

Some good things are happening: people are coming together in unexpected ways to pool resources.

Coming Sunday we are having the fourth monthly community potluck. I missed the first 2 for various reasons, and walked in halfway the third. We'll be there with bells on for the next one.

Consider it an exercise in practical imagination. Much as we all love money, when all is said and done it is only a means of exchange: a way to keep track of promises we make each other.

Our area is rich in natural resources and skills. Lack of money should be no reason to stop exploiting the resources and exchanging the services.

As a way of getting ready for the meeting I am asking the following questions. Fill in your own blanks.

________ will get you through times of no money

better than

money will get you through times of no________

Examples: Libraries. Health. (which includes access to clean water and air, and good food.)

What is your ____ and how can you get it when money is scarce?

I for one am happy to barter my skills as a Reflexologist and my powerful home-grown organic herbal tinctures.

These are interesting times indeed.

Writing on Stone Provincial Park

This amazing place is in the Milk River valley on the border between Alberta and Montana. This part of the river is in Alberta, but the hills in the background are the Sweetgrass Hills, across the line in Montana.
We stumbled on Writing on Stone park for the first time during a short prairie trip in late summer of 1998.
We had been to Waterton National Park. Some of you may know it as the Northern part of Glacier National Park. Grizzly bears don't care that the 49th parallel forms the border between two nations. Many people on both sides don't care much either and cross merrily back and forth, though that changed after you-know-which date. But we digress.
Our destination was the intriguing Cypress Hills on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Seeing a provincial park on the map we decided to take a peek, it was on the way.
As always we choose the road less traveled, the Soutern-most route. It is a dusty lonely road through largely deserted ranchland. Signs of rural decline abound. Originally this was shortgrass prairie. This land is a more intimidating sort of wilderness than the woods and mountains we are used to. In our part of B.C. water is plentiful, and anyone with a few tools would find the raw materials for shelter.
On the bald open prairy water is scarce and there is little shade or shelter from the wind. Travelers get the full blast of whatever Mother Nature wants to dish out. On this late August day that was blazing heat. We had no air conditioning and the car was swelteringly hot.We had left the mountain views behind and were traveling through an almost empty landscape on a road that was barely on the map, roughly skirting the river and the border. This picture was taken elsewhere in the Palliser region on a later trip, but it gives a good idea.
Finally we came to the town of Milk River and from there we could see, to our surprise, the far silhouette of a mountain. We didn't know of any ranges between the Rockies and the ancient Cypress Hills.
The Sweetgrass Hills are just across the border in Montana and liven up the skyline for a huge portion of Southern Alberta.
We got to Writing on Stone around 2 PM, and found an oasis of sweet cool shade among huge cottonwood trees. That was it, we were done traveling for the day! There was even a nice sandy beach where local people came to swim, or rather frolick, in the lukewarm river. Chris stayed in the shade by the tent while I had a blast playing in the current. Alas, I was recovering from a broken ankle that year and couldn't take part in the guided tour of the petroglyphs. We did take a short self-guided tour.
What I most remember is the berries. I am pretty sure they are Buffalo Berries, but I am not sure. They grow on thorny silvery bushes, taste tart, and give you an amazing uplift that goes far beyond a bit of quenched thirst. I wondered if they are Canada's version of the Goji berry.
You don't have to be a medium to feel the spirits of those who lived here in this sacred place.
http://www.uleth.ca/vft/milkriver/native.html
http://www.cypresshills.com/index.php?id=2
http://www.eidnet.org/local/grassland/gallery.htm

Growing up Locavore in the Fifties

In case the word doesn't explain itself, a Locavore is someone who tries to eat locally.

It makes perfect sense for many so reasons. As good old semi-hippies we have been onto this one for a long time, but it sure is nice to see the idea go mainstream. There is hope for this world yet!

I just read ''Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", by Barbara Kingsolver, who is one of my all-time favorite writers. The book describes Barbara's move to the farm in Virginia and the family's efforts to live more or less strictly on local food for the year. They grow a lot of their own.

This was sent to the website, http:// animalvegetablemiracle.com.

Growing Up Locavore in the Fifties

During my childhood in post-war Holland eating with the seasons was still the normal way of life.


I'd say produce was 90% local. There was a band of market gardens, many with greenhouses, surrounding Amsterdam. They got paved over when the city expanded in the mid fifties.


Shopping for bread, milk and produce was done daily, at specialized stores or by home delivery. Most people did not own a fridge or a car and there were no supermarkets. Mothers were at home, whether they enjoyed it or not. Mine didn't, but that is a whole other topic.



Winter was the time for fat winter carrots, Brussel's sprouts, witloof, various cabbages, leeks, onions, endive, and kale. Sourkraut, liberally spiced with juniper berries, was scooped up fresh from the vat at the greengrocer's.


Vegetables like fresh lettuce, cauliflower, green beans, broad beans, had to wait for spring and summer.
First would come the more expensive greenhouse crop, which my frugal mother might serve on a Sunday, but certainly not during the week. A few weeks later we would come to the main season, when green snap beans or cauliflower would be available "van de kouwe grond", literally "from the cold ground".


I didn't mention potatoes, because they went without saying. If you asked mother what was for dinner, the answer would be the vegetable of that day. Potatoes with jus, made with the Sunday meat and stretched with Blue Band margarine (yuck, in retrospect) to last all week, were always on the table. Protein was meat only on Sunday.


On weekdays the protein might be an egg, or a slice of blood sausage, a tiny piece of smoked sausage, or fish, or it might be missing altogether. We got plenty of cheese at other meals and were in no danger of kwashiorkor.


Delicacies like strawberries, raspberries, cherries and red currants were all available for a brief but much prized season only. My birthday is in July. Never mind cake, the special treat was always a tall glass with various soft red fruits layered with vanilla ice-cream and whipped cream.


Broccoli, zucchini and green peppers were still unknown, garlic frowned upon and generally disliked. I remember my grandparents returning from a bus tour to Austria with a bunch of garlicky sausage. It was declared to be inedible.


During the sixties the place became more cosmopolitan. These days Dutch supermarkets have the usual assortment of everything, from everywhere, all the time.


However, when I became a gardener in Canada I went back to eating with the seasons, because it just makes sense!


One of my favorite crops is KALE. It gives us the first tender greens in spring, the last fresh food in fall, and its abundance feeds chickens as well.


I was incredibly proud when a Vancouver food writer described my garden as "the mother of all kale gardens".

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.