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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Wild Fruit

Posted by Melanie at 19:51 0 comments

Yesterday we picked seven quarts of Saskatoons and a pint and a half of wild blueberries. We managed to do it after work and before it rained. The Saskatoons were plump and juicy, hanging from the bushes in big purple clumbs. I didn't notice the blueberries untill I had stepped on a few, they are about a third of the size of a Saskatoon and grow on bushes about eight inches above the ground. They are not fully ripe yet and it properly would be better to go blueberry picking in a few days.

When I was in the Italian deli I picked up a glass jar of double Devon cream. The only other time I have seen double Devon cream for sale is in the English shop in Steveston.

Last week I made a tart with a chocolate pastry and a filing of cream, mascarpone cheese and white chocolate, mixed together and topped with fresh raspberries. I got the recipie from Nigellas Lawsons book, How To Be a Domestic Goddess. The tart was tasty enough except I thought the pastry was a little doughy. This week I decreased the flour a bit and increased the butter by about a tablespoon. The resulting pastry was very short so I didn't bother with the egg, meant to bind it all together. Instead of rolling it out I just patted the pastry into the ungreased tart pan.

The Devon cream is thick beyond belief. There is no need to whip it. A far cry from the anemic excuse for cream we get in the average Canadian supermarket. The difference is probably the cows, our Holsteins versus their South Devons. The resulting tart almost melts in my mouth. The crust is light and chocolately, the filing rich, dense and creamy, the blueberries adding just the right amount of tartness to balance out the flavours.

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hiking Washout

Posted by Melanie at 20:39 1 comments

I've just arrived back from a long drive up the Bowron lake road. We took the turnoff towards the Vineyards a beautiful alpine area full of sparkling lakes, meadows of colourful wildflowers and views of snow capped peaks in every direction.

It was a typical Ramblers hike with several diehards and a few newcomers. One of the newcomers, an older women a good deal older than any of us, rode in our car. She bragged about other hikes she had done. We talked about future trips and reminisced about past trips. After parking the vehicles we started hiking up an overgrown road toward the trailhead. I was in my usual position at the head of the pack. The weather was warm with a slight breeze so there weren't any bugs.

After walking about a killometre we waited for the stragglers except it took longer than the usual five minutes for them to catch up. After what seemed like an eternity, to impatient me, the last two rounded the corner one of them, the newcomer could barely catch her breath.

So, at this point the hike leader split us into two groups. Because my friends had elected to stay behind in the slow group, with the gasping for breath newcomer, I decided to stay with them. The clouds we had seen in the distance on the drive started moving towards us. We walked at our usual pace but had to keep stopping to let the newcomer catch up. It started to shower. We barely made it to the trail head (4k) before she, the newcomer, wanted to turn back. So we did and it showered some more. We ate lunch, slapped mosquitos, visited and It rained again. By the time we got back to the cars it was pouring, we were soaked and the others were catching up with us. They said visibillty from the ridge was poor, it was windy and they had been cold. I suppose I didn't miss much.

Thistle

I've resigned myself to thinking of the day as an elaborate way to spend time with friends.

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Monday, July 21, 2008

The Doctors Bag is Finished

Posted by Melanie at 19:02 0 comments

I finished knitting the pieces for this quite a while ago.

100% homemade

This weekend I decided to get serious- first I sewed the pieces to each other rather than using the 3 needle bind off recommended in the pattern, second I lined it with material from a sarong I don't wear anymore mainly because it is too short. I like my sarongs to be long.

made from birds eye maple

Robert got out one of his many saws and cut the handles for me out of birds eye maple, left over from the kitchen. The ceramic button I got from Vallance pottery in Clinton.

I made two pockets in the lining to hold all my knitting necessities so they don’t get lost in the kafuffle of the big bag.

inside

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Windows Solar Collectors

Posted by Melanie at 09:49 0 comments Love this house

We first looked at this house in April. Now it has green grass, pots full of flowers and stairs leading up to the front door. The builder was there and so were a lot of other nosy people like us. Inside, the floor was finished in slate, engineered hardwood and carpet in the basement. Some rooms had vaulted ceilings and there were quirky windows everywhere, although the windows faced the wrong way so the light coming in was cold. At one point I was in the kitchen, opening cupboards, admiring the solid black granite counter top when a chill come over me. Out I went into the sunlight. The house faces west. The big overhang on the long south side (RHS in the photo) prevents the sun from shinning into the house. I doubt even in winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, will it be able to stretch its rays underneath and far back enough to shine on the kitchen floor.

Before we built our house we spent the whole of one summer looking at land with an eye for a southern aspect and a view. At building time we situated the house so it faced south where the view is. On hot summer days the big windows and three foot overhang are enough to keep most of the suns warmth outside. In winter the sun, now lower in the sky, shines it's rays all day into the house and we bask in its radient heat.

I don't understand the fear people have of being too hot, especially in this northern climate when the numbers of really hot days can be counted on one hand, besides sunshine makes me feel better.

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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Quality Time

Posted by Melanie at 09:34 0 comments

A while ago, in an off moment, I told a friend I would help her out by doing one of her work jobs so she could take time off for a week long bike ride. The job is providing janitorial services for a dental office. I'm not very good at keeping my own house clean so why I thought I could do the dental office is crazy.

The job could only be done after 7PM, insane. Thus I found myself hanging around town after work, eating a picnic dinner in the park and watching soccer games in the fields near the office. I'm back to working part time so on Thursday and Friday, with the car already in town, I decided to ride my bike rather than fire up the truck. We had decided to continue with our picnics so I rode in earlier.

My friend said it only took an hour and a half to clean. Hmmn. The first night it took me well over two hours but by Friday I had it figured out. I was doing great, untill I accidentally tipped the mop bucket while trying to get it out of the sink, spilling hot soapy waster all over the janitorial closet and the adjoining kitchen. I took my shoes off and tried picking up the water with the mop, too slow. Then I spied the brimming dirty laundry basket. I tipped the entire contents over the huge puddle, chucking each piece of laundry, as it became soaked, into the washing machine. Luckily there was enough to sop up 95 percent of the water. I threw in some detergent, I found in a cupboard, and turned on the machine. Hopefully the workers will just think I 'm trying to do a good job and will never suspect I unwittingly almost flooded their kitchen.

I won’t be adding janitor to my list of credentials on my resume but I did enjoy riding my bike to town, eating picnic supper in the park with RJW and watching the soccer.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Like the caramel you just popped into your mouth, slowly melting

Posted by Melanie at 15:46 1 comments

I'm sitting in the library trying to cool off. I can feel sweat beading under my chin, running down my back and dampening my under arms. My bra is sticking to my body like suction cups on a wet window. I unhooked it at the back then pulling down each strap I was able to pull the whole thing off through one of the armholes of my t-shirt. luckily there is no one in this particular corner.

I was running back to my car, which in this heat is idiotic. This seesaw weather is nuts. For some reason I had a vision of my laptop bag, left on the front seat of my car, door locked but the sunroof wide open and someone with long arms reaching inside to swipe it off the seat.

I had been gone almost an hour. As I ran back to where I had parked, my brain told me someone had either already taken it or it was safe, I ran anyway and of course I had rememebred to shut the sunroof and the laptop was inside the bag on the seat where I had left it.

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Guerrila Gardening: The illicit cultivation of someone else’s land

Posted by Melanie at 20:58 1 comments

“it is the self contained, independent nature of guerrilla fighters that make their battle so effective. Free from cumbersome bureaucracy and chains of command, a guerrilla is unplugged, off-grid and powered by common sense. “
writes Richard Reynolds in his book, On Guerrilla Gardening. His well organized informative book outlines the answers to all ones questions, who what when why, would bother planting seeds and cultivating vegetables and flowers in next doors vacant lot only to have the whole thing plowed under by the authorities. The second section is a manual for all would be guerilla gardeners. Throughout his book Reynolds cites many examples of individual guerilla gardening activities, how they succeeded or did not succeed against the establishment.

Guerilla gardening has its roots in the philosophies of Mao tse-tung and Che Guevara whose books, Yu Chi Chan( On Guerrilla warefare) details Mao’s account of his 1937 campaigns against the Japanese army in China and La Guerra de Guerrillas ( Guerrilla warfare) written in 1961 after Che successfully overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.

Being a more passive activity guerilla gardening uses flowers instead of bombs to make its point. However, because it is done illicitly it is often done at night, surreptitiously when no one is looking. The purpose is to appropriate a piece of public neglected ground, planter, grassy verge or boulevard with the intent of making it beautiful, productive or both. With an eye to site conditions, weather, accessibility of water and how empathetic passersby’s, locals and authorities will be, suitable trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals are chosen, planted and nurtured.

Blooming hedgerows

According to Reynolds starting small on a site close to where you live ensures a better success rate. The old adage of planting the garden now and asking for forgiveness later is a good mantra to adopt. Encouraging curious locals to help is another tactic aiding the guerilla gardeners goal.

Reynolds says the first guerilla gardening activity can be traced back 5 centuries.

King Charles had just been beheaded the year was 1649, the place- England. Unjust land rights, record high food prices and the fact that the average person owned no land, prompted a group of hungry men and women to put the wasteland in their neighbourhood to good use. Led by Gerrard Winstanley they called themselves The Diggers. Armed with spades and packets of seeds they set to work. More people joined the effort. Soon, those in charge in London heard what was going on. Worried the diggers would disturb the peace they hurried over to see for themselves. However, everything went well and the diggers were allowed to continue, with the assurance that local authorities could be relied on to keep order.

hawkweed by the lagoon

Similar groups sprang up in other areas. Increasingly the Manor Lords, not liking the independent nature of the diggers, began to respond aggressively, digging up their cultivated fields and imprisoning the gardeners. Several priests, who sided with the manor lords, helped crush the diggers resolve.

guerilla is a Spanish word meaning 'little war.' guerrilla gardeners attracted by the exciting rebellious image of the movement are anxious to turn every bit of space into a garden. With rising oil prices, worries abut climate change, and the fact most people on the planet do not own land turning every spare bit into a productive garden seems like a sensible thing to do. Growing food and flowers will not only feed us, the plants themselves will help reduce carbon levels, pollution and noise. as well gardening is therapeutic.

When I’m in my garden pulling weeds watering seedlings or planting things time slows. I notice worms curling away from the blade of my hand shovel frogs the same colour as the soil hopping away from my fingers brightly coloured spiders, beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers and others going about their daily business I can recognize what each vegetable or flower looks like as it sprouts, useful knowledge when weeding. For me the garden is an escape, an antidote to harried modern life.

The Guerilla Gardening movement has a worldwide ardent following and an admirable goal. Easily accessible shared land should be made available to everyone who wants it, for the cultivation of food flowers shrubs and trees.

yellow hawkweed

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Better Than The Telly

Posted by Melanie at 08:56 0 comments highly sucessful Squirrel proof bird feeder>

This new squirrel proof bird feeder is so successful I feel my budget will not be able to keep up with the demand for black oilseeds. It holds ten pounds of seeds which the birds are going through in about a week.

The birds hang out on the ground beneath the feeder and the surrounding trees bickering about whose turn it is to actually get a feeder perch. Periodically the squirrel runs between its seed cache, behind the shed, and the ground under the feeder chasing off any birds who are pecking through the seed shells looking for whole seeds so it can get the seeds for itself.

So far the cat is pretending disinterest in the whole setup.

 
Thursday, July 10, 2008

Days Off

Posted by Melanie at 17:34 0 comments Bouquet

Either someone has stolen my Plants of Northern British Columbia book or I stupidly put it away in one of those thirty two boxes of books, taking up space on my basement floor. I don't like having my books in boxes. A while ago I bought another copy of one of my books. I badly wanted to read it and I couldn't find it in the boxes, even after taking almost every book out and putting them back again. What a pain. I really don't want to make a habit of buying duplicate copies of all my books.

The sooner I convince my carpenter to build the bookcase the better

Since I couldn't find the book, there were a few flowers in this photo I couldn't identify. A knowledgeable flickr friend has come to my aid and identified them all for me. Thanks diffuse

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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Anywhere But Here

Posted by Melanie at 06:34 0 comments

The calendar turned to July and the weather to sun, heat so hot your wore only the bare necessities so as to be decent in public. You sought out shade and drank countless glasses iced of water.

You had absolutely no time to get used to all the blinding heat when bam, big grey clouds moved in, periodically releasing rain of monsoon proportions. The earth cooled and your started wearing your accustomed uniform of wool socks, jeans, t-shirt and polatec jacket.

I feel as if I’ve been gypped.

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Friday, July 4, 2008

Pre Election Gimmick?

Posted by Melanie at 17:30 0 comments

To celebrate the end of my two week stint of full time work, a biggie for me, we are going to blow our climate action dividend cheques on dinner in an expensive restaurant.

On Wednesday I listened to a program on CBC. The minister responsible for the carbon tax on gasoline, the resulting lower taxes meant to offset the carbon tax and a $100 dollar cheque for each tax paying British Columbian, was defending his governments attempt to force us to adopt greener habits. According to the minister this means something like blowing the entire climate action dividend cheque on low energy lightbulbs, weatherize our doors and windows, getting our car tuned up. You get the picture.

The whole program put me in a very irritable mood, hence I wrote the previous post about the women driving the airconditioned SUV.

Because I 'm a goody goody, saw the writing on the wall and believed it, something about having kids, I've been living green for almost two decades. I think people will adopt greener habits because they want too not because Gordon Campbell and his ilk tell us too.

Every minister in the Liberal cabinet should tell us what they are doing to live a greener lifestyle. Now that's a CBC program I want to hear.

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Thursday, July 3, 2008

Not to sound self righteous or anything

Posted by Melanie at 07:24 0 comments

yesterday I parked beside an SUV. It was very noisy and I noticed a child sitting in the front seat. As I walked towards Anchors seafood shop to buy prawns for dinner I realized the noise was the engine of the SUV still running. The reason it was running was so the air-conditioned could keep the child, sitting in the front seat, cool. Humph. The only other customer in the shop was obviously the SUV driver. I almost opened my big mouth to ask her loudly what she meant by wasting resources keeping her engine running for an air conditioner for Christ sake, and all so her kid doesn’t feel the heat. I wonder if she has seen the price of gas lately, especially since the carbon tax came into effect. Maybe she’s out of touch or maybe she just doesn’t freaking care.

In retrospect it is laughable. This is Northern BC . It is unbearably hot for maybe a week out of the whole long year. I guess if we humans have invented air-conditioning we better use it because there is nothing cooler, in both senses, than driving an air-conditioned SUV even if you only have one kid and live in a city.

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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Summer is Here

Posted by Melanie at 18:46 0 comments

After yesterdays scary bug experience I went back out again, after my shower, armed with a large can of larvacide. It only kills mosquito larva. I sprinkled it over the surface of the lagoon, and the swamp which is almost dried up.

After work today I came home and was able to sit on the deck knitting the doctors bag, which has only been unraveled twice, and drinking a margarita. The high today was 34 degrees celsius. The mosquitoes only tried to bite me one every ten minutes, waaaay better than ten zillion every second.

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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Canada Day in the gardening trenches

Posted by Melanie at 11:55 1 comments

Every centimetre of exposed skin, which is just about all of me since I was wearing tiny tiny shorts and an old t-shirt from which I cut off the arms to make into a tank, is swollen and itchy. It's those vicious mosquitos. I was weeding the flower garden the one with the blue spruce tree, london pride, columbine and primulas, none of which can be seen because the weeds are were bigger than the plants. The sun hadn't got around to that part of the garden and it was still damp from being watered a day or to ago. The mosquitos were gleefully treating my body like a buffet, dive boming my face, fighting over my neck like it was a juicy steak.

Determined to weed the garden I came inside for reinforcements, A long sleeved shirt and hat with a makeshift mosquito veil. The bugs migrated to my legs and I quickly finished pulling most of the weeds.

Immediately I came inside. I was going to eat an early lunch but instead I found myself in the shower, rinsing dead bugs out of my hair, scarping them out of my ears and wiping them off my face. Yuck.

Happy Canada Day

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Art Inspired

Posted by Melanie at 06:50 2 comments

Etsy is "your place to buy and sell all things handmade" I've been a member for a long time but have only recently started buying things. I got the fabulous hand drawn print, below, after many months of reading and looking at Jo's inspiring shelter blog which she co-writes with Kim.

Punked Trees

I fell in love with the colours in this handpainted picture by Michelle Moffitt. I just had to buy it.

Red Calls to Yellow

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