Straight Through the Heart

Have you taken sides yet? Was she stupid, insensitive, a true leader, a proud Canadian, respectful of an ancient culture? What did you think when you heard she had eaten fresh seal heart? I'm speaking of course, of the Governor-General of course and her recent taste of seal heart.

I have to say that in this story I find both angles distasteful. On the one side there is this bizarre (to use a familiar word) sense of nationalism being fanned by people who would never dream of eating a seal heart, let alone a flipper or rib. All of a sudden, northern First Nations are true Canadians, bearers of the flag . . . just as long as you keep your funny rituals and foods to yourself. Sorry about the whole genocide thing and that residential schools fiasco, but we're going to respect you for a few minutes. So in the end the message becomes:

Canadians (represented by their GG) are tough, we eat the beating heart right out of a bloody seal. Beat that you sissy, cheese eating Europeans; and we beat you at hockey too.

Then you have this other group of people that can't abide killing any animal for food and find the GG a barbarian for her taste of heart. It's especially bad for seals to die who are cuter than chickens and cows and therefore more special. I'm not sure I understand their position. Have they been to the Arctic? Just what would you expect the Inuit to eat if not seal and polar bear and the like? You can't grow genetically modified soy in the Arctic I'm happy to announce. I'm sure they would like to destroy Inuit culture by importing processed food from the civilized world.

The one group, who is pretty silent in the whole debate (as usual), I have some respect for are the Inuit who hunted, butchered and ate the seal in question. At least they know where their food comes from, at least they have a relationship with it. The GG was just a guest and she's unlikely to stock her freezer with seal, nor should she, being nowhere near where seal live. If you live in Ottawa you should eat what's grown or hunted in and around Ottawa. If you live in Saskatchewan you probably shouldn't know what salmon tastes like.

I know a lot of people in Cape Breton are probably enamoured of the GG right now. Supporting their "industry" which is constantly under attack. Though these same people, like the other good nationalists (and to tell the truth, yours truly) would never actually dream of eating seal despite its abundance.

It's time we dropped the "industry" and just lived in our places. That means seal for us and it probably means the GG should get back to her garden.

In Praise of Oil etc.

Remember that big pile of wood that we had delivered? We finally got through it and piled up all the split wood. The big lesson that I learned from this exercise was the amazing power of oil. When you think about how much it can improve work and annual chores like blocking and splitting wood it's amazing. How much more energy would I have had to expend to do the same job as a chainsaw? Or the log splitter that we were lent? Watching both easily slice through wood, you can only be amazed.

The problem is that we don't use oil to improve on the everyday jobs. We don't make plans when it comes to oil, setting out priorities like home heating, public transit and delivering local food to markets. So in the end we spend this energy legacy on trinkets that are shipped in from China and break the day after they arrive in our homes. Not much thoughtful planning going on here.

If I was allocated a portion of all the remaining oil on earth, I would gladly save it for my annual wood splitting and cutting. But unfortunately that's not how it works.

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In fermentation news, mum just made a gallon of dandelion wine. It will actually take a whole year before it is ready to drink but when it comes, I'll toast planning for the future.

And in a nod to an amazing Korean food, I made some dandelion kimchi. Are you noticing a trend? If there's one thing we've got a lot of, it's dandelions. And they taste great and really are going to be our spring green of choice for I think the rest of our lives here. We're not wasting our money on mixed greens from California every few days and are eating just as healthily and locally. Even in the city, dandelions would make a great compliment to your healthy diet.

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And the hummingbirds have arrived. We had this feeder up for a while but it felt a little like we were dealing hummingbird crack so we took it down. But the junkies keep coming back, even though there is great food just a few metres away in the gardens.

Instant Gratification

When I was younger my mum always complained about my need for instant gratification. You need something now, you want something now. But in the end, it's not realistic. You can't have everything you want. At least not right away. It takes time and work.

Some things go well out here, others not so much. We are starting a new garden and while it's looking good and it is full of worms (seriously full), a lot of the plants we are planting are not taking to the soil. It's tragic when any plant dies (especially one that you plan to eat someday) but most of our kale seedlings are dead as are most of our onions. Perhaps the clay soil was too rocky and not broken up enough. Maybe we were just too ambitious coming from Ontario and that wonderful growing climate.

It's disheartening but really what did we expect? You can't turn a hay field into a garden overnight. It's going to take us years. We're going to have to add manure, leaves, hay and keep feeding the soil microorganisms that will eventually provide us with a healthy and hearty harvest.

So some good news: our peas are phenomenal. We will be able to corner the market I'm sure. And we're hoping that the potatoes, heavily mulched, can provide us with what we need this winter. The soil continues to warm up and we are having nothing but sunny, warm days. The black flies are not nearly as oppressive as I would have thought from everyone's warnings but I know that they will get worse before they get better.

And these failures make you appreciate the value of perennial plants like Jerusalem artichokes, berries, asparagus, rhubarb, fruit and nut trees and many more. Really we should be expending our energy supporting their growth. But I'm not giving up on a fresh tomato sandwich to end the summer off right. Not yet.

Future Tense

So I stupidly picked up a book on climate change and the Maritimes at the library. It's not always a good idea to do something that means all your dreams are going to go up in smoke (or carbon dioxide as it were). While I know that nothing is really certain with climate change and that any book is merely an educated guess at what might happen, I recognize that there is a reasonably good idea of what is coming.

The book presented two scenarios with basically humans surviving in one and going extinct in the other. And this basic description ignores the millions of other beautiful species that will die out on this planet. It's a pretty grim read:

"One Thousand Years From Now (3008)

The ecosystem has collapsed. People are extinct along with their much vaunted civilization and 95 percent of all species have died out. The average global temperature is an unbelievable 40 degrees Celcius. The oceans are effervescing CO2, methane and hydrogen sulfide. No ice is to be found anywhere on Earth, other than on the peaks of a few very high mountains.

The CO2 levels are at 5,000 parts per million (now they are about 350 parts per million).

The ocean levels are 120 metres higher than they are today.

The Earth's hyperwarmth will last for an estimated one million years, before the global cycles of ice ages return. This time the Earth will be a lesser place. It will take three to five million years for the niches to begin to be occupied again and new species to populate the land, air and sea."

The only good news in this scenario is that life will survive in some way (hopefully). But humans will have destroyed the earth for millions of years. Clearly climate change, caused by us, is the worst thing we could ever do to the Earth.

This was pretty hard to read. You know, all I want to do is live the kind of life that will allow my descendants and other species to live for as long as possible. I don't want things given to me by the state, I just want friends and family. I don't want to own any big machines or watch television all the time. I'd be happier on my two feet walking toward a brilliant pink sunset. What more do we need? Even if we did need more, it's not worth the cost.

So I really need to think about what I can do to bring down civilization. I was hoping that it was going to crash on its own and I'd be a museum fremen but sadly it's hanging on. This recession is the joke of the century, nothing is changing as I learn when I walk into any store packed with shoppers. Swine flu isn't killing enough of us and bird flu is missing in action. Maybe I could travel to Mexico and ride the subway and hope that I become the host for a mutated form of H1N1, the one that will kill millions of humans. C'mon Earth, God, whatever you are. Act. We aren't worthy. We've got to go. Maybe leave some of us in a "primitive" state somewhere but 6 billion is 6 billion too many.

Oh yeah, I didn't even mention the real problem that I had clarified for me by the book: runaway climate change. This is what will destroy humans and the Earth with them. At some point, the levels of greenhouse gases will be so high that they positively feedback on one another driving warming to the levels described above. So temperatures rise forcing CO2 out of the oceans and warming them to the point where methane stored deep below the ocean and in permafrost is released which in term causes more warming which releases more greenhouse gases. And if we reach this point, and judging by my fellow shoppers we are, then it's over, there's really nothing that you or I or Barack Obama can do to save 95% of all species, us included.

Maybe I'll write a letter to Stephen Harper. Or vote in Nova Scotia's election for the provincial political party that is calling for a smaller population and less consumption of resources. Or maybe I'll turn off my lights for one day a year. Or buy a new more fuel efficient car and scrap my old one. Or maybe I'll get a job in the massive political/business bureaucracy that is causing these greenhouse gas emissions and change it from within.

Not many real choices left. At least we'll have a few more decades of fun, right?

(I guess this was a little taste of Mentat Musings for old time's sake)

Greenhouse!

So I finally got around to taking some pictures of the new greenhouse after finally getting around to finishing the greenhouse in the first place. This project is definitely one of the cards in my deck. I feel quite proud of it actually. It's completely solid (though the howling wind is blowing outside and I'm scared of hearing it plough into the house).


I built the greenhouse with my mum if you can believe it. Dan helped a bit but mostly left me to it which was nice. I think I've assumed the mantle of carpenter around these parts. Mum is the bread maker and Dan does the hides and seals.

I have to admit that all along I had a rough plan and then found myself constantly adjusting it to meet new challenges. But in the end it's a pretty greenhouse that works great. It's already been 35 degrees inside on a sunny day and hopefully we might even have some cozy days in the greenhouse in winter on similarly sunny days.


What else to note? We're going to do a pretty small garden in the end which will be manageable and feed us but allow us to sell a bit at the market. Dan and I have been digging raised beds and we're soon to have some help in that department with a few wwoofers on the way. Raised beds will be great. More permaculture features for our place out here.


And in good news, we have some beets, radish, peas and spinach popping up in the garden and just planted a lot of onions out from seed. You'd think that they wouldn't be able to take it, they look so fragile. Onions are a necessity and one that we don't want to pay for anymore.

Trip to Halifax

So I just came back from Halifax. Dan and I attended a craft fair, where Dan sold some of his buckskin products and I sold my shirts and patches. I didn't sell that much. I guess most people would rather wear clothes with pretty pictures than something that reminds people that Ethanol = Poverty. There were a lot of silk screen shirt makers there. I think my goal is to teach as many people as possible how to make their own, low-tech stencils. You can do some pretty detailed stuff too.

The weekend was great fun though. We had a great place to stay with a new friend who makes some really beautiful music. It's so key to saving money when you're in the city to have access to a kitchen. Though in the end I did end up spending too much money. I guess it's unavoidable, one reason to not go that often. Perhaps quarterly.

Eating lunch on the porch this afternoon, I was struck with how nice it is to be here in this place. Dan often complains about the city and though I sometimes agree with what he says, really, I feel at home in the city. But sitting there, I felt really more at home here in Cape Breton. No rush, no pressure.

When we arrived in Halifax, for the next 24 hours my digestion and stomach felt terrible. I wonder if this was my body adjusting to being in the city after such a long winter. Do cities have a frequency that we have to tune in to? Most people are probably already tuned in so they don't notice.

This entry stinks. That's another thing I'm noticing, blogging doesn't seem to work for me anymore. I have lots of thoughts, but when it comes to writing them down, I'm at a loss. Oh well. Here's something to read for what it's worth.

I'll try and remember to take some pictures of the greenhouse that mum and I built and post them tomorrow. I keep forgetting. That was one thing I can check off on my deck of cards.