Blue February Skies

It must be the blue skies and longer days but I'm feeling really motivated. Of course I forget to do lots of things on my many lists but who goes through the day like it was a list anyway? That's crazy.

But I can't overstate the power of seeing a blue sky after a grey, overcast winter. And if the wind is down, as it was today minus temperatures seem a paltry thing.

Today we went to the beach and took in the frozen wasteland there. Imagine, to the horizon, nothing but a sheet of ice. Pieces pushing up from below, snow piled here and there. For someone who's never seen a frozen winter sea, this was amazing. Unfortunately I can't share because I didn't bring my camera. But I did take some pictures of the rising sun and the bright, white valley when the recent bright days started. So here you go.



So I guess I should get back to creativity and motivation. Good things to embrace of course. This weekend it's been bread and knitting that have been explored. I learned an easy bread recipe from a wonderful woman. Her recipe is flexible in that you can really use anything that's hanging around your fridge too long. Unfortunately (or not if you don't care) it uses yeast but I'm already learning about sourdough bread so that will be the next adventure. What if the yeast factories stop working?


Anyway here's the recipe (for 8 loaves):

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8 cups of warm to hot liquid (which can include blended veggies and leftovers)
1/2 cup of fat
1/2 cup of sweet
3 tbsp yeast
3 tbsp sea salt
Flour to texture

Mix together everything excluding the flour. Add flour and mix to the point you can stir it in. It needs to be good and moist and a little sticky. Knead it out on a floured bread board. Try and be rhythmic with your kneading. Then you can let it rise in loaf pans and then put it in the oven. I baked it, having no frame of reference, at 350 fahrenheit for 30-40 minutes.

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The liquid I chose to use was the juice from the mason jars that had once contained pickled beets. I thought red bread would be fun and the salty juice meant that I put in a little less salt. The results (and smell of the baking bread) were amazing! Next I might use the liquid that I save from cooking beans. Try it, it's fun and so nice to make bread that's almost as good as from a bakery.


And then there's my new scarf. I don't actually need one but it's an easy place to start. When I started I was always bugging mum but now I just soldier on (another militaristic term). Two knit, two pearl. Easy as pie once someone patient shows you. Maybe by the end of the week I'll be finished. I think knitting a pair of socks would be amazing. Maybe that will be my next project.

Of course all this knitting is stupid because I can buy socks and scarves from China for a tiny sum compared with the hours it will take me. Hell even the yarn costs more than a few pairs of socks from China.

But what if those socks stop coming?

Save The World

Having heard that the Northern Seed Package just cleared customs, I suppose that I should be extolling the virtues of seeds. Granted, I'm not an expert seed saver, let alone an expert gardener but I know a good thing when I see it. And seeds are most definitely a good thing. I might even say that they are worth more than any other thing on this earth.

At my friends' Joey and Ashlee's place, there is a poster on the wall. Every time I went to visit them, I took a long look at it. I wonder if anyone noticed. It's a poster outlining the creeping downfall of the human race. It outlines how humans are throwing away the biodiversity of our own, carefully preserved and selected seed heritage.

In the case of corn, there were once thousands (maybe more I can't remember) of varieties each with special attributes. Black, blue, red, yellow. You name it. Now there's only one or two available on your grocery shelves. And they are all genetically modified. This sad story is repeated over and over again for many other varieties that have been lost.

All our ancestors saved seeds and selected vegetables and fruits for desirable characteristics, like size, colour and disease resistance. But during the Industrial Revolution, we started moving to the cities and started buying tinned food, prepared food. Especially after the Second World War, people no longer had their own gardens and bought seeds from catalogues (like I do) when they did. Farming, especially small-scale farming, was condemned as anachronistic and vulgar.

So the mighty seed companies took over in our ignorance, beginning to lay claim even to plants' own genetic material. Currenly only a handful of companies like Monsanto and Cargill control almost all the seed market. And if a seed doesn't sell because it looks weird or is unpopular then the companies do not maintain a healthy supply of seeds and that breed is gone forever. Forever.

Imagine two hundred years ago, all the impoverished small farmers with their gardens, each discovering what scientists get paid lavishly to do with gene guns today. They were amazing people. They bred plants that worked in their own tiny microclimates and traded seeds with one other, keeping and passing on the faith. You are the descendant of these people and so am I.

So now I wait for my seeds to arrive. I can only hope they can grow here on the land. Well hope and help them as best I can. And maybe on this journey I'll learn to save some seeds myself and share them with others and accept some of their precious seeds in turn. Maybe I'll learn some of those amazing secrets that we've thrown away to progress. It's a challenge certainly but seeds are life. Let's not throw away life for uniformity and profit. It's not worth it in the least.

Buddysattva

Every day I'm reminded, through his actions and behaviours, that my cat is amazing. His name is Buddy and I'm convinced that he's a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is a being that has achieved enlightenment but has forsaken Nirvana to remain in the world to help other beings achieve enlightenment themselves. He or she may teach directly or show the path through their own example.

His origins are a mystery to us. We don't know how old he is for instance. All we know is that he was left in an apartment when his old human companions vanished. Perhaps they achieved enlightenment and disappeared. Maybe they just left for Alberta and they weren't paying attention to Buddy's lessons. So for a number of months he lived in this apartment with another cat. The superintendent, supplied them with food and water and litter (incidentally Buddy only drinks out of the bathtub, I haven't figured out the lesson in this). But the other cat died during this time. And Buddy was alone. A friend of my mum heard about Buddy and arranged for her to take him. So this city cat made his way to the boundless country. He must have felt he died and went to heaven.

Buddy is love. This is his first lesson. He is never upset or angry with us stupid humans. He has infinite patience for our quirks. If you want to move him he accepts this without question. For instance, if he is sitting in his chair (the most comfortable chair in the kitchen) you can scoop him in your arms, sit down and place him on your lap and he won't budge throughout the process. And when he first chooses to sit in your lap or lies down next to you in bed, he bathes you in healing purring.

He is never demanding, though he'll tell you clearly when he wants food or to go outside. He has excellent communication skills, his second lesson. And if you don't understand him, he finds something else to do until you are ready to hear what he has to stay.

His third lesson is found in his major activity, sleeping. I think he is telling me, and our culture more generally, to chill out. Sleeping or dozing is one of those simple pleasures like eating and having sex. Especially during winter, what's the rush? Where are we going? Why not save our energy until the sun is shining during long days and bright green shades surround us? Why can't we wait until we can hunt and explore in bountiful times?

He is also protective. If we go for a walk down by the brook or up to the maple stand at the back of the land, he is with us every step of the way. Maybe he's afraid of us leaving him. But I think he appreciates the adventure and watches out for us. Once he climbed a tall tree and I worried that he wouldn't be able to come down and Dan told me of a time when he leapt over the wide brook to keep up with him and Joey.

And every night he comes and sleeps next to me. Every night. I think he knows that I'm a little lonely and missing a certain friend and having a nice warm body sleeping next to me, however small, gives me happy dreams and breaks some of that loneliness. The funniest part is that he comes and sleeps right up next to my face, but not too close. Last night I lay my arm out along the edge of the pillow and in the morning I found him sleeping with his head resting on my outstretched arm. Very cute!

Even if he doesn't lead me to enlightenment, I'm glad for his friendship.

What Came First?

Can you tell the difference between these two eggs? I certainly couldn't. They both tasted the same, as good as my hot-sauce depleted taste buds can tell.

One egg came from a farm that feeds their chickens only certified organic feed and the second from a farm that has only free-range chickens. It's exceedingly difficult to find eggs that are both free-range and organically fed. In fact, I challenge you to find a dozen eggs from a store that are both organic and free-range. I don't think you'll have any luck.

On Cape Breton it's practically impossible to find organic and free-range eggs. Organic feed costs are prohibitive and you can't even buy bags at the farm coop in Sydney. So the local egg "producers" buy conventional genetically modified feed for their birds. If you are into organic then you'll have a big free-run operation where chickens live inside a big barn but eat organically. At least that's the feeling I get. Am I wrong?

The eggs from Heart's Content Organic Farmstead are the only ones that I know are completely free-range and organic. And they certainly looked and tasted wonderful. Even the freak eggs, the ones that wouldn't get the Grade A label.

It seems to me that if I want to enjoy a healthy and ethical omelette that the only solution is to raise your own chickens. Not that many of course, we're not in this to make money. But if you had a couple of chickens you could enjoy eggs a few times a week. And they aren't that much work even with our busy lives; just let them out in the morning and in in the evening and make sure they have enough water. In fact you might not even have to get them feed since you probably produce enough table scraps to keep them going. Then instead of hoping and guessing, as I've been doing, you'll be able to find free-range and organic eggs.

Just don't tell the city about it.