Seasons are changing, we're fast approaching what I've always seen as time for contemplation. Schools started, garden seasons' wrapping up and trees are beggining to change colour. The last couple weeks have seen two great kick offs into fall. The first being the book club style meeting that was held at Collective coffee with Ryan Meili about his book "A Healthy Society." It was a great evening, and could have gone all night had many of the people attending not had families to go home too. The night started out great with a bit of a meet and greet with Ryan for those who came and don't know him, and quite quickly turned into political discussion. It was amazing to see a group of people that were diverse in age, background and profession come to so many agreements and be so passionate for change. The second night was last night.

 Last night SES (Saskatchewan Environmental Society) held the first meeting of a new book club. It brought a great turn out of another very diverse group. We came up with a great list of books with too many to chose from. The first book that will be read is "Everything Under the Sun." by David Suzuki, which is fitting as he is coming to town for a lecture at the broadway theatre early October.

The main reason though I wanted to write today was to answer a question I didn't have time to answer last night. I was asked as well as one other person to describe the close feeling that we have with "The Land" We both during out introductions stated that we were drawn to the natural world in a way other than just an appreciation of it's beauty. This is something I feel increadibly strongly about and is the reason I live the way I do. Our planet has for a long time been referred to by many names, probably the most common of these being "Mother Earth/Nature" It's an old name. Lots of time when people look back at things throughout history they dismiss it saying "Oh they just didn't know any better" I think a lot of time this is just wrong, people used to be much more connected than most people are now. We've created a cultural disconnect, a barrier between us and all other living organisms. Whether you look at it through the eyes of a thiest or atheist we all come from the same origin, dirt. Hummas, mother earth, she is our oldest of grandmothers, and like our other family members a personal relationship is possible. Like a relationship with your own mother a relationship with the natural world needs to be sought after. If you call she will answer. I always found the world to be a place of beauty, endless beauty. As an adult I went on my first hike into the alpine when I was twenty. Bear lake was the destination, high in the rockie mountains near one of the highest peaks; Mt Fisher.  An incredible place and an incredible walk. I remember how I felt the moment the water of a lake still encircled by the winters ice hugged me, it's a tight hug one as if from a good friend that has been away too long. I felt at that moment as though I had been baptized by the world. I really believe I came out from that swim a different person. I started the hike with an open mind and came home with a heart full of wonder and awe. Those mountains are old and they will tell you stories if you will listen. I have more recently I felt the same emotions when I went to the boreal forest for the first time visiting the Prince Albert National park. I encourage everyone who hasn't experienced this to take a weekend or just one day and go for a walk. Take the time to go slow, open your heart to the world. Stop at the peak of the trail or the spot you feel the most taken away with. If you truely listen you will find the wild is not silent, there is no silent retreat when journeying here. Listen and you will find yourself listening to the most beautiful poetry, a perfect symphony. Soon you will find yourself with the ability to connect with nature on an emotional level, not just experience it but connect and be involved in dialogue. The planet is living and we all need to live with her, co-habitation. We are the only species that have this idea that we can live separated from our mother.


On to a garden update, it's nearing the end of the season, it's really wrapping up. Not long and the squash will all be ready to pull out. I've harvested the majority of the tomatoes now, quite a bit of them. I had maybe twelve plants, all greenhouse orphans bound for the dumpster. And I'd say they all produced five pounds of tomatoes. I know I could have gotten mo out of them had I set them up better and taken better care of them. But for being plants bound for the trash can that weren't really maintained once transplanted they did amazing.

“It is to this new-found resolution to reassert our indivisibility with life, to recognize the obligations incumbent upon us as the most powerful and deadly species ever to exist, and to begin making amends for the havoc we have wrought, that my own hopes for a revival and continuance of life on earth now turn. If we persevere in this new way we may succeed in making man humane ... at last.”
― Farley Mowat

So I was at work today. Pretty fantastic thing that is, I was taking out the recycling, and I did what I often do when I do that. I stopped and looked around the alley, just simply to look, and look what I spotted! A great mural hidden in the alley. I've been told that it's from the Make Work studio, which is just at the end of this alley. I really liked the piece, I get the feeling of a vast mountain wilderness, but one that is in it's vastness empty. There's a patchiness to the painting that creates this feeling for me, the animals in it seem to be clumped together. The same way the trees are, much the way a patch work of clear cut areas look. At the same time the animals also look as it they're on the move. It's got three words on it as well, the one you can see in the picture here is home, I can't remember the other two but I remember they affected my thoughts of the message of the piece. I came to the conclusion that this painting is against industrial forestry.

  Secondly, I made kettle chips, without a mandolin... Man I wish I had a mandolin to work with, I sliced these things paper thin all by hand, while it didn't take me long as I was frying in batches anyways, my hand got a little sore. They turned out great though, the potatoes especially, go figure hey. The mix is Beets, Carrots, and Potatoes, being about fifty percent Potato, and twenty-five percent each Beets and Carrots. The salsa here is a sweet salsa made with Tomato, Cucumber, and Tomatillo. The Tomatillo was incredibly sweet, and almost apple like in consistency and flavour.

Thirdly, just because I love bikes, here's one for you. This is my polo bike, It's one of the six bikes that Kate and I own collectively. This one probably the most unique, not to say it's any better but every feature of it stands out as different than all the rest. Mainly the fact that it is a single speed, and a fixed gear. What's even more special about this bike is the gear ratio. I've got a thirty-six tooth gear on the front, (though I feel like I should double check the count on that I might be wrong.) and a twenty-three tooth track gear on the rear. I just put a bigger one on a week or so ago, went up from eighteen, on the rear. So this put me at a 3.1 gear ratio, It's incredibly low, nearly a granny gear. This makes it perfect for polo, I can ride backwards no problem, braking is much faster and my sprints have improved immensely. I love it, all except for bombing hills on it, I feel like my legs will snap like twigs doing that. Here's a video if you've never seen bike polo in action before.

Roasted roots

Roasted root vegetables; A recipe.

Potatoes; your favorite kind, or a mix. One ow two per person depending on size.

Carrots; same as above

Beets; one half beet per person.

Honey; 1/2 tbsp per person

Olive oil; enough to coat everything well

Fresh thyme; 1 tbsp per person

Fresh oregano; 1 tbsp per person

Chili flakes; 1 tsp per person

Salt; to taste

1: preheat the oven to 400* f

2: Dice all vegetables to roughly the size of dice, I like to leave the potatoes slightly larger, or if they're a really small type it looks great to have them just quartered.

3: toss together with honey, oil, herbs and salt.

4: spread put on a baking tray and pop into the oven.

5: bake for 20 minutes, then turn them all over and bake for another 20 minutes.

Your finished product may look like a few pieces have been burnt, that is thanks to the honey and I bet you they'll taste like cand and you'll love it. If you're adventurous try this on the barbeque, I'd you do leave them uncovered. Covering them will lead to them being steamed not roasted and you will end up with a much softer treat. With the honey you want them to really be able to Brown up nice and crisp

Harvest has begun

  Saturday, Market day. I work most Saturdays, so I don't often get a chance to head over to the market on it's busiest day. It's too bad, but there are the occasional days, like today when I can sneak away for a few minutes and run over there. I was picking up lunch so a co-worker could try out the new cafe that opened up in the market; Root Down. Great stuff, We've eaten there a few times now, and already I've got a favorite. They call it the Luisa Maria, It's a vegan BLT, Eggplant bacon, Lettuce and Tomato, with a nice sauce on a multi-grain sour. Worth checking out for lunch sometime. I also while waiting for the food wandered a bit. Had a wonderful conversation about soap making with a lady in the main indoor vendor area. Best of all though I picked up a pound of wild blue berries, straight from the boreal forest, one of my favorite places. They were delicious, the boreal forest is home to the best tasting blue berries I've ever had. I took some back to the cafe mixed some with a nice mint tea we have and had some blueberry mint ice tea, It was great.

Sam and I went over to the garden a few days ago to check on the potatoes. Ended up digging them all up. I'm quite happy to say they all turned out great, we had a few that had soft spots that you could punch right through the potato. Though I'd say at least ninety-five percent were good. We got a real variety in size too, some just the size of a quarter and others the size of a soft ball, average was about the size of a baseball though, which is fantastic.
Sam I think had a blast digging them up, we found quite a few worms in the process which he gladly added to the compost.

Kate's parents were in town and brought us quite a bit of stuff. They brought us a large pail full of goodies from Sue and Morris, beets, zucchini, carrots, beans, lettuce, potatoes. It's wonderful. Her parents stayed for dinner so I roasted some of my potatoes with Sues' beets and carrots, drizzled with a little bit of honey, Delicious. We were also sent some Jams and Jellies from her friend Shelly, I haven't cracked any open yet though I saw today that Kate has. They look great though, I'm especially excited for a certain pepper jelly that I saw in the basket. I'm really excited and thankful about all we receive, and for the people that we're surrounded by. We have some really wonderful and caring people all around us.

 We made another stop to the garden just today, mostly just to grab some onions, but also just to take a look around. The squash seems to be coming along really well, again being my fist time growing them I'm not sure how far along the process they should be, but I think for when they were planted it's great. This guy here is about eight inches long and a good thickness.

Lastly, I've begun to harvest my tobacco. I've still got a considerable amount of plant yet that needs to continue growing before I remove them. I'm amazed at how much I've removed and how much I still have left. Here you see two rows of tobacco hanging to cure, in our conveniently ventilated and cedar storage shed. I think this will provide the near perfect environment to create a nice light "oriental" tobacco which I'll use to roll into slender paper-less cigarettes. Though from what I understand without the use of a kiln I need to allow for a significant aging period to bring out any form of desirable flavour.

 

"The body is your temple, keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in."

Living Sustainably by practicing Deliberate Moral Choice

As a request, It's been suggested to me that I should post again, in greater length and detail the subject of the last post. I want to do that, I think it's a good subject and was disappointed in how the last one came out because of it's limited length. The topic is Living deliberately; moral based decision making.




“How much evil throughout history could have been avoided had people exercised their moral acuity with convectional courage and said to the powers that be, 'No, I will not. This is wrong, and I don't care if you fire me, shoot me, pass me over for promotion, or call my mother, I will not participate in this unsavory activity.' Wouldn't world history be rewritten if just a few people had actually acted like individual free agents rather than mindless lemmings?” 
 -Joel Salatin, "Everything I Want to do is Illegal."

 We are living in a very bad age in history. Easy to say not just bad but the worst. We live in the most violent and wasteful of all times. We in the last One Hundred years as a global population have killed more people than the entire of human history, and we have created more permanent waste in the last Fifty years than every would have been thought possible. We have advanced so far in our technology many of us now believe we are free from the chains of nature. That we now have the unquestionable power to live exclusively by our own will and means. Of course this is wrong, technology can never sustain us alone as it itself is depended on the natural world just as much as we are. Thanks to all this we are now in a unique position, a position of choice, one that as mankind we have never been in before. We have two choices; the first is to continue down our path to destruction, and bring ourselves to the most common of pagan finales: our own destruction, or we can chose a more enlightened path and choose to stop our evil ways and learn to live as equals with the natural world.

Lets take a look briefly at the first choice. We're going to look at it through American commercial agriculture. And to narrow it down further we're going to look at three things, Corn, Soy and Wheat. I'm sorry that these figures are going to be old, but they are current enough to be relevant, and bad enough that the change since then is only worse.  **
                                  Millions of Acres
Corn;                                  72.7
Soy;                                    72.7
Wheat;                                53

In the United States there are approximately 382 Million acres of land in use for crop production. So looking at the three previous numbers we can see that they account for nearly 50% of the agricultural land.

Now lets take a look at each of the three individually.
Corn:
"According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production."** I don't even really want to touch on that as I'm assuming most of you are familiar with factory farming and grain-fed livestock / fish, If your not maybe we'll talk about it some other time or you could read one of the great books by Joel Salatin or Michael Pollan. Its much to large of a topic alone for me to get into. In short though Eighty percent of one of Americas largest crops is going to feed things that if we were to change our systems to a natural system would have things to eat already. Cattle should be grazing in pastures eating natural grasses, with chickens and pigs following them. Instead of all three being fed Corn. As well as fish, possibly the most disgusting of all three, because of my personal love of fish. That should seem obvious, fish should not be eating corn, especially carnivorous fish like salmon and tuna. Now Twenty percent is a lot of corn still a lot of food, sadly though the majority of that is still not being barbecued or salsafied. The large percentage of that remaining amount is making it to us indirectly through things such as corn syrup, in soda. Another percentage of that is going to make ethanol trying to make a "green" fuel. So in the end such a small amount of all that is grown is ending up as a good nutritional part of our diet, and for me has created a love hate relationship with corn. It's one of natures most amazing gifts, and we feed it to the cows who don't want it.

Soy being Sprayed.

 Soy:
The US produces about Fifty percent of the worlds total soybean crop. The majority of which is going to make oil, which is used for various purposes. This one is less negative than corn, but only slightly. Some of the oil produced from soy is very plain, it's used to make margarine and is one of the leading ingredients, far less canola is used than is often portrayed, as well as other cooking oils, for frying and all that great stuff. That wouldn't be a bad thing if it wasn't being produced in such high amounts just to supply all the fast food places that are deep frying your children's chicken nuggets and fries. Another large chunk of the oil is being used to make ethanol, more soy is used for this purpose than corn is, that isn't a positive thing. E85 a blend of eighty-five percent ethanol to fifteen percent gasoline is what is used for vehicles. You might say great that cuts down a lot on the fossil usage. It might not so much as you think. Vehicles that run on ethanol often end up with a lower gas mileage than running on a straight gasoline, requiring obviously that you use more of it. To be exact 12 gallons of ethanol has the BTU equivalency to 9 gallons of gasoline. Making the ethanol is another thing to take into account to, as machinery is required to separate whatever is being used into it's smaller parts. It needs to be heated to create the syrup, then it needs to ferment. The first to part are energy intensive of course. Heavy machinery and heat need a lot. And of course all the left over from the process goes to feed our wonderful friends over at the factory farms, how tasty. Soy is also one of the crops that uses the highest amounts of pesticides. I'm sure you all agree that that's bad and I don't need to explain. So yet again, we're taking something wonderful, who doesn't love a plate of steamed and salted edemame, and something so vital to a vegan diet, and yup we're just burning it.

Wheat:
Probably the mildest problem of the three, but still not something we're handling well at all. Here we have the largest percentage going directly to use through food, at seventy percent. That's great, I love to bake, I love wheat. Here's the problem, go the grocery store, look at the products that it's getting to you through, and how much of them are there. The majority of it is ending up in products like wonder bread, fruit-loops, and oreos. As a base food none of those three are bad things, Bread is in my opinion one of the best dietary parts of a persons life. A good loaf of bread will supply you with all the fibre you need to fuel your day, kick start your digestive system and serve as a platter for whatever you chose to have it with. Cereal is much the same as bread, I start most of my mornings with oatmeal. Cookies, everyone needs a treat now and then, there's no denying that and you shouldn't deny that. It's the super processed way that we are consuming them. Super bleached to no nutritional value bread, mega sugar doesn't resemble what it is at all cereals and get you sugar high treats. No wonder we have an obesity pandemic when the majority of our daily diet is made of grains that have been robbed of all their value and then given a face lift with refined sugar.

**  U.S. environmental protection agency - 2000

So lets sum that up. 50%, that is half, of all the vegetable crop land in the United states is either fed to our fast food industry through cattle feed or fryer oil, burned in our vehicles with bio fuel or making us fat. Isn't that a shame. We are wasting half of our land.

Here's the second choice, life runs in the agricultural world (the whole world for that matter) on a supply and demand system. They supply what we demand, you can't deny that. And so it's not the farmers fault, it's not Kellogg's fault, it's not the governments fault all this is happening. Sorry for this but it's your fault, it's my fault, it's all of us that keep that happening. Great news though, that means the solution is simple, and easy. We simply demand something different. That doesn't meant you write a letter to general mills and ask them to use whole grains in their cheerios. That means you stop eating cheerios and eat whole foods. That means that instead of saying we want a greener more earth friendly fuel, we cut back or better yet stop our dependency on fuel. Park your car, ride a bike instead, take public transit, car pool, walk, they're all better choices than the five cars a family of three uses now. That doesn't mean that we tell McDonald's to offer salads, it means we don't eat at McDonald's, instead we cook food ourselves, eat at home at the same table as our family. Who would have thought, living so simply could have such a positive affect. All of those are really easy things to change. You might say you don't have time to cook at home, well don't make dinner so complicated, there are a million cooks, and cook books out there dedicated to helping you cook good food faster. Some people say they're in too much of a hurry to ride a bike or walk. I feel sorry for them, they have messed up their priorities. If you're in too much of a rush to get to work to work a long day to make more money, then your life is simply costing you too much money to live. Slow down your life, live simpler and smaller. You'll find you start to feel relaxed, are working less but end up saving more money because your spending less money and simply don't need as much. If you want any help with any of those things, or feel lost as to how to start those changes please email me, or facebook me, I can and would love to help.

Ok so now lets take this solution to the waste that we just came up with and make it even better. So now we've effectively cut out fast food from our lives, we've cut down to an average of one car for every five families of three, we've all started cycling everywhere, and we now all sit around our tables together for at least one whole home cooked meal everyday. lets pretend we all did all of that. The first thing we're likely to notice  is that the city suddenly got a lot quieter, and hey maybe you noticed your head stopped aching. Man that's great. You'd probably notice after about a week that your fighting less as a family or with your co-workers, as lets face it most of your fights before you changed your life were because you were in a hurry to do something and lacked the patience to deal with it. You've probably noticed that your sleeping better at night. That's all thanks to your new diet. Not to mention that you've miraculously lost a couple inches off your waste, though you may not have dropped weight. Congratulations you just traded some fat for muscle, wow what a healthful improvement. Those are all very personal things you'd notice, and they are all fantastic and endlessly positive. Now lets look at the change that had globally. All of a sudden fast food joints are shutting down, and being replaced by locally owned good food restaurants, like the one that just opened here last week; Root Down. Now because they're gone suddenly we don't have a need for all the factory farming, or for the majority of the farming we just talked about. Wow, we just freed up millions and millions of acres. So lets do a little bit more number crunching with that in mind.

I`ve been told I look like these guys, Love it.

If before we were farming Fifty Percent of the land to produce food which only about Ten Percent of which made it to our tables in some edible form. Lets take a look at what we could potentially now produce on that land. This is going to be very rough. I realize that certain things cannot be grown everywhere, land conditions really affect what we grow where, so this will be a vague estimate but still very powerful. So lets say we just freed up two hundred million acres of tillable agriculture land. Lets look at what could be grown. If you use the practices which are pretty widely seen of the hutterite's. You would be able to feed one person off of two thousand square feet. Their food bill would be One hundred percent eliminated. There is 43560 square feet per acre. So that works out to be approximately twenty-one people per acre, multiply by two hundred million and you get four billion two hundred million. Which looks like this 4,200,000,000. That's half the worlds population. Much more than the United States population. Now lets fantasize a bit to improve the numbers. I have been practicing a method known as mini, or intensive farming. What I see as the ultimate small scale food production. The belief here is that you need only seven hundred square feet to feed one person ninety percent of their food bill. To feed them one hundred percent you have to up it to about one thousand square feet, this allows for grains and meat. so that doubles our number. And we now feed the entire population of the world with just the land currently being farmed in the United States alone. WOW, we have suddenly improved the quality of life on this planet in every conceivable way. Now imagine everyone was to grow a portion of their own food globally. This would mean that a family of three would need more space than the average now has. We`ll put each family on one half acre. That if they want is enough to have a small house, feed themselves nearly entirely, and have a bit of space to play. By doing this we would solve virtually everyone of the worlds problems at the moment, climate change, disease, world hunger, everything you can think of would be solved if people lived in a way where they did things by their own hands, and helped each other.



Now of course that`s an Ideal, and even if it`s exactly what we all wanted we would not be able to reach that for generations. So the question is how do we make positive change, how do we work to solve the worlds problems, and how do we as individuals make a difference. The answer is simple. We need, heavy on the need there. Need to start exercising our moral free will. We need to live with deliberate consideration of the environment and humankind with all of our decisions. Now your going to say that sounds like a lot of work, I don`t want to think about all that every time I buy a chocolate bar. Well I say why not *question mark(sorry my shift button broke I can`t do a question mark) Is your chocolate fix so important that you won`t consider others first *Insert question mark. Ultimately, Yes, this means that your life will slow down, you will not have time to do as much as your doing now, but you know what your retention rate of what you do do will increase and you will get more enjoyment out of one single act than you would previously out of ten. Yes please take the time to think about the impact you are having with every aspect of your life, I ask you as a parent, as a neighbour and as friend to do this. Living your life with Deliberate Moral decision making is the most important thing  you could do in  your life. It`s easy to do, often it means listening to your gut, listen to what your body tells you, what your mind tells you. If you feel bad about what your doing or gross it`s likely something that is harmful to you or others and maybe you should take a second to think it through. One last time I will say if any of this seems unclear or you want help, or whatever please feel free to ask me. Joel Salatin said above that history would have been re-written had people acted with their moral conscience, I agree and I don`t believe that it is too late. You are not a mindless robot, you have the power to make the decisions. As a great man once said be the change you want to see in the world. Live a more responsible life, live a life of example. One in which you are proud to live on display.

Thanks for reading.

Garden growth, Adventure amazing.

Sorry for the lack of structure here. This post was written half on a laptop half cell phone. The photos are from two days ago at the garden. There are definite mistakes I've made thanks to lack of experience. Overall though I'm impressed with how things have come. The potatoes are great, the onions are sweet, and the tomatos are plenty. The second thing i'd like to write about is my feelings of environmental development / resource development. I for quite some time have been in passionate dissagreement with the reckless behaviour of our countries.resource development. And this is a pressing issue to everyone (if its not you're pretty heartless.) I'm going to skip through all the climate change stuff and get to something else. I have been for a while struggling with one question. How do we fight against the way our environment is being attacked. I have decided for me that that means opting out. That means that at every opportunity I chose to do things by means that do not reply on a destructive industry. It gets complicated I can't cut fossil fuel out from my life entirely. I would have to denounce literally everything to do so. So what I try to do then is do only things where the positives heavily out weigh the negatives. Take cycling for example, steel frames, rubber tires and so on. These things come from a destructive industry. But the amount of impact that a bicycle creates is far less then a car, not to mention the on going impact of driving. I might say that the bicycle industry has a low enough impact as to be sustainable, meaning we could continue forever with out exhausting our means of doing so. People often ask me why I work in the coffee industry when I believe what I do. It is for this reason. There are coffee companies that buy only from organic farms, only from farms that grow with diversity in attempts to simulate rainforest. The coffee industry can be destructive but it also doesn't have to be, like all industry. And so we all need start using our own brains, not relying on others. We can all make better choices and there are no reasons good enough not to make them. And so I combat destructiveness by encouraging people to stop the demand for it. As long as we do things that are heavily dependant on it there will be demand for it, and as long as there is demand industry will meet it no matter what they have to do. Industry is not a person, it does not feel or care. So why should we care so much about its feelings. I don't hammer because my hammer is nice I hammer to build something.

Friday the 13th, I don`t think I have ever had a bad one. This particular Friday was exceptional. Sam and I spent the evening helping a neighbor build a section of a Rammed Earth wall he is putting up in his backyard. Rammed earth is a technique I`m entirely new to, I had heard of it but have never seen it used. There's not a lot that goes into it. Rammed Earth requires nothing more than a  little concrete, dirt and water. Unlike  the usual concrete mixture that you see in things like skate parks this takes a very low amount of actual concrete, making it a much  more economical means of building. That being said it is more physically demanding. Rather than just the spread and smooth of regular concrete, Rammed Earth takes a physical ramming, of course. The finished product is beautiful and strong.

The next thing I'd like to bring up is a website. FRESHNLOCAL.CA, I haven't had a chance to place an actual order yet, but the Idea is fantastic and I'm excited to try it out. What it is is a delivery order good food box. This Idea isn't new, small time market farmers have been doing things like this since the beginning of market days. The wonderful thing here though is that this is incredibly accessable for everyone. You go to the website, (which was wonderful put together by the same person who's wall I helped build.) choose a category; Produce, Meat, Bread, and so on. From there choose individual Items; Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Steaks, Sourdough... you place an order online and It's delivered to your house on wednesdays. Everything comes from local producers like Floating gardens, Wally's Urban market garden and Earthbound Bakery. And best part yet for prices that are comparable with shopping at the average supermarket. I'll have a more valid opinion on how it works once I've tried it out, which I won't have a chance to do until August, sorry.

Once last thing is check out how the container cucumber and zucchinis are doing, Plus I'm excited my corn is starting to flower. A little behind but it's coming, oh boy.

"Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.... Don't eat lots, eat mostly plants."
-Michael Pollan; In Defense of Food

“While it is true that many people simply can't afford to pay more for food, either in money or time or both, many more of us can. After all, just in the last decade or two we've somehow found the time in the day to spend several hours on the internet and the money in the budget not only to pay for broadband service, but to cover a second phone bill and a new monthly bill for television, formerly free. For the majority of Americans, spending more for better food is less a matter of ability than priority. p.187”
-Michael Pollan; In Defense of Food

Tobacco

I guess, maybe time for an update? I'll let you in on how things are going garden wise. Things are coming along good. Some small hiccups but I think things are recovering even from those. We've had a tonne of rain lately. It's been raining every night, except so far tonight. With a few thundershowers that were tornado serious that lasted a few days. That was most of June. So, being that I don't myself own a car, it's hard for me to always find a way, or time to get over to the garden, being on the opposite side of the city. I got over a couple days ago for the second time since planting, the first was just to transplant a few more tomato plants only days after the actual planting. So it's been nearly a month since I've been over to have a good look at what's going on.

Planters

What I did see I was really happy with. Things had sprouted up all over the place, and in some cases more than just that. I've now got potato plants a little over a foot tall, onions at the same height, countless tomatoes started and gettin juicy. The tomatoes really surprised me, I didn't know at all what to expect with them. Over half of my fifteen or so plants are greenhouse orphans, bound for the dump from being uprooted. They're now all incredibly happy and flowering. Sunflowers, squash, corn and beans have all popped up. Not all then have come up and I'm afraid that a few might have been lost to mold. All is ok though there are enough of them to make a good go of things on the three sisters end. Sam was rather excited to see his sunflowers coming up.

A tobacco plant that was eaten by birds the day after transplanting has sprouted back to life. Though it's small and only has one leaf at the moment it's alive, whether it will live to produce or not I'm not sure. Our

Potatoes

Alpine strawberries have just about doubled in size since planting, which is great, I don't know what to expect from them. And on a big plus, no weeds yet. We did a good enough job digging and clearing the first time there were no soil-borne weeds left, and nothing has sprouted up, also no pests yet that I've seen, and no evidence that any have been there. Everything over at the garden is doing swell. All the rain hasn't been a downer for me, it's actually just been creating less work. The planters in our walkway are also doing great. Everything's shooting up like rockets in slow motion. My cucumbers at zuchini's have made it to the second tier of the trellis,

Potatoes

which is exciting to me, it's like a horse race, and I'm on the edge of my seat just to see who will get there first. My tomatoes here are doing great. I've got more basil than I think I can use, Or at least I haven't used really any yet, I don't really know why. I have one basil plant that I did take from early on, and didn't think would survive, and so got some more to take it's place. Now it's fully recovered and is doing amazingly well.

Onions

My dill was doing great, until I robbed nearly all of it. We'll see if it keeps producing or if I crippled it, if I did it was for a good cause, Which I'll talk about in a later post. Corn's getting thick and tall, they're now nearly at two feet, and about an inch around. Soy's growing up the middle and my squash is actually big enough now to start acting as the ground cover. Looks like the three sisters in a cube planter is going to work. I had radishes in one planter that I've harvested about half from now, but the other half we're crowded by the first half and so they're growth was stunted and they've gone to seed. Instead though, of pulling them out and planting a second batch I've been letting them go purely for the experience with the plant. I want to see if I can recognize all stages of it's growth, and possibly collect the seed to save. So nothing but good news around here as far as the garden goes. The excitement hasn't died down at all, this is still more entertaining than any blockbuster movie I've seen.

“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
-Masanobu Fukuoka; One Straw Revolution.

 I was in the mood for something easy for dinner. I'm by myself for the weekend. And I thought hey great idea! I'll make myself a pizza, you know just pull 'er out of the old ice box, and pop into a pre-heated oven. Delissio! So I pulled my starter out of the fridge, it needed to be refreshed anyways. I put it together with about two thirds light spelt, to a third dark rye, added some fresh thyme and oregano from the pots, some dried tomato. Let it rise for an hour, added proscuitto, green bell, tomato, mushroom, onion, and of course mozza. Baked the babe for twenty minutes and presto. Instant pizza. It was wonderful. Thought I'd share that

 I finally made it through Walden, not to say it's dry at all, I just read very little at a time, and sat on it. I really believe  this is a must read for everybody. It's important not just as a book but to understand the view of Henry David Thoreau. He was not accepted in his time, not by very many at least. He disagreed with the government, and I think still would. He chose to Opt out of society and to live by his own means. He chose to live by means of his own hands, and nothing else. He lived with only what he needed and allowed himself no greed, that's not to say no comfort. He spoke lots of feeling more at home and more comfortable than his fellow townsmen. It was written many years ago, but is still one hundred percent relevent. My copy included his letter Civil Disobedience, in which he shares that it is everyones duty to act as individuals instead of being acted for by our governments. A view that I think is needed now more than ever. He rejected his government, and they rejected him. Now they have a monument for him, and proclaim him as a great, and true American. Today though, nothing would be different even still. He would reject our governing authorities, and they would still reject him, but at the same time probably not allow him to at least live seperate and by his own means. Read it, you won't regret a moment, Thoreau I believe was one of the greatest modern writers.

 Here's a few photos from my wedding that happened on June 2nd, I don't want to post too many, but here's a couple. What a good day. Oh and I threw in a little bonus one at the end.

 

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
 - Chris Mccandless

There was a moment today, you could probably call it inspiration, I think it was more of a realization. I was walking along, sorry, waiting for a traffic light. On one of the cities busiest streets, where it's always rush-hour. I noticed, that if I were to snap a picture of me, and judge purely by how I look that I was like no body around me, Absolutely no body. I thought that was a shame to some extent. Let me first describe myself to you, at that particular moment. I'm on the corner of 22nd street and Avenue C, this is a pretty major street for Saskatoon as it's the exit to the west. The majority of people are driving, alone, most of them in cars made within the last decade. Most I notice clean cut, and most important of all most seemingly unhappy (Judging books by their cover here, sorry.) I on the other hand am walking, I never feel alone when I'm walking. I have all of life to keep me company. Being outside of a vehicle I have fresh air to fill my lungs, though not always when I'm downtown. My feet, shoeless, they're hanging from my backpack, which I bought at a thrift store. It's an old aluminum frame boy-scouts pack, It's great, cost me three dollars. I have my pants rolled up to my knees, as the sun is shining bright and I'd love to feel it instead of restrict it. I have on also a cut off plain white tee shirt, tucked in with my usual suspenders. I have a steel cup hanging from one of the clips on my suspenders, and my banjo strung over my shoulder and on my back, on top of my backpack. So here I am, standing bare-foot, in the "ghetto" Absolutely satisfied with every passing moment, pure happiness. That's when I realized, why am I so fortunate to feel happy, when all these other people seem so upset, some who actually honk, and make other gestures to show they're distaste for me. I wonder, what is it about me they see as off-putting. So I'm not wearing shoes, I'm outside, why should I, I'm not blind I can see where I'm stepping, and so no danger. Sure I've got a cup hanging from me, I'm prepared, I don't have to buy a drink, just fill my cup at any clean faucet. A backpack, and an instrument, I don't see anything wrong with that. Maybe it's that my clothes are obviously second hand, but then again I think that musn't be it, people love vintage clothing. I'll make a point to say, I am clean, I have no rips in my clothing, no stains, my face is clean, my hair is clean, maybe frizzy a bit, but clean. I really see no problem. That's why I wonder, why, why would anyone want to live in a way, whatever way that might be if it brings no happiness. I want to know why people do what they do. I have had lots of possible reasons come my way, but none of them stand on solid ground. Society at this moment in history is an irrational, unmotivated machine. It seems to have no conscious, no heart, no brain, and no soul. Where did it all go? Most of these people hold post secondary degrees I'm sure, yet why do they act like such fools? to be manipulated by corporate monsters, and media pigs. Why is it that we have given over 100% to Mammon, we need to surrender our thirst for more and realize that we need not what we want. People keep searching amongst material goods worshiping false gods in hope of happiness. All they find is self pity. Give it all up. There is no satisfaction to be found amongst our corporate market society and it must be dismantled. I'm sorry if all this sounds stupid, I just don't understand people, please feel free to enlighten me. Also I just want to add I'm not making presumptions about how people feel towards me some days, I have had people actually tell me how they feel about it, some of it is positive, usually only when I'm in a park amongst other people that are outside. The majority of it though is negative, It doesn't bother me at all, I'm rather happy being different, but it saddens me to see other people live such destructive lifestyles.

 Today feels like an exciting day. Maybe it's just the sunshine, maybe it is just awesome simply because it's another day and there's nothing that can tell me that that's not a reason to be excited. I pulled out the first radishes the other day. Just babies, but I had to pull some out to allow others to come to maturity. Babies they might have been, but delicious none the less. Their small size meant that they were packed full of flavour that might spread out as they got bigger. Which was great, I had only a few but they packed a real punch. Wonderfully sweet with a real nice peppery kick to them. I stole some dill from the patch as well, Fried up some chick peas (Sorry those came from a can, I know they could have been dried and local but they weren't.) tossed the dill and radishes and chowed down. Really easy salad to make, really filling, and goes really well with a fragrant rice. If you want to know: One cup Chick peas, sauteed with vegetable oil, toss in about four to five radishes finely sliced and a small bunch of dill. Add some fresh pepper and sea salt.

As you remember from my last post. I have some pickled eggs just waiting, I've been anxious. I cracked them open today. They smell wonderful, maybe not to a lot of people. I took one out to try, It's been only a few days, but boy are they coming along well. My brine made a fine egg that's for sure. They're mild at this point, but still I can taste some of the subtle flavours. They're sweet, deliciously sweet. Not a fruity sweet that I think I would have had, had I used a cider vinegar, but a more bold clean chili type sweet that I think suits the eggs perfectly. The dill is also just the right amount, you can taste it, but by no means would I call them dill-pickle. I'm extremely happy with how they've turned out. I've got some small cucumbers here that I'm going to try out next.

Months back I was cruising on the old internet auction house. And ran into a few records that I just couldn't say no too. In all I found four, Dock Boggs, Roscoe Holcomb, Jack White, and Frank Fairfield. Of which two arrived at my doorstep this afternoon. Jack White's new album Blunderbuss, and Frank Fairfields; Open West. Jack White I hold to be one of the most gifted of young musicians of our time. He has technical ability that could match any ones, but he also understands where music comes from and respects the simplicity of roots music. I think combining those two has created a refined, and incredibly powerful sound. It's easy to tell where he gets his influence from, it always has been. Leadbelly, Son house, and so on. He resembles them, much like Bob Dylan resembled his. This new album is a mixture of the roots he loves, and the new that he represents.
There are a lot of great names adding to the album, Pokey LaFarge adds Mandolin to one song, just to name one.

Frank Fairfields album is similar in two ways to Blunderbuss, in that many of the instruments are the same, Fiddle, Parlour style guitars, and such. And the base of the sound, being Old-Timey American. While Jack White's album shows us a modern view of an old time parlour jazz band, Frank Fairfield gives us a good look into real american folk music. By that I mean really what the it says, music of the folks. It's a great album that could be played along with others from another time, Roscoe Holcomb, Texas Gladden, Dave Macon, or anything from Allan Lomax's collection and it would fit right in. I love it for just that reason. I'd say check out both albums. Here's a couple youtube links for those of you who are too lazy to look it up yourself.

Fretting over sloppy eggs

 “The average person is still under the aberrant delusion that food should be somebody else's responsibility until I'm ready to eat it.”
-Joel Salatin

Sorry, but I'm going to be quoting Joel a lot, get used to it. He's right though, At least I haven't read anything he's said that's wrong yet.

Part of wanting to be self sufficient here where we live is learning how to handle what we produce. That means, not just how to cultivate, how to thresh, or how to cook and enjoy what we're grown. That for us largely means how to preserve. We have long cold winters, though that may be changing. This to me is really tied into what has been said above by Mr. Salatin. I can go to the grocery store and buy a jar of pickles, or some jam,
That's not how it should be. We need to be more connected to our food. We need to understand where it comes from, how it's been grown, processed, stored, and shipped if that was needed. Supermarkets are amazingly convenient, and they open up doors to exploring food wonderfully. There aren't many places  you can buy daikon, holy basil, star anise, mangoes and so on. We need to start moving away from using supermarkets. That's not a suggestion, that is a necessity. If we care any bit about our health, the health of our children, their children and our planet, which are all undoubtedly tied we have to stop using supermarkets. There's a lot of other things we need to stop too, but I won't break your heart right now. It's an easy shift to make, this whole lifestyle is easy to change to. It's only a matter of priorities. What makes this lifestyle different than the majority of our societies is that this puts priority on health, and respect. Where as our society priorities ease of economic gain above all else. It's easy to see how that's not right. We've decided to slow life down, enjoy the small things, and do things for ourselves. That means likely I won't retire a millionaire, I likely won't be able to retire. I know that, from the small taste of how satisfying this is I won't want to. All of this has enabled us to be closer to what we do, closer to what we consume, and closer to what we leave behind. I understand where our food comes from, I am aware of the amount of energy I use and what kind it is, I know how much I leave behind. Anyways before all that I mentioned preserving food. That's an important skill, one before I didn't know anything about and am just starting to learn about now. Last night I gave pickling a go. I'm pickling eggs, by far my favorite item to pickle. I always thought pickling was a long drawn out annoying process. I learned last night that it's not. It was really simple actually. I boiled the eggs, simple. Then came the brine, this was what I knew nothing about. It was like some witches potion to me. I looked it up... in a book.... then with google. Easy water, vinegar, salt, sugar boil, done. To be specific I used white wine vinegar and regular white 50/50 mix, mixed that 50/50 with water, added salt, sugar, chili flakes, garlic, pepper corns, coriander seed, fresh dill, anise seed, and bay leaves, and simmered for ten minutes.  We'll find out how they taste in a little while, they're pickling now.

Here's my recipe.

Hard boiled eggs                20

Brine;

White wine vinegar            250 ml
White vinegar                    250 ml
Water                               500 ml
Salt                                   1 tsp
Sugar                                1 tbsp
Chili flakes                        3 tbsp
Pepper corns                    1 tsp
Anise seed                        1/2 tsp
Coriander seed                 1 tsp
Garlic                               6 cloves
Fresh dill                           Small bunch
Bay leaf                            2



As for the rest of my weekend, I spent a lot of my time fooling with my banjo. I have since I got a banjo wanted one fret less. So I thought, hey I didn't pay any money for this thing, what have I got to lose. I began rippin up fret wire. Not as hard as I was expecting. After maybe an hour I had all the frets off, sanded down the rough edges that were a result of pulling up the frets, and put on new strings. Here came my first problem. Now I had lost all my volume, I could get notes out but I could get no volume or clarity out of them. At first I didn't know what happened, why wasn't I making music anymore. I panicked a little, thought I wrecked my baby. Then I though, you know, my skin's pretty soft, and this wooden neck is pretty soft. What kind of base do these strings have to resonate a not off of anyways? And that is what my problem was. Before as many of you may know when you push down on the string it lowers it too the fret board and brings it to rest on the nearest inside fret from your finger. From there when you strum is where it vibrates to create the sound, though this isn't where a note resonates from, without a solid point here you will have no volume. So now that I knew what my problem was I had to do some research as to how to fix this problem, Into the books I went. I discovered that people used to play banjo with nylon strings. I already new that, and the reason is simple.
When the banjo made it's way across the Atlantic on slave ships it came across with gut strings, made from you guessed it, guts. When European minstrels got a hold of it some of them changed those out for classical guitar strings. Most of these early banjos were fret less. I've seen people play fret less banjos with steel strings and read about it before. I still do not really understand that. I decided to try out the nylon thing instead of worrying about it too much. I had trouble getting them wound on in a way where the knots were low profile but would handle the tension, it worked in the end though. Being that they can't handle as much tension as steel though I had to tune much lower than with steel strings, and they also had a much more plunky muted sound. That isn't a bad thing, it had a really cool sound with them. After playing it a bit sans frets I decided that for being a one banjo owner it was not versatile enough anymore. The tone was too low to play with most other instruments and it wouldn't have a voice anymore. It would be great for strictly solo stuff but I like to be able to play with other people, or be heard above traffic. After all the work I decided to install new frets. I know you might think wow that was a big ol' waste of time. I don't really think so, I know now how it feels to play one, I know how it sounds, and most importantly I know my banjo better. I've now got all the new frets on and it's playing like it's old self.