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.

Humble beginnings

Baby greens, cucumber, dried tomato, red wine vinigrette 100% local

Tiny tom tomatoes and Serrano Peppers

 This is exciting, Feels like a new bicycle. I feel great about this new chapter or life. I feel that it's a necessary one. What we have happening, across the globe is a movement. A movement focused on healthy living. Healthy for our bodies, our souls, our children. And most importantly our planet. You might ask why I put the most importance on the planet. It's simple, if we don't take care of it, it will not take care of us. This movement is not about making advances as a society, not about technology, it's about learning that maybe, just maybe the best thing we can do as people to move forward is to take a step backwards. Some call it  slow food, some the locavore, others organics. I don't think those are broad enough terms as they apply only to what we eat. I want to be a part of something more than that. What I want to be a part of is the Heritage movement, where we not only eat organically, but locally, and slowly. We labor ourselves for our food, and for ourselves. I want to be closer to the land, I want my children to be closer to the land. So anyways, before I get to far into it I'll let you know what's happening to actually change lives. It started very very small, Just a few containers in a walkway a meter wide and maybe twenty long. Just a little hobby. Then it got interesting. A book appeared on a sale shelf, sixty percent off, Mini Farming; Self Sufficiency on 1/4 acre, by Brett L. Markham. Money dropped, book picked up, no second thought. Self sufficiency on 1/4 acre? That was a dream, and a mighty good one. We're talking 1,000 square metres, that's not big. That'a about three McMansions', that's not including their water hoggin yard space. Now take a loot at the majority of new city developments, Stonebridge in Saskatoon for example. That means that If people were to downsize, A family of three going from 3000 square feet to 600 (For those people that say that's too little it's just a matter of priorities, and yours are screwed up. ) that they could feed themselves almost entirely from a household garden. Now the author goes further, he says that not only could you feed a family of three on this plot but that you would have excess for sale! doesn't that sound fantastic, No grocery bill and beer money! As you may  have guessed this book flopped my Idea of new urban farming on it's head. I said hey lets give 'er a go right in these planters. So I planted intensively, and diversely. I've got peppers and tomatoes in one pot, multiple herbs in another. To top it off I thought I'd push the limits and do two three sisters pots, Which for those of you  who haven't heard of it, and don't feel bad for that, It's corn stocks growing up the center acting as trellises for beans, which are all surrounded by squash, So three space hungry plants in one pot. That all started out great, and it's still going great, constantly expanding actually. The Salad you see up at the top is the first finished product of the containers, mostly. The baby lettuce was grown in containers which consists of multiple strains, the cucumber is from the market, and the dried tomatoes are from a friend.

Kate and Sam as we get just underway

 So after a few weeks of growing in some cute looking containers I started really liking what was happening, I just wasn't going to be happy putting a couple cucumbers of my own and a couple salads on our table. I needed more space. We had a visit from an aunt, the planters were brought up, and the intensive idea and whatnot. She then mentioned that it was a shame she had no time to plant in her dad's garden plot, in her backyard. I jokingly (seceretly not jokingly) mentioned that I thought it would be fun if she let me plant it. She said YES! And so the page turns and expansion happens. We take Sam over so he can look for worms as we proceed to rake all the cover, and double dig two good sized plots.

Sifting out roots

We had to re-dig it as the yard which was a lot of work but it was all well worth it. The plot belonged to Kate's grandparents, both wonderful people with a lot of knowledge. Her grandfather had nursed this soil to being healthier than any other soil I have ever seen. Sam found one worm that was the size of a large marker, thing was a monster, could have taken on Godzilla. There was a large section of the yard that was dedicated as a raspberry patch, it was wonderful, and I wish I could have saved them. 

Nearly done

 Once we had all the work done, the plots dug, we let the land rest. Luckily we had a large rain that night, hasn't really stopped raining since then actually. The next day some transplants went in, mostly tomatoes, a tomatillo, some alpine strawberries, a couple tobacco plants and one mystery plant. The majority of the tomatoes are greenhouse orphans, bound for the landfill because they up-rooted. Poor guys, They're doing just fine now. The one mystery plant was with them, I have no idea what it is, but I guess time will tell.
In the remainder of the plots I put a lot of stuff, so If I  have some that fails I won't be suprised. I have next to the tomatoes, four different lettuces; A romaine, great lakes, iceberg, and a red leafed romaine. I have next to them a row of swiss chard. On their side I have a patch of carrots, a small heritage that should produce chunky round carrots much like large raddishes. Next to them is where it gets tight. I went for  more of the three sisters, two different ways. I have a sweet corn planted with pinto beans and speghetti squash. Four mounds of them. Beside them I have four mounds that are a baby sweet corn, the type you get in a nice Thai curry, mouths watering already.
The same beans, but with pumpkins, Sams' Jack-O-Lanterns. And A few sunflowers at the very end, also Sams'. Plot two holds the strawberries and tobacco. The rest of it is our meager potato/onion patch. I Honestly don't know what to expect. Everything here was planted later than everyone else had planted. Though not by more than two weeks. I really hope we can get a good turn out of this.  Updates will come along with the progress. As this is not just about food and about a new old way of life expect to see some recipes, book reviews, and other various articles.
Just a reminder from the good man Joel Salatin

 “The stronger a culture, the less it fears the radical fringe. The more paranoid and precarious a culture, the less tolerance it offers.”