A Somewhat Inconvenient--But very Tasty--Truth.

Now, I think I’m a pretty standard sort of guy. I’m your average white suburbanite, as a matter of fact.

We have one fuel-efficient car parked in front of a nice house, and that’s plenty. I mow the lawn, and listen to inoffensive music like John Mayer and Maroon5. I get up at 6 a.m. to run the dog, and I pick the morning paper up off the porch when I get back. I work at a job I love, in an innocuous-looking office building downtown, and I take the bus to get there. I call my mom at least once a week, and chat with the neighbours over the fence. I hit the gym a few days a week, and get in on a volleyball game when I’m able to.

Pretty standard stuff.

But Kate and I are trying to be a little more radical these days. No, we’re not out there with protest signs. We’re not spray painting our messages on bus stops or getting our voices heard on the six ‘o’ clock news.

What we're doing is growing veggies.

Shocking, I know. Okay, okay, so that in itself is also nothing new, nor particularly radical. We’ve done that for years. But the veggie garden has been a seed for bigger ideas as of late (pun intended?)

Ever heard of the Hundred Mile Diet? Chances are good you have, since the book about it, and the environmental movement in general are gaining so much steam these days.

What the Hundred Mile Diet basically says is that you should not rely on any food source that comes from anywhere outside of a 100 mile radius of your home, because it’s killing our world. Have you ever put much thought into where the meal on your table comes from? We have. And that’s all part of the reason that there is so much smog hanging around the Fraser Valley and in the Strait of Georgia these days.

At the end of our block, there’s a Chinese grocer, and it stocks every manner of Asian foodstuff imaginable. Problem is, it literally comes from China. No, we’ve got nothing against the Chinese, if that’s what you’re thinking. What we have a problem with is that all of that Bok Choy, all of those Ya Pears and Fuji Apples, were picked before they were ripe, put on a giant boat, spent the next 58 days crossing the pacific ocean, got on a truck, was sent to a packing facility, put on another truck, and was then sent to our neighbourhood store three hundred yards away, only to be put on a shelf for 69 cents a pound, where it has two days to be bought up before it’s thrown out, over-ripe and only suitable for the crows and seagulls that swarm the dumpsters.

So what was the point? The pollution problem in itself is obvious and alarming, but I’m not going to beat anyone over the head about it--we all get enough of that in our daily media as it is. Nutrition is also a question, though, since the fruit was picked two months ago and left to ripen off the vine. It’s no different that a California strawberry, picked green and shipped up the coast, so we can pay $4.99 / pound from the local Safeway.

And Kate and I thought about all this and said: why?

Why go to the little grocer to get the apple that’s done more international travelling than I have, or go to the Safeway to get the strawberries with no flavour, when we can go to the farm, pick 40 pounds of the things at a quarter of the price, and have enough fruit to eat fresh and freeze to last us for the next year?

So, we’ve changed some things. We now buy our produce—and our fish, dairy, and meat—from a farmers Market on Saturday morning, from a local producer, or we go to the farm and get it ourselves. talk about fresh, and the money goes right into the hands of the farmer. In the price of our eggplants, garlic scapes, apricots, apples, sides of lamb, and strawberries, there is nothing built into the price other than eggplant, garlic, apricot… well, you get the point. No paying for advertising or trans-continental shipping in the price of our food. Major nutritional value and virtually no carbon footprint.

okay, so you can probably see the drawbacks to this plan. It means giving up a lot. And I am the first to admit, we are cheaters. We’ve put up an exceptions list to deal with these little… indiscretions. For example, while we don’t buy pasta anymore, we will still buy bread, so long as it is at least baked locally. The common denominator of course being flour. We don’t grow wheat here in BC, so technically, we shouldn’t buy it. But we do anyway.

Beer is also a no-no. So, I’ve stopped buying it. But there too, is an exception. We’ve said if guests are coming for dinner, we’ll buy a six pack or something. Not to worry, wine is still made well within a hundred miles, so that can still be bought… unfortunately, I despise the stuff. Too bad for me, good for Kate who loves it.

Tofu, edamame beans and other soy products are out. Sure, Tofu is made here in Vancouver, but the beans aren’t grown here. In Olive oil, we confess our hypocrisy, and will continue to buy the stuff.
well, there's lots more to it, but basically, if you come over for dinner at our house, pretty much everything in your meal will be local—if not from our own backyard—and unbelievably full of flavour.
We even eat out less now, as our home-cooked meals are so satisfying. We just don’t feel the need to go out.

By now, you get the point. Maybe it's not so much radical as it is exciting and satisfying, and different. But when there is so little in my life that I am preachy about--To each his own, I usually say--I figure I can stand on the soap box for a while too :)

I’ll wrap it up here by saying that no, it isn’t as cheap as going to the Safeway or IGA. And no, we know not everyone has the luxury of paying extra, nor of having a big veggie garden.

Ultimately though, we need to find ways eat local, drive clean cars, fly less, etc. etc. etc. God gave us this big, beautiful world. It is nothing more than our own desire for convenience which will result in our losing it.
An intro to the 100 Mile Diet

City Farm Boy, a vancouverite with a great idea about urban farming

The Omnivore's Dilemma... haven't read it yet, but it sounds interesting!

A litte R and R

I’ve been meaning to get on here and update my blog with a quick run down of how the vacation time that Kate and I recently took was spent. As I mentioned at the end of the last entry, it would be more manly than flowers and such… so, without further adieu…


We kicked off our week with a stay at a lovely bed and breakfast in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island. The Lord Nelson, it was called, and we stayed in a lovely suite with it’s own kitchen, a hot tub out back, and lovely gardens all round. We th… what? OH! Right! Manly, I said! Manly!

Okay, well, it was a short walk down to the waterfront from the B & B, which was coincidentally located right near the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt (there… manly…). The shoreline in that particular spot is peppered with old bunkers from the second world war, which had gun turrets pointed westward in case the Japanese ever came buzzing across the pacific in our general direction.
Now, the site is just a great spot to walk and view the ocean. The only threat from the air you have to watch out for now are seagulls pooping in mid-flight...

Anyway, after our one night’s stay, we drove further into the island to find Gordon Bay on Lake Cowichan. We’d booked a few nights of camping in the provincial site on the side of the lake.

Lemmee tell, you about our new tent. It is a thing of beauty. It’s not wee. It’s not not so wee. It’s frickin’ huge! It’s pretty much a church. Not ideal for backpack camping, but great for car camping! Not only can I lay out flat in this tent without my feet pushing out the edge, there’s even a solid foot of clearance. That’s right folks, 2.5 meters of floor length! But wait, there’s more! I can stand up in this thing!! Can I get an aMeN?!
And, you guessed it, that’s not all! The church… err, tent… features two doors, two very large window, and a skylight! (no, there is no hole in the roof, merely a mesh roof to the tent, so on clear nights with no fly, you could have a full moon roof, or, on nights when it might be cloudy, the fly still has a clear plastic patch that lets the light in that way. Halleluia!) Anyway, out of one door, the fly can be unzipped and can act like an awning, and out the other door—the front door--there is a fully enclosable, netted vestibule. I call this the Narthex. You can be inside, but outside at the same time, without worry of them nasty ‘skeeters getting atcha. It’s sweet!

Well, as you can see from the rest of the pics, the lake itself is a beauty.



We couldn’t take Nellie with us to the main beach, but a short 10 minute hike away, there is a rocky point that we basically had to ourselves, and it offered awesome swimming.

Nellie wasn’t sure about the whole camping thing. Being a dog that sleeps indoors, once the sun went down, she was all like “okay guys, lets go into a building and sleep now, okay?” but instead, all there was were trees, a campfire, food from the table that we wouldn't share with her (as usual) and the scent of bears


.

She warmed up to it by the time we left… basically, anyway 

After camping, we went to Nanaimo for a night to visit with a friend from the flatwater kayaking world, Ashley.
She and her husband Eduardo let us stay with them. We haven’t seen them in years, so it was great to catch up!

Next, it was over to the mainland on the ferry, and up to Whistler for the long weekend. The highlight of being up there is that on the August Long weekend of each year, Whistler plays host to the Canadian Barbeque Championships. Oh. My. God. So much meat. So little time.

As I wrote about this last year, I'm simply going to plagiarize myself, and repost the event description from 12 months ago! Also, here are some photos, if you’re not much interested in words…

"...The highlight of the weekend--aside from the glorious weather,mountain vistas, shimmering lakes and fresh air--had to be the Canadian Barbeque Championships, which took place in Whistler village over the course of the weekend. Picture it if you will:

two dozen or so competitors gather to cook up their best BBQ'ed Pork, Chicken , and Beef. You, as a spectator / carnivore head to the site. upon paying five dollars which goes towards the charitable cause of crohns disease / colitis research, you're given free access to wander up to any of the competitors tents, and sample of the particular meat they happen to be cooking for the competition of the hour.

This is our whistler neighbour, Norm, and his son Oliver




First up, the Pork. Forgive me Jewish God, for I have sinned. There was more pulled pork in a plethora of mouth-watering marinades than this here meat eater knew what to do with.


This is Norm's wife, Natasha, and to her left, Marissa (she can pack in the BBQ for an 11 year-old!)


There's more gloriously succulent ribs on hand than even the most gluttonous of gluttons could hope to gorge upon. There's a little bit of Homer Simpson in all of us, I think. And on August sixth, there was a lot Homer showing up in a lot of people.

After the pork had been turned in for judging, the competitors turn to their chicken recipes, and the process began again, with the carnivores running around like chickens with their heads cut off (pun intended) trying to grab up the samples before they're all gone. And so it went with the beef after the chicken had been turned in.

Yes, my meat-eating friends (sorry to all the Vegetarians out there...)It was every bit as wonderful as I describe, and then some. I imagine it will be right up there with wedding days, and--when they arrive--the birth of my children. Unlike such events, however, the BBQ champs happen every year. Amen..."

…and that was about the extent of it! Ten days goes by awfully quickly, unfortunately. Still got lots of vacation time to use up before the end of the year! Yahoo!

a little summer colour

alright, so here's the story on this series of pictures. It's short and sweet. When kate and I moved in here, one of the most common comments we got from passers-by as we would work on the house would be: 'whatever you do, DON'T touch the garden! just wait to see what come up!'

the previous owner of this house threw wildflower seeds all over the place. inside the fence, outside the fence. front yard, backyard, down the side of the house. she didn't do much else for the yard, though. We have two foot tall dandelions. everywhere. and stinging nettles. turns out Kate is allergic. weeds of all descriptions fill in any gap where a flower hasn't. No shortage of morning glory around here either, unfortunately. Nothing glorious about that frickin' weed, if you ask us!

aaaanyway, spring rolled through town, and with it came the flowers. No. pardon me. THE FLOWERS.Week after week, we've been treated to something different as various blooms have come and gone, and for all the weeds, the flowers have been worth it! Here's some examples for you! and you'll note these pics aren't all flowers--you'll see some berries int here too! no, they didn't grow here, but it's another sure sign of summer. we've recently gone out to some local farms and picked 40 lbs of strawberries, and 20 lbs of raspberries! that oughtta last us through the winter :)




the next entry will have more manliness to it--I'm off camping this week! yahoo!

Man's best friend: To The Edge and Back

If you go down in the woods today, you’re in for quite a surprise…
In the Crown land that stretches out North behind my parent’s house in Kamloops, you expect a certain number of sights. Bears are not uncommon. Pine Beetle infested trees, you can see them everywhere. The tree line gives way to a relatively flat mesa, where views are in plentiful supply. Coyotes are another plain sight in these parts.

...But until this past weekend, I had never seen flying dogs...

We as a family were carrying out one of Dad’s last wishes—that his ashes be placed in the ground out near the edge of the bluffs on top of the mesa. At their edges, they drop dramatically, going vertical for hundreds of feet towards the river valley, where the North Thompson River plies its way through town.

The views are spectacular, the location is peaceful, and dad made a good choice on where he wanted to be put.


And so, on Sunday afternoon, the family marched down through the woods and out towards the grassy bluffs. There were six adults, one baby, two family pooches, dad’s ashes, a shovel, a baby tree, Dixie cups, and a bottle of champagne. The idea was to plant the tree over dad, then drink a toast.

We were all wending our way west along a path which runs parallel to the bluffs, a few hundred feet away from the edge. The dogs were happily bounding around, we were all chatting, and baby Aria was bouncing along in her snuggly carrier.

It was mainly a clear day. Warm, with a strong breeze whipping its way over the grasses. Off to the North of us, a crow rose off the ground and began flying Eastward. Immediately, Lucy, my mum’s dog, zeroed in on it. Lucy is well known for chasing birds in flight, as futile a pursuit as it is. And Nellie, our dog, is known for chasing dogs that are chasing other things. It’s an amusing spectacle to watch,and one we’ve all seen before.

Well, paws set into motion, and a black bird was quickly being pursued by a black dog that was being pursued by another black dog.

But then, the crow veered to the North, out past the edges of the bluffs... and the dogs just kept on following.

In a split few seconds of stunned silence, we watched as not one, but two dogs went *Ploop, Ploop* over the edge of the horizon. We stood dumbfounded, waiting for them to reappear back atop the bluffs.

But then, how could they? We just watched them run off the edge, all Wylie E. Coyote style. And as we know from those cartoons, Wylie looks down, holds up a sign that reads EEP!, then plummets to the valley floor far below.

Let me tell you, in real life, there are no momentary levitations, and certainly no tiny signs of distress being held up in the air. I am sure that in their tiny dog brains, however, the EEP! was at the forefront of their thoughts.

No one else was in much of a position to run at that point. In our party, there were various states of injury, arthritic joints, or just arms full of babies or other stuff.

I had a backpack on, which I promptly slipped off then sprinted to the edge.

In the 30 seconds that had likely elapsed between watching these lemmings…err.. beloved family pets… hurl themselves off the edge after the crow (which, by the way if you can believe it, can fly), and my getting to the edge, the dogs had managed—either by sprint or by stumble—to get themselves a fair 90 per cent of the way down these hundreds of feet of steep, steep bluff face. It took me a second to spot them, but when I did, they were thankfully moving.

Nellie was already trying to scramble back up, but then realized her partner in crime was not as well off as she, and she wouldn’t come up the side any further until Lucy had caught up (gawd, she’s such a hero).

I signalled back to everyone that they appeared to be okay, by which time the rest of
the group was picking their way over to the edge anyway.

Eventually, Nellie made it back up, having coaxed Lucy most of the way. But Lucy didn’t want to finish the trek, despite being maybe 30 feet from the top. Stepping gingerly and clinging to the wiry grasses to hold myself on to the steep face, I slid down until I could see the pooch, who had lain down in surrender, a bloodied tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

She was convinced to get the rest of the way up, and I then hauled myself back up over the top.

This is getting long, so I’m going to gloss over the main reason we were down there. I will say that it was a significant time for all of us, an important time, and luckily, K9 stupidity didn’t put a damper on the plans. Kari did manage to spill a bit of dad on her shoe, but then, we couldn’t have expected the moment to be perfect. That’s not how this family operates.



By the time we were ready to hike out again, it was apparent that Lucy’s front Left paw was hurt. Lucy is a weeny, for the record, so it was tough to tell if she was genuinely hurt, or just shocked about the whole thing. Either way, she wasn’t walking out, despite having three perfectly good legs.

Jamie and I took turns carrying the pained puppy over our shoulder. I think Jamie did the bulk of the hauling, I am happy to admit. He is a firefighter after all. Observe his fine over-the-shoulder-technique in the following photos:




Epilouge:

Nellie shows no adverse signs from her vertical thrill ride, and is currently entertaining offers to join the X-games tour, with exclusive marketing rights being negotiated with Outward Hound doggie gear.

Lucy is somewhat the worse for wear, having suffered a spiral fracture to the front left paw. Turns out she wasn’t faking it. She is going to be down and out all summer recuperating, which means that my mum must also be down and out all summer, watching the dog recuperate.

we are all vaguely amused that it was this time last year that Kari suffered a similar spiral fracture to her left leg, and that the dog is currently on the same type of pain killer patch that my dad was on during his final days in hospital.

We suspect the crow has spread the story of the two moronic mongrels it lead off a cliff to the broader crow community.

Overall, we're quite sure that dad wouldn't have seen it done any other way, and is amused by the events of the day, wherever he may be watching from.

Death of an Oil Tank

While it was an extremely exciting day for us at our house, those of you that are
A) not homeowners, or
B) homeowners that have a pristine house and property with no issues ( if so, I hate you)

Well then, you might not find this all that thrilling. BUT! If you’ve ever bought a house with a potential environmental disaster brewing underneath the property, then this series of photos is for YOU!
A recap: when Kate and I bought our house, we were aware of the underground oil tank, which is filled with diesel fuel and used to heat the house via oil furnace. What we weren’t terribly aware of, is the fact that a house with an oil tank—particularly of the underground nature—creates a huge hit on one’s house insurance, not to mention that with price of gas these days, it’s just a huge expense to keep using.

SO! We decided from day one that it would be coming out. Then we did the research on extraction of oil tanks, and read many horror stories of 50 year-old tanks that have been leaking for 47 of their years underground, thereby creating an environmental nightmare that requires tens of thousands of dollars to clean up, all at homeowner expense.


Now, we knew our tank was functioning pretty well, and by all accounts, no leaks existed. But it’s still been a bit tough to keep our fears in check while waiting to get this thing out of the ground. As you’ll recall, we converted to a gas line in past months, and since then have been gearing up to dig out the tank.

Well, yesterday was the day, and much to our relief, no Exxon Valdez-style damage existed underground! WeeHOOO!

The day was also a great pleasure for our young next door neighbour, Matthew, who at the age of two-and-something years old, has a healthy obsession with “big diggers” and firemen, both of which were on scene during the day (it is the fire chief’s job to inspect tanks once extracted). As an added bonus, Matt even got to sit in the cab of the backhoe.

So, with that job done, we can now focus on the much more enjoyable task of landscaping our yard! Heck, with any luck, it’ll look less (to paraphrase the Simpsons) like a full-scale Chernobyl, and a more like a mere Three-Mile Island in no time 

until then!