The Promise of Spring

The Promise of Spring

I’ve never ever planted my garden before the May long weekend! But this year I was lured by the good weather to plant early - between the 11th and the 13th. Also, because I’ve had a three year problem with peas dying before producing, I decided to listen to the grapevine which told me to plant peas early. Apparently they don’t like the heat and even enjoy a little chilly weather. Once the peas and onion sets were in the ground I just kept on going and going and before I knew it the whole garden was planted, even corn, something I’ve not tried for probably 20 years. Good grief, all those muscles I didn’t use all winter sure kicked up a fuss! I planted myself on my recliner for hours after that marathon.

I’ve always heard that some folks plant by the moon. Remembering the moon was large and bright in the sky during my planting spree I decided to find out what that was all about and asked my usual source. The Net said that the full moon in May 2025 was on the 12th and that May’s full moon is called the Flower Moon. According to some, this is exactly the perfect time for planting seeds. Who knows, I may have the best garden ever!

Gardening advice can be confusing. Plant hardiness zones, soil types, soil temperature, expected date of last (and first) frost, actual frost dates, sun and shade, companion plants…What is best? Always learning, always experimenting. This year I discovered a back saving seed planting method. You use a long pipe, place the end where you want the seed to go and drop the seed down it, wiggle it a bit to make sure the seed is covered and just like - done. No bending over. Of course the wee tiny seeds like carrots are another matter altogether. In past years I have always attempted to spread my carrot seeds thinner by mixing them with dried used coffee grounds and broadcasting them in wide rows. Still they came up like hair on a dog’s back. This year I purchased pink coated carrot seed that has size and visibility in its favour in hopes of avoiding that backbreaking carrot thinning process.

It’s now the 19th. Our crab apple tree is almost fully bloomed so hopefully potential apples will have a chance. Last year it bloomed early and there were no bees around to pollinate before a pounding rainstorm beat the blossoms to the ground. Our apple crop barely filled an ice cream pail. If we get lots of apples this year I plan to jar them whole in quarts with honey syrup. They are yummy and it’s an easy way to deal with lots of apples. Then there’s apple butter, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple juice…. Yum. 

Our honeyberries (Haskap) are early bloomers and have been humming for quite awhile with mostly bumblebees. Before long flocks of birds will devour the easy to pick berries leaving us humans to crawl around scavenging the ones near the ground. But they’re heavy producers, enough for everyone. The raspberries, after three back breaking days, are now free of last year’s canes and the rhubarb has grown about 10 inches since I started writing this blog!

Speaking of bees, neither of our hives survived the winter. We don’t know why. There was lots of honey still in the hives so they didn’t starve. Keeping bees over our harsh winters requires good insulation, ventilation, plenty of honey left in the hive and certain amount of luck. Most indigenous bees winter underground and are better equipped to withstand those extended periods of -40 Alberta blesses us with. We put our name on a waiting list and were able to purchase two packs of bees from the Alberta Honey Cooperative (Bee Maid). Our new New Zealand bees have settled in and are happily buzzing around and gathering pollen. Here’s hoping they do well. Bee keeping is a great, and often expensive, hobby. Sometimes we wonder if we should continue on, but we love honey, and we make a fine mead from it. 

Despite successes and failures there’s just something addictive and rewarding about growing and preserving your own food. Spring makes us a promise - put in the work and you will be blessed with healthful food to enjoy at your table year round. Other factors sometimes enter the picture attempting to make a liar out of Spring, but she, and we, try to do our best.

Walking Backwards

 Walking Backwards

A few years back I asked a friend, “How do you know when you need a knee replacement?” Her response - “Easy, it hurts like hell.”

For several years I’ve been vacillating. Should I go forward with a knee operation? There certainly was pain, but was it bad enough? I’ve talked to my family doctor, gotten X-rays, seen a city doc twice, seen a surgeon and a physiotherapist, all who have told me my knees were shot. But they could see I was riding the fence, not quite ready to say sign me up. They gave me an exercise plan, said be careful not to fall, and told me to call when and if I decided to go ahead with a knee replacement. I haven’t called yet.

To be honest I tried but mainly failed to establish an exercise routine. I always find something more important to do. But a few months back my husband broke his ribs and was not inclined to move much so I got out my trekking poles and took over the morning dog walk. The only place free of snow was our driveway - it’s long, hilly, curvy, uneven, closed in by trees and beautiful in all seasons. But walking up and especially down hills can be challenging for someone with bad knees. It was hard work at first, some days it still is. I had to stop at the top of the second hill to catch my breath. At times my left knee locked up and movement was pretty painful. But I’ve become a convert to the benefits of walking. I can now use both legs to go upstairs, not easily, but I can do it. I’m convinced it’ll get even better with time.

My son is one of those folks who think you can fix almost any chronic ache by the right exercise. He’s physically fit, incredibly strong, practices Ninjitsu and has made a lifelong personal study of mind and body. He told me I should try backwards walking, talked of its benefits. I thought that was a bit crazy but he’s my son. I’m his Mom. I trust him… So, on a more or less level section of the driveway I added walking backwards to my daily dog walk.

According to google university (https://health.clevelandclinic.org/benefits-of-walking-backwards) backwards walking can: help to strengthen different muscles, burn more calories, help to prevent joint pain, give your brain a workout, and improve your posture. Other sites make even more claims. I’m only at the beginning of this walking journey but I know first hand that walking daily, forwards and backwards, really does benefit both mind and body. Now that the snow’s gone I’m thinking of getting out my step counter and going further afield, but then it’s Spring, my garden is calling me…

The Geese Return

The Geese Return

March 25th

There is something so cheering, uplifting, PROMISING, about the return of the geese each spring. They herald a season of light, warmth, rebirth, renewal. Neighbours remark to one another about their sightings. Everyone notices their arrival.

Our small farm is surrounded by boreal forest causing our fields and the lake to the south of our house to be shaded from the slowly lifting sun. When the larger farms in the area are snow free we are still shrouded in snow and the lake remains ice covered. Nevertheless the geese return, meeting and greeting on the icy surface and having many animated discussions over territory and nesting sights. But they need to fly off to find food and safety so don’t stay until the water opens up. Yesterday morning I heard what I hoped was “our geese” returning to their summer home. When I looked out the window I saw a lone coyote crossing the ice. He sat quite awhile and yipped, looked this way and that and yipped some more. Perhaps he was mourning the loss of a near catch. 

My morning dog walk down our 1/4 mile driveway came to an abrupt halt today when the second hill shone with wet slippery ice from edge to edge. Time to find somewhere else to walk! So I set out towards the partly open field to the north, zigzagging to step on snow free ground wherever possible. The snow remaining on the south edge turned out to be hard enough to hold my four footed weight (trekking poles provide me with a couple of extra limbs). Ahh it was wonderful! What a feeling of freedom it gave me to walk on snowless ground, check out territory forbidden for many months by Mother Nature to anyone but a skier or snowmobiler. Maybe a few more sunny days and Spring will truly be here!

March 28

Oops, my ability to walk on the fields was short lived. Spring has retreated once more. Now there’s snow  up to mid calf and moving anywhere in it is a struggle. The poor geese, but I guess, like us, they’re used to it. It is Alberta after all.

The Package

The Package

Since I discovered online shopping I’m like the kid from years past with her head buried in the pages of the Sears Christmas catalogue. I even have an online wish list! I love the convenience of having stuff I order come right to my mailbox, saving the gas and time I would otherwise need to go to town. One day I started thinking, gee it’s been quite awhile since I put in that order for canning jar lids and wine yeast, seems like it should be here by now…? I tracked the order online and found out that the package was supposedly “dropped in the mail slot” two weeks ago! Huh? 

I began to wonder about my brain. Did I forget? Did I already pick this package up at the mailbox and stow it all away? Just in case I checked my pantry - no new jar lids. I looked in my wine supply drawer - no new yeast packets. My next thought, and this is the usual route amongst those who’ve been married for a long time, I’ll bet my husband picked it up and forgot it in his truck. His response to that query? “Nope.”

What to do? I called our local post office. The postmistress said she’d check into it. She called me the next day, no luck there. Again I questioned my brain. I looked in my own car and, not trusting my husband’s ability to find things, glanced in his truck too. No package. So now I needed to contact Amazon. I found the “package not received” section under orders without too much trouble and somehow found a chat line to discuss my problem. I had a long conversation with a person or AI named “V”. In the end I received a full refund for the missing order. Being pretty impressed with Amazon’s service, I thanked “V” and signed off on the chat. The credit appeared on my account in minutes. So, since all was fixed I decided I’d better order lids and yeast again, but got busy and didn’t get around to it.

Several days later my husband and I were heading out to town. I was putting on my coat and boots while he was warming up the truck. He came back in the house and nonchalantly plopped a package on the entry stairs. “Here,” he said. 

Well that wee statement nearly knocked the stuffing out of me. “What the….” said I. “Do you have any idea of what I’ve been going through over that package? Where was it?” 

“Up the back by the window,” he said, completely oblivious to the steam exiting my ears. It must have been well hidden I thought, but the truck’s back seat is always chaotic - dog beds, tools, stuff, more stuff. Finding a single item is kinda like trying to find a missing pack of wieners in a fully loaded chest freezer.

Now what do I do? I got a credit for a package that is not missing. I tried several times to find the appropriate area to reverse the credit but navigating Amazon’s site this time proved daunting. Customer service has nine pages of choices to select from but, like nearly every telephone tree I’ve ever encountered, not one selection addressed my problem and there was no place to simply type in a question. I searched and searched for that elusive chat line I found before but to no avail. Where oh where had “V” disappeared to? In the end I just gave up.

A couple days later I thought I’d better open the “lost” package and make sure it was all there. It was, but it contained the wrong size jar lids, wide mouth, not regular. I rechecked my order and, sure enough, I’d ordered the wrong lids.

North of 54

mltipton.blogspot.com, 

https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, 

March 9, 2025

Brr, That Was a Chilly One!

February was one of those months that take your breath away. Sooo darn cold.   But time flies and before we know it Spring will arrive and many of us will be thinking about gardening. In the mean time I’ll continue to keep warm, keep reading, and keep playing tunes.

The news these days is so discombobulating and disheartening that it has seeped into my dreams, definitely not pleasant dreams. I feel a sense of relief when I wake up. Unfortunately I can’t wake up from real life. Hearing the US president, a man who wields such a terrifying amount of apparently uncontrollable power, spout his rhetoric on the media day after day is unnerving. It suddenly seems our good relationship with our southern neighbour may be in jeopardy. Relationships between the US and many other countries are getting somewhat shaky as well. Hopefully good sense will prevail.  

Perhaps this should be a wake up call for Canada - too many eggs in one basket, too many trade barriers between provinces. I know very little about interprovincial trade barriers so I decided to do a little research. If you don’t mind a bit of internet browsing here’s a link I found helpful - https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/how-interprovincial-trade-barriers-in-canada-affect-everyday-canadians/. It turns out there are so many rules, regulations, permits, educational standards, road safety regulations, food safety regulations, etc. that differ from one province to the next that doing business outside of your own province but within Canada can be slow, costly and/or prohibitive. As a consequence in many cases it’s  easier for companies to do business with the US! This makes little sense, seems like we’re cutting our own throats.

There’s a local issue we should pay attention to. Our county seems to be entertaining the idea of having a small nuclear reactor within its borders. The Canadian government tends to promote nuclear power as green energy but I think this is fuzzy logic. Uranium mining is certainly not green, reactors are super expensive to build, they are not likely to employ very many local people, spent fuel storage can be an environmental disaster in the making, and accidents do happen. I think caution is called for. It’s not wise to blindly accept ideas presented by those who profit from their implementation. Today I listened to a podcast about a nuclear reactor, invented in the 1960’s (!?), that uses spent fuel, recycles it over and over until its dangerous radioactive after life is reduced to about 100 rather than 100,000years. These reactors are being used in Japan but not in North America. If we’re building new shouldn’t we at least be building better? Podcast is by Cleo Abram, https://youtu.be/IzQ3gFRj0Bc?si=_nzlkiy0j0SGFbc9.

Public Services

Public Services

Year End

On our first mail day in weeks I held a stack of 6 weekly newspapers in my hands and asked my husband if he wanted to look through any of them. Well neither of us did so they all went into the fire starter pile. I got to thinking about those papers - all the potential revenue lost from time sensitive ads placed in those pages, the missed local news that was important for somebody to see, the community functions and Christmas markets people didn’t know about….

The mail carriers strike, especially for rural residents, hit hard. No newspaper (and for us no Woodlands Express delivery!) was only a small part of the disruption. No Christmas cards or packages, no online shopping, a huge problem for folks who don’t bank online, insufficient funds for charities hoping for Christmas donation cheques to arrive, late pension cheques… In the far north where people are absolutely dependant on mail service no mail delivery can cause truly serious, even life threatening problems.

As is true of all unfortunate events, someone profited. Christmas shopping in local communities may have, in many cases, increased. Alternatives to mail - UPS, Purolator (91% owned by Canada Post), FedEx - probably made a fortune. 

Where am I going with this? Like many others, I thought Canada Post received public funding. But no, even though it is a Crown Corporation, according to Wikipedia it derives all of its revenue from its services. In my opinion, mail is an essential service and, like health care, it should be bolstered by taxpayer dollars to keep it functioning. Along with this public funding it should have government oversight to ensure efficiency and avoid disruptions. Profit should not be its goal. It should provide good, uninterrupted service at a reasonable cost. Workers should receive a fair salary and CEO’s should not receive huge bonuses. But I guess I live in dreamland. An efficient public service may be an oxymoron.

How should our taxpayer dollars be managed? What is the function of Canada’s federal government? I am admittedly naive but I thought it was to build and maintain infrastructure, ensure that all its citizens are able to obtain essential services, lobby for Canada in the worldwide economy, provide Peacekeepers where needed in international conflicts (not war weapons), and ensure our sovereignty. I think I must be mistaken. It seems that taxpayer money is being skimmed from public services in order to fund more “important things” - ever increasing salaries for politicians, conferences held in lavish hotels around the world where never kept promises are made, foreign aid, tax concessions to foreign corporations who provide Canadian jobs but take profits out of the country, refund cheques for taxes that maybe shouldn’t exist in the first place, buyback programs to make sure the public is disarmed, an over abundance of bureaucracy, endless studies producing reams of paper with ignored problem solutions, and these days, reacting to the newly elected bully in the south. 

Poorly funded, inefficient public services provide a perfect storm for the rich to get richer. In comes the privately owned service and people become convinced that it might be better. But private companies are profit motivated and the public provides those profits, until they can’t afford the cost. 

And now a new Year Begins.

Here we are. Trudeau has resigned as liberal party leader, the government has been prorogued till the end of March. A new liberal leader will be chosen. A federal election is imminent. There’s an out of control megalomaniac at the helm of the incoming US government. The Premiers of our provinces are attempting to fill in for our lack of a functioning federal government. How’s all this going to turn out? 

North of 54

mltipton.blogspot.com, 

https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, 

January 14, 2025

November 2024

November 2024

The Ukraine/Russia war drags on; Israel continues to “defend itself” against its enemies; floods, tornadoes and fires are taking lives and destroying homes; postal and dock workers are striking; inflation is hitting everyone hard; and, to top it off, the disgruntled voters in the US have elected a wild card. The world is a mess and we can’t do a thing about it. But here in central Alberta things are looking good! The first skiff of snow lies on our wee lake, the winter prep work was done in time, and the only canning job left is the tomato crop in the freezer. I’m counting my blessings.

I walk my dogs each morning down our driveway and back. It gives me about a half mile of exercise and energizes me to tackle whatever projects I have planned for the day. There’s a tiny gnome home on the way where I always pause to see if I’ll get a chance to wave at one of the little fellows, but they are terribly shy and I’ve yet to spot one. Maybe some day. 

It’s November, past Remembrance Day, and my mind is travelling to Christmas. For a few years I’ve gotten into making Christmas decorations for my family and friends. This year I hit on a project that uses all my old saved Christmas cards. This decoration requires 20 two inch circles per ornament. So far, using a scissors and a tomato paste can for a template I managed to cut 100 circles, but I need 400! If I had nothing else to do, if my fingers weren’t cramping up and my eyes weren’t getting blurry I might have continued on this way…but… I gave up and went to Michaels to buy a 2” circle cutter. Wow, what a difference a tool can make! I might manage to finish these on time. Then I can move on to making caramel popcorn and cookies. I’m even considering putting up a tree this year, haven’t done that for awhile.

So I’ll say Merry Christmas to all my readers and all the best in 2025. Gotta get a move on, things to do, Christmas is in the air.