Goodies

     People who know me personally know that throughout the year I love to rummage my way through thrift shops and don't mind a garage sale or two when the opportunity arises. And, like the "found meat" I use for making dog food (see blog, November 17, Gourmet Doggy Cuisine), "found gifts" make there way into my Christmas bags.  I did, for awhile, have a wee store of my own featuring "found treasures".  Although packing goods in and out was a bit of a chore, I still enjoyed having the store and might still be doing it but my available space closed down. Nevertheless I gained the habit of thinking "I'll bet so-and-so would like that!", and shopping year round with gift giving in mind. Beyond that, it's goodies. I bake up a storm at Christmas time and fill pretty bags with yummy treats. I love doing it, don't think of it as a "have to" or a chore, I guess it's just my way.

     I just finished a batch of caramel corn, thought maybe you would like to try some day too. So here's my recipe with tips that most recipes leave out, causing you to fail or become frustrated.

     First, make approximately 3 quarts of popping corn in a air popper. I use Mr. Redenbacher's popping corn (but any popping corn will do) and 1/4 cup makes 1 quart.
     Before you start, spray both your baking pan (a roaster is good) and your largest mixing bowl (I have a big bread bowl) with vegetable spray.  Put your popped corn in the large bowl.  Be sure to remove the old maids.

     In a heavy pot with room for ingredients to expand put:
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup margarine (1 square)
1/2 teaspoon salt
(optional - 1 cup of peanuts)

     Cook and stir till the margarine is melted, then just as it begins to froth around the edges turn the heat down to medium and let it bubble and froth for 5 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or so. (Note: if the mixture begins to smoke at all, remove from the heat immediately and next time you make it lower the heat a bit. You can still use it but it may have a slightly burnt taste to it.)
     Remove from the heat and immediately add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, stir in quickly, (the goop will turn a lighter colour) then pour over your popped corn.
     Using two large spoons or spatulas, pull the corn in from the sides of the bowl and stir until the caramel is well mixed with the corn. (Watch out for globs of caramel forming with very little popping corn mixed in. They will become little candy briquettes if not separated.)
     Pour mixed caramel corn into your baking pan. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 1 hour. Remove, cool, break apart, bag. (Try to leave the smaller pieces behind. They tend to sink.) Caramel corn keeps very well so don't be afraid to make it up a week or two ahead of use.
     I always make two recipes when I make caramel corn, so the oven is full, but don't try to double the caramel mixture up, make two individual batches. I think it's a bit like making jam, they say you should never try to double the batch.

     For me the Christmas season is a very busy time, shared with family and good friends. If I don't find time to blog again before it arrives, I hope you and yours have a very
                         Merry Christmas!

 

Rant

     Never have I seen so much hate, so much fear and distrust, such a lack of "Christian" charity. I'm buried in negative media - TV, FaceBook, Twitter, e-mails. Even positive messages get torn to shreds by negative comments. It's starting to get me down.

     Thank goodness for 
       baby animal pics!

     What's causing all this? - intentional and unintentional misinformation, ignorance, biased media, propaganda, international affairs, insular national characteristics...?

     Many are seeing Syrian refugees as terrorists, dressed like Muslim women in burkas with machine guns tucked under their "skirts", or as jihadists with suicide bombs strapped under their jackets. Why are we so afraid? Why can't we see a family, traumatized by war, seeking asylum?

     Some view our own governments, Provincial and Federal, as crooks, out to get our money in one form of tax or another to line their own pockets, make the rich richer. Others see police forces as sinister covert agencies further restricting our freedoms. Many blame our economy on our governments, ignoring international influences beyond our borders. And there may be partial truths in all of these views.

     It seems to me that our disgruntled natures are fed by our own ignorance and/or refusal (laziness) to ferret out the truth, jumping to conclusions before all the facts are on the table. Ignorance can be taught (things like racism). It can be perpetuated by traditions, by religions, by xenophobia. If we see a video clip, an article, a meme, anything that supports our view of the world, it's easy to hit "like" and/or pass it on without fact checking, spreading fear and hate while thinking we have ours and our family's best interests at heart.

     Knowledge can alleviate fear. Knowledge can provide understanding. Knowledge can combat gossip and misinformation.

     Everyone does have a right to their opinion. Anyone who reads my blog knows I'm opinionated, and admittedly I have been guilty of hitting that "like" button on FB without checking facts, and I appreciate feedback when I do. We all have a desire to sway others to agree with us, but before we perpetuate outright falsehoods, it might be a good idea to check facts, educate ourselves, and make an attempt to broaden our viewpoint.

     Otherwise, those baby animals are really nice, and toddlers dancing, and music videos, and wildlife pics, and jokes, and good cop stories, and...











   

Gourmet Doggy Cuisine

 
    There's a gigantic pot of moose meat boiling on my stove. I've just finished cutting a 5 gallon pail of moose meat scraps (not suitable for human consumption, bloodshot, sinewy, harbouring a few pieces of grass - residue from hunting) into cubes so I can process quart jars of it in my pressure canner or freeze packets outdoors. It's been a 2 day project. By the time I neared the bottom of the pail, filled with blood as well as meat, my knife was getting dull, my feet were beginning to hurt, and I was beginning to question my resolve to preserve "found meat"* for making dog food for our 6 dogs.
      I was also thinking about hungry people - how this bonanza of "waste" meat would be sufficient to provide meals for a small village - that is if it were clean. Sadly, desperate people might not care.
      I was concentrating so hard on my cube cutting I let the wood stove go out. 90 minutes in a pressure canner, hmm, I wonder, should I really be using propane to cook this meat when the wood stove should be going to keep us warm? Better get on it! Then again, my poor back, should I be carrying a full canner of meat across the room from one stove to another to save a bit of gas?
     All of this brings me to a realization, well not really a realization because I have always known - economizing, conserving, avoiding waste - it can become an obsession, and it's hard work!
     So here I am, in the 21st century in a fully modern western country where I could easily avoid much of this work, but I do it anyway, for an ideal... Maybe I need to give my head a shake, maybe I've gone OCD over all this subsistence, off the grid life-style. Ahh well, nice to know what you can do I guess, especially when you know you don't have to. And I'm sure the dogs appreciate the effort, the oldest Border Collie especially. She hardly eats at all unless her store bought kibbles are mixed with the specialty of the house.
     Some dogs eat better than people. Some people eat dog food.

My dog food recipe:
      Amounts of all ingredients listed are approximate and quite jiggle-able. Also the size of your dog(s) play(s) a role along with available fridge/freezer space. Amount of water used is dependant on need. Try for a very thick stew when done.

1 quart of meat boiled until tender - do not trim off the fat**
      Add:
 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt
 a handful of dried parsley (1 Tablespoon)
 a couple good shakes of granulated or powdered garlic
 1 quart potatoes (skins too), cubed
 1 quart carrots, cleaned not peeled, cut in pieces
 1 quart zucchini or any type of squash, cubed, not peeled
 1 cup dried beans (black, pinto, soy, lentils, white, peas, etc...not pre-soaked)
 may add a few green beans, and/or peas
      Boil until nearly tender then add:
 2 cups uncooked rice
 1 cup oatmeal, optional
     Boil until the rice is soft.

     The dried beans should be just tender enough to provide a bit of crunch to the finished dog food. Store in appropriate sized containers to facilitate the way you feed your dogs. Keep cold, freeze if kept more than a few days.

 Notes:
     I have never had this dog food analyzed so I cannot make any nutritional claims for it. I use this food along with a portion of good quality kibbles, not as a complete substitute for commercial feed.
    This dog food is not a money saver unless you use "found meat" and have a surplus of garden vegetables available.
 
*My definition of "found meat":
     Meat for dogs (who have excellent garbage eating abilities and stomachs of iron if they are treated more or less naturally and not treated like citizens of the realm) which has for one reason or another been deemed unfit for human consumption. Examples are wild or domestic butchering scraps, freezer burnt or stale dated meat, fresh road kill, animals trapped for their fur, fish heads, old farm animals, restaurant or catering leftovers. Some of these are more pleasant to deal with than others.
 ** Dogs require a fair amount of fat (especially if they live outside). Feed should contain about 18% fat.

November 9th, Winter's Here!

Lamb's in the freezer, last "Other" necessity.

North of 54 there's 2 seasons,

Winter & Other. 

In Other prepare for Winter, 

(gardening/preserving-hay-wood-wine-meat)

In Winter enjoy the fruits of Other.

Today Other is complete

Winter begins...

The Not-So-Humble Rag

     Once again I clamp my lips shut to stifle my desire to comment. I'm watching a friend react to a spill at the table by grabbing a handful of paper napkins to blot it up when the kitchen sink and a dishrag are 3 steps away. I've also seen people using large quantities of paper towels to scoop bacon grease from their fry pan when they could easily pour it into a can, then use just one piece to mop up the remaining bit. I watch TV ads showing the use of supposedly "sponge" like paper towels to clean up messes the kids make, and more ads promoting the use of disposable, scented, antibacterial cloths to wipe counters. Many folks pay lip service to our society's overuse of disposable products; shake their heads and talk about all the trees being cut down. But purchase and use of these convenient products has not followed the environmentally conscious public's idealistic thought processes.

     People are surprised when I use cloth napkins at my table. They're almost afraid to use them because they might get them dirty!  At my house we use napkin rings to identify our own napkin and toss it in the wash when we decide it's time. And, to quote a cliche, they wash like a rag.

    When most people think "rags" they think about old clothes torn up, usually cotton for better absorbency (synthetics make lousy rags). Rags like that are useful, especially in workshops and garages. If you have no cotton garments ready to toss you can often purchase rags from non-profit agencies that make money on the sale of rags. Good for these agencies to recognize "use" where waste was before and good for those who support their cause.

    Rags, in the 21st century, have come a long way! You would be amazed at some of the unbelievably absorbent, washable, reusable, super efficient wiper-uppers there are out there. One that comes to mind is advertised on TV, that shammy like rag that works pretty darn good. But my son recently introduced me to an even better, more absorbent rag, one that wrings out almost dry and picks up liquids better than any paper product on the market. (I was resistant to buy them despite his praises. He had to buy some for me.) They are so good that I use them to remove all the hard water drops from my stainless steel sink and my cooking pots, making them look clean instead of spotty. I can soak up a spill like a super vacuum cleaner! And, unlike kitchen towels which break water droplets into smaller water droplets but don't really dry, these rags actually dry things! Their only drawback is their colour (bright yellow) - they do stain easily. So I keep some for floor rags and others for counters, tables or dishes, not because they don't wash well, but because a stained rag is not pleasing to the eye.

     Why not join the yellow revolution and put a not-so-humble rag within easy reach? It'll save space in your trash bin, it'll wash like a rag, and you can, as is commonly said, be the change you want to see.

Boneyard

A pictorial history of our farming past.

seeder, swather

horse drawn manure spreader, cultivator

small round (cord wood) baler, disk

Animal Control

  
     It's 3:00 a.m. There's a nose nudging my arm from the bedside, an insistent push, then another. It's our 14 year old Border Collie, Baby - looking for love, reassurance? Did I remember to let her out last night before bed? I drop my arm over the bedside, rub her chest, scratch her ears, wind up with a 4 tap bounce on the top of her head, our established signal that her massage session is over, and curl my arm back under the covers.

     5:45 a.m. Chip, our 8 year old Border Collie, begins his morning "Come on you guys, are you ever gonna get up?" vocalizations. I limp out of bed, flashlight in hand, and head for the front door. Chip flies through the living room at breakneck speed, nearly knocking over the coffee table, spinning his wheels so he can be first out the door. Baby drops off the lazy boy, her back legs giving out on landing but making a quick recovery. My little pet dog, Teddy, jumps off our bed and not so patiently waits his turn. I open the door and they scramble outside. I crawl back into bed.

     6:00 a.m. Ted scratches at the front door. I let him in, go to the kitchen door, ask Doc (he's an 11 year old retired guardian dog who has wormed his way into the house due to a series of events that nearly killed him) to move aside, let Baby in, ask Chip if he wants in. "No thanks," he says with his eyes. "I'll wait for the boss to get up and out." Again I go back to bed.

     7:00-7:30 a.m. The real boss, me, gets up, I grind the coffee, put on the kettle, start the fire, and settle down with my iPad. Chip's boss gets up, lets Ted out again and encourages Baby out the door with hand signals (she's quite deaf), lets Doc out, then head's out with dog cookies in hand for the 2 guardian dogs waiting for him outside. At this time of year he feeds a grain supplement to the sheep, then he heads down the driveway or across the field for a morning walk with our household dog family. The 2 active guardians, Josie and Thor, stay with the sheep. They like people, but the sheep are their family.

Josie and Thor

     The day moves on, the dogs go in and out, go crazy if left in while the "boss" is outside doing something no doubt interesting. I am tasked with making sure Ted doesn't go out when Chip is working. (Sometimes I think we keep the sheep in our "retirement years" just so Chip has something to play with. If you've ever owned a Border Collie you know, he must have a job to keep him busy!) Ted tries to help but often interferes. He's tough though  and can run amazingly fast for a tiny dog, is willing to stand nose to nose with an obstinate ewe. But he tends to counteract Chip's good work with the sheep.

     I start the should-be-daily task of preparing one room or another for Roomba to vacuum, sweep the dried sand from the breakfast nook, shake the mats and rugs, and brush the dog hair from the entry mat. Every few days, when meat is available (right now deer scraps from a friend), I set a big pot on the stove to make dog food (meat, carrots, potatoes, zucchini or squash, dried beans, rice) to supplement the store bought stuff which keeps climbing in price.

     It may be obvious, we love our dogs! Chip, Ted and Baby go with us on many excursions, always when we go south to visit our southern family. They do cause a lot of work and a certain amount of expense but... question is, who is in control? The workers do their job, the retirees do what retirees do, the pet does the pet thing, and we are the willing staff! We have accepted the fact that there's places we cannot go because the dogs can't come with us (music festivals, travel), and lament this a bit, but... they are family!  I'm sure we are not alone in this, many people are controlled by love for their pets, not really a bad thing, not everyone's thing, but it is our thing.

Transformation

 

Teddy

   My dog, Teddy, is 11 years old, son of my son's Jack Russell Terrier and his mom-in-law's Lhasa Apso. Fortunately he inherited a coat that grew fairly long but stopped at one point, getting no longer. He does sorta resemble a mop, he picks up every seed and rose briar the bush has to offer, snow builds up on his undercarriage and accumulates in balls on his feet (mud too), his bum needs a wash now and then, and his eyes sorta disappear - but all of this contributes to his essential character and most (many?) think he's sorta cute - especially me. Every now and then I give him a bath, trim bits of hair that appear to be causing problems. Mostly, though, I think about doing these things and don't get around to it. But he's a happy, stocky, farm dog and, though I occasionally considered getting him a haircut, cost and my resistance to sissy foo foo salon make-overs have kept him natural his entire life.

     But my son and daughter-in-law, who were the one's responsible for me getting Teddy in the first place, have hinted broadly over the years that I should consider getting Teddy "groomed". I resisted, and resisted and resisted some more. He's fine just the way he is I would say. No need for grooming.

A little bewilderd!

Looking pretty good!

The Canadian Election:

The Decided, the Undecided, the Traditionalist, the Apathetic

The Decided:

     You've been following along throughout the campaign; you know the important issues, non-issues, divisive issues. You're ready. The 19th of October will arrive before you know it. You could take advantage of Advance Voting; might be a shorter waiting line than on the 19th. You'll find the dates and place on your Elections Canada Voter Information Card. If you haven't received a Voter Information Card in the mail by now you'd best check to see if you are registered. You can do that at:

Online Voter Registration Service - Elections Canada E-Registration, 
www.elections.ca/register
Online Voter Registration Service. Use this service to: check if you're registered to vote; update the address on your voter registration, or; register to vote. Keep in ...

The Undecided:

     You're back and forth, think you're decided and then one candidate or another says something to make you question your decision. This has been the most divisive election campaign I've experienced in the 41 years I have been a Canadian citizen, mainly, I think, because the CPC has hired a consultant who has purposely buried the real issues under BS issues like the dress habits of a very small minority of women. This non-issue brought out a xenophobic, racist side of Canadians many were unaware of, even in themselves.
     Those of us who are looking for a change feel that the Conservative government has been using their parliamentary majority to significantly change the essential character of Canada. We are no longer a neutral, peace-loving nation. Our international reputation has taken a serious hit; our armed forces are no longer peacekeepers; libraries are being closed without funding to enable computer back-up of their contents; veterans' offices have been closed; the serious plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women is being ignored; a Barbaric Cultural Practices tip line (smacks of the McCarthy era in the US) is being established so we can start reporting the strange behaviours of our neighbors; area after area has been removed from environmental protection; the pursuit of scientific knowledge is being squashed by dropping funding; we are pretending climate change is a hoax; a huge trade deal is being negotiated in secret; there's corruption in the Senate; and so on and on and on.
     Maybe you're not looking for change, maybe the status quo is a safer bet. Are the Conservatives whistling your tune? Or is something off key? You are undecided! Try taking this on-line quiz - it may help. At least it gets beyond the divisive rhetoric we're being bombarded with every day.

Canada Election Quiz, https://canada.isidewith.com/political-quiz
See which political parties match your beliefs on the most important political issues in Canada's 2015 General Election. ... In 2015, Canadian pension funds stood at 89% of estimated liability for .... Yes, aboriginals should be further compensated for their hardships and use of resources ... Let the citizens of Quebec vote on it. ‎Electoral Reform... - ‎Commercial Drones Poll - ‎Pension Premiums - ‎Pension Tax...

     Are you looking for change but figure a vote for change where you live won't make any difference?
     I live in an area where the CPC is very likely to win - rural Alberta. And, to top that off, we in the west often feel the election is already over before our polling stations even close. So my protest vote may not count for anything. But I'm still going to vote. If you live in a riding where the vote for change may be split, allowing the Conservatives a win, you might consider strategic voting. Check this site out.

Vote Together, https://www.votetogether.ca/
No matter where you live, our new election website will give you all the tools and ... This time, if we vote together, we can stop the riding-by-riding vote splitting that ... candidates to defeat the Harper Conservatives and move Canada forward.

The Traditionalist:

     Some people vote the way they always have, the way their father and his father before him did. They say, "Our family has always voted this way and I see no reason to change." Or they might say, "I'm voting the way my husband votes, I don't know the issues and he does. Besides, if I vote differently I'll just cancel out his vote."
     Times have changed a lot since great-grandpa's day. This is a lazy way to vote and you might be shooting yourself in the foot without even realizing it. Check out the above two websites. You may discover the party you've been voting for is no longer in tune with the way you think.

The Apathetic:

     Maybe you're just too buried in your family and work life to take the time to follow the issues. Maybe you think it's a waste of time to stand in a voting line. For what, you say - one party's as bad as the other; they're all liars and crooks! Hmmm, maybe they are. But leaving the same government in power time after time makes it worse. They get cocky and begin to run rough-shod over the public, no consulting, no caring, just furthering their agenda while an apathetic electorate fails to pay attention.
     Democracies don't work if the people don't vote. It's your only chance, outside of kitchen table conversations and social media, to have your say.

Please VOTE! And better yet vote for change.

The Tablet (iPad) Generation

     On the September long weekend this Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed a wonderful day with our two grandgirls (ages 12 & 7) and their two girlfriends (age 10 & 6) while their parents, my son and his wife and their friends, took a canoe trip down the Athabasca River. Wow, were those little gals busy!

    The main focus of all four girls was our tire swing, seemed like it was occupied a good portion of the time, but many other activities filled the day. First the older girls and Grandma made a movie. My granddaughter has a good camera, a tripod, and a vivid imagination. We were all told our lines, ran through them once, the camera was set up and we'd do a scene. Then on to the next and the next until she felt she had enough footage to edit and format on her iPad. This work she does at home, adding credits, music, and editing. I've seen previous movies (app is called iMovie) she's made and they are very professional looking.  Other activities were Yatzee, bingo, rock painting, cleaning and rearranging the yurt so it looked pretty (all 8 slept in the yurt), choreographing and performing a dance to a favourite iTune, archery, and yes, before bed they watched a movie.

     These little gals are what us country folk call townies. They think a few things are scary or creepy or yucky (hornets, grasshoppers, sheep poop on the lawn), they love dogs, were a bit afraid at night when their parents were in the house visiting and they were in the yurt listening to the coyotes howl, but on the whole laughed and played like the free spirits that they are. They are children growing up in the Tablet (iPad) generation. They have had electronic gizmos in their hands pretty much their whole lives. If I need help with my computer or TV system I ask them, even the 7 year old! So I would like to debunk the idea or attempt to allay the fears of the older folks that have come to think that today's children are inactive and don't use or are not developing their imaginations, that they aren't learning much of anything in school because their computers do it all for them, that their noses are stuck in a phone so much that they have no clue as to what's going on around them and they are becoming anti-social.

     Whoa! Let's start with imaginations. I already mentioned the movies. Then there's the games like Minecraft and Farmville, Paradise Bay. These are little worlds that you build from the ground up, and, unlike a doll house, you have to build the scene, you have to chop the trees, build the homes brick by brick, grow your food, sell your wares, feed yourself, take time to sleep... Is this not using imagination? And these games can be played with others, they need not be a solitary endeavor. You can (at least on Minecraft) actually see your playing partner on the screen!

     I asked my granddaughter what games were fun. She said 2028, Dubsmash, 1010, Barbie Makeover, Fashion Story to name a few.  I tried Dubsmash, you need to know songs etc. and you lip-sync to them, creating short often quite funny sound bites. You can do this with a friend. Barbie make-over uses the internal camera so that you are applying different colours of lipstick, hair, hats etc. right onto your own face.  When you have an old grandma face like mine this can turn out quite hilarious. Fashion apps, I assume, are a lot like the paper cut-out dolls we used to play with, the clothing had little tabs you bent back to hang the outfits on the models. Today's kids can do it using computer technology. Really, no less active or less imaginative than what we did, just a different way of doing it (less messy too).

     So kids do use their phones a lot, texting each other in a language nearly impossible for me to read but I'm learning.  And maybe they do use them a bit too much. But that isn't to say that they are not active or that they are anti-social.  My grandgirls have school dances, plays, dance recitals, piano recitals, birthday parties, swimming lessons. They both have bows and are pretty good archers, they go sailing with their dad, have ridden on a dog sled, go skateboarding, biking, and of course, shopping.

     Well, you may say, they're 7 and 12, wait till they're teenagers! If I'm still blogging when they are I may visit this subject again.

     I asked (messaged her on her iPad) my 12 year old granddaughter about computer use in the school, also about smart boards. Here's the answer she messaged to me. "We are not aloud (allowed) to use phones/technology unless the teacher asks you. we use iPads like computers, there are school iPads we use. No we can not use a calculator in class! A smart board is a screen that connects to your computer and is like a giant tablet on a wall you can click with your finger and draw on it with digital markers. Yes I have them in my school and we use them a lot so the teacher can show us things like documents from her computer."

     Computers are a tooI for learning, not a detriment to learning. iPhones are mini-computers. Maybe texting is taking over some social interactions, maybe they're just another kind of social interaction.  I think parenting plays a huge role in establishing a balance between real life and life on the net.  Some controls need to be applied; family discussions are needed to help young minds understand possible outcomes of social media. It's a new world with new parenting challenges, ones we never had to contend with. I believe computers provide many positive aspects in today's world, and I have high hopes that technology, in the hands of the current computer savvy generation,

Beautiful Autumn

A walk around the farm yard on a cloudy day...

FaceBook - Not FactBook

     Social media is a misnomer. It should be called Gossip Cache, Rumour Haven, Tattler's Bin or something that at least better describes its function. FaceBook is not FactBook and it can be damaging. Don't get me wrong though, I don't think it's all bad, actually I'm kinda hooked. Social media keeps folks in contact, informs people of events. It has helped to open the eyes of many people to the disparities of human existence in our world. It is partly responsible for and actually aided revolutions in countries that had, and often still have, cruel and corrupt regimes. It has made the world a much smaller place. Sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing. But Pandora's Box is open. There's no turning back.

      I am annoyed though with the "information" aspect of social media, e-mail and on-line news. How in the world does anyone find the truth when truth is obviously so subjective?

     This political campaign in Canada - wow! All parties slamming the others. My mind is screaming for some positive input. I've made no secret of where my political affiliations lie, and I too have liked and/or shared many political rants, cartoons, etc. supporting my negative view of Harper's Canada. But I got a post the other day that really says it all. These political posts are speaking to the decided. They're not changing anyone's mind or helping the undecided. And on top of that, it's almost like friends are becoming non-friends over this election. Hey, you know all those things we had in common that made us friends in the first place? They're still there! No more on-line politicking for me.

     And beyond the election -  I've seen posts on FaceBook that create fear, demonize, slander or mislead, and when I fact checked them they turned out to be totally untrue. Yet, because these posts fall into place with someone's view of the world they are liked and shared, and the lies go on and on.

     I've heard "news" that is so out to lunch that any thinking person would find it laughable, yet there are people out there, way too many people, who suck this trash up like a sponge. Why, because it feeds their fears and biases.

     I've heard what should be trusted media use terminology that creates bias - wording that unconsciously determines our thinking.

     I'm tired of religious beliefs that create suspicion and hate for people who do not share that particular religion's views. And I'm really tired of so-called Christians acting so darn un-Christian, setting themselves apart, believing they are God's chosen ones to the exclusion of all others. How do they differ from their Muslim counterparts in this? How can anyone think there is a god who would condone such behaviour?

     We are unconsciously or consciously creating hate, fearing difference, demonizing other countries, religions, and political systems while at the same time failing to fact check or choosing to ignore inconvenient bits of information that don't support our views. We are creating a climate for yet another war. We're getting all riled up, learning to hate THEM, you know, those weird people who are not like us. Profiteers are licking their chops in anticipation. Ask yourself, who profits, who suffers, who wins?

We Need a Village

     Why do people leave their own county? What is the intent behind their move? Are they fleeing war, famine, bombing, flying bullets, religious or political oppression (refugees), or are they looking for a better life, better opportunities, a better standard of living (immigrants)? Or both? Europe is now facing a massive migration, one caused by war and fuelled by the knowledge that there are societies where a person and his/her family can be safe and enjoy those basic human rights which all people have a right to expect as normal.

    This massive influx of population is causing many problems. The West has largely washed its hands of the whole thing. But what happens anywhere in the world effects the rest of the world. It's that global thing.

    So, how should these migrants be treated? Should they be welcomed, feared, sent back, ghettoized? Seems like all of these alternatives are either happening or being considered. We cannot be judgemental from our comfortable lives here in Canada, but we can have an opinion. And we can try to sway other people and our federal government to agree with our opinion. But, other than directly sponsoring an immigrant family ourselves, that's about all we can do.

     I thought the Catholic Pope had a good idea - he said every Catholic Parish should sponsor a family. In Europe alone this would allow over 100,000 refugee families to immigrate. Expand that to Canada, the USA, and parishes of other Christian sects, Mosques and Synagogs and wow! Wouldn't that be something! Of course, sponsorship or not, each congregation would have to wind its way through the immigration process of their country which can be daunting. And each sponsor would have to recognize that they would be extending their charity to people who may not share their religious faith. Hmmm.

     Some folks think we should be relaxing our immigration policies and welcoming a large number of these terror stricken individuals into our country. Some feel that these people would bring terror to our country with them. So, what sort of refugee do I think should come to Canada, or any other country for that matter? I think that refugees must also be immigrants. They must want to stay. They should be willing to learn a new language; willing to live within the laws of the society they are adopting; willing to teach their children to respect the history, values and traditions of the country they left while at the same time allowing them to fully integrate and adapt to their new country's values and traditions.

     And what about those who are refugees only, the ones who love their country, who want to go back just as soon as the conflict they're fleeing from settles down, when it's possible again to carry on commerce, to work and feed their families, to practice their religion and carry on their traditions?  It seems to me that immigrating these folks would be more or less a waste of time and resources. So what could be done for them, to help them?

    I know this is naive and there's likely a thousand reasons why it's not possible, but some version of this idea could perhaps take place......

    We could build a village. We could pull our troops from the countries that are in conflict and use the dollars not spent on bombs and bullets (also charitable donations) to lease a large parcel of land in order to provide temporary housing, food, and medical aid for these refugees. These people are traumatized, they need help and they certainly should not be sent back into the conflict zones. While waiting to return they need to be able to carry on commerce, worship, attend school, have dignity, have a decent place to live.

     Our peacekeepers (Remember them - the peacekeepers, the troops Canada used to send overseas?), representatives from the refugee population, NGO's from all countries and officials from the host country could help to administer and keep order amongst the various  factions within this temporary haven. Oversight should be provided to ensure that charitable donations are received by the refugees rather than some corrupt official.  The host country should receive the greatest share of any monetary benefit arising from building and maintaining this haven. Their business suppliers and labourers should be used whenever possible. Hosting this village should be a win-win situation, not a detriment.

    Conflicts are not settled overnight. This could turn out to be long term. But as long as there are refugees a place like this is desperately needed, not a ghetto with poor sanitation, poor housing, no hope. And, if the conflict continues indefinitely, if the refugees can never return, then each family, one by one, will have to recognize that the country they loved no longer exists and apply to immigrate to a country that reaches out a welcoming hand.

     The disparity between the "haves and have nots" of the world needs to balance out. Religions, races, and people with differing cultural norms will have to learn to tolerate one another. If not we all must accept that there will be endless war, and an endless numbers of refugees.



 

High Bush Cranberries

Years ago, before we increased the size of our goat herd to an efficient brush eating machine, we had lots and lots of high bush cranberries on our farm. You could smell them before you saw them, a unique and easily identifiable aroma leading you by the nose to clumps of juicy red berries.

It's been more than 20 years since we switched from wandering goats to fenced sheep, and I some-times smell the cranberries when I'm on a walk, but when I follow my nose there's never enough to pick. This year, though, while seeking a launch site for our son and his friends to canoe down the Athabasca River, we spotted masses of these berries and later went down with buckets to pick some. Two hours picking, three gallons picked, then three hours cleaning. (A friend later told me I wouldn't have had to clean out the sticks, leaves etc. because I was extracting juice for jelly not making jam! Ah well, never too old to learn!) Extracting the juice took quite a while; got enough for 3 batches of jelly. I now have enough high bush cranberry jelly to last at least 5 years!

     

High bush cranberries have their own special flavour. It's only the cranberry's shape and colour, not the texture or taste, that resembles those cranberries you eat with your Christmas turkey.   If you want wild cranberries that taste like that you have to boing and bounce around on the muskeg and pick the wee little red low bush cranberries that grow there.  Low bush cranberries are sorta like wild strawberries, about a tenth the size of cultivated berries, hard to find, very tiny, very precious.

A World Gone Mad

      (Quote from an article on the destruction of ancient archaeological sites by IS, in "Current World Archaeology, #72", Neil Faulkner - "Islamic State, iconoclasm, and the destruction of heritage".)
     "IS is a mortal threat to the people of the Middle East. It has grown in the shattered social spaces left by the violence and poverty of the neoliberal era. It is a monster created by Western imperialism. It is a form of mass psychotic rage unleashed by a world gone mad.
    And therefore, the very last thing the region needs is yet another round in the cycles of bombing, killing, and displacement that have made IS possible."

A World Gone Mad

     Europe, including Britain, is now dealing with huge numbers of refugees (not migrants). It was inevitable that this would happen someday. You can't expect to have masses of people living in poverty and near starvation, in fear for theirs and their family's lives, in fear of torture, in fear even to go to the market to buy or sell, and have no reaction when they can see via media that there are places in the world where this is not happening, where life is better, where life has value.

     Do we have a responsibility to take these people in?  Can our social services, housing, job market, etc. manage such a huge influx of desperate people?  Has the Muslim religion been so demonized that we are afraid of these people, of their beliefs? Do we think they will destroy us from within? What a mess we have been complicit in creating with our bombs, drones, soldiers, and with our meddling in the affairs of these countries.

     We have exhibited a complete lack of respect for cultures, governmental systems, and belief systems that differ from ours.  We have learned absolutely nothing from history. We have blundered our way throughout the world carrying our heads high in the belief that our way is the right way.  And here we are now, shaking our heads, building walls, creating camps, crushing mobs with riot police and soldiers, ghettoizing, in general freaking out over a mass refugee crisis we helped to cause.

     Am I saying we should accept atrocities committed by people and governments, accept genocide, accept slavery, accept obvious crimes against humanity? No, of course not. But don't assume we have never committed any of these crimes ourselves, that we are innocent. Is it not a crime to kill numerous civilians with a drone in order to "take out" one enemy? Is it not a crime to sanction a population to the point of severely lowering their standard of living because their government refuses to come to terms with ours? Is torture not a crime against humanity? How about imposing our drug war on a country whose main source of income lies in its poppy fields? Should we be profiting by selling armaments to one side or another, or both sides, in an internal conflict of another country? And the list goes on...

     So here we are, the innocent West, sitting with a smile on our faces while we watch Europe struggle to deal with this huge influx of population. This is not their problem, it's everyone's problem. If Europe must take in refugees, so should we. Unless we work our asses off to improve conditions within the borders of these countries this crisis will not go away. It's serious now and it will escalate.  Desperate people do desperate things. They have nothing to lose.

     Do I have the answers? No, and even if I did it's unlikely that anyone in power would listen to me. It seems to me that nearly all governments in the world are self serving, that the idea of serving the people has quietly slipped to the wayside while the citizenry was too busy or too uncaring to notice. It's frightening. The world has indeed gone mad.
                                    ___________________________

I apologize for the negativity of my blog today. Sometimes I almost wish we were back in the days when we knew very little about the rest of the world, about the activities of our own governments - those dark ages before the "Net", before TV, before... It's hard now, to stick your head in the sand.

Mind and Body

Bottle washing 

     I've been reading a blog called Becoming Minimalist written by Joshua Becker (becomingminimalist.com). He recently mentioned that he has decided to become a full time writer. Bravo for him...but...but...how!

2nd batch, ready to bottle

     His blog title tells us he lives minimally and his blogs are often an interesting and worthwhile read, and I know if we make up our minds, become truly determined, we can do many things we thought we had no time for - priorities and all that. Maybe he has money or needs very little or both, or maybe someone else is doing all the mundane things that tend to consume a major portion of our time, or maybe he doesn't need sleep... who knows. I know I nearly always steal time, with accompanying guilt, in order to write. I write continuously in my mind, but it seems like my body is always doing something else!

     "Something else" now is garden - it's production and preserving time - and one means I have chosen to preserve berries is to make wine.  This year I had a bumper crop of raspberries, and my friend who provides me with honeyberries did too, so I am embarking on double batches of each. I never put too much thought into the number of bottles I'd need, or for that matter that my wine rack holds a maximum of 50!

     Ahh well. Today I'm washing bottles for the second batch of honeyberry wine, ready to bottle today or tomorrow. I'm putting out an all important bulletin to all my close neighbors to save wine bottles (the kind that use corks) for the upcoming raspberry batches. And I just stole some time to write. Might have to crack a wee bottle of honeyberry to fortify myself...

     Well, maybe not, wouldn't get a thing done if I did that...

At Weather's Mercy

 One beautiful squash! Already produced 6 big ones...

 One wild hail storm!

 Poor squash, looks like it's been sprayed by a machine gun! But it will probably survive...

And On Into August

A friend of mine in BC wrote the perfect post on FaceBook to tell her friends why she'd posted so seldom during July.  She simply listed a vast array of vegetables that she's been harvesting, and anyone who gardens knows - Gardening is a time consumming joy! BC's gardens are quite a bit ahead of Northern Alberta's but I have nevertheless been busy, busy, busy as well. Mostly it's raspberries. Nine gallons (1.5 hours/gallon) so far and they're still coming. I have to admit that my husband has decided to lend a hand in this task, must be that he's recognized just how valuable a bottle of raspberry wine really is!

And peas! My heavens I love fresh peas! And if not fresh then home grown frozen peas still beat the taste of even organic peas out of the grocery store. So, hours of shelling them is worth every minute.  The best part of gardening, though, is the wonderful combinations of fresh garden goodies that arrive on our plates at dinner time. Last night we had guests, and every single item on the table was grown on the farm - lamb roast, new potatoes, zuchinni lightly fried with red onion, carrot, snow peas and a sprinkling of regular peas - and of course, raspberry wine. Ahhhh!

So the garden is my excuse for posting a bit less, but the garden will finish its season and a new season will bring different tasks, along with, hopefully, a little more time to connect with all of you.

My Raspberry Patch - Zen Heaven or Nightmare

How is this possible!

                    to go from this                                to this!

Wow! I was so proud of myself in the spring, cleaned my raspberry patch right up, no dead canes -  looking good! And now, jumpin' jeehosifats (this is an explative saying of my dad's, spelling a guess),  I can barely walk through!  Berries, berries, berries. They came at least 2 weeks early and I've already picked 7 gallons - 6 for 2 batches of wine and one for freezing to make desserts and crepes.  From now on when I pick I'll be making and bottling juice concentrate. 

What a year for the gardens! 

Garden Flowers

Zucchini

     We built our home in the centre of our farm at the end of a narrow winding driveway through an Aspen, Spruce, Willow and Birch forrest.  To the North of the house is a sheep pasture; to the South our Mongolian yurt, gardens, dog kennels and a small lake; to the East a barn, corrals, sheds and granaries; to the West our farm shop.  Our sheep are hefted, which means generations of sheep families have lived here, have formed grazing patterns from which they are disinclined to divert. In other words, they know where home is and have no desire to leave, so they don't, even when the gate is open. The fact that they are surrounded by bushland and prefer to graze in the open adds an extra incentive for them to adhere to their established pattern.  At night and oftentimes during the heat of the day they return to their barn to sleep. Because the sheep are hefted (and because we have extra confidence due to the presence of Chip, our Border Collie who is trained to herd them about when needed), we often open the barn gate and let the sheep into our yard. They keep our large lawn cropped short and we really enjoy seeing them up close. 

     Because our living lawn mowers enjoy a little variety in their cuisine they will happily munch on flowers and leaves as well as grass, so we have 3 fenced gardens (vegetable, berry, and potato), a fence around our crabapple tree and no flower borders around the house, no tasty shrubbery.  This suits me just fine - I am not a landscape artist!  But I do love flowers so I plant some in the garden along with the vegetables. I plant marigolds and poppies in patches here and there for colour, bee attraction, and because they are hardy and kindly make seed for me every year.  And, if they pop up on their own in a place where they won't be in the way I let them stay. On the north side of the garden are  little rock circles of hardy annuals like pansies, along with Saskatoons, lilacs, and several perennials I've picked up over the years from friends - a few I can name - hollyhocks, monkshood, lillies. Others I can't. 

     Vegetable flowers, to differentiate them from ornamental flowers, are everywhere as well and I like to mix it up a bit by planting a Scarlet Runner or two out of place, like in with the peas, and sunflowers in spots where they'll have some support.  My garden this year is lush, mainly due to the fact that we watered it during our terribly dry May, June and early July by pumping water from our lake and sprinkling, irrigating, and spot watering. Everything in the garden is on the verge of being ready to pick and I've been gazing at the incredible beauty of it all, waiting for the inevitable daily work of picking and preserving the harvest. My flowers for "pretty" and my flowers that attract pollinators to produce vegetables stand together in a glorious profusion of bounty. Is it obvious? I love my garden... 

Scarlet Runner Bean

potato                                                         

                                                                                                                     
                                                                           
                                                                           

                                                                

                                               

The Downside of Home Canning

     I have been preserving the bounty of my vegetable and berry gardens for many years using every method and means available to me (wines, jams, pickles, juices, canned vegetables and fruits, drying, freezing, cellar storage). I have limited freezer space so I jar up much of the produce and process in a pressure canner, things like berry and rhubarb juices, crab apple concoctions, zucchini, and tomatoes.* I also like to make home canned soups. They are just so much tastier than store bought and a quick and easy meal.

     I purchased all my canning equipment many moons ago - pressure canner, water bath canner, big pots and bowls, juicer (like a big steamer), jar grabbers, funnels, ladles, etc. I would imagine all these items would run to at least $600 or more by now. And jars, my heavens do I ever have lots. I've also been accumulating wine bottles and I have beer bottles with bales and seals that I use for syrups.  So I'm all set up, right?

     Wrong.

     If I were a conspiracy theorist I would no doubt be pointing a finger at some food producing conglomerate, gabbing with friends over the kitchen table about how "they" are out to get us. What's the problem? It's the cost of jar seals, in some cases as much as 50 cents each. Price varies a lot from place to place but one factor is consistent - every year cost goes up and availability goes down. You can find new jars with seals and rings lots of places, but the seals alone are harder and harder to find. And the seals cost nearly as much as the new jars! What's with that? Is there a think-tank somewhere that has decided it's better to throw away or recycle jars than to reuse them? Kinda makes you wonder why you should plant, nurture, harvest and preserve your own food if it costs as much or more as buying a jar or can of it in the grocery store. The "I know how it's grown and where it comes from" argument can get a bit thin when you are working your you-know-what off and not even saving a few dollars in the process!

     This year I'm trying something new - Tattler Reusable Canning lids. I first read about them in Mother Earth Magazine, thought about it but the U.S. Dollar cost and the shipping slowed me down to a point of no purchase. Then last week I was in Canadian Tire, looking for seals, and there they were, Tattler seals - ON SALE! So I bought 3 dozen of the regular and 3 dozen of the wide mouth. (They don't have the middle size Gem jars in the States). Tattler seals work much the same way as the old Gem jar seals with the rubber rings and glass tops and claim to be reusable as much as 5 times (or more). So their higher cost should pay for itself in a year or two. I also checked the price of these on-line and they were triple what I paid, so shopping around makes a difference.

     There are still some reasons to use the throw away seals - if you plan to give away what you have canned, if you do not use a pressure canner (I don't for pickles, jams), or if you do not plan to use the product within a year or so. You can't reuse something until you use it in the first place! I figure juices, soups, stews, fruits and tomatoes will be used in a year so that's where I'm going to start. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted...  

* I am inclined to prefer the taste of some things frozen, so I usually blanche and freeze peas and beans and enough raspberries for our favourite breakfast - crepes stuffed with cottage cheese and topped with raspberries and whipped cream. A plus factor regarding freezing - bags are about 10 cents. But you are consuming power to keep things frozen, so that's a hidden cost.

Tattler Reusable Canning lids, review and my experiences.

www.simplycanning.com › Other Canning Equipment

Tattler Reusable canning lids. My review, pictures, video and results.

Correct Method For Using Tattler Reusable Canning Lids - YouTube

▶ 4:19

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdm7PJnOFao

Doctor, Doctor

     In Canada we have a universal health care system. It's not perfect but it's mainly there when you need it, when anybody needs it.  I've had medical emergencies in my life and I received excellent free hospital care as well as surgery.  In reality my life would not exist had these services been absent or difficult to access. My one and only son may not have made it into the world either.

     BUT.... ah yes it seems there's always a "but" to attach to everything, even good things .... there are glitches.  There is misuse, by patients and doctors alike.  We are told that we should never go to emergency at the hospital unless our situation is truly an emergency - like a broken bone, appendicitis, something obvious.  Emergency is costly they say, more costly to the system than a visit to the doctor (why I wonder), and you can tie up valuable doctor time when you arrive at the emergency room with something like a bad belly ache, a skin rash, a raw throat, etc. On the other hand, there are things that crop up that cannot wait 1 to 3 weeks, or more, until you can get an appointment with your family doctor, or any doctor for that matter.

     I recently came up with a skin rash (or insect bite, boil, pimple, or worse case scenario, shingles, skin cancer...you know how your mind works when you have an unknown medical occurrence happening).  If you have been a blog reader of mine for awhile you will have read, "An Alien in My Head" published last December, so you will understand why having an unknown 1/4 inch round puffy brown spot with a small white dot in its centre appear on my chin would set off my internal medical alert button (no pain or itch, a little tickle now and then). Once again I felt nothing bite me. I had been working in the garden. It was very hot out and my face had been dripping with sweat.  So there I was, sitting at the picnic table with husband and friends, completely unaware of my blotch, and husband says, "You have something on your chin." I attempted to rub it off, nope; I went in and tried to wash it off, nope. Well, we had company so I managed to ignore it for the remainder of the evening.

     Next day I'm thinking, I wonder what it is? Maybe I should get it checked out, But I don't want to go to emergency... Yet when I had shingles a few years back I was made aware that some things turn out better when treated right away - what to do, what to do?..  I called my family doctor's assistant, explained what was up and how I felt about it, said do you think I need to get it checked out???  She said it was up to me, a judgement call so to speak, but my doctor happened to have a cancellation that afternoon at 3:00.  Okay, I said, I'll come in.

     Now I am a country dweller. I live smack-dab-in-the-middle of 4 towns, towns not cities. No matter which way I drive it's pretty well 70 km one way. So a trip to town uses both fuel and time, neither of which I'm fond of spending.  I arrived at my appointment and here's how my doctor relieved my concerns.

     "Hmmm," he said leaning in for a closer look, "a skin lesion. Is there any particular time when you are not available to come in?"

     "No," I said, "pretty well any time is good for me. Why?"  The doctor went out of the examination room, came back with a card on which was written an appointment with another doctor, same clinic, in 16 days.  This other doctor, he said, was the clinics skin specialist.

     "What should I do in the meantime," I said.

     "Stay out of the sun," he said. That was not exactly comforting. That was Thursday. So I went home, used aloe vera on the blotch, my own fall back treatment, and continued to worry about what it was. Looking up skin problems on the internet in no way made me more comfortable. I was not pleased. That doctor was paid for a do nothing appointment; I had spent all that time and gas and had no diagnosis or treatment. Maybe I should have gone to emergency!

     A friend of mine said there was a walk-in-clinic in another one of those 4 communities equidistant from my home, that I should phone and see if I could get in, so Monday I called, got an appointment that afternoon.  This clinic was super efficient. I was in and out in no time flat, saw a doctor and actually discussed what was happening (he felt it was an insect bite), was given a prescription for a steroidal ointment (which, by the way, my seniors' Blue Cross plan did not cover) and was home in record time. Now it's Monday. It's been a week since I began to use the ointment and the blotch seems to be slowly going away.  Information sheet in the ointment package said it could take as long as 2 weeks. Doctor at the walk-in-clinic said check back in a week if no improvement.  I still have an appointment with that skin specialist so will go if I need to.  But, in the meantime, I feel like I'm at least trying to treat the blotch, whatever it may be, and that the walk-in-clinic was a thousand times more efficient and  satisfying than the "Hmm" I received on my first appointment.

      Non-emergency medical occurrences (which need diagnosis, treatment, prescriptions) happen all the time. We do have access to the Health-Link line, but the nurse that answers your call cannot see you, responds according to your description of your symptoms, which may or may not be accurate, clear or helpful. With one rather exciting exception*, whenever I've called the line I've been told I should go see my doctor!

     Surely, if we are not supposed to use emergency rooms as if they were walk-in-clinics then we should have access to walk-in-clinics in these smaller communities. Not every medical occurrence can wait. It may go  away, becomes more serious, or kill you. If a separate clinic is too costly to provide in a smaller community, why couldn't one doctor be designated to take walk-ins at the hospital without making us feel guilty for using emergency services? Or maybe a nurse could take these cases.  They have a great deal of training as well, and could refer the patient to the doctor on call if he/she felt it was necessary. (I suppose that idea is not feasible due to that ugliest of words in society today - liability.)

     The internet is not the answer. We need better medical services for non-life threatening medical issues. It may be better, or worse, in large cities, but it can be frustrating, worrisome and time consuming for rural and small town inhabitants.


*That exciting exception happened when I was doused completely with gasoline due to a broken tank valve. I was told to call poison control. They told me, a memory - not an exact account - to get under a cool shower right away for at least 20 minutes, eyes and all. I was ever so glad to talk to someone at that time, the Help-Link line most certainly has its place and can be very useful and calming in a frightening situation.

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