One Local Summer #1

My first documented local meal for Liz's One Local Summer project.

Bison steak (cut in two after grilling): the farm that raises them is near Stratford, approximately 33 km.

1 kilometers = 0.621371192 miles, for the US-impaired.

Potatoes: bought at the nearby farmer's market. Didn't ask for specifics, but I trust this group to have been in the Waterloo Region.

There was also margarine and salt involved in the eating thereof, and they are not local. I had water, and my hubby had a coke with his meal.

Karen

sunday's musings

Take a good look now....


Blink and you'll miss them....


All of these lovely irises are now gone.


I can't believe the kind of year we're having. It was a slow start.... cold, cold, late frosts.... and then BOOM! too much heat and everything's melting away in seconds.

I'm convinced (from memory, because apparently the last two years of blogging isn't keeping enough information) that the irises were still blooming right up til the end of June. And this year, not even halfway through June and they're gone.

It's crazy.

Something else while I have weirdness on the brain....

I've recently been picking Anti-V's brain for cooking clues. She's really quite a genius in the kitchen. And she's introduced me to some new ingredients and flavours - but many of them are not-from-here! To make the lemon and sesame seed fish, I had to buy a lemon from South Africa in the grocery store, and the leeks for the venison stew are from Mexico right now! I can get local venison, just not one of the veggies to go with it.

Believe me, I look at these things now that I'm getting more into the local food movement. It's really quite frustrating, these contradictions.

And the point of wanting to expand my cooking abilities in the first place was to be better able to cook local foods!

But back to pretty.....take a deep breath now...



Bridal wreath spirea. :)

Oh by the by - Nina, I'm with you on the violets. Another one of those evil pernicious weeds. I can't believe that nurseries sell those too!

Karen

friday flowers

Lupins.



And an Icelandic poppy. I've heard that in Iceland, these things are considered weeds.



Pretty weeds. :)

Can you believe what a nursery will sell? I consider forget-me-nots to be a horribly invasive weed - pretty flower, ugly after-life, spreads like wildfire. And yet, there they are - at $2.99 a pot. Crazy.

Karen

One Local Summer

Woohoo! Liz has started up her One Local Summer project again. And this year, I'm going to participate!

My definiton of "local" is the most of the province of Ontario. Foodland Ontario and FoodLink Waterloo Region will both be very useful tools.

I'll be back in a few days with a picture and details of my first local meal!



Karen

Is it spring yet? or summer?

Comfrey flowers. "Spectrum: Dye Plants of Ontario" edited by Nancy J. McGuffin, and compiled by the Burt House Spinners and Weaver's Guild, suggests that comfrey leaves simmered for a half hour at a 3:1 ratio of plant material to wool will give a bright yellow. Miscellaneous internet research suggests that this plant can be cut down over and over again throughout the growing season and just keep ticking away. Excellent!


This is the first iris of the season. A blue so pale that it almost looks white.


And with it's neighbour, a yellow iris that bloomed the next day.


Love that fuzzy strip in a closeup of the iris.


Oriental poppy! Wow, for such a vivid flower colour, the book says it's dye bath colours are boring beige.


Pink tulips. If you've been reading the blog since last year, you know I'm a big fan of pink tulips.


And tulips in general. In abundance. :)


This year, the tulips have been short-lived, as a result of the slow, cool spring.

We've also been doing some landscaping, creating gravel paths and new garden space.


And just because Anti-V asked, and Neil worked so hard to make them (there's 3 of these now).....an obelisk. Inaccurately referred to in the plural as obeliski, but I like the sound of the word. I had meant to give one to my parents, but it wouldn't fit in their car when they were last up visiting.

I had meant to grow peas, or cucumbers up them, but the peas proved themselves better on the tents, and the cucumbers somehow just never made it into the ground. Garden art, anyone?


Actually, now I'm thinking morning glories, but I haven't planted them yet.

Karen

7 Random Things

Cyndy, over at Riverrim, tagged me with this meme. And eeps! I'm a bit behind, again, in posting.

1. Sometimes, I just can't make decisions.

2. I'm a closet clean freak. Not in a disabling mental health disturbing way, but more so then many, I'm coming to suspect.

3. Really, it's just a matter of logic. How else can I find things?

4. I'm more into the philosophy behind some religions then the religion itself. Like Buddhism - have done a lot of reading, dig the philosophy, think the gold statues of buddha are sillier then all get out.

5. Don't even get me started on Christianity.

6. I miss my kitty. Ginger just passed away this week.

7. I have high blood pressure and it worries me. But Lifestyle Change is ....tough, to say the least.

There, 7 relatively random thoughts. Funny, not a one of them about the garden or the fibre (which y'all have got to be believing is just me talking out my hat by now anyway).

Karen

garden, thinking locally

We have a robin nesting on top of our front door light. I've named her Martha.



Martha got very upset at us when we attached the monster trellis to the front porch. We're planning on growing hops all over the trellis and porch.



Later in the weekend, we went here....



....and managed to escape with only a few dozen more plants. :)

The front garden is alive with light and colour these days.



An anemone, close up.



The first tulip of the spring.



And yes, I do some fiber things.... here's the madder plants I hope to dye with this fall. Finally, I think, they'll be old enough. Madder roots need to be at least 3 years old to dye with.



Leif the Licky wasn't terribly happy at being on the other side of the gate for most of our working out in the front of the yard.



I've just finished reading a new book - The 100 Mile Diet: a year of eating locally, by Alisha Smith and James McKinnon.

It's quite thought-provoking. Did you know the average foodstuff travels 1,500 miles before reaching our local grocery store?

Did you know that it bugs me that the authors are Canadian and defined their local food circle in miles, and not kilometres? But I suppose that's just a petty digression...

Anyway, I've been thinking about this Eat Local thing ever since Liz ran the One Local Summer challenge at Pocket Farm last summer. Last year was a non-starter for me, but I might join in this year. It takes me awhile to get from growing awareness to doing. There's just so many questions to ask yet, and answer.

Let me give an example: there's a local butcher in town. But where does he get his meat? Where do the cows come from? What about the food that the cows ate while growing up?

Just how local is local?

The authors of "The 100 Mile Diet" took their definition right down to the ingredients. They didn't have any wheat products in their diet for eight months until they found a farmer growing wheat in their 100 mile circle.

I might be happy with locally made bread, even if the baker got his ingredients outside of the zone.

Food for thought indeed....

Karen

Still here, really

My motivation for posting has been a little slack of late, but I'm getting tired of seeing the great potato death as my leading post every time I want to use my blog for the links to the rest of you.

Basically, the last few weeks have been making me somewhat more grumpy then usual. And grumpy doesn't make for good postings.

Forward Into the Past - a yearly day-long conference on all things medieval. I finally learned how to tablet-weave! I've only been trying to get to that class for the past 5 years!

And the party afterwards at our house was pretty decent too. Lots of good friends. :)

New blogs - Links from your links, and the people who comment on other blogs. Friends of friends, so to speak. Community, isn't it cool?

Accepting the Now
Slowly She Turned
The Worsted Witch
Edge Effect
Small Meadow Farm
Maggie's Farm

Coronation - Yep, that's right. The crowning of a King and Queen. It's an SCA thing. We don't care much about the Royalty these days (they come and go every six months), but we went to see a friend receive an award that he definitely deserves. Sort of a lifetime achievement thing, it's hard to explain without all the SCA jargon.

"But Karen, what's with your garden?" - I still have one. And things are slowly starting to grow in it. But this year, the weather sucks, to put it mildly.
Even though it seems like we've finally taken a turn for spring and it is warming up a bit, the overnight temperatures are still dropping below frost levels. It's May already, and I can't even put the darned tomato seedlings out in the greenhouse because they are so fragile in temperatures below 5 degrees (celsius, of course).

So the mud room is quite full of plants that need to be planted. Soon. Before they root rot in their pots.

I'm hoping this weekend sees some .... something getting done.

Fiber? - you must remember that theoretically I dabble in the fiber arts as well? Well, I learned to tablet weave at FITP, and promptly went out and bought some yarn to do that there craft with, and.... I have to sand the damned cards. Which is not so much fun. So, I've been drop-spinning instead. So much so that my shoulder is starting to act up again. Does anyone know how not to aggravate one's shoulder?

Pictures? - well, ya know, you've seen one crocus and daffodil, you've seen 'em all. Gods, I'm depressing myself. I promise I'll get some pretties up here soon. Within days, really. Not weeks apart, I promise.

RIP Potatoes

I am humbled to admit, I killed the potatoes.

You really don't want to see the carnage. Trust me.

Perhaps it was too quick a move outside to the greenhouse.

Or the fact that I don't really know how to use a greenhouse.

Or that bad spell of weather.

Or the part about ignoring them for a week without watching their watering needs because it was just too darned cold outside.

But they've passed. Gone on to the great potato farm in the sky.

Next time - their successors will go straight into the ground. Whenever the gorram weather ghods allow it, that is.

Spring?

Oh, ummm.... right. You come here for the garden pics. I'm supposed to be a garden blogger.

Well, ya see.... spring has been giving us some trouble up here. We had a few good days and they went away again. A cold snap that has lasted us for more then a week now. I tried to distract myself with the Serenity test, but it's still cold and there's still snow on the ground.

This is what happened during our brief flirtation with warmer weather. I moved the potatoes outside into the greenhouse. Honestly, I haven't had the heart to check on them since.



They had flowered just before their move.... I know, I'm cruel in my heartless abandonment.




There were crocii blooming in my garden!


And I took this picture of the last tiny little patch of snow that was left on the property..... at the time, right up until the weather betrayed us again.


There were snowdrops in the front garden.


And the new grass was filling in nicely in the front yard that suffered last year's septic tank and water pipe replacements.


Everything was coming along nicely, and I even bought some new bulbs to put in the garden. Fortunately for everyone's sanity, they're still in the mudroom in their packages, waiting.


I've taken this long to post about it because I've been mildly pissy about the weather. However,.... I just checked the 14 day forecast and things are looking up. Weather should return to Canadian norms in another week. I can hang on, maintain the hope that spring will return.

We've seen robins. Things have to be turning around.

Karen

Oh baby!

Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		75%	Dependable and trustworthy. You love your significant other and you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		65%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		55%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		55%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		45%
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Derrial Book (Shepherd)		40%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		35%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		30%
Alliance		20%

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

Thank goodness for the campus!

I'll have to bring the camera in tomorrow, but I just took a walk around the campus at lunch today and there are flowers!

I saw a few bunches of crocuses, and dwarf irises!

Now I just have to go home and stare down my own garden.

Karen

Canada Blooms, Taranna, and the Potatoes

Last weekend, we went a'travelling. Just down the road a bit to Taranna, also known as Toronto, for those who prefer the correct spelling and not the accented phonetic version.

The delightful husband took me to see The Phantom of the Opera, and we stayed in this really gorgeous hotel, called the Cosmopolitian. We ate in the hotel's restaurant - Doku 15. Careful with that last link, it takes a long time to load and doesn't like all browsers. But it's the best meal I've had in years, and the service was fantastic.

And the next day, we made our annual pilgrimage to Canada Blooms. Sometimes it's disappointing, sometimes it's not, but it's the earliest touch of spring we can get up here in the great white north.

And it's right next to this favourite landmark. You would think after 30 years, I'd get tired of trying to photograph it, but apparently not. This is the world's tallest freestanding structure - the CN Tower.


Another landmark near the convention centre is the Skydome (currently known as the Rogers Centre - I frown at the change of name), which hosts these modern gargoyles - sports fans.


The convention centre itself pretty non-descript, architecturally. It's the things inside that usually get my attention.

Like these pretty flowers....


Or this interesting collection of standing stone waterfalls...


Can you imagine that in your backyard?

The theme of the show this year was "Earth, Air, Fire and Water". It looks like this landscape designer was trying to do something sort of Stonehenge-like, with water. Ambitious, for sure.

On a more personal front... the potatoes fall over over, go boom. Many of the stalks broke in the process. I completely fail to understand.



But ya know, I'm still encouraging them to grow - gotta see what happens next.

Karen

Waking Up :)

Well, it's been a month since I've had anything of any value to say. I guess it's time to wake up.

We've got another Snow Day here. And while there certainly is a lot of snow, it's the ice that has everyone worried. The short version is a big storm that mixed tons of snow with freezing rain and ice pellets came by to visit yesterday and we're all digging out.

Or in my case, waiting to be picked up...





There are literally dozens upon dozens of tree branches all over the yard. Problem is, that snow is crusted over with ankle-twisting ice.

Those potatoes from a previous post? Okay, these ones....?



Well, I planted them just two weeks ago, and gave them just the tiniest amount of water. I didn't really want them to grow, it's still ages before they can be planted outside.

But they didn't listen.

Two weeks ago...



Eventually, they got so big in those tiny little pots, that I had to switch them into those big containers in which one can buy kitty litter in bulk. When I moved them, they were already starting to get rootbound.

A week ago...



Again, I gave them very little water, but...



This one's from this morning.

They're literally growing an inch a day. Neil keeps saying that they should stop any time now and spread out some, that this is as high as potato plants get. But he's been saying that for days and it hasn't stopped them.

I've never grown potatoes before - any comments? Do I have a hope in hell of transplanting them safely in the spring at this point? Or should I just give up and see what happens in the buckets?

There's also been seed planting, but there's nothing to show for that yet.

And there was this Boat Burning thing....ya see, Dave (left) built this boat.


And Darrell added some "special sauce" because he didn't want to stand out in the cold for hours ....it's tradition that we don't go back in 'til it's done.

And then, well.... we burned it.



It's a Viking thing.... DARC does Viking things.

And that's it, that's the past month.

Karen

Hibernating

Hibernating - be back soon.

Karen

Snow Day!

Or more accurately.... Freezing Rain and Paranoid School Board Day!

First hint...let the dog in after his morning pee, and note the sound of ice pellets hitting the tiny bit of snow we gathered over the weekend.

Think hopefully, while thoroughly expecting to be crushed...."hmmm, I wonder if?"

Check the local radio station's website (because actually listening to this station on the radio is painful) for news and announcements.....

It's closed! I'm free! No school for me today!

(accompanied by gleeful bouncing)

I'm 41 - you probably think I'd have left gleeful bouncing behind me? But why bother? :)

Janet was really happy that I called her to let her know - she hadn't been checking the weather report, and couldn't see it from her 8th story apartment in the city. I don't think she bounced exactly, but she did sound pretty darn gleeful.

They don't pay us enough for workplace loyalty.

I did try to be suitably sad for my husband as he scrapped off the car and went into his workplace, all alone.

But it didn't work, really. :)

Garden Stuff, Yarn Harlot

The potatoes that we bought at the market just before it closed for the season have started to sprout. I need to get them in pots, with dirt, and hibernating in a cold dark place.



I need to not plant these seeds too soon - like right now, when there's still too many weeks left before they can be moved outdoors.



Last night, I attended a meeting of the KW Knitters' Guild. These are my friend Linday's hands, happily knitting away on her latest project. It was a little too dark for the speed at which her hands were moving so the picture is a little blurry.



The big draw that got me out to the meeting, was this lady. The Yarn Harlot - or Stephanie Pearl-McGee.

Here she's taking a picture of her latest sock project meeting the audience.

Now.....I'm not a knitter. *gasp*

But I do spin (dim and archaic!), weave, naalbind, and crochet. I'm also a natural dyer, and growing natural dyes like weld, woad, dyers' broom, alkanet and madder in my garden. I'm a bit of a gardening nut.

It's not that I don't know how to knit, I just prefer to give my energy to other string crafts. I know, I know.... it's some kind of evil.

The Yarn Harlot is a very very funny lady. If I ever ran into her in a bar, I'd buy her a beer and get out of her hair so she can keep on knitting in peace. I imagine the groupie factor must be annoying sometimes.

I'm saving my geeky groupie side for someone else.

Karen

planting in January

Yep, you read that right. We were out planting bulbs yesterday in wonderful 10°C weather. Tulips, hyacincths, allium, dutch iris, a million crocii, and garlic, in case you were wondering.

While it's true that I'd rather have normal weather - a good 10 cm of snow or thereabouts - I welcomed the chance to get some of the fall gardening done that had gotten left undone.

I do worry a bit about the bulbs that are already in place 'though....



Karen