It’ll be a Frosty Friday

“Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the suns’ warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust -
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.”

From “Birches” by Robert Frost

I’ve never seen frost quite like this before.  In New England, where Robert Frost lived, sunny winter mornings after a rain must be a common thing, but often I have NOT seen such things. Rain in winter is very rare here, even heavy frost is unusual as relative humidity is usually quite low – so this was a Frosty Friday indeed. There was a crisp, bright numinous quality to the landscape unlike anything I’ve experienced before:

The entire world was coated in these shaggy, crisp, crystalline shards

They melted instantly when I tapped them with my fingertips

They were beautiful and delicate up close

And even more beautiful from a distance

Magical down at the frozen pond

And this must be what Robert Frost was awed by when he wrote Birches

A practical herbalist, or practically an herbalist?

I’m not sure which I will be by the time I’m done, but I have just started The Practical Herbalist On-Line, a 12-month  herbal medicine course offered by the College of the Rockies (East Kootenay Region of BC) and taught by a lady named Rachel Beck who appears to be a tremendously knowledgable clinical herbalist with a vast amount of herbal education and practical experience.

I was very apprehensive about taking the course, because I find so much of what passes as education these days is just a money-making scheme on the part of the colleges and the standards are low, the curriculum weak, and all in all, there is a whole lot of fluff out there and not much for challenging, mind expanding opportunities that really pack a lot of punch in terms of expanding one’s knowledge base. But here I think I have found a true gem. The course materials seem comprehensive and very well written, the assignments are challenging, and I think I’m going to love the weekly on-line chats.

I attended my first chat tonight. It was all about the therapeutic uses of ginger. I’m a huge fan of ginger but had no idea just how helpful it could be. I knew it was useful to bring on a sweat and help break a fever and that it has a marvellous warming effect due to its ability to help the cardiovascular system perfuse the extremities and small peripheral blood vessels, and I’ve used it for both of those purposes in the past. (I’m one of those people who ALWAYS feels cold, so ginger is my best friend). What I didn’t know is that it has anti-platelet effect and helps clear arteries of plaques, that it is anti-microbial and helps kill off viruses and bacteria, or that it is purportedly equally effective in easing the agonies of dysmenorrhea as ibuprofen.  I hate taking ibuprofen. I type/edit medical reports for a living, so I’m all too aware of what NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen) can do to one’s stomach lining and the gastrointestinal bleeding they can cause.  If ginger teas (prepared as a strong decoction with fresh root) and compresses (warm cloths soaked in  decoction and placed over lower abdomen) can be as effective as ibuprofen, I’ll be going for the ginger, which also happens to be very soothing for the stomach and digestive tract, rather than having an erosive effect.

I’ve completed the historical survey of herbal medicine, which was the first module, and it was fascinating. I’ll have to post about the crazy Chinese emperor, Shen-Nung, who lived around 2700 BC. Apparently he was a botany crazed herbal aficionado who ingested every new plant he came across and made meticulous notes about their effects, including the toxic ones. He apparently had no qualms about poisoning himself in the name of unbridled inquiry.  He published a herbal called the Pen Sao with information on 365 herbs and their uses and his brave self-experimenting did much to contribute to Chinese Medicine. His story is just one of many amazing tales from Chinese, Indian, Greek, Middle Eastern, and European herbal history.

I must admit though, I was more morbidly fascinated by the historical stories of  European medicine (medicine with a big M in the tradition that we know it today).  I am more than relieved that medical doctors have moved on from bleeding their patients as a cure-all, or making them salivate, vomit, or otherwise purge themselves from all and every orifice.  Apparently mercury was the “treatment” of choice for syphilis. If you swallowed enough mercury to fill X number of buckets with saliva, the notion was you could be cured.  And can you imagine your doctor turning up and coming at you with leeches or a red-hot poker to make you bleed away your illness?  What a horror show.

But I’ve moved on to the second module, Human Anatomy and Physiology, and have quite a way to go through the review of such basics before I get onto the exciting business of preparing herbal concoctions. I will keep you posted with interesting tidbits as I go along.

Winter is Here – Time to Give In

I find it so amusing that December 21st is officially the first day of winter – on what planet? This is November 21st:

Scene from this morning's walk - but my Calender says I still have another month of autumn left.

Officially time to call it quits in the garden. Next time I go out there it will be with the help of snowshoes and a shovel to clear the snow off the greenhouse

I find plants as beautiful when stripped down to their bare bones structure as I do when they are in full flower

There is a meadow full of these stems and pods poking up above the snow

I love this tree, and so do the woodpeckers, but it is rotten inside and I'm amazed it survived the wind storms last week (our internet and power didn't)

Mark Boyle’s Freeconomy

A friend posted this link on Facebook a few weeks ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money

The title is “I Live Without Cash and I Manage Just Fine” and it is a little blog from the Guardian by a fellow named Mark Boyle who studied Economics and went on to manage organic food companies. But it became apparent to him that  running “ethical” companies just wasn’t enough. So, he decided to take Ghandi’s suggestion to “be the change you want to see in the world” seriously. I mean, really seriously, not just talk about how “green” he was and how this should be changed and “people” should do this or that.  He gave up on the whole tedious  farce that profitability and sustainability can coexist. So, he just went ahead and began living without cash. After almost a year of living without cash, this is what he feels he has learned:

“What have I learned? That friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is of the spiritual kind. That independence is really interdependence. And that if you don’t own a plasma screen TV, people think you’re an extremist.”

I appreciate his  no plasma screen TV = extremist sentiment because I’ve found that not lusting after the full consumer package in all its permutations puts people around me on edge.  I try to keep it to myself, but my total disinterest in and ignorance regarding whatever it is everyone is buying these days is pretty hard to hide when 90% of conversation seems to focus on just that.

The bigee for me is that the husband and I share one vehicle. This has a way of pissing people off. There is a stricken look that comes over people when this comes up, then, “Oh my god! How can you stand it? I can’t imagine not having my own car! I’ve had my own car since I was 16, I couldn’t be without it.” Sharing one car is absolutely and most definitely inconvenient, but the thought of owning two expensive, maintenance heavy, fuel guzzling, money pit vehicles just to avoid occasional inconvenience seems much crazier to me.

This, along with Mark’s brave efforts to get by without cash, reminded me in turn of something I read just recently in “Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding our Darker Selves” by James Hollis:

“As a nation, we too have to ask the question of the soul. Have we lost ours in the mad rush to profitability, distraction from unpleasant truths,  and creature comfort? The scientific evidence is abundantly clear about global warming: We know that we have to act seriously within this generation to slow if not reverse its effects, but how many are willing to give up the SUV, reduce carbon emissions, or take the thousand other steps that are so clearly within our reach, if it means compromising even a smidgen of our creature comforts? We have plundered and we are depleting the finite resources of a finite planet and we all know it. And what have we done about it? This Shadow is upon us and our children, and we are collectively guilty of passivity.”

And I think that’s just it. A little thing like being happy to live with the 20-year old TV that just won’t die, the cranky old computer that can be annoying but stumbles along, the used, the salvaged, the unfashionable . . . insisting that the only “green” purchase is the one you don’t make, doing something simple and practical like sharing one vehicle with the person you live with, or going even further and living like Mark Boyle . . . I think these things are perceived as annoying and unwelcome because it shines light on the Shadow, that part of ourselves we are so uncomfortable with we refuse to admit it even exists: all that  we have swept under the carpet so we can carry on with business as usual and not feel the pain and discomfort of inner conflict . When we allow ourselves to examine that Shadow and listen to our hearts (if we can hear our heart above the ego’s kicking-and-screaming , terror-filled resistance) we feel compelled to actually DO SOMETHING about it. (Change of this sort is not only inconvenient,  it requires imagination/creativity/vision, and that seems to be in short supply these days, but that’s another opera.) 

At any rate, Mark Boyle seems to have no shortage of imagination, creativity or courage. He has a blog about his life without cash. It’s fascinating and inspiring and can be found here:

http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog

Oh, and in parting, I can’t help but share this little tidbit from the aforementioned book by James Hollis, which sprang to mind after reading what Mark Boyle had to say about “most Western poverty being of the spiritual kind.”:

We got ready and showed our home
The visitor thought: You live well
The slum must be inside you.

(from a poem by the Swedish Poet Tomas Transtromer)

Wolves!!

It’s the coldest night of the year so far, the stars are bright, a shimmering of snow dusting the ground and I can hear WOLVES! It sounds like there are two of them, and not too far away, on the other side of  the marshes, maybe a bit higher up the mountain – it’s hard to tell where their slow, plaintive baying is coming from exactly.  But no doubt about it, wolves!  What a fabulous sound.

Had it not been for a conversation we had over breakfast this weekend with some neighbours, it might be a bit harder to believe my ears, but one of the women there, who happens to be a biologist and the local environmental protection officer, said that indeed there were wolves here this year and that she had seen them from her home, which sits at the edge of the ski trails/community pasture.  There are two of them at the moment, but there had been more over the summer; at least three had been shot already. Wherever ranchers have grazing rights, and that would be everywhere around here (it’s what’s known as open range, i.e., your job to fence their animals out, not their responsibility for keeping their livestock from rampaging and damaging your property), they have the right to cull wolves. According to our neighbour, the wolf cull for ”predator control”  is huge in BC but kept very quiet.

I hope these remaining wolves survive, but that’s probably unrealistic; this is the first time in our five years here I’ve heard wolves.

Though I’ve seen wolves here and there over the years, just a shaggy flash on a frozen lake in the middle of the day, or a glimpse on a snowy railway line, I’ve only heard them once before, further north when I was visiting a very isolated rural property in Northern BC near Oosta Lake. I remember lying there all alone (I was caretaking while the owner was away) listening to the howling wolves, knowing I was miles and miles from the nearest human; I’d never felt more at peace. What a magical night that was, and hearing these wolves here tonight brings it all back.

November Last Ditch Gardening Efforts

Something salubrious blew in from the south a few days ago and I had a chance to get out into the garden and clean up the disaster that had been frozen in still life when the cold weather arrived in October. There were hoses lying all over, trip hazards, but I couldn’t coil them up for storage when they were frozen; they would have cracked and split. I still had terra-cotta planters and pots on decks and picnic tables and had a chance to empty them and store them properly in the greenhouse so they don’t explode over winter. I once heard ice called “poor man’s dynamite,” which couldn’t be more true.

Unexpected summery weather in November allowed me to put the garden to bed. I didn't even have to wear gloves or a jacket!

I was also able to salvage the few root veggies (2 beets and one-half bag of carrots) that the voles hadn’t already helped themselves to . . . the last time I tried to dig some out the soil was like concrete and the brittle, frozen carrots shattered when I tried to pull them. The Norland potatoes were fine and I dug up a few bags of those, but the “gourmet” fingerling potatoes had turned to mush after freezing.

The ice broke up on the pond and I took one last careful look at the ice-free water that I will miss so much over the next 6 months.

ice-free, rippling water - who knows how long it will be until I see it again.

November darkness but NO ICE - I do not give into winter easily . . . An ice-free day at this time of year feels like winning a lottery

And I just enjoyed the warmth (16 degrees!) and rare November sunlight and how pretty everything looked in it.

Lichen - Caribou food

Marsh grasses

These spruce trees have risen like a carpet right down by the pond. Where there was only grass there is are now at least 1500 of them, though I stopped counting after a few hundred

One last warm and sunny hurrah before . . . well, wait for the next post

In The Tropics – The Amaryllis is Blooming

Outside, things are bleak – grey skies, dead leaves, everything lying limp and forlorn after freezing. Inside, it’s Hawaii. Forcing bulbs and growing flowering plants is one of my tactics for getting through winter:

We inherited this plant when friends of ours - you know who you are! - abandoned us and moved to Vancouver. We miss them, but love having this plant to cheer us up as winter begins.

 

The amaryllis blooms for almost two months from dreary November until bright, white snowy January

 

The Christmas cactus also goes a long way towards brightening up the winter. This too was a gift from an aunt and uncle who started the plant for me.

 

What's Christmas got to do with it though? This plant always starts blooming in October around Thanksgiving, and then just keeps on going until Easter.

 Then there’s the anthurium and the peace lily that add to the tropical oasis effect, but they bloom prolifically year round, and the cyclamen. One year, thanks to that same aunt and uncle mentioned above,  I may even have an orange on the orange tree they started for me from seed.

To Flu Shot or Not To Flu Shot???

I read this post by Keeper of Wild Places today. It looks like I’m not the only one who has been questioning whether or not to get a flu shot. I’ve never had one. Six years ago I got the flu because my husband gave a VERY sick girl (I call her Typhoid Mary)  a 45-minute ride back from the airport. He got it, I got it, and it was the sickest either of us had ever been. Pure misery. BUT the coworkers at my office who had had the flu shot got it too, and one of them got even sicker than I did – so what’s that about? Is this piggy flu shot a better bet because it is targeting one strain of the flu that they know is out there, is it more effective than other flu shots have been, which seem to have been needle-in-a haystack attempts to target these elusive multiplicitous viruses?

I certainly have more questions than answers. One thing I am very averse to is the amount of hysteria and pot-stirring (thank you sensationalist, irresponsible media) that has surrounded this H1N1 flu. Is the phobia as much an illness psychologically as the virus is physically?

I don’t trust the pharmaceutical industry to have public health/our interests at heart at all as there is too much money,  and thus opportunity for corruption, afoot.  BUT, I’m not one of those people who thinks vaccinations are bad and the root of all things from autism to god knows what. Vaccinations, it would seem,  have worked miracles and have done exponentially more good than harm.  I think not vaccinating against polio and the like is as much madness  as this plague phobia that has us in its grips. But I’ve never personally done much research into the harm or potential harm vaccines have done, so, again, what do I know?

I might get a flu shot. I might not. Normally I wouldn’t. I’m certainly not waiting in a line up for hours as surely standing around with a bunch of tired, hungry, cranky, frightened people who may be hosting the same virus we are trying to protect ourselves from . . . well, it just doesn’t seem like a good idea  from a risk management/germ theory perspective, does it?

At this point, I’m undecided.  I’m not sure why I’m so resistant. Part of me doesn’t want to be drawn into the frenzy and just doesn’t trust the vaccine all that much (in terms of efficacy). Another part of me says, it’s just a stupid little shot, what harm can it do . .. I’m not, by the way, the slightest bit afraid of needles.  At the moment I am tied: Gut instinct has 1 vote for not getting it; fear has 1 vote for getting it.  What are you doing?

Winter Closing In

Everything is starting to feel like winter, slushy snow on the ground from yesterday being melted by rain today. The skies turning the pink-purple-blue hues of winter already.  Ice forming everywhere. 

Every night I hear more howling in the woods. Tonight it is the coyotes adding to the pre-Halloween atmosphere and unnerving all the neighbourhood dogs.

On the trails at the x-country ski area where we walked on the weekend there was scat full of fur and bones a lot bigger than what I’m used to seeing when bobcats are around –  maybe cougars?  The scavengers and predators seem to capitalize on the darkness, the cold and the hardship of winter and you can feel them coming into their season.

This can be an eerie, doleful time of year as the darkness closes in and the cold drains away the warmth.

Sunrises come late at this time of year, after 7:00 a.m., and have a peculiar, dark richness to them

 

The ice slowly thickens as the light grows weaker

 

The icy pond - needless to say, no more happy honking ducks to bring their noisy cheer to our days

 

The tenebrous afternoon skies of late October

 

More ice, soon the dog and I will go skiing here instead of walking on the road

 

 

Making Yogurt

Since I started making my own yogurt a couple of my friends have asked me how it’s done, so here are the simple instructions. It isn’t daunting at all and if you eat much plain yogurt it will save you loads of money:

ONE - Get a yogurt maker. I got the Deni Yogurt Maker from Home Hardware because it was the only one I could find with glass jars. Wasn’t too keen on using plastic. Added bonus is it is one of the cheapest ones available.

TWO – Choose your favourite plain yogurt with live cultures and set aside 1/2 cup

THREE – Heat up a litre of milk in a double boiler or just in a saucepan, but if using a saucepan you have to keep stirring it and that’s kind of annoying. Heat it to 85 C/185F.

FOUR – Cool to 43-49 C/90-120F.

FIVE – Gently stir in the 1/2 cup of yogurt.

SIX – When well mixed, pour into the jars that come with yogurt maker, put jars in the gadget itself, set the timer on the gadget somewhere from 8-12 hours:  8 will give you runny yogurt, 12 firm, 10 what Goldilocks would consider to be just right.

DONE. Then you can keep making yogurt using the last 1/2 cup from each batch as starter for the next. 

Everything you need to make your own yogurt

I started making yogurt making after reading French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano.  I wasn’t worried about getting fat; I just couldn’t resist the title. It was a very entertaining book but I didn’t learn anything from it – apart from the yogurt making bit – that my mother hadn’t been telling me all my life (i.e., never restrict your diet, eat the widest variety of fresh, quality foods possible, don’t drive when you could walk, never turn down a good desert, and drink plenty of red wine). I ALWAYS listen to my mom, especially when it comes to food and wine, and so far so good.

I thought the author of the book presented great cases for NOT going to the gym, NOT taking vitamins and supplements and treating your body as a chemistry set, and NEVER skipping desert. This is what they DON’T do in France and it works like a charm. Compared to the rest of the Western World they are impressively healthy and don’t look anything like their famous Michelin man.  I know this to be true; I’ve lived there, I’ve eaten there . . . and may I live to eat there again! 

Madame Guiliano’s philosophy has nothing to do with calories or depriving ourselves of tasty things or taxing our bodies with cruel exercise (she does mention that most French women just don’t like to sweat. It’s icky and it ruins THE LOOK) but everything to do with feeling “bien dans sa peau” and I can’t help but agree that’s what it’s all about.