Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
In the Bookshed: Unlikely approaches
This is probably one of the most fun gardening books I’ve come across in a very long while – “a graphic guide to creating a fantastic yard totally tailored to you” which incorporates amusing drawings and humorous commentary alongside great advice for planning and landscaping your yard. Think of this as a gentle approach for the newbie who isn’t sure if they have it in them to create a great yard and garden – this book breaks it down with a casual approach rather than coming at you all serious-like. For the already-committed gardener, I’m not sure if this has a lot to offer – the information is pretty basic and tailored around having an outdoor space that you want to shape and create. What I do appreciate about it is the emphasis on understanding plants, shrubs and trees over the long-term and how those work to create different effects (not to mention how easy they are to move if you don’t like where you first put them). And did I mention it’s amusing? Definitely reads like a book for the unlikely gardener – which I have a lot of appreciation for, because at one time in my life I was also an unlikely gardener and a book like this would have gone a long way to inspiring me back then.
I own a lot of gardening books, and I get a fair number of them delivered to my doorstep for review – so I have to say that by now I’ve seen most variations of the encouraging food gardening book. But this one… well….. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a veggie gardening book focused on “speed” which is not an attribute we typically equate with gardening. In fact, as Diacono and Leendertz mention in the introduction – we tend to think of food and other gardening as part of the long view. But as the authors point out, there are plenty of things that are at their best when harvested not long after sowing – sprouts (being the obvious one), micro-greens, early squash with the blossoms still on them, flowers just out of the bud, baby carrots, new potatoes and early-fruiting varieties of tomatoes – just to name a few of the early-season foods you might think about when sowing your garden this year. Nicely photographed, the book includes sowing and harvesting advice for each recommended crop as well as recipes that feature these early spring foods – something that I look forward to trying out as my garden starts to pop (it’s just on the cusp of providing more than radishes right now). If you’re impatient to start eating from your garden in the spring, this book offers a remedy to the wait by encouraging micro-crops and early varieties to tide you over.
Not all or nothing – sometimes (physical) change is effortless and incremental
A few weeks ago I read a blog post titled “All or nothing thinking will always (eventually) get you nothing” which was about how that particular axiom relates so well to diet and exercise approaches. How we set ourselves up to quit from the very beginning when we demand only unbroken training streaks or obsessive adherence to the latest eating plan. Just this morning I found myself thinking that since I didn’t go to the gym yesterday and I couldn’t go today for my regular pilates workout, there was no point going for the rest of the week because I’d already lost two gym workouts. Which makes no sense, of course, if the overall goal is fitness. But if the overall goal is finding excuses, well then we’re all capable of waiting for another day to get started or re-started.
A bit before I read that article I saw a fitness instructor to get some postural advice. Since I’ve been walking a lot (6-12 km 4 days per week since the beginning of April and from March to April 6 km per day 3 days per week) I wanted to make sure I wasn’t compounding any posture or gait problems that might have been held over from breaking my ankle in 2002. For the most part it turns out that my posture is fine, but I have a weak core which causes my pelvis to tip forward. This was something I had already discovered in pilates classes. Another thing that my trainer pointed out to me is that I didn’t move my arms when I walked, which she told me might account for my very weak shoulders (my shoulder girdle never being activated for days at a time).
She gave me a bunch of exercises and we also focused on how to incorporate some better practices into walking on the treadmill (like swinging my arms – how novel!) At the time the exercises seemed very do-able when we discussed them, but because of lots of overtime and work stresses these days I am having a hard time getting to the gym. Instead, I am making sure I walk to work every single day and home 1-2 days per week because if that’s all I do alongside my regular running around I’ve gotten at least 8 km of walking into my day and that’s better than nothing.
Since that’s all I’ve been doing, plus pilates twice a week – I have focused on bringing the gym exercises into my walking. That is, I concentrate for bursts on swinging my arms, drawing my pelvis into a neutral position, drawing in my core, pulling my shoulders back and holding my chin level. And although that sounds all very simple, it does two things 1) intensifies my walking by a factor of five and 2) allows me to work on my core and other problem areas outside of the gym and during what has become a routine commute.
Guess what? It turns out that without doing anything else, after a month of this concentration, I have stronger shoulders (as evidenced by greater ability to do push-ups and planks without dying) and my pelvic adjustment into neutral (that is into proper posture) feels small and natural rather than large and difficult to hold. And I’ve noticed that overall I am more attentive to my core and that I am unconsciously making adjustments into better posture all the time.
Point being? These are changes that have taken more intention than effort, and even these incremental adjustments have lead to real fitness and health outcomes which I intend to build on.
Just this morning I found myself balking at taking the stairs at work because I knew I couldn’t make it up all 16 flights. Which is silly because even taking them two flights and then hopping the elevator is better than nothing right? So I took them four flights despite my critical voice, and hope that by next week it will be six, then eight, then fifteen – because I will work them incrementally into my routine.
If four days a week I walked 6 to 12 kilometres and focused on good posture and gait for at least some of that time, plus took the stairs up and down 15 flights once or twice a day – not to mention two pilates classes per week – I would imagine that over time I would get into pretty good shape. None of those things is particularly dramatic, but I’m confident that I can keep working my way up to good fitness by simply altering my small practices one movement at a time.
In the Bookshed: Recipes for Good Living
This book has been sitting on my kitchen counter over the winter months, tantalizing not only the fresh-ingredients cook in me, but also the gardener. A two-in-one book, the first half of Four Seasons is dedicated to growing, while the second half is comprised of 120 recipes incorporating foods from the home garden. Damrosch and Coleman manage to provide an excellent overview of all aspects of edible gardening (including garden layouts, soil advice, and food storage) with the inspiration to try out new veggie crops and cooking techniques in the recipe section. This book is beautifully adorned with full-colour photographs and drawings which invite the reader to imagine their own harvest-to-table experience. This book would make an excellent gift for a first-time gardener or homeowner looking to turn their back (or front) yard into an edible paradise.
I have to admit, I find it odd that I am so drawn to a book about flower arranging – this being a topic I haven’t ever given much thought to despite the fact I grow and cut flowers for my home and table all summer long. The Flower Recipe Book is easily one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen on the subject – the floral arrangements coupled with gorgeous photography invite even the most cynical reader (me!) to linger and draw in the useful and instructional advice the authors give in their “recipes”. With 100 arrangements that cover all floral seasons, Harampolis and Rizzo break information down into simple instructions, including plant facts and care, the various vessels used in their designs and where to find them, and step-by-step explanations of how to achieve various visual effects (not to mention how to get the most longevity out of the arrangements). Although I do not have all the different vessels at my disposal to make these arrangements, I find the structural information on each arrangement easy enough to improvise with — and I love the fact that many of the containers are simple found objects, or in some cases, easily knocked together from some scraps of wood then lined with a tupperware (that’s my interpretation, not theirs). Thrift store tins, mason jars, wine glasses and old gift baskets are all pressed into service in these designs – and as a flower-gardener I am looking forward to a summer yard that provides the raw material for building them. This is another beautiful gift for the flower-gardener or home-aesthete in your life — even a very cynical one.
These things also didn’t change last night……
Gah! Losing an election is so disheartening, frustrating, disempowering, depressing. No matter how you phrase it, I know a lot of sad people this morning and I too have been catastrophizing since the results were announced last night. But having lived through several governments who I did not vote for (in fact, my party has only ever won a single election where I was eligible to vote) I am also fully aware that this is not the end of anything, just the beginning of another round of struggle. While walking to work this morning I was thinking about exactly this, and exactly what did *not* change last night besides the ruling government:
- I still live in an awesome neighbourhood with great, compassionate people surrounding me. One way in which that manifests is the return of birdsong to our community, which has followed the return of food gardening, boulevard gardens and natural features to our urban neighbourhood. Another manifestation is the return of salmon to Still Creek last year, which followed on the cleaning up and restoration of the waterway by community volunteers. Still another thing I love about my walk to work is the railway overpass at Raymur, a bridge that only exists because mothers in the community banded together in the eighties to fight for it. Point being, Liberals or NDP, we make positive change by our actions and there are reminders of that everywhere.
- Poor people are still destitute, young people still feel disenfranchised, and there are still not enough options for low-income housing in this province. Sadly, the NDP made few promises for change on any of these fronts ($20 per month added to a welfare cheque is an insult not a promise) so it’s not like that was going to change either way.
- If I want social and environmental justice, I must be willing to take to the streets. No government *gives* us rights and benefits. No government willingly gives up privilege. We are still a population who needs to learn our collective interest and our collective power.
- My community still includes love and music and art and parties and great friends and funny nights of drinking and community gardening fun and rad parents and weird kids and so much of the stuff that live is *actually* about. Losing at the polls while winning at life is a balance I can handle.
Perhaps I am somewhat of a Pollyanna – but I want to say – cheer up! It’s not that bad! At least we’ll have some fun at the barricades, right? And that despite the government I love my life and the fact that I have found such purpose in it; win or lose the election.
Renewing spring.
For those of you who don’t live in Vancouver – know this – we’ve been having incredible (and unusual) weather for the past couple of weeks. Which somewhat explains my absence from here – that and the fact that work has been kicking my ass lately because I’m working on a big project. So big I even get overtime (which never happens).
The better weather has allowed me to double my walking to work, and I have started walking home from work some days as well. Between that and a few other gym workouts each week (pilates, body sculpt) all my aches and twinges have gone away. No more lower back pain especially.
And I am now 38 days wheat-free which has given me plenty of time to assess how that’s working – my sinus pain is so reduced that for the first time in two years I have stopped taking advil every day, I no longer have acrid mucus that burns my sinus passages, my hunger baseline is lower and my blood sugar feels more stable. I haven’t lost gobs of weight or anything, but between the cutting wheat and the increased exercise I feel a lot less puffy, and more streamlined.
So that’s pretty awesome. I’ve lost almost five pounds over the past five weeks, so I suppose that’s not a bad rate either. It’s just nothing mind-blowing.
Otherwise I have been gardening like a fiend and I think I am mostly underway for summer veggie gardening – not to mention getting prepped to do more work in the front of our house.
I’ve started a new crochet project also for the first time in ages – a pullover sweater that may not be needed until Fall but oh well, I had this beautiful bamboo-wool that I really wanted to work with:
I have also started an attempt at fitted summer capri pants which I hope to sew up over the next couple of nights. Since I’ve been walking *a lot* (sometimes as much as 12 km a day) I need more pants so it’s not skirts with leggings all summer long.
So yeah, life is basically rolling along – I’m pretty happy these days and working on lots of domestic things plus getting in shape! That’s where I want to be in spring – renewing!
Red Cedar 