Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Fluttering.
Looking at my stats this morning, it appears that everything is going back to normal and the most popular posts remain my Facts about Ocean Phospheresence and the Recipe for Black/Salal Berry Jam – both of which continue to get comments even years after being posted. There’s something about that which really tickles me – the sexiness of posts about nature and wild food foraging 🙂
Yesterday I was on the way back from the dentist – on the skytrain from Commercial to Burrard – and somewhere around Stadium Station, a butterfly flew onto the train. At least I assume it was at Stadium, but I didn’t notice the butterfly until we were underground, just before Granville. It caught everyone’s attention then, because of the incogruity of it I suppose – this delicate outdoor creature flapping around inside a rushing steel tube buried beneath twenty feet of pavement. And of course, we all knew that it was going to die, which gives rise to all sorts of lovely musings about ephermality of life, etc. I could write a poem about that butterfly, so perfect was the visual subject, but really it’s probably best I don’t.
In any case, I was watching this guy watching the butterfly and he was also in some mesmerized place by it, and just as I was thinking “someone should try to free that butterfly”, he got up and tried to catch it. This was just after we left Granville Station – but the butterfly wasn’t having any of his interference. Just as we pulled into Burrard, I decided to have a go of it as well, but again – why would that insect trust me? Better to bang itself against the dark windows of the train than follow doom into the hands of a monster. Right before the train pulled away from Burrard, I realized I was going to miss my stop and hopped off, where the guy was watching me.
So we had a laugh together, and I told him I thought the butterfly was a goner, to which he said – but you never know what’s going to happen, it could fly off at the next stop (which is true, because at Waterfront the stop is above ground) – and as we got to the top of the station escalator I said have a good day and he responded as though – yes, in fact, he was going to have a *great* day. Which I’m sure he wasn’t before, but something about trying to save that butterfly and then talking about its fate with a total stranger made the whole being downtown prospect seem much better. At least I felt that way. And I felt the amazing possibility of connection, and that made me feel stronger than I had in days.
It was the randomness, of course. Because I live so much in the reality that randomly bad things can just happen, I forget that also randomly good things can happen. And they aren’t giant good things usually, they are small ones – like sharing a joke at a check-out counter, or having a little flirt at the farmer’s market, or just helping someone at the right moment so you know it matters. It’s so easy to ignore those little moments and focus on the bigger, badder ones – particularly as the ego is conditioned to complaint – but not only do they happen, we can create opportunities for them more often by simply staying open. That’s the hard part for me, because mostly in the city I close myself down for the sake of protection, and some days it’s all I can do to make eye contact at the deli counter. The butterfly gave me an excuse to come out of myself yesterday, as it did the guy sitting across from me, and who knows what ripples that will have?
Don't buy it: Plant-based plastic
I was just on the skytrain coming back to the office from the dentist and I noticed an ad on the train for Coca-Cola’s new packaging – made from 30% plant-based materials – and I’ve been stewing about it ever sense. This “biodegradable packaging” movement is nothing short of the worst form of greenwashing. In an era when we should cutting back , these companies are simply telling us it’s okay to keep consuming disposable (and in this case completely non-nutritional) junk, but we just have to change what we consume.
What’s the problem with plant-based plastic? First of all – the same energy-heavy processes used to make all packaging products are used to make corn-plastic products – if not more. According to the researchers at the link above, some approaches to making bio-plastic consume even more fossil resources than most petrochemical manufacturing routes. That means plant-based platics are contributing the climate change even more than petrochemical based plastics are. (I do recognize that some companies claim that their manufactured “green plastic” bottles are carbon neutral – but it’s just not possible folks. There is no carbon neutrality when it comes to large-scale manufacturing).
Secondly, according to Bill McKibben in Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Thirdly, there is nothing ecological about a company like “Green Planet Bottling” who suggests that bottled water is even a remotely environmental choice.
Honestly, in this era of rapid climate destabilization, the last thing we need is more consumer junk packaged as “earth-friendly”. When are we going to get it? The only way to cut our impact is to cut our consumption. Don’t let those corporations greenwash you!
Onto better things.
Strawberry Amaretto Jam. Summer Squash Pickles. Between the farmers market and my garden I’ve got some canning to do before we go away next week – and that’s got me ridiculously excited. Particularly in respect of the new shelves I’ve built in the basement for just such a purpose – we ran short of space in our cupboards last year by early fall which put a bit of a damper on canning. Over at Among the Weeds, I’ve written recently about food storage, including a book review – so I won’t go on about it much further here….
I am feeling really not on it this year because of our marriage festivities in the fall – but next year I would like to book the kitchen at Kiwassa and do some group canning – particularly since I know so many people are in. We could chip in for gas to go to the valley or the interior on fruit/veggie buying trip and then book a few kitchen sessions together? It would bring the price down of everything – the trip and the bulk buy. Plus I could probably order a case of pectin somewhere much cheaper than you get it at Safeway if we had enough interested folks.
Speaking of which, I’ve got a line on some 1 litre jars which I am picking up on Saturday for $5 per dozen. I believe the woman has several dozen for sale, so if you would like me to pick you up some, please let me know because I’m going over to West Vancouver for em. I don’t know if they come with jar rings – I’m guessing not – but the jars with lids new go for $20 + tax per dozen. For $5 plus $6 worth of lids you’re still getting them at half price.
In any case, I’m going to try and get some of that done this weekend before off to the Cathedral Lakes and Keremeos fruit buying next week. Hopefully by the time I get back, some of my tomatoes are ripening and ready for drying. It’s just a busy time of year, but for all the right reasons!
A pause, in between.
This is the view to the right of my garden bench at the moment: safflower at the end of its bloom (which I pulled off for eating), a late sprouting broccoli and a tree of kale. No kidding, it’s got a trunk at least 2 inches in diameter now! I think it’s probably time for some serious harvesting and green-drying. Or, I could use my friend Kyla’s trick of turning all greens into pesto for freezing. Handful of greens, some garlic and oil and basil (or mint) and you’ve got instant nutrition by the spoonful in any soup or stew or pasta sauce.
I have three kale plants in the garden this year though (never mind the swiss chard), so I probably have enough to dry and to pulp into pesto.
My garden is in a weird in-between stage at the moment: My greens have all bolted and the new greens aren’t quite producing yet. My beans aren’t quite done, but I think I’ve only got one more crop coming from them. And although I ate beets and carrots early in the season, my late-summer and fall crops aren’t ready to pull yet. I’ve got cherry tomatoes, but the regular ones are just starting to ripen. My cukes are coming but I’m giving them more time before digging in. Until I learn proper succession sowing – I’m just lucky that we’ve got a great Farmer’s Market on the way home from work!
At the same time, it’s all beautiful out there, with things growing and bolting (I’m working on my seed saving this year) and being all crazy with promises for the later summer and fall. Not to mention the summer flowers emerging: acidanthera a few weeks ago, now my rose-of-sharon, the cosmos, the nigella and cornflower. Plus, it’s a very low-maintenance time: with the exception of sowing for later crops, and watering, I haven’t done much out there in the last couple of weeks.
Late August and autumn do promise another glorious round of radishes, peas, greens, beets, carrots, cukes, tomatoes and my dried beans – not to mention more Kale and Chart, and even turnips (which I planted on a whim two days ago). It’s really nice to pause in the middle and just soak it in, before the grey days of late fall turn it back into greens and mud again.
The Tories hate me (and you too!)
Oh, the wheels of justice certainly do turn slowly. Over a year ago (May 1st), my union filed a charter challenge against the omnibus budget bill passed in the wake of the 1st prorogation of parliament (Bill C-10). Not only did that bill pass a budget, but it imposed wage controls on the federal service, and fit in a number of other regressive measures. One of those was the removal of the right to pay equity for the federal public sector. Of course, we filed a challenge to that (on the grounds that it violates basic Charter rights) and today I’m finally getting down to the signing of my affadavit in the case (I’m a named affiant). Background can be found in my post Charter Rights and Me.
Reading over the materials I am signing, I am once again reminded of how great an injustice this act was and how few federal politicians from any of the opposition groups got up and spoke against it. In essence, federal government workers are now the only people who don’t have the right to equal pay, and not only that, they don’t even have the basic right to consult with their union on such matters (the union can be fined up to $50,000 for even giving advice to a member on the merits of a pay equity complaint).
As I said in April of 2009, if these attacks on women workers are allowed to stand in one arena (federal) who’s to say that other governments (municipal/provincial) won’t try the same? And who’s to say the union won’t be restricted on other matters through legislation. What if the government decides tomorrow the union can’t counsel its members on harassment complaints? Discrimination? Health and Safety? Affirmative Action? These would all require legislation to change, but without any effective opposition, the Tories could just steam right along and remove everything that’s been gained over the past forty years of federal unionization. Sadly, the effects of such things wouldn’t even be fully realized until the next generation of workers came along, and all the old folks who had enjoyed these rights were retired. What kind of workplaces would we see then?
Recent assertions by the federal government in the affirmative action debacle are that we don’t need to worry about equal opportunities in federal workplaces anymore because 54% of positions are filled by women. What they failed to acknowledge in all their blustering is that women in the federal government tend to be clustered in the lower-waged categories. Clerical and administrative staff mainly, and most of those positions at the low end. If you bring visible minorities, aboriginal, or differently-abled people into the equation, the numbers (if you could get them out of the government) would be even more shocking. As a union steward, I see that within the system where women are already paid less, there seem to be frequent attempts to downgrade the classification of women’s positions where male-dominated categories are continually upgraded in pay. So even without the structural removal of pay equity, employers within the federal context already recognize that the quickest way to the bottomline is to attack women, visible minorities and other “lesser-thans” in the workplace.
Which is shocking, really, in 2010. And given that in the context of the federal government – clerical and administrative work is the backbone of the programs delivered.
But I suppose it shouldn’t be when we look at all the other attacks the Tories have launched on women since they came to power: the removal of funding the women’s programs and organizations, not to mention the court challenges funding. The refusal to support women’s health initiatives abroad which include abortion access as an option. The refrain, spoken outloud by one impolitic senator that women’s groups should just “Shut the fuck up”. After all our foremothers fought for, it’s distressing, to say the least.
But the fight, it obviously isn’t over, and we’ve got challenges to file in court and struggles to march for in the street. Reading my affadavit again today I realize – I’m ready. Are you?
Red Cedar 