The Early Bird Gets the Bird

This it the part of summer when we sleep like campers. The wonderful thing about a travel trailer is that it's a travel trailer! With a large window to either side of the bedroom, a five-foot wide window at the head of the bed and an operable skylight vent in the ceiling it's almost like sleeping outside.

It always cools off here in the evening, even when it's been a blistering 40 C (104 F) during the day. The breeze is fantastic. Nighttime temperatures drop into the 50s and it's heaven for sleeping.

But I have exceptionally acute hearing, and with all the windows open I hear everything, from the toenails of a dog walking past on the road, to the mice that gnawed on my vegies (last year) to what woke me at 5:00 am today.

It was daylight, though the sun was still an hour or more from coming over the horizon. Above, in the tree adjacent to our bedroom, the birds were flapping and screaming in terror. My first thought was that the neighbour's cat was up there bugging them, but it soon became apparent that our resident red-tailed hawks had brought their newly fledged youngsters over for breakfast.

I've seen the hawks flush game, and seen them terrorize small birds in trees, so it takes no stretch of the imagination to believe they may have herded the great number of smaller birds into this one tree. It was a teaching moment.

The youngsters sat in the mock cherry - two of them by the sounds of it, and whistled that wild cry of theirs. The blackbirds, warblers, orioles, finches and sparrows shrieked and clattered and screamed. The tree was full of the fluttering of wings. The parents circled over head, their whistles coming from higher, moving in a constant circle.

All the hawks had to do was dive bomb the tree and pick off the smaller birds that panicked and flew. The hawks are teaching their young to kill, so they must have been catching the small birds with a soft hand, not the usual (merciful) killing blow of a talon. You heard the small snared birds panicked squealing above all the others.

The young hawks' whistles grew excited, the small birds screamed as they were torn apart, the young hawks called and gobbled, as young birds do everywhere, as parent stuffs food down the yawning beaks.

As my neighbour says, "Nature is nature." Hawks have to eat too, and there are hundreds of small birds, but I doubt that was much consolation to the small birds as they became the young hawks' breakfast, nor was it to me, hearing their fear and pain.

After a ten minute frenzy the hawks rose and flew away. The trees, and the morning itself, grew quiet. I went back to sleep and dreamed of flying. The sun rose over the eastern ridge and touched the ripples on the lake. At the edge of the garden the birds chattered as they picked up the seed we'd thrown out for them at sunset. They are better Buddhists than I, they have already forgotten 5:00 am.

And the Answer is....

Yesterday's post ended with a question; "Does the Municipal District have a clue?" The question is how do they actually have a viable plan to reduce greenhouse gases to 33% of 2007 levels by 2020, and 80% of 2007 levels by 2050?

The answer is.... drrrrumrrrroll.... apparently not.

The very pleasant young lady at the door asked if we were willing to cut our energy usage 30% by 2020? I told her we'd already cut it, to about 12-15% of the average US energy usage.

She asked how we did it. I told her we'd moved into a 250 sq foot house. Her jaw dropped. Her next question was, 'Had we built that house?' I told her no, building code doesn't allow a dwelling that small, so to reduce our footprint we'd moved into an RV and retrofitted it with extra insulation and energy efficient appliances.

Her next question was, 'Building codes won't let you build a 250 sq ft house?' I told her no, not in BC (or most other jurisdictions for that matter). I went on to tell her about the Tiny Home movement, based on two premises, environmental consciousness and voluntary simplicity. And that it was a movement primarily fueled by young professionals, not by the un-housed, under-housed or the poverty-stricken.

I went on and walked around the room, looking at the posters. One excellent initiative suggested was to require that all new homes be built to seamlessly incorporate solar water heaters, should the home owners decide to add one. The additional cost at the time of construction would be about $800. That seemed like a positive step which was sensible and concrete, not wishful thinking that people will drive less in a rural community spread over a huge area, or that power usage will magically drop if we set a goal.

Two men came in. By this time I was at the far end of the room, sitting at table, filling in a form. I heard the young lady ask them, "Why can't you build a small house in BC?"

"There's no minimum size for homes in BC," one said. "Build as small as you like."

"250 sq ft?" she asked?

"Well, there are minimum sizes for the ROOMS!" he said incredulously, "a bedroom has to be 10 x 12 ... and there has to be another room of at least..." He had suddenly lost volume and I couldn't hear what he said. But I distinctly heard him say "Huts for the homeless." And then he laughed.

I completed my form, and came home. Once I'd calmed down I wrote a note to the pleasant young organizer, and sent her some links:

The Small House Society.

The so-called Pocket Neighbourhoods of small "jewel-box" homes which have quickly become not only ecological but community showpieces. 

And to the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and Jay Shafer's lovely little homes.

Is there no way to show town and city governments that increasing density by grouping several small energy-efficient homes on one or two lots is a viable option for improving the carbon footprint and creating richer environments where people can thrive? Or is it only the dollar that speaks any more?

Take a look at a video of Jay Shafer's 100 sq ft home.

The Little Brochure

Came in the mail. Summerland's Climate Action Project, Progress Report July 2010.

So I am readying myself to go the Open House, to see what they have in mind. Their goals are modest, a 33% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020, and an 80% reduction by 2050. I'll be pushing up daisies by then but with any luck I'll still be around in 10 years to see if they make their goal of 30%. Of course we need much more drastic cuts, but a start is a start.

Summerland has a problem, and I'm part of it. Walk down the street and the majority of the people you pass are 60, 70, 80. Walkers, wheelchairs and scooters are everywhere. It looks like a scooter parking lot in front of the most popular hang-out, the pharmacy! This town desperately needs to attract the young and the educated, and not just as to fill service industry jobs for the old and dying.

Second problem. Population density here is average 3.1 per hectare. A hectare has 2.39 acres in it for the Yanks among us. Even the BC municipal average is 7.1. Now some of this is because Summerland has the cone of an extinct volcano poking right up in the middle of town, taking up a lot of acreage, and part of it is because the municipality also includes a lot of agricultural property, orchards and vineyards, landscapers and tree nurseries etc. But less than half?

The point of this is that one end of "town" is miles from the other end. There's not enough population to make a bus system viable, and biking on most of the narrow, twisting roads leading into the town centre is suicidal, since they are constantly traversed by heavily-loaded logging trucks, which are the clear winner in any bike-truck confrontation.

Third problem: Water water everywhere - there's a 100 mile long lake out there - but n'er a drop to drink. We're on a boil water notice and will be until October.

The town's potable water comes from snow melt in the mountain valleys above us. Warmer winters, less snow, and the Okanagan already has 30% less rain and snow fall than fell in the 1950s. And the population booms, and everyone wants a great big green lawn and a great big water feature and a great big sprinkler going night and day all summer long.

What to do? Does the Municipal district have a clue? That's what I am going to find out this afternoon.

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ...

I inhaled as as I straightened up from pulling a weed last evening, and (too late) saw the small triangular moth as it disappeared into my mouth, and felt it as it fluttered down my windpipe. The song, "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly..." came to mind. Thankfully it was not a fly, and it was not swallowed, but I choked and spit and coughed up moth bits for an hour. My advise to you, dear reader, is - keep your mouth shut in the garden!

I have been preoccupied with that garden, which has fed the neighbourhood with chard and greens all spring. I need to go clear out the last feed of chard and allow the tomatoes a turn. But I have both flower and vegetable gardens. The flowers are going crazy, and the vegetables are flowering. The tomatoes are heavily laden with pea-sized tomatoes and hundreds of blossoms, the squash are putting on buds, the beans are lifting buds, the potatoes are blooming, and everywhere you look is abundance and sheer abandon.

But I haven't talked about the house in ages, and I should. Work on the wee abode creeps along at a snail's pace. I'd love to have everything I envision done in a massive week-long swoop, but at this rate five years, maybe ten, is a more realistic goal. sigh

The "Tiny House" crowd is generally dismissive of the RV as a dwelling, but with a bit of retrofitting they make comfortable and efficient housing for people who are happy in a small space. Our RV is cozy, if a bit chaotic. The structural changes are complete and what remains to do is largely cosmetic; painting, new flooring in the kitchen/entry, some resurfacing of new construction.

Unlike most "Tiny Homer's" we are retired, so our place functions as a full-time home. It's heated 24/7 in the winter and cooled appropriately in the summer. We prepare and eat our meals, shower, sleep and do our laundry here.

We have already talked at length about installing the washer/drier combo unit, and insulating, but more recently we built a platform for the drop-leaf desk we had shoved awkwardly into the living room corner. It's elevated by nine inches to clear the wheel well on the outside wall, thus creating some storage underneath, and allowing us to push the desk back against the back wall. Much better.

As you can see, the platform still needs finishing, the shelf to the left still needs a bit of finishing, the desk is in line for a repainting, and I could have tidied. I'm still thinking about window coverings. Venetian blinds are nice for controlling light, but these are old (metal) and somewhat the worse for wear. They conduct cold like crazy, so we'd like something a little more insulative. Any suggestions that don't involve yours truly sewing, which is definitely not my thing?

We replaced the broken down sofa with the eye-popping zebra patterned one, the only one I could find which would fit into the truncated space. But then I found the perfect wall unit to drop into place in the five inch space at the end, giving us room to display a couple of treasured mementos, and a bit of protection for my curio shelf filled with the collected miniatures from four generations of family members.

These are the things that say home to me, paintings we've hung, little gifts crafted by loving hands of mother, grandmother, husband, child. Touches that are priceless in any setting, small or large, humble or palatial.

Ian tore out the banquette bench seats and table, and built a shelving unit against the kitchen wall. Very handy. On the top shelf a few of the cups and saucers passed down from Tony's Grandmother, the teapot given to me by my late friend Audrey, tea caddy and flower bowls. On another shelf, the family altar. Below, storage for canned goods, pots and pans, crock pot. Oh the joy of not having to climb a ladder to get to these daily items!

The small table and chairs suit us much more than the difficult banquette ever did. We still need to change the flooring, but all in good time. Little by little it's taking on less of a "factory-installed" look and more of our personality.

Our KIVA Loan for July

Ahon Sa Hirap, Inc. is the oldest existing micro-credit organization in the Philippines. In the Native language of the Philippines Ahon Sa Hirap means “to rise above poverty.” With more than a third of the nation’s 90 million Filipinos living below the poverty line, ASHI was established with the vision of helping to alleviate poverty in the Philippines.

Dedicating to empowering women, ASHI lends only to women and specifically those in the lowest 50% of household income, so to the “poorest of the poor.” In addition to general business loans, ASHI also offers educational loans, house repair loans, savings funds, and social development programs for its members. ASHI is committed to translating its social mission into practice.

Evelyn Sandajan is 46 years old and lives in Hamtic, Antique, Philippines. She is a very humble woman who enjoys her life to the fullest despite her poverty.

When she became a mother, she was motivated to find a way to help support the family and educate the children so they could escape the poverty the family lives in. Her motivation has intensified and their eldest child is now in college, and the second has entered high school.

Through a field partnership with KIVA we joined with several other investors to lend Evelyn $400 which she will use to expand her business. She will repay the loan over time and we will reinvest the money as she repays it.

With determination to see her children graduate from college and improve their standard of living, Evelyn joined ASHI in 2003. The first loan she received was used to finance and grow a vegetable business. This kind of livelihood activity is the most common source of income of the many families in the village where Evelyn and her family live. Every day they go to different municipalities to market their products.

Evelyn works hard with her husband to bring home money to support the needs of their children. Given the opportunity to have larger amount of capital, Evelyn and her husband hope to make their business more stable and profitable. Through this, they will be able to educate their children until they are capable of living lives free from poverty.

Try to keep up...

I know, I know. It's madness. I'm as mute as a fish for weeks on end and then write three posts in two days. What can I say? The tide comes in, the tide goes out.

We caught another chapter in the never-ending story that is the BP Blowout on the news tonight, Gulf States July 4th tourist visits down by 80% as the beaches slowly disappear under a layer of sludge. Dying fish, corals, plankton, shellfish, birds, marine mammals, estuaries, marshes, reptiles... the Gulf is suffocating in a toxic stew of oil and methane gas.

British Petroleum shares have lost half their value on the stock market, their assets have plummeted as they struggle to contain and clean up their mess, and look forward to years of damage control and horrendous image problems.

You know what? Concern for the environment is not just felt by economically naive tree-huggers. Environmentally responsible policies are good for both the bottom line and the planet. BP might have spent a couple of million dollars more putting the wellhead in to begin with, but they wouldn't be in this mess now if they'd have done it.

As it is the impact of this disaster will probably be felt for the next 100 years. Birds species will make their way south this fall for the last time, never to return. Turtles which have paddled our oceans for millions of years will vanish forever. The next four generations will live with the consequences of BP's economic decision to make a penny more profit a barrel by not installing an emergency excluder valve which would shut the flow off should there be an explosion. The penny difference per barrel was important enough to them that they were willing to risk the health, safety and livelihood of every man, woman and child living along the Gulf coast and beyond.

This in itself reveals exactly why business cannot be left "unfettered", because corporations will always choose profit over the public good, and are indeed compelled to do so, for their only definition of "immorality" is to fail to return a profit to the stockholder. Corporations must be constrained by law from harming the environment and the public, because they are by nature self-serving. Like a two-year-old who will run into a busy street and cause a 10 car pileup, corporations need a parental government, to protect themselves, and others, from their own risky behaviour.

Companies need only look to BP's example to see that the corporation who places itself in a risky position to obtain profit may lose everything if a single thing goes wrong. BP may never recover from this. They may well go down in well-deserved flames before this is done with. Unfortunately it will take many an investor and family business with it, and a once productive and beautiful area of the USA may become a shadow of its former self.

Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find you cannot eat money
-- Cree Saying

Eat Local!

The flier for the annual Summerland Fall Fair arrived a few days ago and I was excited to see that this year their focus is on supporting the 100 mile diet.

Each year they have a spectacular dinner which is always sold out long before the date. This year the menu is made up of entirely locally grown foods. We live in a garden of plenty, yet we don't see much of the local bounty, as much of it is shipped to other markets, while we eat food brought in from Chile, New Zealand, Mexico and California.

It's time to change. Anthropologists can look at a 1000 year old skeleton and determine where that person lived. The minerals from the food they ate were incorporated into their very bones and teeth. When Natives said, "We are this land," they knew what they were talking about. But it was true of most people.

Local eating is becoming more than a "crank's" way of eating. More and more people are putting some thought into how they eat, and choosing to be Locavores.

I fell off the wagon and bought nectarines from California last week. I knew I shouldn't have but I was so hungry for some fresh fruit beyond the apple. What a disappointment. They were nectarines only in name. In the same way growing up in a citrus orchard spoiled me for eating oranges picked green and shipped 2,000 miles, eating nectarines picked fresh and ripe for the past three summers has spoiled me for eating sour nectarines with the texture of cheese. I'll buy no more until they are offered fresh from the tree here in my own backyard.

Pete's Greens: at the heart of the locavore movement from lovetomorrowtoday on Vimeo.

This is an interesting video. Local production of vegetables providing jobs and rescuing depressed economy. Who would have known that the family farm was the answer all along?

Do you hear what I hear?

The flowers in the garden are so thick and vigorous they are crawling over each other trying to escape the bed. Surrounded as we are by the astonishing wealth of nature, it's easy to become almost blind to it, but you really have to be deaf not to hear all that's going on around us.

Just now the neighbourhood pack of coyotes broke into one of their bloodcurdling choruses. I can't say it's a song I particularly like, unless I hear it from very very far away, and this was pretty close.

The last few nights I've been hearing the raspy "reeeeeekkkks" of a family of what sounds like three juvenile great horned owl chicks, begging for food. She brings the kids up and parks them in the trees while she hunts for the fat moths, and maybe the occasional bat, swarming under the streetlights on the street.

Three or four nights ago one of the owlets was parked on our next door neighbour's roof. Every so often the reeeek would turn into a gargling ruggleekruugreeeekkk as Mama Owl stuffed something into the demanding youngster's screaming and insatiable maw.

I heard the cries of a baby bird today and looked out the window to catch a flash of bright orange on the path in the garden. Closer inspection revealed that it was a male Bullock's Oriole feeding a very small chick which had managed to fall from the nest.

Knowing that a chick on the ground has absolutely no chance of surviving our resident mouser and bad cat (read opportunistic birder) I went out and caught the little oriole. It was the size of a small hen's egg, and while it could flap and glide, it could not yet fly. I put it as high as possible in the big willow, then thought, That was stupid! The cat will have it in a minute. I should have put it on a limb too small for the cat to climb on.

But it was too late. The chick was climbing up the bark and was well out of reach. I left it to its fate and came back to my housework. An hour later I went to find our Park Groundsman and who should come flying out of the tree and land at my feet but Baby Oriole. This time I was smarter. I carried him around and put him on a small branch which was inaccessible to the demon cat. It was sheltered by overhanging leaves high above. He held on and started calling his parents. ("He" could be a "her" for all I know, but I have to call it something and it just looked male to me.)

After two or three minutes of full-throttle screaming the Daddy Oriole appeared and shoved food down the gaping beak. Thirty seconds later Mother Oriole repeated the process. They must just have the one chick left because they fed it all afternoon except for a brief 20 minute break about 5:00 pm when I figure they must have collapsed in a heap and gobbled some dinner for themselves. Baby seems to have taken a nap, as he said not a word during that time.

All this time he was on the little branch but after dinner break the parents began a tag team effort to get him higher in the tree. One would bring food but lure the chick six or eight inches higher before feeding it. The other would stay at the chick's side flapping and encouraging the it to hop up. Once it was up the second parent would feed it.

In this way they had moved the chick into the higher branches before dark, to a place much less accessible to the cat. Now they just have to keep him warm for the night. I don't know if they have lost the nest, or if the chick left it too soon, and they were trying to lure it back. I hope they have a nest and can get it back in and all get a good night's rest. If anyone deserves it they certainly do.

The owls are reeeeeeking ever so often. They are closer than they've been all night. The crickets seem to have been sensible and gone to sleep. It's closing in on 3:00 am, and soon the dawn chorus will begin with a single trill. Time for an old insomniac to try once more for a few hours of sleep.

3 July Edit: Little Oriole survived a chilly night and is yelling his head off for food, which the parents are providing in 30 second shifts. I am ever so pleased. Ruth next door says it's okay to let a stranded baby bird die because, "It's nature." But I can't. I'm such a sucker. I'm the only person I know who rescues ants from the water in the sink. I take spiders and bugs outside, and even shoo flies out. Everything loves its own life. Even an ant.

4 July edit: 8:43 pm. Baby Oriole is still happily screaming for food, and still being stuffed by two obliging parents. He should be the size of a young turkey by now. Nature and nurture collide. I do hope he's not too fat to fly by the time he grows flight feathers. :)

Where were we again?

Yours truly, who cannot muster any enthusiasm for writing blog posts when she has no photographs to go with them, has finally figured out how to capture still photos from her video camera, and posts can resume.

We had a cold, windy, sodden spring which held on until the last minute of its official term of office, like a politician who has long worn out his mandate but cannot be coaxed, bribed or blackmailed into stepping down.

But, right on schedule, on the morning of the 21st, Summer arrived in all her shiny glory. Plants which have sulked and hung back through May and most of June have suddenly burst forth in wild and joyous exuberance.

Our friend Tony up the way, who has what must be the most spectacularly beautiful garden in the park, brought us a beautiful bouquet last Sunday. A melody of every bloom from his flower garden in the nearby orchard where he works, it is still gracing the counter. Though one or two of the roses are a petal shy of their original glory, the fragrance is heavenly.

All Sunday evening we kept wondering where the fragrance of ripe peaches was coming from, until we tracked it to the white roses in the bouquet. Who would have thought that a rose would carry with it the scent of a fresh peach?

In the vegetable garden we are covered up in rainbow chard, Asians greens, every kind of lettuce, and beet greens. Every other day I practically have to take a machete to the mint to keep it from enveloping every other plant in the garden. The neighbours are beginning to wince when they see me coming down the street laden with yet another bag of chard, bok choi, lettuce, beet greens or mint.

Next step is a market stall on the highway, maybe set up like a border crossing. "No M'am, we don't want to see your driver's license, we just want you to take this bag of bok choi and keep on driving."

For our potluck on Sunday I made bbq'd ribs and an enormous salad - a 16" wide bowlful - of baby chard, beet greens, half a dozen types of baby lettuce, mint leaves, Asian greens, bok choi flowerets, thyme flowers, and lavender flowers. I dressed this with the lightest drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and it was a great hit. It was the first time I'd ever seen people go back for seconds on salad.

But never mind, though we turn green from salad and/or greens at every meal, it's a bounty we long for all winter. Chard, bok choi and beet greens five minutes out of the garden are an impossible dream in the depths of winter. The "greens" at the grocers in January bear only a passing resemblance to what's bursting from my garden today. Gather ye chard-leaves while ye may.

KIVA Loan for June 2010

Our KIVA loan this month goes to this smiling group of women from Bougoula Ville, Mali. In this Group: Sali Bamba, Fatoumata Kone, Habi Ouattara, Aminata Traore, Macoura Traore, Chata Sangare, Mariam Coulibaly, Oumou Bagayoko, Rokiatou Djire and Sarata Coulibaly.

All the group's members are married, some in the traditional polygamous family structures common to this part of Africa. They have a median age of 34 and between them have 40 children.

This is their 11th loan with the microfinance institution Soro Yiriwaso, and all their previous loans have been paid in full. This ability to access capital to invest in their businesses is vitally important to business people everywhere, but even more so to women like these, who have no access to capital through the regular banking system which demands collateral and is only interested in large dollar loans. This is the reason microfinance is so important, especially to women in the Third World, who have little hope of improving their lives otherwise.

The women in the Benkadi Group each have their own business selling diverse articles like potatoes, soap, second-hand clothes, etc. Sali Bamba (a group member) sells potatoes and will use her loan to purchase 20 cases of potatoes at the large market of Médine in Sikasso. She will resell these potatoes at the local village market and from her home on a cash basis. Sali envisions making an average profit of the equivalent of $31.00 US monthly. A part of the profit will be used to support her family's needs and the other part will be invested back in her business.

Seriously Amissing

But then I get bored reading my own posts, so I expect everyone else must be absolutely stunned into unconsciousness by them!

But to list the last week or two's most exciting occurrences:

1) I added a new bird to my list - the yellow breasted chat. The book says this is a shy bird who is more often heard than seen. Apparently the one coming to gobble the seed I toss out morning and evening hasn't read the book. Or perhaps he is just the extrovert of the family.

One of the blackbird pairs is bringing their four or five noisy, begging youngsters to the seed pile. The kids follow the parents around with gaping beaks, shaking their wings and screaming like a banshee reunion. After poking seed down the kid's throats a time or two the parents start dealing out peckings and beatings instead of seed, and the kids get the message and begin to pick up their own food.

We have a pair of quail who come from across the road to eat seed. I get very tickled watching him trying to herd her back across the road if she hasn't yet eaten her fill. She runs a circle and ends up right back pecking seed while he dances and curses in frustration. (Women are not always easy to herd!) One morning I hadn't gotten out with the goodies yet and Mr. Quail marched up the walk and crowed his head off until I came out and served breakfast. Birds are very entertaining.

2) Our weather has been uncharacteristically cool and damp. Evening before last there was a double rainbow across the entire span of the sky. It went from the clay banks right across the lake to spill onto Naramata. I'm not sure I'd ever seen such a brilliant rainbow.

3) The garden is progressing at a satisfying pace. We've eaten a couple of salads out of the 4 x 4 behind us. That's the 4 x 4 where all the cherry-type tomatoes were planted last year and it is now chock full of two-inch high volunteer tomato plants. Although I have planted about two dozen tomato plants I cannot bear to pull these plucky little volunteers, so I'm not sure what will become of the chard, beets, leeks and onions I planted.

I'm going to pretend it's an experiment. If the volunteers do well I will seed my tomatoes directly in the garden this fall and let Mother Nature do the work next spring. To heck with greenhouses and trouble lights and packing flats in and out of the sun. It will be "Back to Nature" for me. I grew so many tomatoes I've been begging neighbours to take the extras and finally got desperate enough this afternoon to put the last 30 on Freecyle.

They are going like hotcakes, with people mailing to ask if they can pick up four or six. Yes, please. I'm tired of babysitting them and have no place to put them! I'm beginning to consider sneaking out in the dead of night to plant a tomato into each flower bed in the park.

And that is the extent of my exciting life. Practically comatose really. And loving every minute of it.

The Canary-Colored Dream House

I have watched rain advance steadily toward us, across the lake, over the fields and orchards, and as a peal of thunder rolls over us, the first drops splatter against the roof. The scent of ozone and raindrops arrives. The blackbirds eating seed outside scatter briefly as the shower becomes a downpour, but a very determined and obviously weather-proof quail continues to peck his fill.

As always, when I can't get outside to work I busy myself in other ways. For example I surf the "tiny homes" blogs and forums. I have an on-going fascination with very small houses, which explains the RV, but while practical, a travel trailer lacks the charm of a Jay Shafer Tumbleweed tiny house.

Sadly, even the larger Tumbleweed homes lack room for the amenities we depend on, like the washer/drier, the dishwasher, hot showers, a functional kitchen and a bed on the main floor. But like an overweight 15-year-old with braces who secretly hopes the captain of the football team will somehow fall madly in love with her, I still yearn for a tiny house with Victorian gingerbread and Dutch doors. We couldn't even live in one, but dreams are rarely practical. :)

My dream home is the wish of a child, a fantasy fueled by a favorite book. All through high school, as I read my way through Will and Ariel Durant's 11 volume Story of Civilization a little green book would reach off the shelf and pluck at my sleeve. I always pulled away, I was a serious student and The Wind in the Willows was obviously a children's book.

But on our weekend honeymoon Tony and I wandered into a book shop in Park Ridge Illinois and bought our first book together, that book that had silently called to me for so long, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. As we read it together we were caught in its spell. It was our book, the book I read to our boys as they lay nursing and as they grew. Never mind that it had no bright pictures, its pictures were painted with words.

As the book's characters Rat and Mole row out onto the river on a summer's evening you read:
 
"The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces -- meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognised again under it."

As usual my posts wander as aimlessly as a six-year-old on a summer morning, but I was talking about my dream house and it is in Wind in the Willows that we find it.

[Toad] led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a most mistrustful expression; and there, drawn out of the coach house into the open, they saw a gipsy caravan, shining with newness, painted a canary-yellow picked out with green, and red wheels.

    'There you are!' cried the Toad, straddling and expanding himself. 'There's real life for you, embodied in that little cart. ... Come inside and look at the arrangements. Planned 'em all myself, I did!'  ... It was indeed very compact and comfortable. Little sleeping bunks - a little table that folded up against the wall - a cooking-stove, lockers, bookshelves, a bird-cage with a bird in it; and pots, pans, jugs and kettles of every size and variety.

And so you see, in this rather long-winded and rambling fashion I have come around to saying my "tiny home longing" was not only forged by living in a small mobile home from the age of 10-18 but also by a Toad's salesmanship. The Dream Home is a Canary-colored cart.

New Birds on the Life List!

Okay, this might not be all that exciting to you, but this week two birds I'd never seen before landed in my garden.

The first was a male blackpoll warbler. He came and sat on the clear roof of the deck, giving me a close look at his delightful little self. The blackpoll winters in South America migrating north to Northern Canada or Alaska. It migrates farthest of all warblers.

We have several different warblers. They are tiny birds, very active. They remind me of bees as they flit around in the trees.

The other one I saw was a magnificent big boy. We'd been hearing him all day, without recognizing the bird, but I was delighted when I saw him. Larger by third than our Brewer's blackbirds, I had seen the Yellow Headed Blackbird in books, but never in the feather. He sat quite happily eating the seeds I put out for a good five minutes while we had a good long look at him.

A Special Mother's Day Gift!

Ian knows how to make his Modder happy. He sent her a KIVA gift certificate for Mother's Day. Never one to let money burn a hole in my pocket, I immediately lent it to the six women of the Demim Group, in the village of Kamalen Sirakoko, Mali.

Pictured are: Sali Kone, Awa Koita, Aïcha Kone, Djeneba Diakite, Mamou Diarra, Fanta Sylla.

The members of group Demin are married women with an average age of 35 years old and 4 children each. They are on their third loan, having repaid their previous loans. The members of the group sell different foods in the market, like smoked fish, ginger, fruits and vegetables. Their loan will enable them to buy in enough quantity to purchase their products at a wholesale price, enabling them to increase their profits.

Group member Sali Kone intends to buy 50 kg of smoked fish for resale with her part of the loan. She buys her supplies in the big market in Sikasso town, retails in the village market in Kamalen Sirakoro and also sells to women customers from her home.

She hopes to make a monthly profit of the equivalent of $50 USD which she will use to meet the needs of her family, add to her savings, and continue to invest in her business.

And, from a mother in Canada, the very best wishes to six mothers in Mali. May your lives be peaceful and full of joy.

KIVA Loan for May 2010

This month our KIVA loan goes to a group of six women living in Mali, Africa. This is loan number 11 for us, and we have now reached a point where the repayments coming back from each person we have lent to underwrites the entire new loan. KIVA loans enable even those of limited means to reach out and have a positive impact on the world. With a $25 dollar loan you can help lift a whole group of hard-working people out of poverty. Our $25 is not much, but when combined with $25 from 10 to 50 other people it makes a big difference to the mothers in Africa, enabling them to improve their family's diet, send their children to school, and provide them a more secure future.

The Women are: Dado Bouaré , Awa Traoré , Bah Traoré , Mariam Traoré, Tété Diallo and Oumou Coulibaly.

The Tientigui group is made up of six married women who live in monogamous families. They average 39 years of age and have an average of five children each. They all live in the Darsalam district of Ségou, Mali and met through neighbours and marriage.

The members of this group trade in fodder (food for livestock), tomatoes, children's clothing and calabashes (vines which can be dried out to be used as bottles or utensils). They work well together as a borrowing group, and this is their fourth group loan.

In the picture you see Mrs. Mariam Traoré holding one of her decorative calabashes. Mrs. Traoré buys and sells decorative articles, and is planning to use her loan to buy 200 calabashes. She gets her supply of calabashes in Tona and Konodimini.

She peels the calabashes and engraves them with small figures or designs, in the traditional method of her community. The finished calabashes are resold to order to newly married couples, and sometimes on a door-to-door basis to both men and women in the various neighborhoods. Mrs. Traoré hopes, along with the other members of the group, to make an average monthly profit equal to about $54.00 USD, part of which will be invested in their businesses, part will go for savings, and part of which will be used to repay their loan.

Those Yellow Pansies HAVE to Go!

When we last left our heroine she had just written a cheque to the neighbour down the street in exchange for his help with the garden.

The next morning she went out, and with some assistance from next door neighbour Art, turned a couple of bushels of compost into the 4 x 4 raised bed in back. Then, between downpours, she planted the following; red onion sets, red Holland onion seeds, early wonder beets, bok choi and rainbow chard.

Afterwards of course she realized that used her valuable sunny garden space for plants which would happily grow in part shade. Nothing like being organized.

Well, nothing will perk up a disgruntled gardener faster than a plant-buying expedition. I had a list. I wanted: foamflower, cranesbill "Blue Buxton", lamb's ears and perennial forget-me-nots. Three nurseries later I had ONE plant on my list. I managed to find and buy two nice oakleaf foamflowers (see photo), which are shade-tolerant and have been planted about 1/3rd of the way down the black tunnel that is the middle section of my garden.

The only cranesbills I found were a lurid pinky-purple. There were no forget-me-nots, and no lamb's ears. I comforted myself with perennial violas in both white and deep velvety purple, and some fabulous hen and chicks (I have a weakness there) and with a half dozen miniature rose bushes. I love the dainty flowers of the mini rose. I got two with white blossoms blushed with pink. These grow about on 12" tall. I got two peachy pink ones which get about 24" tall and two climbers, one deep pink and the other a spectacular red stripe on a pale pink background. Roses didn't thrive in Calgary. Here (or so I'm told) they grow like weeds. I've always wanted climbing roses.

I managed three or four dozen annuals, deep blue lobelias, a couple of dark (but not black) leaved begonias with gorgeous white camellia-like blossoms, alyssums and the usual suspects one covers the garden floor with early in the season while you are waiting for the more serious growth to begin.

Sadly it's turned even colder and wetter than before. Our high today was a grey, damp and very windy 11 C (51 F). The tomatoes, peppers and other teenies in the greenhouse are shivering, even with a lightbulb to keep them warm. They would very much like a sunny day or two, but we are promised nothing of the sort. When it should have been cold and raining it wasn't and now we are crossing our fingers that frost doesn't get the annuals we've already planted out.

Speaking of things planted out. I put pansies in the new flower bed as soon as I had soil in it. I sincerely regret it now. Every time I look out the window, that yellow pansy, with its 10 huge blossoms is like a needle in the eye. I had to go to town for groceries and to run errands today, but hopefully tomorrow it will be dry enough for me to go dig out that yellow pansy and a couple of its more lurid neigbours and move them somewhere else. The colour balance is all wrong. I even had nightmares about it last night. But such are the nightmares of spring. Yellow pansies in a bed of blue-green.

Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig the Whole Day Through

It's a backwards spring. While March was warm, April has been cool, even cold (it was snowing on the hills above us today!) But we finally got a bit of rain over the last two days, which we sorely needed. Hopefully it will rain again tonight, as we have had heavily overcast skies all day.

Finally realizing that there was no way I had the strength to get my garden beds ready myself I hired a kind and willing neighbour who spent little more than half an hour doing what would have taken me a week, and left me sick to boot. I forget what it is to have strength. Then I see someone almost effortlessly do a job in a fraction of the time it would have taken me. It's hard not to be envious.

Bill, the willing neighbour, turned over the soil in my two 4 x 4 raised beds and my three foot across kiddie pool planter, adding compost, peat moss and composted "moo poo" to each. He moved the kiddie pool into a more sunny position in the community garden. He dug out the compost bin and filled a large container with finished compost so I can get to it easily, and he dug in a bag of dry leaves and got the compost bin off to a good spring start.

He laid plywood between the top level of my garden tiers in the back, creating a shelf. He placed the large container that had been on the ground on the new "shelf" where the plants will get more sun and air.

From the garden beds he took soil to fill a dozen pots, loaded them into the wheelbarrow and brought them to the front, where they can be planted with a mix of flowers and vegies. This is my neighbour Randy's area, but he said he was happy to let me use it, as he had no plans to garden there.

And all this in about 30-40 minutes. I couldn't believe it. I can plant my cool weather crops now. I just have to decide where to plant everything.

Defining Bliss

Sun, warmth, a light breeze and blossoms everywhere! I look out through the transparent deck roof to watch the flower-laden branches of the mock cherry tree toss in the wind.

Out in the greenhouse I was delighted to see numerous wee tomato plants had emerged this morning. They were planted only five days ago; these guys can't wait to get growing!

Generous friends have contributed a few new plants for my garden. Cat brought a lovely bleeding heart and a package of blue flax seeds. Ruth brought several red begonias to plant in the shady area of the garden. The two hosta plants are sending up thick spears which will soon unfurl into huge heavily ribbed leaves.

And inside, the platform for the desk is built, and the desk is on it. Moving the desk from a diagonal placement to sitting against the wall makes a huge difference. There's also a space underneath the platform which will serve as useful storage. We still need to finish the platform, i.e. cover the surface of it with flooring, and put paneling on the end, so we don't see the raw wood structure.

And, on the fourth try we finally got that dad-blamed TV bracket installed in the corner, so the TV sits diagonally above the left end of the desk. Little by little it's beginning to look more like home. When the renovation is finished I'll do a video tour.

I'm hoping to spend the next few days out in the garden, readying the raised beds and containers, planting cool weather crops and generally soaking up the dirt.

And that in only a page or two, defines bliss.

We Could Always Just Lie on the Floor

We always have a project (or a dozen) on the list. If you remember the layout of the Beach House you'll know that a wheel well, about eight inches high and 15" wide projects into the corner of the living room by about a foot. There was a cabinet there when we bought the place, but it had a single eight inch wide door on the far end, so it was essentially a waste of space. An obliging friend ripped it out for us.

We have a drop-leaf desk with three drawers in the corner, but it has to sit at an awkward, space-hogging angle, because of the wheel well. The little TV hangs on the wall above the desk, but is also awkward to watch because of all the reflections.

So, two projects are at the top of our list at the moment:

1) Install a new TV bracket which will allow us to raise the TV and tilt it so it's easier to watch. Easy peesy.

2) Build a platform over the wheel well, eight inches high, 16" deep and 36" wide. Then the desk will sit on the platform, flat against the wall and we gain several inches of floor space. (Inches count in a space this small!)

We'll start with the TV. We bought the bracket in March, and found that articulating brackets aren't cheap. This one set us back $74.99 on sale! However it's rated for a 45 pound TV set, and ours only weighs 11 pounds, so it shouldn't fall off the wall, providing we can get it on the wall in the first place. The fellow said "Keep the packaging, you can bring it back for a week if it doesn't work."

Of course first thing I did was take it out of the package to see if it would fit the spot we have for it, and somehow the packaging crept out the door in the dark of the night. (I'm not sure how this happens. The stuff I need to throw away sticks to the place like three-day-old bubble gum. Stuff I want to keep evolves legs, tendrils, wings, or some other mode of transport and disappears in the middle of the night through a locked door!)

Anyway, no problem. The bracket's going to work. Look at how nice and smooth that silvery metal is. Cool and silky... Stuff that looks good works good - right? (This does not always apply to men - or to women for that matter.)

We'd not had the energy opportunity to install it since I bought it but today is a good day! So, after lunch we dug out the instructions and studied them - four sheets of very fine line drawings filled with small details, arrows pointing in all directions, and incomprehensible symbols. Then we hauled out three tool boxes, a drill, a power screwdriver, a stepladder, and our limited stores of strength and patience and went at it. We sweated and strained and (I have to say it) screwed that thing in the spot where we wanted it. Our arm muscles shook like jello as we held the TV up to shoulder level and bolted it to the bracket. Unfortunately all this accomplished was a TV that would hold only one position - face down screen aimed directly at the floor.

We scowled at each other, said a few choice words to the hardware, and sat down with the instructions again. What did we do wrong? Well, the thing swivels so the wall attachment should be able to go on vertically or horizontally. Our space dictated a horizontal placement, but maybe that wasn't okay. We tore it all off and started over.

Now, the only place to put it vertically is not big enough to hold the attachment, so we get a big chunk of cedar and attach it as reinforcement. Great. Much smoother install! (This is as ugly as a junkyard.)

We put the TV on the bracket. It now sticks two feet out into the room. Even worse the TV slowly sinks until it is (once more) facing the floor. We raise it, adjust the tension, as per instructions (we think, hard to tell). It sits upright for about ten seconds and slides back into a face down position. We are done. Our muscles will handle no more holding TV in the air, or fussing with three-inch long screws.

Achieving this bliss of television positioning Nirvana has taken two hours, a great deal of hard work and some language best not repeated here. If we want to watch it we will have to lie on the floor. Since there's not enough room for us side by side we may have to do a double-deck arrangement, which isn't as much fun at our age as it was when we were 25 and more supple (also more... oh, I won't say that. Our children read my blog.)

Tony has gone to have a nap. I am in my chair, muscles twitching like greyhounds waiting for the rabbit to shoot out of the gate.

However the next time someone says that TV doesn't provide exercise, mental stimulation or "quality time" for a couple I will suggest they try mounting one on a articulating bracket in an RV. Who knew that a $74.99 TV bracket could be a great alternative to a $5000 home gym?

!Por Fin!

Or for those of you who do not know two words of Spanish - "At last!"

Last week we laid out the new garden bed in front. Very simple really, just Holland pavers laid in a curved bed, and staggered brick style. No mortar, no real prep, other than pulling a flat spot out with the hoe. But that's as far as we'd gotten. Cold days and a bug sidetracked me all last week, but the weather has warmed and I feel better, so time to get to work. :)

Day before yesterday I dug out the gardening tools, plant trays, starting pots and greenhouse cover. All these were scrubbed and bleached to kill any lingering pathogens, and then left to dry overnight.

Yesterday morning I set up the table on the deck, went through my seeds and selected those I wanted to start in the greenhouse now. This means tomatoes, peppers, red onions and leeks. If I tell the truth I planted half a dozen pots of leeks, the same of onions and 30 pots of tomatoes.

I planted a mix of small "cherry" types, Mosaic Mix (three different colours), Gardener's Delight, Tumbler F1, and one I've never tried before, Chocolate Cherry.

Then for large tomatoes I planted Starfire which is always a reliable producer for me, Purple Prince a dark intensely-flavored medium-sized tomato, Red Brandywine a large, high-shouldered tomato which has a great flavour, and a mix of several colours of Brandywines, Zebra striped which is green striped, Yellow, Yellow and White. This bunch is an experiment, as I've never tried these colour variants before.

Then today we unloaded the bags of soil mix I bought last week and filled the new bed in front. I moved the Coral Bells Heuchera from the back, where it has sulked in a too-shady spot for two years. I planted the pansies and Autumn Joy Sedum I bought a few days ago, and dug up and replanted the cranesbill, catnip, heather, hen and chicks and mint that were growing in the bed before. I also had a silver and green foliage plant which I planted in one of my annual baskets last spring, and which has survived and thrived. So I popped it into the bed. It is a low-growing spreader, which should make a good ground cover for the slope coming off the new bed into the rest of the garden.

This basically means I am pooped, but I still took my new video camera and went out to film the whole thing. The Helleborus Niger Easter Rose is putting on an extravagant show with 24 blossoms! The grape hyacinths are just beginning to open.



You hear our neighbour Randy, who came out to chat while I was filming. And as I watched this afterward I remembered the phrase from Robbie Burns' poem, To a Louse; "O would some power the gift to give us, to see ourselves as others see us."

Apparently this is exactly what today's video camera allows. Having filmed only three or four short videos I realize I have a very annoying habit of whistling under my breath all the time. Okay, I listen to a lot of classical music and there's always a concert going on in my head. I can kick in on a bar of any of 100 different pieces and hear (and apparently whistle) it right through to the end. Dear dear. I know where I got this habit. My Dad whistled non-stop. I guess I am my Father's daughter. But I think I will try to keep the music in my head from now on. I'm sure friends and family will be thrilled. LOL