Cultivating Our Roots

My Mom has published a beautiful book:



She wrote it from the perspective of a retiring seed grower, which means it can give the impression of a technical manual for a very narrow audience, but don't be fooled. I say, if you live in my ecoregion, you need to see this book.

Even if you will never grow anything, you might want to get acquainted with these plants. Consider this: they're your neighbours. They were here before you were, and likely will be long after. They might all look like "just grass" to you, but once you take a closer look, you may be astounded at the diversity in a tiny patch of unbroken prairie.

But here's the tricky part. Have you ever looked at a grassland in early June or late August and tried to find pictures in a field guide to match what you are seeing on the ground? Good luck. If you or anyone you know wants to learn to recognize some of the most common grasses and wildflowers of the mixed-grass prairies in the northern plains of North America, I say: start with this book. There are excellent photographs of multiple life stages of each plant, so you stand a good chance of recognizing your leafy new friend throughout the growing season - even when it's not so leafy. You won't have to wade through pages of obscure plants that you will never see, because there are only 62 wildflowers and 22 grasses included - only the most common species plus a few uniquely interesting species like buffalograss (rare in our region but common farther south in the short-grass prairie). As you learn the plants, you can also learn to recognize similarities among species in the same plant family, since the book is organized by families and includes identifying characteristics for each. That way, when you meet a plant that isn't introduced in the book, you may well be able to say, "You look familiar - aren't you related to..." and all of a sudden you will have a nodding acquaintance with hundreds of species.

And of course, if you want to actually grow these plants, whether as a seed business or just as a minimal-input alternative to a thirsty hungry lawn, you could benefit from the tips on planning and preparing a site, the illustrations to show you how your plants will look (even as seedlings so you can tell what not to weed out of your plot), the germination information, and tips and pictures to help you collect your own seed to get started.

I used to do inventories of the plant life on proposed oil and gas well sites. I worked with numerous floras and field guides, and through struggle and persistence, reached a point where I can look at most common prairie plants and just know them, no matter how small or shrivelled. But when I first started, and even in recent years when I was working very early in the growing season, I wish I had had this book.

Oh and did I mention that it's beautiful? People here were buying copies as Mother's Day gifts, just for the pictures of the their mothers' favourite flowers.

Yes, I'm proud of my Mom.

Was that Only Last Summer?

I've been promising pictures of the sunroom building project for several moons now. Tonight, on the full moon just after the winter solstice, many are gathered under old family roofs, but I stay on alone under my own roof. I am waiting until my church duties are completed before I too gather to the chosen family roof of this fast-passing year, and meanwhile, I am enjoying some quiet and tidying up some loose ends. Thanks to a nudge from Jim, I got browsing through pictures from the days when the newest part of our roof was only an idea awaiting a foundation.

It feels like these must have been taken more than just moons ago - feels more like several turns around the sun ago.

It was June 23rd. Garth and James were off in Calgary, having gathered with family by chartered coach to help celebrate his aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. I woke to the siren of the town fire truck, cheerily summoning the folk to the pancake breakfast. It was Fair Day in Arcola.

I burrowed back into my pillow, but something nagged at me. I tried to deny it, to pretend it could be something other than what I knew it must be, but finally I sprang from the bed with the mental admission that I was hearing thunder. Fair Day, indeed.

There was a huge round tarp in the garage, left by my Dad in case of just this circumstance. I dragged a rickety wooden ladder from behind the garage and propped it against the eave of the house where the porch used to be, forming a ridge pole for a makeshift tent over the exposed basement stairs. Then I looked at the partly rotted ladder rails, considered trusting them for a climb, but decided a sturdier second ladder was in order.

As I placed it, the thunder was getting louder, and I could see that the black cloud to the southwest was right on track for a direct hit.

Hammer, spikes, and tarp edges in hand, I started the climb.

The higher I climbed, the more weight of the tarp came up off the ground and into reaction against my effort.

Raindrops started slicking the aluminum ladder rungs. Lightning flashed closer.

I pounded on the wall and yelled at my sleeping daughter to come help. With the hammer and nails out of my hands, and both of us tugging, the tarp finally relented and rose the last few feet I needed. I spiked the top in place under the eave, added some spikes lower on the wall to hold the tarp out to the sides, weighted down the bottom edges with concrete blocks borrowed from the nearby fire pit, and retreated inside.

Then I looked out to see how the tarp was doing, and saw all the water from the garage roof pouring, not into the rain barrel that used to sit behind the garage, but instead into the gravel-filled base we had excavated for a new concrete slab there.


It's amazing what functional structures a person can concoct under pressure. That's a sawhorse supporting a piece of plywood, with various bits of recently removed eavestrough and downspout and connectors balanced and wedged until they conducted the bulk of the water away from the slab base... and into the hole where the chokecherry bush (seen lying in the background) had been removed to make way for the coming concrete truck. I bailed that hole out later. More than once.

The garden sure needed the rain. My kitchen floor didn't. (Well, maybe it did.) The porch removal had inadvertently pulled the eavestrough slightly out of position, not enough so you would notice and remember to fix it on a sunny day, but enough so that the roof runoff from a thunderstorm came sheeting down over the kitchen doorway.

Looking out and down from my kitchen doorway, June 23rd.
The black tarp covers the basement stairs.

If there was any south wind with a storm, the water came sheeting into the doorway, and pushing in under the rubber sweep I had added to the bottom of the door, which was only an interior door after all, and was never intended for keeping out such elements. More than once a hapless family member shuffled into the kitchen during or after such a weather event and found the river with their feet. It crossed the whole kitchen and disappeared under the electric stove, but nothing electrifying happened. We tried to remember to keep some rags tucked up against the door when weather threatened, but that was about as successful as our remembering to fix the eavestrough. It did get done, several storms later.

The tarp did remarkably well at keeping the basement dry. Everyone wondered, though, why I had chosen to drag two tarp edges up the ladder, line up the grommets, and spike both edges in place, instead of unfolding the tarp and leaving more of it on the ground. Everyone wondered, including me. I guess I just had it in my head that a half-moon-shaped tarp would be perfect for the job, and didn't realize that a circle would do just as well, with the other half of the moon spread on the ground. Hey, I was about to climb an aluminum ladder in a thunderstorm. I was actively setting aside my intelligence for a while.

It worked, and I got back inside, safe and soggy. I dried myself off and got into my marching band uniform. By the time Ruth and I were on our way to the parade marshalling grounds, maybe six blocks away at the south end of Main Street, the storm was a distant bank of fluffy white in the east, and the sun was softening the pavement. We survived the march to the fairgrounds in our bright blue polyester jackets and felt-look western-style hats, as we always do. This time someone had arranged to have water waiting for us!

Ah, water. We do need it.

And the garage slab base was none the worse for waterlogging. As my Mom said, it's a good thing concrete likes water.



To be continued...

Seen on our street

Frost and Drought

I may have lost some tomato plants last night, even though I had them covered. No big problem - I knew it was a gamble, and I went ahead and set some out because I had lots of extra transplants to keep as replacements. But it got me thinking about last frost dates.

We had some very early warmth this spring. Farmers were out seeding in late April, and I would say that's about a month ahead of the traditional seeding time for this area. The ground dried out, and I got worried about drought. Then it started to rain, and I don't trust my cracked gauge, but Mom says they have had 5 inches in the hills since May 9th, while the average for the whole month is only 2. But before all that happened, at the end of April, I was gardening with drought in mind. I refused Garth's offer of rototilling and in fact refrained from digging the beds at all, to conserve moisture. As I started planting early vegetables, I went to fetch water from the ditch near our yard and found that it was already dry. I took my bike and trailer and hauled a tub of water from a vernal pool over on the east side of the 604. I was worried, but full of hopes that my earliest-ever garden planting might help get plants well established before a summer drought hit hard.

Last year I talked to many people in this area who said the crops turned out better than they expected, considering how dry it was in the latter part of the summer. One farmer friend agreed with my speculation that the early spring and early planting had allowed the crops to get a better root system established, so they weathered the drought better than in former years.

But as my tomatoes show, early planting is a gamble. I don't know much about frost tolerance of the common field crops in this area, but I know there are times when fields have to be reseeded because an early crop was killed by frost. As our springs get warmer, and droughts become more frequent (as predicted due to climate change), farmers may try to adapt by planting earlier. But what about frost? How are the last frost dates changing?

I pulled out my CD of climate data for Western Canada and checked what was available for our area. Carlyle had max/min temperature data from 1922 to 1996 (with one year missing, 1962). I plotted last spring dates with temperatures less than or equal to 0ºC.

Now, where is my old statistics text book? I vaguely remember a lot of cautions about interpretation and testing where time series are concerned, but to me this graph seems to confirm my suspicion that last spring frost dates have not simply moved earlier. They have become more variable, with earlier dates contributing almost all the new variation, but late dates still occurring frequently.

What does that mean for adaptation? In my garden, I can plant things in succession, I can hold back extra transplants as replacements, and so on. But in a farm operation with thousands of acres under cultivation, what is to be done? Can farmers absorb the costs of having to reseed fields one year in six, say, or one year in four? Can they choose their planting dates strategically and be prepared for reseeding operations, or do they have to get it all in as quickly as possible and get back to their off-farm jobs? I wonder.

I also wonder about spring weather patterns in terms of soil temperatures and growing degree days and the overall shape of the warming. My second planting of peas has not appeared yet, and I think it's been ten days. Did the recent cold and cloudy spell chill the soil and rot the seed? How does this spring compare to the springs we used to get? Was a steady warming more the norm? I will have to ponder how to analyse my climate data for that.

UPDATE: Oh, yeah, and speaking of adaptation, I forgot to mention that whole area of adaptation that most people never think about, where there will definitely be problems: adaptation by every other species except human beings and their little collection of manipulated plants and animals. Are we already seeing the effects? What about that die-off of poplar in the hills in the '80s? The experts blame insects, but the locals say it was a combination of drought stress and a late frost. What about the decline in bees across North America? Insects can adapt fairly quickly because of their short generation time, but pollinators are closely co-evolved with plants, and some plants take a long time to reproduce. These changes are happening incredibly rapidly when compared to previous evolutionary history. Can genetic adaptation keep up?

Arcola Homes, New and Old

Remember that backwards house I talked about last fall? Here's an updated view of the dark-side bay windows.

Across the street from this sadly ill-placed recycled house, there is a brand new one with a fair-sized window facing south. It even has a good long overhang on that window, to keep it cooler when the summer sun is high.

Even so, it still has a lot of glass facing north. Sigh.

Now here's a new Arcola house with some serious southern exposure! I am truly impressed. Although I have to ask, why so little overhang on the upper level windows?

And why so much house? If I'm not mistaken, there will be a grand total of two people living in it.

I wonder how many people used to live in this one?

Log house at Arcola Museum

Lake Arcola 2007

Lake Arcola near the peak of spring runoff, March 27, 2007

After all the excitement about the snow this year, the runoff was a bit of a disappointment. I was not too surprised. I had been murmuring all winter that it really wasn't that much snow; the ditches were full, but a good deal of that snow had blown off the fields way back in November, and the snowfall for the rest of the winter was nothing spectacular. On top of that (or rather, underneath), the soil was very dry, so most of the melt water just sank straight down.

Lake Arcola put in a modest appearance, less than 2005 but higher than last year. I wonder if it would have been higher, had they not plowed out the drainage ditches before the thaw. I don't recall them doing that other years.

The Bin at the Back of Beyond

While I was thigh-deep in those snowbanks, it occurred to me that I could try vermicomposting.

I recovered my senses during the trudge back out.

What's a Bonspiel?

I've been thinking it's time for a curling update, and Tim's question in the comments confirmed that. Bonspiel: a curling tournament. Tim made some shrewd guesses:

• A good time? Definitely.
• A good spin? As long as you put the correct turn on the rock as you release it.
• Perchance does it involve a lot of alcool? Frequently. This may interfere with correct turns on rocks.
  

I have heard that "bonspiel" is German for "good game," which is the phrase we curlers always say to one another as we shake hands with the opposing team before and after each game.

This year we have a three-generation family team in the mixed league here in town. The third-generation player is usually James, but sometimes Ruth takes a turn if she's not doing homework or babysitting. We also played in the Boxing Day Fun-spiel, and made it into the B final.

Recent curling news: just over a week ago, in our regular Tuesday night game, Dad (the skip) told me (the third) what shot he wanted, and then took off down the ice at a jog. About halfway down he was suddenly over backwards. I saw his head rebound about five or six inches off the ice surface, and the bang was so loud it brought all the curlers from all three sheets hurrying over and crowding around him. Jason was close, and steadied him as he tried to get up, then eased back down again, with several curlers' gloves quickly tossed onto the ice to cushion his head. In a few seconds he did get up, with helping arms all around. Jason, kneeling in front of him, held up a wide-spread hand and said, "How many fingers?"

Dad paused, grinned, and said firmly, "Four!"

"Well that's normal!" Jason grinned back, as relieved laughter rippled around.

We think the gripper must have come off his sliding shoe, giving him a banana-peel landing for his next jogging step. After retrieving the treacherous gripper, Dad went more slowly the rest of the way down to the hack, and I went back to the rings and tried to remember where he wanted the broom. He missed it badly anyway. His final shot for that end was better, but in the next end he confessed he was feeling woozy and had better go home. He had quite a headache for a couple of days, but the HealthLine nurse gave Mom lots of symptoms to watch for and nothing else appeared.

This Wednesday we were curling again, and we got clobbered. Dad joked that he has a good excuse now, but I think the rest of us needed excuses more than he did. Whenever the other team had last rock, they got three points; whenever we had last rock, we got one. In other words, we were generally outshot, but Dad kept salvaging ends by drawing to the button.

(If all this sounds like I'm mixing in snatches of some other language, you might want to watch the Canadian Curling Association's Flash animation about the sport of curling.)

One more thing: watching curling in Arcola just got better. There are cameras and monitors installed now so that you can sit in the lobby and have a top-down view of the rings at the far end of the ice. Come on out and have a look - maybe watch part of the Ladies' Bonspiel this weekend.

Some people figure that curling must be boring to watch, since there are so few spectators at the games, but I have a different theory: most people who come and watch are soon out on the ice themselves!

We Have a Blizzard

This fanciful image appeared in the Environment Canada weather forecast summary this evening, to symbolize a blizzard. To me it suggests something more like pixie dust. Anyway, the forecast is for a low of -25ºC with winds of 40 km/h gusting to 60, producing a windchill of -35ºC. We're not quite there yet. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, but the snow is ending sometime overnight, and that will end the blizzard. There is actually very little snow with this system - a "dusting," they said in the blizzard warning - but it's certainly blowing around. If there was more snowfall, it might not be so cold. This is one of those unusual bits of weather when it's cold but not calm, snowing but not warm. (Well, warm is a relative term, don't you know?)

Garth expected to be on the road tonight, but his meeting was cancelled, so I trust that he is safe in Moosomin where he has been working this week. His brother Brian, on the other hand, drove to Weyburn for a bonspiel.

******

UPDATE - well, that was brief; right after I posted this, I looked again at the forecast and the blizzard warning was ended. I guess we didn't get the four hours of sustained low visibility and cold windchill required to make it an official blizzard.

"Mountain Hills to Prairie Flats"

...is the subtitle of the history book for our area: Arcola/Kisbey Golden Heritage. I know, some folks don't think they even count as hills, let alone "mountain hills," but it all depends on your point of view.

Check out the pictures on the website. Even if you're not planning on submitting an item, take a look at the submission guidelines page. If I'm not mistaken, that picture was taken a couple of years ago, around the same time that I was running from door to door telling people to look out at the sky. Ever heard of a zenith arc?

Best Snowmobile Rally Yet

Prairie Place Hall was packed when I left around 4 p.m. More tables were being squeezed in for riders coming in off the trail. I heard that there were 500 riders registered - the largest turnout yet. Grace told me the snow was good and deep, even out on the fields where some has blown off, and the sloughs have nice deep powder. All in all, the Arcola Optimists' Snowmobile Rally looked like a great success compared to last year.

I was at the hall to clear tables on behalf of the Girl Guides (since my daughter is a Pathfinder). We parents donate our time clearing tables, and the Girl Guide organization gets bags and bags of empty beer cans to turn in for the refund money. It's their biggest fundraiser, and it also looks good for the Girl Guides to be doing a recycling project.

But for me, it always rankles a bit. This time I was determined to enjoy it as best I could, so I looked for familiar faces and went visiting in between my rounds of the tables. Having some fun helped me ignore the loud music and the great show of consumption in all those shiny helmets on the tables and gaudy single-purpose jackets draped on the chairs.

When I got home though, I went looking for information about snowmobile fuel consumption. I learned something: those figures are hard to find. Of the four major manufacturers, only one bothered to back up their claims of "solid" or "excellent" fuel economy with an actual figure. Bombardier (Ski-Doo), headquartered in Canada, offered a comparison chart showing its 600 cc class engines (the smallest engines offered) on par with a Yamaha model at about 22 or 23 mpg, while Arctic Cat and Polaris models in the same class trailed behind at 18 mpg or less. Of course, for the larger engines, there were no numbers given, just claims of "outstanding" or "incredible" fuel economy. The general silence is not surprising, I suppose; when your smallest, newest, most fuel-efficient snow machine carries a single rider less than half as many miles per gallon as our ten-year-old four-passenger car, you don't have much to brag about.

Now for some rough estimates. Five hundred riders - I wonder if that means 500 sleds, or were some people riding double? Sixty-eight miles of trail - did they all do the full 68 miles, or were there shorter loops as options? Well, I'll be friendly and assume that 400 sleds travelled an average of 50 miles each. That's - gulp - 20,000 sled miles. Even with a ridiculously friendly estimate of 20 miles per gallon on average, that's 1000 gallons of gas. And then there's all the fuel used hauling those sleds and riders into Arcola from far and wide.

Well, if they're buying some of that gas at the Co-op, it means membership dividend money in my own pocket. The event brings in funds for the hall, and the local grocery stores get to supply food for it, and I suppose business picks up around town over the weekend. Do I dare complain?

On the other hand, isn't it a bit ironic that the Arcola Girl Guides pride themselves on the environmental benefits of their recycling program, when this gas-guzzling event is such a big part of it?

I wonder. Could we take all the effort that goes into this event, and spread it over the year, providing small entertainment events to help keep Arcola residents here in town, weekend after weekend? As it is, dozens of people go off to the cities for entertainment every weekend, and do their shopping while they're there. Then our service clubs and businesses get together and try to draw a big crowd out here for one weekend to compensate. Is this the best we can do for our town, and for our world?

Taking a Lower Profile

Tim's discussion of unthinkable thoughts stirred up my courage to post the unpostable.

My unpostable, unspeakable, unthinkable thought for the week: going bra free.

Tell me: has anyone ever dared to whisper to you in a dark closet, that bra wearers have an increased incidence of breast cancer? That in cultures where bras are not worn, women have the same rates of breast cancer as men?

I did not know this.

In fact, I discovered it just the other day, when I came home miserable from a demeaning encounter with a doctor, and decided to find out some facts for myself.

Tell me something more, ladies: when you think about keeping your breasts healthy, what comes to mind? BSE? (No, I'm not talking about mad cows - say, have you heard the one about why they called it PMS? Never mind...) No, really, what comes to mind? Do you even think about breast health, or do you frame it more like "avoiding breast cancer" and "avoiding sagging"? Do you shy away from even thinking about your breasts? Do you dutifully do your round of BSE when you think of it, anxiously searching those scary chest appendages for the dreaded lurking lumps, hoping to achieve the ultimate in breast care: "early detection"?

This week I noticed that one of my breasts had sprouted a double chin. My native intelligence said, "I've gained some weight, and the extra tissue was looking for a place to go, found a gap under the bra band, and made a break for it." My learned fear said, "Go to the doctor. If you see any changes in your breasts, go to the doctor. Oh no, oh no, oh no..."

That day I made an appointment - for the cat to get his annual vaccinations.

The next day, after asking spouse and mother for opinions, and for news of what sort of doctor might be waiting behind the office door in Arcola these days, and after much imagined dialogue and much foot dragging, I made an appointment for myself.

The imagined dialogue continued off and on through the next few days. There were dreams of the cat looking like he had been through chemo, and of myself being pinned against a wall by some sort of farm equipment, right at chest level.

On a good day, the waiting room has only two or three people in it, but there were already a few more than that when I arrived. By the time I was called in, the place was full, and the working men who had come in after me for end-of-the-day appointments were saying they should have brought lunches.

I sat for a while in the narrow examining room, looking around at posters of inner workings. Earlier in the week, I had imagined a flippant little speech about the double chin, but today I felt like just saying it as plain as I could.

The door behind me opened. "How are you, Laura?" said the stranger.

"Fine, how are you?" said I.

"If you're fine, why are you here?" If there was a smile or a twinkling eye with that, I missed it.

So I told him, and he frowned and questioned my terminology and asked, "Do you want to show me what you're describing?"

If I'd answered that one literally, I'd have walked out.

He did the examination, told me it was nothing to worry about, and gave me a little lecture about how a tight-fitting piece of clothing can leave a line in the flesh under it. (No, really? Okay, Doc, I get it. Sorry I didn't use just the right words when I told you I suspected exactly that.) Not a typical breast mass, he said, but for my peace of mind, he would request an ultrasound.

And off he went, leaving me sitting there with my bra unhooked and crumpled under my sweater, and the examining room door open.

If you're thinking that all of this is shockingly personal revelation, perhaps this will put it in perspective. On my way out of the office, I checked with the receptionist about the ultrasound appointment - she's also the church secretary, and we often chat on the phone about details for the church bulletin. When I phoned back to the office later, the other receptionist gave me the appointment details - the one who sometimes gives James a ride to Scout meetings.

Don't get me wrong - I trust that these women keep confidences appropriately. In a small town, most people are really quite careful about privacy. But there are definite limits to the privacy here, and you get used to it. It won't bother me if I get some intense looks when people ask, "How are you, Laura?"

Fine. Really.

My breast seems to be recovering nicely on its own.

But for your peace of mind, I will go to Regina for the ultrasound - and to shop for some camisoles and sturdy sweaters and shirts with big patch pockets on the front. I may be bra free, but I'm not culture free. "Nobody wants to know that you're cold, dear" rings in my ears.

And if I get some intense chest-level looks from folks on the street, I'll just smile.

---

• History of the Research on Bras and Breast Disease
• The Self Study Center (from Singer and Grismaijer, who did the major study reported in their book, Dressed to Kill) - lots of links
• Bras and Breast Cancer (a quick overview of Singer and Grismaijer's findings)
• Aren't bras GOOD for my breasts?
• Self Care for Your Breasts (massage: instead of searching for illness, how about nurturing health?)

Christmas Eve

The street bright with
glow after glowing
string of lights
and warm windows with
glittering trees within.

High above
almost beyond notice
the thin clouds flicker
into and out of view
against a crescent moon.

The church beckoning
away up there
past the school
and around the corner
out of the wind

as we hurry
anxious with plans
eager with hopes
and just a little later
than we wanted to be

but it feels good to hurry
pressing onward
until our path joins others' paths
and the voices ring out
and we are gathered there

in the glow of candles
and sparkling garlands
and children's eyes
and friendly faces
from last week and last year.

The harp is playing
so soft and sweet
beneath it all
that it is almost beneath notice
until you breathe it in.

And then bright horns
and carols rising
and the story
of the decree
and the journey

and the wondrous moment
in a stable
so unlike
this warm bright place
and yet so full of the same

peace and love
after pain and tears
new hope
and joy
all over again

as the bright eyes shine
in the weathered faces
and the cry of a child
is holy
and welcome.

Silent Night
a hundred voices soft -
no silence here
and yet
the stillness comes -

the hush of joy
within the heart
as candles light
from hand to hand
and voices blend:

Silent night; holy night
all is calm; all is bright
round yon virgin mother and child
holy infant so tender and mild
sleep in heavenly peace

sleep in heavenly peace
all you who leave this place
with your warm bright smiles
and your children
nodding in your arms

while I gather
musician's clutter
and snuff candles
and turn out lights
and walk alone

since the others went ahead
down the block
and around the corner
the wind at my back now
past the school

and glow after glowing
string of lights
until our own warm window
beckons
into the sheltered yard

where I pause
hand on doorknob
my gaze held for just a moment
by the golden glow
of the setting crescent moon.

Yonge Street, Rocks and Trees, Alberta

Yahoo! Canada News: "TORONTO (CP) - It's beginning to look a lot like a green Christmas for most of the country east of Alberta."

Wow. I should have known it was too early to hibernate.

I wake up mid-winter and find I must have missed some sort of referendum.

Carols, Old and New

This Sunday, December 10th, the choir at St. Andrew's United Church in Arcola will present a carol service, with choir anthems, a solo, and lots of carols for all to join in.

Readings and reflections on the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy and love are taken from "Gifts of the Season," a service order written by Gretta Vosper. If that name sounds familiar, you may have read about her in the United Church Observer; she's the controversial minister of West Hill United in Scarborough, Ontario, who is bringing big theological questions out of academia and into direct conflict with the traditions of congregational worship. I don't think there's anything very controversial in this particular service, but it might give you a taste of her approach. From the U.C. Observer, December 2006: "Whether or not you agree with her, understanding who Gretta Vosper is can tell you what you hold dear in the Christian faith."

Besides, there's all the music: some treasured old carols, and some startling new songs of faith. Come early for a chance to sing even more carols, since we just couldn't fit them all into the service. It starts at 10:45 a.m., with carol singing beginning around 10:30.

The Snow Pile Today

It's bigger than last year (in March!), that's for sure. I'd say about four times bigger. I can't get a perfect comparative photo, because I built it closer to the chokecherry behind it this year, to keep the melt water off the driveway and out of the porch.

One of those feral cats made the mistake of trotting into my snow push path while I was gathering another shovel load. She had to stretch up just to see over the end of it, to assess her options.

Then she came back up to the bend and hunched down, looking at me. I paused and talked to her, suggesting that she should take the chance to run forward and past me, but she just stared. Heartlessly, then, I pushed the snow load on towards her, and she hurried back to the dead end. "It's deep," I warned, but she plunged on.

Poor kitty. I wish I'd got a video. She looked like she was swimming.

The Disconnect

Here on the plains south of the Moose Mountains, there are two main industries: agriculture and oil. When you need money to keep farming, you go work on the rigs.

There are some proud farmers and ranchers who get by with what they can earn from their land, and sometimes fight a losing battle to keep the oil wells off it. There are some people here only for the oilfield work, who have little or no connection to any farm in the area. But for many people, the two industries have formed interwoven strands of their lifestyle for generations.

Recently I have heard of people quitting farming to work full time in the oilfield. One said his only regret was that he didn't do it sooner. Others carry on, quite literally using their oilfield income to keep their farms going.

The problem is the rising cost of just about everything except farm produce. A farm can't be run as a stable business if the costs keep going up while the revenue stays flat. Some farmers have been coping by expanding their acreage, spreading some of their costs over a larger area of production and hoping the per-acre costs don't overwhelm the per-acre revenue. How long will that hope hold?

And why the squeeze?

I just finished reading an overview of similar problems in Montana (in Part One of Jared Diamond's book, Collapse). Diamond related a story to highlight the difficulty farmers face. At one time, if a farmer wanted to buy a truck, he would sell two cows. Now, to buy a truck, he must sell 25 cows.

To an urban person accustomed to inflation, that might not seem wrong. Prices go up. But why hasn't the price of cows gone up? Sure, the urban cost of living goes up, but so does the average wage. Back on the farm, when the cost of living and of farming goes up, what is the farmer to do? He can't just grow more cows on the same amount of land.

Reflecting on this, I realized that the problem is built into the foundations of our economy. Because our economic growth is fueled by oil (and coal and natural gas) and not by growth in biological production, there is a disconnect between the performance of the overall economy and the returns to agriculture. If the overall economy was dependent on biological production for its fuel, then the price of biological products would keep pace. Grain would be valued for the energy stored in its carbohydrates; that value would be reflected in the price of a grain-fed cow; and a farmer selling two cows could still get the same return in material goods as his father did. Instead, fossil fuels are used to squeeze more and more biological production out of less and less human labour, holding the price of those biological products low. Meanwhile all the rest of the economy is allowed to surge along on the power of fossil fuels, effectively disconnected from the reality of biological limits - for a while.

In Montana, the problem is much more acute than in this area, because land prices are rising steeply due to demand for homes and acreages in the beautiful mountain landscapes. Farmers cannot expand their operations to spread costs, because the land costs more than they can earn back by farming it, even over a lifetime. In the desirable mountain valley areas, farming is on its way out.

When I read this, I remembered Eleutheros's post, "Unlike Coin," and wondered whether a farmer who focused on direct use - growing food and fibre for his own needs rather than for the money it could earn - could persist in those Montana mountains. Rising property taxes would be a challenge. That might be overcome, but what about estate taxes? How would a direct-use homesteader pass that homestead on to a child?

How ironic that we have structured our economy to grow and grow and grow - at the expense of growing food. We are running an enormous gamble, that the unknown jackpot will contain some sort of unlimited supply of clean energy (pdf), that we will win it before the existing energy sources become inadequate or intolerable, and that energy alone will be enough of a foundation when we finally turn our attention to coping with the limits of soils, water, oceans, and climate.

UPDATE: Eleutheros has a new post about our response to limits - depressing or bracing, depending on how you want to take it.

Here to Stay

This is more like it! Our first lasting snow of the season came last Thursday evening, and the big storm blew in yesterday. Here's the snow pile from a better angle to compare to last year's photo from the beginning of March.

This pile is bigger already. I was out before daylight topping it up with the new snowdrifts from overnight, to keep Garth from shovelling and re-injuring his elbow. It's been puffed up and glowing red a couple of times in the last few days, but it improves with rest and a castor oil pack. He thinks he hurt it in a curling game, sweeping.

Just as I was pushing the last ridges out of the way so he could back the car out, his colleague phoned to say he was stuck, in a back alley near Coteau and Mountain. I put the shovel in the car and jumped in.

We saw a vehicle churning its way slowly out of the south end of that alley, but when we got around to the north end we found two big drifts between the street and the snowed-in car. I started in with the shovel while the men discussed the situation. They decided the car could stay where it was; Garth would give him a ride for today.

With all the computer gear and two big men, the Geo was looking a bit crowded, so I put the shovel on my shoulder and walked home.

Looks like B had no trouble getting out to the cleared street and away to work.

Streetwalking Season

It was a surreal scene on Main Street at dusk, with the headlights of a riding snowblower illuminating the drifting snow where the sidewalk was partially cleared, and more headlights picking out the bank of a large snow ridge piled down the center of the street.

I kept out of the way of the snowblower and scurried through the deep snow by the corner, back onto the plowed surface of the side street that leads me home. Off Main Street, the sidewalks are all buried about six inches deep, except where the grader piled the windrow over them, or that place by the school where somebody pushed a great heap about four feet high. I can see giving up on the sidewalks in late January, but November?

The strangest sight of this evening, though, was the large V of noisy geese, racing south above it all.

Curling Season

Curling started on Tuesday night. My Dad is our skip, I'm third, Garth is second and James is playing lead. Ruth is babysitting for some other curlers. They live near the rink, so you might think that we would just drop her off on our way, but she accepted their offer of a ride. A shrewd move, that was, because she figured that going with us might mean walking. Actually she needn't have worried. Garth wants to curl for the exercise, but he wants to get there in his car. So he phoned and offered to drop Ruth off, and I loaded the brooms and sliders into the car. Then I walked, and they drove. I got to the rink first, but of course they had an extra stop.

I was amazed how curling lifted my spirits. Earlier that evening I had to ask Garth to finish making supper while I stormed out and up the street in the teeth of a bitter wind, trying to shake an inexplicable rage. The wind did blow most of it away, and I came back to the meal quietly. As soon as I neared the rink, though, I felt the happiness coming. By the middle of the game, I was remembering Jacob's excellent Remembrance Day address about peace coming from within, and noticing my Dad's easy enjoyment of the sport, and gently choosing not to worry so much about imparting all the rules of etiquette to Garth or keeping James playing up to the pace. The rules and the game itself are only there for the fun.

It was a great feeling just to step back into my little ritual: rock in front of the hack, broom down on the ice to my left; right foot in the hack, left toe up, pull the slider under it, toe down and pull the strap up around the heel; squat and tip the rock, clean the bottom, sweep the cleanings aside, tip the rock gently down and spin it once. Then and only then, lift my head to look down the ice for the skip's instructions. Vital step: point the hack foot's toe at the broom. Dad's advice coming back to mind: keep reaching for the broom.

I was a little shaky at first, but delighted to find myself gradually settling back in to the form I had found last year, with my sliding leg deeply bent so the foot is right under my centre, balancing my weight. A few ends in, I was ready to try to do better, not just do. Kick off a little harder, hold a little longer. Near the end of the game there was one delivery that felt really good.

Something - perhaps the push from the hack - reminded me of the lunges we've been doing at dance class, and made me grateful for that training over the last two months. While sweeping, too, I felt the tug of my abdominal muscles and enjoyed my newfound strength. Last year I built up to that first night of curling with stretches mimicking the delivery pose, but this year I hadn't done any. I trusted the hip stretches from dance class, and sure enough, the flex was there.

We lost the game, but it didn't matter a bit. James was throwing with steady form, using a slider, and getting rocks in the house. More importantly, he was cheery and chatty, open to suggestions, and resilient when his shots didn't go so well. Garth was trying a slider too, and even hinting that he'd take advice about my technique. And Dad was having fun. Coming home with last rock, he was going to try a draw to the button to keep their near-centre rock from counting. As I stood holding the broom and waiting while he went back down the ice to throw, I could hear the murmurs from the other team behind me: "I thought he would have tried that!" There was a narrow hole between the front guard rocks. Sure enough, Dad looked down the ice and called to me to move the broom: he would throw right down the centreline. I had to chuckle at that. He made the shot, too.

After the game, Garth invited Dad to come by our place for hot chocolate. We didn't have to pick Ruth up, because she wouldn't be finished babysitting yet - the other curlers were lingering over drinks. Again I walked, and the others drove. As I came around the corner of the house, they were closing the garage door and coming towards the house as well. "See," I said, "those car things are just a hassle."