Went on a field trip on the weekend, with the BC Sustainable Energy Association, to see the Elkington Forest development site, way up on Malahat Mountain.

The site is not the easiest place to get to – steep windy roads which would be pretty much inaccessible when it’s foggy or icy, and the developers intend to keep the roads between the development clusters as narrow as possible, to intrude less on the landscape.

On our way up, we passed acre after acre of clear-cuts, with ‘for sale’ signs stuck on a number of the lots, which are divided into 5-25 acre parcels. It is this kind of development that the Living Forest Communities is trying to counter. The problem with hacking forest land into parcels is that the developers can’t resist cutting down the trees (great profit in that) before selling them off. When you do that on a large scale in a watershed area, you’re looking at creating erosion, destroying ecosystems and contaminating water supplies.

Have a look at the deforestation story told by these aerial photographs – covering just the last eight years. Precious little forest remains on the mountain, and the damage is only just starting to be visible on the Malahat Drive where heavy equipment, “for sale” signs and clear-cutting are intruding on what used to be a pristine forest drive.

Pristine in my lifetime anyway. The Elkington family bought the property as a summer retreat, after it had been clear-cut in the 1920s, and let the forest regrow. It has been logged since, but not clear cut, so there is still a lot of actual forest left.

The developers hope that by clustering the houses that are built – and all to strict environmental standards, including state of the art sewage treatment – more forest will be left, preventing erosion, protecting habitat and allowing sustainable enjoyment of the area for years to come. The Trans-Canada Trail will cross the property at the first of three housing clusters, in fact.

There is land set aside for agro-forestry purposes, which include a community garden for all the residents. There will be an eco-lodge, and several thousand square feet of commercial property, but the population will be too small, the developers think, to sustain much in the way of shops or services, and the commute not really feasible. So the site is intended for families who can live and work independently: they hope for artisans and telecommuters. Local businesses have expressed interest in supplying the residents with food and services, and there is a train line which – should it survive its latest round of critical assessment – could conceivably serve the community.

It was a nice hike on a beautiful day, anyway, and when we finally stopped at the top for lunch,

we were ready to sit down and drink in the view for a while.

I have a quantity – indeed quantities – of yellow transparent apples to work with, so it has been apple everything of late.

These apples are tart and soft in the cooking, and so sometimes give the illusion there’s been lemon at work. I use them while they’re still green but even when fully ripe they are sharp and puckery. I stew some with blackberries and freeze that; I juice some, using carrots for sweetener and freeze that; and I make a bit of applesauce. I might try dehydrating some, but they are awfully tart. For the rest, I peel, chop and freeze in ziplock bags and leave a few in the veg bin in the fridge. They don’t last as well as some apples, they shrink and wrinkle, but will endure for some months – in fact I made a cake from some 2008 vintage ones I found malingering in the fridge back in April. And they can be chopped and added to everything from soup to curry to dog food (if you make your own!).

Some of the best things I’ve made include Apple Crème Brulée; Dan Lepard‘s Apple, Walnut & Custard pudding; Apple Raisin Cake; my enduring favourite, Delia Smith‘s Caramelised Apple Flan (cheat’s Tarte Tatin);

the recently remarked Blackberry-Apple Clafoutis; and a variation on German Apple Cake. Recipes yet to be attempted might include an Apple Soufflé, and one day when I am feeling ambitious enough to marshal the ingredients: Delia’s Prune, Apple & Armagnac Cake with Almond Streusel Topping.

Lots of fruit to pick these days. I’ve been blackberrying, of course

and then Judy connected me with the owner of a fig tree which was laden with green figs

and I joined my first pick with the Fruit Tree Project, where I obtained a quantity of yellow plums.

LifeCycles organizes this project in Victoria, which makes use of what would be otherwise wasted urban fruit. Owners register their trees with the project and then LifeCycles sends a team of volunteers equipped with picking aprons and orchard ladders who strip the tree, clean up and distribute the fruit – a share to the owner, a share to the pickers and the rest to LifeCycles which distributes or processes the fruit. Contemporary gleaning I suppose. The tree on Sunday looked like this when we began

and two hours later looked like this

because the tree was absolutely laden and we were short-handed, but more importantly short-fruit-boxed. We filled all these cartons

and departed, promising the owner a second pick one evening.

Come time to deal with all this bounty, I recommend The National Center for Home Preservation which covers most things extremely well– but a laptop in my kitchen is a dangerous thing… for weeks, my counter has been a massive sprawl of books, print-outs, jars, sugar, tongs, lemons, cutting boards. And the omnipresent fruit flies who are watching proceedings with interest.

I’ve done jams

and cans

and dehydrations

and even a little baking (happy revival of the Lightning Cake!)

And now I must can the rest of the plums. For the tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Thinking of jam making, which has been documented well and poetically by the likes of Maxine Kumin, I came across this snotty poem which claims to know whose history is more-important-with-a-capital-I. Preserving does seem to be one of the last barriers between the genders: although I know men who can vegetables and pickles and fish, I know precious few who make jam (though plenty who eat it). As a public experiment, may I suggest you attend a preserving workshop sometime and count the number of men in the class and interrogate them for their views on this. It is puzzling that more men appear to be willing and interested to learn how to grow things than to to preserve the fruits of their labour. Whence cometh this jam stigma?