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Rocksalting in Vancouver and Blue Orcharding in Victoria
Had a nice weekend in Vancouver, starting with a place in the Rocksalt reading which was part of the Main Street Literary Tour, in celebration of BC Book & Magazine week. We hung out in the Cafe Montmartre,
being hosted by Trevor Carolan
till Mona Fertig got there from another event she was doing in West Vancouver.
Had a little beer tasting on Saturday. My trio was porter, raspberry wheat beer and Rickard’s White wheat beer (my favourite)
Sunday’s treat was a walk through North Vancouver. Here’s how the allotment gardens look:
One question. Why?
Str(eat) art, Vancouver style.
How they tell it in Deep Cove:
Back home, and this lovely afternoon I took stock of the Blue Orchard (Mason) Bee (Osmia lignaria) house I’d put up on Thursday:
— a couple of dwellings already dwelt in, with lots of action in others. Holy pollen, mama’s home!
Hanging out on the fence.
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Food politics and a spring bee check
The rally at the legislature on Saturday was warmly attended by groups including COG:
The cavalry rode round and round the grounds:
There was a pleasing diversity of age and slogan:
with some rabble-rousing by Brent Warner
NDP candidate Lana Popham
farmer, beekeeper and food activist Linda Geggie
organic farmer Heather Stretch
and farmer-writer-editor Tom Henry
There’s another opportunity for Islanders make their food interests visible to politicians, at a gathering on Thursday April 30.
More information at the BC Food Systems Network website; including the Food Security Election Primer which is a terrific tool to use on any visiting electioneers, and a handy fact sheet on the issues for educating yourself, your friends and neighbours.
I spent yesterday morning following a spring bee inspection with some of my bee-owning classmates from last year’s bee-keeping class, led by Larry & Marilyn, who kindly lent me a bee suit for the occasion. I had a few curious customers stop by to admire my gloves.
Some of the girls hang out on their mom’s shoulder.
Saw lots of crazy comb, including one with a donut hole in the middle:
Here are a couple of queens (the long orangy ones; one of them is marked in red; colours are agreed on each year so you can tell how old the queens are):
I brought along some of the honey I’d bought in Italy for people to sample; one of the varieties evoked some discussion about rhododendron honey, which is said to produce Mad Honey Disease. And here’s a poem featuring death, rhodos and bees (but not mad honey disease).
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Real Canadian ploddledygook
It’s certainly not food and not quite poetry, but there is a useful new word in the English vocabulary: ploddledygook. It may look unpronounceable but it is certainly recognisable to anyone who’s heard a police officer of any stripe or nationality interviewed within the last couple of decades.
We’ve had lots of examples in the emotionally bankrupt testimony given by the RCMP officers at the Dziesanski inquiry, where their version of events has been visibly contradicted by the amateur video available on Youtube. The tone of the testimony has given appalled listeners some important lessons in how to alienate your public and rob your profession of dignity. Some of the statements reported by the press include:
Cpl. Robinson’s testimony: “I didn’t articulate it well,” said Robinson… “I’m blending the whole interaction.”
or Const. Rundel: “Mr. Dziekanski went from non-compliant behaviour at the luggage to what training has taught us is a resistant behaviour where he has directly disregarded a command and fled from us … and took up a combative stance” and “I don’t believe that the language barrier was a problem in that instant, due to the fact that he responded to the direction of the hand signal and the verbal ‘No’”
or Const. Millington: “The person that it’s applied against is supposed to fall immediately and it’s supposed to immobilize them…It did not have that effect so I felt it was necessary to fire it again…He was in a combative stance, as we call it, and was approaching the officers I believe with the intent to attack…After the first one, when he fell to the ground, I interpreted that to be he didn’t feel the full effects” and “We acted in accordance to our training…Of course I never intended this result. I never intended for Mr. Dziekanski to pass away.”
It’s sad and galling to see Mounties use language like this, to distance themselves from the events they’re describing. I know in these libellous times it’s the norm for representatives of any profession to excise the humanity from any public speech, but I don’t have to like it. I can still long for plain-spoken testimony, a simple apology, some expression of regret for what happened.
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
