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Bugged
Read Full Post: BuggedTuesday it was bees: we had a most thrilling hive inspection as our last field trip.
We got to see some varroa mites, how to check for the tell-tale odour of foulbrood,
what a hive about to swarm looks like, how you graft a queen cell, how you mark a queen,
how you split a hive, and how you recapture a swarm that hasn’t left yet. It was not the best time of day (evening) or the best weather (a bit damp) but the bees bore it as best they could, and brave Larry showed us how an experienced bee-man can handle even cranky bees without nets or gloves…
..on account of he had very kindly lent me his jacket and veil. And has spent his entire life around bees. I feel hardly qualified to have my own hives just yet, but will spend a little more time hanging out with bee-folk and see how I feel next year.
Then, on to Saskatchewan where I’m participating in the Sage Hill spring poetry colloquium at St Michael’s Retreat Centre in the Qu’Appelle Valley,
where the ticks are active if not biting (phew). They’ve been crawling over us night and day, even those of us who haven’t gone outside let alone into long grass. This evening I found one hiding on my person. Here she is practicing her backstroke in a drop of water, before sinking into the last hot bath of her life.
Our colloquium leader Erin has researched the subject thoroughly, and apparently it’s unwise to try to crush them (even if you can) in case they’re carrying a disease which you can then spread on yourself by accident. So I think scalding is quick and merciful.
Anyway, there are eight of us here from all across Canada, all with manuscripts in progress. We’ve been having a good time doing poetry exercises and plunging into some hard editorial graft. Between meals, walks (in the short grass, thanks) and strolls into town. Where there is surprising variety in fire hydrant, I happened to notice.
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Gordon’s seasonality campaign & Delia’s chicken comments
Read Full Post: Gordon’s seasonality campaign & Delia’s chicken commentsGordon Ramsay caused a bit of a flutter by proposing that out-of-season fruit and veg be outlawed in Britain. A little light counter-attack from readers of his restaurant menus, but aside from the dessert menus he seems to be sticking pretty well to his principles. I was glad to see him coming down on ex-saint Delia Smith who has been flogging a re-edition of an old book of hers from the seventies which promotes use of ready-made food, which by now we should know is less healthy and more expensive than learning to cook from scratch.
She also made some rather ill-advised comments about supermarket chicken which made feathers fly. Supporters say it’s her working class roots, and that she was just showing sympathy for people who simply can’t afford organic food. But although she concedes she doesn’t like “the way battery chickens are reared,” it strikes me that in describing battery chickens as “nutritious food” she doesn’t seem to grasp the public health risks – increased and dangerous overexposure to antibiotics that come to us through chicken meat, the salmonella and e. coli risks – and the issues around over-consumption of meats by Western consumers.
Most of the cookbooks we’ve all grown up with are meat-based, and so it’s unsurprising to find someone who’s made a living writing them (though her Vegetarian Collection cookbook is excellent) promoting that same unimaginative thinking about feeding the poor.
So my rhetorical question of the day: is it better to invite low-budget shoppers to buy cheap (because inhumanely reared with unhealthy production standards) meat or to point them towards other ways of cooking which use more economical sources of protein?
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Crabs ‘n tomatoes ‘n poets ‘n sand
Read Full Post: Crabs ‘n tomatoes ‘n poets ‘n sand
I was shocked the other day to see this guy running underwater, up the Gorge, heading (ultimately) for the ocean I guess. Looks like he mighta lost one claw to the soup pot, but the rest of him was all there.
A separate door for tomatoes on BC Ferries. They think of everything.
Wendy in fine fettle, introducing a new anthology – Crossing Lines – and a reading by Allan Briesmaster and his daughter Clara Blackwood at the Black Stilt on Friday.
An afternoon to let your ears flap in the breeze: a windy day on Island View Beach.
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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.
