FreshMD

Dandelion poetry

Thank you for all your kind comments and well wishes on the last post. As suggested, I plan to link to my Mothers in Medicine posts from here. There's a new one up today.

A walk to the village for Honey's donuts

California 2009

We're in California (again). I wore shorts today, the warm air washing my bare legs like bathwater. My suitcase is full of books and Internet access is spotty. The cherry trees behind the cabin are in blossom and vibrating with honeybees and I saw a hummingbird as fat as a sparrow this morning. I slapped sunscreen onto three sets of lean little legs and the kids wheeled around on their scooters in the lane for hours. We keep setting out bowls of giant strawberries.

I feel like I have been bounced out of a rut I didn't even know I was in.

More Charley Harper love

I ordered some Charley Harper prints today. Vigilant Vireos for the living room:

Cozy Chipmunk for Leif's room, which is a similarly sloping, brown-sided space:

And The Sierra Range - my favourite - future hanging destination yet undecided. (Thanks to reader Elizabeth for alerting me to the Charley Harper posters available through the US National Park Service for a song.)

Total cost: $85.00 plus shipping. 

I have a crush on Charley Harper

This is my current favourite children's book:

I ordered it for Ariana for Christmas. I postponed wrapping it for a week so I could look at it every night before bed. The images are that gorgeous and soothing. Now it resides in the little turquoise backpack Ariana uses to store and transport her prized possessions.

Charley Harper (1922-2007) was an American artist known for his geometric, stylized depictions of wildlife. He commented once that while some artists counted the feathers in the wings, he merely counted the number of wings. His images are simple, playful and brilliantly coloured.

Harper grew up on a farm in Cincinnati and enjoyed wildlife from an early age. I find stories of nature-loving children who grow up to become artists/naturalists immensely appealing. It seems so pure. And what better blend of art and science? (Robert Bateman's story is similarly pleasing - now there's someone who counts every feather in the wing.)

So now I'm trying to pick a print or two for our home. My job would be easier if the man weren't so remarkably prolific and talented. I will soldier on.

Brown

We're back from visiting the family homestead in Ontario, to which Pete moved on his third birthday. This was my eleventh consecutive Christmas vacation there.

I've finally put my finger on what most defines the southern Ontario winter landscape for me: brown, brown in every shade and texture.

The vegetative architecture amazes me. In Vancouver, generally the expendable plant parts dissolve a month into the fall rains, and the remainder stays green year round. The stark, perfect forms of burrs and spent flowers at every turn were remarkable.

That's the kind of vacation it was - one with all sorts of treasures underfoot, and the luxury of time and energy to enjoy them. I hope your Christmas was similarly lovely.

More to follow.

Forcing bulbs

Every day that I'm home that's not rainy, we head out to the yard for an hour or two. The kids tie their bikes together with skipping ropes and I putter in the garden. There are few things that I enjoy more than moving dirt and rocks around while the kids play, squirrels chatter and boats drone up and down the Arm. But it's almost December, and I know our days are numbered.

When I picked up a few hundred bulbs last week, I decided to get some hyacinths and paperwhites (white daffodils) to force indoors this year. The idea of tricking bulbs into thinking it was time to bloom captivated the kids.

For the paperwhites, we put some pebbles in the bottom of a glass (with much analysis of the merits of each stone as it was carefully placed by little fingers), set the bulb on the rocks and added water until it was just touching the bottom of the bulb.

That was Thursday night. On Saturday morning Saskia and Leif literally screamed with excitement when they noticed the hundreds of little roots budding from each bulb. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed myself. And at a dollar a pop, this is the most affordable fun we've had in a while.

For the hyacinths, we set the bulbs in hyacinth glasses, added water, and set them in a dark cupboard in the cellar. They need an eight to ten week chilling period before they can come upstairs to bloom. I'm limiting check-ins on those ones to once a week. 

I do find the term 'forcing' bulbs a little off-putting. It sounds so unnatural. And when I read that a forced bulb will not usually bloom again because of the tremendous amount of energy required, I felt a little pang of guilt.

Hopefully that will abate when I have a windowsill full of narcissi blooming in December.

For more information, HGTV has a good article on forcing bulbs.

Gala and jonagold

When we went to a Christmas tree farm for the first time last year, I expected to wander through a still, winter forest with an axe over my shoulder, pulling a sled. Hunting for a parking spot in a packed lot, and then marching through fields of tidy aisles of six-foot trees with hundreds of other people was not the natural experience I had hoped for.

I had some of the same sentiments picking apples this year. I had envisioned a quiet old orchard with ladders leaning against the apple trees; I would do the climbing while the kids played in the shade of the trees, collecting the fallen fruit into baskets. Then we would milk a goat and dance to accordion music in the autumn afternoon.

The reality of the Apple Barn involved first navigating through throngs of preschoolers, arriving by the bus load for their annual pumpkin patch visit. We made our way past the jumping pillow, the thirty-foot slide and the petting zoo to the orchards, which were mercifully quiet. The trees were all dwarf varieties, not big enough to cast shade, planted in long, straight rows.

I was disappointed, but the kids were thrilled. When Saskia picked an apple and marveled at the leaves still attached, I was sorry that I hadn't introduced her to fruit-on-the-tree earlier. Ariana knew better than to eat fruit we hadn't paid for, but that didn't stop her from kissing her picks repeatedly.

Leif abandoned picking to watch the wasp on apple action. He was spell-bound.

We took home 40 pounds of apples. The van was filled with happy crunching on the ride home.

I think we're going to hunt for apples with leaves attached every fall. Maybe next year we''ll venture a little further afield to the Okanagan, or just find a local backyard apple tree on Craigslist.

(Thanks to Mary for the Apple Barn recommendation.)

Golden morning at the beach

Chestnuts on 17th Street

I thought we were done picking things for the year after the wild blueberry session on Mt. Seymour a few weeks ago. But last Sunday afternoon we found ourselves heading out to West Vancouver to collect chestnuts.

The Boy Scouts planted horse chestnut trees along 17th Street in 1934 to commemorate the visit of Lord Baden-Powell. The trees are beautiful and, happily for the kids, productive. There were thousands of chestnuts littering the ground. Some were still in their spiny green shells, sometimes two to a pod. 

Leif filled the pockets of his hoodie, Saskia hunted for the tiniest baby chestnut ever, and Ariana packed her bag to the point where she struggled to cart it back to the car.

We took sacks of chestnuts home, where another benefit quickly became clear: they're the cleanest, tidiest bits of the outdoors my kids have ever brought into the house. No stains, no smell, no detritus. Just smooth brown nuggets scattered everywhere.

(Flickr photo set here.)

Wild blueberry picking on Mt. Seymour

It's grey and rainy out there, but berry season isn't over yet.

The wild blueberries on Mt. Seymour don't ripen until mid-September. We headed up the mountain last weekend with some friends to discover an excellent crop. It was overcast and my jeans got soaked from brushing by wet bushes, but the steady plunk, plunk of berries hitting the bottom of the yogurt containers and some quiet conversation made for a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Then we headed back to Deep Cove and had wild blueberry pancakes for dinner.

We've picked blueberries on Mt. Seymour every September for years, and for me, it's the gateway to fall.

Black bear

The doorbell rang on Monday afternoon, and it was my next-door neighbour with his big shepherd dog on a short leash.

"A bear just passed through my yard," he said, gesturing toward the far side of his house. "It went between the houses there." Geoff is retired, and spends his days walking his dog and trimming the trees on his property. He was acting nonchalant, but I could tell this was the best thing to happen to him all summer. "Just wanted to let you know," he said. "I'll be off now to warn the other neighbours."

I looked from every window, but the bear was nowhere in sight. I settled back at my laptop. It was a gorgeous September afternoon. The sun was golden warm, a breeze wafted in from the water, and the neighbourhood was quiet. The idea of a bear ambling through our neck of the woods, snacking on berries, seemed perfectly natural.

Then I heard a siren. A police car sped up the road, letting out an urgent Whoop! Whoop! in front of each home. It disappeared over the crest of the hill in a cloud of testosterone.

But the bear lay low, and it's still roaming the area. It's inspired a sense of camaraderie among the neighbours. Everyone's exchanging stories: someone stumbled upon the bear in their garage, rooting around in the garbage; it's been peeping in windows; outdoor recess was canceled at the local high school when the bear ran across the playground; it's made several visits to a yard with a loaded apple tree. 

My favourite is the one Geoff told me the next day. He called his other neighbour and left a message regarding the bear passing between their houses. She was busy getting a chicken out of the oven, and sent her son out to the car with the bird while she checked her voicemail. Geoff looked out his window and was horrified to see little Ollie, a roast chicken in his arms, traversing the very path that the bear had used moments before.

But everyone's kept safe, including the bear, and I hope it stays that way.          

Blackberries

Every day the kids ask to pick blackberries. The streets in our neighbourhood are lined with the wild prickly bushes. 

Even when we drive on the freeway, Leif points them out and asks if we can stop to pick them. Not sure why you'd want to pick at the side of the highway with cars whizzing by when we can pick in our own quiet neighbourhood with cliff faces on one side of the road and a drop-off to Indian Arm on the other.

I have great memories of picking blackberries growing up in Burnaby. When I see the branches snagging my kids' shirts, their fingers stained purple and their feet soaked from tramping in wet bushes, it reminds me of being eight in August and riding my bike down the alley with an ice cream bucket on the handlebars.

We made two blackberry pies on Monday, and a day later we were already finishing the second one off. But the minute I need more berries, there will be six little hands eager to pick them.

  

Whistler

We made a spontaneous three-day trip to Whistler last week with the kids. We rode the gondola up the mountain, drove the stunning Duffy Lake Road, spotted four bears and splashed in the hotel pool. I didn't want to come home.

More pictures on Flickr.

Deep Cove gardener

There's an elderly man in my neighbourhood who keeps the most beautiful gardens. They're not manicured; everything's grown in great wild swathes.

He has a grey pencil moustache and when I've passed by with the kids, he's snipped a large bloom and handed it to Leif. They both know flowers aren't just for girls.

His lot is extra deep, in a spectacular location, with a small old house on it, and he'd make out like a bandit if he sold it. But I suspect that doesn't interest him in the least.

Sometimes he cuts fresh flowers and scatters them next to the sidewalk for the neighbourhood children to find. He's not just deadheading spent blossoms - he picks them when they're at their most glorious.

I don't know his name, but from what little I do know of him, I like him immensely.

Boating

The idea of an extended camping trip with a six-, three- and two-year-old didn't appeal to Pete or me this summer, and I thought Pete's suggestion that we postpone tenting until all the kids are out of diapers brilliant.

We decided instead to get a boat and spend the summer evenings and weekends exploring the waters that are a literal stone's throw from our deck. My requisites were: holds all five of us, cheap, runs. We gave ourselves a day to find one on Craigslist, and twenty-four hours later were pulling an old turquoise beauty home through Vancouver rush-hour traffic. We stopped at Leif's preschool on the way and he just about burst with pride.

We schedule our boat trips to coincide with the least busy times at the launch, so as not to embarrass ourselves. The learning curve has been steep.

We figured out what happens when you (it was Pete) launch a boat without putting the plug in the drain hole. Also, what happens when you somehow detach the line running gas to the engine while roaring up Indian Arm. Also, that the large amount of water that pools in the stern bottom of the boat when you pick up speed can be accumulated rainwater from the bilge, not necessarily salt water pouring through a break in the hull. No need to frighten the kids by bailing madly while screaming at your husband to head for shore.

Aside from those alarming moments, it's been quite wonderful. It's beautiful, of course - placid waters with green-blue mountains mounding up on either side, islands ringed with multi-coloured tide lines, waterfront homes with Adirondack chairs at the end of the dock, kayaks and canoes sliding by.

 

When we launched the boat this morning, a group of old German tourists watched us from the wharf as we puttered away in a small cloud of blue smoke. They gazed after us silently, at Pete manning the wheel with Saskia beside him, me sitting in the back with Ariana asleep in my arms, and Leif bunched into his life jacket. I could almost hear them thinking, 'So this is how the locals live,' and that made me happy.

At one point up the Arm we spotted a bald eagle struggling in the water. It was almost submerged, flailing its wings, and we circled around to see what was going on. It began to do a sort of sloppy breast stroke, awkwardly pulling its wings through the water in unison, and headed for shore, a hundred metres away.

The occupants of a sailboat, an older man and woman with their tea towels pegged up on the railing drying in the sun, informed us that the eagle had attacked a seagull and was dragging it to land. We all sat there silently, watching the bedraggled creature push for shore, his mate waiting up in a spruce tree. He finally got up on the beach, shook out his wings a few times, and dragged the seagull carcass into the underbrush.

At home, eating burgers and corn on the cob for lunch, the kids remarked that the sight of the eagle swimming was the best part of the day, and I'd have to agree. Although the sight of the plug safely in the drain hole where it belonged was pretty sweet, too.

Salmonberries

The passage of our Deep Cove summers is marked by the wild berry seasons. We're at the tail end of salmonberries and getting into huckleberries. Then August brings blackberries.

 
The good thing about walking through the woods these days is that the kids are completely preoccupied by the berries. The potentially frustrating thing is that what is a twelve-minute adult walk to the village, and should be a half-hour walk with children, can stretch out to an hour or two.

So I try to surrender any semblance of a schedule, and enjoy the peace of the forest. I'll admit it's sometimes spoiled by Saskia and Leif shouting, "Hey! This is my salmonberry bush! I got here first! Find your own!" (I actually witnessed similar behaviour among adults at Krause Berry Farms.) And if I'm shouldering Ariana in the pack, she yells for berries and I have to position myself so her little fingers can pluck them off the bush. Still, working our way through the woods while the kids hunt and gather berries is idyllic.

All these berries grow in our own yard, but it's so wild Saskia needs to wear a red coat and carry a whistle when she ventures down there.

To humour the kids, I've made salmonberry pancakes, muffins and milkshakes. The berries are bland and full of pips, but the kids proclaim them absolutely delicious.

U-pick

I took the kids raspberry picking yesterday.

I'd never gone before, but if I'd attempted this three years ago my approach would have looked like this:

Research all local u-pick options. Go to farm in the cool of the morning and pick efficiently towards predetermined poundage goal. Pick raspberries and strawberries, and purchase week's groceries at farm bakery and market. Leave u-pick in time to visit another local attraction, such as the Greater Vancouver Zoo. Return home and make preserves.

My current method looks more like this:

Pick u-pick based on a two-minute Google search. Leave home for Krause Berry Farms when convenient, close to mid-day. Have as goal only that kids enjoy themselves. Pick raspberries until children tire. Bypass all other attractions at farm. Return home. Put berries in fridge.

The secret to happy motherhood: lower your expectations.

We had a wonderful time. It was sunny and warm and quiet as we picked the fat pink berries at our respective heights. The only sounds were the breeze blowing in the massive fir trees surrounding the farm, and the occasional murmur of conversation drifting over the rows. It was peaceful.

At one point I sat down between the rows, and Leif lay his head on my leg and napped. A few pickers passed us, pulling wagons, carrying ice cream buckets with the plastic handles bending dangerously, and even filling Ziploc freezer bags directly from the bushes.

 

Thirteen dollars for one of the best excursions the kids have had this summer, and more raspberries than will fit in my little freezer. We'll be back for blueberry season.

Ma Ingalls makes suet

I think most at-home mothers have Ma Ingalls moments, when they quite like the idea of airing the quilt from the trundle bed, churning butter and sewing calico dresses by firelight in the evening while Pa cleans his rifle.

I consider myself a modern-day Caroline when I make salmonberry muffins for the kids, or plan how to fill our cellar. Or when I make suet, as I did today.

Red-breasted nuthatch - February/08

Discarding bacon or hamburger fat has always struck me as wasteful. I'm not quite willing to do as my Oma did, and spread bacon grease on toast or saute vegetables in it, delicious though that was to an eight-year-old. But I couldn't think of any other use for it until we ran out of store-bought bird suet recently.

"We're not bird people," I reassured a house guest this past weekend. 

Throughout the afternoon, our conversation was interrupted by Pete and I commenting, "Check out the one out that side window," and "Hey, is that a goldfinch? Wait, no - it's too big. Where's the book?"

Our friend finally asked, "So, you're only birders from the comfort of your own home?"

"We're 'Don't call us, we'll call you' birders," affirmed Pete.

Hairy woodpecker - March/08

We have a suet feeder hanging in front of the living room window, and while at times it does strike me as strange that we would choose to have a brick of fat interrupting our view of Indian Arm, I do love the constant stream of visiting birds. And I like the challenge of trying to photograph every species that drops by.

So the Ma Ingalls in me wanted to whip up my own suet, and an Internet search (like Ma would have done) yielded several recipes. I've been saving every spare ounce of fat in a container in the freezer for a few weeks now.

This morning I melted down two cups of the salvaged grease in a pan, and stirred in a cup of peanut butter, a cup of flour, a handful of oats, some stale hazelnuts and some crumbs from the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips. Pete was not nearly as excited about this whole process as I was. If only I got this much pleasure from cooking for my family.

I poured the concoction into an 8 x 8 baking pan and put it in the freezer to set. Two hours later I carved it into four squares of suet, perfectly sized for a standard feeder. Pete was quick to point out that when suet is a dollar or two at Canadian Tire, this exercise is not exactly cost-saving. That didn't deter me for a moment.

It's pouring out, and the birds are nowhere in sight, but I'm sitting on the couch knitting and drinking tea and waiting for the first visitors, feeling very satisfied with myself. Tomorrow's project on the homestead: headcheese.

Wickenden Park owls

When Pete got home from work yesterday, he took one look at me and sent me into the woods to unwind. We live a stone's throw from Wickenden Park, and there's nothing like spending a half hour alone in the forest surrounded by massive cedars, wet huckleberry bushes and bird calls to calm oneself.

There's a family of owls that have been living in the park for years, and everyone I've met in Deep Cove knows about them. I headed out with my camera, followed the sound of the screeching, and found them in their usual spot near the bridge.

Pete's been chased by them as he runs along the trail. My fear of having those talons aimed at me kept in check the extremes to which I was willing to go to get a good shot. 

We've seen the three owls working together to corner a squirrel. Once one flew over the trail clutching a rat.

Another evening one was perched on a low branch in a tree just outside the park. All the neighbours were milling about, coffees in hand, admiring it. The owl never took its eyes off a cat that was lounging at the side of the road.

I believe these are barred owls. The fluffiness makes me wonder if this one is a juvenile, but I'm no ornithologist.

Somehow seeing these creatures in the forest puts everything in perspective, and I trotted out of the woods refreshed, having only overstayed my allotted time by twenty minutes.