Winter and Spring on a Merry Chase in Atmon

The seasons in Atmon are completely unpredictable and unreliable.  Last summer was hot and bright and unrelentingly green.  Some summers turn brown and dusty by July.  Everything looks to be tired of the sun, gasping for a bit of rain or fog that never arrives.

This past autumn was very weird indeed.  The leaves turned colour on one side of a lot of trees, and there was a lot of very bright, but almost translucent yellow.  In the evening sun the trees that line the next street over seemed to have their own internal light source.  It was eerily beautiful.  A lot of trees turned a kind of soft brown, like milky tea, and the leaves stayed on all winter.

I love winter.  I am mostly fine with  the cold, and it can be very cold, although it seems less cold than the winters of my childhood.  I remember long stretches of -20 and -30 and -40 were not unusual at all.  I can't remember the last time it was -40.  We did have a few intermittent weeks of nearly -30 this year.  If it is cold it is usually sunny and bright, and if it is not, we can have everything covered in a glittering coat of hoarfrost, which is really beautiful, even if I never do seem to get a picture of it.   But winters can be long, sometimes getting underway early in October and lasting until April.  And we are all tired of it by then, no matter how much we like to ski or  snowshoe.

Spring some years makes the winter worth it.  Some years it is spectacularly colourful and fragrant.  Two years ago it even drowned out the smell of the pulp mills.  Instead of sulphur, you smelled apple blossom when you went outside. I don't remember that ever happening before.

This year winter and spring are having a hell of a good time with us.  Spring has started two or three times already.  Four weeks ago we went out to my  parents and shovelled  3 feet of snow off the north side of their roof.  It had been melting at the top, but the melt water was cooling and freezing by the time it got to the north overhang. Under the 3 feet of snow was a 12 inch ice dam. Three weeks ago we had 3 feet of snow in the yard, and then the temperature rose to 11 or 12 and the snow receded a foot from the edge of the sidewalks.   Then it snowed for 3 days.  Back and forth for three weeks.  Yesterday I had a tenacious little bump of snow around the trees in the front yard and bare lawn.  My vegetable gardens are completely bare and begging to be tidied up.  This morning I opened the door for the cat.  He saw this:

He gave me a look and a noise that I am quite certain was, "WTF?" and went back to bed.  

Two weeks ago we started the  tomatoes, which look like this this morning:

I don't suppose they are going outside in any hurry.  

One of my favourite harbingers of spring are the Seville oranges that turn up in the grocery store.  My grandmother always made marmalade in the spring, and my mom does too, occasionally.  I made marmalade once a few years ago.  Its a big job.  Slicing all that fruit nice and thin takes a long time, and a Seville orange has nearly as much mass in seeds as in peel.  It needs to be soaked, then reduced, then mixed with sugar and cooked.  Nothing much happens in the cooking for more than half an hour, the whole thing is just reducing.  But after 35-40 minutes or so, the caramelizing is obvious, and if you don't watch it it gets too dark and rubbery.  That was my first batch.  I still thought it was delicious, even if it was overcooked.  This year I spent nearly 2 days on a whole batch.   I'm happy with it.  

 Just as the first of our short warm spells started, I finished these

plus a second pair of the striped gloves for my mom, and we all laughed that it was good I was finishing up the gloves and mittens just in time to put them away for the year.  I guess winter got the last laugh on that one.  

I know the first day of spring is in March, but it is almost never "spring" here then.  Today is my parent's wedding anniversary (50 years!) and in the 36 years they have lived in their current house, this is one of only 3 years that the snow is not gone entirely from their front yard by their anniversary.  This day is always the beginning of spring for me.  Have a happy one.  

A Disturbance in The Force

I have been thinking a lot lately about blogging communities.   I started blogging after 10 years of reading and lurking and sporadic commenting, because I wanted to fully join the conversation.  Over the years I have learned about bloggers,  and grown to know their voices and to care about them.  I really like the community of progressive bloggers and it is a relief to know there are others out there who care about the things I care about.  

A few bloggers have disappeared lately.  A few of them have announced their departures.  A few not.  In some cases, there was a change in tone before a disappearance which may have led more bloggers than myself to wonder if someone was okay.  Last week Lorne talked about the nature of this community and about missing people we have never met. 

Today  Jymn  posted a letter that made me ashamed.  Gretchen wrote to him to tell him that she was alarmed at the tone his blog had taken.  She said things that you should say when someone you care about is melting down.  I nearly quit reading Jymn’s blog this week.  It alarmed and frightened me.  And I didn’t know what to do about that.  I have been thinking about the way his posts make me feel- frightened and small and misunderstood- all week.  And also wondering what the hell to do, because if I felt frightened and misunderstood,  Jymn, saying these things, must feel really really bad. 

This sounds unrelated but it is not:  Last fall at a community meeting about serious city budget cuts, 0.002% of our population turned up.  Maybe it was apathy that kept some people away.  Maybe it was ignorance.  But I bet two big reasons were: "I had something else even more important," and "I don't know what to do to help."  After the meeting, discussing this with my partner I said, "what we need is a movement where we all turn to someone else and say, 'What can I do to make something easier for you?' "

I think of myself as a caring individual.  And someone I cared about was in pain.  If I want a movement, maybe I gotta start it myself.  

Jymn: What can I do to make something easier for you? 

  

Help Me Out Here

So I am wondering if one of my four* readers can help me out?

I am trying to understand this nonsense about the Pacific Carbon Trust, and the notion of carbon offsets.  

As I understand it, a carbon offset is money paid by a polluter to a non polluter to keep not polluting, or possibly to some person or business to do some green thing like put a scrubber on a smokestack or plant a tree.

And the Pacific Carbon Trust is some kind of an exchange for these offsets?  So schools and hospitals are supposed to give the trust money so that  businesses like pulpmills can replace polluting equipment?

To editorialize that question: And the Pacific Carbon Trust is some kind of an exchange (or racket?) for these offsets?  So schools and hospitals (which have no income) are supposed to give the trust money so that businesses like pulpmills (which have quite a bit of income) can replace polluting equipment?

Maybe I will just disclose this:  I happen to live across the street from a hospital.  While I cannot possibly tell you how much energy it consumes, though I would guess it to be a lot, I can tell you that it does not seem to be a great provider of atmospheric pollution.  Likewise the two schools that are five blocks from me, one east and one west.  I also happen to live in a nice little geographic bowl, surrounding which are three pulpmills, three chemical plants and an oil refinery.  Let me tell you, they are definitely providers of atmospheric pollution.  People here in Atmon have been known to speak of the smell of money.  One of those mills was the recipient of a very very large amount of money with which to replace a big part of the mill last year.   When the prevailing winds are just right, and the clouds are just right,  our little hamlet still smells right "rich" if you get my drift.

I suppose I can kind of see that if I plant a tree, it might possibly "offset" the carbon emissions of my natural gas furnace, although I wonder how many trees it might actually take.  But this trust business I don't get.  I think it was supposed to help BC and its people, but if it takes tax money from schools and hospitals (which do not generate income) and gives it to privately owned companies (which are presumably turning profits), how does that benefit BC and it's people?

If someone can explain this to me I would be grateful.  I feel a little funny asking, because, well, it looks to me like the emperor is naked.  And that can't be right can it?




*I actually have 5 readers, but one of them lives in my house and we have talked about it, and we agreed that we didn't understand it.

Old Dogs, New Tricks

I have decided to learn another language.  My first lesson is tonight.  

Hope Springs Eternal. Despite Moronic Government Pronouncements.

John Baird has recommended that Canada leaves the UN Droughts and Desert Convention.  And apparently we have.

Apropos of that,  I saw an interesting Ted Talk on the subject just last week.  It seems Allan Savoury doesn't think the solution to desertification is all that daunting.  I find this quite hopeful, despite the nonsense of the moronic Harper Government.

Books, Covers

The other day we were grabbing a quick take out sandwich, and I offered a meal to a youngish man/still kind of a boy who was sitting in a corner.  He turned it down.  He seemed slightly insulted, and I suppose on second thought scruffy, grubby, morose looking young men eating cheerios out of a baggie don't necessarily have to be down on their luck.  I have been depressed most of my life and I often think I am seeing sadness.   I'm glad I am wrong sometimes.  

The episode reminded me of two other episodes where things were different than they looked.

Once upon a time I used to make the Offspring play soccer.  The league she played in was pretty large and lots of local businesses and groups sponsored teams.  The teams were always known by their sponsors and had the sponsor logo on the t-shirt. One year she was on a team sponsored by the Sober Riders Motorcycle Club.  And one Saturday morning that year, we were working at a hotdog sale just outside the grocery store and Offspring was wearing her soccer shirt.  A couple about my age came out of the store and bought hotdogs and pop, and they noticed the logo on the shirt.  "Hey!  That's us!  I didn't know we sponsored a soccer team.  Can we come to the games?"  I said I thought so, and we filled them in on the schedule and they went on their way.  Later that day I was sitting on the sidelines with other parents and I feel this frisson of excitement down the way.  I looked to see what was going on and couldn't see anything, but I could hear jangling and when I leaned back to look down the crowd between the fields, I could see all those poor middle class parents parting like the Red Sea as a crowd of bikers in full regalia strode toward our field.  The couple from the hot dog stand recognized me and the whole bunch of them sat down on the grass with me and cheered the team on.  I will never forget the electricity in the air as those bikers walked down the field, the dignity with which they walked  through the crowd, and their wonderful enthusiasm for a bunch of 11 year old girls playing a game.

When the Offspring was 17 she became a punk.  All her friends were punk too, and most of them looked the part.  They were pierced and dyed and mohawked and shaved and tattooed and wore leather or rags.  Or leather and rags. Or leather rags.  They looked pretty motley if you didn't look too close.  If you bothered to look closely you could see what a bunch of pixies and cherubs they all were.  And they  were smart and informed and thoughtful.  Way smarter than I was in my teens.  Something like 17 of them were renting a house on Freeman Street and they were constantly having parties (to which they always invited the neighbours).  One day Offspring (who had two different colours of  hair and was pierced but not yet tattooed and who was probably wearing three crinolines with her doc martins because she was making and wearing crinolines at the time) and I were in the grocery store enduring the looks of people who clearly thought I was a bad mother for having this obviously delinquent  kid, when a crowd of her friends runs in and surrounds us.  They were all jumping up and down and yelping like a bunch of joyful puppies and the adults in the store were scandalized by this gang and casting aspersive looks at us.  What all the kids were all worked up about was that they had just received a letter from Foster Parent's Plan.  They had been sponsoring a child somewhere and had just been notified that their sponsorship had contributed to building a school in their child's village, and the village had decided to call it the Freeman school.

Things aren't always what they seem.  Sometimes they are even better.

I Might Need a New Radio

  Also, whatever happens to be in my hands when I hear shit like this:

"Denham said the government has been carrying out business orally, without leaving paper records.
But Les says that's always been the practice.
"I think it's very much, you know, the way business has always been conducted," Les said.
"There have always been oral meetings that don't have much of a paper trail. I don't think that's anything particularly new," he said.
Les says he often sees staff using their government-issued Blackberries. But, he says, if he doesn't want something to wind up in the media, he's always careful about what he sends."

Is a government a business? I think not. I am not paying for these unmitigated schmucks to do shitty things in secret with my money. That election can not come soon enough.