Lontra Canadensis

Spring is in the air. 

In an earlier blog entitled "The Dead of Winter", I mentioned how everything had become so incredibly still over the winter. It's so different from the city out here. In Toronto, it doesn't matter what time of year it is - there are always millions of squirrels squirreling about, rounded-back raccoons scurrying over our roofs and through the alleyways at dusk, pigeons riding the subways, sparrows chirping, cats strutting... and dogs, well, abounding.

I've been very lonely out here these past few months, though I must admit that our neighbors have welcomed us with the kindest, widest open arms, for which I am so very grateful.

The weather over the past few days has been absolutely lovely. A balmy high of 10 degrees Celsius and a bright sunshine that entices rivulets to flow by the sides of the road. So after hanging some laundry out to dry in the sun this morning, Emma, Chico and I headed out for a walk to the wetlands.

The birds were singing in a multitude of voices. I caught a glance of a beautiful little gray and white Finch. Some geese traveling back North could be heard in the distance. The crows were crowing. There must have been a dozen of them up there in the sky at once. Emma was sniffing the air.

Suddenly, I gazed over the marsh and beheld Lontra Canadensis (identified over the internet after I came home). It was sitting on the edge of the ice, peering into the water. I paused. Emma was still sniffing the air. Chico barked. (Though neither dog actually saw this creature, I suspect they both smelled it.) Lontra Canadensis hurriedly dove into the water. I saw it resurfacing for a breath of air and dive again, its rounded back gracefully emerging out of the water for a second or two. I moved along, keeping an eye on the marsh and caught glimpses of it emerging and disappearing a few more times. The North American River Otter.


According to naturewatch.ca, "otters fare poorly in areas of human disturbance and have become extirpated from southwestern Ontario because of habitat loss, over-harvesting, and pollution. Monitoring otter populations is recommended as a biological indicator of the health of aquatic ecosystems."

 (I succeeded in snapping a picture when I went back around noon. Lontra was eating a catch and dove back in to continue his hunt.)

Shortly after that, I saw a small creature hopping towards us on the edge of the ice. At first I thought it was a squirrel, until it, too, dove into the water. It swam a bit, jumped back out onto the ice, and Emma caught sight of it. She stood up on her hind legs pulling on her leash, looking like a lemur watching it go. This new creature seemed like a tiny teeny version of the river otter. Mustela vison - the American mink. Back in the city, one of these minks decimated my father-in-law's koi population, one at a time, over eighteen days, by "fishing" in his beautiful backyard pond. There was nothing he could do to protect his beloved fish as all wildlife is protected in the city (except for mice and rats, of course).


Later, I saw a pheasant walking in the woods. And a dead snake by the mill.

I doubt this poor fella came out for the hot sunshine. His corpse must just now be thawing out from last Fall.

I'm looking forward to all the wildlife I'll get to know this coming Spring and Summer.  Archie - the walker - and I had a chat out front a few days ago, when I had to go rescue him from Emma's attacks again (he keeps saying it's fine, that she's a good dog just doing her job). Anyway, he mentioned that big, long fish (two-footers!) are coming - in about a couple of weeks (silly I can't recall what kind). And that soon, loads of huge snapper turtles will be traveling through and coming out onto the roads to greet us.

Oh March... I beg of you to forgo the snow altogether and bring us more of this warm sunshine!

20 Years of Art

In the past, my artwork has often been about being somewhere else than "here" and "now". (See kl-d.ca)

For many years, the focus of my artwork was old family photographs. I loved to dwell on those old memories that were not mine and dream about the people in my family whom I never got to meet, or gaze at my own mother's image as a child.

After that, I began painting scenes from my travels. Feeling the heat of the jungle from my tiny city studio on a cold and snowy winter day... hearing the sounds of the crashing waves and the rustling palm trees in my mind.... being "there" and not "here".

  

Now, I don't want to be anywhere else but here, in my beautiful countryside. I figured I would be spending this winter painting surrounding landscape, becoming a local, comfort-country artist. But I'm just not that into it for some reason. Maybe I haven't found my new voice yet. I did try to paint the neighbor's field:

And another neighbor's cows:

But these paintings just don't seem right. Pretty. Lame. I need a bit of an edge even though I'm a very traditional painter. Or maybe because of that. Something's missing. I've been thinking about how this great transition, this drastic change in environments is affecting me, and I guess I need time to stew a bit like a piece of tough meat. Maybe I'll just take my new inspiration with food and carry it over to my art and start painting "still" lifes like I used to back in my University days:

Who knows what will happen with my art in the future, but for now it seems I have to embrace this hiatus, and patiently wait for the meat to tenderize and fall off the bone.

Germinations

Living in the city, my idea of eating local was to shop at the local butcher's, baker's, neighborhood fruit and vegetable store or the Korean grocer rather than the large supermarket. I firmly believed - and still do - in supporting small businesses in my community. Our apartment was situated in the junction between Little Italy and Korea Town and we were in walking distance of Kensington Market, so we had plenty of small shops to chose from. The fruit & veggie store on the corner of Bloor and Manning was just awesome - it carried ultra cheap berries year-round (you could get two cases of strawberries for $4 in the middle of winter!) and seasonal eating never even occurred to me then as everything was always available. I very rarely was concerned about how far these foods had traveled before being offered to me for sale in Toronto.

With my new-found consciousness of food production and recent attempts at eating locally grown, seasonal foods, fresh local produce is virtually non-existent at this time in our rural area. This is why I decided to grow sprouts.

 

Growing sprouts is super easy! You can purchase sprouting seeds at the Bulk Barn, or order them online from Mumm's or Sprout Master. All you need is seeds, glass jars, screen material and elastic bands. (All these items can be recycled: re-use your tomato sauce jars, the elastic bands that come with your veggies, and pantyhose or garlic sleeve for screening.)

First, soak the seeds overnight:

After that, all you need to do is rinse and drain your sprouts twice a day and within 3 to 6 days, you've got fresh sprouts to eat!

I've grown (clockwork) hot mustard sprouts (great in sandwiches!), red daikon radish sprouts, crunchy pea and lentil sprouts and alfalfa sprouts.

Sprouts can be used in sandwiches, salads, stir-fries and many other recipes and they are highly nutritious, abounding in vitamins and proteins. Not to mention how delicious they taste. And you can't get more local than when the food was grown in your own kitchen!

Bloor Superfresh Fire Wood

On my visit to Toronto last week I saw this rather amusing item for sale on Bloor street near Bathurst:

 

What's interesting to me is that they've probably always been selling firewood in the past years but I would have never noticed that while living in the city. Rather expensive, don't you think? Must be the cost of transportation - hate the plastic packaging!

Of Wood and Fire

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.  ~ Mae West

Our house has an oil furnace that is connected to an outside oil tank. To fill that oil tank is extremely expensive, so we like to set our thermostat low and supply vital extra heat by burning wood in a wood stove that sits in our kitchen. That stove is the heart of the house. The fire that burns in it is the heart beat of our Winter days and nights.

Last weekend, we missed the monthly wood gathering chore with our friend The Farmer. Stuart was working over the weekend again. Although I went along without him last month, and despite the fact that I usually try to work like a horse, I found it unfair to have our friend and his sons working extra on our behalf (of course, they graciously said it was their pleasure to do so).

Our wood stack in the workshop was slim pickings yesterday, so I decided to call it a wood day and carry in some of the logs from the reserves that we have stacked out back in the woodshed.

I love "doing wood" as they call it around here. You get to know every individual piece of wood intimately from handling it over and over again. There's an old saying that wood fuel heats you up four times: first when you cut it, then when you split it, then again when you stack it and finally, when you burn it.  Talk about efficient heating!

The house was freezing yesterday morning, and I dressed warmly to go out and do wood, but it took only moments for me to feel hot and have to take my coat off once I started working. I love how that happens.




So basically my task was to load the wheel barrel with wood, wheel it from the woodshed to the house and through the mudroom, and then stack it along the wall in the workshop - with the occasional splitting of pieces that are too large to fit in our stove. It's great excercise!

Using wood as heat energy is a way of life. It doesn't cost a lot in terms of dollars, but it does require quite a bit of labour. You either love it or hate it. One local friend nodded in the direction of his lady who was outside doing wood and chuckled "That woman! She doesn't mind getting flowers, but give her a pile of wood and she'll be as happy as can be!"





This beautiful wood pile will last us about a month. 

Stacking firewood is a highly rewarding activity! I'd say it's an art. In fact, when you google "the art of stacking wood", you find all sorts of people describing exactly how they do it and why. I'm still learning but I get better at it every time I do it I seems. When you're done, it kind of looks like a 3-dimensional painting. The interplay of shades and colours, the curves and angles that battle it out with the holes and pieces that stick out. It's all quite pleasing to the eye.

On the practical side, it's important to have a good mix of different woods and sizes and cuts, so that you can pick and chose whatever you need at a given moment without having to move wood around too much - especially when you're standing out there barefoot in your pyjamas at 7 am! 

It's cold outside. When we finally sit in front of that comforting fire and feel the intense heat blasting out from our stove, now that is a sense of satisfaction that is unequaled. We didn't just turn the thermostat on to get some magical machine to do the work for us. We toiled for that heat. The entire process gave us a sense of accomplishment on many levels, it connected us with the nature that surrounds us, it warmed up our bodies and lifted our spirits along the way. Now we can sit back with a glass of wine and our feet up, watch and enjoy.

 

  

  

  

Take a moment to read:


Wendy Milne - Doctoral Thesis on Energy Literacy on woodheat.org