Yikes, it’s the end of August! If you can’t get down there, here’s a virtual tour of the farm I am managing at Earthwise Society in Tsawwassen. See video below.
James

Interested in organic veggies, grown and harvested by hands you know? Contact me through my work email: farm@earthwisesociety.bc.ca
Next Saturday at Earthwise, Grow Local Fair – Sept. 4 – Big Community event for family and anybody who eats vegetables, pancakes or likes fun (2 out of 3 will qualify you <smile>)  Grow Local Fair

Music at end of video is by The Beige

When you get a letter in a self-addressed envelope from a literary magazine, the one you submitted to in a contest, you know you are getting a rejection letter. I thought it was a pretty compelling story – about a guy who has a hole in his heart plugged because he keeps having strokes. Mixed in with the drama is the after burn from Canada’s gold medal hockey win, a GQ surgeon, a well meaning nurse who clips pubic hair in the operating theater, a soft spoken Hafiz like cardiology intern and the unanticipated depression when your heart gets touched.

Event Magazine wrote, “Unfortunately, your work has not been selected to be forwarded for final judging.” It’s easy to take rejection when the only reason you wrote it was to heal from your experience. So, I’m OK with it.

Just in case you were wondering how things are going on the bottom in the Gulf of Mexico these days, you can catch the live action as BP attempts their new cap thing-a-majigger. This is kind of like trying to hook up your spray nozzle on your garden hose when the tap is turned on full blast using your elbows with one eye closed.

90 million gallons of crude have leaked so far. Top right panel shows the cap and the spewing oil. It may take 30 seconds or so to appear for you.

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Pat - A Bread Affair

I was at the Kits market last weekend and met Pat, owner of A Bread Affair, who showed me his 100-mile-bread. The blueberry hazelnut loaf uses all local, organic ingredients, except for the salt which comes from Unity Saskatchewan. there is something wholesome and grounding about this local bread; it keeps me connected to the source, makes me more conscious. I’m no saint when it comes to buying only local food, but I applaud Pat and his bread!

When I lived at the Ashram we took the 100 mile diet to the extreme, tried to eat only food that we grew, available in the surrounding forest, or out of the lake. We held an event called 128 meter diet, which is the distance from the garden gate to the Ashram kitchen. We spent the whole day gathering food and preparing the meal and took two hours to eat consciously. See the video of that day.

Jennifer and Manny

Some people say, if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.

Upstart baker Jennifer Young is busy. Not long after graduating from law, she had a baby then started a baking business and when it was getting going she began a new job articling in law. She says she’s lazy but nobody agrees.

Jennifer is busy and bakes yummy goods, that’s for sure.  Everything is gluten free, uses locally sourced fruits and high quality chocolate. Yes chocolate! And market shoppers lined up for samples.

Sunday was Jennifer’s first day at Kits market and she had happy friends to help, along with Homestead Specialty Baking number one fan – 9 month old Manny.

May 23 - First day at the Market

I volunteered as bike valet – the first day of Kits Farmers Market and even though it was a chilly and drizzly beginning to the market season, there were lots of hardy shoppers and enthusiastic vendors. All of the early season veggies were available (Chinese greens, asparagus, morels …) and lots of nursery’s selling bedding plants and perennials, as well as yummy bakery goods and home made crafts (as well as everything else I missed).

When a friend coddled her Ali Baba Bohemian Crepe, and waxed poetic about how, “it’s impossible that anyone (like me) had never tried one,”  and how market day also meant to her, “standing in line is part of the experience,”, well how could I resist.

Bohemian Crepe Wagon

While the weather was a bit of of a crepe out, the feeling at the market was pure sunshine. Market day is every Sunday 10 – 2 at the Kitsalino arena parking lot.