Spring Garden!

My new composter and expanded veggie garden got me all excited for the gardening season! Feeling that it was too early for planting, I was always told to wait until after the threat of the last frost has passed (end of May in Nova Scotia), I headed to the bookstore to pick up a book on backyard composting.

We had a composter in our backyard that previous tenants left behind years ago but we were really never successful at it so what better way to learn then to read about it before getting your hands dirty. One thing I have a really hard time with is resisting books. I LOVE books and I do eventually read them all! Sitting on the shelf beside the composting book was this book...

I sat in the bookstore looking at my books thinking about all of the issues we currently have with food. My thoughts turned back to the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, both books my Michael Pollan and both AMAZING. Mainly I was thinking about where it comes from and how it is grown and the environmental impacts of it all. Even though I try to buy everything local and organic, it can be difficult in the dead of winter to get local greens...so I bought Niki's book (she is from Nova Scotia!) and vowed to give some of her ideas a try. So I quickly read the relevant sections on designing a garden, crop rotation and most importantly the section about plants themselves. To my surprise, she recommended planting some crops before the last frost! There are so many cold hardy plants, like broccoli, kholrabi, lettuce, spinach, kale, leeks, carrots and the list goes on that I made a garden plan and planted it on April 27th!

With a little care, like row covers, I am hoping to successfully grow all of these veggies! The strawberries and chives have been there for a couple of years but everything else is new, much of them new to me as a gardener! The poppies come from seeds from my grandmother's garden that my mom has kept growing since her passing in the 90's. They will give the garden some wonderful colour and bring me back to my youth at the cottage by the lake at the same time. I am planning to start a fall crop indoors in July (need to get a grow light set up...) and build a mini hoop tunnel to protect them into the winter. So far I have planted 4 rows of salad greens and this weekend will be planting the rest with some broadcast seeds in between many of the seedlings that are popping up! I also have a plant for a small A-frame to get some pole beans climbing and plant some more greens underneath to keep them going through the heat of the summer. Who knows if it will all work out but I will keep you posted. Here are some promising first signs...

 

What I did for the Earth on Earth Day

I know Earth Day was just over a week ago...but it did take me a couple of weekends to finish up the project. It all started on April 20th, when the Halifax Regional Municipality was selling HUGE, AWESOME compost bins for $25 to try to encourage more backyard composting. I was so in! So I stood in line for an hour and 40 mins in the freezing cold wind and fog with my hands stuffed in my pockets and my hood drawn around my face. I so wished I had another sweater on. Did I mention I was alone? I am sure if Diego had come with me we would have bailed after 15 mins and we would have never got this awesome composter!

The weather on the 21st took a turn for the better so I cleaned up the yard and installed the composter in the sunniest spot in our backyard, without taking precious recreational space. It is easy to access and I am so looking forward to the results!

 We also finally installed the rain barrel we had sitting in the backyard since last year. It will feed the side garden (see the hose?) that is always so dry and it looks nice at the front of the house. Here's hoping that it doesn't get pushed over by the drunk students that roam our streets. Speaking of side garden....you might not have noticed but we extended it another 3 ft giving us a total of 25 ft x 2 ft of full sun garden!

Here you can see the addition and the weeping hose (or whatever it is actually called) I put in to the whole garden and attached to the rain barrel. I put it in to encourage deeper roots and make my watering job easier with a lower impact on our drinking water resources. We have a backyard rain barrel in the works too... However, now that we have the rain barrel connected to the downspout... we just need it to rain!

What did you do for Earth Day?

Spring Equinox

The old saying in like a lion out like a lamb doesn't seem to apply to March this year. At least not in Nova Scotia! Today is the Spring Equinox and we just got 10 cm of heavy wet white stuff mixed with ice pellets and lots of wind. Sounds more like out like a lion to me...

We even got a 1/2 snow day! It is very rare for the University to close, so when it does you know it is bad...

I remember snow days as a kid in Ontario. Unlike here in Nova Scotia where they cancel school at the thought of snow, the only thing cancelled at my school were the buses. This meant that the teachers who could come in would and were paid to essentially babysit the kids that could make it to school. This meant that parents could drop their kids off if they chose but also all the kids that could walk, did. I cannot imagine all of the days off parents have to take in NS just because of school cancellations. Anyhow, snow days consisted of playing outside, board games, card games, music, fun science experiments, indoor gym, reading in the library and even music. Not all the teachers had to be there. Grade levels were combined and activities organized for everyone to have fun. They were the best days because they consisted of having fun with your friends at school ALL DAY and not just at recess. My snow day today consisted of shoveling snow and now posting here! Fun but perhaps not as exciting as building a snow fort and having a snowball fight with the English school across the ditch.

Despite the ugliness outside, there is some true beauty happening inside our house. I bought this orchid the other day because of its stunning colour! Sadly, it is not natural BUT it will have nice white flowers next time it blooms.

 In the mean time I will enjoy their turquoise and dark blue hues. Another of my orchids is putting out flower stalks for the third time in 12 months! I am looking forward to the 20+ blooms it will produce in the next couple of weeks. I also discovered another nice surprise the other day...

One of my cacti was budding! This beautiful orange flower opened yesterday and there is at least one more on the way!

I noticed that the heather on campus is blooming as were the crocuses. I am dreaming of gardening season!
In the mean time, I hope you are all warm and safe and enjoying the spring equinox, inside or outside!

Keeping Myself Busy

Despite teaching being done for the summer I have been keeping myself quite busy. Before my parents came for an Easter visit, I did a long awaited (ahem...6 years) clean up of our front entryway. It is a vestibule that is not heated or insulated but protected from the elements because it is closed in. I guess we kinda considered it part of the "outside" and it was sorely neglected. We used it as a storage area and stuff just piled up, it was such a mess. The walls were sooo dirty, it took 3 buckets to clean them! I finally got fed up with seeing the mess every time I came home. I thought to myself, "This is what greets me after a long day or work...it is also what greets our guests, this is not acceptable" and the cleaning began. I am not proud of our neglect, but I am proud of the final product!
We now have a welcoming place to greet our guests, a spot to store our scooters and hang our helmets complete with name tags!
Eventually, it will need to be painted but this is a good start!

I also prepared some lemon marmalade using this recipe and some of Sherrie's Meyer Lemon and Vanilla Jelly as a birthday gift for my Dad. He LOVES marmalade. I am not a big fan so I didn't try it...I hope it turned out okay!

Making Pectin

I know the lemon Jelly turned out AMAZING! I will definitely be making it again soon. We had it on crepes with blueberries and light maple syrup on Easter Sunday and it was delicious!
My parents brought us a gallon of Ontario maple syrup that we have been using up on yogurt and homemade granola! They also lugged a bunch of items from my youth, 3 sets of tarot cards, some kids Christmas books and my favourite musical pillow! Stashed in among the stuff were some lovely crocks that I have placed around the house (thanks for the spelling correction!).
While they were here, we stayed at the lovely place on the ocean from my previous post. We were lucky to have a couple of sunny days and took advantage of it by going hiking along the ocean.

Even though it was sunny the wind was still cold! We saw lots of eider ducks and some black guillemots! We also explored the remnants of World War II. There are lots scattered along the rugged coast along the Halifax Harbour approaches.

Bunker

Train tracks to bring concrete for building the bunkers and other supplies from ships.

Now I that they have gone and I am back at home I have been working on my thesis. I had a meeting with my supervisory committee last week and they have approved my remaining chapters (YAY!). Now I just need to buckle down and get them done!!! It is time to be a hermit which means I will be taking it very easy on blogging but I will continue to keep up with everyone.

Take Care! :) See you all soon!

PS. I hope you all like my new spring banner...complete with the ominous fog bank sitting just off the coast. I LOVE fog and we have been having a lot of it lately! :)

Weekend Retreat!

I am lucky to be house sitting for my supervisor and her husband. They have been away since before Easter and we were lucky to have my parents come for a visit and stay at the house on the coast. My parents have gone now and I am enjoying a quiet weekend on my own in this peaceful place. As I am writing I look out the office window a pair of young deer walk by and stop to eat grass at the front of the house, I can hear the call of the male ring-necked pheasant, the family of crows and the fog horn on the hill.
The house in the background is their newly acquired guest house. The male pheasant brings his date for breakfast every morning and he calls constantly throughout the day.
Today it is foggy and cool. I cannot see the ocean from where I sit or sleep. This is the view from the bedroom this morning.
This is the view on a clear day.
The regular sound of the fog horn is comforting and will lull me to sleep tonight as it did last night. I miss this sound in Halifax. They decommissioned the fog horn 2 years ago.
The house is passive solar and heated with wood. I started my very own wood stove fire last night. I feel very independent! LOL. Today is cool and I have the fire stoked. It is a good day to have a hot bath and curl up with a cup of tea, the cats and my thesis.
Fredda is enjoying the warmth and laziness of this foggy day. I will post more on this lovely place when I get to my pictures at home. Have a wonderful weekend!

Spring has arrived!

Happy Spring!

I saw these crocuses displaying their colours 2 weeks ago even before many other plants had even started pushing the soil up!
Diego and I went for a long walk yesterday and although it was a bit nippy in the wind we found the signs of spring all around us.
We made it to the waterfront spring has been underway for a couple of weeks now. As soon as there is enough light (usually early March) the microscopic plants (phytoplankton) that drive the highly productive ocean system here off of Nova Scotia came to life and started multiplying. This is why the water in the photo below is greenish. Normally (now that we have sewage treatment!) the water would be crystal clear in the winter.
Once the phytoplankton get really abundant then the very small animals and larvae of bottom dwellers and fishes called zooplankton "appear" and begin to feed on the phytoplankton and each other! If you look closely at the photo you will see little round balls with two training tails. These are called ctenophores (or sea gooseberry). They are voracious predators and always appear after a week or 2 after the spring bloom starts. Eventually, the phytoplankton get grazed down by the very abundant zooplankton, which then also attract larger predators (krill, larger fishes) then eventually the whales arrive to dine on the feast that Altantic Canada has to offer.
Now that Spring has arrived to both land and sea, it will soon be time for planting in the garden! Above are the first awakenings in our garden. I can wait to have our very first chives!

Spring Peepers in St. Andrews NB

Has it been a month already??

Classes are winding down at DAL but my class is just winding up! I am at a statistics workshop at the Huntsman Marine Sciences Centre in St. Andrews New Brunswick! I was too tired today to work on anymore data...I have been staring at my data for 2 full days now (no end in sight until at least Friday!) So I decided to get out and stretch my legs after dinner and catch the sunset.
This is the Upper Campus and I am staying on the main floor of the brown building on the right (Needler Hall). The one on the left is a former summer estate house called the Anderson House.
One of my many sunset shots!

Finally, this little pond is just outside my window (turn up the volume!). I will listen to these little guys until I fall asleep tonight. What a wonderful place!

Happy Tuesday! :)

Flowers

I saw these on my walk to work yesterday...They were not freshly planted either! The pansie was the most surprising...I almost missed it, just a slight flash of yellow among the dead leaves.
Diego bought me these beautiful roses a couple of weeks ago...the last two are still hanging on but will likely be hung up to dry today. I love the colour contrast and how the glow when the sun hits them!
This photo should be landscaped and is on my computer but blogger isn't cooperating...

Have a GREAT weekend everyone! :)

Sunshine and Warmth = Dread and Frustration

It has been wonderfully sunny and warm here this last week. I, like many, am awaiting the Spring with baited breath. However, this early warm weather and the flowers coming up in the gardens has mixed feelings for me. For me Spring is about renewal, everything coming alive after the cold and dark of winter gives me joy and fills me with love and life...well that is how it used to be. Increasingly, the good feelings are mixed in with feelings of dread and frustration.

DREAD because this mild winter with very little snow, crazy snow and rain storms and early spring all scream CLIMATE CHANGE. The changes I have read about in the scientific literature are becoming more and more obvious to me. One thing that really drove it home to me was this post by Sherrie over at 22 Pleasant. The snowdrops in her garden are coming up a full month earlier than they were 4 years ago! That is one week earlier per year! THAT IS A HUGE CHANGE! With very little snow and rain (so far) this year, the forests are dry and lots of forest fires are on the horizon. We saw first hand on April 30th last year right outside Halifax what that can mean for people when we had that huge forest fire in Herring Cove.

Halifax skyline on April 30th 2009. Photo from CTV.ca

DREAD because Canada is getting warmer. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change synthesis report (you can download it here) and book, Keeping our Cool: Canada in a Warming World by one of Canada's leading Climate Scientists Dr. Andrew Weaver (who is also on the panel) all point to increased events of severe weather, drought and fires with increased warming. Snow and rain are predicted to come in storms where lots of it is dropped all at once rather than over time (sound like this winter?). Rain events like this have been happening more often, this causes flash flooding and land slides and it doesn't soak into the ground in the forest. When you have heavy rainfall or rapidly melting piles of snow, it is just too much water all at once to be absorbed by the soil and it just runs off. You can try this with your own garden or houseplants. If you water them with lots of water too fast, your pot overflows but if you slow down the water but still give them the same amount, it soaks in. So these events don't help the dry forests...

We are also predicted to have a very HOT summer this year. I don't know about you but, I live in a second floor flat and it get unbearable sometimes... this will just cause more people to go out and get airconditioners which consume huge amounts of electricity and in Halifax, our electricity comes from coal...so more CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) feeding climate change.

Halifax's Coal Burning Power Plant.

FRUSTRATION because of the belief in the general public that this is an issue still being debated in the scientific community. THERE IS NO DEBATE IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY ABOUT THIS ISSUE, WE ALL AGREE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING! There has NOT been one study published in the peer-reviewed literature that does not point to significant changes in almost ALL ECOSYSTEMS OF THE WORLD!!! Those who put doubt in the minds of the general public, if you dig deep enough, can all be traced back to being funded by those individuals and corporations with a vested interest in the status quo.

FRUSTRATION because of our lack of leadership in the Government. There is nothing I despise more right now than Stephen Harper's face, especially with his fake smile. We had the chance to be a leader on this issue but instead we faltered and blocked much of the progress on a global scale. Dr. Weaver goes into detail of the politics of the issue in Canada (very interesting indeed). The bottom line is that the Conservative Government DOESN'T CARE about this issue. They abolished funding agencies within the government designed to support climate change research not only in the natural sciences but also in social science. They have no goals or target and essentially ignore the issue. This is an issue that affects ALL of us and we cannot deny it any longer...when will we act? When countries run out of water? When there are food shortages because of drought? When there is war because of both food and water shortages?
Despite all of this dread and frustration there is still hope, this is what Dr. Weaver's book has instilled in me. If you haven't Dr. Weaver's book yet, get it from the library or a friend, or buy it if you have to but if you care at all about this issue or if you aren't yet convinced you absolutely NEED to read it! It explains the science in a very clear, easy to understand manner. This was written for the people, not the scientists, remember, we already know it is happening!!! It also goes in depth into the "debate" in the scientific community, the media's role in disseminating the science, the politics and the covert tactics of those with a vested interest in continuing to emit GHGs to create doubt in the general public about the issue. I think it is so IMPORTANT for EVERYONE to understand the science, media and politics of climate change. Once you do, you will no longer be able to deny or ignore it. Although this book is sad, scary and frustrating, it is hopeful and we CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF GLOBAL WARMING but we need to force our Government(s) to ACT NOW!!

Do you think Stephen Harper would read it if I sent it to him?

Olfactory Delight!

I wish you could smell this through the internet! Such a subtle yet sweet scent, that is not too flowery or overpowering like some perfumes or scented oils and candles that claim to be magnolia. I highly recommend the real thing!!
This is the biggest magnolia tree I have ever seen! I look forward to its blooms every year. It is just right around the corner and I visit it almost every day when it is blooming.
The owner appreciates that I enjoy it so much. It is too bad they are so short lived, but I think it makes me enjoy it even more!! I never tire of my small detour to wrap myself in the warmth I feel when I close my eyes, breath deeply and fill my lungs with the sweet scent of magnolia. I will soon have to say goodbye to the papery white flowers and await their return next spring!

Spring is in Full Swing!!!

It was so beautiful out today!!! We could walk around with a fleece rather than our cumbersome winter coats! We still have the wind coming off the 4 degree Celsius ocean to contend with at this time of year, so no matter how warm the land gets the breeze is always much cooler. Everyone was out and about....Diego and I even took an hour walk around the city this afternoon to get away from our computer and get some much needed rays on our pale faces!

I also, got to visit some of my fav. flower spots along the way. The daffodils are on the verge of opening and being ripe for picking (they are on public property...an adult school to be exact and I only take 4 or 5...). The pussy willows are out full force! I picked these up at the market on the weekend. Halifax has an amazing farmers market year round!!There is also a HUGE magnolia tree close to my place and you can see where the buds are cracking open to reveal the delicious smelling white flowers within. I give it another 1.5 - 2 weeks before it is in full visual and olfactory glory! Every year I encounter the owner of said tree and she is happy to have someone enjoy it so much! I try to walk by there every day when it is in bloom! Yes, I am a self admitted flower stalker...

Speaking of flowers...more of my orchids have opened up!
This one opened its first flower 1.5 weeks ago. I love how you can see the spots that the flower will have on its petals on the surface of the buds! These flowers are quite small, the size of a twoonie (our 2 dollar coin for those non Canadians).
This one opened up about a week ago. It has large flowers, about the size of my palm and has these delicate tails that you can see in profile on the side view flower. I have two more orchids left to produce flower shoots, I am not sure if they will bloom this year...but if they do you will be sure to know!!! Another great thing about spring are the orchid shows!!! I love orchids, they are so varied and produce gorgeous and very long lasting flowers! Remember this one well it still has one flower left and it has been 2.5 months since it started blooming!!

We also went to Pete's Frootique to pick up the few things we couldn't get at the market on the weekend. For those of you who aren't familiar with this store...Pete's is a locally owned store that specializes in exotic fruits and veggies but also carries a lot of locally made beauty products and other fare...way better than the HUGE corporate grocery stores and has most everything you would ever need and it pretty competitive with prices (except for the cheeses...)...but I digress... It was here that Diego surprised me with...you guessed it...Flowers!
Irises to be exact. We passed a garden a few days before and I got all excited that it had a local variety of iris that was blooming!! So when he saw these beauties he knew I would squeal with delight! Although, they are not the local variety they are beautiful!!! He is such a sweety!

That's all for now...back to the grindstone!

Don't forget to enjoy spring wherever you are!
Happy Spring to all! :)