Virginity

Talking about sex, though much more common place in contemporary culture than it has been in the past, it is still considered something uncomfortable or akward at best. However, the subject of adult virginity I would argue is probably the most taboo.

The idea of 'saving yourself' or abstinence before marriage is quite uncommon in pop-culture. Perhaps because the institution of marriage is today being challenged by young people, we are less interested in the conventions that once surrounded the ceremony of union as prescribed by religious and cultural traditions.

The reason I am talking about this subject is because despite the modern ideas surrounding virginity, a number of my close friends do indeed ascribe to the idea of 'no sex before marriage'. In fact, two ladies (and their two friends) whom I hold very dear to my heart, have started a blog about virginity - it is called Confession of a 29 Year Old Virgin. In the first two days of releasing their blog, they received 650 hits, which speaks to how popular and curious people are about the circumstances of adult virginity.

Yes my friends believe strongly in the Christian faith, which I personally know would repel many from hearing their stories, but please don't let their spiritual beliefs deter you from their courageous nature and brave approach to sharing their adventures, stories and thoughts.

If ever I need to laugh, feel joy, be loved or believe in the good of the world, these are the ladies I turn to. Their hearts are so filled with good, that it is impossible not to be positively affected by it in their presence. Plus, all are amazing story tellers (especially Danielle!).

I encourage you to check out their blog and to see for yourself what your opinions are on adult virginity. See what negative (or positive) ideas you have around the subject and determine if you believe adult virginity is something that people choose or that just happens for whatever reason. Either way, I know you will enjoy reading Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin.

July 28, 2011: Farm Status

Half way through my apprenticeship, I am in awe about how much I have learned, how much I have seen, how much I have experienced and I look forward for what is still to come. Since we are more than mid-way into the growing season, I thought it would be appropriate to share a visual documentation of 'where the farm is at'. Here is a collection of the current highlights of my job:

The apricots that we thinned earlier in the season have started to ripen. It turns out we have a few varieties of apricots growing at Klippers, so the bulk of the apricots are still not ready. Here you can see the different sizes and colours of those we are taking to market.


Next, we are lucky to have quite a few early harvest peaches at Klippers. This has allowed us to take peaches to market, which fly off the shelves so fast, for a couple of weeks now. Unfortunately, because peaches are so delicate, and worth so much, apprentices rarely harvest the peaches. That being said, we are lucky enough to get the seconds for breakfast, drying and smoothies!!

Every week we take multi-coloured bunches of chard to market. Usually we get about 30 - 40 bunches a week.
We also bunch collards, which are a thick leaf green from the same family as cabbage. The leaves are great for wraps especially, but are also hardy enough to be cooked.

Kale (Dad this is kale) is my favourite green. All of the chard, collards and kale are plants that you continue to harvest until it frosts - you take off the larger leaves each week and then by the next week the plant has grown big enough to do the same thing again.

Garlic! After harvesting tons of garlic scapes, which caused my hands to peel horribly because of the acid in the plant sap, the bulbs thickened up nicely and we have now started to harvest them for storage. Currently we are taking about 420 heads to market on the weekend, which sell for $3.00 each or 4 for $10.00. We will continue to take fresh garlic for many weeks, but that which is in the ground needs to come out. For this reason, we are drying the garlic by hanging bunches in our sheds or laying them out on tables. The important thing is to avoid the sun and to keep the air circulating so that the bulbs dont rot. It has taken us about 18 hrs to do 6 rows. We have 12 more to go. Garlic is a big job.

After the turnip root maggot, the only other problem we have encountered, besides the cold weather which has put the growing season behind, is aphids. Aphids seem to love our salad greens in the green houses and all the collards (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi). If you can see the grey powder looking residue on the cabbage above, it is in fact all aphids! The problem is the bugs are so small that it really doesn't warrant searching through the leaves to clean them, so we are discarding a lot of plant material to the chickens which could normally be used for human consumption. But I understand you always need to account for loss.

Beans are now being harvested every Monday and Thursday. It is amazing how fast a vegetable can ripen. Every time we do the bean harvest we have buckets of beans, where three days earlier, those beans were not at all ready. We have yellow, purple, green and a purple/yellow bean growing. We didn't have very good germination with the beans, so two weeks ago we filled in all the empty spots with more beans. However, the maturation time for the plant is about 6-7 weeks, which puts us in to September. For this reason, we won't be planting any more this year.

This is a Hungarian Hot Pepper. I have not yet tried one, but understand it is very spicy. It is the first of our peppers to be ripe. If ever you need to curb the spice burning in your mouth, and don't drink or have milk, you can use a parsley concoction.

The basil is doing very well given their rough start. We are still working on making the plants big and bushy, which means we harvest the leaves and sell them by the pound ($20.00/lb) at market. Above you can see one of the varieties of basil we grow, lettuce leaf basil, so named for it's very large leaves. To bush up the plants, we have to pinch off the heads from the plan so that where there was one head, now two will grow.


Organic carrots are one of my favourite foods. If ever you need to do a taste comparison between organic and non-organic, use carrots. You will be impressed. We have purple, red, rainbow and orange carrots being harvested right now. Some are from a bind weed infested field, which is a bit of a pain, but the carrots are still tasting delicious. Once we pitch fork them out and bunch them, we then need to pressure wash the dirt off. See the brilliant difference in colour!
I am allergic to beets, to which everyone says they are sorry for me. I can understand the appeal of beets given their many uses (soup, salad, roasted, dried) and their fabulous colours. On our farm we have purple, red, white and gold beets. It is really fun to pull the big ones and also to jet the dirt off to reveal their brilliant colours. That being said, we have SO many beets going to market, that the beet harvest is definitely an event. Still, we can't seem to harvest enough for market.

We put in a second herb garden about a month ago. I am really not very good at using fresh herbs because they are normally so expensive to buy in the store and then it is so difficult to finish them before they go bad. For this reason, I will just say that finding ways to incorporate more fresh herbs into my diet is a current personal goal. Especially because consumers tend to be in the same boat as I and do ask for ways to use the herbs. All I know for sure is that our mint is outstanding in mojitos.


This is Kirsten harvesting beets in the bind weed field. As you can see, the field looks less cultivated and more wild. We stopped weeding this field, once the crops had enough of a presence that they could fend for themselves against the weeds. When 'harvesting' in this field I feel more like I am foraging than harvesting though because you have to dig through the weeds to find your crop.
Kirsten pressure washing some of our purple beets. I really enjoy the pressure washing job.

That's the it folks. Enjoy your organic produce. We've worked hard to prepare it for you.

Missing the City?

Preface: This is my friend Sean. Sean and I have been close friends for a number of years, and one of the joys about Sean is that he appreciates the weird and the silly. This has been very beneficial for our friendship, because I often enjoy being weird and silly. On Saturday at the market, I somehow developed a collection of ultra-miniature produce - an onion, a garlic, a potato and a zucchini. I was overjoyed with my collection and knew I had to share the joy with someone. At first I thought of a child, because of the minute size of the vegetables, but then I thought that a child couldn't possibly fully appreciate the novelty of my collection. So my next immediate thought was my friend Sean! As you can see from this photo, he was quite pleased with the gift.



I have now been living in rural BC communities for five months. I currently consider home to be Cawston, BC. Vancouver seems like a place of my past, though I still make the trek into town every two to three weeks. Do I miss the city? Honestly I have to say no.

Given that our culture and relationships are so technology based these days, I feel as connected to my friends as I did when I lived in the city, and I have access to the same information (minus the free concert announcements) as I did as an urban dweller. I have just touched upon the two items that I do in fact miss from city life - being in the physical presence of my social network and concerts. To solve the first, every weekend that I am in the city I jam pack the time with visits, dates, catch ups and always some adventures with my close friends. I believe my frienships will last for many years because my displacement from the city has not resulted in my exclusion from regular involvement in my friends lives. That being said, I have the personality and drive to plan elaborately timed weekends and maximize my quality time with each individual.

For example, this past weekend:

Friday - work 6 am - 3 pm; drive from Cawston to Abbotsford (3hrs) to pick up Bonnie at goat farm; drive to Surrey to drop-off coworker at sky train and pick-up friend from highschool who just moved to BC; grab sushi and watch 8 pm Harry Potter movie; pick-up desserts for midnight snack with Bonnie's brother and wife with whom we will stay Friday night

Total friends seen Friday (4)

Saturday - work 7 am - 2.30 pm at Farmer's Market in West End (6 friends stop by/help work the market); go meet 2 friends for Kitsilano Street festival where I bump into 2 more friends; go to BBQ in North Vancouver with cousin and family (3 friends)

Total friends seen Saturday (13)

Sunday - climbing in Squamish from 9 am - 3.30 pm (repeat friend from Saturday); dinner with cousin (repeat from Saturday) and say hello to cousin and girlfriend; leave Vancouver at 7pm to arrive home at 11 pm

Total friends seen Sunday (2 new)

So in a matter of less than 48 hrs I saw 19 friends and had new exciting experiences with each to continue to build our relationships. That being said, I slept little and a few of them were seen by pure chance, still I like to think the world works in mysterious ways for a reason!

What don't I miss about the city? I have been thinking about this a lot and the list is long:

traffick; crowds; consumerism; materialism; vanity; disconnect from nature; office jobs; conformity; living in a basement; rent prices; commuting; pollution; feeling like you are part of a machine/insignificant

The list can go on and on, but basically what I have realized is that as long as I can go to the city every now and then (and luckily against city traffic on weekends) I am very happy living in rural towns. At the end of my work day, I am still able to pick up the phone and call a friend or chat online as I sun tan on my porch, except I am surrounded by mountains, fields and wildlife instead of sky scrapers, traffick noise and pollution.

I am interested to see how I feel at 8 months when I am about to move back to Vancouver for a short time. Until then I am taking full advantage of what I have.

Pictures!

This is Adam pretending to be a chicken and I'm supposed to be catching him - chickens run into fences when you chase them. It was quite a realistic impression of the situation!

Winter Pantry

Sorry for the hiatus folks. I have been swept up by the urgency of my colleagues to start my winter pantry. I have never before prepared a pantry for the winter, and realistically, I will not be creating an extensive one this year as I will only need to be able to feed myself for about two months before heading off to South America. Nevertheless, the concept and the skills I am learning to forage and hoard for the winter months is quite exhilirating.

This week for example I have picked three buckets of organic cherries. I am drying most of my cherries to use later in baked goods, granolas or cereals. Picking the cherries is about 20 - 30 minutes a bucket, pitting the cherries is about 60 minutes a buckets, and drying the cherries takes about two days in the dryer I am using. (We currently have four dehydrators running 24-7 in our house!)

Though this process is time involved, when you are not making any money and know you are going to want to have something sweet and wholesome come January or February, the time is totally worth it. Also to put it into perspective cost wise, organic cherries sell for about $6.00/lb. Each of my buckets is conservatively 8 lbs, which means that I picked just under $150.00 worth of fruit in about 1.5 hrs. However, if I were a cherry picker picking the fruit for someone else to sell, I would only get $2.50 a bucket. Unless you are very fast and very skilled at cherry picking, I don't think it is a very financially fruitful endeavour.

The other items I have dehydrated recently are zucchini slices to use as chips with nut butters, pates and the humus I make; pureed apricots to make apricot fruit leather; and diced apple pieces to use in baking and granola as well. I am hoping to start dehydrating some vegetables later in the season to use later to make soup and stews. The amount of space one saves (and the weight too) by dehydrating is impressive to say the least. I certainly look forward to owning my own dehydrator when I settle down.

The girls in my appartment area also busy drying every herb and flower they can get their little hands on. Manon for example has become a real chipmunk - she can barely walk anywhere without stuffing her pockets full of plant leaves, flowers, seeds or roots. In fact I have had to remind her pockets are not the best place to carry all things, as she broke two eggs in her pockets in one day! Silly girl.

I will shortly be starting to collect the herbs and flowers as my tea supply has run out and my spices too need to be improved. Currently I am looking forward to collecting mustard seeds, coriander, mint, oregano and camomille.

The nice thing about being in the presence of people who are actually preparing a full winter pantry, is you get to see all the possibilities of what can be made and how easily it can be done. For example, last Saturday night I went to our neighbour's with Manon to watch them make currant jelly.

And last, the concept of letting nothing go to waste is ever present in the 'conservation' process. For example, I have kept all of the cherry pits I have removed from my cherries to make a heat pack to ease my aching muscles.

Country Living: Cherry Pie; Fishing; Friends; and Apricot Jam

In order to supplement my frugal living, I decided to buy a freshwater fishing license this year. After weeks of being indecisive about which rod to purchase, I finally just opted for the cheapest rod I could get at the local hardware store in the hopes that I will be able to make back all the money I spent to 'save money' on fish by the end of the season.

Yesterday was my first day out, and we caught a fish! I went up to Yellow Lake with some friends after work and we all took a shot at trying to catch dinner (literally at the time.) We are still having some troubles with flotation and the weights on the line, but regardless, we pulled in a fish. We had crafted a makeshift float out of a stick on the line, which kept the line just a little bit higher in the depths of the water. The lucky catcher was my roomate Manon - of course it was her first time fishing and only her second cast! The fish we caught was a nice sized Brook Trout which we have since eaten for lunch.

My friend Adam made it to our farm on Sunday night. He had asked to take part in the farm work on Monday, and was even convinced by everyone to stay a second day. It was really neat having Adam around, because I was already able to see how much I had learned in eight weeks as well as how much my values have changed. For example, Adam felt it was very quiet in our town, whereas I feel like it is bustling with people now that all the pickers are hanging around and tourist season has begun.

Adam was also amazed how much he learned in such a short time. He had never really considered how intimate organic farmers are with their food, and he says he now fully appreciates the cost and the quality behind the organic name. This too led into discussions that had not previously been brought up on the farm, which was how many of the more 'intimate' jobs, such as pruning, desuckering, thinning and picking get done on industrial farms. We were surmising that being in such close proximity to plants that would have been sprayed with toxins incessantly, could not be very good for a persons health. This is when we started to hear horror stories.

Cherries. It is currently the beginning of the cherry season. I have learned, that some pickers will not take contracts at certain farms because of the chemicals they use. Effects on the pickers often include skin aggrivation, nausea and laboured breathing at the end of a day picking sprayed fruit. I have even learned that some farmers will give their pickers tips on how to minimize (not avoid) any adverse affects from working on their farms; these include wrapping their finger tips in electrical tape so as not to come in contact with the chemicals on the cherries and keeping their clothes outside their tents at the end of the day so as not to fumigate their living spaces. Keep in mind, THIS IS FOR FOOD WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE EATING!

I was seriously shocked to hear these stories. I for some reason had it in my mind that if chemicals were used on a farm, essentially all the labour was done mechanically including harvesting, thinning and desuckering. I now realize how naive this thought was, and the impact of realizing that the current food system is seriously threatening the health of the people that are enabling it to exist as it does is not very reassuring.

At least at our farm we have a few rogue organic cherry trees from which we have started to pick the cherries so we do not have to worry about chemical covered fruit - Manon even made cherry pie this week!

Today I also learned how to do a new task - process apricots to make apricot jam. In Annamarie's kitchen, we sanitized the work area then set up four stations: 1) apricot chopping and measuring, 2) apricot boiling and stirring, 3) jam jarring and 4) jar sealing. Annamarie has definitely built her kitchen to accomodate mass production. She says if she is going to take 2-4 hrs to make jam, she wants to make a lot of jam in that time, and so she has it down to a science.

We were chopping the apricots from frozen. Tip for jam from frozen fruit: If you cut them and cook them right away while still frozen, they will not oxidize and turn brown. We had three big boiling pots going: two could take 40 cups of apricots and 1 could take 32 cups of apricots. The ratio of apricot, to apple juice (from the farm), to pectin is as follows:

4 cups of apricots
1 cup of apple juice
.11 grams of pectin

The jam we make doesn't contain any sugar at all and it is still so sweet. We are fortunate that we grow all our own fruit for the jam as this is normally the most expensive ingredient. Though I had seen the jams at market, now that I realize how healthy (comparatively) they are for you, I think I might have to add the jam to my list of farm favourites.

One of the nice tools that Annamarie has too is a steam oven. Instead of having to submerge her jars into boiling water or a canning pot, she is able to seal them in the steam oven in 10 minutes on its 'canning' setting. Though you will pay a penny or two for this appliance, it totally seems worth it.

Tips for making sure that your jam seals are to heat the jars in the oven (which can be reused from year to year), boil the lids in a pot (which cannot be reused), whipe the rims of the jars before putting on the lid, steam the hot jar, hot lid and hot jam for 10 minutes to seal.

Tomorrow I am off to another music festival with some friends to have a mini-vacation from the farm. I am already sad that I might be missing the first harvest of our apricots which could potentially be ready for the weekend.

This week in our meeting we discussed the practice of fruit picking. One of the girls here used to be a picker. She and Annamarie shared that you have to think of picking as a sport, always anticipating the next step, your next position, your comparative advantage to your competitors. This conversation came up in response to one of the newer girls who shared that it was nice to 'zone out' in the field. The feeling was however, when you zone out, there is no way you can be effective at the work at hand, especially when picking. The trick is to be utlra-present and constantly thinking where you are going to put your hand next to save time; know whih fruit you are going to pull off five steps ahead and how you are going to get there. I am eager to give this 'competitive athletic picking' a try.

(Sorry my camera is not uploading photos today. I do have some good ones I will share as soon as I can get them loaded.)

Canada Day Weekend: Vive le Quebec!

This weekend was an adventure in Vancouver.

Friday afternoon started with an impromptu meeting of my friend Adam in Manning Park. I have recently taken it up on myself to compete with my own times for making it to and from Vancouver. This means, when I get in my car, I am immediately in 'racedriver' mode, which means my eyes are on the road and on the lookout for cops, not much else. So when I saw a cyclist in Manning, it took me a second or two to process that this individual might be my friend, and almost instantaneously, he was flagging me down to stop on the side of the road.

It turns out that Adam had been anticipating our crossing all afternoon and had been keeping his eye opene for any white car that came in his direction. You see the first thing Adam says to me after months of not seeing one another is 'Hey. Can you take some stuff for me?' I appears my dear friend realized in the few short days since he journey commenced that some of the items once thought to be essentials, would no longer be on that list. (This includes a VPL library book I was asked to return while in the city!)

The first destination for my weekend was Abbotsford. Abbotsford is 'The city in the country'. Basically, it is a somewhat rural suburb of Vancouver about 70km outside of the city limits. Many local farmers are based in Abbotsford, and Bonnie is currently working on a goat farm in the area. We also have a few good friends that live in Abbotsford - the city part - with whom we had arranged to have a Canada Day get together. The dinner was fabulous, the stories thrilling and the fireworks put on by the city to end the evening very reminiscent of my Canada Day experiences back in Montreal.

Saturday was quite the contrary - but in a good way!

Saturday I was celebrating my friend's impending 30th birthday. His family and a few friends spent the day fishing, crabbing, drinking and eating on a boat in English Bay. Well, everyone in Vancouver knows, if you get the rare opportunity to hangout on a boat in the city, you don't say no. I even brought a friend along to share the experience!

However, I must elaborate that my friend is a very proud Quebecois, as are his parents and most of his friends. For this reason, while the rest of Vancouver's residents were flying there Canadian flags with national pride, our boat was flying its Quebec flag with insurmountable pride.

I think the moment that best describes the depth of Quebecois pride felt on our boat this weekend is this: Toward the end of the evening, once we had caught and eaten our crab, fished and eaten our fish, drank as much alcohol as we wanted to consume and taken in as much sun as our skin would allow, the captains decided to dock the boat at Granville Island for the evening. By this time most were a little bit tipsy and generally in good spirits from spending a fabulous day on the water in good company. So as we cruise under the bridge to Granville Island, the boys put on their favourite music, which just happens to be politically charged Quebecois tunes. Belting these songs (in French) at the top of their lungs, with our Quebec flag flying proudly, and my friend's mother chanting 'Quebec! Quebec! Quebec!' we cruise by the crowds ashore as they stare intently at the ruckus eminating from our boat.

It was certainly an experience to be a part of such a commotion - I know this day will be stored in my memory for years to come.