Hope-giving signs

There isn't a lot of green showing yet. But some is enough.

At Last
Not one moment too soon we are seeing those all important signs that Demeter has found her beautiful daughter Persephone.
I've heard boy robins singing their territorial declarations. Haven't seen any females in the neighbourhood yet but the boys wouldn't be singing if the girls weren't close by.
When I first wake up I can hear the fearless Red-wing Blackbirds boys singing their Spring song.
No blooming daffodils or green buds sprouting yet but I now believe there is hope.
I understand that there are predictions of more cold winters like this one for the next two decades.
Is this a curse? You know the Sleeping Beauty thorn forest surrounding the tower for a hundred years sortof thing.
I wonder how my grandparents and great grandparents coped and survived cold unforgivingly long winters on the Canadian prairies.
But then I have many questions about my ancestors' survival. For example, how did all those women survive menopause?
Where did they find their glimmers of hope?
How did they handle depression?
I am unable to organize my thoughts or priorities in the dark of winter. What did they do?
Organizing. Spring cleaning.
I am ready for these massive undertakings right now before the weather is truly lovely. But I am temporarily having to put all of this on hold -- as there is yet more work to be done on our street regarding the hook-up of our houses to municipal sewer.
In about two weeks time each household on our street will have driveways, lawns and flowerbeds dug up for pipe to be installed.
We can expect lots of dust and mud as concrete is sawed and hammered to make way for piping to enter our house.
This comes in addition to the several months of upheaval we endured last summer and autumn.
Not much point washing walls and such before that business is finished.
I am going outdoors in search of hope-giving signs now because I don't want to fall back into the darkness of winter's thoughts.

Play Day - Phew!

A wonderful day of play!

About four years ago a tiny little baby arrived into our lives.

She was the delicate preemie newborn daughter of our neighbours. After her arrival on the planet, Little One spent several months in hospital receiving special care in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Finally, she arrived home to our neighbourhood.

We were wide-eyed and slack jawed in disbelief at the beauty of this miniature wee person. We were in love. Little One loved my husband best. She instantly stopped fussing for him as soon as he picked her up. She'd snuggled up and sleep in his arms ever so contentedly. However, I suspect sleeping was a self-defense mechanism. Husband didn't sing lullabies to Little One. He sang a variety of Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin tunes to her. You'd not want hear his renditions and me thinks neither did she.
Little One's mother was more than gracious about sharing her tiny daughter with us. So, we had many blissful hours of time with Little One.

Then, economics required that the family move away. It was horrible for us. We really missed Little One.

One day this week past there was a definitive knock on our front door and ta da! guess who was standing there -- and from the second she came in the house it was like old times -- a play date.

First, she had a juice box and then examined the old toy box to see if all was in order. Phew! We passed the test.

Soon she tired of looking at her old babyhood toys and was pleased when she found some Dora the Explorer kidz cards. So, Husband and Little One played Go Fish! Crazy Eights and a couple of games that Little One made up as the games progressed. (Little One has an astonishing vocabulary and counts to 20!)

After cards Husband and Little One had their traditional breakfast. Eggs (poached, of course)and toast with lots of jam. Energy renewed it was time to play again.

Husband patiently played Paper Doll game. He endlessly used the spinner as they made a game of finding which clothes the paper dolls needed to dress-up for their various adventures. While the directions on the box suggest the first player to collect a top, bottoms, shoes, hat, bag and appropriate hobby is the winner. It wasn't like that the other day. Rather, it was a show of Little One's leadership skills. She told Husband what to put on the dolls at every move. He was amazingly good-natured about the whole thing.

Mind you, at least once I heard him say under his breath, "you're sure a bossy little girl."

To his immense relief Little One did finally tire of the Paper Doll Game. But she is not a child that naps.

After Paper Doll Game it was time to colour. A lot of pages got coloured in our jumbo colouring book. Me thinks Husband would have been thrilled if we'd been the proud owners of a colouring book with a lot less pages.

Little One saved the best for last. She found an old plastic chess set. (It has a lot of missing pieces). To our amazement Little One knew that the pieces needed to go on the board in some sort of special order and she asked Husband to do that for them. He did.
That was the last moment that anything like a traditional chess game was seen or heard. This was definitely Chess Mutation. There were determinate rules. But guess who made the rules? She also governed the movement of the pieces and it was all about the knights.

Little One insisted that Husband be the sound guy. He was charged with making appropriate neighs, whinnies and snorts as Little One directed, "This is a Mommy horse and she is going to visit her baby horse." "This horse wants to go and be with her friend."

There was a lot of horseplay.

Husband patiently did as he was told, although there was unmistakable mischief in some of the horse sounds.

After all that play time, Little One's daddy came to fetch her and take her back over to Grandpa's place.

A few minutes later I saw Little One on her trike, rapidly peddling down the street, her grandpa running along beside her.

Husband didn't get to see Little One taking grandpa out for a fitness run. By that time, Husband was sound asleep. He needed a nap.

Happy birthday, Cousins!

Wishing you lots of delicious cake!

Dear Darcie and Christopher,

Happy birthday fellow Pisces!
Sending you love and wishes for everything good -- especially good weather and good health!
I'd love to have all of you here for dinner!

Love to you,
Terry

Not soy good -- no kidding!

They aren't kidding. Or at least not in the successful ordinary manner in which it happened last year.
We have farmer friends with goats and their nanny goats are birthing their kids now. Sadly, more than half of the kids died shortly after birth and most of them had goiter.
Justifiably alarmed, my farmer friends are exploring many avenues in search of ways to avoid this problem in the future.
Nutrition is of course the obvious place to focus. What a learning experience for all of us is this exploration!
I am intrigued by many things we are learning and deeply disturbed by other aspects.
I am disturbed, in part, because I am relatively trusting by nature. Sadly, I am learning there is little reason to trust our food sources -- not for ourselves nor for our animals.
I realize that the trust stuff comes easily for most of us.

For example, I live with a husband who is a total believer in health foods. He reads or hears a claim by an advertiser, or hears an anecdotal report and then he buys the product. No questions asked. Mostly, this just means he is excreting expensive pee. But more seriously, he very often recommends 'this or that' to others without ever having investigated the history of the product. He never checks out the science of the vitamin or product from a reliable source because he doesn't believe that "natural" things can have contraindications. He totally believes the science fiction around "health foods."

But as my farmer friends and I are learning it may well be that within these good intentions of "health" that the poor little kid goats lost their lives.
Many different types of soy products are marketed as animal feed (and are in animal feed). This is in large measure because we view soy as a healthy primary vegetable protein source
What my farmer friends and I are learning is that the soy plant has an iodine-binding capacity which affects thyroid function. As well, (and there appears to be sufficient documentation indicating an established history) there is record of soy-based creation of pancreatic and thyroid gland problems in animals. Ofcourse, most of us are looking at what's in the package before we feed it to our pets, but how can we know all of these important details?
It is overwhelming.

We have learned that soy used in diets for poultry or pigs must be heated at 110 degrees Celsius for three minutes. Soy, just like many other legumes, has lecithin and other anticoagulants such as tripsine blocker (protheolithic enzyme from the pancreatic juice). This prevents an optimal use of proteins in foods. Fortunately, these anticoagulant factors can be completely destroyed at high temperatures. Historically, agricultural and food corporations told farmers that ruminants such as goats do not need to have the soy heat treated.
However, a pathologist, assisting my friends in their exploration for answers to the why of their kids' deaths, told my friends to talk to their animal feed processor about the heating process -- soy does need to be heated for goats or the iodine-binding (and other problems) capacity remains.

This is but one avenue of exploration. My friends are also examining their hay source, reviewing the genetic history of their goats (as much as possible, not all farmers tell each other the truth when selling their animals to one another).

And while this animal detective works goes on I am wondering about the claims of soy as a healthy alternative to milk-based formulas for human infants.

And I am pretty sure I want to know more about the high levels of phytic acid, enzyme inhibitors, lectins, manganese and phytoestrogens in soy. Those high levels of phytic acid likely greatly inhibit zinc and iron absorption. What does this mean for menopausal women and others consuming soy with the assumption that it is beneficial to them.

For me, even if the soy in the goats' feed turns out to be a non-issue, I have a new awareness of the need to know more ... and it is overwhelming me. I just want to be able to trust.

Happy to be Here

Kingston T. Cat -- well-fed, well-sheltered and well loved.
Winter in the Shuswap -- glad to be experiencing weather.

Happy to be Here

It has been a big winter here in the Shuswap. There is a lot of snow and it is still minus 18 degrees Celsius here today.
Like almost every Canadian I am ready to shed winter's mantle. I have been feeling very sorry for myself. Blue. Unhappy. Crabby. Being held prisoner by winter weather is house arrest, is it not?
Around 48 hours ago there was some potent intervention.
Firstly, quite by happenstance I found a blog site called Call Me Cat. I am guessing the author may be Malaysian (although I haven't found the site again -- in part because I haven't had time to search for it. So, I am missing all the details. I have only the quickly observed moments of personal impact to share). The author's photographs of people living in sunny Asian regions were powerful reminders to me of my good fortune to have been born Canadian.
The people had wonderful sunshine but not our Canadian good fortune.
There was a photo of a black and white cat, so similar in markings to the black and white cat living in my home, it could be a sibling to our "Kingston T. Cat." The cat in the photo was obviously hungry, unsheltered and likely ill. I anguished for the cat in the photo.
Wake up call.
My cats are never without food, shelter and necessary medical intervention as needed. All of this is taken for granted by me and of course by the resident cats.There was another photo, this one of a young girl on a walkway looking over railing at difficult living conditions below -- the setting is likely her home. This photo gave me further pause.
I was viewing these photos on a fabulous computer screen inside a warm, comfortable home. Granted, there still existed mountains of snow outside but I have protection from the weather by a well-insulated, well-constructed, well-heated home.
What's more, I have privacy within my home. My neighbours are not a mere piece of cardboard or a piece of aluminum sheeting away from me.
Everyone in this home has a certain amount of personal space. Again, in the middle of winter it does not always feel like enough personal space - but we do have rooms where we can get away from one another.
We have indoor plumbing and a lovely big hot water tank.
I have electricity and running water and even a machine that filters our drinking water making it better-tasting and safer than average.
I have a refrigerator and freezer(s) -- all have food in them. Most importantly, we have a third of an acre where we can grow food. I also have the knowledge and ability to preserve what we grow here.
Call Me Cat's photos and minimalist commentaries were useful in reminding me to say my gratitudes with a lot more sincerity.
Then, on Wednesday evening we drove to the next community to see the film Milk which was showing as part of a regional film festival. It was snowing hard when we left. We always go to this film festival and we were, once again, feeling isolated by winter. So we decided to go to the film despite the falling snow.
En route my husband lost control of the vehicle and it careened from bank to bank multiple times on the Trans Canada highway. It was terrifying. There is rocky mountain face on one side and a long fall into a deep lake on the other side.
When the vehicle finally stopped we were in a place where we would likely be hit by any oncoming traffic, especially as there was by then even more intensely falling snow and nasty wind. It would have been hard to see us well enough in advance to avert hitting us. It was a blizzard.(I need to give credit to my husband's winter driving skills. He kept the vehicle uprighted and on the road.)
Once we were finally righted on the highway again, I wanted to return home. The others did not.
So, we went in to see Milk.
(The film is an important story and it is a brilliantly well acted film. I am pleased to have seen Milk. I do urge others to see this film. However, I suggest you not risk you life to do so).
The drive back home was every bit as precarious as the drive in had been. It was horrible. However, the vehicle stayed on the road on the way home -- by grace, I believe.
I was so relieved to see home and I remain profoundly grateful to be alive and well.
The cold and snow are still real. But their impact has been minimalized for me. I am just so happy to be on the planet to experience weather.
Sad to say, my phobias around winter driving have been confirmed.

"Must-have swimsuit"

Top photo: The backyard at present.

Bottom photo: Does this look like a lake ready for a "must-have swimsuit?!"

"Just Chillin' -- an abysmal figure of speech"

When I opened my e-mail this morning there was an (unsolicited) ad telling me that the I needed a "Must-have swimsuit that follows your curves!"
I narrowed my eyes at the words.
Simultaneously, while reading the e-mail, I observed within my peripheral vision another significant snowfall adding inches more snow to our existing brutal mounds of snow.
What a cruel joke that swimsuit ad!
It was not just a nasty joke but a "must-have swimsuit that follows my curves" is a foreign thought for an over-weight middle-aged woman. What were those advertisers thinking?
Soon annoyance at the ad was replaced with anger at the weather.
If only a peoples' rally could change the weather. Then perhaps "storm the barricades" could be used as a phrase for warring with the weather. I certainly now believe "strong-arm force" has everything to do with shovelling white stuff from the driveway.
Still, I am a firm believer in the value of denial.
So, I opened the advertiser's page to see the "must-have swimsuit that follows my curves."
I didn't burst into tears (but there was a mental plea for help).
Naturally, I quickly moved on to other e-mails, you know the ones, those offering me penis enlargement, hot chicks with horses and get out of debt ads.
Those made the swimsuit ad appear kindly and gracious by comparison.
Maybe tomorrow the sun will shine and I will go outdoors and not even look at the emails.
There, in the fresh air I can work on a "must-have" body for the above-noted swimsuit.

White on White

We are experiencing an exceptional winter in the Shuswap. It has been colder and snowier than usual.
Previously, we were often working on various outdoor yard clean-up projects by this point. Not this year. We're snowed in.
As this part of the Shuswap is in a narrow valley close to a large lake -- we experience a disproportionate amount of over-cast grey days. Not at all healthy for the brain or many other parts for that matter.