In with the new....

Methinks it is high time to rework and resurrect this blog of mine. Many life changes and different circumstances have led me down what could be considered a different road entirely... or perhaps I am simply circling back to what is more essentially 'me'... In any case, please stand by for newness, although it may be a while coming. Thanks for your patience, intertubes!

On Moderate Athleticism

I am fortunate to count among my friends and family some folks that are or have been; an Olympic silver medalist, an ice/mountain climber, a kayak guide and instructor, three or more yoga teachers, a professional volleyball player, a back country canoe trip leader, a telemark skier who also happens to have cycled across Canada, a competitive soccer player, a professional road and mountain bike cyclist, a gymnast, a competitive Tango dancer, an internationally recognized Flamenco dancer, a professional sailor, as well as many live-aboard sailors, a few acrobats (my partner is one of them), and an international Masters track and field multiple medalist. One of the aforementioned people trained hard enough that he vomited. Then he kept going. And vomited a couple more times and still kept going. This was not during a competition, this was in training. I truly wonder at the quality I know he has, as do many of the others, to really athletically push one's self to the limits and past them towards excellence. I very greatly admire this quality, but methinks that it is one I do not possess.

I never joined a team sport in school, unless you count cheerleading. I tried many of them, but they were not for me, somehow. Why? I love being outside, I love moving my body, I value fitness and excellence and sportsmanship, and I love feeling fit. I just didn't enjoy them, what explains that? I stop myself when I start to think that its because I am not competitive, that is certainly poppycock; just ask anyone who has ever played a board game with me. You could also get into multiple intelligences, or kinetic intelligence more specifically; and the confidence (or lack there of) I have in my body's ability to perform according to standards other than my own. That would be getting warmer, for sure. I am certain there is more to it than that though, because I am an athlete, just not the same sort as many of my dear friends and family.

I am now at 28 becoming a runner. Not a marathon runner or a speed runner. Just a runner. I put my running clothes on, I open the door and I go. For a little over a half hour, one or more times per week, I run. Or walk a bit, or jog. I breathe, my heart beats and gets stronger. I enjoy the rain, the sun, the wind, and the fresh air. I have to keep my ears and hands warm. I recognize that when I eat or drink anything half an hour or less before I go, I get a side stitch and have to walk. I know which of my pants fall off me more with each step, and which stay put. I crave my run. If it has been a few days, I observe my patience growing thinner until I can make it out again to recharge.

I started really small. I thought to myself, "I could run to that stop sign ahead" and I did it. Then I walked until I found my breath a bit and chose a new thing to run to. When I was consistently succeeding at those little steps, I began to push harder. "I am tired, I am out of breath, but I am getting stronger and I know I can make it to the red car up ahead if I really try." I got myself to the point after a couple months of three or four runs a week to go for a half hour with three or four short walking rests, and then after another month or so I was able to run continuously with no stops or rests beyond waiting for the one traffic light on my route. Then I started sprinting at the end where the route is slightly downhill. Just now and then, not every time.

The continuous run with a sprint at the end is not where the real learning or sense of accomplishment came for me, satisfying though it was. That came later. When my circumstances limited me to one run or less per week. All the hard work wore off. I began to feel tired again when I went out, and stopped running continuously. I still managed to keep going now and then, and started to look for more creative ways to get more runs in. I have gradually made arrangements to that effect, and continue to look for more opportunities to get another run in here or there. Now I am at two runs per week, with one or more walking rest breaking the continuity. I have now been running regularly for just more than a year.

Where the real learning came in for me was when I allowed myself to have a bad run and still feel good about it, and still want to do it again. If I got a side stitch or was too hungry or tired and I walked or jogged, it really wasn't much of a run. I still felt good about at least getting out and giving it a try. Sometimes I forgot my headband and my ears were so cold I would have to hold my hands over them the whole time, but at least I was out there. I think most of my success comes from accepting that my motivation was and is not to be a fast runner or a high endurance runner, it is primarily fitness. In university I completed a first year nutrition and fitness class that has oddly stayed with me. I remember cardiovascular fitness being regarded as raising your heart rate and sustaining it for twenty to forty minutes three to five times a week. I am going to further define my experience and other simply achievable, sustained efforts at pure fitness; distinct from sports excellence; as Moderate Athleticism.

As a Moderate Athlete, I keep active, I try to get at least the minimum for fitness where and when I can in my busy life. I don't worry about losing ground when I need to take a bit of a break. I use other ways of getting exercise when I cannot fit in my primary activity (i.e. swimming or hiking or rock climbing instead of running). As a Moderate Athlete, I don't do any training for anything, just regular steady sessions with incremental progress, if any. As a Moderate Athlete I start really small and build on success. As a Moderate Athlete I am pragmatic about my available time for exercise, but I don't forget to do it. As a Moderate Athlete I follow my own standards, benchmarks, etc. and no one else's. I am experience oriented instead of goal oriented, though I may have goals. As a Moderate Athlete I choose an activity that I really enjoy and look forward to, and I constantly refer back to my own experience to determine when to take it slow and when to push a bit. I allow myself to succeed in my own terms.

When I run I breathe and my heart thumps and I meditate on my life, I come up with blog ideas, I have to step around ducks and then I find myself wishing for a momentary breathtaking view of the Olympic Mountains when the weather permits it. I know that is the furthest I will get towards earning anything Olympic myself. I am not only alright with that, I cherish it. I earn that view for a moment as I round the bend and then it is gone. Then I take another chance at it in a few days. It is a small accomplishment, it is one of those small things that, to me, make the world go around.

27 Reasons To Compost

Composting is just fantastic. Sure you have the conscience-easing benefit of removing biodegradable waste bound for the landfill, not to mention getting free goodies for your soil out of the deal; you can even get food for yourself out of it!

Here is how: be lazy. Be lazy enough to let some potatoes get wrinkly, moldy and send up half a dozen shoots. Aw shucks, so much for mashed potatoes for dinner. Toss it in the compost instead. Waste a few bucks, why not? Now ignore your compost. Don't remember to cover it when its raining for months. Don't remember to water it when its hot and dry, and definitely don't bother turning it. By spring you may just find that your favorite disgusting spud is thriving and well. Out of guilt for letting it rot in your cupboard in the first place, you stick it in an unused corner of the veggie garden to give it a pitiful chance at life.

I know we weren't even planning on growing potatoes. Just look what happens when we buy them! It got watered by the sprinkler on a timer along with the rest of the garden; our exalted lettuces, high-demand herbs and medicinal calendulas. It got ignored. We have made it to August now and enough is enough. No more goodwill; the tomatoes need light and air and that potato is using up space, out with it! Wait a minute....1....2....3..4.5.6789...10...no. more?! 27 potatoes were in there. From one plant. A major portion of four to six meals for our family. I have got to be lazy more often!

Well I hope you weren't expecting a how-to list or a motivator with altruistic reasoning to 'be part of the solution.' Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of all that. Life just gets busy and full and composting properly isn't one of my highest priorities. Let's just say I have my own reasons for composting, even if I am a bit cheeky for 27 of them being potatoes.

Impromptu Gourmet

You know it is a good thing when you have a farm market a 5 minute walk from your house. It becomes an even better thing when you have a disappointingly wet spring which just happens to be good for mushrooms. It becomes an excellent thing when that market spontaneously carries fresh morel mushrooms, you buy some and just cannot wait to get home and devour them. One of the best things about food that is in season is the greediness that accompanies it. You know you will have to wait a whole year before you get to eat it again, so you just have to get your fill while you can. So it was with me and my morels. When the greediness combines with needing to get dinner on the table 5 minutes ago, there is an opportunity for creativity.

Spaghetti With Creamy Morel Sauce Accompanied by a Flower Salad

We put the pasta (I think it was spaghetti) on and then sauteed the morels for a few minutes until they reduced significantly and gave off their musky juice. Meanwhile, I started a roux with some salt and pepper, some fresh thyme from the garden, olive oil, butter, and white flour. When it was just ready for some liquid I gradually poured in the morel juices (reserving the mushrooms for later) and stirred until it thickened. When it was ready for more liquid I added some cream or whole milk until we had sufficient quantity of sauce. We then poured the sauce over the pasta after it was dished up and arranged a handful of the morels on top.

To go with this main we had a flowery garden-combing salad. We picked miscellaneous fresh lettuces (mild), rose petals (only organic roses are for eating.....ever!) from our roses, calendula petals, sage flowers, arugula and giant red mustard flowers.

Voila! A beautiful feast.

Eat Your Weeds, Dear

As a Permaculture Designer, I find it quite ironic that upon becoming a much awaited homeowner with an attractive, though MASSIVELY overgrown property, I promptly make war on dandelions. My environmental leanings outright prohibit any herbicide stronger than boiling water; yet with small children running around and actually USING our lawn and with a very new veggie garden in the vicinity it seemed inappropriate (not to mention not very neighborly) to continue to allow these plants to take over. I once heard market gardener and farmer Eliot Coleman recite the wisdom to "never let a weed go to seed." So for the last month or so I have been doing just that: pulling up, prying out, plucking and harvesting every dandelion that I possibly can in our yard.

Now along comes a bit of a personal paradox. My environmental leanings also prohibit rampant waste. Well yes, I compost, but every sensible gardener will tell you that dumping a load of dandelion flowers or seeds in your compost bin is a dumb idea if you ever plan on using it. So, instead, I have been taking the seedy portion of my efforts to our municipal yard for them to compost (along with the invasive, thorny, poisonous plant part of our overgrown property), and composting the leafy portion myself. I am always looking for a way to take things one step further, and I have been kind of preoccupied with local food and food security lately as well. So I thought; along with my current efforts transforming our suburban yard into an organic food-bearing permaculture paradise, why not eat what is already there, why not eat what I am already harvesting? Ralph Waldo Emerson said it perfectly, "A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
So to make a long story shorter, my personal paradox combined with seeing dandelion greens for sale at the local health food store and with a need for experimental dinner recipes for our weekly php Tuesdays thing. Voila! Dandelion Panir Curry (or Saag Panir) was born. I do have to say that it wasn't a particularly successful experiment due to the bitterness of the plant (a factor which I may just be able to work out with boiling), but hey - we all ate it!

Four handy tips on dandelion consumption:

1. Pick the big leafy ones in the shade for eating, especially for salads. The small shriveled up ones growing in the compacted soil between you driveway and sidewalk had better be dealt with some other way.
2. Cut the midrib of the leaf off, at least near the bottom where it is thick. Its even more bitter than the rest of the leaf.
3. Mind where you get it from; animals frequently mark clumps of weeds and grass, and by the road or driveway can be quite polluted. Wherever you get them from, wash them well.
4. Visit Wikipedia for other dandelion uses and information and read this article (especially the part about managing away the bitterness) on "Making Dandelions More Palatable" by Dr. John Kallas.

Are We All Guinea Pigs or What?

I, for one, am going to start taking all this toy toxicity stuff seriously. I have checked out a bunch of the toys we have or are considering, and most seem fine. We have always been pretty selective, going for wood and other natural fibers where possible. Sometime soon I will post a list of my preferred 'conscious consumer' companies to buy from. I don't even take it as far as others I know or have heard of. One friend will not buy new toys. She finds great used ones, but can't justify the costs (financial, environmental, social). I know others that won't buy new unless they know direct information regarding factory conditions and the company's social responsibility. As for us, we only buy new.....but in limited quantity, developmental appropriateness, high quality, natural materials where possible and always non-toxic. The last one though, I am officially as of now more stringent on. Our local organic food delivery company posted the following on their website this week.

New Study Exposes Toxins in Toys The numerous recalls involving toys have many parents concerned, especially now during the holidays. The Ecology Center, a Michigan-based non-profit organization, recently tested 1,200 children's products and more than 3,000 components of those products. The results weren’t good. Approximately 35% of the products tested contained lead, 2.9% contained high levels of cadmium and 47% contained polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Toys were also tested for mercury, bromine, chromium, tin and antimony -- chemicals that have all been linked to health problems. To view the complete report and to nominate other products to be tested visit: www.healthtoys.org

Get Involved
In Canada, toy companies have no obligation to inform the government if their products are unsafe and Health Canada has no power to remove hazardous toys from store shelves. While the Federal Government is expected to overhaul the Hazardous Products Act, designed to prohibit unsafe products, so far any real progressive change has been minimal.

What you can do:
1. Learn more, visit www.healthytoys.org
2. Write to Health Canada and toy manufacturers and ask them to eliminate dangerous chemicals in toys.
3. Buy, support or make handmade toys if you can, or toys containing natural and organic materials.

The Story of Stuff

For a matching set, you can view this video, "The Story of Stuff", in accompaniment to my previous post. This was sent to me via the homeschooling network that we are a part of, intended for the environmental awakening of children (to prevent "can I PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE have another one?") but probably just as much for their parents. It is a really concise way of describing the whole picture at a level that children can understand, but also to get them and their parents motivated. I am finding that many of the most functional environmentalists today don't just resort to scare tactics or dish out insurmountable tasks, but put the viewer/listener in the driver's seat and give them simple and clear ways to change the paradigm in 10 easy steps. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and climate change project is another good example.

Enjoy!