unplanned harvest

Now I know that any time we go into the bush in search of adventure, we must be prepared to do some harvesting and/or scavenging. The other day when we had our friends from Victoria visiting, we decided to take the drive up to Virgin Falls to see what everyone was talking about.


Dan figured it would take about 2 hours to drive up. We were making good time though, and didn't need 4WD yet, so we took a brief detour to Second Bridge (bottom of Kennedy Lake) to show our friends the place where we go fishing, where we found our tin boat, where we might go camping one day.

While we were there, these bright red bulbs on the bushes announced they were ready to be harvested. O no!, said I, I brought no bucket or vessel to gather food with! Luckily Burgle did, she had a small bucket in the back of their truck. With the four of us gathering, we filled this 2L bucket in about ten minutes.

This was the day of the Ten Hour Duck, so the plan for these rosehips was to use them as a sauce for the duck. This amount of fruit yielded about 700mL of liquid. It was a bit on the tart/astringent side, and Dan didn't sweeten it much, but it was nice. Probably good on vanilla ice cream.

In case you are wondering, the first thing you have to do with rosehips is snip the flowery bits off the end. then you slice them in half lengthwise, then pick out the seeds. This is a very long process but worth the effort, especially if you have friends helping you.

brief update

Whooh! so many photos and stories... I don't have time right now but there has been a great deal of adventure for us this weekend. We had friends from Victoria come up for three nights and we packed a lot in to an otherwise relaxing weekend. We found Virgin Falls! Had dinner at Fetch at Black Rock. There was the ten-hour duck dinner, the game of dominoes, the Irish Cream and blueberry wine, chocolate cake and fish tacos. Decadence all around!

Public Service Announcement: if you ever buy a used vehicle, spend the $60 and do a lien search. You don't want to get into an accident (caused by someone else) and find out later that the vehicle you just wrote off has three liens on it totaling more than twice what the vehicle was worth...

beaded bags

I had this great idea to knit a bunch of stuff and then offer it up for sale. If they sell, great, I have money in my pocket. If not, then I can give them as Christmas gifts. Here are some examples:

cabin fever in a remote community

The sun goes on vacation, the tourists go home, the fish are fished out of the water. Half the town of Ucluelet shuts down for the winter. Seriously - Fishful Thinking, the only place to buy fresh fish, closes its doors until May. The Driftwood restaurant is closed until February. Jiggers, the fish & chips truck, is open when they can be, when they have fish, but even they are hit and miss. They don't have regularly posted hours so you can't count on them being there. The Green House Market is closed until sometime in the spring (alas, no sushi!).

This is such a small town. Everyone says 1500 people, but I wonder how much there really are. In the Pacific Rim area, there are something like 6,000 First Nations peoples, and many of them come into Ucluelet to do their shopping (the rest go to Tofino, I imagine). We have one grocery store, one bank, one credit union, two gas stations, a hardware store, two pharmacies.

In the winter, I'm told, people stay indoors. Lots of people live in their pajamas and don their rain gear when they go anywhere because of the torrential rains. A couple of fearless friends defiantly cycle everywhere through the winter, and they have the dry-bag backpacks to prove it. I will need new rubber boots, as after a season of my fish job, they both have cracks just above the heel. Did you know it is impossible to find industrial gum boots in pink?

Our only outlet to the world is to drive to Port Alberni or beyond. Normally this is a one-hour drive. There is a mountain pass in between, with its associated elevation and winter snow. That means winter tires are required. We don't have winter tires. In fact, our current tires are going bald, and that is very treacherous in wet conditions. We can't afford winter tires at the moment, so we are, in some ways, stranded out here on the west coast.

Now luckily I'm a knitter, and winter conditions like rain and cold are not at all offputting to someone like me. I am perfectly happy to stay indoors, next to the fire, knitting away. Also, as a former Pagan, I am mindful of the changing of the seasons, the holidays, the wheel of the year. In a few weeks, the Oyster Festival happens in Tofino. I'm not fond of oysters (ew! slime!) but will go to the Mermaid's Ball for the cultural experience and for the excuse to dress up for a party. Then Christmas is coming. I don't know if we can convince the family to spend Christmas here (I hope so, we have such a good space for it!), but I will totally enjoy decorating the house on a very small budget.

Then comes the new year. We don't know what 2011 holds for us but we do have a Plan. I'm not at liberty to divulge details of this Plan yet, but if we are successful it will mean not depending on a tourist season for income.

Also, being a knitter, January will likely be spent knitting for Valentine's Day, then St. Patrick's Day, then a sock marathon in preparation for the Knits by the Sea retreat in April, where Cookie A will come and share her genius with us.

By then our Plan will be in full swing, and I will hopefully maybe not be counting fish anymore. I will hopefully still be teaching knitting.

So I'm not at all sad or unprepared for the coming darkness of winter. I would really love it if I could spend some money on getting the garden going in the back yard. I would really love it if we had some visitors from other parts of the Island or Vancouver.

Dia de Los Muertos: the day of car accidents

In case you didn't know, yesterday was the Mexican Day of the Dead. It's the day where they celebrate all the ancestors and loved ones that have gone to the other side. I can't do it justice here, so really, look it up. It's way cool.

On my way to Tofino yesterday, I drove past the junction that links us to the rest of the world. There were quite a few cars pulled over and a man wrapped up in blanket, laying on the road. There were about six people around him. I didn't realize at the time but this was minutes after a terrible accident. The man was drunk and going way too fast around the corner, lost control, and pretty much felled a power pole. (I was going to stop to take a photo on the way back but felt that might be rude). It was 9:30am and when I went by the first time, emergency vehicles hadn't arrived yet.

On my way back, police cars were there, the man was probably taken away by ambulance (haven't heard yet if he lived). I hadn't seen the smushed car or the power pole when I went by the first time but this time it was WOW. How much impact do you need to push your car through and almost break a log that is 18" in diameter? Enough impact to push the front bumper of your car four feet to where the steering wheel is. I'm not really good with my car ID but it seemed like it was an 80s Buick. The era before airbags. It will be a miracle if this man lives.

The power, then, was out until 5:30 yesterday. Shortly after the power came back on, I got a call from my sister. She too had been in a serious car accident.

My almost 6-year-old niece was with her grandma, and my 3-year-old nephew was supposed to be with his mom but wanted to go with his dad instead. My sister was alone, thank the heavens. She was doing about 80 km/h on the highway when another vehicle pulled out in front of her without looking. All she remembers is saying "Oh Shit" and then the next thing she remembered is the smell of the air bags. I guess that smell made her get out of her Durango because she was worried about fire or something. She took herself to the ditch and was down on all fours, realizing that she was badly bruised.

The fellow that pulled out in front of her also was not badly damaged, though both vehicles were write-offs, he came back to see if she was okay. She was not, obviously, he gave her a hug. That was, in her words, exactly what she needed.

She was taken to the hospital (not clear on how she got there but presumably by ambulance) and checked out. Nothing broken, just bruising. Bruising on her face, her chest, her knees. The seat belt and air bag saved her life. I can't tell you how glad I am that I didn't lose my sister yesterday.

When she called, I believe she was still in shock, because she said she didn't feel that bad. I warned her that on day 2 or 3 the bruising will really settle in and she won't really be able to move, let alone go back to work (she's a dental assistant). I hope she will not be stubborn and accept any help that is offered to her. I hope she takes care of herself and doesn't try to do too much. All I can do, as the big sister, is advise from a distance. She was just so glad that her son made a big fuss about wanting to go with dad instead of mom yesterday morning.

my very exciting day

Okay so you didn't like the slimy brown shark. I get that. Let me tell you about my day which was 0-so-interesting.

You could say it began at about 6am when Dan was coughing so hard he got up and went downstairs. At some point later, I fell back asleep. Woke up again when he came back to bed. Then for some reason my stupid alarm went off at 9am. For no reason. I guess it was time to get up.

Laced throughout my day was more iPhone gaming than I'd really like to admit to. They make them addictive and fun and free and gosh I just can't help myself (and am aware of that grammatically incorrect run on sentence. I blame it on the games.)

O no! We were out of orange juice. My entire daily routine was disrupted. I had start with coffee instead. Not so bad, really.

We had leftovers from last night. Friends brought home made butter tarts as their contribution to the Halloween event. We had one trick-or-treater. Lots of leftover candy... Also, last night, I tried my hand at making spinach and feta pies with phyllo pastry. Wow! It was so easy and fun! I will totally do that again. It was a big hit.

So garlicy spinach and feta pies with butter tarts for breakfast. Being a grownup is great.

Also, last night, I started knitting the picot edging for a beaded bag. Said bag was finished today, in spurts, as I was doing laundry and working on making Christmas tree decorations.

I'm planning a blog post about those, but suffice it to say the instructions were deceptive, and aluminum foil should stay in the kitchen. Just saying.

The power went out for about 2.5 seconds today and that somehow fried the hard drive on our main computer. Dan has spent much of today figuring this out. Luckily, we have two laptops and two iPhones in the house, so we have rather a lot of connectivity. It's kind of embarrassing, really.

I have started doing yoga again, in earnest. Even though there are tons of great places to go walking and hiking around here, sometimes I don't want to leave the house. We have LOTS of floor space on which to do yoga, so I have been following along with a few podcasts. They are easing me into a full practice. Once I'm up to speed, I'll be doing at least an hour of yoga every day. I am concerned about my weight (aren't we all) but also my heart. I've been having pain in my chest lately and I don't want to be one of those people who was 'so young to have a heart attack'.

I can't tell you how lovely it is to have a wood stove going and to have warm dry heat in this house. When we first moved in, we didn't have a stick of firewood and all the 'free' wood that was around was absolutely drenched. This is a rather large house and to be in a large cold house is very unpleasant.

Did I mention I am completely blond now? I started dyeing streaks in June, and then a bit more in August, and now I went whole head. I really like it. I feel so much younger! But different colours work on me now. Pinks and reds - not so good. I need to start wearing more greens and blues.

I know, totally random stream-of-consciousness post, won't win any awards. But hey, it's a window into my day! Now to roll up the yoga mat, brush my teeth, check my Pocket Frogs, and start reading Anil's Ghost. It's the Michael Ondaatje novel I have read every November since it was released.

Monday: a random photo

Can I post something every day? In case I get nothing else done here today, here is something to look at:




It's a shark of some kind. Dan could tell you its latin name, its habitat, age at sexual maturity, etc. Six months in the fish job and this was the first one I'd seen. Not sure how old it was, but it was about 60cm long. Came up in a trawl net.