And the livin’ is easy – for some

We got a sweet, sweet rain the other night, starting just after supper. You could feel it coming, and then, when it began to soak in, there was the aroma of earthly contentment, like the smell of a baby’s scalp, as the hot soil was quenched – the juices flowing through plant cells, the dust and pollen washed down into the ground. After such a wet June, it was hard to believe we would need precipitation so soon, but need it we did – and need it we will, soon enough.

Memories of Peter deMarsh

For many of us, the news of the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 would have registered only as a distant and abstract tragedy, except that 18 of the 157 doomed passengers were Canadians. When their names were read on the radio, the emotional synapses began firing in communities across the country.

Getting aboard

Amid a slew of spring meetings and conferences, I did some planning for a trip to attend an out-of-province event recently, and realized the schedule would actually make it feasible to take public transit – which is not the first option that occurs to us, living pretty far off the beaten path. Our road, this time of year, is little more than a beaten path – a muddy track gouged with ruts and pocked with craters, frequently requiring the driver to drop into first gear, while maintaining enough forward momentum to avoid bogging down.

A rooster in every pot

Sometimes, before I’ve even decided what to make for supper, I chop up a couple onions and throw them in a hot frying pan. Within a few minutes, people start showing up in the kitchen. “Mmm, smells great!” they say. “What are we having?” “Don’t know yet,” is my reply. “How about you leave me alone for a while, and we’ll see what happens.”

More variety (and varieties) on the dinner plate

I have been looking back at a tribute to Arthur Vesey that appeared in Rural Delivery 20 years ago, following his death at the age of 92. The company he founded, Vesey’s Seeds, was marking its 60th anniversary at that time.

A friend of mine recently cut off a couple of his fingers on the table saw. When I saw him a while afterwards, he still had his entire hand wrapped in bulky bandages, and he gingerly held it close to his body. (He has a couple of little kids, who were scrambling around nearby – and everyone knows that little kids have a knack for whacking whatever part of your body is particularly sensitive on any given day.)

Power fetish

When a major power grid failure hit Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden on Sept. 23, 2003, leaving millions in the dark, a standby generator was fired up to provide electricity in Copenhagen, the Danish capital. This was unremarkable, except for the fact that the backup power source was a massive diesel unit that had been in service for 70 years.

Becoming home

    The government of P.E.I. recently launched a campaign urging Island expats to return to the province of their birth. At least, I assume that’s what they mean when they say they are targeting “Islanders living away.” Doesn’t that turn of phrase have a charmingly old-fashioned ring to it? Kind of like “living in sin.”

It’s not the heat

    This summer did not arrive gently and sweetly. More like the bolt of lightning that killed a man in Tabusintac, N.B., on June 29. Inside of a week, we went from huddling around the stove – parts of Cape Breton actually got a couple inches of snow – to receiving warnings about high humidex levels, via “special weather statements” from Environment Canada.

Older but not entirely growed up
As any perceptive reader will have deduced, from a glance at the cover, this is the anniversary issue of Rural Delivery. Are we having a mid-life crisis? Certainly not! But we are taking a moment to reflect on where we have come from (or “on whence we have come,” as grammarians would have it).

The wild and the domestic
    I think birds are awesome, but I’m not a birder. For most of my life I have appreciated birds the way I appreciate the stars – in blissful ignorance. Various people have tried to improve my knowledge of the constellations, and I have stubbornly resisted. Part of what’s great about the stars is how far away they are.

Take a deep breath
    My 13-year-old son has advised me I should not be so mean to the people who call on a daily basis claiming to be able to resolve problems with my computer. I’m taking this to heart. As self-improvement objectives go, it is both worthy and achievable. I have to keep telling myself that these people are not really scam artists; they are the sweatshop toilers of the fraud industry, likely receiving a rather small cut.

The market and the garden
    First things first. We are pretty pumped up about launching a new column in RD, under the banner of “Garden Gleanings.” Catchy, right? It will appear in every issue of the magazine, featuring a rotating cast of writers, addressing somewhat seasonal topics related to growing food on a small scale. The various contributors will draw on their personal experiences and their respective areas of expertise, aiming to entertain and inform. 

Small ruminants, great drama
    We’ve had a visiting buck goat in the barn for the last little while, to spend some quality time with a doe who failed to get bred last year because she was entirely too discreet about letting her desires be known. This guy is so fragrant, she started showing signs of heat before we’d finished unloading him from the truck.

Tramping through the commons
    Late fall means it’s time to break out our very fashionable blaze-orange outdoor attire – because in November no one wants to be mistaken for a deer. I still find it strange to hear the hills echoing with gunfire on Remembrance Day, but mostly I’ve grown accustomed to the autumnal ordnance. What I find a bit irksome is that our enjoyment of our own land is curtailed during hunting season.

Scarcity and abundance
    Until recently, our old farmhouse ran on a 60-amp service. It was likely the original wiring, because this road wasn’t connected to the grid until 1949. Funny to think that Elvis was already plinking away on a guitar, Miles Davis was blowing his horn in Paris, but farms around here had no electricity. By that time a young lawyer named Pierre Trudeau had taken a job in Ottawa working for Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent.