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I have arrived in Ontario, where I might spend a few weeks. The first story for this stay in Ontario had to be by Alice Munro (born in 1931), Canada’s most notorious short story writer. Munro began writing short stories as many writers do: for practice, but she then realised that she liked the genre and decided that it would become our genre of predilection.
“Walker Brothers Cowboy” was published as part of her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades, in 1968. It is a childhood story in which the first-person narrator recounts memories of her and her father when he was a peddler during depression.
The story opens with the narrator going for a walk by the lake with her father. There, her father tells her a story she is familiar with: how the lake came to be, which leads her to ponder on time and our short existence on the planet in the grand scheme of things:
“He tells me how Great Lakes came to be. All where Lake Huron is now, he says, used to be flat land, a wide flat plain. Then came the ice, creeping down from the North, pushing deep into the low places. . . . And then the ice went back, shrank back towards the North Pole where it came from, and left its fingers of ice in the deep places it had gouged, and ice turned to lakes and there they were today. They were new, as time went. I try to see the plain before me, dinosaurs walking on it, but I am not able even to imagine the shore of the lake when the Indians were there, before Tuppertown. The tiny share we have of time appalls me, though my father seems to regard it with tranquility.”
This excerpt draws attention to one of the themes of the story: time passing and the past.
Then the story gives us some background on the family. The narrator explains how her father had to give up his fox farm because of the economic situation and become a peddler for the Walker Brothers, selling an eclectic range of products. The story contrasts her mother’s attitude to their new situation with that of her father, who used to bring her for walks by the lake and on his rounds as a Walker peddler.
It is during one of these afternoons going from door to door that he brings her and her brother to visit Nora Cronin and her blind and aging mother. We never really learn who Nora is, we just know that she grew up with the narrator’s father and has not seen him for a long time. The reunion of the two characters seem to make them equally happy and bring back stories and images of their youth. In her presence, the narrator discovers things she did not know about her father. However, the interlude has to end and the father must go back to his present life:
“On the way home my father does not buy any ice cream or pop, but does go into a country store and get a package of licorice, which he shares with us. She digs with the wrong foot, I think, and the words seem sad to me as never before, dark, perverse. My father does not say anything to me about not mentioning things at home, but I know, just from the thoughtfulness, the pause when he passes the licorice, that there are things not to be mentioned. The whisky, maybe the dancing.”
This story is successful at evoking a time passed without burdening us with long descriptions. One can picture this rural Ontario of the depression Munro is alluding to. Munro leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination, but gives us enough details to reconstruct this place where she grew up and its atmosphere. I found this story profoundly touching and tender, especially because of the complicity between the narrator and her father. It is a simple story dealing with life and how people get on in difficult situations and try to make the best of what they have.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John at The Book Mine Set.
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
Funnily enough, after sharing thoughts and ideas with you for the past 28 days, I do not feel as excited about the Earth Hour as I was. I feel that it is still an important event and I will take part, but more important things have been mentioned in the past 28 days.
Earth Hour is becoming a huge event and they are also trying to encourage people to go beyond the hour. They have posted ideas and reactions everyday and, in my opinion, some of them have lost touch with what Earth Hour is about. I don’t think that the person who is going to row across the ocean is going to make a huge difference; it is a brilliant symbolic action, but not a practical one. As often with events that get too big, I start to lose connection. This does not mean that I don’t believe in what I have said, but I just tend to get overwhelmed when events get such mediatic coverage. On the one hand, I want to cheer because it seems to touch more people, but on the other I feel wary because it seems to be losing some of its ethics through mediatisation.
As I have said at the beginning of this series, I like to work on a small scale. Of course I would like to see the big picture change, but I have no power whatsoever to do so, not directly anyway. I’m just glad if my posts have made you think and have touched a few people who will in turn touch more people. I know that for me, it has made a difference: I have thought even further about what I can do in my daily life and I have reflected on issues I hadn’t necessarily thought about before.
We will never live in a perfect world, let’s be realistic about this. Yet, I don’t want to give up on hoping and believing that we can make a difference, because if I do there is no point in living anymore. I just hope that we can make some changes that will mean leaving a better planet for the generations to come.
I want to keep believing in this! Therefore, I will keep making conscious decisions.
One of the drawbacks of such an event is that people believe that by turning the lights for an hour they actually make a difference to our environment. Others might do it just to have a good conscience. As I have said before, I think Earth Hour is a symbolic action, one through which we become aware and we say “I want to make a difference”. However, it is by no means sufficient and it needs indeed to go beyond the hour, as the organisation is now emphasising. It is like people who say they are green because it is cool, but would not bother to recycle; this really gets me down. Being eco-friendly should not even be a word, it should be our regular way of living and we should not think of it as anything special.
I have realised that there will be very few switches I will need to turn off this evening. When I did it the first time, I went around the place a few times to make sure I had turned off everything. However, this has become such a habit that I will only need to switch off the fridge, my computer and the light in the room where I am. It does not feel as drastic and will thus feel more or less like a regular evening. I will make the fire and light a few candles. I will read a book, or maybe write down a few thoughts or, even better, a letter. It has been a long time I haven’t written one of those…
What are you planning to do for Earth Hour?
In an interview for The Paris Review in 1958, Ernest Hemingway pronounced what has now become famous in short story theory: the principle of the iceberg.
“Surely. If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen. If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.”
Although Hemingway was referring to the art of writing in general, his statement appears as particularly appropriate when considering the short story genre. Indeed, with this metaphor, Hemingway expressed a technique central to the art of the short story, that of suggestiveness. Because of its shortness, the short story often relies on this principle and is often characterised by ellipsis. As a result, the reader becomes an active agent in the creation of the story. This might leave interpretation more open, but might also result in misinterpretation or a less rich interpretation.
I had been curious to read the short stories written by the man who enunciated this principle for a while and to see how he put it into practice. I finally managed to read a couple of his short stories this week and I must admit that they have left me perplexed (not in a bad way). They seem at first to resist the notion of unity characteristic of many short stories following Edgar Allan Poe’s predicament, thus, perhaps, opening the path to a new generation of writers who have tended to experiment and even subvert the genre and its conventions. I do not believe that Hemingway’s and Poe’s principles are mutually exclusive, on the contrary, but I find that Hemingway’s stories open too many doors to be actually characterised by Poe’s notion of unity. This is my initial reaction to Hemingway’s stories and I think it could be because they appear as an expression of existentialist, somewhat abstract, reflections.
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, which you can read here, is the first story I ever read by Hemingway. It was published in 1933 in Winner Take Nothing. Let me tell you something, if you find Beckett depressing, then do not go near Hemingway.
The story is set in a café, in Spain, where two waiters are waiting for an old man to finish drinking so that they can close up and go home. As they wait, the waiters discuss the old man’s suicide attempt the previous week and this prompt them to consider why he would rather sit there alone in a café rather than drink at home. Significantly, the two waiters are differentiated by their age and the older one empathises with the old man. He points out that the young waiter cannot understand:
“‘You have youth, confidence, and a job,’ the older waiter said. ‘You have everything.’
‘And what do you lack?’
‘Everything but work.’”
The story points to the emptiness of life, particularly for those who lack “everything but work”. This is also suggested by the repetitive prose and the extensive use of “and”, thus resulting in an enumerative style, which reflects the repetitiveness and mundanity of daily life. Indeed, as the older waiter is on his way to a bar, his thoughts are about nothingness:
“It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada.”
Thus, modern life is characterised by nothingness and things like “a clean and pleasant café . . . well lighted” become important as they seem to restore a certain order in a chaotic world.
Sobrino de Botin, restaurant frequented by Hemingway in Madrid
“A Very Short Story”, which can be read here, might be short in length but covers a few year relationship and how it ended. It was published in 1925 in In Our Time. In the space of a few lines, Hemingway recounts the love affair between a soldier and a nurse. They meet during the war but never get married, not even after the end of the war when the soldier returns and goes home to find a job so that Luz can later join him. However, Luz discovers that there is more than one man on earth and she breaks up the relationship. Although she changes her mind later, the soldier never replies to her letter but we learn that “[a] short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.”
This story offers a grim but realistic view on relationships, particularly when one is young and during a time of war when there are fewer opportunities to meet someone. It also challenges this idea of everlasting love and suggests that promises might be empty and result in nothing.
I would have liked to spend more time reflecting on these stories, read more of them and read more about Hemingway as I was only familiar with the “iceberg principle” and The Old Man and the Sea, which I read so long ago I cannot remember it in detail. However, I have promised to put this post up today and I would not like to have made an empty promise and offer you nothing, nada.
This post is part of The Classics Circuit tour on the Lost Generation held by Rebecca. You can find links to all the posts presented as part of this tour here and read more on Hemingway and other Lost Generation writers.
This post is part of the America Lost Generation tour held at The Classic Circuits. Visit the site to read more post on Hemingway and other lost generation writers.
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
Thanks to all who have commented, shared thoughts and new ideas. Here are a few of them.
Initial readers’ responses:
“Like many people, I tend to be cynical. I don’t mind turning off the lights but hey, government buildings in Ottawa never do and you see lights everywhere in the city!
That said, I get the point. Maybe I’ll participate this year. I should be less cynical, like you said, it’s a symbol.” (Zhu)
“I look forward to . . . realizing something new, to learning more, and to becoming even more conscious and committed.” (Steph)
Regrets:
“I do try to be more “green” in every day’s life but it’s not an easy battle to fight in North America. For instance, I’d love to have less garbage but everything comes wrapped in plastic, more plastic, and then another layer of plastic! Give me back my plastic bags (I use them as garbage bags instead of BUYING more plastic bags!) and think about products’ packaging instead…!” (Zhu)
“What drives me crazy is people who keep on watering the lawn even though it is going to rain. Oh, and these hose spray more pavement than grass too.” (Zhu)
“One of the things I find fascinating about our interests with the creatures we endanger or bring to extinction is that human kind tends to feel guilt and is driven with regret when the creature is large and majestic. No one feels as guilty when a species of frog or fish goes extinct.” (Dragonfly)
“I love traveling and my heart breaks when I realize some places I’m going to are changing because of global warming or because the are polluted, overcrowded etc. That speaks to me. My love of traveling is a good way to embrace a greener life!” (Zhu)
Further thoughts and taking action:
“I think the thing to do is figure out who we know in business or industry or commerce or any kind of institution who can be persuaded to join in. My college regularly has green days, in which everyone makes a special effort to save energy. I will check whether our domestic bursar knows about Earth Hour and see how to involve the whole college. The best kinds of effort involve the biggest groups of people, I reckon.” (Litlove)
“Like this, my immediate tip is towards transport, as a keen cyclist I’m going to suggest more use of the vehicle, & I do mean vehicle not child’s plaything that one grows out of. We’ve all heard the argument about most trips being minute so I don’t need to harp on about that, but in an integrated transport system, a wonderful key to locking the system together is a bike.” (Parrish)
“so many kinds of birds, insects, frogs, fish become extinct every year and we don’t notice or don’t care. These larger mammals maybe have more of a connection to us, but either way they become like poster children don’t they. No one would be very impressed if you decorated your state licence plate with an extinct beetle, would they? We should make more of an effort to do that though. Education!!” (Shannon)
“It’s impossible, I believe, to save this planet without being in awe of it, without appreciating it, and most importantly without loving it and its creatures. And that comes through education, as you say. It’s such a tragedy that species go extinct, and I wish I could say it was unbelievable, really, but it’s not. And it’s a testament to just how great an effect we have on earth.” (Steph)
“I think garbage bins should be more readily available.” (Zhu)
“It’s not just a political statement or a sense of stewardship or love, or even just that meat is unnecessary for survival. Significantly, not eating meat makes a massive contribution to the environment. I don’t know the exact facts, but the environmental impact that our raising and eating meat has is enormous. I think it might have been Paul McCartney who said he calculated that we could eradicate world hunger if everyone chose not to eat meat, something to do with how much grain it takes to feed a cow…? Whatever it was I read was very convincing, anyway. There’s lots of info on the topic of vegetarianism or veganism and the environment.” (Steph)
“I do think we eat too much meat, much more than we need. Previous generations didn’t I think.” (Zhu)
“I don’t understand people who eat microwave meals. They look yucky, probably don’t taste great, have poor nutrition and are expensive. I usually make a big salad for the week with rice, corn, tuna, tofu, tomatoes and avocados and bring a bit to work everyday. Beats my co-workers microwave food!” (Zhu)
“That’s my failsafe: if anything is going, it all goes in a soup! Which we can also freeze. Throwing out food makes me feel terrible. I avoid it as much as possible. At least it goes in the compost, but still. The waste really bothers me.” (Steph)
“I agree that a lot of purchases people make are more in the “want” category than in the “need” one. Especially in North America, where buying is almost seen as the patriotic thing to do.” (Zhu)
Being eco-friendly in Canada:
“We are lucky, Canadian homes are well-built and keep the heat in. Plus, heating is expensive so we are used to blankets and soups to make us warm” (Zhu)
“In Ottawa, we have two bins, collected every other week. Black bin is paper, blue bin is plastic and metal. I recycle the paper, the cans (I drink Coke) and the biggest chunk of plastic, such as yogurt tubs.” (Zhu)
“It doesn’t rain so much in Canada (compared to Nantes) but I should definitely collect rain in the summer to water my plants.” (Zhu)
“Ottawa’s public transportation kind of suck. I mean, let’s face it, unless you live on the transitway (the express way), it’s a pain to get from point A to point B. We couldn’t live without a car, we need it to go shop, go to work…
We also only have one car, which is quite unusual here: people have two cars, sometimes even three (for the kids).” (Zhu)
“In Canada, we have “butt-stop bins” handy in most places. But you should see when the snow melts… it reveals a lot of garbage and litter underneath.” (Zhu)
“Canada is reasonably clean and convenient with plenty of bins and “butt stop” bins.” (Zhu)
“It’s a bit hard to eat local here all year, but in the summer we grow a veggie garden and it’s the most awesome thing to just take your plate out and fill it with a salad! Unfortunately, most of our stuff gets eaten by rabbits and such before we get to it. Annoying, really!” (Steph)
In France:
“I hate garbage cans in France, you know, because of the plan vigipirate most are closed and you can’t find another bin for kilometers. I was shocked how dirty Paris was last time I was there…” (Zhu)
“Nantes has an awesome public transportation system and we were really spoiled. The Tramway is great!” (Zhu)
In Australia:
“I saw a lot of stickers to save water in Australia, I think it’s the driest continent on earth. That said, it was flooded when we were there! Toilets also always had two flushes, you know, one for #1 and one for #2. These flushes were actually invented in Australia. But honestly, I found they didn’t work very well and didn’t flush much.” (Zhu)
In Singapore:
“In Singapore, where littering is heavily fined, it was very hard to find bins. Weird!” (Zhu)
In Chicago:
“I’m a big fan of public transportation out here in Chicago. It helps that everything is so close and most places are within walking distance, but not having a car is such a relief for me. It helps the environment and gives me extra time during my commute to read” (Short Story Slore)
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
There are many associations involved in the protection of the environment. Greenpeace and WWF (who are behind the Earth Hour) would be the first to come to mind, but there is also Avaaz, an organisation actively involved in questions related to the environment and human rights. They keep you informed and organise petitions, often asking for the public assistance to support various important causes. You can subscribe to their email feeds and receive all their updates.
The Earth Hour organisation has also tried to go beyond the hour; you can check what celebrities and countries are willing to do on the Earth Hour blog. They have also created a page on which the public can make a pledge in order to go beyond the hour in proctecting the environment. This is a good place to find inspiration, as well as a place to publicly make a pledge for the action you decide to take.
In their March Newsletter, Eco-Libris (see their blog) suggest that all of us book readers should plant a tree. This is something I have often felt guilty about as I buy many books and prefer to read works on paper than on a screen. This is thus an idea that appeals to me, but where should I plant my tree?
For those of you speaking French, here is a blog (no longer active but still accessible) offering many green ideas for your cleaning.
Read this article about a town in Germany in which inhabitants take recycling very seriously. I personally still find their fees quite high and wonder if in other countries it wouldn’t encourage people to dump their rubbish on the side of the road as I have often seen it done in Waterford.
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
Today a guest blogger is joining me. Brigid blogs from Australia @Kookaburra about well being and how yoga and meditation can help us in everyday life. Today, she explains how yogic ideas can also be helpful to protect the environment around us.
“My sister and I headed out early yesterday morning, optimistic about meeting our objective for the day: to track down a perfect wedding dress for my sister’s upcoming wedding. To be perfectly honest, I was really looking forward to having a justifiably good reason to spend a whole day in retail heaven. Not that I needed to justify this to anyone else, only to myself, because I’d decided at the beginning of 2011 to spend less time in vapid, time-wasting, resource-squandering pursuits like shopping, and for the most part I’ve managed to honor this intention. At times it has been a struggle. Yesterday though, with the wedding dress as justification, I could browse to my heart’s content.
As my sister and I wandered from store to store, we started to talk about how, although we didn’t need to buy anything, and actually didn’t want to make any purchases other than a wedding dress, we were starting to feel that pull: that desire to go into shops, to succumb to the lure of the beautiful objects in the windows, the signs announcing the last days of a sale. It was all subtly working on our minds, planting the seed that perhaps we actually did need something. After a few more hours of shopping, the quiet urge to buy something had turned into something louder and more desperate. Not only did we want to buy things, we wanted to buy them NOW.
What is this desire we have as humans? This void that makes us chase happiness in things, in acquiring ‘stuff.’ No matter how much we already have in our lives, our thoughts tell us we are lacking somehow; that we’d be just a bit more content if we bought the newest iPod, a later model car, a bigger house. Most of us have far more stuff than we will ever need, and yet the drive to acquire more thrums away below the surface. Spend some time later today rummaging through your cupboards and drawers. How many things can you find that you’ve either never used, or have hardly used at all? Many of us have hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of goods that we don’t really need. When I moved from Australia to Canada last year, I had to pack up all of my possessions and couldn’t believe how many unworn clothes, barely-used kitchen appliances and unread books I owned. But that hasn’t stopped me from wanting to buy more.
As we approach the fifth Earth Hour on Saturday 26th March, I feel that this human desire for ‘more’ is worth taking a look at, as it is a contributing factor to the detriment of our environment. It may not be obviously bad, like leaving the air conditioning on while you’re out at work. It’s subtle, and fairly socially acceptable. Yet the process of producing new things to replace the perfectly good things we already own is a producer of pollution, a guzzler of fossil fuels and major creator of waste.
When it comes to unnecessary consumption, I don’t mean to suggest that the fault lies entirely with us as individuals. The power of advertising has been acknowledged for many years, and companies will go to great lengths to bombard us with reasons to buy new products. But how is it that advertising can work on us? Why are we so susceptible, even in cases where we would really prefer to save our money for important things? We just keep chasing happiness, looking for a cessation of negative thoughts through purchasing more things.
After fifteen years as a student of yoga, I believe that yogic philosophy can shed some light on why humans are always chasing more. Yogis have studied the workings of the human mind for thousands of years, and their findings are as applicable today as ever. Rather than being simply a tool to help us make our way through life, the mind is a thought-generating machine that rarely stops. This is wonderful when we have a problem to solve, but when the mind has nothing real to work on, it continues to produce thoughts, and they are not always helpful. The mind’s role as problem-solver means that when it turns its attention to our lives, it cannot help but look for areas needing improvement. If no improvement is needed, it will tell you it’s needed anyway. This is why beautiful people are never beautiful enough, rich people never feel rich enough, intelligent people with innovative ideas are plagued by doubt.
Spend a moment thinking about your own thoughts. What kinds of thoughts do you have on a regular basis? How often do your thoughts tell you that you are fortunate, that you are a very lucky individual? And how often do you have thoughts that something’s not quite right, that your life is lacking somehow, that things would be okay if only you could improve a little, or had nicer things in your life? Most people find that their thoughts fall heavily on the side of discontent. Yogic wisdom tells us that this is what it is to be human, and that everyone with a mind – in other words, everyone on earth – has a tendency to feel this way. There’s nothing wrong with us, it’s just the nature of the mind. When looking at it from the yogic perspective, we can see how the messages from the outside world, coupled with the messages our minds send us, make it very difficult to feel contentment for any length of time. One of the ways in which we try to find contentment is to fill our lives with ‘stuff’.
If almost everyone is affected by these kinds of thoughts, what can we do about it? Yoga suggests that we can stop taking our thoughts so seriously. The yogic view is that “our thoughts are not reality,” meaning that we don’t have to believe everything our minds tell us. Thoughts that we do not have enough, that we need to consume in order to feel happier do not necessarily contain any truth. Just observing the thought, rather than acting on it, may even result in it disappearing. Learning to take each and every thought with a grain of salt is one of the goals of yoga, and a key way to live a healthier and happier life. And learning to quiet the voice in our head telling us to buy our way to happiness is good for our well being, good for our bank balance and good for the environment!”
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
The Christmas after I moved into my house, my little brother got me this wonderful little book. My brother is a funny fellow, but there is one thing I can say about him: he is great at choosing the perfect books for me.
John Seymour, the author of The Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency, which is edited by Will Sutherland, set up his own self-sustainable farm in Ireland in the 80s. In 1992, he founded a School for Self-sufficiency with the help of his wife. Since Seymour’s death his project has survived through the work of his wife and Will Sutherland.
This book has an agreeable format and is illustrated with old-fashioned drawings. It will introduce you to various techniques and crafts that will help you to be more friendly to the environment in your way of living.
To begin with, there is a chapter devoted to the meaning of self-sufficiency. The next chapter is subsequent and discusses food from the garden. This chapter introduces you to various growing methods, as well as varieties of vegetables and herbs. It also introduces you to what you should do in your garden according to the seasons. The next chapter focuses on foraging and how to keep animals for food.
There is also a chapter dedicated to recipes and various methods you can use in the kitchen. You can learn in it how to store, preserve, freeze and bottle.
Another chapter is dedicated to energy and waste. Finally, you are introduced to various crafts and skills, such as basketry and building.
This book can act as a reference book or as a way to inspire you. It is handy to use as each chapter has numerous sub-headings that will help you to find the information you look for easily.
Although not everything might be relevant to you, it is an interesting book to dip in. It will assist you in beginning to become more self-sufficient and you will most certainly learn many eco-friendly techniques from it.
There are so many more authors from Quebec I would like to read, but there will be more time for that at a later stage. However, I could not leave Quebec without reading one of Clark Blaise’s Montreal Stories, which I bought in Canada last June. Although Clark Blaise was born in North Dakota and raised in Pittsburgh, he spent thirteenth years, from 1966 to 1978, living in Montreal. Montreal is thus a place he knows well and the story “North” reflects this.
“North” is a story of belonging, identity and culture. The story’s narrator is thirteen and has just moved with his parents from Pittsburgh to Montreal where they are living with his uncle’s family. Although Phil had always believed that he was born in Cincinnati and that is name was Porter, he dicovers that he was in fact born in Montreal and that his name is actually Carrier. In Phil’s origins, we can feel the tension present in Quebec: Phil’s father is a French Québecois, while is mother comes from the West Coast. This duality presents problems as Phil is beginning his Montreal education.
As soon as the story begins we can feel this tension expressed in the use of the French and English language. Belonging is an important matter, even for school kids: you are either part of the French-speaking community or the English-speaking one. Surnames also tell a lot about you and Carrier is a good Canadian name as Thérèse tells Phil. However, Blaise is also ironical about this and seems to point to the fact a name is just that and not an essential representation of identity. Indeed, names can be changed as Phil’s own experience reveals. This irony is even more present in the remarks made by Phil’s tutor, Thérèse Aulérie:
“Mon vrai nom. Commences avec ‘o’, like this, eh? . . . C’est le vrai francais, mon nom, de la France, pas d’ici.’
. . .
‘O’Leary,’ she corrected. ‘Ca c’est le nom de mon grandpère.”
At thirteen, Phil is torn between integrating a new culture and the culture represented by his mother who feels like a stranger in this French Québécois family.
I found this story interesting to read as it gives a clear perspective on the duality of Québec. The sense of bi-culturalism and the tensions resulting from it are really palpable.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John at The Book Mine Set.
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
In the posts of these past few weeks, I have often mentioned ways to be more eco-friendly in the kitchen: recycle organic matter, use cooking water to kill weeds in your garden, don’t leave appliances plugged, leave your oven door open after baking to heat up the house, make sure you buy food in recyclable packaging, reuse food containers, use vinegar as a cleaning product, etc.
How much we waste and our way of consuming strike me as real ills of our society. We live in a fast paced society and everything seems to have become convenient. As a result, people have taken bad eating habits, especially if they eat alone. They tend to eat microwavable meals that are individually packaged. If you have read my previous posts, you might guess what I think about them. First of all, such meals, more often than not, contain GM ingredients and knowing about their provenance is near to impossible. Furthermore, individual packaging, which are not always recyclable, create a uncessary amount of waste.
I live alone; however, this does not prevent me to eat “proper” food. Buying in bulk is often cheaper and involves less packaging waste. It is easy then to portion the food yourself (by using those plastic food containers you have preciously kept) and freeze it. Make your own meals and then portion them yourself. It is a much healthier habit and so much friendlier for the environment. Use the local veg you’ve bought at the market and make a big stir-fry, for instance; it will usually keep for a few days in your fridge and will only take a couple of minutes to heat up. Rather than buying individual chocolate bars, bake a cake and eat it through the week. Convenient food has in fact become inconvenient by the impact it has on the planet.
We also throw so much food away. Fruits and veg can be a problem if you don’t eat them fast enough. However, they are ways to use them up even if they are a bit soft: make a soup or a compote and freeze them in individual portions. It is easy and becomes your own convenient food with products you have chosen.
This is my 4th year taking part in the Earth Hour, a global event aimed at raising awareness about sustainability issues. This year, I have decided to write a daily post during the month leading to the event in order to share some thoughts about the environment and give tips the little changes we can make in our daily lives. There will also be some guest posts by fellow bloggers who will share their own views on a topic related to the environment. You can read my introductory post here and access the Earth Hour website here.
I encourage you to comment and share your own tips, ideas and experience. In the last couple of days before the event I will do a few posts about what readers had to say. I believe we can learn a lot by sharing!
As I discussed yesterday, your garden is a great place to start making a step towards helping and preserving the planet. By growing your own veg and herbs, you can make a huge contribution to preserving the planet, as well as being sure to know where your food comes from and how it has been produced.
However, one is soon faced with problems: how to fight against various types of pests without using chemicals. This is an area in which I am still experimenting and I haven’t found the perfect solution, but here are a few ideas.
Chicken wire over the veg patch
I have four cats and they have become my biggest problem when putting young plants in the ground. No matter how much I love them, I don’t want to see them destroying my young plants by walking on them. They love freshly-turned earth and will tend to go scratching and relieve themselves there, which drives me mad! I have tried many things, amongst them citrus peels and ground black pepper, but these don’t seem to have any effect. For the veg patch, I use some chicken wire on top of it, at least until the plants are strong enough, but it still remains a problem when I plant different varieties at different times. I have also tried to put sticks around plants. It kind of works if I put enough of them and if they are quite high, but it is quite tedious. I must admit that I am a bit stuck for new ideas. I read somewhere to make a chilli-based paste, so I might try that this year. Do you have any other ideas?
Other big enemies in the garden are slugs. They eat everything and have often destroy many of my plants, especially when young. I now try to keep the young plants a bit longer inside, so that they are already strong when I plant them. Again I have tried a few things: beer and coffee will attract them, so that might keep them away from your plants, but you cannot be assured that they will not go on them. Seaweed can be an option and it is also a fertiliser; however, you need to use it sparsely as too much is not good for plants. I have tried broken eggshells; I am still not sure if it worked or not. A piece of plastic bottle is apparently effective, but I am not totally sure either. I have also tried to spray the plants with water infused with garlic (apparently it also works against other pests), but I remain skeptic. This year I will try copper tape around pots and the veg patch; I tried it last year, but didn’t do it properly. The thing is that I tend to try everything at the same time and never figure out which solution works best. My main problem is with the courgette plant as it is in the middle of the garden and so spread that the slugs will usually find their way on it. Any suggestions?
I haven’t experienced many problems with other pests or maybe I am just not experienced enough at identifying them. I know that you should not plant beans two years in a row in the same place. Planting onions or chives will also keep certain aphids at bay.
Steph mentioned that her problem is with rabbits, which is something I don’t have to worry about with my four cats. I know certain people who actually got cats in order to protect their plants from rabbits! Maybe protecting the plants with chicken wire would help?
I have never used fertiliser for any of my outside plants and veg. However, when I get the ground ready, I use my homemade compost mixed with a bit of seaweed. Making your own compost bin is fairly easy and you don’t need an elaborate one if you have a small garden. Just make a square with a few planks and divide it in two so you can alternate every year. This will also allow you to recycle organic matter.
Homemade compost bin
Weeds can also become a nightmare and pulling them out can use a lot of your time. The best is to do it regularly and when the weeds are still young. However, if you want to get rid of weeds before you have planted anything in the ground, you can pour boiling water on them, preferable the one you use for cooking in order not to waste any water.
Finally, make sure you water your garden in the evening, once the sun has set down. Try to collect as much rain water as possible. It has also been suggested to me to collect the water at the beginning of your shower or bath when it is warming up; it shall try that!
Water tank
You will find your own techniques in order to be eco-friendly with your garden. I would be glad if you could share them with me!
