Fighting talk

I blame Vancouver. Not the city per se but the adrenalin (read alcohol) fuelled idiots who trashed the place after their ice hockey team was roundly beaten by the Bruins in the Stanley Cup a while back.

What do I blame them for? The riots in London, England, of course.

They should have known that this outward display of aggression; this show of brute strength against such formidable foes as shop windows and stationary vehicles could only have ended badly. Not only did they trash the stores that they regularly shop in and the very cars that they drive (clever, eh), they also unleashed a beast: a snarling venomous devil that lives across the Atlantic in good old Blighty.

I could almost hear the murmurings as the Vancouver riot took place: the “Cor blimey guvnor, who the bleedin’ ‘ell do they think they are? We’re the best rioters (in the western world, of course. We can’t discount the folks in the Middle East, who take it to a whole new level and over throw governments!), we’ll show ‘em!”

And so they did. The unfriendly masses of middle England, so long kept quiet, dormant almost, by a fix of low interest rates, infinite credit and rabid consumerism, finally reared up to reveal their drool soaked, TV dinner encrusted, maniacal leering faces.

Now, media commentators in the UK will tell you that the riots were sparked by the police killing a Tottenham man. And, I don’t want to take away from the seriousness of this incident whether it was right or wrong. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, when you see the supposed protesters carrying off TVs, DVD players, toasters, even a safe from a local bookmakers, you have to think that some folks decided to have a riot not out of a sense of horrific injustice but simply for a riot’s sake, a laugh even.

And, the trouble with that is the disenfranchised face of English society (whether it be the unemployed, football hooligans, or just plain bad tempered idiots) is very good at making trouble. We have a track record of urban burning, sporting mayhem and plain old looting, you see. And, I won’t even mention the crusades or slavery!

Perhaps subconsciously that’s why I got the hell out of Dodge last year (for Dodge substitute North London, just a few blocks from where the stench of burning police cars hangs heavy in the air at the moment) and escaped to the sedate little community that is Haliburton.

But even here, I struggle to shake off old fears and hang ups. I still lock and bolt the doors at night. I’m wary of strangers and I post a sentry to guard the property when I’m away. Trouble is he’s only two and tends to get distracted by chipmunks and digging in the dirt. Still, a little discipline and we’ll knock him into shape… Or is that slavery? Damn it!

But, my message to you Haliburtonians is never get too comfortable. Always expect the unexpected. We may live in this rural idyll but we should never take our safety and sanity for granted. It only takes a few agitators to start trouble. Imagine if the turkeys decided that Thanksgiving was not a reason to run and hide but a call to arms! Just think what would happen if the mosquitoes actually coordinated their attacks (some would say they already do, I’m sure)? What if the local art community got sick and tired of painting landscapes for cottages and rose up to form a guerrilla force of wild eyed watercolourists hell-bent on disfiguring local beauty spots!!!   

This column might seem to make a mockery of the trouble in Vancouver. Yep, I’m afraid a group of drunken hockey fans deserves nothing less. It may make light of a serious incident in England but then again the majority of the folks who caused the riot seem far more interested in pyromania and shopping sprees courtesy of their brick-sized credit cards. I hope you’ll note that I do not cast aspersions on the uprisings in the Middle East because these folk are fighting for a bigger cause, democracy. Although they might want to check out where democracy got the folks of Tottenham! OK, OK I’ll stop there.

But then again, I need to come back to my initial statement about Vancouver. I realise that it may have been unfair: I blamed the alcohol!   

Be thankful for your quiet life in Haliburton, I am.      

Hot topic

The evening was still, the sky blue, turning slowly pink. The moon had already risen and was tracking slowly higher in the cloudless atmosphere. Cloudless that is, apart from the thin wisp of smoke that broke the tree line and rose up straight as a flag pole into the evening blue.

I smiled and wondered what the penalty was for lighting a fire during a summertime ban. I didn’t really care to tell you the truth, and that’s not because I’m some crazy law-breakin’ son of a gun; it’s just that the fire wasn’t mine.

Every evening the same thing. A near neighbour of mine lights his fire, takes up residence in an armchair conveniently set under a tree and wiles away the evening hours with a bottle of beer in hand and a long stick, with which he pokes at said fire.

I don’t get the attraction. Or rather I do get that this guy is relaxing in the best way he knows how and I respect him for that. But I don’t get the need to light up on a hot summer’s evening; then again, I’m not a proper Canadian, yet.

In the year and a half that I’ve lived here, I’ve been lucky enough to meet a whole range of folks, from intellectuals to hillbillies, environmental activists to artists and bear hunters but the one thing that almost all of them have got in common is that they like a good bonfire. In fact, it seems that you Canadian folk are addicted to fire.

If there’s a party there’s a fire be it in April, July, October or January.

I’ve been ice fishing and they built a fire, on the ice no less. I stood a long way away from it. They weren’t catching this limey with their crazy winter humour!

I’ve been to a wedding and they built a fire – from marriage vows to marsh mallows in the space of minutes.

I’ve been to countless barbeques and guess what, one flaming heat source was just not enough. “You gotta have something to poke your stick at,” said the host (and he wasn’t my near neighbour).

And so, when I bought my house one of the first things I did was build a fire pit in the garden. A fine ring of rocks it was too. We had a house warming, quite literally. A big fire in the new pit, lots of friends around, too many beers and a stick or two to poke while we set the world to right.

That was last year though and now the grass has grown up around those rocks. The fire pit looks forlorn as it slowly disappears into the lawn because we’ve not had a burn in it yet. The recent fire ban helped assuage my guilt at not keeping up a Canadian tradition. But, now that the ban has been lifted the fire pit haunts my waking moments and pervades my dreams.

“Come warm me. Come burn. Come stare into the dancing orange flames that lick at your poking stick…” Whoa! Sorry. You see it got me then. This damn fire pit is talking to me, it’s driving me crazy.

The trouble is my reserved English character just doesn’t cut it as ‘fire master’, ‘flame father’, ‘bilious burner’ you get the idea… And, the friend who introduced me to the Canadian tradition of fire starting has since moved to Vancouver.

Without him there is no impish charmer to control embers. And alas, I don’t have his crazy hair, outlandish sideburns, baseball cap and laceless boots – the uniform of any self respecting red-ne…sorry, flame fetishist – to indulge in his mad fire dances.

What do I do?

I guess if I am to truly integrate into Canadian life, I have to learn to burn more stuff. Either that, or resign myself to being forever English.

Perhaps I should trundle an armchair over to my near neighbour, sit down, clink a bottle and see if he can lend me a poking stick while he enlightens me during a nice fireside chat. Best do it while the fire ban’s not in force!

Life on a plate

Life on a plate

By Will Jones

Defining moments in life are few and far between for most of us but when they turn up they aren’t necessarily what you expect.

There are the obvious ones, of course: the birth of your first child, buying your first home, catching that monster fish (OK, some of these defining moments won’t resonate with everyone!), all drastically alter the way you look at the world. But, there are also the ones that sneak up on you. Those that are far less significant but which when they happen stop you in your tracks and make you take a good look at yourself. And, you guessed it; I had one of those moments just a day or so ago.

It was the end of an ordinary day and as my lovely wife, Little Z and I sat down for dinner the defining moment struck me. I didn’t even notice at first but as I finished speaking it hit me like a sideswipe from a grizzly.

This is how it went. As I looked down at my dinner plate, a modest meal of small mouth bass fillets, new potatoes, baby carrots and fava beans, a satisfied smile came over my face. I leaned back put my hands on the table either side of said plate and exclaimed: “Everything you see before you has been caught or grown by our family.” 

It’s hard to explain how I felt at that moment. Smug, hopefully not. Proud, possibly. Far superior to everyone who tucking into grocery store produce, most definitely. But then, I realised I had heard those words before.

I cringed because I knew at that moment that I was turning into my Dad.

Now, my childhood was a sunny one. No hardship, no toil; lots of love, play and happiness. A great home, big garden and friendly neighbourhood. My Dad earned a modest wage but he saved and spent it wisely. He also prided himself on growing all of our own vegetables and raising a few animals for the table.

But this pride manifested itself in what I as a young boy considered the most ghastly of ways. Leaning back in his chair and folding his arms, Dad would announce to the assembled audience at the Sunday dinner table (no matter whether it be just his immediate family, relations, friends or complete strangers): “Everything you see before you was grown in our garden.”

Nothing wrong with that, you might think, but, as a young boy I groaned each time he said it. I longed for shop bought instant mashed potato, plastic encased TV dinners, fizzy pop that was blue, desserts made from chemicals rather than freshly picked fruit.

I would shrink low into my chair, cringing as the smile spread across his face when guests exclaimed their surprise and awe. I scowled at him from across the wonderful spread, willing him to realise what an embarrassing Dad he was being. And, I vowed never to put my kids through that kind of mental torture.

I failed. The defining moment had snuck up on me and slapped me across the face with a wet kipper, or small mouth bass, as it were.

And so, it is by opening up and baring my soul to you that I hope to stave off any further onset of Dadness. I am, as you know, a Dad now and I suppose a degree of Dadness is attached to that responsibility. I now love the idea of harvesting home grown food and I have also grown to appreciate and love my old Dad dearly, so turning into him wouldn’t be such a bad thing really.

But, my Dad, almost all Dads, are far too sensible, always too careful. They are the quashers of every boy’s crazy ideas – “no you can’t leap off the garage roof onto a trampoline and bounce over next door’s fence into their pond. I don’t care what you saw on the TV stunt show!” They are the deliverers of discipline, and, despite every protestation from young boys, they are never wrong.

And, I’m turning into one!

Hold on though, I quite like that last Dadness. May be I’ll take solace from my defining moment and assume the Dad mantle of always being right from now on.

And, you know what, everything we’ll be eating tonight has come from… DOH! 

Showers, sovereignty and the meaning of life

First it ran to a trickle, then a drip and after that nothing.

Midway through a shower after a hard day’s toil at the keyboard; all lathered up and ready for a cool rinse off and what happened, the water just stopped, that’s what. I scraped soap suds off my personage, in much the same way as a German bartender knocks the foam off the top of a glass of lager, all the while grumbling to myself that someone was going to get an earful about this.

And then it dawned on me. There was no one to give an earful to. No water company to call. No emergency hotline to be put on infinite hold by when calling to report a problem. There was no one else to lambast about my lack of water other than me and my now dry well.

Water, that life giving elixir, is something that far too many in this world take for granted. And I was one of them. Living in England, where all but a tiny minority of households are linked to the mains water supply, we all expect there to be water when we turn on the tap. Just like we expect there to be a pub on every corner, a traffic jam on every motorway and a few folks in every country of the world who don’t like us because we conquered and enslaved them at some point in the distant past.

The thing is, we may have colonised many places but us Brits never bothered to learn the local culture. And, it was as such that I came to Canada and showered long and luxuriantly, oblivious to the fact that my well could and would run dry if I used its precious content wastefully. Never again shall I take water, my water, for granted like I did when I lived in Londinium.

And this is the moral of my meandering words in this week’s column. Not water use, because you’re all well used to wells and their workings. No, I’m harping on about taking things for granted.

While I didn’t appreciate my water supply until forced to flick foam rather than rinse off, I am acutely aware of the wonders bestowed upon me in my new home here in Haliburton. Absolute blessings such as the mile after mile of verdant wilderness and the cobalt blue lake around every corner. Roads that are not choked with traffic and exhaust fumes and people within or without car, who smile and take the time of day to say hello. Even the pesky racoons, veg stealing white tails and chicken chomping foxes are something to rejoice about because so many people in this world get little or no chance to see and appreciate them: let alone get annoyed by their presence in our lives (or should that be our presence in their lives!). 

And so I gently remind you Haliburtonians, those things you see and experience everyday, those quirks and quibbles of life in the Highlands, take a moment to step back, reappraise and enjoy them because to many, including myself, they are a rare and unique pleasure.

But back to my water. The well filled up again, thankfully and I’m now much more conscious of the amount of water I use and the relative fragility of the supply. I even went so far as finding out a little more about the other idiosyncrasies of homes in rural Canada. There’s the family of chipmunks living in the floor space that every house comes equipped with. The grills in the floor that I think have something to do with the heating but which more importantly are employed by little Z as postage slots for toys, money and partially chewed meals. Hmm, may be he’s in league with the chipmunks.

And then there’s the septic tank; that subterranean cauldron filled with what I believe you laughingly refer to as ‘honey’.

I just hope its sweet in there because I’m not looking forward to jumping down inside and shovelling it out this fall. That’s what you do, right?   

Fowl play

The stench of death hangs heavy over chez Jones as I write this missive. A dastardly deed was committed last night and the culprit left naught but a few feathers and twelve tiny chickens huddled in fear.

Yes, nature in all its tooth and claw has visited us and taken, murdered no less , one of our four-week old chicks. And they had only been in the outdoor pen for a day! This livestock husbandry is turning out to be a fraught affair.

Imagine our innocent joy when 15 yellow balls of day-old chick were delivered into our arms (or rather into an old bathtub that sits in my tackle room). The sight of them brought back memories of childhood past. Of me with brother and sister, Mum and Dad, chasing first chicks, then ducklings, and eventually even goslings around our back garden in Blighty.

Now with our own little boy to delight, and a gaping hole in the chest freezer to fill, we jumped at the chance to rear our own meat birds. No one told us of the horrors we were, and still are, enduring; and we have weeks to go until ‘processing’ day!

A mere 24 hours after their arrival, we noticed one little chick looking sickly. You could tell because the colour had completely drained from his face; that, and the fact he lay in a corner panting slightly and not eating. He passed quietly away in the night. Oh well, one down 14 left. Little Z will never notice, we thought.

A couple of days later, while son and I fed and watered our brood, one chick convulsed, squawked, twitched, squawked again and fell dead. A chicken heart attack, I guess. “Chicken sleeping, Daddy?” enquired Z. “Erm, yes,” I lied, instantly riddled with guilt.

And then there’s Wonky. Named as such due to what I can only imagine was the chicken version of a stroke; he was left unable to stand, one leg splayed awkwardly to the side and with a useless wing. Did we put him out of his misery? Of course not.

Wonky now resides in his own private room. He has a cardboard box lined with straw, his own water and food bowls. And, because he squawked in anguish at being separated from the flock, Wonky’s box has windows cut into the sides, a panoramic view no less, so that he can see and commune with his chicken brethren.

This catalogue of death and injury has been quite hard on us to date, and now that the chicks are old enough to go outside we have to contend with the local wildlife, too?

I say this sounding innocent to the point of dumb to many of you I’m sure and when I think back to my childhood I should have expected as much. I mentioned that we had chickens, ducks and geese at my family home. Well, we did and we graduated from one fowl variety to another not because of culinary preference, nor expansion of the smallholding. No, my Mum liked having these birds around and so did the resident foxes.

Quite regularly, on returning from letting the birds out in early morning or putting them in at dusk, Mum would have a tear in her eye. We grew to recognise her maudlin nature and not ask what was wrong but how many had gone.

Yes, we kept chickens et al to feed the wildlife. Murder at the bottom of the garden was a regular occurrence. We even came to accept it as part of the natural order. So, I guess I have to go out to my Canadian brood, reinforce the fences and suck it up.

Why do this, though? Because I like a chicken dinner, and even if I do contribute to a coyote’s larder once in a while, I’ll keep on doing it because that’s what my Mum does.

   

Getting fruity

I smiled when I heard the words: “Daddy. Got tummy ache, Daddy.” Delivered in a slightly whimpering tone, and accompanied by a furrowed brow and exaggerated massaging of his stomach, it seemed little Z was suffering somewhat.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am the first to rush to the aid of my little son if there is something seriously amiss but on this warm sunny Sunday afternoon we were in the car, returning from a stint strawberry picking. And yes, you guessed it, one member of our family trio had gorged rather than gathered.

The fields of Dunloe Farm were alive with the drone of bees and dancing a sway of wildflowers in the summer breeze. Amidst this idyllic scene were the bent backs of six or seven pensioners, all intent on filling baskets with sweet Haliburton strawberries.

“Pick your own eat till you burst,” I half said as we walked towards the field, remembering the words whispered to me by my mischievous granddad many years previous.   

“Daddy, what are the people doing?” inquired little Z, before bursting into an “Ooooo!” as he spotted the first of a myriad juicy red fruits. Strawberry picking to a child is as near as it gets to being let loose in the candy store.

Watching my lad’s delight brought back many similar memories from my childhood. Of being told to tread carefully between the rows. Of being instructed to pick only the reddest ripest fruits. And, of being warned not to eat too many on pain of punishment by the farmer!

My brother and I beat the system, though. Finding a particularly fruity patch, we’d lie down between the furrowed rows, and, sniggering at each other between the plants, polish off pints of succulent crimson berries. After this seriously high strawberry intake, a call from Mum would beckon us and we’d hastily throw a few into the basket before sprinting to the end of the field where we’d pool our pick ready for weighing.

“That’s not many. What were you two doing over there?” Mum asked with a knowing smile. “Are you sure you didn’t eat any?” I’d look at my brother and he back at me. Simultaneously, we’d feign horror and retort, “NO!” All the while hands frantically wiping mouths to remove the only too obvious signs of our feast. As if smearing strawberry juice from ear to ear somehow disguised our deed.

And in the car home: “Mum, I’ve got tummy ache…”

I write these words with mixed feelings. Little Z’s stomach ache doesn’t bother me. Oh no; he’ll be fine, and he’ll no doubt do it again next year, I know we did.

The reason I lament is that on a recent visit back to England I drove past the pick your own fields of my childhood. Or I think I did. Where once we pilfered those juicy red berries there is now an estate of executive homes. The faux Georgian villas and immaculate black tarmac, having obliterated the scene of many a glorious gluttonous summer stomach ache.

As is the way in that tiny island of my birth, rural land is being sold off and built up at a speed unfathomable in times when no one is meant to have any money. Where once families picked their own, now they trim verdant lawns (the size of your average horseshoe pit) and leave the strawberry harvest to immigrant workers in Brazil or Ecuador.

Where once the outing to the pick-your-own was a family treat; now, the supermarket truck delivers picked, processed, perfect (you can never find those funny shaped ones that look like bums in supermarket strawberries) fruit to the front doors of little Englanders in their phony castles. 

So, I say thank you Dunloe Farm and Haliburton County for transporting me back to my childhood; for giving us the privilege of picking our own; and, for giving little Z the tummy ache he deserved for eating one (or five) too many strawberries. See you again, same time next year.

Being green (fingered)

They’re actually growing!

There can be no disputing it, the veg in my garden are actually metamorphosising from small crunchy seeds into green leafy plant-type thingies. Trouble is I don’t know what’s legitimate veggie and what’s weedy imposter.

I should clarify. I don’t mean there’s a skinny fellow trespassing in my veg patch. By weedy imposter I mean weed. Well, not weed exactly. I’m not cultivating that elixir of Bill and Ted and I don’t want the OPP knocking on my door. Oh this is getting complicated. No, I mean weeds; the sort that always seem to grow bigger, taller, stronger than the plants you actually want in your garden.

And there you have it, by process of writing this text I have worked out the perfect way of identifying my veg. The small, slightly sad looking plants struggling up from my horse poop laden beds are veg; the tall vibrant chaps with verdant leaves and flower heads the size of dinner plates are weeds. All I need now is some industrial strength Weed-B-Gone and the job’s a good un, as they say in England.

But back to the veg. Yes, we have a garden that hopefully will bear fruit. By fruit I don’t mean fruit exactly, except for the tomatoes… oh dear, what with all these asides you’ll think I have been growing, and partaking of, the weed. No, I mean veg: potatoes, beans, carrots, onions, leeks, broccoli, you name it we planted it. Well my lovely wife did. I was more the manual labour (read fetcher, carrier and digger of manure). She’s made a lovely job of it, too.

Trouble is we’re both relative novices at gardening. Living in London for 15 years, the nearest veg patch to me was probably filled with weed, rather than weeds and our own cultivating potential came in the form of a lone window box filled with exhaust fumes and pigeon shit.

As mentioned often before, coming to the rural idyll that is Haliburton, was all about living in the country and doing what country folk do. And so, this spring (about April time) we set about our garden with vigour. Only to find we were somewhat premature.

“Never plant till after the last full moon in May,” said one local, smiling the kind of rueful smile that says, ‘oh lord, we’ve got one here!’

“You have to remember we’re in a different zone to England,” I was told by the lady at Country Rose. The only zones I’d knowingly frequented until this point were One and Two, on the London Underground (I never went zones three and four; they were where the less cultured folks lived).

“It’s all about temperature,” ventured another wise old gardener. “If you can sit bare cheeked on the soil and not get a cold behind, then your patch is ready to plant.” Good job I don’t live in the middle of the village, thought I!  

“Urinate around the edge of the garden to keep the racoons away.” Come on. I’ve pissed into the wind before, figuratively speaking, but I’m not actually going to empty my bladder around my veggies. Us English folk stake out our territory with a hedge not a scent mark!

With advice to the good, or not, we went ahead and planted after I’d mooned in May (that was the advice wasn’t it) and now we have a living, growing veg patch. The rabbits are fended off by a fence; the deer stay away thanks to next door’s large dog; the Japanese beetles… we are still struggling with them. Anything short of a flamethrower (amazing what you can buy at yard sales) doesn’t seem to have any impact, and I’ve already been cautioned by wife and fire chief not to even think about it till the drive needs clearing of snow.

And so, against all odds, the squashes are starting to flower; the carrots are looking spritely. Tomatoes are coming on strong, as are the potatoes. And the cucumbers! If anyone knows what I can do with a surplus of these big long green chaps in a few weeks time, please let me know.

Although, words to the tune of stuffing them somewhere the sun don’t shine will be taken as an insult rather than kindly rural Canadian advice!