Amy's Garden: April 2012

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

Yesterday, while riding north on Court Street toward home I dodged pot holes and crumbled asphalt and small dunes of road sand left from the winter. The bike lane was barely visible, completely unsafe for riding - so I was, for the most part, riding along it's outer edge. At times I had to swerve further into the road to avoid larger pot hole and dunes.

As I approached Bay Street I glanced behind me - no traffic, ahead of me were three cars driving south on the other side of the road, coming through the green light. I signalled that I was turning left on Bay, kept riding, checking behind me, ...two of the cars drove properly on their route. The third car took one look at me approaching the intersection, on the road, on a bike, with my arm out - and slammed on the breaks, stopping in the middle of the intersection.

Oh my dog. Really people? Who is causing a problem on the road in this story? Who isn't following the rules - the law? Who hasn't been to driving school, - what score did they get on their written test? Have they read a local newspaper or listened to the news? Pay attention?
I bet drivers like that are also the ones who spend their time complaining about Thunder Bay being a deadbeat town going nowhere, where it's hard to find good work, and the beer comes in jugs. Asshats.

I am so tired of hearing the complaints about the bike lanes, the ridiculous comments from Boshchoff calling them "dangerous" is outrageous. Cyclists on sidewalks? Even more ridiculous. He needs to get his head out of the sand. What is dangerous are drivers like that idiot who slammed on the breaks in the middle of an intersection because they didn't know what to do with a bike on the road.

Understanding a line on the road is not difficult - even new lines. I can not count how many times I watched cars drift in and out of bike lanes last year. Never saw a cyclist drift in and out of a bikelane...funny that.

I think - there are better ways to integrate cyclists in urban areas. I've been hearing on the news all morning that they're planning a revitalisation of Red River Road and Memorial Ave. (about time people..) Why not put a little extra effort into adding Recreational Trails along side the sidewalk. Sidewalk for walkers, RecTrails for riders, inline skates, runners. On the curb, off the road, line it with trees, make it pretty, attract people to it. To me it seems simple.
There could be a RecTrail continued along Oliver Road (from the Balmoral trail), on the north side, connecting pedestrians and cyclists *safely* to the hospital. If traffic lights were installed, to the University too.

Again, so simple.
Oh I bet "it costs too much"...or some such bullshit. Kind of like cleaning the streets in Thunder Bay. sigh

I really hope this bike lane business continues to make news, go national. Let's call these idiots on council out. I've had enough of them.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Local Farms

Sleepy G Farm
photo credit to Sleepy G
on the majestic Sibley Peninsula, Pass Lake

I'm sort of incredibly jealous of local farmers right now. After connecting for a Walleye story I'm overwhelmed with daydreams of goats and chickens on acres of garden.

Then I add R's dream of a traditional Australian pie shop and add some lambs to our farm.

A few greenhouses...

Fields of flowers. I say sort of when I think about the amount of work it is for the families, and exceptional commitment to what they're doing.

I have farm envy, chicken envy after writing this one - not that I wasn't already afflicted.

I am amazed by all our local farms, each doing unique and innovative things, gardening with both knowledge and creativity, challenging the climate on the Boreal Edge.

Boreal Edge Farms
photo credit to Chris Merkley

Belluz Farms
photo credit to Kevin Belluz

Restricted by space, I could not possibly do these farms justice in the short W article, but do hope to follow up throughout the season - including this blog and Twitter too. There is so much to tell about how farming is reinventing itself in the Thunder Bay area.

Though I was featuring only three, Thunder Bay is surrounded by farms that have so much to offer. This week the Kampoff's dairy farm in the CJ, showing what they've been doing for generations - complete with evolution and newness. I went to school with those kids - Thunder Bay Christian School....a lifetime ago. Maybe it was through that connection (and my father being drawn to Dutch fellows) that brought him, the math professor, to take up farming.

He put in a good effort, for a hobby farmer. I was chased off the school bus by geese, my mother will tell you stories about running out of the house with a broom to shoo the rooster from the foot of the swing-set, so that my sister and I could get off. Matt from Boreal Edge was telling me all about their new chicken flock of 100 pasteurised laying hens and all I could think about our "pasteurised" laying hens roaming free everywhere - no "eggmobile" to keep me safe...sigh...

It was an interesting childhood.

I became far too attached to the chickens, and our goat (who was often found tied to the mostly chewed Tamarack tree outside my bedroom window); then there was Brutus the bull (?), and of course the baby animals in spring. Oh I loved the day Dad came home with a box full of baby chicks to keep in the family room with lights until it was warm enough, and they were old enough, for the coop (non roaming coop). I realise much more now, in retrospect, why my mother cringed the way she did. I laugh a little imagining the conversations my parents had.

The math professor farmer was a bee keeper and an apple grower, wannabe Geologist, Forester, Ecologist. Our property boundary was shared by the Wishart Conservation Forest, and the Current River. What a playground I lived in. Far from the urban lifestyle I live now.

Time and weather thwarted my photographic hopes, but the season has only just begun. I imagine a lot of sweeping farm panos in my future.

Sleepy G Farm is a new farm, re-establishing an old farm. Belluz Farms are reinventing themselves with each generation, each offering a variety of local produce - enough to sustain a family of four, for less than what you would pay in any chain store but better: fresh, and locally grown.

I think what deters people, or where value is lost, is the lost knowledge of storage and preservation. I bought apple for lunch at the neighbourhood Safeway yesterday - "Ontario Grown," in other words: out of cold storage. Storing and canning, preserving - it all takes preparing and planning - which isn't nearly as daunting as it seems. Understandably space can be an issue for some families - speaking as someone who lives in a century home in an overcrowded downtown neighbourhood. Closets? Say what? ...but, every challenge has a solution, somehow...solve it.

Their concepts aren't new or even unique - they're proven, tested, and evolved. CSA shares from Sleepy G Farm are quite different from what Belluz Farms offer, each local farm with variety - and with local producers of beef, lamb, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese, chocolate, fruits, vegetables, herbs, ...include area artisans, honey, syrup, tea, wheat & rice. What else do we need? Jeff & Kerr and their coffee, Denyse's pancakes, Sovereign Room, Growing Season, omg this list is too long to begin. !

We're doing pretty good here in Thunder Bay for local sustainability. Pretty incredible actually.

Sleepy G Farm

Brendan Grant & Marcelle Paulin

RR1 Pass Lake, ON

P0T 2M0

807.977.1631

http://sleepygfarm.nfshost.com/

sleepygfarm@gmail.com

Located at the base of the Sibley peninsula, approximately 45kms east of Thunder Bay.

Boreal Edge Farm

Matt Baughman & Leigh Potvin

RR1 Marttinen Lane