Incineration

 

We returned to our little house from a midwinter vacation. After staying in large, open houses, I was dreading the return to our cramped quarters. We arrived as the sun was setting, set a fire, and thawed the place out. I was surprised at how nice it was for all of us to come home, and how easily we make enough room for ourselves in our sardine tin.

 

Into this home we can allow only things that will be used. The kids need to keep their treasures small. This can contradict lessons to reuse whatever we can. Selwyn is a moralist at seven years old. She sees value in every birthday card, broken toy, cereal box, toilet paper roll. I admire her reluctance to waste anything and to let each item create as much joy as it can before it returns to trash.

 

 

My role is ultimate judge of when something is no longer worth the space it takes up. Any undesirable that is remotely burnable I cremate.

 

 

In the short winter days we brighten our forest by burning brush piles all around our property. The smoke billows off down the valley and I forget what old baskets and puzzles and doll houses and even old teddies have been cremated there.

 

 

Cornish Giants

Our family has come to like chicken.

 

Over the past few years, our friends and neighbours have raised enough to go around.  

 

This spring we were alarmed to realize that everyone we knew had backed out of raising extra chickens.

 

On the spot we decided we had little choice but to do it ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Two dozen came to us in a box not much bigger than a shoebox.  

A day is as much as a year in the life of a meat bird.

Within eight weeks, not a single bird could fit into that box. 

 

 

As a bird bred to be juicy tender breast meat,

I was pleased that they seemed prettier and more active than I had expected.

We new it was time to do them in when they had to strain to lift their cheast from the ground.

After walking a few steps they would let their legs collapse with an audible thunk.

 

 

We took them apart in the front yard.

 

The next day I changed gears.

I went to the Ogilvie Mountains where Willow Ptarmigan,

the local counterparts of our Cornish Giants

live at large.

 

 

Joe Bishop took this photo.

 

 

"Dada's Making Sawdust Again"

Roll a log down the ramp to the mill

 

Into the sawblade, spinning with the power of 13 horses,

we push it ahead of us at a gentle walking pace.
 

It eats through the wood: a sharp blade, a smooth cut.

 

What was round is flattened so it has a defined edge.
 

The nature of the tree is squared away.
 

Long slabs of barked wood stacked, bucked and dried.

They'll crackle under syrup in the evaporator in a few seasons.

 

 

Flip her so she lies on her new side.

 

Slice again.

 

 

The inner nature is revealed,

the layers of growth,

the eyes where the branches budded,

the pink and red rot of old age.

 

 

 

Flip her again, haul the log dawgs into place and lock her down tight,

walk down her side, slice the full length and pull the saw back.

 

 

 

Warm sawdust spews and we breath in the smells of fresh spruce and gas.

Flip her a fourth time. There's one final strip of wild bark.

She fits now, right up square against the body of the mill. The log dawgs pin her down neatly.

Slice and slice and slice again, reaching deeper towards the heartwood.
 

The eyes of the Aspens in the yard are watching.

 

 

 

 

 

Small is Beautiful

I first heard of Coturnix Quails in the Yukon as a live food for falcons at the Yukon Game Farm.

Years later, my family includes a little flock:

 five hens and lone male, who crows in the morning as any good rooster ought.

 

 They live in a run out beside the sandbox.

 The girls are the perfect size to crawl in and collect eggs.

 

 

 

The eggs are in return a perfect size for a child to eat.

 

 

Here are seven sunny side up for breakfast.

Bumpy Road

Every spring our syruping venture rattles down a bumpy road.

We have been driving this operation for 10 years now, and as in any old vehicle some of the clangouring is familiar, some of the ruts along the way we have come to expect.

This spring the whole works hit some new obstacles at full speed when sap was running hardest.

We all went flying.

I came to understand the sheer volume of water that the birch stand pumps up from the ground.

We almost lost it.

It took more hard work than I knew we were - or ever wanted to be - capable of.

On top of it there were several miracles (including you Graham Rudge).

Here is the crew that in the end managed a 2014 batch of Good Old Fashioned Yukon Birch Syrup.

There are many memories in my soul blog, images without photos, yet I don't imagine I can forget:

Lara lena, your first collecting day on that immense route in the falling snow,

Renee saving us with your butter tarts in times of deepest darkness,

coming home to Ed and the girls eating breakfast and doing 'everything right',

Sara naming all her trees, and her voice echoing through the stand,

Berwyn in rubber boots and rubber gloves touching two wires to fire up the whole batch plant,

Myself letting gravity pull me down the contours by full buckets on that two ton day,

All of us giving all we had,

unleashing our powers from within,

for better or for worse.

 

Here is a photo of passing the cup of first sap, before we knew how the spring would unfold.

We all have a sip before we drill. Sara played her flute.

Selwyn says to me that we are the human part of this forest. “Not every forest has a human part, but this one does.”

Our contract with the trees is that we will not waste what we tap from them.

I am so relieved we didn't break it.

Cranberry Cordial

It is the middle of a February cold snap.

 

 

So we brought in our harvest of Highbush Cranberries to thaw.

 

 

Selwyn said

"Look mom, I remember picking THAT berry!"

 

I can relate, memories roll into my mind:

the rattle of falling leaves,

conversations over the bushes with Agathe,

Juncos flocking in the underbrush,

filling a bucket by the river while waiting for Seung Min to arrive,

the smells of fall.

 

We boil them all in a big pot on the woodstove,

strain the pulp and cover it with Vodka to make a liquor.

The juice goes back in the pot with a cup of sugar for each four cups of berry juice.

We add cloves, nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon

and let it stew 'til all is blended.

 

We bottle it up as Cranberry Cordial, a merry red juice concentrate,

good hot or cold or with a shot of your favorite liquor.

 

 

 

Japan and Back

We've been 1/2 way around the world and back since I last blogged here.

 

We stayed high in the mountains in the middle of Japan with our dear friend Akane.

 

Here is Lilia on top of Teungu Ewa.

 

Akane lives in Uenomura, a small village with a population of 2000 that stretches out over 30 km along the Kana River. People live in little pockets where the valley widens. The mountains all around are steep and forested, filled with monkeys, deer, wild pig and bear. Akane has joined the local pack of hunters, and her small freezer was full of wild meat.

The mountain towns in Gunma Prefecture have steeply declining populations. Most people want to live in the cities; teachers and other workers have to be recruited from far away. The buildings are almost all former silk worm houses, the second story had been used to grow silken cacoons. In the 80s the last silk mill in the area closed, and the silk industry has moved to countries where labour is cheaper. The huge houses are left empty.

 

We met old people who have watched the mountain towns drain out and dry up. Stooped at the waist, they rake the leaves off of the streets and tend their gardens while the neighbourhoods turns to artifacts. Some were so kind to us, welcoming our interest in their lives and despite the language barrier they shared with us parts of their traditional culture. We are so grateful for their generosity.

 

We met some young folks, glowing exceptions to the trend of outward migration.

 

In Japanese they say you do a U-turn in life if you go leave your home and then return and build your life there.

 

Tsune made a U-turn, he and his wife Miho run a high class cafe, Yotacco (meaning naughty kids), in an old silk house. Out back they have a small farm where they grow everything on their menu, down to the soybeans for the tofu and and the wheat for the ramyan noodles.

They have a blog at: http://yotacco.exblog.jp/i21/ (Google can translate into English)

 

Here Berwyn and Selwyn help to plant the winter wheat while Tsune plows in the background.

 

If you move away from home and don't return you do an I-turn. (I think the interpretation of turn didn't quite come across right!)

 

Hokuto and Sachiko are a young couple who have moved from other parts of Japan to Uenomura because it's in the forest and is renowned for wooden crafts. Hokuto is a wood artisan and Sachiko is a calligrapher and together they run a business producing wooden chairs and bowls and utensils.

 

Here is coffee in Hokuto's mugs.

A father we met in Ueno has lived all his life there. He is a fourth generation mushroom farmer. His six year old daughter was the highlight of Selwyn's trip. His family taught us about farming and hunting and getting along in these mountains.

My imagination has been invigorated by the ways of living we experience there. I am so proud of the young people of Uenomura for sustaining the rural traditions and creating a sustainable community. Despite all our fauxpas, we felt a kindred spirit with our contemporaries in Japan and we will never forget.

Here are Selwyn and I in the first snow on the trail leading up to Tajikaro's Shrine. 400 year old Japanese Cedear tower over the trail that pilgrims have followed for thousands of years.