Monday, February 27, 2012

3 influencial Vs in Tata

There have been some very important Vs going on in our lives in Tatamagouche this past week.
Firstly came the VAN, our new-to-us vehicle, in fact our only road-worthy vehicle at this time. How wonderful it is to be free once more and drive places should we feel the urge. Though we do feel a bit silly as a couple with a family friendly 7 passenger mini-van, but ditch the seats and we have an impressive air-conditioned space to fill with beautiful flowers this summer. It's so huge that even Bertie and Eddie are a bit puzzled over where to sit, Jamie is still a little miffed that we didn't go for the one with the DVD player in the back, but if we are both watching movies I don't see how the car can drive itself. Hurray for the Van - our ticket freedom and flower transport.
So the second very important V came in the form of a group of wonderful women performing the Vagina Monologues and raising a handsome sum to support V Day to end violence against women and girls. Yay! Lots of beers, giggles and vaginas of course.
I have however, saved the best until last... In our small community of Tatamagouche, we were privileged to welcome and simply be bowled over by the incredible Vandana Shiva who travelled all the way from India to share her knowledge and support for seed saving, farmers and food sovereignty. What an amazing woman, not only a shining example of non-violent protest but a true inspiration to us all to stand up against those big corporate bullies. Who? Well simply check this bad gal out, she isn't afraid to challenge big corporations who try and get away with sneaky, downright cheeky violations of intellectual property rights, such as those biopirates (my newly learned and now favourite word) who tried to patent Basmati Rice! It was so great to have her in our very own Tatamagouche. WOW.



Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Freezing Rain, fallen snow and brilliant sun

Saturday night (which incidentally coincided with a friend's hilarious 80's style party) turned out to be our first experience of freezing rain. Well that's a funny way of describing hail isn't it? or so we thought, but unlike simple hail, this climatic horror rains down on the world and freezes on impact turning everything to ice. So Sunday morning, foggy with hangovers and little sleep we awoke to a very frozen world which had also been dumped on by nearly a foot of snow. After losing Eddie in a drift we figured it was about time to dust off those snow shoes and accept that it's February and therefore the snow is here to stay. Despite blazing sun and bright blue skies, the temperatures of -18 with a -27 windchill are not very conducive to melting the piles of snow that surround us. However, the sunshine today has felt almost tropical and I am convinced that my hair got a few shades blonder as I sat sipping my very chilled rose on the deck in a toast to St Valentine. We are still without a safe or legal working car to take on the  roads, though I am sure that many of our community are permanently in the same boat and don't seem to think of it as a problem. The snow bank across the barn door and sheet ice covering the yard prevent us from taking out the mystery machine, even if we were mad enough so fingers crossed we can purchase our new van soon. Our last experience with dodgy dealers in Moncton was all too tiresome and has made us rather wary. At least all this house-sitting has meant that this year's planning and seed ordering is pretty much done and dusted, thank goodness, we are both rather sick of guesstimating numbers of blooms from flowers and attempting to answer the never-ending question; "how many seeds of this one shall we get?".