5x4 garden plot

We're pretty excited as it seems that we're actually able to grow a few things here in the middle of downtown Vancouver. I mentioned a few posts ago that we were trying our hand at urban gardening - well we've already begun to reap the harvests! Small harvests mind you, but, there ain't nothing wrong with free veggies no matter how few in my eyes. So far we've got some pretty healthy looking kales and a coupla fairly healthy zuchini plants. The growth and success of the latter being especially surprising. We are already munching on the kale and have some nice zuchinis in our fridge. Some of our kales got attacked by root eating maggots which was kind of gross and a bit disappointing but it did free up some space for some tomato plants so we shall see. So far we've just put seedlings and seed in the ground, watered it and boom! Up came these veggies.  We did buy some pretty decent compost for the garden and we used some fairly wormy compost from the compost bins to add growiness to the soil.

As you can see the chard is doing pretty good and our zucchinis are already quite mature.  I'm actually afraid they are going to outgrow the box and start encroaching on our neighbours plots.  Aphids are abounding on most of our stuff but we've been killing them manually so far.  These photos don't really do the garden justice, but if you could've seen this area as the empty gravel lot it was before the community garden moved in, you'd realize the transformation.  So far it's a lot of fun. Maybe I finally had to come to the city to be a country farmer type, but let's not get too carried away.

Sickness

I seem to be getting sick about half the time these days and the other times in-between bouts of recovery so that everything seems to be merging into one long sickness.  I'm not sure who to blame it on.  Most likely, is it my general lackluster attention to personal health and water-drinking etc. But could it also be the weather or something in the environment around me?  I'm exposed to a lot of disease at my workplace.  Contrary to intuition, health food stores are a great place to get sick.  Mainly this is because there are lots of people in an enclosed space, but I think there are some other, more unsavory aspects of the atmosphere in health food stores that also contribute.  Most stores are dusty and mine is no exception.  Dust can trap bacteria and mold irritates the throat and sinuses making them vulnerable as well.  Refrigerators are cold and shock the immune system.  A busy store can be a stressful place and stress as we all know is a big factor in sickness.  Here's where I may get into trouble but I'm going to say it.  Vegetarians and counter-culture artisto-types  are also hotbeds of bacteria and viruses.  It takes one to know one, but I can personally attest that Vegetarians often need to supplement their diets with foods that "beef-up" the bodies resistance that aren't beef itself.  Not all vegetrons pay attention to this and this is where you get the pale waif effect so often seen.  That's when the diseases pounce.  I've lived in basement hovels with several roomies before and while it's usually a groovy good time, not every one pays the same attention to personal hygiene and with lots of people coming and going and slopping the cutting-board with onion and garlic finger juices so do their diseases.  To add to this Vancouver has had a fairly cold and drippy May and early June so far.  Cold and drippy outside - cold and drippy inside.  Anyway, despite all this, not everyone is as sick as I am so it's also got to be about something I'm doing or not doing.  I'm sick of being sick and making others around me sick as well.  It's time I took my fingers out of my mouth, sanitize the keyboard, hit the treadmill and exorcise this demon of disease from my lifestyle.

The waning summer of my dirty 30's

Well, generally speaking my "dirty thirties" as they sometimes call the decade of your thirty something years is almost at a close.  Is that significant?  Well, it doesn't feel like much is going to change too quickly, but I guess it's a milestone of sorts and people do say that things do start to change around this time in your years.  I have had a lot of adventures in these years at any rate.  Compared to my twenties it's been quite a whirlwind and in a good way for the most part.  In these times if you can live a decade of life and note mostly good times, that's a plus I say.  Taking quick account: my living situation has improved, I have a great relationship, I live in a desirable and moderately glamorous city, and I can afford to eat relatively healthy food, like home made blueberry and strawberry pancakes for example.  It's all pretty good stuff and I'm still more than a (possible) decade away before the cracks in this great scheme we've made for ourselves in the western world totally start to widen and spread revealing the rotten centre and give way to the torrents of woe that tarnish the rest of the globe.  At least that's what the experts are predicting. 

Speaking of our times - I was out walking with some chums the other night on the strip heading to a bar. We passed a non-descript and darkened shopping plaza when I spotted this business which I think outlines our times quite nicely.  A business that thrives on the need for people to hire other people to help them look for crappy jobs is sign enough of things sliding downhill, but when that business itself goes tits-up it's time to put a lock on your gas tank and stock up on canned consumables.  I'm probably overstating things, but it's something to be looking out for at any rate.  Keep your eyes fixed on the horizon I always say and don't forget to look over your shoulder occasionally too.  Speaking of which, summer is here so if you are unfortunate enough not to have have gainful employment, enjoy your time off as much as possible.  Whew!  It's always hard to leave thing on an up-note for me which, considering my situation shouldn't be, so I'll just sign off before I think of another dire thing to say.

Just twidding the look

Just twiddling the look right now and trying to finalize my move from my hosted site and the new Blogger hosted site. Hopefully I'll be able to get the hang of it. Bare with me readers! ... actually.  I think I just figured it out.  Now my blog is entirely hosted with Blogger.com or Blogspot or whatever, but it will link through from clayhastings.com for now.  If anyone has ever been to chinatown and if you've ever had the need for cheap crockery in your kitchen you've probably bought a few of these omnipresent "fish bowls" at one of the finer chinatown shops.  Chinatown has changed over the years and I daresay, it's gotten better.  They have better stuff anyway.  Better shops and more selection.  This has probably co-incided with the rise of China as the next great "trading nation".  It's still all curios and trinkets, but better curios and trinkets!  Heres to new looks and new stuff.

Well. Summer is almost here and since we've gotten back ito the city we discovered that the waiting list for a community garden moved up and now we have a plot. It's pretty small, but there should be enough space to get some veggies going. The plot is right on the corner of one of the busiest intersections in Vancouver, so it's kind of weird to be gardening in the roar of traffic, but when the plants get high in the summer it really transforms the corner- birds chirp, bees buzz by, some people just stroll through to check out whats going on. We probably won't care too much about the traffic when we're munching on fresh greens! So far we've been experimenting with a few kales we bought. Plugged em in there and returned a few days later to find a bunch of the plants dug up and animal fur tufts around. Not a perfect start, but that's the way with gardening I guess. We're pretty much learning as we go so we'll see how successful we are this time around. We grew some really enthusiastic cherry tomato plants in our living room last year but they never produced a great bounty of tomatoes and they were kinda smallish. Finally the plants began to bristle with aphids and we ended up throwing them out in disgust! Thanks nature! Well anyway, this time we are back and this time we have bigger plans. We are planning to harvest the very power of the sun and the earth itself and use it to make us some vegetables.
We've been eating quite a bit of veggies recently. After 3 months of high meat and starch content meals it's nice to eat on the greener side.

On another note we've got a great new cat Lloyd who just moved into our place. He had no where else to go so we took him in. We had another cat here before, Steve, but he went back to his owner so it's nice to have another hanging around. Which is pretty much all he does. So far he seems to be settling in fairly nicely, but since he previously an outdoor cat, the indoor life is proving to be challenging. Especially when he's only got a few hundred feet to wander around in. I think we'll be needing to buy a cat-tree soon! He's become a bit neurotic and has taken to attacking legs and feet at all hours and tearing around the place even though we've invested in a catnip-infused scratcher, various fake mice, and make string-fluff chaser things but maybe that's just the way it is with cats.

Well we are back in the swing

Well we are finally back in town and doing our thing, and by thing I mean chiefly, working and getting re-settled in our place. The work part is pretty simple but the settling is proving to be a little more challenging. Vancouver is quite different from pretty much all the places we visited, there was an initial adjustment period. What is mostly noticeable coming back to a place like Canada from pretty much anywhere else in the world is how efficient and well-run the country is. There are a lot of resources here per-person and you can feel it in everything you do. You can see why many people in other parts of the world are envious of Canadians and would love to come and check out some of the "goods and services" we enjoy here. Anyway, in the interests of interestingness, I'll continue to blog more photos of our trip just so that readers can get a little bit better idea of some of the places we went to and the things we did. Here's a pic of me hanging out with a little monkey named "Nyo-Nyo" which I thought meant "Nerd" in spanish, but he was anything but nerdy. I guess he was pretty domesticated as he had no problem climbing up onto my neck and making himself at home. I had no ideas that monkeys were capable of being so affectionate. Usually they appear kind of intense and hostile to me, but this guy was a real buddies forever kind of guy.


So basically what's going on here is that at the end of our trip we went to the bustling city of Santa Cruz Bolivia but only for a night. Santa Cruz is Bolivia's largest city and it's big and a bit hot and crazy, and we found it pretty comfortable for our last few nights. This toucan is the mascot for the hostel that we stayed at. He was quite friendly and would nibble on your hand and jump around curiously looking at you.

We visited this area in Bolivia towards the end of our trip that was fairly interesting and quite beautiful called Samaipata. It was a small town up in the mountains surrounded by spectacular natural scenery and countryside not to mention some cryptic ruins of international note. The main square down the mountains and in the jungly plateau of big city Santa Cruz is quite nice as you can see. There are dudes in white suits who walk around with roll-carts full of ice cream and other strolling treats. The square is immensely popular every night. People seem to always milling about taking in the air or socializing on hot nights. This old red rock is some kind of geographic highlight near to the area of Samaipata where tourist sometimes go to and do outdoor stuff. It's beautiful around here and while our guide book was touting and tempting us hither. We had a plane to catch. Next time - as they say.

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