Simple Suggestion #282 -- Use the Waste Wise app

As I mentioned a few posts back, Edmontonians are undertaking new ways to handle our waste this Spring in the form of a black cart for garbage, and a green cart for food scraps. But what about all those things that don't seem to fit in either cart? Like branches pruned from my backyard tree? Aluminum pie plates? Clothing?

There's an app for that! It's called the Waste Wise app and can be downloaded from your favourite app provider. Not only will it help you determine "What Goes Where" when it comes to waste and recyclables, but it also offers a "Waste Wizard" where you can input the name of an item that you're unsure about and it will give you suggestions about how to dispose of it. There's also a handy reminder feature so no one has to miss their garbage collection day, and there's a fun little waste sorting game for the kids where they send items to the proper waste disposal situation (Ecostation, Food Scraps or Garbage Bin or Blue Bag) and choose features for their own park. 

If apps are not your thing and you're not sure how to dispose of something, it's always worth checking the City of Edmonton Garbage and Recycling webpage. If you have things that are "gently used," the City's Reuse Directory can help find a home for them. There are also dozens of "Marketplace" or Buy Nothing pages, not to mention Kijiji... but I've gotten a bit off track here.

Waste is truly a waste of our earth's resources, and while it helps to know how to dispose of it, even better yet is not creating it in the first place if you can come up with lower-waste solutions, some of which can be found under the Simple Suggestions found here. And if you have any more Waste Wise suggestions, I'm all ears!

Learning from Indigenous Canada

Just last week, I finished a free online course from the University of Alberta called Indigenous Canada. I've been working at it since February, one or two modules a week, and it has been an excellent experience and a real eye opener. 

We all know that history is written from the perspective of the winners -- and that our tendency as human beings is to see people in binary terms of being winners or losers. When I took Canadian History 210 at the University of Alberta all those years ago, there was passing reference to the Algonquin, Iroquis and Mohawk communities encountered by the French and English colonizers, and a brief lesson on Louis Riel and the Metis Rebellion -- but everything else was about the colonists and their glorious settlement of Canada. The so-called winners got all the press.

But North America's first name was actually Turtle Island, and there's a lot more to our country's history than what European settlers (my ancestors included) brought to it. When Columbus arrived in 1492, people had already been living here for thousands of years, and had established a way of life that included gatherings, trade routes, and territories that supplied them with all that they needed to live happy lives. They were wise about the land and how to work with it through all seasons.

It makes me wonder -- where did Europeans ever come up with the idea that the Original Peoples weren't civilized? According to what I learned from Indigenous Canada, their ways of sharing the land, handling conflict, respecting nature, and raising children into responsible and caring adults involved healthy cooperation rather than nasty cycles of competition and punishment. They only took from nature what they needed, and operated out of a deep sense of appreciation and generosity rather than hoarding and one-upmanship. Whenever conflict arose, they came together to make peace treaties, covenants, with one another.

Thanks to the course, it's crystal clear to me now that a clash of world views is one of the main reasons for our need for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Had Europeans arrived in North America with a willingness to work with its inhabitants rather than a desire to exploit the New World, the U of A course I just finished would not have modules called "Trick or Treaty," "New Rules, New Game," or "Killing the Indian in the Child." 

Had Champlain come with a spirit of cooperation back in the 1600s, I suspect we would now have better conservation practices, fewer Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, lower crime rates, a restorative rather than retributive justice system, and a richer overall culture that welcomes simplicity and diversity over consumerism and homogeneity. There were points in the course where I cried for the things Original Peoples have been put through by our government and by our "settler" apathy toward them, and for all that our society has lost because of it.

But crying over broken history is not the point. The point is to listen, to learn, and to make positive changes. The resilience of Indigenous people is really incredible -- they are the fastest growing demographic in Canada, and are forging new paths in spite of the many injustices they've been forced to deal with.

I highly recommend this course to all Canadians. It is free to anyone with computer access, and all you have to do is watch a series of videos each week for about 12 weeks. If you don't want to do the quizzes at the end of each module, no one will raise a fuss. There's an online discussion option that I barely explored, but would also be interesting if you have the time for it. And if you like, you can receive a certificate at the end of the course for a pittance (in comparison to the cost of a regular university course!)

It's a free opportunity for a deeper understanding, and one worth taking!

Click here!

Cleaning out the greenhouse

Last fall, struggling with that low-grade covid fatigue that many of us carry, I never bothered to clean up our little greenhouse. That made it rather challenging to start seedlings last month without tripping over pots and tracking dirt around. 

Now that all my babies are thriving and it's warm enough to move them outside for short periods, I cleaned up and took a picture of the plantlings set out on our cold frame. They look so happy, and I'm excited about the coming gardening season.

So far, I've got 76 tomatoes of different varieties, a dozen pepper plants (four kinds), four trays of different onions, petunias, geraniums, marigolds, amaryllises, dahlias, calla or canna lilies (or maybe both?) and herbs.

In a month's time, everything will be lanky and more than ready to be planted in garden beds and boxes, but for now, I'm just enjoying these stocky little ones. Life is tenacious, and worth celebrating after a long winter!

I'm F.I.N.E., how are you?

I could almost wear this as a t-shirt...

When Canadian murder-mystery novelist Louise Penny began her Chief Inspector Gamache series of 16 books in 2007 (excellent novels listed if you click here), I'm sure she had no inkling of this pandemic we are moving through. But the character of her mad poet, Ruth Zardo, wrote a slim book of poetry called "I'm F.I.N.E." Which, the reader learns, stands for F**ked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical.

And who among us hasn't felt all of those things in the 390-some days that we have been living under pandemic restrictions of one kind or another? 

As someone with Type I diabetes, my turn for a vaccine came up on Tuesday, and I was online with Alberta Health Services at the crack of 8 a.m., lucky to secure my first immunization against covid for that afternoon. I stood in a socially-distanced line with hundreds of other Albertans (some from out of town, I learned) and thanked heaven for getting me there, keeping me safe from the virus for well over a year, when my own nephew was stuck in a covid hotel. (Thankfully, he has recovered and was released from his quarantine just yesterday.)

In my F.I.N.E. state over the past 13 months, I've managed to mostly keep my equilibrium, but the feelings of being messed with, insecure, neurotic and egotistical made regular appearances -- as I felt spring and fall allergies in my throat, watched anti-mask rallies held by people who have little regard for the common good, second-guessed whether the health officials were doing enough or not enough, experienced the churning mind and high anxiety of 2 a.m. insomnia that never did allow for sleep, and when I think of all those people who can't protect themselves very easily because they are deemed essential workers while I am safe at home...

Now that I have been vaccinated, it's a bit better. I'm fine -- better than fine because I don't feel like my diabetes combined with covid will be my death sentence -- but still F.I.N.E. by Louise Penny's standards... worried for everyone who hasn't been vaccinated (especially those in countries that aren't receiving vaccine while we are so fortunate!) and those anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who refuse to accept the science for the sake of world health. How do we convince them?

Of course, there is a way around being F.I.N.E. -- and that is, to forget myself and step out to do things for others... which is something I have been somewhat hesitant to do because our health officials keep telling us to stay home so that our hospitals don't overflow. 

So for the next two weeks at the very least, I am still sheltering in place. I expect that our presently cresting third wave will keep us all from being out and about much until we bend the curve down again. After that, as more and more of us are vaccinated, I'm hopeful that we can be more fine than F.I.N.E.

How are you?

Olga's Easter bread (Paska)

It's the most wonderful dough... of the year... (sing it with me...)

When my elderly Ukrainian neighbour, Olga, who has since moved to seniors' housing, typed up her Paska and Babka recipes for me after Easter some years ago, I didn't realize what a treasure she had shared. Since then I've been delighted with the Paska process and results. I've shared it before, but here's this year's efforts from yesterday to illustrate in case any of my readers would like to try to make their own beautiful Easter bread:

Olga's Paska 

2 c (500 mL) lukewarm water

2 tbsp (30 mL) sugar

3 tbsp (45 mL) active dry yeast

Mix them together and let stand about ten minutes. (I usually do this about halfway through making the "sponge" for the bread as it's a longer process than ten minutes).

2 c (500 mL) scalded milk (warmed to 180 degrees, then allowed to cool -- scalded milk helps the flour gluten's smoothness and gives any flavouring you might like to add extra oomph) 

6 whole eggs 

6 egg yolks (Easter macarons from the whites, anyone? I made a delicious omelette for supper)

1 c (250 mL) sugar -- or a bit less

1/2 c (125 mL) butter or margarine, melted

1/2 c (125 mL) vegetable oil

1 tbsp (15 mL) salt

1 tsp lemon flavouring (almond or vanilla are nice, too, and darn, I forgot to add any flavouring this year!)

12-13 c flour... more if the dough is too sticky.

Add the sugar, salt and melted butter to the scalded milk. Mix in oil and flavouring. Beat eggs until light and add them, along with 4 cups of flour. 

Add the yeast mixture and mix well to make the "sponge," then add it to the remaining 8-9 cups of flour, or more, depending on the stickiness of the dough (different flours have different moisture content). Knead it until smooth and satiny.

Put the dough into a large bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down and let rise again til doubled.

Divide the dough into as many loaves as you like. If you have round cake pans, they are ideal for nice rounded, flat bottomed loaves (filling about 1/3 of the pan's center). Use half (or less) of a loaf's dough for decorations -- braids, twists, ropes, rosettes, etc. I put my loaves on cookie sheets, and they expanded into each other so they're not quite as pretty as they could be where they baked together...

Flatten the bottom of the loaf and moisten where you want to set the decorations. Cover with a damp towel and let rise until double in size. (Don't let the tops of the loaves get too dry or they crack and spoil the decorative designs -- I'm speaking from experience, here.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, but keep an eye on them -- if they are getting too brown, cover them with moistened brown paper. Then turn the oven down to 300 degrees and bake another ten minutes while you mix up the glaze:

1 beaten egg

3 tbsp (45 mL) water

1 tsp (5 mL) sugar

Brush the bread with well-beaten glaze and bake for another 10 minutes at 300 degrees.

See the butterfly and snails on the bottom loaf? Roses elsewhere...

This year, I divided my dough into eight loaves, and Suzanna and I had fun decorating. We are quite delighted with the results, and we'll be sharing the loaves among family members for Easter. Unfortunately, my nephew is far from his parents and stuck in a covid hotel not far from here for this Easter -- so this morning, I dropped one off for him. The beauty of the recipe is that it makes plenty for sharing. Maybe next year I'll try the babka recipe instead...

Happy Easter baking!