Green Wizardries: Set a Place For Brigid

January 25, 2024

Imbolc, the first day of spring falls on the first of February. We have a week to prepare! Coincidentally, this is also the first day of the Community Choir which starts at the Community Hall at 2:30 pm. Newcomers may come try out the choir for free for the first two sessions so they can see if they like it. Cost for this choir session is $120 to 140 sliding scale. Bursaries are available from Arts Denman.

I am doing something different this year to celebrate the great day. I will be potting up elderberry cuttings on the day to give as gifts to my friends and neighbours. The elder cuttings are made during the pruning, or coppicing, of the elderberry bushes which should be done in January. I got mine done just before the first snowfall.

The cuttings are taken so they have two leaf nodes and can be planted straight into a nursery bed if the soil is not frozen. Some people like to plant the cuttings so deep that only the tip is sticking out of the ground and others like to plant them higher. I do not know which works better so will do both and take notes.

The cuttings can be left to root in the nursery bed which should be quite sandy to help you get the roots out next October when the cuttings that thrive will be planted out in their permanent locations. For fruit bushes, I would plant five or six feet apart. Elders can be used to create a hedge and what a lovely hedge they would make with their rapid growth and crowns of creamy white flowers. Elders would make a great hedge to support pollinators and thirty five different species of North American birds eat elderberries. The dense shrubs make excellent nesting sites for low-nesting birds. Plant a foot apart to create a hedge.

Elderberries kept for fruit production should be planted out in October and left to grow for a full year before their first pruning. Some people like to cut the elders right to the ground and others leave some nice supple canes at waist height so the elders do not get too tall to easily harvest their fruit. Prune out any branches that have rough bark, are crossed or weak.

The berries are picked and frozen to make it easier to get the berries off the fine stalks and and can then be made into juice, syrup, jams, jellies, pies and wine. Humans have to cook elderberries before eating them but birds, including chickens, love to eat them raw and flourish on them.

I love elderberries for their anti-viral properties. I find them very useful for treating colds and flu. They make a very tasty juice when cooked with some cloves and a bit of chopped ginger. The solids are strained out and the juice sweetened with honey and canned. It makes a very refreshing drink served cold with club soda or served hot, added to tea.

I will be donating some of my elder cutting to the Garden Club raffle. The Club meets at the United Church Hall 21 February at 2 pm.

Imbolc is sacred to the Goddess Brigid and is the feast day of Saint Brigid of Kildare. These two may well be the same exalted being as the church at Kildare was built on an ancient shrine of the Goddess Brigid and both have the same powers and duties. Saint Brigid is also thought to have been brought up in the house of a Druid…

Imbolc being the first day of spring it is considered lucky to plant some seeds. Onions, celery, celeriac and leeks can all be planted in February. I will be planting some coriander seeds to grow some fresh herbs on a windowsill.

The feast is centred around foods Brigid loves. Both Brigids are defenders of the dairy, the hearth, the home and bring the spring by spreading their green cloaks over the land. Both of them love honey, butter and cheese.

I will be making some lemon and poppy-seed pancakes which I will cook so they have a golden colour. The round shape and gold colour are like the sun and the poppy seeds represent the seeds and flowers of spring. For a good lemon flavour add some lemon zest to the batter.

I will serve these cakes with butter and honey. People do divination with the pancakes. Ask a question and flip a pancake. If all goes well, the answer is yes. If the flip was not a success, the answer is no.

Typical dishes include, oatcakes, seed cakes, braided and fruited bread, custard tarts, brambrack ( a yeast loaf containing dried fruit that has been steeped in cold tea or whisky), and colcannon. The last is a dish of mashed potatoes, butter, cabbage, bacon, onions and herbs.

In the evening, light a candle and put it in your window to let the Goddess or Saint know she is welcome and you ask for her blessing. When you serve the Imbolc feast, set a plate for Brigid and she will come.

Dear Forest Friends

January 25, 2024

Dear Forest Friends:

There are 9 BC Timber Sales old-growth cutblocks on Vancouver Island that have been on their auction list since last summer. I decided to fight this monolithic Goliath and applied for a West Coast Environmental Law Dispute Resolution grant last fall. After 4 months of slog, I successfully got the grant (with endorsements from The Union of BC Indian Chiefs and Garry Merkel from the Old-Growth Review Panel) and found a great lawyer, Ben Isitt to help. In less than 3 days I raised $500.00 to pay him the amount the grant will not cover; thanks to some of you! He will investigate all the legal arguments that could be used in a courtroom. But we really need to begin applying pressure on BCTS to stop allowing old forests to be cut down, especially in the light of Indigenous land claims and the climate crisis. I formed a group called Vancouver Island Forest Focus and we are ready to roll.

I need a volunteer steering/advisory committee to help me:

– communicate with lawyer Ben Isitt

– organize demos at all BCTS district offices on Vancouver island

– liaise with all Indigenous groups whose lands are within the 9 BCTS auction cutblocks

– track when each of the 9 BCTS cutblocks could be auctioned off

– coordinate media campaigns

– coordinate fundraising campaigns

– coordinate letter writing campaigns

Any questions or offers of help? Please be in touch.

For all the Forests:

Eartha Muirhead (ejmuirhead4@gmail.com)

All Beak Through the Middle

January 25, 2024

Honey in my coffee

but I’ve let it get cold

as the snow falls

a big blast of endless white dust

watch as a raven

picks a dog bone from our mottled yard

her beak through the middle

to get that right grip

before she flies into a Douglas Fir

to do some picking

and I would like to do more for this black bird

through this cold,

cold snap

but I’m sure she will survive and isn’t it better to protect her independence?

Us hairless ones aren’t going to be around

forever.

Shortages in the Land of Plenty: God save the King

January 25, 2024

“The land of Canada is solely owned by King Charles III, who is also our head of state. Only 9.7% of the total land is privately owned while the rest is Crown Land” (World Atlas). Canada’s Crown Land is a “territorial area belonging to the Monarch, who personifies the crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it” (Wikipedia). The 1982 Constitution, which was supposed to turn Crown land ownership over to Canada, never got royal assent. The subsequent Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottown Accords (1992) failed to remove the subject to clause that Quebec required to ratify the Constitution. Aboriginal rights have never been formalized as a result either. Ownership of Canada has been left in the hands of the single biggest landowner on earth – an uninspiring dude who had a lucky accident of birth.

When Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada, he pledged an oath to the Queen of England and her descendants. Every Parliamentarian has to as well. New Canadians also swear an oath to the monarch and not Canada. It’s interesting that Canada has expanded immigration to unprecedented levels and over 2 million new immigrants have entered Canada since 2022. If they apply for citizenship, their sworn oaths will be to King Charles III.

It would seem that Colonialism is alive and well, even if we call it Globalism. Trudeau has said repeatedly that “now is not the time to debate the monarchy’s role in Canada”. That’s not surprising considering his sworn allegiance is first and foremost to the Monarch of England!

Immigrants are arriving in unprecedented levels and are finding a nation that can’t even house its own citizens. Those new immigrants also face a country steeped in runaway inflation, a fragile financial system and it’s dang cold here. What a cruel welcome! Government spending is madly out of control and we’ve seen deficit spending since Trudeau senior pledged his allegiance to the Queen of England in 1968. He started us off on the road to financial ruin and most governments since have been more than willing to plunge us deeper and deeper into debt. How is Trudeau junior going to afford to build the 700,000 new homes desperately needed to address the current shortage? With his stated intention to bring in 500,000 future immigrants a year, it’s clear he hasn’t got a plan we’d support.

The official explanation for bringing in millions of new immigrants is that it will stimulate our flagging economy, an economy ruined by decades of governmental fiscal mismanagement.

In the brave new world of Globalism, the promise of wealth for all has morphed into a “race to the bottom”. The whole Western world is being flooded by desperate immigrants and the globalist leaders make it clear that in their new ordered world, borders won’t exist. One could argue they don’t already. Is that helping Canadians, migrants or the environment or is it helping the globalists who have cornered most of the world’s wealth in the last 50 years since the “globalist” experiment was launched?

It doesn’t benefit Canadians but it has been an incredible boon to the corporations who have deep connections to governments and privately controlled NGO’s like the WHO, the UN and the WEF, all of whom have garnered plenty of self-appointed power. The globalists have all flown in their private jets to Davos for the WEF (World Economic Forum) annual meeting being held this week. They are going to debate how to make life even more difficult for the working classes of the Western countries they seem intent to ruin. King Charles has close ties to the WEF (as do Trudeau and Freeland) and has inserted himself into world politics when he should be nothing more than a figurehead. He is the richest man in the world and he obviously has his own interests to protect.

Canadians are rapidly waking up to the fact that “things aren’t right” and polls show that 75% are losing confidence in all levels of government. Years of housing shortages, a disastrous COVID response and massive immigration are all part of the problem. A failing health care system is happening at the same time that Canadian’s overall health status is dropping precipitously. The list goes on.

Globalism, like colonialism, has been an unmitigated disaster and ongoing worldwide instability has been the result. I wonder if it’s time for a big rethink.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and ends as a racket”

-Eric Hoffer

Opposites Attract News pt.4

January 25, 2024

Editor’s Note

January 18, 2024

Flight of Fancy

When the Grapevine came up for sale in Summer 2017, I saw a challenge, but moreover a chance to give back to the community that I’d called home for some 15 years. A community I was enmeshed in, right down to a daughter enrolled in our local school.

In revitalizing the paper, the community responded in kind. We’d noted that Denman was experiencing some kind of love affair with itself, fuelled by weekly reminders of who we were and our common island life. Whether presented in short story, review, poem or cartoon form, it soon became clear that our lively community was the ultimate fuel for a lively paper. Doreen Hynd marvelled at the energy that emanated from our pages. It’s when she posed to me the question, “what do you see the soul of the paper as being?” I touched on some form of answer to that in Issue #1615 but I want add further context to the wisdom Doreen was sharing with me. She also spoke of the ‘heart,’ intoning, “where there’s the steadiness of soul, the heart is not rational, it can be prone to flights of fancy. But OH!… those flights of fancy!”

I’ll admit that I’ve questioned how rational it was to take on the Grapevine at various points along the way. Firstly, in our ever digitized world taking up a paper publication I worried mightn’t prove counterintuitive. Secondly, the learning curve I faced had moments of self doubt as frequent and jarring as the potholes littering Lake Road but while I worked and learned the communities of Denman and Hornby were responding to their paper proving in the moment that following one’s heart needn’t be feared for its irrationality.

Another point of near crippling doubt occurred with the arrival of Covid. I’ll ask readers to think back to how news of the pandemic and society’s reaction to it left them feeling in their own lives and hearts as some manner of relating. The shutdown impacting every business and organization was felt at the paper but, being the paper, information was never more at a premium. True to our Editorial Policy, The Islands Grapevine extended space to all of its clients free of charge in the scramble to keep locals informed amidst a Public Emergency and its fast changing tides.

I still remember the sign on the porch of the General Store: Denman 1100/Covid 0.

I still remember the bi-monthly Covid Resilience Updates we provided free of charge.

I still remember Denman Works’ shop local initiative as an antidote to lockdowns.

As a Board member and treasurer of our Economic Enhancement Society, I was all too aware of efforts to stimulate our moribund local economy.

Going beyond mere awareness, and in a fit of irrationality to make any heart skip a beat, I chose to highlight local artists with a four page, colour spread each week from my own pocket in hopes of spurring some economic impetus (Dec.10th, 2020 & Dec.17th 2020) Those of you with any inkling to confirm this can check out our online archives at: theislandsgrapevine.com. Unfortunately, our ramshackle colour printer of the day conspired against us leaving us just two artist exposés before packing it in. I suppose it’s moot because not long afterward came a sudden shift in the community’s sentiment towards its paper as the pandemic became more and more politicized.

So ‘saving one another’s grandmas,’ soon returned to a world I’ve always been more familiar with. You know, the one where pots and pans are used exclusively for cooking. Where everybody is self absorbed living their lives thinking only for themselves and maybe their own grandmothers. Proper reality. It’s okay, I begrudge you not for not caring about mine. That’s an emotional bond for me and Oma alone to experience and cherish. Just as I’d hope no less for anyone else and their own grandmothers. What I do begrudge are those who’d cop to caring about my grandma as a means for pushing their agendas or ideologies let alone using it as justification to bully and cast judgement. Suddenly EVERYBODY cares about Oma? Really?! Go on now, do tell.

This community’s reaction to the pandemic was dutifully recorded in opinion, reaction, poem, and Letters to the Editor. Early days driven by a sense of collectivism soon flaked away like a bad paint job revealing fractures mirroring growing contention in the broader world over things like ‘facts’,’ ‘misinformation’ and ’narrative.’ What mattered in the world mattered equally on a local level so the paper’s content skewed accordingly. Along the way I’ve watched things go from Denman 1100/Covid 0 to Denman 1400 with Covid casualties totalling 13,741 and counting. Friendships, associations, and in some instances even family cast to the curb in anger, out of fear, in frustration or owing to arrogance. Every one of us has our war stories.

So along the way all sorts of perspectives have been conveyed. Do I agree with each carried in the paper? No. Some I’ve found rather odious if need be known. I’m aware I’m not alone in such appraisal of Grapevine content, only you might be surprised which submissions I’ve felt crossed lines. Yes, I printed those submissions demonstrating my stance on freedom of expression for I believe we each have the right to be wrong. And, as if to back me up on this, those ‘right,’ have at times been wrong. Which is to say nothing of those ‘wrong,’ who’ve ended up being right.

You see for me, it’s the tenor of a piece that speaks loudest. Submissions questioning impositions placed upon our liberties have typically been well articulated and even in tone where submissions I’ve fielded from islanders committed to trusting the ‘experts’ have often been astounding in their condescension, emotion, and reliance on ad hominem attack. Less concerning to my eye is who’s ‘right’ when the manners employed to convince those who ‘don’t get it’ are so mean or dismissive in spirit. Being right or wrong is a subjective business where meanness and condescension are more plain to the eye and hint of deeper, unrelated issues.

And the cries that I’m the one who’s being divisive for publishing a breadth of perspectives come from the nastiest of the lot. Driven by imaginings of a community chockablock with unicorns and rainbows they’ve unsheathed their knives, slashing and thrusting at a 32 year old island institution and my livelihood. One would-be pirate even, in what I can only describe as a fit of drunken zeal, pulled out his ’T.I.T.’ waving it around, proclaiming it a ‘Barnacle.’ Another, somewhat ironically, one of the two artists I featured all this time ago. I know, I know. When it comes to matters of the heart you don’t necessarily get back what you put in. That’s why following one’s heart can be seen as so irrational!

To be clear, I’m not saying that chasing rainbows and unicorns is a worthless pursuit. TIG wholeheartedly applauds all islanders who contribute to our community in their many and varied ways. Even those who do it quietly to no fanfare. It’s just that the local population boom triggered by the pandemic means there are less unicorns and rainbows to go around, not to mention more islanders who think they know this community enough to speak for it. That’s why a paper is important. It’s why freedom of expression matters. Right or wrong, not everyone has a unicorn and a rainbow.

So here we now are. Documenting the community these past years has seen the love-in tarnish somewhat. The honeymoon long over. The toilet seat never in the ‘factual’ position and the squeezed toothpaste all ‘misinformed.’ Expectation, a ‘narrative’ that’s sloughed to a less flattering reality.

And what I’m to take from all of this is, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

Just checking I get all of this straight before explaining to my 12 year old the consequence to following one’s heart.

Tribal Warfare

January 18, 2024

There was a study done in San Francisco years ago on high conflict custody & access disputes within the family court system. Families, social workers, lawyers, court personnel, educators – all those with connection to the disputants were consulted in an effort to understand why certain cases seemed so intractable, why they weighed down the court system with repeated applications and return visits before a judge.

The researchers then changed the name of the study to “Tribal Warfare”, as they found in every instance a well-meaning relative, friend or significant other (including lawyers and social workers attached to the case) who were not helping ease tensions, but in fact inflaming the fight by their blind loyalty to one disputant over the other.

We see tribal warfare happening in families and in groups on local and international levels today. Someone we care about feels wronged by another. We hear their story. We see it through a lens of caring and loyalty. We filter our perceptions through empathy with how the one we care for is hurt, angry, wounded. We express our support for that person, group or nation, “standing up for them”, perhaps without examining how the one claiming victimhood may have contributed to the conflict or harm done. We show our caring by unquestioning loyalty, by looking the other way, by repeating what our ally has said about the other in moments of anger and thirst for revenge, by judging and finding the other “wrong” because they have hurt someone we care for. By failing to inquire into the fuller context, or to understand more deeply what led to the debacle, we actually contribute to the continuation of the conflict. We have now become part of tribal warfare.

We best serve our friends by modelling an ethos of responsibility, of caring, and of repair where needed. An ethos confirming that we live in a messy world, a world rife with conflict and misunderstanding, where part of our task as hopefully intelligent humans is to work to reduce harms, not to exacerbate them by aligning against the other. Also, by recognizing that all of us have blindspots, frailties, wounds and losses. Maturing means coming to terms with our own issues, making meaning, and practicing forgiveness. Sometimes we need to take a break from a relationship to find more clarity, but “taking a break” doesn’t mean walking away from working on it when the relationship involves close family members or a group with whom we identify or are closely connected. It means giving ourselves space to get clarity, maybe counselling, to do our own healing and hopefully to find ways to bridge the divide. When our friends/family/other group members blindly support us “right or wrong” they do us no favour. They simply help us cling to our smaller version of ourselves, our “wounded child”, to use a therapeutic term.

I like the idea that forgiveness of our parents for their faults and frailties is the route to freedom. Again, that doesn’t mean condoning wrongdoing. It means accepting that our parents did the best they could with the resources they had. It means acknowledging that we all make mistakes and we grow stronger if we can transform our understanding of those mistakes into life lessons.

And if we don’t do that while they are living, we then must communicate with a ghost. Here is 13^th century poet Rumi’s take on that challenge:

Let’s love each other,

Let’s cherish each other, my friend, Before we lose each other.

You’ll long for me when I’m gone. You’ll make a truce with me.

So why put me on trial when I’m alive?

Why adore the dead but battle the living? You’ll kiss the headstone of my grave.

Look, I’m lying here still as a corpse, Dead as a stone. Kiss my face instead!

(from Gold, by Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Gefori)

As Gafori says in her gorgeous new translation: “Rumi’s gold is not the precious metal but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness and calculation, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being…. Gold is the deepest love.”

Shucking Oysters: Chatter

January 18, 2024

Things do go so contrary-like with me. I wanted to hit upon an especially novel, unique subject this week. “I will write about something altogether new,” I thought to myself; “something that nobody else has ever written or talked about before.” And I went for days, trying to think of something; and I couldn’t.

And then days later I met up with a neighbour — I said: “I am trying to think of a subject upon which no previous human being has ever said a word—some subject that will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its surprising freshness.” She pondered a long while, and at last suggested the weather, which she was sure had been most trying of late.

And ever since that idiotic suggestion I have been unable to get the weather out of my thoughts or anything else in. It certainly is the most wretched weather — at the time I am writing, and if it isn’t particularly unpleasant when I come to be read, it soon will be.

It always is wretched weather. The weather is like the youngest sibling — always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is too hot; in winter that it is freezing; in spring and fall we find fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other and wish it would make up its bloody mind. If it is dry we say we are desperate for rain; if it does rain we pray for dry weather. If December passes without snow, we indignantly demand to know what has become of our good old-fashioned winters, and talk as if we had been cheated out of something we had bought and paid for; and when it does snow, my gawd, the uproar. We shall never be content until we make our own weather and keep it to ourselves. If that cannot be arranged, we would rather do without it altogether.

Are we a little obsessive about the weather? Is it a Canadian gene? We’re not the only ones to constantly bring up the weather, but we do it a lot, from everyday banter to media coverage. The Weather Network reported that compared to the averages of 160 countries, the topic of weather in Canada took up 229% more places in the media.

In a CBC story, Diane Pacom, a social professor at the University of Ottawa, commented that weather is a critical aspect of the Canadian identity. “The way you create a collective ethos is through this constant preoccupation with weather,” she said. When we talk about the weather, we’re often talking about much more. It isn’t just a “rhetorical throwaway.” It’s also a shortcut to interpersonal connections.

A study on conversations in the UK, revealed that 94% of respondents had talked about the weather in the past six hours, and 38% had done so in the past 60 minutes. British social anthropologist Kate Fox, said: “This means at almost any moment in this country, at least a third of the population is either talking about the weather, has already done so or is about to do so.”

Based on her research, Fox argues that this type of conversation is less about the weather. “Weather talk is a kind of code that we have evolved to help us overcome social inhibitions and actually talk to one another.” She means that some use weather chatter as an icebreaker, and others to fill those awkward silences or divert the conversation. Depending on their response to your weather greeting (which should always be in the form of a question), we can tell if someone is in the mood for a chat, or is feeling grumpy and negative. “Pretty cold, eh?” “You talking to me!?”

We all know about atmospheric rivers. Now, we’re learning about the “polar vortex.” Both are recent weather terms. The polar vortex is a swirling weather system that circles, like Santa on Christmas eve, in the atmosphere high above the North Pole. Normally, this chilly air is held back by the jet stream, keeping the vortex circling aimlessly over the far north. Instead, scientists think that climate change is pushing them away from the pole, moving a bomb cyclone of polar weather south.

Have you noted that Environment Canada has more types of winter warnings than ever before? Today, we have: Arctic air, blowing snow, blizzard, extreme cold (including wind chill), flash freeze, freezing rain/drizzle, snowfall, snow squall, and winter storm. In the media, “snowmageddon,” “snowpocalypse,” and “snowzilla.” David Phillips, senior meteorologist at Environment Canada says these terms have traction. “People remember them and use them — and it sometimes scares the ‘bejesus’ out of people.”

And “wind chill.” Phillips shared that most meteorologists hate wind chill “because it’s not a perfect measure of coldness, but Canadians love it because it really exaggerates the worst.” If it’s -25° C outside with a minus -35° C wind chill factor, “by the end of the day, it’s -35° C outside.” It’s all about making it sound more spectacularly cold than it really is.

Not the most scintillating conversation-starter, but here’s an icebreaker: Did your pipes survive the blizzaster?

Green Wizardries: The Freeze

January 18, 2024

We had ample warning about the cold snap and I thought we were well prepared with extra mulching and similar. I came downstairs early Friday morning and the first word out of my mouth was an expletive. I had forgotten to bring in the hummingbird feeder on the front porch and it was frozen solid. To make matters worse, my male Anna’s hummingbird was trying to drink from it.

We had an extra feeder and some syrup ready so it was the work of a moment to get his Lordship some breakfast. I have another feeder on the back porch and it sits on a coil of heat tape. There was a little liquid syrup in the feeding chamber and the rest of the bottle was frozen solid. The thermometer said -14 Degrees Celsius. That is very cold for the coast.

I ran around all day changing feeders as soon as I could get them thawed, not only for the hummingbirds but also for the rabbits. Their bottles freeze very quickly as they have little metal pipes for the rabbits to drink from and the water in these freezes very quickly. We had to break out their water bowls but some of the cages are not suitable for bowls because the floors tend to bounce when the rabbits move around. The rabbits got very excited when they saw me coming and each watering led to a big drinks party in the rabbit barn.

The wild birds needed liquid water too and I spent the next few days thawing bowls and bottles and ran about with feeders. Dehydration makes every medical condition worse but it is deadly in extreme cold.

The other small problem had to do with both of us coming down with some strange tummy bug. The symptoms were mild enough except for the fatigue that came with it. There was nothing for it but to decide what was imperative and do that between naps.

One thing that did help was to brew an immense pot of chai. A friend had just taught me that a large pot of chai should contain a handful of fennel seed, a trick which I had never read about, along with the finely chopped ginger, mashed cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick broken up in the mortar, some cloves, black pepper corns which I left whole, and some ground turmeric. This, I brought to the boil and simmered for an hour or so and then wrapped the pot up to stay warm.

Fennel seeds are a spice we can easily produce on our islands and they have several medicinal properties including increasing the rate of lactation in nursing Mothers. The plants are also a good food source for the Anise Swallowtail butterfly’s caterpillars.

Both ginger and fennel seeds are antispasmodic and comforting to the stomach. They, and all the other spices are anti-inflammatory and make sick people feel more comfortable.

We are pretty lucky with our weather as a friend in Edmonton said it got down to -43 in Edmonton and another friend reported it got down to -42 in Calgary. Last Friday, Alberta’s electric grid came close to crashing as everyone in the province turned up their thermostats at the same time.

In a grid down situation, it really pays to have a propane stove. The best one to have is the Unique propane stove which is assembled in Ontario. It is for off-grid living and the pilot light runs on one D cell battery. So, in the event of a power outage, you still have an oven to bake or roast food.

I think this cold snap shows how advisable it is to have a wood stove in your house even if you get by with your electric heat pump or other electric heat most of the time.

I remember reading a book by a Canadian soldier who was serving in Sarajevo during the war there.

He had some Muslim friends who invited him over to supper, a real hot meal! He was glad to go as the Canadians were suffering from a lack of fuel and heat too. The Grandmother of his friends’ family had missed life in the village so much, her sons had installed a wood stove in their apartment just to please her. When the war came and the electricity went, they were one of very few families who were both warm in the winter and able to cook some food.

I pray to all the Gods that war, especially civil war, is not something that will ever arrive on our shores but power outages do occur. Besides, a wood stove with a glass front is both cozy and romantic. Why live in the country without one?