How to beet it?

Squash are the rabbits/mice/cats of the garden in that they produce like mad!  Most recipients of please-just-take-it squash are grateful for the gift and usually have uses in mind for it - chocolate zucchini loaves, muffins, cookies, spaghetti squash pizza crust or simply covered in fresh pasta sauces, acorn or butternut soups.

If not for my mother giving me my weight in green and yellow zucchini on a recent visit, I would have been relegated to buying it from local farmer's markets (good) or the oddly stocked local stores (bad).  

Zucchini is a vegetable that most people know what to do with it when your coworker/neighbor/family member downloads their overharvest.  

My squash plants this year grew great big leaves, curly cue climbers and had delightful flowers but no vegetables came from them.  I accidentally weeded leeks and garlic.  Carrots did well, spinach bolted and the brassica bug annihilated my late season kale.  Beets also flourished.  

Still in the ground, I don't know what to do with them.  There's only so much glory bowl in which I can grate fresh beets.  Borscht, maybe I'll give that a go.  Someone said roast them.  Another to make beet burgers.  If this autumnal rain stops, I'll slog out to the soil one last time for the last of this year's fresh northern veg.  

On produce

Too many cooks

It’s been eight years since I purposely worked in a female dominated domain, and it’s truly a great mystery how I lasted two months (nearly to the day) in the same gender arrangement before giving my notice.

More than fed up with the forest industry, specifically in the role as a contractor, and seeking a, any really, change of employment, I was pleased to land in a lunch bistro committed to providing nutritious, quality lunches for my northern community that doesn’t know quiche from quinoa.     

That delight was short lived as I was reminded of the subtle politics, daily agony, personality wars and unnecessary competiveness that working alongside sisters from another mister holds.  Anti-women I am not.  Non-feminist, no way.  I love my girlfriends, mother, female cousins, aunts, I do! 

I acknowledge it’s entirely possible I have yet to develop the skill set required to navigate the frothy, temperamental waters of all-female coworkers.  Not surprisingly, the forest industry fostered my compassing, cultivated veg ID and deepened my soil typing rather than nurturing those softer people skills. 

While I claim a few new kitchen tips and tricks, my ultimate goal of taking a breather, a sabbatical from primary industry was accomplished.  Fewer hours and demands (physically and mentally), negligible stress and personal time factored in my gainful underemployment. 

Sure, I may use my new-found personal time tooling around on the internet, cleaning the bathroom or visiting girlfriends when really I’d like to be reading novels (non-fiction or otherwise) and walking puppies.  But that’s not the point.  Not since my retail days of high school have I had flexibility and freedom in my schedule, am not falling-over tired from faking another (!) good day in the rain or as truly committed to never asking, “to stay or to go?” in the context of food again. 

Yeah, we roast our pieces of pig, Hutterite turkeys, roast beasts in store, bake our own bread, make outstanding soup and spreads and daily attempt to bake up a storm for the Chetwynd masses.  Yes, I am deeply proud of serving and creating quality food. 

But I am ready and it is time (for me, not the sodding sandwich) to go. 

To Africa.  

Big Lake yields namesake pike

While eating locally in the north has its own trials, nature's bounty and long growing days offset some of these challenges.  Hillsides pregnant with saskatoons in August, competing with the black bears on sandy pine flats for blueberries, shooing the neighbourhood cats (yes, plural) out the the garden/litter box like it's a sport.

Home to world-class hunting and fishing, it's unusual that a Chetwynd summer BBQ passes without game meat or freshly caught fish making it on to the grill.

A misread slopitch schedule left last night open for an evening fish on  Big Lake, 45 minutes northeast of Chetwynd.  I hooked up with my found-on-the-road rod into a 56 cm pike.  Eyeballing it bigger than previous catches on Jackfish, Dan bonked it on the head with a paddle and slung it behind the boat through-the-gills-and-out-the-mouth style.  A botched filleting left us with bones to pick out of our teeth, but the work was worth the prize.  

 Pretend this isn't blurry

 A bald iggle keeping watch 

 I dehooked my second one

Released for another day

 Pre-gutting

Season score, btw is Sheri: 7  Dan: 0

On sequels

I had mixed emotions of returning to SE Asia and later Bimini’s Sharklab this past winter.  Eight months since I left from Singapore via Manila and I was back in Singapore on my way to Bali.  Like Manila, you aim to leave Bali as soon as possible.  If the bedbugs in Sanur don’t get you, the lying-to-you-face-and-smiling-about-it locals will.  Spectacular diving made up for the Philippines and Indonesia’s lackluster food – compared to Vietnam and Malaysia’s street eats – while men throughout the region with the same leery lineage had me second guessing.

Returning to two areas I’d previously enjoyed, I was reminded of Heraclitus of Ephesus that you can never step into the same river.  Amid my transient lifestyle with supporting tattered, water stained passport and scattering of friends, family and lovers around the globe I was surprised that I’d purposefully chosen to visit the same place twice.  

Feeling SE Asia’s pull through the previous summer coupled with the dissatisfaction I’d neglected significant pieces and places and feeling a homesickness for a place that wasn’t my home, I observed a rare place fidelity.  The diving kept me entertained as I climbed into Robyn’s wetsuit and followed her fin kicks all over Indonesia, the food in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam made my tummy smile but I didn’t clichély “return for the people.”  

Quite the opposite.  There were plenty of people who legitimately could have held me in Canada.  A budding relationship with an are-you-real? man; a returning-from-where-I-wanted-to-go cousin; a previously incarcerated brother desperate to fall into a support net; girlfriends getting engaged, having second children, looking to sell their first home; a mother who, like me, cries at each parting.  

Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler’s “all you've got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over” bounce through my head as I contemplate where I don’t know I’m going against what, where and who I’ve (temporarily) left behind.  

Attempts to adequately stay in touch are in place but exchanged emails and unreliable postcards home cannot rival the former ease of daily life.  Even if I chose to dive into the time consuming and frustrating Skype, all would continue to be a tease of the former intimacy enjoyed amongst friends and family.
 

Friend and fellow wanderer, Steph, celebrates the advancements in communication currency.  I, too, am pleased that I can chat online and mobile phones (that are financing a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo) are more widespread than passable roads but I grieve the loss of travelers congregating in the common room with nothing to do until someone produces a pack of cards or, more likely, a box of wine.  

The wanderlust incest is still alive and evident as I bumped into a lifeguard from Bonnie Doon pool on Koh Pha Ngan the next bungalow over.  “Small world!” we exclaimed.  Boarding plane four of five to the other side of the world months later I’m reminded that the world, is in fact, still a very large place.  

Fifty-four hours from Bali to Calgary – the majority of those legs likely plagued by at least one colicky baby in the cabin.  WestJet’s timely April Fool’s joke of announcing child-free cabins was an outward expression of not only my mile-high and, if online forums are to be believed, many other travelers’ grievances.  My compliments to a girlfriend who drugs her children for air travel.  

While 15 hours of plane travel amounts to a considerable distance, the same cannot be said of non-air travel.  In the same hours required to cross the Pacific, Robyn and I traveled from Sabang, Mindoro to Sugar Beach on Negros and were still in the same country!  We took multiple boats, an airplane, a jeepney, a tricycle and numerous there’s-space-in-the-aisle buses.  

While I’ll likely be back in SE Asia – possibly as soon as this winter – I can’t prematurely predict the same for the Sharklab.  While the cast had changed from my previous stint in 2010, the spectacle had remained the same.  Collectively lured to Bimini by the possibility of a spectacle, the tears on the porch as I bid the stayers-ons farewell, were for the cast that had enriched my life.  I had arrived with the expectation of extraordinary experiences, and more than fulfilled, hummed Colin James’s “Just Came Back to say Goodbye” as I was driven to the airport to begin taking the long way home – where ever that is...

Sleep-starved Canadians do Loch Lomond

Two's a couple and three's a love triangle. Male and female friends, many incorrectly assume Orion and I are dating. Female cousins, Robyn and I have been taken for lesbians and even received tank tops as apologies when the real story, not the two of us, came out.

Happily and non-sexually together for a month, the three of us are set to tour Scotland. I'm confident we'll be a content and complimentary threesome until their early October departures after we took an exploratory day trip to Loch Lomond outside Glasgow.

Why we caught the early bus and relinquished a sorely needed hour of sleep by all is still a great mystery. Robyn was nursing a massive sleep debt from a wedding-filled week in Prague. Orion had been out at a house party til the morning and was likely still very loaded. I was exhausted from a late-night snog sesh.

We walked about and punctuated the stunning views and exercise with long boats of sleeping and eating. The former saw us curled up on picnic tables, luxurious castle lawns and pub tables. The latter was accomplished in cafes overlooking the loch and pubs that served up much-needed sustenance.



Bench litter


Thoroughly exhausted, all three of us slept on the bus home before showering and heading out for another late night on the town (Orion) or responsibly retiring to our allegedly smelly, ten-bed dorm (Robyn and I).



Balloch Castle - its luxurious grass made an excellent napping location




View from the castle



Looking out onto Loch Lomond

Home and dry

Never a fan of big last nights, my last night in Bimini appropriately was an animated games night at the kitchen table while the sky cried torrentially. These meterological tears were a precursor to my own the next morning as I said goodbye to the Sharklab and the amazing team of staff and volunteers that it housed.

A function of living, working and playing together for three months, we were a tight-knit group that often sounded like a gathering of the United Nations at a comedy club.

When not sharing vulgar, side-splitting laughs about sex or poo, we discussed at length the food items we would give our left breast/nut for. Failing to find common ground there, conversation reverted back to sharks - and almost always to their claspers or cloacas. Those four topics exhausted, chatter turned to taking the piss out of someone either for their accent or where they called home.

Home and 700 meters of elevation removed from sea level and four plane rides away from Bimini, my mental state is beginning to settle down. Emotions thoroughly all over the spectrum from leaving Bimini, part of me was ready and glad to be heading back to Edmonton - even if only for a while.

Departure downs

It's nearly time for me to once again roll on. After being minorly fucked over on my departure flight, I'm leaving Bimini on Monday.

I'm ready to move on, which is likely the result of 6.5 years of a dragged-out university degree. My uni terms were compartmentalized into four month segments and I seem to have developed only a four-month attention span.

The Sharklab further built on carefully controlled intervals.

We checked the gillnets every 15 minutes, changed tracking duties every hour, looked to first, second and occasionally third lunch to break up the day when on the boat for nine hours.

In my three months here, I was constantly awed by the diversity of the sea here, yet continually shocked and amazed at how filthy shark biologists are. I thought my summers working in the forest industry had exposed me to every rude comment imaginable, but it is outrageous what leaves, or occasionally enters, mouths here.

Conversations are quickly reduced to innuendos about sex and poo with remarks about sharks and food thrown in for variety. These four topics bind all of us together into a tight coagulation of what sounds like a gathering of the United Nations at a comedy club.

Amidst all the filth and occasionally trying tasks of manually clearing out the septic tank with shovels and buckets, being defecated on by pelicans and working through the night fishing for juvenile sharks over an entire tidal cycle in 20 mile per hour winds and sporadic downpours, assisting a PhD candidate collect her field research has been extremely rewarding.

Expectations more than satisfied, I have also learned and done things I would have baulked at in January such as accept a dinner party invitation from rowdy women claiming to be pirates driving a golf cart and consuming pink drinks, snake hunt and nearly daily handle sharks.

Five days left until I am back on Alberta soil and the rotating and often revolving cast of volunteers and staff along with a plethora of elasmobranches will ensure a second Bahamian stamp in my passport.