Friday, July 11, 2008

Play Your Chards Right!



Pictured directly above is a big bunch of Bright Lights Swiss Chard that I pulled from the vegetable garden that my mom, my husband Adam, myself and some brown bunnies have been tending to. Also ready for harvest are red and green lettuce, snap peas, strawberries, mustard greens, mesculun mix and the first blueberries of the year. The salad (pictured at the top) featured everything mentioned above, and definitely tasted as good as it looks! Hooray for eating as local as it gets!
xo.h

Monday, July 7, 2008

...and the envelope says...

So here is the short list for the Polaris. I was right about Basia and Plants and Animals, wrong about Hayden, unfortunately. Anyway, that's that. I'll have to listen to the records and see who I want to root for now...

Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Polaris Prize

I just read the long list for this year's Polaris Prize, and it definitely made it clear to me how out of touch I am with the music scene this year! From the entire list, the only albums I have in my collection are The New Pornographers - Challengers, Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors and Hayden - In Field and Town! I am going to be a nerd, though, and still attempt to predict, based on just being around people, listening to the music on CBC3 podcasts and reading blogs and weeklies, who I think may make the short list when it is announced tomorrow.

Here is my very uneducated guess...


So I guess we will see. Do I get anything if I am right? 3/5?

p.s. Keep in mind that the above list represents who I think will get nominated. As for who I think should get nominated, I haven't listened to enough artists on the longlist to say for sure. Hayden is probably who I will be rooting for, though, as I think he is a careful, lovely and painfully underlauded genius. 

xo.h


Thursday, July 3, 2008

Bolt from the Blue.

The farm was rocked last night by one of the craziest thunderstorms in recent memory. 

I noticed that the lightning was mostly sheet lightning, as I find it tends to be here in B.C. as opposed to Ontario, where I found that bolt lightning was the norm. I always thought that these were two different types of lightning that occured more often in some places than others. 

Then I found out by searching online that sheet lightning is just a lightning bolt that is hidden by clouds.

I'm an idiot.

Anyway, if you go to this Wikipedia page on lightning, there is a very cool animated picture of cloud-to-cloud lightning which IS different, and which I have only seen once that I can remember, in Dallas, Texas. The page also has pretty much everything else you would ever want to know about lightning, unless you are some really lightning obsessed UFO weirdo or something, then you may want to look further.

xo.h

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

This Much Closer to The Martha.

My Mom has the most crazy-assed collection of Martha Stewart Living magazines you have ever seen.
I would venture to say that she probably has, in mint condition, every single one she has ever put out. 
There are several massive cupboards dedicated just to housing them.
This has been a major score for me because I love The Martha.

While reading a copy of MSL from the 90s, I happened upon an article about The M's massive McCoy pottery collection, mostly of the Butterfly line from the 30s and 40s. I instantly fell in love with the pieces, and vowed to begin collecting it myself.

I walked into the Village Antique Market in Fort Langley, yesterday, hopeful but not too hopeful about finding any McCoy at all, let alone a piece from the line I was looking for. While not too expensive these days, McCoy pieces are highly prized by their owners (especially since their popularity with the late Andy Warhol) and are not easily found.

But what did I find at the very  bottom of a shelf full of chintz, teacups and mini embriodered hoops? A canary yellow McCoy planter from the butterfly line in almost mint condition...for twenty bucks! (PICTURE FORTHCOMING...)

Wait...it gets better.

I got home and decided for fun to see if The M had a similar one to mine on her big shelf of McCoy, and she has THE EXACT SAME ONE!! That makes us BFFs, right?

I am toying with the idea of just trying to collect the ones that she has. That's not creepy, is it?

xo.h


True Patriot Love

Happy Canada Day, everyone! Canada Day is my second favourite holiday, next to Christmas. 

I spent the day in Fort Langley at the big antique market looking at crazy doodads from days past. I also watched the Planet Earth "Fresh Water" episode, made CD appropriate spicy maple tofu (my recipe), and whipped up a huge batch of vegan double berry rosewater ice cream. Now I am listening to fireworks as the baby sleeps -- he's not quite old enough to handle those yet...

I hope your day was wonderful. 
xo.h