The Logging Chain

It's a commonplace that the reason that Canadians exist is to pull each other out of snowbanks... (which came first, the Canadian or the snowbank?)

Wednesday morning after Tuesday's big snowstorm, we were awakened by a rumble in front of our house. I got up to see what was going on, and there was a grader idling on our side of the road. It had likely been pressed into service as a snowplow.  On the other side, a small red SUV tipped sideways into the deep snow at the culvert of our neighbour's driveway. The driver of the car was standing beside it, raising his arms at the grader operator, who had his hands in his pockets, and was shaking his head.

It appeared to me that the car had pulled over to let the grader past, and wasn't aware that there's no shoulder on that side of the road. The driver of the car was now asking the grader to pull him out - so I hollered to Fred that we needed to find a rope or a chain, fast! A chain... both of us remembered the lost logging chain that we'd found in New Brunswick last summer, tangled with a road-killed hawk.

Throwing a cape and hat on, I rushed out to the front of the house and plunged my hand into the snowdrift at the corner of the porch, and there it still was, where it's been since we unpacked from that trip (the chain is one of those placeless things that one often sees in passing - always when there's not enough time to decide where it should better be put). Lifting the smooth heavy chain I shouted over the engine noise and beckoned. The operator plunged through the high bank of snow left by his plow on our side, took the heavy chain and gave me a "thumbs-up". Then I noticed that a small tractor with a plow had appeared (I guess it had just finished clearing our other neighbour's driveway). The chain was promptly hooked up at both ends. The appearance of the little tractor was fortuitous, because it turns out that even if the grader had possessed a chain, it is not allowed for County equipment to tow a private car! In less time than it took for me to snatch up my camera the car was hitched to the tractor, pulled back onto the road, and drove away, its driver waving happily...... only fifteen minutes after he'd tipped into the snowy ditch!

This incident is more deeply satisfying than the event itself, as it raises the memory of another logging chain... It was in Maine in 1976, during the first part of our travels with Frank Ross in the fieldwork for Canadian Nature Notebook. We had driven our two vans across a seaside meadow to the best spot for me to do a painting of the blue water and salt marsh in late afternoon light. After supper and as it was getting dark, we prepared to depart. Frank's '68 Dodge van had "positraction" on the soft turf, but one of my rear wheels began to spin, and before long the Ford Ecololine was mired.

Noticing the lights of a nearby house, Frank and I decided to ask for help, leaving Fred to do what he could with the shovel. A potter and her son welcomed us in. The only thing they had that might help was a magnificent two-metre segment of logging chain - a found treasure that decorated their living room wall. I remember it being as thick as my wrist. As they lifted it down for us we thanked them profusely and promised to take good care of it.

Hours later, when we'd finally extracted ourselves from the deep soft loam of that seaside meadow, the chain, which had been wrapped around a wheel for traction, was nowhere to be seen or felt. We returned in the morning to search again, but with heavy hearts, knocked on the door of the potter's cottage and confessed its loss. I remember that her son was not with her, having gone off to ring the bell of the village church, it being Sunday morning. I seem to remember giving her my little watercolour, but no gift could have replaced that magnificent chain, and I've always been sad about that.

Now somehow I feel a closure - as if something in the universe has come round, and here we are, with a found logging chain to pull someone out!

The Year of the Ice Apple

 Apples remaining on the Bitter Red Tree after earlier harvesting. 

Bishops Mills, along Buker Road, 19 January 2017.

This winter, many Apple trees have held their fruit long after it would have fallen in any other year. 

In November we were still bringing in apples from our own wild trees "out back" which were still good and firm, their sweetness having resisted many nights of freezing temperatures. 

We sliced the good parts away from the cores and ran them through the food dehydrator until we had two gallon jars full of sweet leathery pieces, some of which are dark and crisp, shattering between our teeth in an instant burst of rich apple flavour.

Popcorn Bags

A lot of our equipment has come to us through the decades by chance or good fortune. In 1983 the Herpetology and other sections of the National Museum shared the 1501 Carling Avenue Beamish Building in Ottawa,  (which had been the warehouse of the failing chain of Beamish Stores) with some general storage warehousing. 

An old Jewish janitor, with the thriftiness traditionally ascribed to his ethnicity, was reluctant to follow orders to pitch boxes of popcorn bags from a failed "Canadian Heritage Food" enterprise (which had evidently splurged too much of its startup capital on these wonderful bags) into the dumpster, and repeatedly urged the museum staff to make use of them. The late Mike Rankin (as thrifty as a Scottish background is supposed to make one) accepted several of these boxes, and dispersed them among Herpetology, Ichthyology, and us. We have since then inherited the museum's stock of popcorn bags. 

Just Put Oats In It...

A few days ago, Fred was doing an inventory of the fridge and dragged out the covered glass bowl of cream cheese icing that had been rejected by our daughter as not stiff enough to crown her batch of cupcakes.

Fred has a longstanding tradition of mixing oats in with everything - or adding anything to oats - and putting it in the microwave. I used to complain about having my carefully saved leftover vegetable soup thickened with oats and a splash of umeboshi vinegar and fried in leftover chicken fat.

I kept trying to explain to him that I liked my oats sweet, not savoury... but recently we've come to an agreement -

Salvaging Firewood

I find great satisfaction in every stage of salvaging firewood! First off, it doesn't cost anything, especially if the landowner wants to get rid of standing (and leaning) dead trees, and is willing to use their chainsaw. That's convenient and useful for both parties - and the experience of being out where the birds are, working together, getting good exercise, and bringing the wood from where it grew to where it can provide heat for us, feels more like a privilege than anything else. Here we

They tried to teach me math

My first thoughts for this blog are not about adapting to where I live, but to how I was taught. When the public schools tried to teach me arithmetic, I adapted by withdrawing into myself, where I was comfortable. I daydreamed, "zoned out". If I payed attention, it was to watch the teacher teaching and the class responding. This was all I could do once I found myself left behind - when the teacher proceeded to explain concepts building on skills I hadn't mastered yet. I've gotten along fairly well as a person since then, having developed my own stilted, time-consuming methods of dealing with numbers and leaving proficiency in that language to others. My parents, after brief attempts to coach me and have me tutored, just encouraged me in my love of art and writing. My "first language" being images, and my second being English.

This morning CBC Radio aired a half hour segment on how it is that Canada's global position in math scores has fallen to the 13th place over the past seven years. The discussion was entirely around teaching methods - new versus old methods of teaching arithmetic - which they consistently called "math". According to those interviewed, the issue is students' lack of proficiency in basic math skills, and whether the problem is the recent emphasis on teaching a diversity of methods of calculation rather than the traditional ways of ciphering. The goal of course, as I see it, is to teach general "math literacy", which is the ability to think with numbers.

They didn't say "literacy" either, but I figured out that numeric literacy is what's wanted - ahhhh! Numbers is indeed a language, and arithmetic is the vocabulary. Some people's brains are wired to easily think in numbers, and some are wired to think in images or words, or kinetically with body movements, or a combination of these signals. Learning a new language requires immersion for sufficient lengths of time, and the time required varies among individuals.

So the key is time. Each student requires enough time to absorb the concepts and to practice the skills involved in thinking and communication with numbers. I remember loving the first lesson or two in any new concept - like the number line, the first lesson of algebra. And working with triangles when Trigonometry was introduced. I delighted in following the mysterious recipes of Logarithms. When the basics in each new skill that was introduced I thought to myself, "Maybe this is something I'll be good in!" But I failed to memorize tables of math facts, which slowed my progress and eventually I was left behind again. I still have to calculate what seven times eight may be, by a roundabout route. Now I wonder if I had been given more time to think in numbers, the necessary literacy may have sunk in.

Following this requirement of time, the obvious culprit is the structure of the school system. The bell rings and the Math books are put away - it's time for Spelling or Geography. Doesn't matter if some of the students missed something that will leave them at a disadvantage in the next Math class, and even more in the next. All 30 students in the average-size class are expected to learn at the same speed, in 45 minute periods - regardless of their strengths or weaknesses, their interests or their fears. So students will adapt, find their way around subjects that frustrate or frighten them, and grow up handicapped or not, literate or not. Those who adapt well to the school-imposed time frame for learning will graduate with honours and many of these will find careers in the school system. The rest of us will adapt in different ways - but don't ask me how to do "Math".