It just doesn’t get any better than today. The weather is perfect, and Attila and I and Mist are all here at the country house, enjoying the day.
There will be beautiful days in the summer, but then the bugs will be out enjoying it, and enjoying us. Beautiful weather in early spring is ideal, because we can spend time outdoors with no fear of bites of any kind, or West Nile Virus.
Sunny, warm, and breezy. The breeze keeps the early bugs at bay. We were outside all day.
Attila spent the day with the chain saw, trimming brush from windfall trees at the back of the property.
I spent the day on the deck, working on several projects. One was to install some old panels of lattice along the deck railing; for privacy on the side of the deck that faces the road. The panels were covered with spiders and wet leaves and debris, from being stored behind the woodshed. Attila handed them up to me from the ground, the deck is on the second floor. I lifted them up and over the deck railing and set them in the sun to dry. It did not take long for them to dry. I swept them clean of debris, and then swept the debris off the deck. They are affixed to the railing with vertical lengths of 2×3 boards, held up by bungee cords, at intervals.
My next project was to work on the wooden outdoor table. It is made of pine and has held up well since 1992, when it was purchased from IKEA. It wintered in the ground floor, screened-in porch. Attila brought it out, held it up over his head, and I grabbed a table leg by leaning over the deck rail. I then pulled the table up and over the railing.
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The boards were becoming quite rough, and warping a bit. I decided to paint the table. I asked Attila what spare paint we had around the house. He came up with a can of paint we purchased in 2001 for the garden shed at our former house in the big city. It was almost full. The can was a bit rusty, but we got it open after some fiddling.
I spread a drop sheet out on the deck, we got the can of paint open, and I went to work. It took all day. The first coat soaked right in and disappeared. It dried very quickly, as the wood was dry and the day was warm, sunny and breezy. It took five more coats of paint to finally cover the wood adequately.
Attila and I are lucky in that we have almost everything we need, and even a lot of stuff that we want. When we do shop, it is for essentials like food, fuel, materials for home maintenance and repair and other such boring things. We do not eat out [anaphylaxis], we cut our own hair [except once a year I get a store bought hair cut] and we prepare a lot of food from scratch. We buy used if we reasonably can, and buy the best we can afford when we have to buy new. We wear our clothes until they wear out. We throw out very little food, finding ways to use as much as we can, even our vegetable scraps get frozen for soup broth.
Recently, on the news, we heard about the deplorable working conditions in the garment industry in Bangladesh. The drive for profit fuels the whole machine of industry. Mega-corporations now hoard most of that profit. I don’t have any input into what mega-corporations do, or how they treat people. My only opportunity for input is a yes or no choice. Yes, I will buy their products, or no, I will not buy their products. Whenever we can, Attila and I say no to big companies. This is becoming increasingly difficult as they increasingly dominate every aspect of life.
So, I came up with my own checklist for ethical shopping in Canada. Of course, if you live in another country, switch out Canada for the name of your own country.
Maggie’s checklist for ethical shopping:
1. Made in Canada, Product of Canada [unless it is something like bananas, that don’t grow in Canada]
2. If it is made in Canada, or a Product of Canada, the employees should be Canadians.
3. Buy it local, or as close to local as you can get.
4. It matters how employees are treated; ask companies if they provide fair wages, adequate hours, and humane working conditions.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
21C
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 101.8 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: 21.1°C
Dewpoint: 3.8°C
Humidity: 32%
Wind: SSE 24 gust 35 km/h
Quote
I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.””
Bruce Grocott
1940 –
Excellent list and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I add to the list that I grow as much of my own as I can (organically) and the veggie scraps go to the mulch pile. We had some lovely mulch this year and the new plants are growing like weeds. So are the weeds.
I also concur with buying used, wearing it out, and the other things you enumerated. The wasteful wanton waste that goes on is shameful. Though I don’t suffer from anaphylaxis (from what?), I don’t eat out because I don’t want to put all that sugar, fat, and salt into my body–not to mention the GMO foods soy, corn, canola oil, etc.
It may be too late for me to be 100% healthy, but since I’ve changed my diet to an anti-inflammatory diet, I feel like a new woman. Who knew it would be so easy, so obvious?
Great additions to the list Sarah. I don’t think about composting, because here it would draw the bears like bees to flowers. I would love to have a garden, so that is a good addition. Again, I have stopped thinking about gardens because we live on the Canadian shield (rocks) and in the bush (trees & shade & critters), making a garden impractical. I did try a garden in planters on the deck, it failed miserably, so I won’t go there again.
I think people who grew up before the seventies have a better shot at reclaiming their health through healthier living. We were lucky enough to mature during an era when food was prepared at home from traditionally grown ingredients. We have something to reclaim. The younger generation grew up eating highly processed food, out of plastic bags and containers; they have a lot further to go.