It’s been a while since I’ve been really inspired to write on here… I guess life is just sort of moving along and not feeling too worthy of note.

Or maybe I’ve just been a little tired. Could have been pms too…

But contrary to appearances there have been events.

Had a lovely visit with some in-laws last week, with pictures to prove it:

What a cutie… No, we didn’t keep him behind bars (at least not entirely…) that was at the playground.
OK, just the one picture really, but that’s mostly laziness on my part.

That and I’m so stoked because I just found out about this movie, coming out in June:

I swear, there are times when I’m so disgusted at the way food is produced and marketed that I can barely buy the stuff if it’s not straight from the farmer’s market (and yet somehow I’ve rarely got it together enough to go to the local farmer’s market, which also disgusts me), and it appalls me that so many people care only about how much they spend on it. I’m not rich; I struggle to pay my rent most months, and am no stranger to phone calls from creditors wondering where their cheque is. But I have accepted that good food from a healthy, sustainable, ethical source is important enough to spend a high portion of my income on it.

So it pleases me to see that slowly (oh so very slowly it sometimes seems) certain segments of our society at least are becoming more aware of how horrifying much of modern food production is, and that media like Michael Pollan‘s books and now this movie might just be evidence of a bigger movement to swing our priorities back into line.

One can hope…

Early last week I planted seeds indoors for my deck garden, in a variety of peculiar containers including but not limited to toilet paper rolls and egg cartons.

Yesterday I was rewarded with some little pale green Calendula and Zinnia sprouts pushing their shoulders through the soil. Today, this is the scene on my kitchen window sill:

The tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers haven’t appeared yet, but I don’t expect them to for a few more days.

Until then, my somewhat comical frog from pottery open studio night at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art is keeping watch.

For your viewing pleasure (or dismay, though I hope not), a barrage of Easter weekend images:



And for those who have never seen eggs that are not just plain brown or white, size Large:

Now I want chickens…

to me!

Yesterday, it was, and there was cake:

Here, let’s just see that yummy Dufflet’s Carrot Cake (with, oh yes, SO MUCH cream cheese icing…) once again:

We also went to the Design Exchange to see Carrot City, an exhibit of lots of ideas and executions of urban agriculture projects. There were some things that were definitely a little on the fanciful side, though also certainly innovative and creative (hello, vertical pig farms? I mean, if you must have pork, why not have all the piggies in their own high-rise?), but on the whole, very inspiring for my Year of the Garden.

For lo, thus it shall be. This year I will not be foiled by debilitatingly stressful projects, nor dearth nor excess of precipitation, nor even the vicissitudes of a family of wash-bears (Maggie knows who I mean, look up the Dutch if you’re confused). This year, I am going to have lush, fruitful tomatoes and peppers and flowers (OK, maybe not fruitful flowers, but lush) in my deck containers. And if I (please please please) get a plot in the new Christie Pits Community Garden (OMG YAY!), I will have green beans and carrots and sunflowers and dirt and leaves and roots and flowers and my oh my to get my hands in the soil… it just sucks out all the stresses. Focusing on pulling every little weed, or spreading some ripe compost or gently watering in new seedlings just pulls me out of the day and lets me be just me with the green things for a little while.

Sigh.

Yes, I do go a little loopy at this time of year, why do you ask?

And I think there are people who know me, because I even got some seeds for my birthday from my sister, along with some other lovely things from her and others: