April 2011 Archives

Day 5...

By Marcus Riedner on April 20, 2011 12:19 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
So today concludes Day 5 of my water, tea, coffee fast. I've not been having coffee, the smell makes me unhappy in the tummy. I have decided to end my fast tonight. I was hoping to do 7 days, but I am mentally done.

Physically I'm getting regular heart palpitations, and my balance is a bit wonky. I get tired pretty quick too. And I'm cold. Always cold. I think physically that's the most disturbing part, I'm never cold. I can tromp around for half an hour in -30C and be warm again when I get inside within 15 minutes, but right now I am icy all day long.

Mentally I'm a bit sideways. I work all day at code type tasks, mostly CSS and HTML, and I find myself doing a lot of 'stare blankly at zend and css trying to figure it out'. Talking is a bit weird too, getting my thoughts in the proper order is often an issue for me, and right now I'm pretty sure half of what comes out of my mouth makes no sense.

Spiritually I am on the fence. My meditative prayer is totally shot, I can manage 2-5 minutes before it all falls apart. My spontaneous prayer has improved though. I haven't had any amazing revelations for sure... other then a deeper understanding of what my Father went through as a kid in WW2, and what billions of people go through every day. I guess empathy is a form of spiritual growth.





Day 3...

By Marcus Riedner on April 18, 2011 9:22 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
On Friday, after my meditative prayer, I joined the fast with the 35,000+ people at hungerfast.org If you don't know what this is about, here's the skinny: the latest US budget rapes and pillages the money going to feed the poor, feed children, care for vetrans, and care for the least of our society. At the same time it maintains benefits for the military and the rich ( such as a $2billion a year tax break for vacation and second homes ). In response some fairly influential figures started fasting, and it's grown to 35,000+ people fasting in prayer and protest from across every major religion and secular group.

The politicians say there is not enough money, yet have cut nothing from military spending. The people are saying a budget is a Moral Document, and that these cuts are not about scarcity, but about horrifically skewed morality ( or a total lack of it ).

I'm fasting from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It may seem a bit odd that a Canadian is fasting in prayer and solidarity with Americans over an issue largely in America. But our government is planning on spending insane amounts of money on fighter jets ( 2% of our national budget for 20 years ), and ignoring our growing issues with working poor, working homeless, and the growing number of Canadians without proper food. ( 3.5 million and growing every year! )

Our government sort of just follows along with what America does, so I'm hoping that by praying and fasting with them to help their poor, it also helps ours. Besides, love thy neighbour right? Canadians spend a lot of time mocking our American neighbours, or slighting them. But what's going on down there affects us, and what they are doing to the poor in the US is sick and wrong. It is heart breaking.

I'm at day 3 of no food. I'm on water, tea, or coffee ( black ). This seriously sucks, it is a level of discomfort I've never felt in my life. It brings a whole new meaning and understanding to hunger. Proper empathy. I can only imagine how this feels when you do not have a choice to go hungry. I can end this any time, millions of people in the US and Canada don't have that luxury. Billions don't world wide.

Oh magic 8-ball, is it spring?

By Marcus Riedner on April 16, 2011 5:12 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
My sources say: Try Again Later.

I was really hoping to get out in the garden and distract myself by putting together my planned cold frame. Instead another weekend of snow.

So the sproutcount as of now is:

8/16 Green Onion ( they get another 4 days to finish sprouting or they meet the bin )
5/6 Cabbages ( booyah, that's more then I need )
6/18 Tomatoes ( I was aiming for 6 total, but my record is horrid. )

The tomatoes and cabbages are getting "leggy" ( means long and spindly, usually because of poor light, the kind you get when it's always cloudy and snowing for example ). I've added in a second light source to Sarah's old LightBook. She says I get it for 2 weeks, then it's going to be used for a lightbox to photograph the endless piles of yarn making their way to our house.

On my Mom's advice I have put the sprouts into peat pots ( 4 inch ) and for the leggy ones I've buried their stems about half way. She says they'll shoot roots out of the stems if they are under soil. Hopefully all goes well... otherwise I have to start more cabbages and tomatoes.

On the docket this weekend: Lettuces. Crisp Mint ( Romaine ) and Bronze Arrow ( leaf ).

The English Debate

By Marcus Riedner on April 13, 2011 2:50 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter I've been randomly firing off things about the 41st Canadian Election, including various bits of propaganda. I'm not blogging about it much, because I'm more interested in the immediacy of things on Twitter. But I will say that compared to the mayoral election in Calgary the MPs really don't get social media. Nenshi built a win by responding and debating with the electorate. The MPs and candidates in the federal election sort of just use Twitter and Facebook as a sounding board or giant megaphone. Very little engagement, even from fringe candidates in the Green Party or REALLY fringe candidates in things like the Marxist-Lenninist Party.


Most of the main twitter feeds for local ridings are dead here in Calgary, though the #elxn41 twitter hash tag has a solid flow to it.

All this being said, I took a movement to listen/watch the English Language debate during spare moments here at the office. If you missed it on TV you can watch it on the CBC website. It's two hours of your life, but it's worth listening too. If you're lazy like a lot of voters, or just really busy, or just hate the sound of the politician's voices here's my personal synopsis on their over-all performace.

Stephen Harper
Harper was his typical blank-ness and monotone with non-answers or answers built on the backs of previous governments. Some dodge the question. Kept calling the debate and democratic process 'bickering'.

Michael Ignatieff
Ignatieff was solid, but occasionally stuttered, and had one moment of glaring dodge the question ( about his poor attendance record in the commons ). Really hammered on the lack of trust with the conservative government, and the nature of democracy and debate.

Jack Layton
Layton rambled various socialist policy off, and basically played a game of 'play the Conservatives and Liberals against each other' ( NDP policy for 40 years ) and attempt to look superior as a non-bickerer.

Gilles Duceppe
Duceppe rambled and interjected non-sequitors and random sovereignty statements, often very off topic. On occasion he lobbed some zingers into the debate that were worth while.

Elizabeth May
May wasn't invited, but commented from the sidelines in an online chat, and sounded like a combo of Layton and Duceppe, sort of a whiney younger sibling forced to eat at the kids table. Normally I'm a Green supporter, and she's usually decent and has things worth hearing, but this time felt scripted and meh.

Over all impression of the debate: same old, same old, nothing new to see here. I was hoping to see Ignatieff come out like a berserker and rip appart the competition. What I got felt toned down, though he was excellent about tearing into Harper on his horrible record in Parliament when it comes to thwarting the democratic process.

I also had to do about 30 drop shots because Harper kept saying 'coalition'.

Continue reading The English Debate.

They LIVE!

By Marcus Riedner on April 13, 2011 9:52 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Tomatoes: 5/6 from batch three sprouted so far, 4 at two leaf stage.
Cabbage: 4/6 from batch two sprouted so far.
Green Onion: 4/18 from batch one sprouted so far.

Looks like things are starting to germinate, based on the advice my Mom gave me about letting the Jiffy pods dry out a bit more and leaving the lid off the starter for 8-9 hours a day. So far so good!

Also found this website ( http://myfolia.com/gardener/Daraddishman ) which is a pretty decent place to track your garden supplies and activities. It's a bit rough, but way better then any of the apps I could find on the iTunes store. It is semi-free ( you get a stripped down version for free ). Pretty good so far. Cost for premium tools was only a yearly fee of $15 - $50 depending on how much karma you want.

Cabbage Fail

By Marcus Riedner on April 10, 2011 12:50 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
So the Jersey Wakefield cabbage seeds aren't germinating either. I took them out of the Jiffy tray and used a knife to open up the Jiffy peat pod. Looks like most of the seeds were at a depth of 1/2" or so, which is about double the depth they should be at. I'm not sure if I just planted them too deep or if they settled in the peat, the former is my guess since I wasn't using a planting gauge at the time.

The seeds looked like they had softened up a bit, I cut them all in half ( because at this point I'm doing science! ) and the shells were softer then the raw seed, and they had swollen up some. Not rotting, but not germinating either.

I've started a new batch, we'll see what happens. Should sprout by Friday/Saturday if I'm lucky, or Wednesday the 20th. I was hoping to stage them out some so I could get cabbages at a couple times, but I suppose getting them to sprout is the proper first step.

The snow is almost melted off the yard again, but I hear vile rumours of snow showers or sleet this coming week...

April Snow, Rotting Tomato Seeds

By Marcus Riedner on April 7, 2011 10:24 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
So it's still snowing, in April. Not a big surprise here in Calgary I suppose, but I'm ready to be done with the snow so I can get out in the garden. I plan to start by building some row covers / cold frames for our first veggie bed. I think I've settled on a design, I'm modifying the setup I found on The Garden Hound to fit my bed, and run width wise rather then length wise in case of random snowfalls. This would be over-engineered in most cases, but the weight of a surprise spring snow will be covered better. Should also allow me some frost protection for spinach/lettuce/radishes in the late summer, and maybe let me push growing season into early October. Fingers crossed. The design also doubles as a way for running rabbit protection from the hordes of hares that live in our area, and I can swap out the cold frames for trellis for the climbers.

I have started the adventure of indoor seeding. So far: epic fail.

My first batch of tomato seeds rotted out. After waiting 16 days for germination, I pulled one out of the sort-of-heated Jiffy seed starting tray and cut it open. I found a partially germinated seed and a brown root that clearly succumbed to root rot. Scrap attempt one, start attempt number two. It looks like I've been a bit overzealous with the water.

This bodes poorly for the cabbage seeds I planted last Friday. The green onions ( or bunching onions if you will, or scallions if you won't ) have been a bit too damp, but only for about 3 days. They aren't nearly as wet as the others. I'm leaving the lid off the starter bed to allow the glorious semi-desert air of Calgary to suck the moisture out a bit. Fingers crossed I didn't lose the cabbage seeds. Thankfully still lots of time to try again, given that winter refuses to leave...
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