Posted in biographical sketch

Food for Thought

Posted on by maherrv

This weekend, I harvested a first crop of rhubarb.

This took me to the bookshelf and ‘Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens’ page 131, Rhubarb Cobbler and Apple Crisp or Levi’s Pie. Apple Crisp is my ‘go to’ crumble recipe. This time, I replaced Apple with Rhubarb. Two desserts.

Another harvestable crop is kale. Our six plants overwintered into perennials. This allows me to supplement my Shepherd’s Pie recipe.

If we get some rain, on a long weekend, there should be time to plant out brussel sprouts, tomatoes, peas, potatoes and a number of other seeds.

May 22nd is a significant date in our family calendar: my daughter Laurel’s birthday and now a virtual wedding shower for Daisy. These two happenings bring together some of the flower power in the extended family: Heather, Laurel, Daisy, Poppy, Isla Rose.

Besides harvesting, planting, cooking and eating on a dull long weekend, I have been thinking about the health services at this end of Annapolis County. Even accepting the limitations due to COVID, the level of health service for families without a family doctor is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

In normal circumstances, the best solution would be to move elsewhere. Heather and I have good memories of the quality of the health services in other locations: Haida Gwaii (BC), Churchill (Manitoba) and Iqaluit (Nunavut). All remote parts of Canada. What is the basis of the health service problem in Nova Scotia? Is it cultural? Is it urban vs rural?

It will be a sad day, if we have to move (yet again) because of the lack of health services in rural Nova Scotia.

Postscript

For more background statistics, see Paul Schneidereitv Family doctor shortage skyrockets over past year, Saltwire, Saturday May 22, 2021.

Check out Trish Fry, Bloom Report for Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens, May 22, 2021. In particular, the section on heritage apple varieties.

Acknowledgements

References

Edward: you may want to add a couple of recipe links. Heather shares the planting, harvesting, cooking and eating.

Marie Nightingale, 1972, Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, Charles Scribner’s.

Jenny Osburn, 2017, The Kitchen Party Cookbook, Gaspereau Press. Also The Union Street Cafe Cookbook.

From Joel Plaskett: “Nova Scotia is a great place to live and eat. This book is the proof in the pudding !”

Posted in Book Review

Simplify

Posted on by maherrv

From the Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch to Thoreau: Walden and other writings.

“The lessons he had taught himself, and which he tried to teach others, was summed up in the one word ‘Simplify’. That meant simplify the outward circumstances of your life, simplify your needs and ambitions; learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of Nature affords. It meant also, scorn public opinion, refuse to accept the common definitions of success, refuse to be moved by the judgement of others.” p.1.

Directly from Thoreau:

”Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts “All aboard!” When the smoke has blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over – and it will be called, and will be, ‘a melancholy accident ‘.” p.2.

Next to our bed, Heather has hung on the wall a needlework sampler. Yes, it read ‘Simplify’.

In these COVID times, it is sometimes difficult to accept the government imposed simplification. From my previous blog post, Rocky Hebb noted that The Inside Story bookstore in Greenwood is outside of the municipality. He further raised the question, whether a book is an ‘essential good’?

The best antidote seems to be working in the garden or getting the orchard in good shape. Or walking down through the property to the Annapolis River. Or bicycling along the Middle Road to Middleton.

Heather LeBlanc responded to my previous blog post with an update on The Mapannapolis Project.

LINK to Mapannapolis.ca

They have announced Mapannapolis 2.0. It started in 2011. Ten years ago. We look forward to the next ten years of progress. It would be wonderful if this initiative became part of a formal relationship between COGS and the community.

With the sale of Andrew’s farm, we have a new audience for background information on Annapolis County. We look forward to welcoming Sinead, Robert and family (some time later in 2021).

Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone for their blog feedback. In particular, Rocky Hebb, Heather LeBlanc and Sinead Wills. Heather shares the pleasures of garden and orchard. Edward shares his graphics talent.

References

Joseph Wood Krutch, 1962, Thoreau’s Walden and other writings, Bantam Books.

Mapannapolis Project

Postscript

It appears that Annapolis County along with adjacent municipal units has resolved the Valley Waste Disposal issue. Hopefully, this is the sign of better collaboration, as we go forward.

Posted in biographical sketch

Taxes and Ticks

Posted on by maherrv

‘Tis the Season.
With the warm Winter, we seem to have a lot of ticks this year.

While I celebrated the first mowing of the orchard – removing the crop of dandelions and cuckoo flower. The ticks celebrated the arrival of a warm-blooded visitor.

Despite the pandemic, taxes still have to be paid to the government. They know where we live, after we completed Census 2021.

For Mother’s Day, Heather wanted to read Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. On Friday, I had a call from the Inside Story about the procedure for pick up in these COVID times.

In response to my ruminations on ‘thinking rural’, Jane Nicholson suggested the need for leadership and a plan. I reminded myself that AIRO includes the term ‘rural opportunities’.

Revisiting their web site and watching the video, I was impressed by the leadership shown by both Jane and Adele. Not wishing to start a business, I need to think hard on the best way to make a contribution to the region. Perhaps it’s simple, just keep writing a blog in these turbulent times.

Heather has just finished, The Book that Changed America, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

We discussed the life of Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau. Going to the bookcase, I pulled out a weathered copy of Thoreau: Walden and other writings, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch. Inside the front cover, R.V.Maher Anchorage, Alaska. August 1971.

I remember after a long field season in the Canadian Rockies, studying alpine vegetation. Rather than heading home to the University of Western Ontario (London), we took a side trip up the Alaska Highway. Fifty Years ago !

LINK to The Milepost

Acknowledgements

Heather shares the battle with both the ticks and the taxes. Jane for her insightful response to my blog. Edward for the links and graphics.

References

Annapolis Investments in Rural Opportunities (AIRO). Check out the video.

Randall Fuller, 2017, The Book that Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation, Viking Publishing.

Thoreau: Walden and Other Writings, 1963, Bantam Classic.

Suzanne Simard, 2021, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Penguin Random House.

Posted in Opinion

Thinking Rural

Posted on by maherrv

As I reorganized papers around the house, I found a six page geographic description of the Annapolis Valley: the Geology, the Soils, the Habitats, the Primary Industries: Bay of Fundy fisheries, Forestry, Mining and Agriculture, the Micmac and the Land, the Future. I believe that it came from the MacDonald Museum in Middleton in the 1980’s. No author. No date.

LINK to the MacDonald Museum website

Here is the final paragraph: the Future.

“We understand today, that we do not command the environment but are very much a part of it, and that what we do to the environment will sooner or later affect us.

Slowly we are learning that we must work with nature, not against it. This means abandoning old habits of careless consumption and adopting the wisdom of intelligent conservation.

Our Natural History Exhibit is designed to help visitors appreciate these fundamental truths. We have the land – the natural resources – we have clean air and water. If we managed these assets we have a great deal to look forward to in the ‘Valley of the Future.'”

If we agree with the sentiment, what are the actions?

What is the vision for our institutions?

What role should the Museums play in Annapolis County?

What is the role of the Annapolis Valley Exhibition?

Does the presence of the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) in Lawrencetown have implications for the management of the rural landscape in the Annapolis Valley? Can we apply geographic science to better understand the impact of our actions?

The COVID pandemic has created a window for rethinking ‘rural’, for redefining our institutions and their behaviour, to establish a new vision that redefines our sense of community.

There is ample evidence of new business initiatives in the region. However less evidence of a collective new vision, and the need for institutional change to meet the new reality.

And yet, from the Annapolis Valley paper:

“Beginning in late May or early June, tens of thousands of apple trees from Windsor to the shores of the Annapolis Basin are a mass of delicate colours.

Acknowledgements

I believe the Annapolis Valley paper goes back to the days when Heather helped the MacDonald Museum set up its Natural History Exhibit in the Greenhouse, working with Alex Wilson, Curator at the Nova Scotia Museum. (1980’s). Edward added the graphics.

Posted in Book Review

Reading Rural

Posted on by maherrv

I have been slowly reading from my ‘Treasure Chest’. Specifically, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life’, the country stories of Roald Dahl, published in 1989.

The Parson’s Pleasure describes a day in the life of Mr. Boggis, an antique collector who masquarades as a country parson. In the story, Dahl describes his approach:

”So Mr Boggis bought maps, large scale maps of all the counties around London, and with a fine pen he divided each of them up into a series of squares. Each of these squares covered an actual area of five miles by five, which was about as much territory, he estimated, as he could cope with on a single Sunday. “

”He didn’t want the towns and the villages. It was the comparatively isolated places, the large farmhouses and the rather dilapidated country mansions, that he was looking for.” p.17.

It is a marvellous story, with a surprising ending. The book has seven short stories.

Roald Dahl is one of the most successful and well-known of all children’s writers.

I went to check Google (roalddahl.com) and discovered the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.
(photo by David Hillas)

Later in the week, I received a notice about the passing of a school friend from Chiswick, Robert Frith. His obituary was found in The Blackmore Vale. The newsletter is yet another example of ‘rural writing’ from the UK.

LINK to Blackmore Vale magazines

PS
My previous blog post on Clacton-on-sea struck a chord with Sandra Barry. Particularly, the link to Elizabeth Bishop’s great uncle, the painter George Wylie Hutchinson who lived there for several years.

Acknowledgements

Andrew Ronay forwarded the link to The Blackmore Vale. Sandra Barry forwarded the link to The Elizabeth Bishop Centenary. Edward added the links and graphics. Heather provided her support.

References

Roald Dahl 1989, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: the Country Stories of Roald Dahl, Penguin Books.

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre: roalddahl.com

The Blackmore Vale link

The Elizabeth Bishop Centre link.

Post Script.

I wonder about a Museum and Story Centre in rural Nova Scotia ?

Posted in Uncategorized

Making Connections

Posted on by maherrv

I received this photograph a couple of days ago from my brother.

It shows paddle steamers docking at Clacton Pier in 1938. This is before the Second World War. Clacton is in Essex on the East coast of England, about one hundred miles northeast of London. From the photograph, it looked to be quite prosperous.

Fast forward to the late 1950s. My grandfather, Harry Ballard on my mother’s side, was a taxi driver in London, driving a black cab. On his retirement, he and his wife, Jane bought a bungalow on the cliff tops at Holland-on-Sea.

LINK to online image of Holland-on-Sea.

Our family of five used to go there to visit during the Summer holidays. We would walk, bicycle or bus to Clacton, go out on the pier and watch the fishermen (and ladies) cast their lines into the water. Other days, we would go North to Frinton-on-Sea, again along the coastal path.

Meanwhile, on my Father’s side, John Maher and his wife lived nearby in Hampton. He was a nurseryman, growing and breeding chrysanthemums. They would be sold at the Covent Garden market in London.

LINK to online image of Covent Garden history.

Today, I find myself combining a taxi-driver sense of place with a nurseryman’s interest in plants.

I noticed, today, that the rhododendrons, which we purchased several years ago from Captain Steele’s nursery on the South Shore, are in flower.

The yellow variety was named after his wife. They seem particularly happy in the woods at the foot of the slope of South Mountain.

These connections come together in the study of Biogeography: place and plants.

Acknowledgements

Peter found the photograph of Clacton Pier (1938). I snapped the photograph of the rhododendron. Heather works hard, sharing the gardening. Edward shares the blogging.

Postscript

Check out Brain Pickings, May 5, 2021, David Whyte, A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader. “Collection of 121 original illustrated letters to children about why we read and how books transform us.”

Posted in New thinking

A Treasure Chest

Posted on by maherrv

As part of the sale, we had to clean out the attic of the farm house. There were several totes, containing possessions from Andrew, Julia and Julia’s Dad. They proved to be a literary treasure chest.

They included three books by Roald Dahl : Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life; Boy: Tales of Childhood; and, George’s Marvelous Medicine.

From Farley Mowat, High Latitudes: an Arctic journey (with a foreword by Margaret Atwood); and Colin Fletcher, The Man Who Walked Through Time.

A separate box contained thirty volumes of Granta, a quarterly paperback magazine of new writing, published by Penguin, from #21 to #69. For example, #21 The Story-Teller includes contributions from Bruce Chatwin, Oliver Sacks and Primo Levi (1987).

The icing on the cake was the Signet classic, George Orwell, Animal Farm with a new Preface by Russell Baker(1996).

Thank you, to Brent Hall, who responded to the link on Lonnie Donegan and skiffle (see blog post HERE), with two additional links showing the trajectory from Donegan via James Page to Led Zeppelin.

Via Brent Hall, check out Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line“, “Mama Don’t Want to Skiffle Anymore” and “Led Zeppelin“.

Wonderful entertainment !

Postscript

We rescued the Hunter chest from the wood shed and returned it to the rightful owners, the Hunter family.

Acknowledgements.

Through gifting links, we find a sense of community. The above books represent only a subset from the ‘treasure chest’. En route, I appreciated the feedback from Jane, Peter, Andrew Ronay and others overseas. Heather and Edward enjoyed the results with me.

References

Roald Dahl, 1990, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, Penguin.

Roald Dahl, 1986, Boy: Tales of Childhood, Puffin.

Roald Dahl, 1983, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Bantam.

Farley Mowat, 2002, High Latitudes. An Arctic Journey, Steerforth Press.

Colin Fletcher, 1989, The Man who walked through time., Vintage Books.

George Orwell, 1956, Animal Farm, Signet Classic.

Granta 21 The Story-Teller. Spring 1987.

’The Story-Teller. What does it suggest? Folk-tales, myths, sea voyages, a cartoon campfire. In short, a way of writing that is distinctly “unmodern”.

Posted in biographical sketch

Winds of Change

Posted on by maherrv

As we started the two week COVID provincial lockdown, it coincided with the sale of Andrew’s farm across the road. Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of the annual Spring Clean Up to dispose of some surplus furniture.

Meanwhile in Iqaluit, their life remains same. Mother is KaiuKuluk and Father is Niksik.

From the Bridgetown Reader, Moose House Publications celebrates two years of publishing books, written by rural Nova Scotian writers. The latest include Ronan O’Driscoll’s Poor Farm, Jan Fancy Hull’s The Church of Little Bo Peep and Jockie Loomer Kruger’s Until the Day we Die. Congratulations to both Brenda Thompson and Andrew Wetmore.

On Friday, I received a gift from Peter, my brother. It was the link, From BBC 4 Great Lives Series 26 Lonnie Donegan. Heather and I put our feet up for half an hour. It took me back to my teenage years in suburban West London. I am gifting it forward.

Meanwhile, we wait to hear whether the new owners of the farm from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) plan to maintain Raymond Hunter’s organic orchard. Hope they do !

Acknowledgements

Heather and I are coming up for air, after a demanding week. Edward has given his full support. As indeed, has our extended family: Laurel, Andrew and Patrick.

References

BBC Radio 4 Great Lives Series 26 Lonnie Donegan.

Posted in Article Review

Enforced Withdrawal

Posted on by maherrv

In response to my latest blog, I received two helpful links. Gregory Heming sent me the link to Paul Kingsnorth article in Orion magazine on Dark Ecology and withdrawal.

“The Harvesters” painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

”Withdrawal so that you can allow yourself to sit back quietly and feel, intuit, what is right for you and what nature might need from you .”

Brian Reid sent me the link to the Village of Lawrencetown web site www.Lawrencetownnovascotia.ca

This helped me understand what has been happening locally, especially at the Lawrencetown Community Health Centre.

Meanwhile, under new COVID restrictions, I am trying to maintain my business interests that include filing income tax and access to computer services.

My latest challenge is maintaining Gmail service, as I am ‘almost out of storage and may not receive new emails’.

Access to Internet is temperamental in rural Nova Scotia. Combine that situation with the possibility of the loss of email access. I am certainly in line with Paul Kingsnorth and Gregory Heming, however not because of enforcement by Google. I have addressed the issue this morning by subscribing to Google One and cleaning up my files.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to both Gregory Heming and Brian Reid. Edward and Heather continue to support my blog activity. Kyle at Bridgetown Computers, and Tanya at Hollis Wealth have both been helpful.

Reference

Paul Kingsnorth, 2013, Dark Ecology: Searching for Truth in a post-green world,
Orion Magazine.

Posted in Opinion

Send in the Geographers ?

Posted on by maherrv

On Friday, we returned from New Glasgow. We stopped in Truro for Heather to receive her Pfizer vaccination. It was a very different experience at the NSCC campus — lots of support staff, signage etc. We arrived early and were allowed to go to one of the several vaccination stations set up on the second floor. After the injection, we waited the prerequisite fifteen minutes, and then were back on the road driving through the Rawdon Hills to the Valley.

This was different from the single vaccination station at Lawton’s Drugs in Shelburne the previous week. Lots of support staff, signage etc.

Perhaps the difference was because of the different vaccination type. What did occur to me, was that the NSCC, with campuses across the province, could offer significant vaccination support and coverage.

This week, the Premier announced his economic advisory council, under Chairman, Scott Brison. Given the nature of the resource management issues in the province, I wondered if the technology and expertise at the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) could be applied to develop a better understanding of our geography and its input into the economy. The digital GIS technology could be used to efficiently share different scenarios with industry, government and the wider communities.

The same technology can be applied to questions of demography — essential to the health and welfare of Nova Scotians in these COVID times (click HERE for a technical example on how GIS can be used in Health Care, for Care, Cure and Community).

In the health sector, the emphasis has been on the need for ‘good science’. The same is true for the resource sector, whether forestry, fisheries, agriculture or mining. As we approach the climate change agenda, we need to apply the same digital geographic technologies (for example, LiDAR to measure the impact of sea level rise) to undertake ‘good science’.

Acknowledgements

Heather and I compared notes on the different vaccination scenarios. Edward added the links and graphics.

Postscript

Thanks to Rick and Cathy Ketcheson for inviting us to join them at Evergreen Theatre for the Cape Breton group, Hauler.

References

Check the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) web site for a full description of their Advanced Diploma programs.

The NSCC for a map of campus locations.

Other resources would include the
GeoNova government office in Amherst.
Geography degree programs at St Mary’s University.

Earlier efforts at applying this technology include Community Counts at the provincial level and “CLICK” for the Annapolis Valley.