Ernest Blair Experiment

We live in changing times. This week, Nova Scotia Power inspected the solar panels on our roof. As part of the installation by Stanton Solar Power, they installed a monitoring application on my Samsung mobile phone. This allows us to monitor the solar power, by panel, by time of day. It also gives us control of the system. So I have moved from a mobile phone for emergency purposes to another application and device in the cottage.

Our method of communication is also changing. For example, Ed Symons has converted my blog into a podcast. Every week, I receive an email from Emergence magazine. This week, it included a podcast interview with Richard Powers, author of The Overstory (see blog, January 20th).

Tuesday, Heather and I planned an experiment. We would attend AquaFit at the Fundy YMCA in Cornwallis. We would drive to Bridgetown and catch the 8 am 4W bus to Cornwallis. Our interest was the accessibility and convenience of the Kings Transit bus service. Before heading to Bridgetown, I called the YMCA to register for the class. Only to learn that the pool was closed, and will be out of commission for another week. Oh well, try again later.

From the bookshelf, I selected David Orr’s Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect. It ends with this quotation from Scott Momaday:

“Once in his life a man….ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listen to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glory of noon and all the colours of the dawn and dusk. (p.83)

Acknowledgements

Neil Stanton for his good work on solar power. Ed Symons and Edward Wedler for technical support.

References

Emergence Magazine. Podcast. Kinship, Community and Consciousness: Interview with Richard Powers. February 4th. 2020.

David W. Orr. 1994. Earth in Mind. On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect. Island Press.

Scott Momaday. 1993. The Way to Rainy Mountain. University of New Mexico Press.
Original work published 1969.

This year for the festive season we visited family in Ontario. After flying into Billy Bishop City airport we ended up taking the GO train to Oshawa, and eventually north of Peterborough to the cottage country of the Kawartha Lakes. It was time to find our previous family homes from the 1990s in Peterborough and to remember canoe trips, North of the city.

The second week, we came back down to Scarborough and Toronto. This meant purchasing a Presto card and negotiating the links between the streetcars and the subway system. It is over fifty years since I had been immersed in this urban geography: walking down Yonge Street, visiting the Eaton Centre, window shopping at the Hudson Bay company, staying at the Chelsea Hotel.

On Sunday, we walked around the Don Valley Brick Works Park and visited the Future Cities Centre. Found a couple of interesting books on urban living. Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People. How social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization and the decline of city life. I liked this quotation.

“Social infrastructure provides the setting and context for social participation, and the library is among the most critical form of social infrastructure that we have”. p.32

Second, Jeff Speck‘s book Walkable City. How downtown can save America, one step at a time. He has ten steps from ‘putting cars in their place’ to ‘plant trees’. Later in the week, we dropped into BMV, a second-hand bookstore and I found Zipp and Storring (Ed) Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs.

Within Greater Toronto, there are several YMCAs. This gave me a chance to address an old knee injury. So we went to an AquaFit class with my brother. Now, on my return to the Annapolis Valley, I must see what is available at the Fundy YMCA in Cornwallis Park.

For our last night in Toronto, we stayed at the Strathcona Hotel, which is near Billy Bishop airport. There, I found a collection of essays, edited by Stephen Katz. He was Professor, Sociology at the Trent Centre for Aging and Society. The book is Ageing in Everyday Life: Materialities and Embodiments.

“The authors of this book have backgrounds in social gerontology, geography, feminism, the humanities, social work, sociology, health and dementia studies which gives this diverse and interdisciplinary group critical access to the immediate world in which we live, the bodies we know and touch, and both the real and fantastic realms of existence with which we engage.” P.10

The country mouse has returned to the country. There is a significant stack of books to read, while the snow blows across the fields. The dogs will need to be walked. The orchard pruned. Visits to the nearest swimming pool. New technology to be mastered – common in the city, less so in the country.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our extended family and friends for helping with our transition to city living. Patrick, Emily and family in Peterborough. Peter, my brother for the AquaFit experience. Carole, Jason and family, Julia and family for their generous hospitality in Toronto. Heather for her company and support. Edward for his contribution.

References

Eric Klinenberg.2018. Palaces for the People. Broadway Books.
Jeff Speck.2012. Walkable City. North Point Press.
Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring. (Ed) 2016. Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. Random House.
Stephen Katz (Ed) 2018. Ageing in Everyday Life. Policy Press.

Postscript

There are some take-home messages. The city mouse walks much more than the country mouse. There is much greater access to diverse facilities in the city: YMCA, theatres, libraries, universities, shopping centres, restored industrial space.