Home again . . .

After a busy and productive spring semester (during which I taught an all-online schedule for the first time and loved it!), I am home again in beautiful BC. Actually I arrived in early May, but we've been so busy digging out from under winter and getting ready for summer that I haven't had much time to write lately. Too, living in two places causes just enough confusion that it takes me a bit to adjust to where I am.

Our biggest accomplishment so far is to get the garden in. (This photo shows our garden at the end of the season last fall.) Selby planted some seedlings in milk-jug "greenhouses" before I got here, and that gave us a jump start on planting. This is only our second garden season here, so everything we do is still experimental. Last year we reclaimed garden space from the lush, verdant grassy pasture behind our house. We had no idea how deep those grass roots ran, but we battled them all summer. This year we got smart and spent a lot of time pulling out tap roots and covering the aisles between rows with plastic to keep down the grass. (Yes, this is very hard on the back, but then so is weeding.)

Some of our garden residents are perennial--bless them--such as raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, currants, and rhubarb. But the rest have to be planted annually, and we always begin with more ambition than expertise. Here's what we planted this year:

• Sunflowers
• Corn
• Beans (yellow and green)
• Tomatoes (5 kinds)
• Hubbard squash
• Cucumbers (2 kinds--I love to pickle them)
• Chives
• Lettuce (2 kinds)
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Radishes
• Green onions
• Peppers (2 kinds)
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Savory

Along with that, we've been tending to other planters, hanging pots, etc., because I am still fascinated by the fact that anything we plant here actually grows and thrives.

Our other big experiment for the summer is incubating chicken eggs. We have a tiny flock of chickens (a rooster and 3-4 hens, depending on who shows up at the henhouse at night) that we want to grow and diversify a little. Right now we have 10 eggs in the incubator, and the farthest along are due to hatch in about 4 days. (I will post photos when the babies arrive.)

I'm looking forward to teaching two online classes this summer--ENG101 and ENG217. I'm also still finishing up my online Canadian literature course for Fall. There are so many wonderful Canadian writers that we in the States never have a chance to read. Right now I'm reading The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findley, whose novel Not Wanted on the Voyage (the tale of a cat who stows away on Noah's ark) was one of the five Canada Reads selections for this year. He creates such richly complex characters, especially women (Not Wanted is really the story of Mrs. Noah), that I am totally absorbed by his books.

Remind me one of these days to tell you why we've come to think of the town of Winlaw as Scofflaw and how our banty hen Sugar turned a tragedy into a triumph (a real-life fable!).

Until then . . .