They don't grow wild in the cold, dry landscape of Northern Alberta, where I'm from, so I associated poppies with November. From a very early age, all school children learn "In Flanders Fields". We repeat it, in chorus, while watching slideshows of the horrors of war; we study it in conjunction with the history of our nation at war. Those of us of a certain age associated it strongly with the terrible things that our beloved grandparents suffered through. And in turn, we associate these things with the small plastic red poppy that we wear on our breast in remembrance. I'm not sure, growing up, if it every occurred to me that poppies are a real flower, and if it did occur to me, it was certainly a fleeting thought.
On moving to the Netherlands, I was surprised to find that they grow wild, like a weed. Orange poppies push their way up through the cracks in the sidewalks and along side houses. I find them beautiful and they bring me a sense of peace each time I see one, but it is the red ones that grow wild alongside the train tracks that I can't stop looking at. Each train ride, at the right time of year, finds me staring out into the wild grasses spattered with bright spots of brilliant red, feeling nostalgic for home and proud of my heritage.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Dutch composting
Dutch neighbourhood waste removal is a wonderful thing. Each house is issued a pass, which opens a large metal container that buries deep into the ground and holds all of the garbage for the houses in the area. Each day, to the delight of my small child, a truck comes, attaches to the top of the container, lifts it up and dumps the refuse into it's belly before returning it to the ground.
It wasn't always this way. Before there was the hole, each house had a standard issue black bin that needed to be wheeled out to the street once week and then retrieved the next day. When the hole was built, the city collected the bins, but somehow, we missed the memo, leaving us with a big black bin in our small backyard. Instead of fessing up and turning the bin in like we should have, J drilled a few holes in it and - just like that - we had a compost bin.
At first, in my enthusiasm, I composted everything. All the time. I saw myself as an urban environmental warrior. Then, as winter set in, I became less enthusiastic until, citing snow and ice, I called a temporary cease. As spring warmed the air, I started feeling more inclined to wander outside without a jacket for the sake of a banana peel and a few egg shells. That is until, in the full heat of summer, the stench, the fruit flies and the spiders claimed the mulch and slowly rotting fruits and vegetables as theirs. And so, this is how I've come to mark the seasons. In the spring and fall, the compost is mine; in the winter and summer it lies fallow.
This summer, though, has been different. Perhaps it's apathy, perhaps it's the unseasonably cold weather, but I haven't been able to find the motivation for it this year. I've been feeling a bit guilty about it though, and as luck would have it, I think I've hit on the solution.
One of D's favorite pastimes is feeding the animals at the local petting zoo. Currently, there is a large mama pig with ten piglets, loads of sheep and goats, and several aggressive peacocks. This being the Netherlands, bread is plentiful and cheap (except for us what with gluten-free bread being almost pricier than gold), meaning that many families show up with an entire bag full of fresh bread. The animals expect this and, with the exception of the lamas and sheep, all go all of which go crazy at the site of a slice of bread. Although the animals are kept behind a fence, the fence isn't locked and people are free to run around inside in order to try and pet the goats and sheep, but normally, the children stand at designated feeding stations. At the site of bread, the mama pig will push her babies out of the way, and it's quite common for the goats to lock horns over a piece of crust.
Up until my brilliant 'aha' moment, we'd been feeding the animals the leftover crusts that D, with her two year old reasoning, finds icky. I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out, perhaps because I've never seen anyone else offer anything but bread, but one day it occurred to me that if they would eat bread, they surely they would eat other foods too. And so, yesterday, having collected a few scraps, off we headed to our new 'compost' system. Success! The mama piggy fought with her babies of the apple cores and a few slices of lettuce. Not those goats, though. They turned up their noses at the lettuce and the apples. They're good Dutch goats, through and through.
It wasn't always this way. Before there was the hole, each house had a standard issue black bin that needed to be wheeled out to the street once week and then retrieved the next day. When the hole was built, the city collected the bins, but somehow, we missed the memo, leaving us with a big black bin in our small backyard. Instead of fessing up and turning the bin in like we should have, J drilled a few holes in it and - just like that - we had a compost bin.
At first, in my enthusiasm, I composted everything. All the time. I saw myself as an urban environmental warrior. Then, as winter set in, I became less enthusiastic until, citing snow and ice, I called a temporary cease. As spring warmed the air, I started feeling more inclined to wander outside without a jacket for the sake of a banana peel and a few egg shells. That is until, in the full heat of summer, the stench, the fruit flies and the spiders claimed the mulch and slowly rotting fruits and vegetables as theirs. And so, this is how I've come to mark the seasons. In the spring and fall, the compost is mine; in the winter and summer it lies fallow.
This summer, though, has been different. Perhaps it's apathy, perhaps it's the unseasonably cold weather, but I haven't been able to find the motivation for it this year. I've been feeling a bit guilty about it though, and as luck would have it, I think I've hit on the solution.
One of D's favorite pastimes is feeding the animals at the local petting zoo. Currently, there is a large mama pig with ten piglets, loads of sheep and goats, and several aggressive peacocks. This being the Netherlands, bread is plentiful and cheap (except for us what with gluten-free bread being almost pricier than gold), meaning that many families show up with an entire bag full of fresh bread. The animals expect this and, with the exception of the lamas and sheep, all go all of which go crazy at the site of a slice of bread. Although the animals are kept behind a fence, the fence isn't locked and people are free to run around inside in order to try and pet the goats and sheep, but normally, the children stand at designated feeding stations. At the site of bread, the mama pig will push her babies out of the way, and it's quite common for the goats to lock horns over a piece of crust.
Up until my brilliant 'aha' moment, we'd been feeding the animals the leftover crusts that D, with her two year old reasoning, finds icky. I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out, perhaps because I've never seen anyone else offer anything but bread, but one day it occurred to me that if they would eat bread, they surely they would eat other foods too. And so, yesterday, having collected a few scraps, off we headed to our new 'compost' system. Success! The mama piggy fought with her babies of the apple cores and a few slices of lettuce. Not those goats, though. They turned up their noses at the lettuce and the apples. They're good Dutch goats, through and through.
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