ChrisSteen's Chatterblog

The End of Food

I finished another good book last week titled "The End of Food", it went well with another book I had read earlier "Starved and Stuffed". Starved and Stuffed however got a little bit conspiracy theory for my taste, I dislike conspiracy theory spins on things because I think that is actually detrimental to finding a real solution to real problems.

So anyway, "the end of food" was quite good and presented a much more balanced view of the world, always presenting the counter-argument to each argument, and tempering the fear mongering.
All right, first some background; an overarching theory of human population growth (as with any animal population growth) is that population will grow until it exceeds the resources available and then disease, starvation, predation will run amok, crashing the population until they are at the levels (or below) what the resources can support. Pretty simple actually, and was first proposed for humans by Malthus and is therefore called Malthusian theory.

It would seem however, that humans, with the ability to develop technological and medical aids, have beaten Malthus theory and can indeed grow populations beyond what the planet could naturally provide, through first agriculture, then super-agriculture. Leaving aside the extinction of other species for the moment, it would appear that we have "won" the battle, and that we will continue to "win" the battle even as population grows, the assumption being that human technological development can keep ahead of the Malthusian crash.

However, the author would suggest that as we stretch the technological advances, we create bigger problems in the long run, creating an upward climb that eventually will result in an even bigger fall. Massive monocultures on unprecedented scales - not hard to see that one virulent disease that attacks corn could bring the food industry (and all of us ) down - corn is used as a base in many foods, and is the main food source to beef, poultry and swine. Even a modest rise in gas prices could cause havoc, raising food prices beyond the reach of vast numbers of the population, so dependant are we on foods not only coming from far far away, but on being processed for us in energy-burning plants. Crops so dependent on fertilizers and heavy watering that water tables in India (as one example) are bottoming out, and are heavily polluted - in areas that sustained organic farm production for 1000s of years, before the West intervened to "help", all with the best of intentions.

He talks about how subsidies affect the economics of farming, and how they prevent the development of new crops, essentially squashing diversity and innovation of food. If you are guaranteed to get $5 a bushel for corn, whether the market value is $1 or $5, who in their right mind would grow something that isn't guaranteed $5 (because it is not subsidised)?

The rise of obesity, transgenic crops, over processing of food, political influence and starvation in developing countries are all touched on, with fascinating theories. The chapter on organic food was really interesting - the authors writes that the organic market, according to some, has become as bureaucratic and insensible rule based as the industry they broke away from, such that new innovative ideas that don't fit the rules can't be labelled "organic" therefore can't enter the organic market and as small scale farms, most certainly cannot compete with the monstrous mega farms.

Well as with all book reviews there is no way I can cover all the concepts in a few short paragraphs, but if this topic interests you, I highly recommend this book.

I’m so happy for her!

I spoke to Anu today, she had great news… after 2 years of looking, she has found a great job at a school in Delhi. It’s based on the Australia style of teaching and is called Kangaroo Kids. She will be teaching the Kindergarten “billabong” class and she is so excited! Wow this is just great news, you have no idea what it is like to find jobs in India, especially for women.

So, after hearing that great news I puttered about outside, mowed the lawn, weeded the garden and then went for a BBQ with friends at Britannia Park. Just a perfect summer day.

Here’s my photo of the day from last week, photos are: canoeing on Catfish Lake in Algonquin, our site on the Nippising River, Mike at some rapids on the Nippising, ok the strawberries are pretty self-explanatory I guess, except to say I did eat way too many of them, Slim Summer Tazzie wanting outside but just not sure about the rain whaaaa, she could get her paws wet, the little racoon who has been coming by to visit, and our friend Brahim fanning the coals to get them going.

I just love all these greens of summer…. thanks for coming by to visit!

and the rest…

Day two of our trip started with us waking up early on Catfish Lake - I always wake up pretty much as soon as it gets light out when we are camping - We were very happy to see blue patches through the clouds, which quickly became larger and larger blue patches soon after getting up. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toasted bagels and salsa and by 9am we were packed up and paddling down the lake. We passed two other small groups camping, but that was it for the huge and wild Catfish lake. We made out way down to the marshy areas and started heading up the portages past the rapids on the Petawawa.

 
Some of you may have heard of the Petawawa as a famous white-water river, but those sections are much further downstream. At this end of the park, the "river" is more like a series of lakes, with connecting channels (often with shallow rapids) between them, so it doesn't feel like river travel per se. but is a fabulous remote section of the park, and because of that, there are lots of wildlife to be seen, including the four moose we spotted within a 2 km area.
We camped that night on remote Burntroot lake and I think we were the only people on the lake, at least as far as we could see. We went for a quick swim, set up our hammocks to enjoy the sun in, made cauliflower lentil curry for dinner and baked up chocolate chip cookie cake - cake rather than cookies as we added too much egg, either way it was delicious. We seemed to have some problems with added ingredients this trip because the next day I accidently added too much water to the pancake mix (and out there it's not like you can just go to the cupboard to add more flour) so we had some lovely crepes instead of pancakes :)

The morning was grey and we packed up, heading north to the portages over to the Nippising river, on which we saw moose and bear tracks. We also had a portaging first - portaging across the top of a beaver dam! At the end of one portage, the conifer pollen was so thick in the water, it formed a yellow blanket, looked kinda cool actually. There were three long portages - 1350m, 1950m and 800m, so by the time we reached the Nippising, we were pretty happy to see it, especially as the sun had come out, shining down on the water.

Unlike the sections of the Petawawa we had been on, the Nippising is very much a river, deep and winding for most of it, with the odd steeper sections with shallow rapids or cascades. We camped at the portage into a lake, on the Nippising, pretty much right in the middle of the park. The next day we had to paddle from the most remote section of Algonquin, back out to the parking lot.

Which wasn't as tough as it sounds - there were only three small portages the entire day, we were packed up and on the water by 7:30am and pulled into the bay on Cedar lake (our put in spot) just six hours, one moose and numerous waterbirds later. We stopped by to visit the store and mentioned having been at the Nadine lake portage that morning. The fellow stared at us for a while and then said "some people make that a week long trip". Jake then came in and was delighted at the news, seems he has a long standing disagreement with someone who tells him Nadine to Cedar is "impossible" in 6 hours, and Jake has done it numerous times!

So after buying a hat for our long trip we were bumping down the road back to the TransCanada, home by 6:30pm, to find a message from Reegan, he's coming up the weekend of the 17th! Yay!
So that's the tale of our latest trip to Algonquin, it's been fun sharing, thanks for coming along with us :)

Day One

Day one was on Sunday, and we headed out really early - on the road by 6:30am, arriving at Brent in Algonquin at 10:30. I had mentioned that we needed to drop off our food for the second week of our two week trip, when we will be paddling by here, up from the South end of the park. So while I had it all neatly packed, I had not be able to get in touch with the store to ask if it was OK. When we pulled up, Jake, the legendary Brent store owner was right there, and recognized us from other various trips (even remembered me renting a canoe for a solo years ago). I asked if it was OK and he said sure. I asked if there was any charge, and the price was a mere quick hug (I guess it's lonely in Brent). He's a super nice guy, we always stop by to chat to him after each trip and even though he must hear 1000s of trip stories every year, he listens with enthusiastic attention to each one.

So after that we put into the water and paddled across a beautiful sunny and calm Cedar Lake and off to the first 900m portage, with a stop, as always to admire the beautiful falls part way up. Another short paddle and short portage and then we were on the longest portage of the trip, 2.8 kilometers, mostly uphill. Holy smokes were we sweating at the midpoint rest stop, and the bugs were pretty thick too. Just as we were finally pulling into Catfish Lake, our destination for the night, the skies clouded over, and then the rain came bucketing down. We raced to the first site and as quickly as possible set up our big tarp/screened thingy. As soon as it was set up, the rain stopped, of course. We had a great fire that night, cooked our steaks over it and listened to the loons... just perfect.

So, a question I sometimes get asked is, what do you do when it rains, as in how do you keep dry? One unnamed person once asked if I take an umbrella, I said yes, it's a big 16 foot one made of kevlar, you carry it on your head! But seriously, rain coat, rain pants and two, maybe even three pants/tops so that even if two sets are completely wet, you still have one dry set to wear while the others dry out. Everything is in a water resistant sack, into a garbage bag, then into a water resistant backpack so it stays dry. I have never had a trip where is rain so heavy and for so many consecutive days that I run out of dry clothes, not in 20 years of doing this. I have at times, impatient for things to dry for no good reason, tried to dry them over the fire and had accidents like described in this post link , but that was of my own doing :).

I need to go clean the house now, and put away the last of the camping gear, I'll post about day two soon... thanks for coming by!

Back from the woods

Yes it was just the best. Sure there was some rain and a few bugs, but so what? There was also lots of sunshine, five moose, countless loons, breathtaking scenery exhilarating rapids, great food and lots of fun. It’s early morning now and I have to get ready for work, but here’s a montage of a few photos for now:

I also just finished up last week’s photo of the day page this morning, here it is:

Photos are: favourite summer salad, sandwich for lunch out on the street, Mike with his Mike’s at Petrie Island, ribfest, Tazzie guarding Mike while he sleeps, me with the camping food, and me on the Petawawa river. I also like including a photo as the background for the “week of” title, that’s a shot down at Petrie on Wednesday.

Hope everyone had a great Canada Day!

32,000 calories

It’s done! All the food is bought, sorted and packed for our 4 day trip and the last week of our two week trip! We bought almost everything last night and I spent most of this morning sorting and organizing it. Now some people are pretty comfortable with just throwing a bunch of ingredients into a bag and figuring out what to do once they get there. Others buy only premade freeze dried food. I am somewhere in between. I buy ingredients to make up meals, but then sort them by meal and lake, each meal in it’s own ziplock with instructions written in sharpie pen. Lunch though is more just a pile of dried fruit, crackers, peanut butter. For a really long trip, I might include some “camping” food, but even those are more the ones made to bake in our Outback oven, like pizza and brownies.

I mentioned we have to drop off our food for the last week of our 2 week trip this week, so I got that all sorted and packed up and here is the box it fits into, all the food for two people, 7 nights, 8 days. At 2000 calories each a day, that’s about 32 000 calories:

So tomorrow morning we are off for what looks like four days of rain… no one can call us fairweather canoeists! We have someone at the house, to keep Tazzie out of trouble :) See you on the 2nd!

woohoo it's Friday!

Time to jump for joy! Especially for those of us who have made it an extra long weekend!

Happy weekend everyone!

The Origin of Wealth

I really enjoyed this book, it was a fascinating read Amazon link. It was also pretty hefty, and at times pretty technical, so I think I would only recommend it to people who already have an at least average knowledge base of economics and science.

The author’s general approach in thinking is that economics, and the workings of economies, fit with many different theories of Science; entropy, conservation of mass and most notably evolution (hence the title). I would say that the author assumes that readers have little knowledge of science and more knowledge of economics as he spent more time explaining the science… or maybe that was just my perception based on where the majority of my knowledge base lies, between the two. Regardless, this book had me really thinking,and providing one of the best analogies for evolution I think I have ever read!

The focus of the book is on economics and evolution, and describes how businesses grow, evolve, adapt and eventually all die off, dying off sooner if they do not adapt, with the more successful ones often having spawned new companies in the process. While it was written pre-2009 auto bailouts, it would certainly suggest that bailing out a failing company is largely a waste of money, except in rare cases. He spoke about the great importance of adaptability in an organization, something most companies lack. They learn from mistakes, but don’t act to make changes (adapt) as a result very well. He also wrote about the importance of diversity in a company, especially at the management team, particularly in an increasingly global economy. “If your management team are all men with grey hair, you are in trouble. If your management team are all young guys with no grey hair, you’re in trouble (think dot.com)”. And while it may be a statistical correlation with no cause, companies with at least 40% women in management consistently show greater profitability and growth. Interesting…..

He also spoke about human psychology as we age. Younger people are full of ideas and more likely to take risks, at times without weighing the consequences or researching to see if it has been tried before. Older people have corporate knowledge and insight but usually feel that everything has been seen and done before and don’t want to take risks, so they are less likely to change or “adapt”.

There were just so many ideas and concepts in this book that I would never be able to outline them all. If you feel like delving into it, and enjoy more technical non-fiction, I do recommend this book!

Grocery shopping for the end of July

Yup, end of July. OK, as I may have mentioned to you about, oh, 5000 times (more if you are misfortunate enough to work with me :)), we are going paddling for two glorious weeks in Algonquin end of July. So the tricky part is the food. Not just things that can last two weeks, but being able to pack two weeks worth of food. It's not so much the weight (although that is an issue), but also the volume, the packs can only hold so much...

So, we need to, sometime at about half way through the trip, have a place to re-stock. I've picked out a route that has us arriving at the lonely Brent outpost about a week into the trip. Good right? Well, not entirely. You see the last two week trip I planned (in 1996) we did exactly the same thing  and arrived at the lonely Brent outpost just after the August long weekend. There is a campground near there, so it's not all that lonely afterall, and it would also seem that those campers are hungry and on that particular Tuesday in August, we arrived to find the shelves, well, bare.

OK, it wasn't all that bad, I hadn't depended on the store for ALL our food for the last week of the trip, but let's just say we were a little slimmer by the end of it all and really really tired of lentils and rice. So this year I know better, and decided that we will arrange to send our own box of food to pick up, filled with dry non-perishable goods of course, and we can supplement with the fresh stuff they tend to sell in the store, asking them set some aside for our arrival. Easy peasy.

Actually, not so easy:

Problem #1. They have no phone, email, fax or even snail mail. I called the sister store waaay down on the Highway 60 corridor and they said I could mail the package to them, a month in advice and they would drive it up there for $75. Well, even if my cheap side didn't flinch at the $75, the one month date has already passed. But, coincidentally we will actually BE at that Brent store this weekend, so we can drop it off ourselves. The Highway 60 store confirmed this would be OK

Problem #2. I have no idea what fresh (or frozen) stuff they sell. Can I count on them having eggs? Hamburger? Cheese? Because if they don't, I'll need to make sure I pack enough dry goods for the whole week. I called the Highway 60 store again, he said hamburger, hotdogs, bread, cheese and eggs were for sure, and that I might even be able to get the guys at the Brent store to pick up other stuff when they make their once a month store run to Deep River, as long as they know this weekend.

Problem #3. I have to plan, buy, sort, and pack all my meals for the last week of July by this Saturday. tick tick tick.

Well it’s all part of the fun..and not to sound like an old timer, but things sure are easier now, equipment and food wise, than when I first starting going to the Park. I actually found an old picture of me in Algonquin and thought I would share ( I am feeling brave). This was taken in 1989 on a backpacking trip with an ex-boyfriend. Yikes, my hair has always been “rebellious” (as a friend of mine politely puts it :) hasn’t it? And my eyes are closed and I believe that we were actually lost at that moment in time. Check out the monster sleeping bag! Mine now fits into a tiny stuff sack and is still warmer than that one was - you’ll also notice that this is also prior to thermarests being invented (or least affordable to me) as I have a very thin foam roll wrapped around that bag! I sure must have loved camping, because that would not have been comfy to sleep on!

Ah memories… thanks for coming by!

It’s that time of year again…

When I just don’t feel like posting very much…. I like to be outside as much as possible, even if I am just sitting outside in the porch. But I’ll try not to be as MIA as I was last summer…

It’s been a fun couple of weeks, Courtney came up to visit last weekend and we had a great time, shopping, going to the spa. She wants to live and work in Ottawa next summer, staying with us, and I SO hope it works out because that would just be the BEST. Then Mom and Joe came up to visit this weekend, along with their dogs Boca and Buddy, two cute little shelties. Tazzie was NOT happy about the dogs in her house, and spent most of Saturday under the bed, hissing. Here is my page for last week:

 

The photos are: Courtney in Starbucks as she was heading out, back to Toronto, me watering the flowers, my India sandals, which I wore for the first time this year (it was finally warm enough), I and some colleagues at our hobby display booth for photography (and me scrapbooking, I brought my India album), a peony in our backyard that came out this week, Mom, Joe, Mike, doggies and I out for a walk, and us down at Petrie Island this afternoon.

Mom and Joe left after breakfast this morning, and then I spent over an hour on Skype with Anu in India – it’s been almost three weeks since we spoke. Her cousin is getting married and this has spawned a lot of weight loss resolutions with the ladies in the family – some things are very cross cultural :) .  Later, Mike and I went for a short paddle down at Petrie Island, we feel really lucky to have something like this so close by. They are really trying to build this up into a popular destination, and are even charging for parking now, but with our Canoe we can get out to beautiful isolated beaches past the walking trails. Here are a few more photos:

Hope everyone had a great weekend too – have a happy Monday!