Canadian girl out and aboot

Today I drove two hours to the north east area of the province. I had never been up to that area, and it was a lovely day. It was about 27 C and sunny and the leaves were starting to turn red, yellow and orange.

I drove up to visit the En Sante Winery . I had talked to the Chrapko family a few times and just managed to get out to their place today. The Chrapkos have been long time organic farmers. In fact, they started farming organically back in the 1970s and were awarded a provincial award for Farm Family of the year back in 1993. Sadly, Victor Chrapko, the patriarch, was killed back in 2008. He was delivering a load of organic hay to someone in central Alberta and his truck was hit by another truck.
Victor's death represented a huge loss to the organic community in Alberta. There has been talk of nominating him for the Agricultural Hall of Fame.

Since I had never written about him before, I really wanted to make sure that my story encompassed some details about his life and legacy. Apparently, the family started growing fruit trees back in the 1990s. They had excess fruit and wanted to use it for wine and started experimenting with recipes. However, there was no legislation for people to have wineries in Alberta, so Vic started with the government to bring about the legislation to make that happen. By 2006, he and his family were selling wine.

The Chrapkos were the first to have an orchard in north eastern Alberta and they tested and grew many varieties and tried a lot of new apple varieties. (I liked this part) They also worked with the horticulture department at the University of Saskatchewan to test new fruit varieties to see what grew well on the prairies.

They now have 8 varieties of wine. including an organic apple wine called Adam's Apple that I just love. I've also tried the Calypso rhubarb wine (tasty) and Raspberry delight. I haven't tried the saskatoon or the cranberry wine, and didn't like the alfalfa wine which is called "Green Envy."


Anyway, it's a great story and I had a nice time talking with Vic's daughter, Xina. However, she did get a bit teary talking about her dad, so I said to her, "Don't worry, this is heavy stuff."

Her dad really made an impact in the organic and food and wine industries in Alberta and was also really active in his community. He campaigned against the development of a hazardous waste facility in his area, arguing that the hazardous waste could potentially seep into the prime agricultural land and water in his area. It turns out he was right. That same facility in now in another location, which is experiencing significant environmental damage.


After we talked, we walked around and Xina showed me how to pick an apple correctly. I didn't know there was a proper way to do it. You turn the bottom part of the blossom (bottom part of the apple) towards the sky and bend it off.

I learn something new every day ;)

By Monday, I was starting to get a little stir crazy. The weather in Edmonton had been frightful and we had had multiple storms and one storm warning. When there's a storm warning here, it's best to stay in because it might be a crazy storm or a tornado.

So by Monday, I was getting a little down, mostly due to the weather. I drove out to do an interview only to find that my interview subject was in the hospital and the family had forgotten to tell me. It wasn't a far drive, so it wasn't any skin off my teeth. I just hopped back in my car and came back home.

To get out of my house, I decided to go see "Julie and Julia", which I found very inspirational and uplifting. As one of the reviewers wrote, "It's nice to see a movie that isn't about a woman chasing a man or having a baby." The movie is really about the creative lives of two real-life women. And Julia Child had a fascinating life!

Following this, I went out for dinner and then went to my belly dance class. I'm in level 2 now, and it was a great decision to move up. The moves are more challenging, but I can definitely do them.

Tuesday was chef's tour day! I had to get up at an infernal time (6:00) to get ready and drive across town to meet the bus. The bus contained the organizers, about 38 chefs, the foodwriter from the Edmonton Journal, and yours truly. Our first stop was at Happy Acres, a U pick operation near Spruce Grove. The owner had the world's cutest miniature horse (I took LOTS of pictures). The horse acted more like a dog and followed us around. We took a tour of the garden and she fed the chefs ratatouille and crepes, coffee and mulled cider. From there, we drove to Sundog Organics, where we got another garden tour and a talk about organic farming. From Sundog we drove to Riverbend Farms, which is a huge operation. We took a wagon ride around the farm and then had a lunch featuring produce from a number of the farms. It was insane! I took pictures of the food, but the highlight for me was a carrot pie that tasted like pumpkin pie.

Following this and a talk with various other farmers, we drove to Prairie Gardens, where we toured the farm, walked through a corn maze and shot off a pumpkin cannon. (No word of a lie). All in all, it was a fantastic day and I learned a lot about some of the local farms in the area and some of the needs of chef. I came home incredibly exhausted. I lay on the couch and watched "Hannah and her sisters", which I absolutely loved. Then I went to bed early. I've been having incredibly vivid dreams and last night's included a bear, a mountain, skis and blueberries. Yikes.

August has been great. It just whizzed by and was full of lots of fun stuff. September should be good too. I've got a week of doing very little, followed by a week of complete buzyness. I'm looking forward to September for some of the fun stuff it brings; book launches, poetry readings, fall festivals etc. The first week in September will be spent catching up on stuff and then starting back at dance class on September 7. I'm in level 2 and will be learning how to work with finger cymbals.

This will be followed by FARM TOUR EXTRAVAGANZA. I will be going on a chef's tour to four area farms one day, followed by an Alberta Beef Producers farm tour the next day. Then I will be leading a tour for the Canadian Farm Writers Federation Conference. Farm writers from all over Canada will be arriving in Edmonton for a conference, which should be a lot of fun. This farm writer extravaganza will be followed by my first teen mentorship group meeting.

I will have a couple of days off, then I will drive up to Grande Prairie for Darrell and Debi's wedding. I'll have two full days in GP, and two driving days. The wedding will be followed by more catch up and work, and then on Oct 1, I leave for Victoria and Vancouver and Andrea and Carlos' wedding.

In other news, I'm about three quarters done my poetry manuscript and hope to continue working on that. Because of all the wedding stuff and travel, I'm not volunteering at the Edmonton Film festival this year. I think I have too much stuff on the go to do that this year.

Well, I've been in Grande Prairie since Friday, and it has been fairly interesting. After a fairly stressful day, and driving through a rainstorm, I arrived in town at about 9 p.m. at night. I drove myself to my friends' place and managed to visit with them a bit before they went to bed. In the morning, I got up and went down to see the new library and cultural centre, which was fantastically magnificent. I was in absolute awe. It's a truly wonderful building, and I got to see a bunch of Peace country friends that I hadn't seen in a while.

That night, I went back to Darrell and Debi's and ate pizza with Debi's family, which was nice because I got to meet her mom and hang out with her. D and D are getting married next month, so they're a little bit stressed and busy.

On Sunday, I got up fairly early and drove to Bay Tree to visit a llama farm and have a tea party. The owner has 30 llamas and 8 llama babies, which was pretty great. I fell in love with the miniature donkeys, who followed me around like dogs.

D and D and I made dinner and then they treated me to my first James Bond movie ever. Yes, my Bond virginity was broken with "Casino Royale."

This morning, I woke up at a decent time, and stopped in at the office to visit with a bunch of my former coworkers, which was fun. Then I drove to High Prairie, which is about a 2.5 hour drive away. I visited Kemp Honey, which is an apiary where they make body care products from honey. Pretty cool.

Now I'm staying with family friends who live in GP. They moved here right after I left. I wanted to stay with them in order to spend some time with them, and to give D and D a break so they could have their alone time to get ready for their wedding next month.

It's been really great to visit my old stomping grounds, and to visit so many interesting places while I'm here.

I went to a poetry reading on Wednesday night. It was good to get out of my house and meet some new people. I met a friend of a friend who is a spoken word artist here in town, and a guy who is a spoken word artist, youth mentor and novelist. He lives five houses away from my former house in Vancouver, which is pretty neat.

Yesterday morning I got up early to drive to Lacombe. I had to go to a field day, which involved standing around looking at plots and learning about various kinds of crops. There were over a 100 people at this field day and it was possibly one of the biggest ones I've been to in a while. I met a neat girl from Edmonton who is specializing in rangeland management.

Last night I watched "Before Night Falls", which is an incredibly movie about the gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas is wonderfully played by Javier Bardem. I'm not sure why it took me so long to see this film. I absolutely loved it and recommend it to anyone who is interested in writers and the writing life. It's a sad film about persecution. I guess it was made in English, but somehow this didn't register with me, so I ended up watching the entire film in Spanish with English subtitles. Somehow this seemed more fitting.

Today is my one year anniversary in Edmonton!!!! There have been a few ups and downs over the year, but in all honesty, it's been a great year and I feel happier than I've been in a long time. I've been really fortunate to have so many good experiences and meet so many great people this year.

Not much to report lately. I had a pleasant Canada day at my friend Amanda's house. We sat in the backyard around her fire and drank wine and in my case, cider. Then a group went off to see the fireworks and a few of us stayed behind to watch the fire.

I got a free ticket to see "The Comedy of Errors" and ended up going by myself. I've decided that I don't really LOVE Shakespeare. I like some of it, but really, it's not my favourite thing. I just feel that I should learn about it as it is so historically significant. That said, I've definitely got a hankering to go see "Antony and Cleopatra" in Saskatoon when I go.

I finished watching Season 1 of "True Blood". I love it, especially all the sexuality of the show, but I sometimes wish it wasn't so gory.

My weekend was rather quiet. I'm still catching up on work, and didn't have much to do over the weekend. On Monday night, I drove out to Barrhead to stay overnight so I could catch a bus and go to Athabasca. Athabasca is a gorgeous area that I haven't really explored.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a farm called Big Coulee Farms. The man who owns it pasture raises all his animals, including turkeys, pigs and chickens. It was a pretty interesting operation. I ended up getting home pretty late. I was supposed to go out of town again today, but there's a thunderstorm warning. I don't mind rain, but I'm not driving 3 hours to stand outside in a thunderstorm.

Holy crap, this week is busy and good.

Monday- Work during the day and dance class at night.

Tuesday- Work, get haircut, meet up with visiting coworkers, attend Beef Producers banquet with boss.

Wednesday- Work during the day and dance class.

Thursday- Drive to Smoky Lake, attend Grazing school for women, meet cool women and learn about composting, alternative energy sources and how to kill coyotes.

Friday- Visit with friend who I haven't seen in two years, who is in Edmonton to take a leadership training course. Hang with her. Finish assignment for school. Visit accountant.

Saturday- Take reiki level 2 course. Hang with other friend visiting from Montreal. She's an old friend from Saskatoon who is a folk singer. Attend her show in the evening.

Sunday- Go to free concert in park with Mari and dogs. Go to bbq at my friend Leah's that night.

Seriously. There's SNOW outside, and there is now a snowfall warning with freezing rain. I was supposed to go to a dairy, but I'm not going to travel on roads with freezing rain, so I cancelled my appointment. I'm at home doing work, but my dog keeps on cuddling up on the couch, and he's so cozy and warm. It's much nicer to snuggle with him than sit at the computer and try to work.

So yesterday I drove to Vermilion to do two stories- one about their agriculture program, and another about the college rodeo team. I hadn't been to Vermilion since 2001, when I spent some time working at the Wainwright Review. I got to town a bit early and went to a really strange coffee shop that had a flea market in the basement, a stationery store in the middle and a cappuchino bar/used bookstore on the top. The whole store was an incredible mess, but it was also extremely fascinating.

After this, I drove to the Lakeland College to meet the Communications Coordinator. I told her that I'd worked for the Review and she told me that she used to date my boss. I didn't say anything after this, because what can a person say to that statement?

Then I met with members of the Rodeo team and then instructors at the College, who explained the agriculture program to me. The College is unique because it has a very hands-on agriculture program. Students also participate in a program called "Student managed Farm" which divides them into teams so they can practice making decisions like real farm managers.

After this, we toured some areas of the farm and I got to snuggle some lambs and talk with some of the students. Pretty great.


*****
This morning I did a bit of shopping/thrifting and wandered around Whyte. I ended up with two nice shirts, a dress and a nice skirt.

Well, I'm not really relaxing. I'm just enjoying the fact that I don't have to drive anywhere this week. Right now I'm catching up on stories that I should have written, doing laundry, writing random things and generally enjoying being at home.

Tonight I have to give a short poetry reading at local reading series.

The Oscars were really good. Mom and I phoned each other multiple times during the show.

1. I really loved Hugh Jackman's opening song thing.
2. I also loved the five presenters theme for the best supporting and best actor and actress categories.
3. There were a number of really good dresses and a number of horrible ones. What was up with Alicia Keyes' eyebrows? And my mom called me to comment on Sarah Jessica Parker's horrible fake boobs.
4. I loved the speech given by Devon Lance Black, the guy who wrote Milk. I was also touched by Heath Ledger's tribute.
5. Did anyone else think that it was horribly tacky that the camera cut to Angelina when Jennifer Aniston was at the mike? (It's over. Give it up. Who the hell cares any more?)
6. My mom called me to yell as Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens appeared onscreen. "Give them off the stage," she cried. I COULD NOT AGREE MORE. We want to see movie stars, people. Actual movie stars, wearing pretty dresses and accepting awards.
7. I wish Kate Winslet had won for "Revolutionary Road", but I was okay with her winning even though my vote was largely for Anne Hathaway.
8. I was also okay with Sean Penn's win, even though my vote was for Mickey Rourke.