Canadian girl out and aboot

I have not updated since the Alberta Farm Writers Tour last weekend. On day 2, we went to the University of Calgary veterinary school. I proceeded to get lost on the way there, but still managed to find it, which was pretty damn amazing. I am getting better at driving in Calgary. I've also come to the conclusion that I like Edmonton way better than Calgary. It is smaller, less corporate and artsier. Ah well.

Anyway, we got to talk to some of the staff at the U of C school and learn from one of the students too. One of the most interesting things we got to see were all the models used for learning. They had a stuffed dog who was hooked up to a computer. People could adjust his heart rate etc, so the vets would learn how to fix it. They also had a learning lab in which actors were hired to play owners etc. The vet students had to learn how to tell the owners that their cow was sick/dog was dying etc. These scenarios helped the would-be vets to develop some bedside manners and skills for dealing with owners and hysterical individuals.

We also saw some really cool models such as the model of a cow's backside, which could be attached to a uterus/cow reproductive system, so that the students could learn how to palpate a cow before practicing on a living model. I thought all the models were quite neat, and I've got pics of them to put up on my facebook and flickr, once I get around to it.

Following this, we went to Business Innovations, where we saw a software developed for equine vets. I wasn't too interested in the software, but we got a chance to tour the vet hospital and see a horse in surgery. The horse was completely knocked out on anasthetic.(sp). When they were done the surgery, hooks were used to move the horse off of his back and into a padded room, where he was allowed to wake up. It was really interesting.

Last week, I did a little trip out to Sylvan Star Cheese Sylvan Star Cheese . I'd heard a lot about this cheese, which is made in a small town just outside Red Deer. The man who makes the cheese is an immigrant from the Netherlands. He was a cheesemaker for 30 years before moving to Canada and then opened up shop when he moved with his family. The cheese has been so successful that John and his family were able to create a new cheese making place, complete with a great farm store and an educational room. The milk for the cheese is supplied by the farm's 140 Holsteins. I was not able to visit the farm, for food safety reasons. Generally, if a food manufacturer lets you go inside their plant, they won't let you go on the farm, in order to cut down on the possibility that you could contaminate their food.

The educational room is quite cool. John and his family are making a video about cheese making, so people who go to tours at the farm will be able to learn more about cheese without going into the actual facility. There is also a window in the educational room which will allow people to look directly onto the floor to watch people making cheese.

The cheese is made once or twice a week. Milk is brought up from the farm and then heat treated, not pasteurized. Live cultures are added and then the curds are pressed into molds. Eventually, the mixtures are dipped into brine (salt water) and then allowed to cure. The curing process takes A LONG time. Sylvan Star is known for their Grizzly gouda, which is aged up to a year. Old Grizzly is several years old. The cheeses cure on shelves. They are rotated daily and coated with a breathable wax, which must be applied every day. It's very labour intensive and takes a long time.

Before visiting Sylvan Star, I didn't know that lactose can be destroyed in cheese making. When cheese takes this long to make, the lactose goes away, which means that people who are lactose intolerant can eat this cheese.

Sylvan Star is known for their gouda, but they also make Gruyere and Edam. The Edam is cave aged. Everything must be completely controlled- temperature, humidity, light, etc. It's a very precise process.

Sylvan Star has won numerous awards for their cheese. They make about 20 kinds of cheese including a smoked gouda and various spiced goudas. I got some of the Grizzly and the smoked gouda to take home, and both of them were exquisite.

1. We are having a snow storm here! A major, icy snowstorm with freezing rain. It kind of sucks, but at least I don't have to drive anywhere today. I am very happy about that. Also, I'm not going to complain because we desperately need moisture in this part of the province.

2. I am not on the road as much, and that is awesome. In fact, I'm getting caught up on older stories and working from home a lot. This allowed me to do some submissions yesterday and get more of my writing out there. Also, when I did my taxes I found that I drove 13,062 km for work.

3. Yesterday I went to see my accountant. I told him I would meet with him in May so that he could deal with clients that would have to file before the deadline. I am expecting a refund, so I would not have to pay. I was very diligent about keeping my receipts and claiming expenses for my writing business and I think it's going to pay off. I feel somewhat intimidated during financial things so it was very cool to play with my accountant's dog during our meeting yesterday. The dog just loves me. She snuggled up to me while I was waiting, and then sat on my lap and gave me little kisses on my hand while we were talking to my return. Yay for dogs!

4. Got my invitation to my cousin's wedding. I have to figure out if I'm going to fly into Victoria or Vancouver and who will drive me out to White Rock. The wedding is out at an apple orchard! Her future husband's parents' own a U-pick operation and the reception and party is going to feature a barn dance, wiener roast and s'mores. Fun!

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed and here's why-

1. I've been working and driving a lot since the end of January. This is the busy season for ag conferences and so I've been on the go a lot. In the past 2 weeks, I have been to Leduc 3 times, Red Deer, and to a variety of meetings in Edmonton. Next week I'm in Morinville and Red Deer. The driving and the hours of listening do take their toll. However, I'm learning a great deal and it's hard not to get excited about my work and some of the things I do. Last week, I learned about the possibility of pennycress for biofuel. This plant is a weed, but produces better oil than canola, making it immune to the food vs fuel debate. The plant also has phytoremediative characteristics and can take metal out of soils. It's already been proposed as a growing project for Detroit. Actually, Detroit itself is very interesting right now. The destruction of the auto industry in the city has resulted in many opportunities for growth in urban agriculture. I'm going to keep my eyes and ears to the ground on this one.

Similarly, the urban sprawl in Calgary has also resulted in a variety of opportunities. I met a producer who is in charge of helping with the organization of a new farmers' market for Calgary- the Kingsland market. I'm going to do a story or two about it and am very excited about the project. So work is good, even though it's crazy busy.

2. My parents are in China. They flew there on March 16. My dad took a netbook with him, but I didn't hear from them for a few days, which made me a tad worried, mostly because my mom had a cold and I wanted to know that she was able to get into the country without getting quarantined. I wasn't sure if Dad could get through because of the Great Firewall situation. However, he managed to email from his gmail and he is getting emails from my hotmail, although he is unable to open my friend's Picasa photo albums. Parents are having a lovely time in China. However, it's weird to have so much limited contact with the parentals. I'll confess- I talk to the parentals almost every day. This is partly because they are my good friends and partly for security reasons. Since I live alone and travel all around the province by myself, it's good for at least one person to know where I am. When I go on long road trips, I call my mom when I am leaving and when I get back, so that she knows I am safe. I also email my parents frequently and send them links to interesting articles, youtube clips, etc. I feel like a bit of a baby because their absence definitely has an impact on me.


3. My computer has still not been fixed. It's with another tech and hopefully the problem should be resolved, but it does give me more challenges for working and I have a few deadlines that I need to meet. I might end up spending some time at an Internet cafe to get all these things done.

4. I need to sort everything out for my trip to Toronto, figure out what to where etc. This is a very cool opportunity, but it's basically a version of "So you think you're a poet" and I want to give a great performance and knock the judges' socks off.

5. One of my checks was extremely late. I was fretting a bit because I could really use that cash when I'm travelling to Toronto and have some expenses related to my dance recital and dance classes. Fortunately, it arrived and things will be good.

6. I have to acculturize Fergus to Henry and Mari. We went over there last week, and the two dogs were not best friends. Fergus is a very timid guy and Henry is extremely friendly. He jumped all over Fergus and Fergus growled, but as time went on, they sort of ignored each other and Fergus found some comfy places to sleep and hang out. I know that Mari will take very good care of Fergus and I hope that he does not cry too much when I leave him. He's a bit of a suck and a rather timid little guy, but I'm sure it will be fine.

Just writing this all out made me feel better. I'm also going to have a peaceful day alone, do some work, walk the dog, watch some DVDs, and go to the market. Tomorrow I teach my teen writing group and then I'm going to see Shanghai Express, which I've been trying to see for years. This is the movie that defined the concept of "dragon lady" and made Anna May Wong into a star.

On Saturday (almost a week ago), I drove down to Calgary to spend a few times with A. Since I work from home, I thought I'd take the opportunity to work from his home, which was great. I actually ended up doing a lot of work and got to spend a lot of time with him, which was cool. We actually ended up watching Olympic hockey (a first for me) and Olympic curling (another first), as well as the closing ceremonies, which were absolutely insane until we got to the craptastic music. I actually want to see the Michael Buble dance number again, because it was so over the top. I called my mom during this segment and she was laughing so hard that she could barely speak and was almost crying.

Anyway, A and I spent a lot of time hanging out, watched Olympics, went for sushi, wandered around his neighbourhood and went to see "The Last Station." I also got to finally meet Melanie , my co-blogger, and have lunch with my friend Courtney and her daughter Maren.

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I managed to become somewhat ill and was in a super crabby, sick and tired mood for my last day there and my drive home. However, I was already feeling better by Thursday.

I'm working like a fiend and trying to get a lot of stuff done. My bro and his Fiancee are coming to town for some reason. I think they have some shopping to do, so they'll be staying here. My dad was going to bring my dog next weekend, but my parents decided to send him up this weekend since it didn't make sense for two family members to drive to Edmonton in such a short time period. So I have Fergus for an extra week! I'm looking after him while my parents take their first trip to China. I love having Fergus here and it should work out well, since I'm over most of my crazy driving days. I'm excited for him to be here.

This weekend, I'm teaching a journalism workshop! My friend Mari works at a community newspaper called The Rat Creek Press . I'm going to teach some news writing techniques to their writers :) I'm a little nervous, but excited, and I'm going to spend a great deal of today planning the workshop.

1. As many of you know, I am a hardcore insomniac. This week, I decided to try an experiment. I stopped drinking coffee in the afternoons. Immediately, I could sleep! Unfortunately, I have been falling asleep at 9 or 10 p.m. and waiting up at 5 or 6, but still! We'll see what happens. (Yes, I'm somewhat ashamed to say that it took me so long to try this experiment.)

2. I had a really busy but productive week. I had a meeting with staff from the Writers Guild of Alberta and we talked about the teen writing group that I teach and some ideas for youth programming in the province. It was an extremely successful meeting and one that will likely provide me with some additional work in the future. I also talked about some of the upcoming projects that the teen group will be doing and I'm feeling really good about things.

3. This week, I had to do a lot of work as there was a major farming conference in town. During the conference, I do deadline reporting, and I have to assemble short bites that go out on an email newsletter. It's a quick turn around, and somewhat high pressure, but it gets easier and easier for me to do. I also had to attend the Outstanding Youth Farmers' event and got to hang out with the nominees, including my friend Tam. She and I are both obsessed with food security so we are always recommending books about farming and food security to each other. She's great.

4. I am loving my tribal fusion class. It's really hard work and requires a lot of muscle strength, more so than classical belly dance. I think our piece is going to look amazing, and I'm already looking forward to learning our choreography. We have different teachers for classical and tribal, and both of them are really good teachers and have a variety of strengths to offer.

So I spent New Year's at my friend Mari's. We had grand plans to get to several parties but we never got there in time. Mari had received a creme brulee set from her bf's mom, so she ended up making us creme brulee. It was my first time having creme brulee. I'm not sure how that happened. The creme brulee set even came with a little blow torch so Mari's bf torched the creme brulee, while her roommate Stephanie stood by with the fire extinguisher. For those of you playing along at home, all these events actually went down at Todd Babiak's since Mari and Stephanie are housesitting for him while he is in France. In hopes of embarrassing him, I scoured Todd's bookcases looking for shameful items, but he doesn't seem to have any. He must hide them.

During this time, I tried bourbon, discovered that I don't like it and drank some Vampire wine instead. I'd seen the Vampire wine in the offsale here and was eager to try it. It's actually not bad. However, I don't think I could actually take it anywhere, as then I'd be the crazy goth girl who showed up with the vampire wine.

At midnight, I kissed Henry, Mari's Boston terrier. Then Mari and her bf went to the Artery to meet up with more peeps, and I went home to sleep.

The next day, I did a lot of nothing and watched a lot of Glee on DVD. Love! On Saturday, I did a bunch of errands then went down to the Black dog bar to see a free set done by a guy I know named Doug Hoyer . I met Doug at a bbq at my friend's and we always chat when we run into each other. His music is pretty cool; he's got great lyrics and wonderful melodies and some really catchy songs. I actually think his music could become quite popular if it fell into the right hands. Anyway, I met up with a few more people and then Doug and I chatted in between sets and at one point, he gave me a copy of a chapbook written by a few local poets/musicians.

On Jan 3rd, I went for my first ski this year, and skied around Hawrelak park. My goal is to ski all 9 of Edmonton's parks this year. I'm up to 3 so far. Then I had a slack afternoon and went for supper with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], who has just moved to Alberta.

My week is going to pick up in a big way by tomorrow. Today is just another working from home day, but tomorrow I head out to a meeting of the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE Wild Rose Alliance political party of conservatives, shudder.). The Wild Rose Agricultural Producers are a group of Alberta farmers who get together to discuss provincial issues affecting farmers. It should be a good meeting, and it's at the Fantasyland hotel in the West Edmonton Mall. I've been to a few conferences there; they have a good conference rate and decent food.

Then I'm going to the opening of the Winterlight festival . I've got a few friends involved with the festival and Mari is the festival blogger and social media coordinator. So that should be cool.

I will only be in meetings for two days in December, which is completely lovely. It's wonderful. I'm finding it a welcome change to be in the city. It's also good as people are hosting parties and activities and I can attend them. I still have a backlog of stories to write for work and have been wading my way through them. Yet I've also been reading, writing a new short story, watching movies and doing a whole bunch of errands and Xmas shopping type things.

Last week I went with my friend to play pub trivia. I was very excited, as I love trivia games. Unfortunately, the games were cancelled, but I still got to hang out with a bunch of new people, which was cool.

We had a blizzard on Friday. I decided that I wasn't going to drive anywhere, which was genius. I did a few errands earlier in the day, but then spent the rest of the day at home, which was divine. Fortunately it snowed a lot, so I can now start skiing! I'm going to get my skis waxed tomorrow.

I went to see "Precious" this week and really recommend it. It's a rough story, but it's really about empowerment and how people can help one another and survive. Forgot that it was produced by Oprah and go see it because of the incredible acting. (I did cry twice)

Today I attended my dress rehearsal for the dance recital tonight. My sequin bra DID NOT arrive, but I have a pretty halter top and I got some compliments on that, so I felt okay about my costuming choice. Our rehearsal went well. Unfortunately, there was a wardrobe malfunction in one of the groups ahead of us. One of the women was dancing and her nip popped right out of her bra. No one in the class seemed to notice, but a few of the dancers in the audience did. I went over to tell the teacher afterward so she could tell her dancer. I felt bad for causing some embarrassment for her, but I thought I'd better tell someone so that it didn't happen in the actual performance. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the recital tonight.

On Wednesday, I drove up to Grande Prairie. It was a bit of a shock to my system as there was almost 20 degrees of temperature difference between the two cities. It was definitely winter in GP, and so I spent a lot of time freezing and being very cold. Friends kept on asking me what was wrong. I was staying with family friends when I got there. Jon and Laura were at a doctor's appointment, so I went for some soup and then went to the Prairie Art Gallery to check out the new exhibit.
Following this, I went to Jon and Laura's and we visited a bit before all three of us collapsed.
The next day, I got up and went to the GP Farm Women's conference. I had lunch and attended a couple of seminars before meeting up with friends to do the Power of the Land show.
Getting to see friends again was really nice. It was also cool because my friends brought some of their kids with them, so I got a chance to see the kids too. I also got to eat pizza at my friend Susan's house and visit with all of my friends. We did the show on the Thursday evening and it went off splendidly and was a huge hit. I got up early on the Friday morning and went back to some sessions at the conference before driving back home.

It was seriously a whirlwind trip, as I was only in town for one full day. I didn't even stop to visit with any of my friends. Fortunately, I don't have any more overnight work related trips planned for a while. I have one that I could do in mid December, but I'm not even sure about that one yet.

This week's schedule has been- work, watch movies, etc. Really that's about it. I did two days of work related writing, and then spent a day at the alpaca conference at Farm Fair. I attended some really in depth presentations about birthing alpacas and ended up looking at pictures of alpaca placenta and afterbirth. I'm not joking.

My publishers were in town to release a new book of poetry and so I got a chance to chat with them and meet author Hiromi Goto , whose work I have long admired.

In my exhausted stupor, I watched the Rolling Stone documentary "Shine a light."

This weekend I attended two films at the Global Visions international film festival. This documentary film festival is the longest running documentary film fest in Canada! I saw "Hair India" which about the hair trade in India. Pilgrims travel to temples to have their heads shaved, then the temples sell the hair to international agencies. Working class women go through the hair before it is shipped to international centres, like Rome, to be processed into hair extensions. In the film, an Indian woman in Mumbai had her hair treated and got extensions done. It's a really weird look at culture, hair and social class. Prior to this film, we watched a short film called "Namrata". This film was based on the life of the woman who was the inspiration for Deepa Mehta's "Heaven and Earth." I was very struck by this film.

Today I saw "Transit Dubai", which is about the transitory nature and social classes in Dubai. I've had many friends visit the city and one of my friends is working there now. I thought this film really showed some of the class structure and problems with the city.

I also got a chance to go for brunch with some friends. We just got a Cora's in Edmonton. Cora's is a chain started in Quebec. It has since slowly been spreading across Canada. They serve breakfast food with lots of fresh fruit. We had to wait quite a while to get in, but it was worth it.