Saturday, August 29, 2009

We're Jammin'

This weekend I found myself with the unusual circumstance of not having anything to do. No social commitments, no house reno planned, no plans already made at all. And with the tail end of a tropical storm bearing down on us, I knew I wouldn't be gardening or going for a spin on the bike.
I may have mentioned that strawberry season is my favourite time of year. My love of strawberries is easily surpassed by how much the Other One adores blackberries.
With the O.O. locked in his room until his school work is done, I decided to reward his efforts by making him some blackberry jam. Off I went this morning to my not so secret spot down by the railroad tracks, just as the rain began to fall. It has been three years since I was last there. Last year and the year before, we were in Newfoundland. (AKA no berries to be found land.)
The berries were still there but they were smaller than I remembered, and pretty picked over already in most spots. Since I was last there, a proper walking trail has been put in beside the tracks, and I think more people walk there now. CN used to be pretty unhappy when people would use the train tracks as a trail, so they gave people a place to walk, just about a year before the last train stopped running. It took me nearly three hours to pick a scant five pints. It rained lightly, but I got soaked through, wading deep into the thickets looking for bigger berries. Finally I figured I had enough for a batch.
The bad thing about blackberries, aside from the thorns and the wasps, is that you have to sieve out the seeds and so you need to pick a lot more of them than say, strawberries. (Mmmmm, strawberries.) Happily, the O.O. likes jam more than jelly, (or at least so he tells me) and I don't have to get rid of all the seeds, which would be too tedious. When I was a teenager with braces, my Aunt Erica use to make me blackberry jelly. Now I know that there is just nothing I can do to make it up to her.
The jam making took most of the afternoon. Usually I double or quadruple a batch to save time. The directions on the pectin packaging warn against this, but I like to live on the edge. Except this year, none of my strawberry jams set up properly. I was blaming watery berries from all the early rain we got, but to be on the safe side I decided to follow directions this time. I forgot to put in the pectin in the first batch before I started to bottle it. Then I had to reboil the jam and re wash and sterilize the jars so I could add it. This slowed the process down a bit.
Then I had the brilliant idea to try and save the seeds I had sieved out so I could plant them and have my own berry patch. The O.O. was really excited by this idea and so we began. We washed and we washed and we washed and we washed. And lots of pulpy gunk came off the seeds, but at the end of 20 minutes, they were still pretty pulpy. I was concerned that they would go moldy before they germinated, so we tried a different tactic. We smooshed them out onto newspaper to dry them. My theory is that the pulp will brush off easier if it is dry. Once the seed is clean, we can stratify it in the fridge and sow it in a cold frame to germinate in spring. All in all, I had about 4 cups of pulp, which probably translates into thousands of seeds, so even if the germination rate is really low, I should get a few plants growing in the spring to plant out. It's a start.

Friday, August 28, 2009

A Play 's the Thing

What thing, though, I am not exactly sure. Last weekend we went over to the other side, to visit the parental units and see a play at the Ship's Co. This year was the 25th Anniversary of Ship's Co, and as the other one and I met there (everybody go awwwwwe) we should have attended all the events ( or at least some of the events) during the season, but we didn't. We do remember the 10th anniversary though; I think we worked it in fact.
Guilt finally caught up with me and we did arrange to see the second mainstage production aptly named Ferry Tales. It was commissioned to celebrate this year's anniversary, and was a collection of stories around and about the Minas Basin as told by passengers aboard the MV Kipawo when she was still a ferry travelling between Kingsport, Parrsboro and Wolfville and long before she was a theatre dry docked in Parrsboro. Most of the stories I had heard before, growing up on the Minas Basin. How Glooscap made the Five Islands. The story of a Bishop from Greenwich who hopped across the ice cakes one winter to ask his Parrsboro girl to marry him. The ghost story about the cave at Black Rock where you can still hear the woman abandoned by pirates, crying for help as the tide comes in and drowns her. (everybody go oooooh!)
It was fun, but a little disjointed, and I wonder if a tourist would be able to follow the narrative as it was just loosely strung together with a little music and comedy. The acting was very good. The set design worked well, although, there was a time when the MV Kipawo could have, (and would have) been used to play herself. Alas she is reduced to being a lobby for a black box stage. The costumes were confusing, and seemed to say 70's Britain more than 1930's Nova Scotia. They had that distinct low budget Frenchy's feel. Not the best offering from Ship's Company, let's hope their other mainstage productions were more interesting.

Monday, August 10, 2009

A Tale of Two Plays

I should have posted this ages ago, but life got too fun to blog for a while.
We went to the opening night of The Gin Game in Wolfville on Thursday July 30. It is the newest attempt to bring live theatre to Wolfville in the summer, a town that already has too much going on. A new production company named Wolfville Summer Theatre (imaginative, yes?) is presenting two plays this summer at the Al Whittle Theatre.
The Gin Game is a two act play with two actors, which in the biz is referred to as a Two Hander; but really should be called a four hander unless it is done by a couple of war amps. Two Handers are often picked by small and fledgling companies to keep the costs to a minimum because along with a small cast, they usually have only one or two sets. This explains why WST's second production, Love Letters, is also a Two Hander.
The Gin Game had very good production values. By this I mean, the set was fun to look at, the lighting adequately set the mood, and the sound didn't annoy me too much. (Which is the best praise as I can usually give to sound.)
The acting was very good, in fact Carolyn Hetherington is always very impressive although we thought perhaps Lee J Campbell was miscast for his role.
If this sounds like faint praise, remember that I, my honey and my best friend are a hard audience to impress. We usually completely deconstruct the whole performance on the car ride home and some of our nitpicking included:
The costumes were not broken down and old looking.
The sound cues were too abrupt.
The second act suffered from bad direction.
Ms Hetherington seemed to be channeling Jessica Tandy, who originated the role.
The worst of the whole, is that the Gin Game is a boring play. I actually fell asleep in the second act, and I don't think I missed anything.
Contrast all this with Two Planks and a Passion's new production of Rockbound. Only 3 nights after Gin Game put me to sleep, Rockbound made me want to stand and cheer, even after 2 1/2 hours of bum numbing bleachers at Ross Creek's Centre for the Performing Arts. Rockbound is a new two act play by Allen Cole, and is based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Frank Parker Day, which won the CBC Canada Reads contest in 2005. Funny, poignant, use all the adjectives you want, this is a great piece of theatre, if you missed it at Ross Creek, go see it at the Chester Playhouse Aug 13-16. The music is complex, but while it wasn't catchy like trite musicals tend to be, I find that I can still hum two of the themes a week later. All the actors made me believe that they were their characters, even as some doubled up roles. The precise staging and use of simple scenic elements to advance the story is what good theatre always strives for. No bells and whistles just real emotion, it was the best play I've seen for years. Go see it if you have the chance.

What Else I Did on my Summer Vacation

I spent last weekend on the South Shore showing off yet another bit of beautiful coastal Nova Scotia to my friend who has the misfortune not to live here. We visited the LaHave Frenchies where we both scored new to us treasures.
Then we drove down the LaHave River and on to Lunenburg; which was crazy busy due to the Folk Fest happening that weekend. Neither of us being fond of anything associated with acoustic guitars we ate a picnic lunch overlooking the harbour and moved on to Mahone Bay where a liquid afternoon spend in the Crown and Anchor prepared us for nice supper at the Cheesecake Cafe.
Sunday we went to Chester hoping to meet a millionaire who wanted to sweep us off our feet. Alas it was not to be, but we did ogle some nice houses and sailboats before driving to Bayswater Beach, where the sand was too hot for sitting and the water too cold for swimming. I got a sunburn on my feet because who can ever remember to put sunscreen there?
Cleveland Beach was another stop, where the water was warmer. Lastly, of course Peggy's Cove was a must before ending in Halifax for her to start the last leg of the trip with another friend.
Just to prove it, here are the pics. (Lori)
Hanging baskets are so declasse. Lunenburg decorates their light poles with seafood instead.










Mahone Bay's Three Churches. If you want a better shot, buy a postcard. That iconic picture doesn't exist unless you go tromping through someone's backyard.




And Peggy's Cove as it should be. No Tourists. No Car Park.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Summer has finally arrived. Both meteorologically with the heat, and metaphorically in that I've been having some fun. I count a successful summer by the number of times I have to dig around in the camping equipment box. Because summer fun cannot be had without needing something out of that box. Bug spray, beach booties, picnic supplies. So far I've been in there three times, and Peter once. There have been summers (the last one for example) where I didn't need to go in there at all. Score one for Nova Scotia.
I fully give credit to this being the summer of visitors. A friend is visiting from Vancouver right now and so we are doing all the summer fun things that I never do unless trying to convince a CFA that this really is a good place to live. Like visiting the sandy beach only 2 minutes down the road, or going for ice cream at a place that has a great view of 4 counties. Like walking the dykes, throwing a back yard neighbourhood barbecue or hiking to Cape Split.
Yes. that's right. Hiking. Me. I've been known to hike before. But the trek to Cape Split was a new one for me. I'm from the other side of the Minas Channel, so Cape Split was always a place that you looked at while sipping a beer at a friends cottage in Diligent Harbour. Where I come from no one would be crazy enough to want to walk there. It is completely inaccessible. Except here, where people seem to think it is a right of passage to take life in limb and wander off into the woods on a badly marked and treacherous "Not a trail" just for the reward of getting really close to those spires.
We were lead to believe that it wasn't really a hike so much as a walk. We were also lead to believe that it was a 3 hour tour. Maybe for someone with the legs of a giraffe, but it took us two hours to walk in, two hours to drink a bottle of wine to recuperate and two hours to walk out. When I say walk I mean climb over and under trees, scramble over rocky paths, hop over the muck holes and inevitably slip slide into them when you lost your footing.
Once we got there I had the strange experience of seeing something completely familiar from photos yet knowing I had never been there. It was like going to Stonehenge. And experienced hiker that I am, I remembered the cork screw but forgot the camera. You'll just have to take my word for it.