This Blog Has Moved Recently...

Posts over the past year can be found at:

The Good Villager.

We are still in China, but now in the province of Hainan in the very south of the country. Join me!

Online in China

I finally bit the bullet and signed up with a service that allows me freedom of information and speech in China. For the last two months, I've been without Youtube, Facebook, Blogger, and a host of other random sites that are apparently too dangerous for a mind on the brink of independent thought. For those who fell into the abyss too long ago to remember, the sudden inability to access basic modes of self-expression is odd. I decided to just live with it as I still had access to Wordpress and my other blog, The Good villager, but that changed recently. Not sure whether my ISP was the culprit, but I suddenly found that Wordpress was taking a long time to load and when it did, none of the formatting was there. Impossible to use. That decided me. I have to write and communicate. Eating, sleeping, breathing, writing, sharing ideas. They are basic needs to me.

The Good Villager is covering a lot of stuff. I had mentioned that I wanted to bring Something To Chew On back to its original intention - covering farmers markets and related things. I may just do that. Stay tuned...

Going to China...

The Good Villager, Something to Chew On, and Bees Alive! are going to China on Thursday. Hunan province. We are excited and are hoping to encounter good, local organic gardening, farming and beekeeping/bee stewardship initiatives. Hopefully something we can become involved with using basic Mandarin :)

Stay tuned!

Toronto: St Lawrence Market

One of my favourite places to go when I am in Toronto is the St Lawrence Market. In addition to being a place to find good eats, it is a fantastic place to watch people and life, listen to music and talk to strangers. I do it all.

There are two buildings to this market: the Saturday Farmers' Market or North Market building (which houses other things, namely antiques, on other days of the week), and the South Market building (open Tuesday to Sunday with two floors of permanent vendors of many different products, including fruit and veg). The two markets straddle Front Street, with Jarvis Street bordering the east sides of both buildings.

There has been a farmers' market in this location since about 1803, making it one of the older markets in Canada. I've had the opportunity to sell at the Saturday Farmers' market, and like all markets old and new, there are politics. Squabbling over 2 inches of space that your table has been moved by another vendor, the unavailablility of a cart at the exact time that you want to load or unload your produce. But there is also a family-like feel. For long-term vendors, you get to know both your neighbours and your customers, and when you're not there, people miss you.

The South Market, according to some of the vendors at the Saturday Market, is "for tourists". I am not sure that that is the most accurate statement, and I didn't get the impression that the comment was a compliment. While I am a farmers' market purist in many ways, and have a strong dislike for touristy things, I do actually like the South Market quite a bit. There are some shops/stalls within this market that might be interesting for tourists, but there is a heck of a lot of atmosphere, which scores high for me. There are also many, many locals shopping there. I've watched downtown Toronto cops on their early morning beat stop in to say 'hi' to vendors and pick up their morning peameal bacon breakfast sandwich (so much for donuts!). And I remember one March morning sitting with my coffee and a pastry watching the market start to get busy, and a fellow sat down and started talking to me. He was very local and had been coming to the South Market a few days a week for the past several years to buy cheese, meat and other things. I guess you are more likely to find items that are not local in the South Market (e.g., there is a fellow housed in the basement who imports honey from around the world), but it is still an excellent place to shop, sit and watch.

Myself, to sum up the differences between the two markets using my own behaviour as an example, I go to the North/Farmers' Market if I want to buy produce, and I go to the South Market if I want entertainment, a place to sit down with a good view, and to buy things like fish, imported item, or Niagara region wine.

I'm always satisfied after a visit.

Honey at the Perth Farmers’ Market

When I first started this blog last year, my intention had been to solely write about Farmers’ Markets (hence the url), and I may, in fact, revert to that original intention. Anyhow, at the time, I had been setting up and developing farmers’ markets in Northern California with a non-profit, and in general, I tend to visit both markets (and universities) wherever I travel. Markets are important community events/institutions, and honestly, you can tell whether a community is thriving or not by the presence of a market, and then the quality of and attendance at the market(s). I love going to them, taking photos, talking to vendors, buying fresh food, watching the unique dynamics of each market, and writing about them.

As you can see, if you scroll through my posts at the other site, or the few on this site, I just can’t limit myself to markets. I probably could, but I would need to travel a bit more than I do currently (I wish!). I write about bees (in addition to my site, Bees Alive!, ergonomics, responsible citizenship, gardening and the environment. It is all related :)

Today, however, with a focus on bees and honey, I am going to write about a market I had the pleasure of visiting for the first time two weekends ago. A few of my favourite topics, to be sure.

The Saturday farmers’ market in Perth, Ontario is a nice little set-up. Despite the fact that a large music festival was going on that very weekend, they had excellent traffic – an indication to me that Perth is a healthy, thriving community. There was good variety in vendors. In comparison, the vendors at the Smith’s Falls market I visited a week later ALL sold baked goods in addition to whatever else they had – not a good sign. The Nanaimo, BC downtown market has a similar problem, but with jams. But at Perth, a baker or two, good organic veggies (with variety), a homemade soup wagon, and yes, honey!

There were two part-time beekeepers present. They had other doings, mainly to do with running gardens, but had incorporated bees into their activities. Smart people. One keeper had about 30+ hives. We discussed problems he’d been  having with bears and mortality rates, hive splitting and building up the numbers again. I

passed on some information to him about pacifying bees with citronella and spearmint.

The other beekeepers, also growing vegetables, had 2 hives. It is very exciting to see small vendors produce and sell. Not only do you get an opportunity to buy local products, but it is encouraging to see that huge operations haven’t forced small producers out of the picture. I also find that small producers are more likely to use organic methods, the larger set-ups more concerned with producing as much as possible regardless of the impact on the environment and the health of life forms. I like to support those with smallholdings – it is the way we used to work, and it worked…

Ontario's New Eco Fee

Like most people living in Ontario I knew nothing in advance about the new fee being imposed on consumers who choose to purchase products that fall under the province’s household hazardous and special waste category (prescriptions, paint, batteries, etc). Heck, I didn’t even know what Stewardship Ontario was until I opened one of the Toronto newspapers recently and read about the public’s latest grumblings.

Stewardship Ontario
These folks are funded by the Government to develop and manage the Province’s recycling program and they act as middleperson between Government, business and the public.

The Eco-Fee
Actually, it is not that new, despite the recent grumbling. But it has been expanded to address a new service that allows twenty-two hazardous wastes to bypass the landfill and be processed properly. Stewardship Ontario charges their ‘stewards’ (the brand owners of products that fall under the hazardous waste category) to properly process the waste. The stewards may choose to pass on the charge to retailers who sell the product. The retailers may choose to add this charge onto the customer’s bill as a separate fee. Of course, the brand owner may embed the charges in the cost of the product. But when the former takes place, the customer sees the fee on his/her bill and believes a new tax is being charged and thus becomes indignant.

Transparency or Ignorance
It is a tough call. North Americans have adopted the notion of the illusion of transparency like nowhere else on earth. Transparency, ideally, and not limited to Government doings, is the idea that consumers or users can find out exactly where their money is going. In the case of Government, we want to know what the heck they are doing and are planning to do with the insane amount of tax dollars that are collected. And in Canada, we pretend that transparency exists. Mission statements, action plans, balance sheets, etc. In other countries, where basic freedoms exist such that questions can be asked of rulers without being thrown in prison, many taxes are just embedded in products and services and everyone seems happy to stay ignorant.

To Tax or Not To Tax
Lots of opinions on this. Myself, as an eco-anarcho-libertarian type of creature, I disagree with taxation and bureaucracy as a rule. But unlike many libertarians and the like who seem to think that humans can and should do as much damage to this planet as possible and all in the name of ‘personal freedom’, I am not opposed to charging fees to people who use or deal with things that harm other people or nature. So if you want to smoke, then you should pay more for your polluting, your extra health care needs, and your effect on the health of people who breathe in your pollution. Likewise, if you use toxic chemicals that, once disposed of, get into ground water, destroy ecosystems, and affect people and nature in untold ways, then you should pay more to deal with correct disposal.

Is the Eco-Fee a Tax?
Good question. The simple answer is ‘no’. The eco-fee isn’t a true tax in the way that sales tax is. The money doesn’t go to government (at any level), thank goodness. It is still a tax, however. Luckily, you can opt out of paying it by not using toxic products that require special disposal ;)

Some Announcements

Okay, now for some serious flogging - I have two announcements. First, I have finally started my bee information, education and action site Bees Alive!. Currently, there is a home page with a list of things to come. This will change rapidly as I am devoting much of my awake time to giving this dream wings.

Secondly, I am announcing my friend, Richard Roth's blog, I've Been Wrong Before. Richard is a long-time farmer and community rabble rouser, and I had the pleasure of working with him and his non-profit organization, cChaos, for several months setting up farmers' markets.

Enjoy!

Beyond Political Affiliation

You don’t have to belong to the Green Party to be a good citizen. Granted, one may find more “good, responsible citizens” in the way that I define them with Green affiliations, but it is certainly neither required nor even important. Responsible
citizenship is separate and different from politics and party platforms. Essentially, it is based on actions resulting from a personal belief system rather than words resulting from what one thinks people want to hear.

I, myself, belong to no party, and have beliefs that come from all political ideals. I don’t believe there is a list of things you must do to be a model ‘responsible citizen’, but I think there are some basic guidelines that can lead you to following a more responsible path. My list-in-progress, includes:

• Live free as long as your actions don’t take freedoms from or cause harm to another being
• Respect nature above all else
• Never doubt that the smallest of causes can lead to the greatest of effects
• Remember that ‘want’ and ‘need’ are two very different things – most people truly don’t understand what ‘need’ means

Just wait, I will become entertaining again ;) I just want to start with some basics.

Preamble: Citizenship

I will be blogging at length about what it means to be a good villager, a good citizen, and yes, for my purposes, I like to use the two terms to mean similar things. I wanted to begin with a few thoughts. First, what is a citizen?

Merriam-Webster defines a citizen as ‘a person owing allegiance to and entitled to the protection of a sovereign state’. It is implied that the citizen is a free one, and the power of the state is held by the people for the people.

So, a political term, and one that implies rights and freedoms. It is strictly a human-focused term, there is no concept of humans as part of a greater society or whole. There is also no concept of personal or community responsibility for other people, for the environment, and for the uncountable living beings that are not considered citizens, but who are as much affected by human action as we are.

As citizens, we elect representatives who act on our behalf and in our best interest. We have no responsibility other than to elect the representatives, pay taxes, and follow the rules set out for us. This is enough for many to grumble – the perceived lack of control in the affairs of state, that is - but essentially, the release from personal responsibility is, to most, well worth having to pay and obey.

I’d like to see citizenship in a different way. Aside from the forced participation in arbitrary political constructs, our first duties and affiliation should be with the greater environment in which we live – the one without artificial boundaries such as time and place and species. With this kind of affiliation, there are no elections – each citizen is captain of his or her own ship, and must make appropriate responsible decisions. There are no laws other than to do the right thing – meaning do no harm – to ensure the survival of the environment.

Stay tuned. There is much more to say. I am converting gradually over to my new blogspace:
http://thegoodvillager.wordpress.com

Where the bees are...

I was out walking today through downtown Oshawa. It is not the most encouraging of downtowns, but I will say that it is easy to nip off the down-and-out main streets onto lush pathways and follow the water. I was cutting through the library parking lot and over to one of these pathways and contemplating my not-employed state. I don't even have a volunteer project going on right now. Speaking to myself, I said, "I need to be spending more time with...," and before I could fill in the blank, my head turned to my left, and in the tiny purple flowers was a beautiful, solitary bumblebee. The pollen sacs on her legs were full to bursting with golden powder. I bent to admire and commune as she went about her important work of pollinating. We then went on our separate ways.

My camera was stolen a few months ago, and I miss being able to snap the wonders of the last two years of my nature adventure and learning experience. I have a camera coming to me soon thanks to some soon-to-expire Air Canada air miles, and I will be up and running again. The photo above is a memory from Chico, California. I'd visited the University of California farm and was helping out washing and sorting melons, and I took a few moments to try to capture the activities of a busy honeybee. I was rewarded with a bee bum.

City or country, our bees are still hard at work. Let's respect them by keeping their/our environment clean, and give them thanks and space when we see them.