The Surreal Life, Country Edition – Or, how I learned to give up Lattes and love Durham
Last night I dropped in at our local grocery to grab a few groceries, and was almost run over by a chain smoking, wig wearing Ruth Gordon clone driving a mini van. This isn’t as unusual as it would seem, since the average age in my tiny little town seems to be about 101.
Seniors who can barely see over the steering wheel of their cadillacs regularly veer into traffic without signaling (or even noticing other drivers), and parking spaces are considered to be suggestions more than hard and fast rules. The busiest joint in Durham is the Legion (that’s Canada’s version of a VFW hall), and the crossing guard by the local school seems to escort more old guys in rascal scooters across the road than she does school children.
Drive through Durham, and your initial impression is of a typical small town in rural Ontario – not a lot of money, slightly down at the heels, and with a rapidly aging population. You need to look closer to see the changes that are taking place here.
Driving along the main roads and side-roads in Durham you’re struck by the cheerful cacophony of hand lettered signs for eggs and produce.
There is something else distinctive about this farming neighbourhood. You’ll notice that organic farmland is not manicured. You don’t see perfect rolling hills of green or gold, you see nature in its natural state. Wildflowers are abundant on an organic farm. The fields are white with Queen Ann’s Lace or covered in the purplish haze of wild alfalfa.
From ‘A Day in the Life of an Organic Meadow Farm‘
There’s a paradigm shift taking place in this tiny little town on the shores of the Saugeen River. We’re at the center of the organic farming boom, and this is bringing in an influx of forward thinking, new generation farmers, some of whom sport tattoos and multiple piercings. As one local resident is quoted saying “I wasn’t sure what to make of them at first, but they sure do seem to know their farming”.
They sure do know how to court controversy, too. There’s a local dairy farm where you can buy ‘shares’ in a cow, which entitles you to a share of raw, unpasteurized milk. Fans of raw milk say it tastes better and is healthier than pasteurized or processed milk, but selling it is illegal in Ontario, as local Durham organic dairy farmer Michael Schmidt found out in 2006.
Raw milk legalization bill defeated in December
Issues around raw milk gained a high profile late last year after a raid on the southwestern Ontario farm of Michael Schmidt.Schmidt, who runs a cow-sharing raw milk operation near Durham, Ont., had his equipment seized on Nov. 21 and was charged with operating a milk plant without a licence.
A number of prominent supporters including celebrity chef Jamie Kennedy and Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara spoke out on Schmidt’s behalf during his month-long hunger-strike protest.
From ‘Got raw milk? Don’t share, Ontario dairy board warns farmer‘, on cbc.ca
With the organic farmers and their families have come more interesting local businesses. Chicory Common sells organic produce and foods, as well as vegetarian options. Their cafe features vegan and fish based lunches, with dinner served on Friday nights. Poetry slams, lectures on greening your house, special orders from small micro cheeseries and farmers and speeches by Green politicians keep the cafe full five days a week.
Bike Face sells high end road, mountain and recumbent bikes, along with hand cycles. Bike Face sponsors the Rocky River Cycling Festival, with demos, triathlon workshops, film nights and camping. We see a ton of cyclists in this area in the summer, due to the abundance of accessible trails and roads with wide shoulders (originally there to accommodate Mennonite horse and buggies).
The same trails that bring in snowmobilers in the winter, draw mountain and cross country cyclists in the summer.
Our local art gallery is set at the end of a long, lovely suspension bridge that spans the Saugeen river. We wandered in last summer, expecting to see quilts and water colors of flowers. What we found was an exhibit of kinetic art, featuring ‘Science of the Quotidian’, an installation by Christopher Flowers, and the quirky and ground breaking film ‘The Way Things Go’, by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss.
No quilts in sight, and the only water colors were a selection of prints from the local artists commune/collective, located just behind the gallery in an old converted grain mill.
Durham might not have a movie theatre, but we do have the Symphony Barn, complete with cattle, birds and an assortment of cats. It’s one of the venues of the ‘Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film‘, our local film festival. The films range from independent to animation, and are shown outdoors, in the barn or at our local retro drive-in.
Durham also has the ‘Words Aloud‘ festival of spoken word and storytelling. With entries open to almost anyone willing to step up to the mike, there’s a lively mix of poetry slams, verbal histories and folk lore, with some political action thrown in for good measure.
Against all of this — this mix of new tribe organic pioneers, displaced Torontonian artists and professors, and an aging population of middle class, blue collar workers, we sit on the edges of the largest concentration of Old Order Mennonites in Canada.
Our store parking lots have shelters for horses and buggies, and we share our sidewalks with Old Order women in ankle length dresses and velcro closing tennis shoes.
It’s a rich and fertile mix that encourages and nurtures iconoclastic personalities. What better place for a post punk geek grrl dog breeder to put down roots?
Thursday Thirteen – Top 13 Names I'll Probably Never Give My Dogs
Barb and I, while happily partnered as breeders for a good long while now (longer than either of us probably would like to admit), do tend to disagree on several topics, not the least of which is the naming of animals. Barb likes snappy patter, names with a sense of humor and preferably a play on words. To wit, her first dog from me was registered as Bullmarket A&As Stripe Ts (get it? Stripe Ts, Strip Tease?). There’s also Elliott, registered as Absolut Bullmarket SeeSpotRun (I can’t wait to register one of his kids as “See Spot’s Son”).
I, on the other hand, am a big fan of theme litters — that’s where each puppy in a litter gets a name that’s a play on the same theme. It lets absent minded people like me instantly remember which litter is which just based on each name, plus I like the fun of picking out names that are all part of the same over all idea.
For example, Sailor’s dad was El Torro’s Roch Voisine, so each of her eight siblings has a name playing on the ‘Roch’ theme – Roch the Boat, Roch E Mountains, Roch Lobster, etc.
I’ve also done ice creams, jazz musicians, herbs and Christmas related names.
There are a few themes, however, that I’m pretty sure Barb would put her foot down on, rather firmly. Herewith, my top thirteen list of theme named litters Barb would pitch a hissy fit over. In other words, don’t expect to see these on registration papers any time soon.
1. Hardcore Band Names
Personally, I think a puppy named Absolut Bullmarket Social Distortion would be pretty darned cute, but I’m guessing this is never going to happen. Maybe I can sneak in Husker Du, or Pixie(s) (of course, the jury is out on if they really qualify as ‘hard core’ but that’s splitting hairs).
2. Indie Movie Titles
Come on, admit it — Donnie Darko would make a great Frenchie name, and I could get him a little stuffed Frank the bunny toy to play with. I can even get him a ‘sparkle motion’ t-shirt. For a girl? Little Miss Sunshine. I could always push the boundary, and call one of them ‘Reservoir Dog’.
3. Bars I Got Drunk at in My Twenties
Well, it doesn’t have quite the cachet of a dog named “Duc D’Deluxe Monsignor Elegance”, but in my opinion ‘Bullmarket Absolut Vatikan‘ or Velvet Underground still have something of a ring to them. Probably not so much ‘Bullmarket Absolut Bovine Club‘, no matter how many celebrities have gotten plastered there over the years.
In yet another nostalgic look back at the past, I’ve contemplated naming an entire litter after Urban Decay eye shadow colors, since I spent close to half my available income in my twenties snapping up every color they make. Lots of possibilities, too – ‘Acid Rain’, ‘Grifter’ or ‘Midnight Cowboy’ all have nice, show ring-esque rings to them.
5. Vodka Flavours
I’m not a vodka drinker, but the sheer amounts of vodka flavours out there are staggering. As a bonus plus, most of the flavored Vodkas are from Absolut! Bonus! Absolut Raspberri or Absolut Kurant Vodka seem custom made, or we could go with Effen Black Cherry Vodka. Or maybe not – I’m picturing trademark lawyers getting in on this…
6. Dead Poets Society
A litter of puppies, all named after dead poets! How romantic! How not so very cheerful. Sylvia Plath doesn’t inspire images of playful puppy antics, and I’m not sure I’d trust ‘Absolut Bullmarket Lord Byron‘ alone with the other puppies. Of either sex.
7. Dead Painters Society
I think I might well be able to slide this one past Barb, but only if I skip naming one ‘Van Gogh’. No one needs a Frenchie named after a one eared painter – that’s just inviting too much bad karma…
8. North America’s Worst Neighbourhoods
Again, this one would be kinda funny – Absolut Bullmarket Parkdale? Absolut Bullmarket Cabrini Green? No? Fine, be that way.
9. South Park Characters
On the one hand, this seems like a great idea, because South Park is one of my favorite shows (shut up, I know). Kyle and Kenny are perfectly fine names, and even Cartman isn’t that bad, especially if the puppy is both a miscreant and portly.
On the other hand, Cartman regularly dresses as Hitler, and I’m not sure the world is ready for a puppy named after Christmas poo, no matter how cute Absolut Bullmarket Mr Hanky would look on the registration papers.
10. Programming Languages
I happen to think there are some really cool opportunities for names within the world of programming languages. In fact, I already named a puppy ‘Perl’, which likely says more about me than even my fondness for South Park does. I remain, however, fairly convinced that not only would Barb object to a puppy named Bullmarket Absolut COBOL (let alone Fortran), but that I’d be reducing the dog to a life of getting slapped around at doggy day care. I am going to slip ‘Bullmarket Ruby on Rails‘ in there eventually, though. It’s just too good to resist.
11. Operating Systems
See above, with a side note that while Bullmarket Absolut Linux or Leopard would be adorable, I’d expect Vista to be clunky, unstable, an overeater and prone to crashing. Heh.
12. British Comedy Series
I fail to see how anyone could resist naming a puppy Absolut Bullmarket Monty Python, although even I draw the line at naming one Benny Hill.
Dave Allen would be awesome, though, but then you’d have to worry about the puppy losing a finger toe.
13. Rappers
My son would be in favor of this one – in fact, I’m pretty sure he’s suggested it once or twice. While I can see the lure of naming a puppy “Lil’ Bow Wow“, I’m afraid that the world is just not ready for Bullmarket Absolut Fiddy Cent to win at Westminster. Bullmarket Absolut P Diddy might do OK, but he’d want to change the name on his registration papers every other damn week.
(BTW, this post was inspired by Barb’s recent unhappiness at learning Dexter’s registered name is ‘Bullmarket Absolut Darkly Dexter‘. Apparently, there’s an unspoken rule that one just doesn’t name ones puppies after serial killers, even fictional one. My explanation that the name fits because Dexter the puppy means to be good, but just can’t help occasionally being bad, didn’t really cut it)
Satanic Cat iz in Ur Cupboard, Stealing Ur Soul
I’ve had cats most of my life, but I’ve oddly never been a real ‘cat’ person.
My breeds have usually been those that more closely mimic canine behaviour – your affectionate Maine Coons and Ragdolls appeal to me more than aloof Siamese Shorthairs (my daughter’s old cat Geordie was a Shorthair, and loved Nicole but barely tolerated anyone else in the house).
Now it seems I have good reason for avoiding those furry little cheezburger eaters – Feline Rage Syndrome! Aigghh! Run for your lives — it’s the angry kitties! Big news over on Discovery, where they’ve revealed that ‘Feline Rage Mimics Human Anger’.
Apparently, this means that cats hate slow left lane drivers even more than I do, and since cats are armed with those nifty retractable claws, we’d best take their tantrums seriously.
From the article —
Feline defensive rage, the aggressive cat behavior that recently led to the death of a California zoo visitor by a tiger that felt threatened, is comparable to human rage, both in the way that it emerges and unleashes in the brain, suggests a new study.
Well, yeah – it didn’t help that the moron (may he rest in peace, etc) was apparently drunk and taunting the tiger. On the plus side, we’ve got our Darwin Award winner lined up already.
For cats, such a drug could prevent the hissing, back arching, ear retraction, claw extensions and fur standing-on-end that are typical indicators of feline defensive rage. In humans, related anger reveals itself with road rage, an impulsive form of anger that involves little or no thought.
Erm, is a cat still a cat if it never hisses or fluffs up to double its size? And what will legions of Halloween graphic designers do without arched back cats to rely on?
“In road rage, the person never thinks about what he is doing but just acts in the way he does because he feels that he has been threatened by someone else and the impulsive behavior represents a way by which he can protect himself from such a threat,” co-author Allan Siegel told Discovery News.
“In reality, his actions are usually much more dangerous to him than to the person whom he perceived cut him off on the road,” added Siegel, a professor in the Department of Neurology & Neurosciences at New Jersey Medical School in Newark.
It’s a good thing cats can’t drive, then, especially cats who live in Los Angeles.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Of course, if you really need proof that cats iz crazy, look no further than the nuttiest cat of them all, Tom Cat – and we’ve got the video to prove it. Gosh, if anything could make you into a dog person….