Chicken Update

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my desire to have a few chickens in my back yard. The other day, I received a letter from the Mayor of Whitehorse responding to my note to her asking if the city would be willing to review the animal bylaw. Here is the meat of what she wrote:

Thank you for your email dated September 11, 2008 regarding your request to re-visit the Animal Control Bylaw, in particular the allowing of chickens in non-country zoned residential areas. The idea of decreasing our carbon footprint is one that the City of Whitehorse fully supports and has implemented strategically within our Planning and Development Department.

In the past Council has looked into this issue of allowing chickens in residential areas and the conclusion was that chickens in these areas could cause noise/odour nuisances and health risks to those living within these parameters as residents are living in closer quarters. Council has ensured that agricultural use is provided for and permitted in the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw.

Our research into the matter of other cities allowing chickens in their residential areas has proven to be insightful. The following cities do not allow chickens (poultry/birds) or have very strict large land size allotments, 10,000 square meters or more:

Nelson, BC
Vancouver, BC
Niagara Falls, On
South Portland, OH
Most of BC, provincial legislation
Sacramento, CA
London, ON
Toronto, ON
Portland, OH
Washington, DC

There are considerable health risk issues in raising poultry, especially in closer quarters, of which many of these avian diseases can be transmitted to humans through ingestion of food contaminated by fecal matter. Some of these diseases can become water-borne or can cause eggs to become contaminated with Salmonellosis, Colibacillosis (E. Coli), Chlamydoisis, Encephalitis, Avian Tuberculosis, Histoplasmosis and Cryptococcosis are just a few of the many poultry diseases associated with close quarters/bird handling and all of them are transferable to humans.

To rebut a couple of her points, the avian flu that hit the Lower Mainland some time back was in two large commercial operations. No diseased birds were found on small holdings. It’s in the large operations where birds are crowded together to the point where they can hardly move. That certainly wouldn’t be the case in any small backyard operation, where there would only be a few (no more than six) birds.

As for the noise/odour issue, I would suggest barking dogs or cats in heat cause a heck of a bigger racket than a few chickens scratching for food in the backyard. And having grown up on a farm where we always had chickens (and a lot more than six), I have never found the smell of chicken manure very strong; certainly no stronger than that of a dog’s. Not only that, but it composts quickly, leaving the soil much better for it.

So now I must decide if I’m going to pursue this further. I would be willing to sit on some kind of a working committee to try to find solutions to the city’s concerns, but I don’t get the sense that they’re interested in even going that far. If there is anyone out there reading this who is interested in working with me on this issue, please let me know.  

As Expected

Pre-dawn this morning. Checking back in my records, last year’s first snowfall was on September 25th. So this year we were given four day’s grace.

Planning Ahead to Stave Off Insanity

Joe, Jamie and I are talking about taking a winter holiday in 2009. This is something we typically don’t do. With five in our family, going from snow to sun and sand is not something we’ve been able to afford. But last winter, during that horrible cold snap that went on for weeks, we decided if we didn’t get away we were going to go stark raving mad (or at least I was). Just then though, the cold broke, spring showed up, and we didn’t feel the need to go anymore.

However by all accounts, this coming winter is going to be another cold one. And the thought of having to endure a repeat of early 2008, after being pretty much robbed of any kind of a summer here in the Yukon, just about sets off a panic attack in me. As well, we are down to three in the house, so it’s actually in the realm of possibility that we could swing this.

So, I’m looking for suggestions. I’m not much for sitting on the beach day in and day out, although I could handle a bit of that. Really, I’m just looking for a spot that’s relatively inexpensive to get to and where we can relax with a good book, enjoy some delicious food and forget the meaning of the word parka.

Quick! Grab me a Towel!

My poor garden. Naked and as embarrassed about its nakedness as a pubescent girl caught running from shower to bedroom without a towel. I tried to tell it that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, and I gave it another coat of manure today to make it feel less exposed, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. I think now only a robe of white snow will provide comfort, and that will be here soon enough.

I must say I find it rather depressing having to shop for produce again. The farmer’s market is shut down for the season so finding locally grown goods has once again become a treasure hunt. Today I had to accept the inevitable and purchase some veggies and fruit that had come from B.C. That was balanced though with some fresh eggs that I got from a co-worker who has laying hens and some potatoes from a Whitehorse area farm. Dinner tonight was devilled eggs, red B.C. cabbage with apples, caribou, bread from the local bakery, and home made pickles. And for dessert, some Coronation grapes from the Okanagan.  

Yes, I am pining for my garden.

Always Learning

Have you ever gone a day without learning something new? I don’t think I have. My daily dose of “I didn’t know that!” might not be earth shattering, but it keeps my brain entertained. Take today for instance. I learned:

-that tahini is an antidepressant. Apparently there’s some element in tahini that is also found in Prozak and similar medications.

-that asperagus will grow in the Yukon IF it’s planted in a well-protected spot. Who knew?

-that by law, everyone in Vermont must take at least one bath a week.

-that Coca Cola was originally green.

-and that the first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum.

What did you learn today?

Six Degrees

I have been reflecting on Duncan J. Watt’s book “Six Degrees” lately. I actually haven’t read the book but I understand the concept: that we are only six ‘degrees’ or connections from any other person on this planet. I’ve been thinking about this because of a series of serendipitous events that I played a role in.

1. A fellow Yukon blogger (whom I won’t identify because I haven’t asked her permission to do so) and I met through Urban Yukon several months ago and started writing back and forth. We even met for coffee one morning. Recently I wrote a post about my brother Roy, who is a musician. I added a link to his web site and samples of his work, which this fellow blogger checked out.

It was then that she realized she knew Roy. Her mother had given her one of Roy’s CDs. Apparently her mom had been good friends with Roy’s wife Susan. As a child, this blogger visited Susan, Roy and their two boys at their home in Toronto. When this blogger was getting ready to move to the Yukon, she was given an email address (a friend of a friend kind of thing) which turned out to be my husband’s address. For some reason this blogger and my husband never connected, but lo and behold, a few year’s later, she and I found one another. Isn’t that bizarre? Now I almost feel that we’re relatives in a strange way.

2. I recently attended a work-related meeting in Fredericton and one evening, all the delegates had dinner together. I sat beside a woman from Regina, and we started talking about travel. She was getting ready to take a trip to Scotland. I told her that if there was one place she must see, it was the Orkneys. She got very excited, saying that indeed WAS the one place she wanted to see because her relatives came from there.

I started telling her how astonished I had been when I noticed the very same bead-work patterns on the slippers from Old Crow and and those in a museum I visited in Stromness. She was fascinated to learn about how this could be. I explained that whalers from the Orkneys travelled to the Northern Yukon, intermarried, and, in many cases, took their wives back to Scotland.

Then I asked, “What is your last name?” Well, it turns out it is Linklater, which is a prominent family name in Old Crow. In fact the chief of the First Nation is a Linklater. Now this woman was beside herself with excitement. It wouldn’t surprise me if she comes to the Yukon some day to try to find some of her relatives. Fascinating, no?

Waiting for the Bus

I’m feeling restless. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s the passing of the seasons and the knowing that winter is not far off. Maybe it’s more than that. I’m sensing that change is afoot, but I don’t know what that change is, or when it will come, or why, or how or if I’m going to like it. But I’m a naturally impatient person so regardless of the outcome, the waiting is driving me crazy.

It’s the same feeling I get sometimes when I’m catching the bus to work in winter. I’m cold, the bus is late and I’m getting very antsy. I may not necessarily want to go to work that bitterly cold day, preferring instead to stay home close to the wood stove. But since I’m already dressed and out the door, then the bus shouldn’t keep me waiting! Where is the damned thing, anyway?

Suffonsified vs Suffulsified

I got an interesting email today from my friend Ted back east. He had read my last blog posting and commented that the phrase I had used, sufficiently suffulsified, should actually be sufficiently suffonsified. I was curious, since I’d never heard suffonsified before. Neither word is in the dictionary, so that didn’t help me much. Since Ted is a bit of a word wizard, I deferred to him and changed my posting.

But then he did some internet trolling of his own, and came up with this, which I find a fascinating bit of history. Seems we were both right.

[Q] From Ruth Gaeta: “I hope you can run down an elusive phrase, part of which I can’t spell. It’s from Virginia-North Carolina, an older generation, (maybe a hundred years back) and probably from the Appalachians. Three different older friends remember their grandmothers using it. It means ‘I’m full’ or ‘I’ve had plenty to eat’. Phonetically: ‘My sufficiency is serrancified’.

[A] You’ve led me a merry dance with this one. I can’t find that exact word, but there are a number of close relatives around, which some American Dialect Society members have helped me tease out.The phrase seems to be a variation on a polite rejoinder that was once quite widely known and is still around. A host might ask if you have had enough to eat. Rather than just say that you had had enough, being fearful that so bald a statement might be taken as unrefined or ill-bred, you might instead say, “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency”. This presumably has its origin in some catch phrase old enough that it has had time to disseminate widely, since I’ve seen examples from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, and the USA. A possible source is a poem called Spring by James Thomson, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, very widely quoted during that century and the following one:

An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven;
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love.

Paul McFedries, who runs the wordSpy mailing list, wrote to say, “My grandmother-in-law (born and raised in Southern Ontario) often says ‘my sufficiency is suffonsified’ “. He found an example of this spelling online: “My sufficiency is suffonsified; any more would be double superfluency”. He also turned up some variations, such as: “After a fine meal was served and eaten, she would sit back in her chair and say ‘My sufficiency is suffancified’ “, as well as the hugely elaborated “All of my sufficiencies have been suffulsified and any further indulgence on my part may well prove to be super sanctimonious”.

All the examples I’ve quoted seem to be jocular elaborations of satisfied, perhaps as subscriber G. H. Gordon Paterson suggested, a punning blend of sufficient and fancified, but nothing I’ve turned up shows how that word became so baroquely decorated in parts of North America. I suspect that it is from the same grandiloquent and  flamboyant fashion that gave us words like absquatulate, but tying down its early history is hard, as it appears in no dictionary I can trace.

 

 

 

 

My Week-end

Sufficiently suffonsified after a bowl of Joe’s moose stew (with a puffed pastry topping no less!) I am sitting here happily reviewing in my mind the past two days in Vancouver. I wanted to visit a couple of the local fish hatcheries/fishladders to see their interpretive material, hoping to glean ideas for the Whitehorse fishladder, so off Lucca and I went in the rain and mist to the North Shore, she the chauffeur and I the somewhat bumbling navigator (anyone who knows me well understands my sense of direction leaves a lot to be desired!). However we only had one or two false starts before making it to our destinations. I was mildly disappointed in the displays at the fish hatcheries, but it was glorious to be up in the mountains. So magical. Unfortunately the photos below don’t do it justice.

Our visits were punctuated pre-, post-, and at ‘half time’ with some great meals. I don’t think I know too many people who love food as much as I do. It’s a wonder I don’t weigh 200 pounds! Suffice to say I’ve had a great week-end. Thank you Lucca!

 

My People

I had forgotten what a beautiful city Fredericton is, with its stately Loyalist homes and with the Saint John River running through its heart. And while this isn’t ‘home’, it certainly feels like I’m back with ‘my people’. I bask in the familiar accents, the world famous friendliness and the quirky humour. Yes I love Whitehorse, but the East Coast is where my heart is and I hope that some day I will have a chance to live here again.