and two.

Two.

OOB

Old Orchard Beach (avec les Quebecois)

Doubly Exposed (again)

Montreal meets North Conway, on the day the haying was done.

Lake Fraser

Radiant Mama

Club Social, St. V

Fowl en liberte

Sherbrooke Ouest

"I'll get back to you"

"Hey can you buy me a beer?" Asked Dave. "I got the money." He was sitting on a park bench by the bus stop looking scruffy, tired, hopeful. "I've had a bad day, I fell down a lot. Come on."

I'd been taking pictures, so I was moving slowly. I stopped. He was missing a leg.
"You want a beer?"
"You bet. Blue Dry 7.1. Boy I'm tired."
"Can I take your picture?" I asked.
"Whatt're you going to use it for?" Dave looked suspicious, but not for long.
"Nothing much."
"I'm gonna be famous!" He gave a big grin, showing off a lot of gum, not many teeth.

My cousin stopped taking pictures of shadows and lamp posts and came over.



"What's your name?" She asked Dave. He looked at her.
"I'll get back to you," he said.
He fished two twoonies from his fanny pack, and handed them to me. "You can throw in the extra dollar fifty?" he asked, winking. What could I say, I was charmed.
"Sure."
"Hey, remember 7.1. Don't take off with my money." He turned to my cousin. "Is she going to take off with my money?"

I went across the street for the huge bottle of Labatt Blue. When I got back, he opened the bottle and sucked on it happily. "Now I can be a drunk with style," he said. "Hey what are your names?"
"I'm Sarah."
"What?"
"Sarah."
"Who?"
"My name is Sarah." He still didn't get it. I tried another tactic.
"Tina. My name is Tina," I said.
"Oh Tina!" He smiled. "Nice to meet you."


Sherbrooke Ouest

Point St. Charles

Bedbugs. An international dilemma.

Bedbugs only happen to someone else, until they happen to you.

Or almost you. My friends and their dog came to visit, and stayed with my sis because of her big back yard. Day one, they went out for a walk and came back with the most beautifully upholstered dining room chairs, circa 1970 or something, with silver lame and thick wooden legs.

They were perfect.

Then the dog started itching fleas, or so we thought. My friends blamed the apartment, my sis blamed the dog. Friends left and Katie read about bedbugs in the Montreal Mirror. For instance, bedbugs bite in threes. Bedbugs travel. They come in on shoelaces, in suitcases, on furniture left at the curb.

Bedbugs are rampant. According to the National Pest Management Association, there was a 71 per cent increase in bed bug related calls in the United States from 2000 to 2005. There are even lawyers who specialize in bed bug litigation. The resurgence is blamed on the increase of human travel and the resistance of this new breed of bugs to traditional eradication techniques. Plus, DDT, a chemical they used to spray in homes, is now illegal.

Katie hired the exterminator from the Montreal Mirror. She turned out to be a real bitch. "She was just like the vermin that she killed," my sister said. "She acted like our apartment was disgusting. The whole experience was really unpleasant."

I don't know how anything about bedbugs could be pleasant. First you get bitten, and then you get fumigated. Eggs can be anywhere, so you must freeze anything you sweep off the floor until the minute you can get it out to the garbage truck. Bedbugs can live up to a year without feeding, so follow up applications are crucial. Plus the whole extermination comes at a price: $275 for a two bedroom apartment.

The pretty dining room chairs got put out on the curb with a warning sign.
"Bed Bugs. Do not take."
"Those chairs were gone in a minute," Katie said. And so the cycle continues.

The unpleasant woman herself
CTV: Canada has 'em too

It's a Huttopia, obviously

Ever seen one of these?
Until last week, when we pulled into our modest camp site with our $50 tent from Canadian Tire, I hadn't either. This was in Oka National Park, part of Quebec's celebrated Sepaq system. The air was fresh and it wasn't, by the grace of God, raining. But what the hell was that?
Four tan, A frame houses sat on fresh gravel across the road. At night they lit up like ski chalets. After inspecting our complimentary brochure, we learned that they were Huttopias--or tent alternatives--and brand new to the park this year.

Only $99 a nite

Soaked after day two, I returned to the city and did some research. Huttopia, a concept started in France, is a simple conjunction of two words: Hut + Utopia. Apparently, despite it's much higher price tag (the cost for our not-so-rainproof accommodations was $65 for two nights), they have caught on big time in Quebec. What with running water inside, a fridge, two separate bedrooms and a large common space, it's sort of like being at home.



Only nicer.

Huttopia Home

Gazette: The Cure For Tent-ative Campers

Radio I've been up to

To listen, click:
CKUT programming and archives
On the pull down menu above the program schedule,
Find either:
Off the Hour Tuesday, July 29th. For an interview with activist Tamara K. Nopper.
Or
The Monday Morning After, August 4th. For words from Algonguin artist, Nadia Myre.

Let me know what you think.

At Oka with Maia

Quand il faisait beau

On the way to the birth center, Cote-des-Neiges

What the F is Wild Parsnip? And why you should care.

My friends have a farm, La Ferme Tourne-Sol, off the island of Montreal in the small town of Les Cedres, Quebec.

It was one of those blustery, partly sunny afternoons where you get awfully hot and sunbaked without noticing until you drink one beer at five pm, sitting at the washing station over endless bins of zucchini and immediately feel wasted.

But it started with garlic. "I know you've harvested garlic before," said Dan. "But you haven't harvest it here." He holds up an elegant, well formed stalk and says "Rule one, don't smack the garlic on your shoe. I hate it when people do that. Just scrape the dirt off the roots gently with your hands, like this."


Dan

There are five people who run this farm cooperatively. Dan is in charge of garlic. Emily is in charge of herbs. Fred is in charge of tomatoes. Reid and Renee do roofing (well, just on this specific day). They are so specialized and run the farm so efficiently, that Emily say, hardly ever visits the zucchini patch, doesn't know what size they are, when they should be harvested. Likewise for the others and herbs. it works like that.


Emily

Anyway, back to the garlic. Dan loosens the earth around the garlic with a large pitchfork, and Emily and I come behind him, pulling it out and --gently-- pulling the dirt off the roots. Then we lay it either pointing to the left, or pointing to the right, depending on variety.

"Uh, oh, look out for that," says Emily, pointing to an innocuous looking weed next to a garlic frond. "Dan, keep away from that."
"What is it?" I ask.
"Wild parsnip, it can burn your skin. Especially if your skin is hot and sweaty. Dan's really allergic."

Let me tell you one thing about Dan. He's allergic to everything. All nuts. Peas. The house can't even house peanuts in its cupboards, or he'll die. So, I thought. Wild Parsnip. Who cares?

We kept on harvesting.

Two days later, lying in bed, my knee felt like I fell off a bicycle onto it, only I didn't remember doing that. I got up and looked in horror at an ugly, red blistering patch of something growing on my skin.

Imagine getting a bad case of poison ivy. It's like that. I did some research and found out that Wild Parsnip causes Photodermatitis, or an allergic reaction to the sun. They advise you to go indoors for 6-8 hours after coming into contact with the plant. I guess next time I'm on the farm I'll just sit inside and watch TV.



Wild Parsnip, what you should know--and more

La Ferme Tourne-Sol website

Is this your summer?

Photo by Marc Brunelle

It seems to be mine.
Val David, Quebec.