Sleepy Bees

This is Bonnie blogging from Mary's phone.

The expression I am familiar with is "busy as a bee."

I learned a new expression this summer: "sleepy bee."

I didn't even know bees slept!

Did you?

PS: Guess who the bee whisperer is in the first photo.

Rebecca's photo challenge: Pacific Northwest Plant Knowledge Cards

This summer Rebecca brought the coolest deck of cards to the lake: Pacific Northwest Plant Knowledge Cards.  Each card names a plant with its English and Latin names as well as up to three indigenous languages where there is a name for that plant in the language.  It also has two descriptive sections -- one that describes the plant and one that describes uses for the plant.

Rebecca challenged her niblings to find a plant and take a selfie of themselves with the plant and the card. Axel wanted to participate and asked me for help finding cards in the deck that I thought he might be able to find.  I have been paying special attention the past few years at the lake to plants that can be eaten, or that have practical uses.  On top of that, I have many decades under my belt of Arta pointing out different plants as we walk back and forth to the beach or through the forest.  Axel and I made a good pair in the challenge.

Saskatoon Berry (beside road on way to beach)

Cottonwood (beside Dan Wood's cabin)

Strawberry (on ground beside road that passes Moiya and Wyona on way to Glen's)

Burdock (beside road on way to beach)

Thimbleberry (beside road on way to beach)

Fireweed (beside road on way to beach)

Yarrow (beside road on way to beach)

Plantain (on side of road that curves around Arta's)

Springbank Clover (on side of road that curves around Arta's)

Eidble Thistle (along stream by Arta's)

Oregon grape (beside road on way to beach)

Skunk Cabbage (in and beside stream by Arta's)

False Solomon's Seal (by stream by Arta's)

Snowberry (by stream by Arta's)

Pearly Everlasting (on path down to stream by Arta's)

Trailing Blackberry (at bottom of stairs from Arta's to road to beach)

Fall Fern (on path down to stream by Arta's)

Grand Fir (by stream by Arta's)

Plant Cards - Michael

The last morning before the kids left, having already heard how much money Alice and Betty made, Michael raced out to the woods to document his plant cards!  

Skunk Cabbage

Oregon Grape

Again!   can't tell which of the coniferous trees this is (card cut off), but he did have a match!

I think this is Wild Strawberries in this shot!

 

Snowberries!  These are somewhat toxic, so do not eat!

Blackberries?!   (There are no blackberry cards in the deck, but I did agree that on the last day, I would accept any plant based photo for the purposes of this challenge!)

And Thimbleberries for the win!

Filling and emptying containers

How to start this post.

Every year when I am at the lake, I try to find ways to contribute to the work of maintaining Doral and Anita's home on lot three and moving things out of the house that were Arta's. I think of it both as a responsibility and as a gift.

Last year I noticed that in the basement freezer room there are a lot of old jars of preserves, or home canned goods.I can remember looking to see if there was any raspberry jam or canned peaches. These are some of my favourite things in the world. Nope. Just some sort of plum preserve that was now black. I walked away.

This year I decided I could be the person to dispose of these jars. So the job was emptying the jars, finding a place to dispose of the organic material, cleaning and sorting the jars, and finally finding a new home for the jars -- for a future canning project.

As I gathered the jars, I laughed at what was left. Particularly this jar.

From past conversations with Arta, I know these were her two least favourite fruits. I don't have a lot of memories from growing up of having either saskatoons or rubarb around our house. And so as an adult, to me there were special and delicious. One summer I bought a strawberry rhubarb pie and some saskatoon jam at DeMills. When I got back to the house with them Arta looked at what I had bought with incredulity.  "Why would you pay for that?" she said. She then told me that she had eaten so much of those when she was young because those were things you could pick yourself. They were associated with being poor, and so had a certain stigma in her mind. Similar to how on the east coast, if you brought lobster sandwiches to school for lunch, it was a sign your father was a fisherman and poor.

So I know Arta did not make this jam, and did not eat it, but she never would have turned down a gift of this jam from someone.  She would have known, and appreciated the work that goes into making and canning your own perserves.  And what a gift it would be to give that away to someone you care about.

The bulk of the jars were filled with plum preserves. Looking at the dates on the jar, I am guessing they came from Moiya's plum tree that had to be taken down a few years ago. Pictured below are 3 jars. There were far more than 3 jars.

I also came across a box that had several jars labelled as apple butter. Those were also at least a decade old and needed to be disposed of.  They were not longer a beautiful apple-saucy colour, but rather were black, black. My quick search of "how long can you keep preserves" come us with 2-5 years for home preserved goods.

So once I had all the jars emptied into several 4 litre buckets... where to dispose of it? Not into the septic system, so I ventured out into the woods, far from the cabins to a spot to dump it. 

Then I found some more boxes of various empty glass jars, so I sorted them into jars to be recycled and those that could be used for canning. During my sorting I came across a famliar jar ring that I have not seen in ages - the very thick one.  And the jar had a glass lid, as opposed to the metal ones. Vintage indeed.

I took a photo, then thought I should stage the photo better. Ironic that there was a bowl of plums sitting nearby.

Arta's Report Cards

More on Arta's scrapbook.

Wyora had carefully glued Arta's elementary school report cards into her scrap book.  What a treat to read through them.  So interesting to look at the 'form' of the report cards, to see what the criteria were through which a child's educational progress was evaluated.   

For the elementary school report cards, there are three general criteria:  

• "Progress"
• "Attitude"
• "Conduct"

Of course they are helping kids learn to read and write, but it is so wild to me to try focusing on ATTITUDE (uh... the phrase 'you have a bad attitude' comes easily to my memory!) and CONDUCT rather than more specifically on the skills of reading and writing.

For the junior high school report cards, there are two general categories:

• "Scholarship"
• "Citizenship"

I find that very interesting!  What are the ways that schooling was explicitly designed to focus on the process of becoming 'a good citizen'?  I wonder if this focus was present before WWII, or if the experiences of the War had shifted the focus of what young people were expected to take away from the experience of education?

But.... back to Arta in particular, one of my favourite report cards comes in February of 1948 (see below).  Arta is in grade 2.  The teacher mostly praises Arta's work, but then adds to comments of note.  The first of these is that "when reading, Arta has a tendency "to overdramatize."  Huh?  That's not the Arta I remember!  :-).  The teacher adds, 

"Arta is developing a most irritating habit. She says "Pardon me?" each time I speak to her.  Then after a pause she answers correctly which shows that she heard and didn't need to have it repeated."  

Hahahaha.   Yes.... politely asking for clarification, when you likely already know the answer.  A most irritating habit!

Here are Arta's report cards for Grades 1, 2, and 3! (and then Grades 8 and 9)

Grade 1 

Grade 2

 

Grade 3

Grade 8 

Grade 9

While I think it is very interesting to have "citizenship" as a criteria, I do notice that the teachers did not seem to fill in the blanks there.  Their focus is on scholarship alone (when it comes to evaluation).  I guess I understand that.  I too wonder how exactly one evaluates criteria like "effort", "self-reliance" and more.