Pollenatrix

I'm counting the bottles

New Year's Eve in Munich. We had planned to join friends for dinner and a viewing of fireworks, but a persistent flu bug has decided otherwise for us both. It'll be a quiet evening.

We did, however, force ourselves to make an expedition early this afternoon. We had heard that stores close up tight all over the city on New Year's Day, and since stores are closed on Sunday anyway, that would be an entire weekend without access to shops. Our tiny little fridge demands that food shopping be an almost daily affair, and we were running a bit low on supplies. So, we used the bicycle cart to haul crates of empties left over from pre-Christmas festivities back to the refreshments store, and took some time selecting, buying, and packing up the cart with replacements. By the time we left there to walk to the grocery store around the corner, it was 1:05PM.

The grocery store was locked. People were still inside, but a sign on the door said it closed at 1PM. Sharp.

We wandered a bit, coughing and dragging our flu-bitten butts miserably, but there was no sign of life in any of the other stores in the neighbourhood. On the way home we took a mental inventory of our larder, and decided that we could survive on beans and rice for the weekend. I was a bit distressed that we were out of black tea, but comforted myself with a glance at the load of beer in the back of the cart. I'll manage without that small hit of morning caffeine, somehow.

This total absence of mercantile activity on weekends and holidays is a bit of a shock for us North Americans accustomed to a culture of 24-hour convenience. It took a long time to get used to grocery stores that are smaller than most corner stores back home, but this is a real challenge. We remembered ruefully that even a country town like Collingwood, Ontario (where Laird's sister lives) has a 24 hour grocery store, and then immediately put the comparison out of our minds. We're in Europe now, and things are different here. People believe that personal time off takes priority over spending money, and maybe that's not such a bad thing. It just makes for a couple of a lean weekends on the learning curve.

Have an Apple

One more reason why I'm proud to own and use a Mac.

Have a look at the Apple home page.

Laird gave me his tangerine iMac a couple of years ago, after my PC broke down. I'd used windows-based PC's from the start, and didn't understand what the big deal was about MacIntosh computers. Now that I own one (I've graduated to Laird's old PowerBook G4), I do... I can't imagine how I ever put up with a Windows-based computer for all those years. Apple is first class all the way.

And so is the company. Good on ya.

P.S.  If you're hesitating to make the switch... DON'T. You won't regret it.

Humbling...

This very interesting article talks about the immense power of the earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was just a firecracker in comparison.

The emotional aftershocks continue. Here in Germany, flags are flying at half mast as families wait for news of over 1,000 missing nationals. Thailand is a very popular vacation destination for Germans, particularly the area hit hardest by the tsunami. One of Laird's colleagues was supposed to be there for a scuba diving trip over the holidays, but the trip was cancelled at the last minute.

"We are dwarfed by the power of the planet that holds us."

Citizen science for vegetables

For those of you lucky enough to have a vegetable patch, the seed catalogue season is about to begin!

But first, check out this very cool site: Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners.

It's described as a "Citizen Science Program from Cornell University's department of horticulture", and the concept is neat.

Gardeners visit this site and report what varieties perform well - and not so well - in their gardens. Other gardeners visit to view the variety ratings and read the reviews to decide which might work well for them.

... Asking gardeners to partner with researchers by collecting and sharing their own observations via the web could prove to be a winning combination for all.

...Research on the performance of vegetable varieties is often limited to commercial production for many reasons. Home gardens may be overlooked, in part, because visiting thousands of home gardens to collect data would be an overwhelming task.

Talking about critters...

I've been reminded of my raccoon wars back in Toronto twice in one week. It must be a sign... I've been meaning to move those posts over from my old blog at Blogspot, into their very own little category here on Typepad. Maybe it's time to do something about it.

Anyway, this amusing (but too true) editorial piece out of Brampton, Ontario (a very ugly suburb of Toronto) gave me a chuckle... suburbanized "wild"life at their finest. Creatures are so shy here in Munich. There is no hope of offering a peanut to the skittish red squirrel in the back lane; I'm lucky if he lets me have a two-second peak at his bozo-the-clown red fur and the adorable tufts on his ears before he squeaks in panic and disappears.

Ursula tells me there are hedgehogs in the garden. They're hibernating now, but I'll be on the lookout when spring rolls around...

Sixth sense?

22,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka by the tsunami, but officials there are puzzled. Despite the fact that wildlife reserves were hit by the killer wave, not one dead body of a wild animal has yet been found.

Did they sense the danger and move to higher ground?

Floral fuss

Wow. Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Florida is back in doo-doo and making the headlines again. Last year, they were at the centre of an "orchid smuggling scandal", which is the classic media description for what was simply a very unseemly race to name a fantastic new orchid discovery. The other guys lost the battle, but played rough and won the war.

Now Selby is being sued by a major donor who's mad that...

"...garden officials haven't built an archway naming a new wedding chapel after him and his wife. The botanical gardens has also failed to refer to the "Schimmel Wedding Lawn" in brochures or on the Garden's Web site."

A wedding chapel? A wedding lawn? This is a joke, right? I was under the impression that botanical gardens are intended for things like, oh, botanical research and education. At Selby, that apparently includes bending conservation treaty rules as well as the serious work of helping brides decide what type of flora will best match ugly bridesmaid dresses.

Tsunami Disaster

Hard to look at this without wanting to cry:

Lonely Planet Online - Missing Persons.

Agribusiness conquers Iraqi Farmers

As though the situation isn't already bad enough for Iraqis, American business interests have declared war on farmers there with new laws that will prohibit Iraqi farmers from saving their own crop seeds. The laws go further than anywhere else in the world; farmers will be forced to buy or pay fees to use the seed of any variety of plant hybrid that a breeder claims as his own, not just "patented" varieties.

The ramifications are ominous. Currently, 97% of Iraqi farmers grow from seed they have saved from the previous year's harvest.

"When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) - is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations."

"Bremer's order makes it especially hard to work as a farmer in Iraq, and makes a convenient incentive for Iraqi farmers to sell their farms to American interests."

The spin is in some cases, quite disturbing, portraying the delivery of tons of seed to Iraqui farmers by the American military as an exercise in humanitarianism. The picture it paints instead is of an unequal battle on a new front, one conceived and funded by U.S. corporations from their comfortable offices and carried out by naive soldiers against unsuspecting citizens. Oh wait... isn't that the whole story of this war? It's very sad.

U.S. soldiers helped deliver 156 tons of wheat seeds on Oct 19 to a central distribution point for farmers near Taji, Iraq. This was the beginning phase of Operation Amber Waves, conducted by the Arkansas Army National Guard's 39th Brigade Combat Team, attached to the 1st Cavalry Division.

Farmers collecting their seeds did indeed seem happy as they waited their turn to load 110-pound bags onto their vehicles.

"We really appreciate this wonderful gift from U.S. soldiers," said one excited farmer who went on to note that receiving the seeds during the time of Ramadan made it especially thoughtful."

Poor, poor buggers. They have no idea that they'll be paying for this gift for the rest of their lives.

Many Americans are enraged. Protests are arising in the most surprising places, like this one published in The Daily Texan:

"This decision to place the interests of a powerful American industry above the basic necessities of Iraqis illustrates why so many Iraqis are so desperate to kick the American invaders out of the country and why it is vital for all Iraqis they succeed."

More:

National Public Radio (NPR) report

Grain.org: A declaration of war against Iraqi farmers

Fun with the new camera

My gorgeous man gave me a Nikon D70 digital camera with a big fat macro lens for Christmas. There are no more blurry flowers in my future... thanks honey!