It is a beautiful autumn weekend in Niagara and we spent some time out working in the garden yesterday. This time of year means there is a lot of clean-up to do, but we also got one final harvest — we dug up two big buckets of potatoes! (If anyone wants any just let me know…seriously)

We decided to make potato soup today. We wanted a basic, classic potato soup. We looked online and in cook books for a recipe that we liked, but most were a bit too tarted up — rice in potato soup? I don’t think so! We came up with the following recipe and were quite pleased with how it turned out.

-6 medium potatoes, peeled & chopped
-1/3 c. onion, chopped
-1 clove of garlic, chopped
-1 900ml container of veggie stock
-1 Tbsp. cooking oil
-2/3 c. milk
-1 Tbsp. butter
-1 Tbsp. flour

Saute onions in oil until translucent. Add in potato and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes and then add veggie stock. Cover and let simmer until potatoes are soft.

In a separate pot melt butter and add in flour. Use a whisk to smooth out the lumps. Take 1 c. of the veggie stock from the pot of simmering potatoes and add to the butter/flour mixture. Stir until thickened.

Add flour/butter mixture to the pot with potatoes. Blend soup until smooth with an immersion blender. Blend in milk. Serve with grated cheese and (meatless) bacon bits.

Looks like St. Catharines is about to lose a set of bike lanes because the lanes are being blamed for causing heavy traffic jams. The message here? It is ok if cyclists and others going car-free are inconvenienced, let’s just not upset those in cars.

Sigh…

[Update: the weekend paper had more on this issue.]

The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) has just released an app for iPhones and iPods. I have been watching all my old favourites.

This one never fails to crack me up – if you substitute the piano for a computer you get a pretty good idea of how I wrote my dissertation. It is a wonder that I ever finished!!!

As residents of St. Catharines know, a fire struck Liberty! Bicycles this past summer. The word is starting to spread that they will reopen in a new location downtown. This is excellent news — I’m going to start saving up for a new Electra bike to celebrate the occasion!

From the Liberty! Bicycles website: ” To carry us into the future, Liberty! Bicycles has purchased a 15000 sq ft facility in Downtown St. Catharines. Being true to our roots, we decided on a Downtown location although there was substantial pressure to move the business into either Megaland, or Boxville. Unfortunately, those non-Downtown options offered nothing in the way of style. For us, the decision was obvious. So, over the course of the next few months we will start the transformation of an old urban warehouse into what we hope will be the coolest bike shop this side of NYC. We will implement our plans phase by phase creating what we hope will become the centre of bike culture in Niagara. As we move forward, we will provide updates right here. Wish us luck! In the meantime, drop by our temp-shop if you need your bike repaired. We have 2010 catalogues and information about Cannondale, Specialized, Kona and Electra bicycles on hand.”

On October 24 there will be a global day of action on climate change. Check out the 350.org website or this video for more information. You can enter your postal code to find events in your region.

I have been conducting the Great Car-Free Experiment for over 2 months now.

During this time I’ve only driven my car once and had disastrous results!! On a stupidly busy day about 2 weeks ago I decided to start up the car and drive over to the store instead of walk. It is about a 30 minute walk from my house to the shopping plaza I was heading to and I normally really love this walk as it takes me along the shores of both Lake Ontario and Martindale Pond, but that day I decided that I just didn’t have time to squeeze in a walk between finalizing my SSHRC application, prepping for class and the other gazillion things I had on my “to do” list. What happened next, I believe, was some sort of intervention by the gods and goddesses of exercise and all things eco — my front tire fell off! Fell right off the car. Wheee…I watched it spring from the car and land about a half a block away on the other side of the road. I’m very glad this happened on the residential street in front of my house and that I was driving very slowly as I was about to turn into my driveway. I don’t even want to think about how this might have played out if I’d been on the highway when the tire came loose.

So, yeah, not keen to get back to driving any time soon!

While there are some annoyances with getting around this region without a car (like the lack of regional transit or the fact that bus service on evenings and weekends is a little sparse), so far it has been going rather well. The cooler autumn weather and the hectic pace of the term means I’m not biking much any more, but the start of the school year means that the buses up to Brock run on a much more frequent basis. I also find that taking the time out to go for a walk to the store or pub or other such location is actually really important for my overall well being. We all know, of course, the benefits of regular exercise, but the catch is trying to fit it in. For me, combining exercise with errand-running is one way of doing this.

I’ve also recently started listening to audiobooks on my iPod. I’ve never been a fan of audiobooks, but I have discovered a narrator that I really like (Scott Brick), and this has helped to change my opinion of audiobooks. Another reason I have not really enjoyed audiobooks to date has been that I’ve always tried to listen to them while doing other things — an absurd idea, really, given that I don’t try and do other things while I read a book. So before I had a hard time following the story because I’d be distracted by all the other things I was doing. Now I use the time that I’m riding the bus to zone out and listen to whatever book I’ve recently downloaded from Audible, and I have to say it is a pretty cool way to start and end the work day. I’ve actually found myself looking forward to the bus ride home so that I can get back to the story.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with my car. The CAA tow truck driver that came out to help me after the tire flew off gave me a coupon for a free diagnostic appointment at the CAA car care centre. I might take it there and find out what the scoop is. I’m also eyeing the Retire Your Ride program which appeals to me because of its simplicity – sign a few forms and they take the car away. No fuss, no muss. I need to find out just how much it will cost me to cancel my car insurance before the policy is up for renewal, but I’ve been putting that off.

The recent announcement that there will be new sidewalks put in various locations around the city is surely good news for anyone concerned with car-free issues in the region. A big thank to the City of St. Catharines for this!

Another “trouble spot” that always worries me is along St. David’s road leading up to the Brock campus. I frequently see students walking along the shoulder of the highway, going back and forth from Thorold (where a lot of students live) to the campus. There have been many people expressing their concerns about this over the years, and I’ve heard various rumblings that this location might be a candidate for bike lanes and/or sidewalks. I do hope these rumours prove to be true before an unthinkable tragedy happens!

This week’s Photo Friday Challenge theme is “…is in the details.”

I took this picture on Botanical Beach last June.

Our visit to Botanical Beach was one of the highlights of the trip out to BC, however it was the one aspect of the trip that also caused the most post-trip stress. Imagine our surprise when Budget just went ahead and put a $1500 charge on Laurie’s credit card for “damage” to the rental car we used to get out to Botanical Beach. The alleged damage was that the display in the Prius we rented wasn’t working properly. Well, since neither of us had driven a Prius before we weren’t sure how the display panel was supposed to look/function, couldn’t figure it out and ended up switching it off so that we could, instead, focus on the lovely scenery around us.

It still infuriates me that car rental companies can get away with this kind of crap — google it, you’ll be amazed at how prevalent these trumped up “damages” are!! The good news is that Laurie had insurance through her credit card that covered this for us, the shitty thing was that it was our word against theirs and that this all took place a month after the fact. By the time we even found out about this we were back home, about 4500 km from the car rental shop and there was little we could do.

So, yeah, “…is in the details” is a relevant theme for this picture for more than one reason.

Today the David Suzuki Foundation posted the link to this new TckTckTck campaign video, a project designed to raise awareness about Climate Change. In this video Lily Allen, Youssou N’Dour, Hawksley Workman and others have teamed up to produce a Band Aid-type production.

(Is Duran Duran the only band that was involved in both projects?)

On a related note, I will forever wish I’d been in attendance during this performance by Midnight Oil at the 1993 Clayoquot Sound protests.

ARTstor and The Museum of Modern Art have teamed up to make images from the MoMA’s collection available through the ARTstor database. Excellent news!!