Saturday Photo: Harvest of Good Things

Chilis and garlic: great combination, não é?  This week I spent an hour at the Marché Jean Talon, buying wonderful, harvest-fresh things.  Basil, garlic, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, little pumpkins, and much more...

Once upon a time I froze and canned.  Last year I made green tomato relish in quantity--more, in fact, than we could eat.  So this year my purchases are aimed in just enough to keep us happy over the next little bit, without any waste.

That means for tonight pesto and pasta: the basil is beautiful!

Saturday Photo: Canal in Kochi....

I have no idea if this canal still exists in Fort Kochi, Kerala State, on India's southwest coast, but I hope it does despite the recent catastrophic monsoon that flooded the area this summer.  But I like the photo because it combines two of the projects I've been working on.

The first is my book about the wonders, menace and history of concrete, Rock of Ages: How Concrete Built the World As We Know It.  The second is Frenemies:Why Some Places That Should Be Alike Aren't Alike.  Kerala  and Tamil Nadu, the state immediately to the east, are two of the pairs I consider in that book. 

Until last week, the plan was to publish the concrete book in 2019, and the one about unidentical twins some time later.  But the world is moving fast, and now it looks like Frenemies will be out sometime next year.

So at the moment  I'm pedaling fast to make the necessary changes, since the manuscript actually was finished about a year ago.  The memories of my time in Kerala are just that, mental souvenirs of a very interesting trip....

And now to get back to work.

Saturday Photo: The Bees Are At It, Thankfully

 One of the advantages of the kind of Darwinian gardening I do is that bees like it.  No pesticides or chemical fertilizer, just a lot of compost, some composted manure and a little bone meal.  The result is interesting--I'll share a photo next week--but the really important things is that bees love it.

All summer long they've been floating around.  Some of them must belong to hives like the one pictured here which sits in the Champs des possibles, vacant land along the railroad track through Montreal which has become a nature park.  There's only hive a couple of blocks away on the second story balcony of a classy house facing Parc Outremont.  Perhaps there are ones closer too that are hidden from casual view. 

Whatever, I'm glad to help out the busy pollenizers by providing environmental flowers....

Saturday Photo: Tomato Time...

This is the best time of year for  lovers of real, ripe tomatoes.  What you get the rest of the year just does't cut it!

Saturday Photo: Rideau Chapel and 40 Voice Motet

Highlight of a trip to Ottawa: a visit to the National Gallery of Canada to see the exhibit of Impressionist painters there until Sept. 9.  Nice, but what really was great was an installation in the Rideau Chapel  of a 40 Voice Motet by Joyce Cardiff based on music by Thomas Tallis.  Really amazing!  Go see/ hear it!