cottage e_o_i I went with my family to their(ish) Laurentian cottage yesterday_today - a little vacation. When I came back I was thinking a bit about what prompts me to write something on blather. I decided that I do so when something might be useful or cathartic to share. Yesterday, I discovered that "cathartic" in the plant book that I used to search the edibility of fiddleheads means laxative. Rather funny when you think of the Greek drama definition. Poisons in large quantities can be medicine in smaller doses... what would too much classical tragedy do to you? Logorrhea? (That IS a word.) Fiddleheads are eminently edible and don't do anything unexpected to digestion, as far as I know; they taste nutty, and cool like celery, with a texture of fresh peas. But the plant book warned me that the fiddleheads around the area, brackens rather than ostrich ferns, should be cooked and not eaten raw in large quantities since they contained an enzyme that inhibits thiamine absorption. Thiamine is vitamin B1, generally useful. Wikipedia tells me that other ferns, some kinds of shellfish, coffee, tea, and alcohol have the same effect - but this doesn't seem to cause problems unless you have a very poor diet and subsist on say, raw ferns, or if you've got serious alcoholism (which wouldn't do your liver any good, either). Anyway, about how to cook them: my mother said they'd be good fried in butter. Tasting them, I can see why - it would bring out the nut flavour. We didn't have time to do that, but at least I can add to my list of edible wild foods. The book, I left there: it's probably my uncle's, who partly owns the place. Other edible wild plants that grow there (Laurentian hill country) and not here (around Montreal): -Checkerberries, also called wintergreen: the berries start to ripen in October, but they're best left until spring. Right now, mid-May, they're excellent. They have white flesh and a sweet, mild mint flavour. They aren't juicy enough to go well in muffins, pies, or jam, but they're nice on their own. The plants don't grow in large bushes - they come up in little shoots with three thick leaves, close to the ground, with interconnected root systems like clovers. The leaves can be chewed on or dried to make herbal tea. -Bunchberries: like checkerberries, they grow close to the ground. But in bunches. They're light pink and they taste, to me, like a cross between bananas and tomatoes. There's not that much to chew because of a pit in the middle. -Blueberries: technically, yes, they grow around here, but I hardly ever see them. They like edges of forests and rocky ground and lakes. 140519 ... a tired e_o_i I mean they grow well among the Laurentian hills but not in Dorval. "There" is a very indefinite indicator. Do blueberries grow in blather? Or perhaps raspberries would be better for this blatherverse? 140519 ... red ribbon blueberries grow in blue_blather. it was one of my many identities over there in that magical world. 140520 ... past if you cultivate blue properly, get into the deeper, darker corners of it you may find the black berries waiting. 140521 ... e_o_i Blackberries? Together or separate? I can find blackberries here. Here! And not there. The link to the word "black" had me cringing a little at this line I wrote: "And this white Kebby-quasi, moi, can quasi-uniquely relate to Clarke's love/hate relationship with Ezra Pound." That idiotic idiolect makes for unnecessarily long sentences. But George Elliott Clarke is amazing. 140521 ... e_o_i With my immediate family, for New Year, Wednesday to Friday last week. It's weird walking on a frozen lake when it was water the last time you saw it. A possibility to interact with your environment in a different way - moving around it a different way - changes your whole perspective. Wood had to be burned in the woodstove before the temperature went above 10 inside (outside it was cold but not terribly so, about -5 during the day and -10 at night) and since the pump connection had been turned off for fear of frozen pipes rupturing, we had to melt snow for flushing the toilet and washing hands. On Wednesday I went jogging. It was beautifully dark and the moon was shining. I went back and forth across a few blocks and found just one other house lit up. When I came back, my father had just finished getting the fire lit and, though he was a bit annoyed at me refusing the flashlight he'd offered when I went alone, we walked up to the park/lookout place there and back. Thursday I found more neighbours on the lake. I forgot how to say happy new year in French until someone said "Bonne année!" to me, so I said it back. That day my brother and I went skiing for an hour and a half, and then I walked along with my dad, who hadn't skated in two years. Friday I went skiing, though by that time I had to be verbally dragged off the couch by my mother. Verbally, because though I was physically tired, it was a bit of mental sluggishness keeping me inside. Vacations tire me out. 150105 what's it to you? who go blather from