I made some progress on the veggie garden today. The weather is still a bit uncertain just yet so I've been taking my time. Well, the weather and the fact that my only free time comes on weekends; I get home from work too late in the evenings to be up for much labour.


I laid down some landscape fabric along the south side of the house and arranged some pots on it. I half-filled the largest ones with horse manure and will top them off with good soil. Despite our ready supply we rarely use manure in the gardens (veggie or otherwise) because it tends to be full of weeds. In this instance the manure will be buried under soil so weeds won't be a problem.


Everything will also have a handful of worm castings mixed in at the time of planting.


We also have our rain barrels set up all ready for watering some seedlings. Having plants in containers will mean lots of watering.


Just two plants have been planted so far, two tomato plants that my mom bought. They are not heritage types, but I am interested to see how they compare against the heirloom varieties I intend to buy. One is called 'Tumbler' and the other is 'Early Girl'.













It seems that 'Tumbler' is a trailing variety well-suited for hanging basket or container gardening. It produces small 1 1/4 inch fruits and is prolific and early maturing (55-68 days). But it is determinate; all the fruits mature within days of each other. I prefer indeterminate types. The 'Early Girl' is a variety I've grown in the past. It is a larger bush variety that produces medium size fruit with a maturation of 69-80 days. It is indeterminate and, in my experience, is reliable but not terribly exciting.


Unfortunately the nice weather we've been enjoying has a downside; the blackflies have emerged. I don't mind mosquitos so much but I absolutely loathe blackflies. All our outdoor activites for the next two weeks or so will have to be done while wearing a super stylish bug netting hat. Thanks goodness they only hang around for a few weeks.

I am not a religious person although I once tried to be. I am not Christian nor Atheist nor Agnostic nor Pagan. I am just myself and I have my own beliefs. I observe major religious holidays in a secular way, as a day to spend time with family and friends, but the days that resonate and have meaning to me are ones that are determined by the stars and the moon- not by man. This includes the solstice and equinox days as well as the cross-quarter days. And May 1st is traditionally the cross-quarter day between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice; it is Beltane.

Today was the midpoint of Spring and as such makes me think of things growing and greening and becoming fertile, both literally and metaphorically. I also think of cross-quarter days as turning points, rounding the turn between the first day of Spring and the first day of Summer, and therefore I see them as days of transition and of change. So those were the things I thought about this day as I visited an old well near my house. I pulled a copper penny from my sock, where I had placed it for luck, and breathed my breath upon it and dropped it into the deep still water.

Then I went for a walk through the woods. I forgot my camera, of course, and so I could take no pictures of the white trilliums that are beginning to bud nor of the blooming trout lilies with their nodding yellow heads. I cannot show you the singular and nameless pink flower I found growing in the roots of a great beech tree and you cannot see the raccoon that foraged through the leaves, his coat the very same colour as the bark on the still-leafless trees; you cannot see how he vanished from sight between one breath and the next. I cannot share the image of the pileated woodpecker who flew from trunk to trunk above me and who called after me with his half-mad laugh, nor the flash of the meadowlark's white rump and she startled up from the grass. But I saw all these things; you'll just have to take my word for it.

So I've been trying a number of new vegan foods and have found several to be really great, and some others that weren't quite.


Number one on my list of winners is 'Silk'. I bought the 'Original' flavour and when I tasted it I was very glad I decided against the 'Vanilla' as it is quite sweet enough. It doesn't really taste like milk, more like some sort of shake, but I find it to be very tasty and happily drink several glasses a day; I even got myself a little thermos so that I can take some with me to work. It is a fortified drink and in 250 mL it contains 30% of daily calcium intake, 45% of my vitamin D and 50% of my vitamin B12. It contains lots of other things too, but those are some of the nutrients I am most concerned about.


My second winner is 'Solgurt'. It still doesn't taste quite like yogurt but I like it much better than the Wildwood soyogurt I tried and this is one that I can just eat with a spoon; I don't have to sneak it into my smoothies in order to make it palatable.


I am also a fan of Becel 'Vegan' Margarine. I actually have always been a margarine eater (rather than butter) and in fact I assumed that all margarine was vegan. It turns out that isn't the case as most margarine contains vitamin D3 which can only be obtained from animal sources; vegan margarine contains vitamin D2. I find this vegan margarine has more of a buttery flavour than regular Becel margarine and that a little goes a long way.


Last but not least is my 'Nutritional Yeast' supplement. I've read lots about it and tried it this evening on my homemade pasta dinner. It has, as I'd read, a 'cheesy' flavour and I used it as I would parmesan cheese. The kind I bought is in a flake form, and I was a little uneasy with the resemblance it showed to flaked fish food... But I still consider it a winner.


And so there only remains the solitary 'loser'. I read a great deal online about faux-cheese and Daiya seemed to be the clear winner so I gave it a shot. One shot is all that it is going to get. I just didn't like it at all. I tried it on pizza I made last night and luckily I only put it on a small corner because I could not make myself eat it. It is more the texture than the flavour I don't like; it melted into a gummy mess that stuck to my teeth. I wish I could at least bring myself to finish off the bag since it certainly wasn't cheap but I really don't think I can.

It's funny but the things I find myself missing the most are processed foods, which I never even ate much of to begin with. I find myself walking through the grocery store thinking about all junk food I can't eat because it isn't vegan. I have no idea why I am missing these things that I so rarely ate but I expect I'll soon get over it.

I realise that the dietary choices I have made may seem unusual or even unhealthy to other people. I appreciate concern for my well being; I welcome discussion about my decision and the motives behind it and about how I intend to do it properly. I resent people lecturing me with 'facts' that are not so and who poke and prod and bait me just for fun. I don't understand the reasoning behind it.

So my decision to go vegan has obviously changed my mind about keeping hens and work has been diverted from building a hen yard to focus solely on the vegetable garden. I had planned to reuse some old raised bed frames for my veggie beds but they turned out to be more rotted than I expected. Four of the ten were salvageable so any veggies that can't fit in will have to go in pots or straight into the ground.


I also made some very tasty soup today. I just threw together a bunch of things, but it came out with a rather Mexican flavour (mmm, cilantro) and is especially tasty with some whole wheat tortilla chips. I made a big enough batch that I froze some so when I work late and come home exhausted I can still have a healthy dinner.

My goodness, I've been so busy thinking thoughts lately that I haven't paused long enough to write any words. And oh, the thoughts I've been thinking! I have made the decision to transition from lacto-ovo vegetarian to a proper vegan. I've been thinking about for a long time but a recent conversation with a dear friend prompted me to re-examine how well I have been upholding my personal beliefs. And my conclusion was- not all that well. I can come up with dozens of good reasons for becoming vegan and not a single valid excuse for continuing to eat eggs and dairy. So that's that.

I'm going about it a bit more carefully than when I turned vegetarian and invested in a really helpful book. It is 'Becoming Vegan' by Davis & Melina and contains such of wealth of information on how to become vegan in a healthy way. As I read, veganism becomes far less daunting and complicated than I was expecting. My friend R. phrased it perfectly when she said "I think being vegan is probably just a matter of re-learning how to eat in a new way". That's really all there is to it.

As I start I brought home some new dairy free products: a creamer for my coffee and two types of 'yogurt'. The creamer gets two thumbs up from me, no question.


I'm a little less enthusiastic about the first 'yogurt' I tried.


It looks like blueberry yogurt; it smells like blueberry yogurt.


It doesn't quite taste like blueberry yogurt. The blueberry yogurt flavour is there, but there is also a very 'planty', almost fibrous taste as well. I don't think I could eat it on its own but it is pretty palatable when mixed with my favourite (conveniently vegan) granola and a banana. I also expect it would be fine in my smoothies.


I have only taken the first step on this new dietary journey but I'm feeling really good about it. Really happy.

I'm not thick-skinned, but sometimes I wonder if I have any skin at all or am I just all bared nerve-endings, open to the world. I seem to feel things more keenly, more sharply than the people around me. All this sadness and care and concern is hard to bear sometimes, but I would never trade it for the alternative.



But I could really use a hug.