The Cost of Food

Patrick Deneen has another really good post, this time on the impact of the rising cost of oil on the cost of food. It is really worth reading here.

A friend of mine who farms nearby talks about the costs of eating iceberg lettuce off season. He factors in the cost of the pesticides, the fertilizers, the water, and then the oil to truck it here in refrigerator trucks. He concludes that it is extremely expensive to eat something that doesn't even have nutritional value. Here is good reason to eat frozen and canned local produce.

Pentecost

Today is the Feast of Pentecost and I'm off to preach at Christ Trinity Lutheran church. It is actually the fifth anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate. I was ordained a deacon and Andrew Horne a priest on Pentecost at St. Augustine's Anglican church in the evening. It was a stinking hot day and there were over 400 people in the church and I was wearing the new alb my parish had had made for me - heavy raw silk. We sang My Song is Love Unknown and Jesus All for Jesus. It was a marvelous day! Three days later we had a foot of snow.

Robbie is doing a little better. He's still coughing in the evening and morning but he's sleeping through the night now and has a lot more energy. I really struggle with the coughing - it sounds like he's coughing out a lung. But I'm grateful that his lungs seem to be clearing and the renewed energy suggests that his heart is beating better. He hasn't had any adverse reaction to the heart meds either so that is encouraging. His vet says that we'll know whether or not he's responding by next week. Thank you to everyone who has let me know that they are praying for us. And thanks to M for bringing me meals on wheels last night! Never let it be said that it is only the Christians who know the value of bringing comfort food to folks.

Saskatoon Farm

Oh yes, as Gracie points out in her comment to the post below the fabulous weekend involved the discovery of a new shopping experience. One of our little group told us that this sign I've noticed on the highway for years but ignored actually pointed the way to an amazing experience. And did it ever!

The Saskatoon Farm is actually a home and garden centre with an incredible array of household items, tapestries, kitchen items, jewelry, even chain mail armor. Then there is the bakery/cafe with the incredible scones and buns and apple crisp. And then there is the nursery with a wonderful selection of pots and plants and garden stuff.

And through the place wander a gaggle of roosters (outside) and cats and a dog (inside). They make themselves at home everywhere although they've been trained not to go into the kitchen or cafe and observe the boundaries carefully.

All this is 20 mins south of Calgary on the East side of the #2 hwy.

A Fabulous Weekend

This weekend some friends and I went up to Calgary for the last performance of the Calgary Opera for the season. It was an all Canadian production of Carmen and it was fabulous. The whole weekend was fabulous. We checked in to the hotel and changed into our fancy duds. I even bought a new purse and necklace for the occasion. We were all dressed to the nines. When we went out into the hall we discovered that everyone else staying on our floor was also dressed to the nines. We met a group of drag queens at the elevator. We asked them what was happening and they told us that there was a drag queen ball that evening at the next hotel. At this point one of the men dressed in evening gown, red wig, tiara and feather boa turned to one of our group and told her, "and you could win. That outfit is fabulous!" That became the theme for the evening. We had a fabulous dinner a block away at The Chutney, a wonderful new East Indian restaurant. The opera was fabulous. The people watching was fabulous. Even the partying that went on all night long on our floor couldn't dampen our spirits. We had a fabulous time. Someone else must have had a fabulous time too because the next morning there were boa feathers scattered all down the hallway.

We had another wonderful meal in the morning at a Dim Sum restaurant a couple of blocks from our hotel. When we went in there were about 30 people eating - by the time we left it had grown to about 300. I've never seen anything like it. One of the little old men at the table next to us pulled a mickey out of his pocket and served up about four fingers of something brown to his companion. People watching there was a lot of fun too. In the midst of the meal I said to one of my friends, "so this is what pagans do on Sunday morning." When I lived in Hamilton friends and I used to go for Dim Sum on Sundays but after church not instead of. I could get used to doing that again pretty easily. I can't do the shrimp anymore but I love those slimy pancakes. Fabulous...just fabulous.