Sky of Blue, Sea of Green

So, later today is a momentous day in the history of sport in my province of Saskatchewan. Not only is Regina hosting the 101st Grey Cup, the annual championship of the Canadian Football League (CFL), but the Saskatchewan Roughriders are playing, representing the Western Division against the Eastern Division champion Hamilton Tiger Cats. It will be wild - Roughrider fans have the reputation of being the most loyal, knowledgeable, critical, loudest, wildest, paint-yerself-green-and-stick-a-watermelon-on-yer-head fans in the league....and that's just for the exhibition games. I can't imagine what a home game championship game will be like.

It's not easy being a Roughrider fan sometimes. The team celebrated its 100th anniversary a couple of years ago; since its inception as the Regina Rugby Club, the team has won only 3 league championships, in 1966, 1989, and 2007. That's not to say that there haven't been good teams -in the  late 1950s to mid-70s, the team quite consistently made the playoffs, but either didn't advance to the Grey Cup, or did and lost, sometimes in a heartbreaking fashion (Tony Gabriel, I'm lookin' at you). After the mid-70's, the team embarked on a 20 or so year stretch of losing seasons.

Strangely enough, that's when I started to be a Rider fan. Not because I was a glutton for punishment, but I think because that's when I became aware of the team. As a child, I knew the team existed; I'm sure the 1976 Grey Cup game was on TV at our house. I remember having this idea that the 'cast' syllable in Ron Lancaster's (arguably one of the greatest CFL quarterbacks ever) name, was associated somehow with his seemingly frequent injuries towards the end of his career (I was 7. And weird. Give me a break).  I look back on those years of drought now, and especially on the accomplishments of some of the individual players, in amazement. This year, the Riders had three receivers with over 1000 reception yards; in 1991, one of the two other years in which that happened, the team had a 6-12 record. There are Roughriders from that era whose records still stand, who played on mediocre to flat-out bad teams.

Since the bad years, we've had good years, great years, erratic years, and frustrating years. I still find it odd to hear the Riders referred to as an 'elite' team in the league; it doesn't seem real to someone who lived through the 1980's, and started watching the 1989 Grey Cup game hoping that the team would at least put up a good fight (spoiler alert: they did.) The losing 2011 season was a nightmare -it seemed as though the previous winning seasons had been a dream, and we were waking up to the reality that nothing had changed; or that someone had sold their soul to get the winning seasons and it was now payback time.

It's not easy being a Roughrider player or coach sometimes. The best fans in the league, to be sure, but those fans won't hesitate to let you know that you should have caught that pass/called a different play/thrown to a different receiver/not thrown at all/ran/blocked/taken up polo... you get the idea. The community is also small enough that players and coaches are easily recognizable, and people may even know where you live, should they wish to express their feelings in a more direct fashion. The common saying is that the most popular guy in town after the Riders have lost a game is the backup quarterback.

But throughout the seasons, the fans have stayed. Other CFL teams have had bad seasons; even several seasons' worth. For those other teams, this has meant large numbers of empty seats in their stadiums, little community support, and diminishing media attention. Not here. I think that in Saskatchewan, we're used to persevering in the face of adversity. In the face of problems beyond anyone's control, whether it was poor crops, economic downturns, drought, hail, severe winters, or losing football seasons, there still had to be hope that things would get better. Without hope, there was nothing left - and giving up has never been the easy option here. Next year...next year things will be different....next year things will be better....is a way of life here. And that is what has kept the team and fans going throughout its history.

No matter what the outcome of today's game is, we will still bleed green, we will still support the Roughriders. But.....2013 Grey Cup Champions sounds really good...and I am curious about how many dancing people Albert Street will really hold. Next year is NOW - GO RIDERS!

At the Going Down of The Sun

Recently, I read a brief argument/exchange of views between a couple of Facebook users regarding the symbolism of the poppy on Remembrance Day. One person posted an article advocating the use of a white poppy; I don't know how common it is, but apparently this has been used in the UK since the 1930's to symbolize a denouncement of war and a hope for peace. As you might guess, the post set off a debate involving such themes as respect for veterans, pacifism, the meaning of Remembrance Day, and the meaning ascribed to war.

I'd heard some of the arguments before, having spent a reasonable amount of time around some individuals who believed that Remembrance Day and its accoutrements glorified war. I tended to bite my tongue quite a bit. I'm quite non-confrontational by nature and the idea of getting into a fight with someone about war just seemed ludicrous. And I have trouble articulating my feelings on the matter.

I am absolutely against war. Unfortunately, that seems to be how we, as humans, solve problems. Acquiring more knowledge and technology, more understanding of how everything works, and generally becoming more "advanced" than our ancestors doesn't seem to have changed this. But I still have hope that we can learn to solve problems peacefully.

It doesn't take much study of European history to see that World War I rose out of the struggle to fill the void in power left by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. People of the lower socio-economic classes and the colonies were recruited to fight, convinced by appeals to their sense of duty, patriotism, and fear of the unknown and other. And they were slaughtered (see Beaumont Hamel, Ypres, Gallipoli, etc.). Did anyone's life improve as a result of the war? Due to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the worldwide economic downturn of the late 1920's, conditions in Germany after the war were horrific, and a perfect medium for the rise of someone like Hitler. Ultimately, World War II can be interpreted as the Allied nations performing damage control on a situation partially of their own making.

But I don't wear a poppy (a red one) for the nations or leaders who signed treaties or declared war or peace, nor do I wear one to honour the great military leaders or the battles "my side" won. I wear one for the young men and women from Royston, Dafoe, Muskoday, Swan River, Owen Sound, Paquetville, and Fogo who joined up because they thought that it was the right thing to do. I wear one for my aunt who, as a radio operator, heard pilots being shot down and came back with what would now likely be diagnosed as PTSD. For the people who stayed behind, worked, waited, and hoped. For the people who had their livelihoods taken away and were put in internment camps, because paranoia outweighs reason. I wear one for the people who hid and sheltered the persecuted and for the fishing vessels who crossed the English Channel to evacuate troops.

I wear a poppy in remembrance of the courage and horror of the past and in the continued hope that things can be different in the future.

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

'Aftermath', Siegfried Sassoon

Fall and Interesting Fruit

Since my last blog post, I've had to admit that summer is completely over. Leaves have changed colour and mostly fallen, we've had frost at night, and I've had to break down and wear socks every day. The garden has been cleaned up, the roses are covered, and I just dragged all the pots into the shed.

The backyard, prepped for winter

I always have mixed feelings this time of year. On one hand, I'm usually ready to be done with weeding, watering, picking tomatoes, transplanting, wondering what's eating the hostas, picking more tomatoes, deciding that beside the cushion spurge was a lousy place to plant a peony, cursing the "grass" in the front yard, tripping through the maze of squash vines to pick tomatoes...... But I really do love being outside in the yard among the plants. We had such a nice September and October that everything just kept on growing. I picked the last rose about two weeks ago, and the zinnias and lupins were still blooming until the most recent frost. I think the mint and thyme are still growing! It's a bit melancholic to watch the end of the growth cycle and to anticipate the inevitable coming of winter.

Late fall flowers - the zinnia on the right started out the paler shade of pink, then got darker as the weather cooled.

Few realize this, but zinnias make excellent hiding places

Of course, with fall comes the harvest of various items. We got a reasonable number of carrots, but

not many beets or potatoes ( I'm often glad that we're not trying to grow our winter food supply). For the last few years, including this one, our most bountiful harvest has been from our Aronia bush. I got the bush a number of years ago, mainly to fill in some space along the back fence. The ad in the catalogue extolled its attractive red fall colour and, in passing, mentioned some berries which could be made into juice. Well, the plant does turn a lovely shade of red in the fall. The leaves drop about 4 seconds after said lovely shade is achieved, so it doesn't really provide the fall colour I was hoping for. However, it does provide increasing numbers of berries. We didn't do anything with the berries for the first few years - there weren't that many, and they tasted like tart saskatoons, so they weren't great for eating out of hand.

As the harvest grew, I made some syrup, but ended up freezing most of the berries because I had no clue what to do with them. This year, we ended up with something like 8 cups (to join the 10 or so cups already frozen), so I resolved to find some use for them.

As an aside, Ken's dad and uncles are mainly former commercial fishermen and current recreational fishermen and hunters. I always tease him that for his family, the first questions asked on seeing a new animal are: "What is it? Can I eat it? What's the daily limit?" I've come to realize that I'm really similar with new fruits: "What is it? Can I eat it? How do I tell if it's ripe?"

Anyway, I've found that aronia, while not well known in this area, is popular in some areas of the US

(one of those dark purple antioxidant superfruits, y'know) - there are even aronia growers' associations! And importantly, lots of recipes. It's really good added to a regular banana bread recipe; I'm planning to make a pie at some point. One of the things I did with leftover Thanksgiving turkey was a black bean chili, adapted from this recipe. The aronia provided a sweet/tart counterpoint to the spice in the rest of the dish (one of my adaptations was to use chipotle for part of the chili powder requirement, so I suspect my version was spicier than the original).

Something you don't see every day - grapes on a telephone pole

Boyz in the Yard - seasonal inspection