Footnotes to a Conversation, June 13
“What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant.” – Robert F. Kennedy
It’s been a cool spring in Victoria and summer has yet to arrive, but that hasn’t stopped the flowers from blooming. I knew from my many visits that Victoria had lovely gardens, but it wasn’t until I moved here that I realized quite how many there were. My sister and I visit a different garden or take part in a garden tour (yesterday’s tour of teeny, tiny gardens was excellent!) almost every weekend, and you don’t have to go anywhere special to enjoy the California poppies blooming in profusion along walkways or spot irises and rhododendrons in people’s gardens. Today’s photographs are from a small but beautiful garden on either side of the walkway at Westbay Marina, a short 15-minute walk along the water from where I live.
On other news, I’ve booked my flights to Europe – France for 3 months and then the UK with housesits in Oak Bay and Vancouver before I leave.
Equal Access & Pro-Health
Food was rationed in the UK during World War II. “Perennial hunger was a mainstay of the rationing system for most, but for others, rationing was the first time that they’d ever had access to nutritious food … The entire food system was skewed towards being pro‐health, not pro‐affordability. You got a certain amount of food made available to you, all designed around nutritional assessments of what the body needs.” In April, 7.3 million adults in the UK missed meals and 1.3 million more are facing poverty due to rises in the cost of living. It’s hard to imagine Britons – or Canadians – accepting rationing nowadays, but there is a crying need for equal access to healthy food. One option would be to ensure a basic income for all. [Wicked Leeks]
My Favorite Things
80% of us, no matter where we live, prefer blue over any other colour, probably because we associate it with positive things, such as blue skies, lakes, and oceans. Similarly, we may associate orange and red with intense fall colours and dislike a dark yellowish-brown, which reminds us of rotting food or waste. “Interestingly, Japan is one of the few countries where people rank white in their top three colours.” Babies can see colour from birth, but the eye’s development is uneven so intense reds can be perceived most easily. [BBC Future]
Nature Reading
We posted a list of books showcasing Western Canada’s landscape and wild inhabitants on EcoFriendly West this week. Topics range from wolves and buffalo to rainforests, rivers, and peatlands. They’ve all be published within the last 10 years by Canadian authors. [EcoFriendly West]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.
Our Backyard, Saanich, BC, newsletter on the natural environment