The Plum Trees by Victoria Shorr

 The Plum Trees by Victoria Shorr

    While attending a funeral of one of three sisters who had survived Auschwitz, Consie, a modern day Jewish descendant, was given a  letter from her relative’s estate.  The letter written just after the War, stated that Hermann, Consie’s great uncle, had escaped from Auschwitz.  This staggering news, set Consie on a quest to see if that could be true, because she was unaware of anyone ever escaping the death camp.  As a result of that information, Consie began researching the audio recorded interviews made by Auschwitz survivors telling their stories about what happened in hopes of finding some further information about Hermann to see if, in fact, he had escaped.  

    With the information she gleaned from many sources, Consie pieces together the history of the lives of Hermann’s family, both before and during the Holocaust.  This novel is horrific in places, but very well written and deeply moving.

    I was especially struck by the deep confusion felt by Hermann and his family when the Nazis and their supporters first began to take power in Czechoslovakia. The prosperous family owned a plum orchard, and were well liked , because of their generosity and kindness toward their employees, neighbors, and towns people, but then slowly, as Nazism began to spread through their rural community, their lives began to be evermore restricted by ridiculous anti-Jewish laws.

            Hermann was always a good and generous citizen, who had faith in the goodness of people, and so he ignored a chance offered by his brother who lived in America, to immigrate there.

    He believed that the Nazi thing would soon blow over, and things would return to normal.  Of course, things didn’t get back o normal, and instead became fatally worse.  Soon, it became too late for Hermann and his family to leave for the US.  They did manage to escape to Hungary, where things hadn’t yet gotten bad for Jews, but soon it too was engulfed by Nazism.

    Over and over Hermann just couldn’t believe what was happening.  The people that used to be friendly suddenly were hostile.  People who he had helped, turned against him.  He couldn’t make his rational mind accept what was happening to his country.  In light of what is happening in to the US with the election of Trump, I can certainly relate to that feeling of unbelief and confusion.

    Another interesting fact brought out by the novel was the pseudo-kindness and politeness espoused by the Nazis, to get the Jews to leave their homes to go to “do farm work” and live in “family camps”.  “So sorry about the terrible boxcar train ride you had to take to get here” and “just take off your clothes, fold them nicely, so they will be here after you take your shower.”  The acceptance of this false politeness worked until it was too late for the victims.

    Historical fiction is my favorite reading genre.  I found this novel on our library’s Libby app; downloaded it, and read it on my iPad.  I was somewhat hesitant about picking it to read, because of its title and its cover, which seemed rather cartoonish, considering the description of the story it told.  Although shocking in some of its content, it is based on the many recorded true incidents of those who survived the death camps.

    However like I said, it is very well written, deeply moving, and certainly relevant considering the march toward authoritarian governments today.  More people need to read things like this, because even if history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, like Mark Twain said, “It rhymes.”

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Making Broth For Soup

     Because I am a mammal, I try not to eat other mammals, because I feel some kind of kinship toward them.  Birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than to me, so we eat a lot of chicken and turkey.  After we eat them we always have a lot of bones left over.  I hate to see those bones go to waste, so I always throw the bones into the Instant Pot with some water, celery, and garlic then boil them to make broth which I then use for making soup.  

    After I have pressure boiled the mixture for a half an hour or so in the Instant Pot, I dig out the bones, let them cool, (photo below) then strip off any meat that may be still on the bone, which I add to the broth. 

    My mother showed me how easy it was to make soup with broth.  She always added a mixture of frozen vegetables and spices to her broth to make her soup.  The soup I make is more closely related to chili.  I add our canned tomatoes (Due to our very poor tomato crop last summer, I have been using some tomato paste instead).  I love beans, so add red beans, black beans, or mixed beans from cans.  Today, we didn’t have any canned beans, so I used dry beans that I soaked and cooked in the Instant Pot, instead.  Dry beans are more environmentally friendly anyway.  

    I also add some frozen corn, some of our spicy chilis, and chopped onions.  I further spice up the mixture with some salt and pepper of course, but also chili powder and ground cumin.  I like to add a bit of barbecue sauce to the mix, to give it a bit of hickory flavoring.  Lately, I have been also adding some miso to the soup. 

    Anyway, that is how I make my soup, but using the broth as a base, you can add whatever things you like for your soup.  

    I make soup for my lunches to eat just about every day.  I do avoid eating it on Tuesdays however, because that is our jam night, and eating all of those beans can cause atmospheric problems in the confined space of the train station lobby where we play.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Linear Frost

     Several times a day, I walk around my pond.  I am supposed to be walking Kona, but more often than not, Kona picks up a whiff of some animal and goes off smelling her way into the bush on her own.

    One of the most interesting parts of my pond walk is when I walk across the planks over the pond’s outflow.   For a good portion of this winter, our weather has been very mild;  just below freezing at night, but slightly above freezing during the day.  As a result, there has been no ice on the gently flowing stream of the outflow.  The leaves of the aquatic plants growing there, just on the water’s surface have stayed surprisingly green.

    A few days ago the weather did get colder, -12°C (10°F) overnight.  The surface water of the outflow did freeze, then it began being covered with linear segments of frost, which which I found quite unusual.  The photo above shows what it looked like.  

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Wow, Trump's "Golden Age" Has Arrived

     I have yet to go downtown today to see just how much the price of groceries have plummeted, but everyone knows Trump never tells a lie, and during his campaign he promised to reduce those high food prices that Evil Biden had put in place.  The billionaires have, no doubt, worn skin off, rubbing their hands together in glee, now that their taxes will be slashed, and government regulations will disappear.

    The Christian Nationalists have had it confirmed that God himself has put Trump in place to kick out those communistic Democrats, who wanted to make life better for people. 

    Trump’s January 6th Brown Shirts will get their pardons and be free to once again intimidate people, by roaming the streets with their AR-15s and military garb. 

    Those unsightly brown and black-skinned, pet-eating, immigrants and asylum-seekers, will be rounded up, put in camps, and then deported, leaving good white people to do all those low-paying, manual labor jobs.

    Thousands of experienced and non-partisanship employees will be quickly removed from the Federal Government and replaced with Trump sycophants and loyalists, despite their inexperience and abilities.

    We will no longer have to worry about all of those terrible natural disasters because the words “climate change” will be removed from all government documents, and those governmental agencies that deal with science will be strictly muzzled.  Oil will soon be flowing from National Parks, Nature Reserves, and Monuments.  The air will soon be thickly saturated with wonderful carbon.  Bring it on, Trump always knows best.

    The billionaires that control news and social media, have already “kissed the ring” and changed their algorithms.  Elon Musk, who donated hundreds of millions to the Trump Campaign, jumps for joy in the presence of the Great Leader, and other billionaires also quickly donated millions of dollars to Trump’s coronation.  In addition to that donation, Amazon’s Bezos has given Melania Trump $40 million dollars so he can do a documentary on the amazing woman.

    The Trumps themselves are celebrating the Second Coming of Trump by starting up Trump crypto-currency schemes.  Donald Jr. and Eric, already had one, but within the last couple of days, both the President, and his First Lady, have individually, both set up crypto-coin scams.  Don’t forget all of the other wonderful Trump products now available: golden Trump tennis shoes, Trump watches, NFT cards showing Trump as Superman and as an Astronaut, Trump Guitars, and of course, the Trump  Holy Bible.  

    Unfortunately there will be some losers in Trump’s Golden Age.  Firstly, the Earth and all of the living things that depend upon it.  Then, all of the once friendly allies and nations that trade with the United States (including my own country of Canada).  All democratic countries will be impacted as Trump, enabled by his sycophantic Congress and Courts, move toward authoritarianism in the US.  And sadly also, all those brave, honest, and ethical politicians from both parties, that bravely spoke the truth about Trump.

    Yes, a Glorious Future awaits the whole world, starting today.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Same Scene, Different Light

     The light is always changing outside, and I enjoy watching the different colors and moods that occur when the light changes.  Here are four photos that I took from my balcony during the last two weeks.  

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Back When Airlines Actually Cared

    Here is a story I will always remember.  Yesterday at our writing group, I was going through my 1992 diary and came across it.  Here it is:

       Once after throwing out my back I drove up to Prince George to get it manipulated back in place by my chiropractor.  While he was working on me, he told me an amazing story.  It seemed that he had booked flights for a vacation down in Los Vegas.  The first leg of the trip was from Prince George to Vancouver on Canadian Airlines.

    Months before the trip, Canadian had canceled that flight, but they had failed to inform him.  When he arrived at the Prince George airport, packed and ready to go, the ticket agent gave him the news, which was quite a blow; his vacation seemed doomed.

    Canadian Airlines, admitted it was their mistake, and to help salvage my chiropractor’s vacation, the airline hired a taxi which drove him all the way from the Prince George Airport down to Vancouver International Airport, where he could catch a flight to Los Vegas.  The length of that taxi ride was over 600 miles (970 km) and he had to sit in the taxi for eight and a half hours.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1909: The Primal Forests of the Robson Valley

     Over the last few days I have been blogging the descriptions of the Robson Valley as it was recorded in the Stanley Washburn’s book; Trails, Trappers, and Tender-Feet in Western Canada, published in 1912.  I have always loved forests, so the sections I found most intriguing described the forests along the Fraser River from Tete Jaune Cache to the area where McBride was built.  Here is some of what Washburn wrote:

    As we float on down the Fraser, the vegetation becomes thicker and denser until, after a few hours, the river’s edge is hemmed in by a shoreline that is so thick with underbrush and jungle that one literally requires an axe to get out of the canoe.  But the survey (done by the advance Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad crew) has gone before us down this waterway, and every six or eight miles we see their camping places, where the brush has been cleared away for a few yards from the river’s bank, and the trees stripped of their lower branches.  This created a few hundred square feet of clearing that stands out like an oasis from the dense and impenetrable background beyond.

    There is an old horse trail that extends twelve or fifteen miles below the Cache, but the pioneers that cut it lost heart when they penetrated that far, and gave up the job.  He who fares further on the way down the valley must either take to the river, or make the effort on foot, a task that tests the endurance of the most hardy, for if there is any country in the world today that stands as a sample of the primeval, it is this same valley of the Fraser.

    Giant cedars that measure six and eight feet across at the butt and soar 80 feet clear to the first branch are the largest trees, but immense spruce and fire rival them in height, while in the lesser word below, birch, cottonwood, alder and a dozen other smaller species crowd each other for space.  The whole floor is sown with rotting trunks that must have been moulding for centuries.

    I don’t know how long it takes a tree to rot, but it must require some time for a tree four or five feet through to mould to such an extent that you can dig through the brown decay with a shovel.  Hundreds upon hundreds of these moss-grown trunks lie everywhere in the nether gloom, while great bunches of dank moss, with here and there brilliant mushroom growths are sapping the nourishment from their rich vegetable mould.  Ferns and creepers as high as your head are everywhere, and the whole so dense that a person walking unimpeded, could hardly make a mile in an hour.

    Here and there are little openings and “burns” where the timber has been scorched by fire, and then died and fallen in hopeless confusion, one great tree lying prostrate over another.  In these spots one can walk for half a mile on tree trunks and never touch earth by ten feet.  Ten good men with sharp axes could not cut a mile of trail a day, that would enable horses to travel.

    

    I have always heard that the Native Americans did not establish villages or live permanently in what is now the Robson Valley, except for a village of dugouts at Tete Jaune Cache.  They did make forays down the river for hunting and food gathering purposes, but after reading the description of the forests from Washburn’s  book, it seems logical that it would have been just too much work to try to live around here permanently.  

    The photos were taken at the Ancient Forest Provincial Park.  It is one of the few remaining areas where the giant cedars can still be seen in the Robson Valley.  It does help give you a visual of what those old forests must have been like.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca