great inventions

girls outside in popular sportswear

~ carin ~ Leave a comment
Dinner on the Beach, Natural History Society Camp, c 1918 (Photo: New Brunswick Museum)
“In 1881 women were allowed to join the newly formed Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick. Saint John women interested in natural history, history and science enthusiastically embraced the group, and by 1892 they had taken control of the auxiliary, electing members, establishing objectives and offering programs. Their motto, “Progress is the law of life,” underscored their “commitment of self improvement, technological advancement and social uplift,” which they felt was best gained through education. The Society offered lectures, museum tours, field trips and teas. The Saint John-based group was so successful that by 1905 women outnumbered the men of the Natural History Society two to one. As time passed they expanded their programs, focusing on education directed at women and children.*
 
“Among the most popular activities were summer science camps and clubs for children and youth. In the photo shown above, science camp participants are enjoying a meal on the beach. Most of the young women are wearing middies and bloomers—popular sportswear of the period. That the participants appear to be female shows that even 100 years ago, girls and women embraced science education when given an opportunity.”
(From: Herstory, 2010, The Women’s Calendar)
 
* Collecting and museum work offered opportunities for scientifically minded women to engage in high-profile cultural and intellectual activities in their communities, thereby offsetting as well as challenging their lack of political rights.

a good sign

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Seen next to a busy street.

Had to stop of course.

None of the gardeners were there.

So I wandered about being amazed and delighted at the variety of contraptions and ‘constructions’

—humbled at the idea that people would come all the way out here to the middle of nowhere to work in the heat, tending rows of cucumber

and string beans

cauliflower

tomatoes (112 plants in this patch alone)

as well as lettuce (not to mention zucchini, eggplant, brussel sprouts, beets, carrots, herbs, peppers, kohlrabi…)

for the benefit—at least in part—of others.

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just a minute

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Here’s another one minute ‘movie’ feature, this time at Geist. Really more like sixty seconds captured on film.  I like the idea of stitching together a glimpse of the country this way—a kind of cinematic quilt. My favourite, without having looked at them all, is Albion, B.C., with the sound of the train passing by the ‘station’—all that split second excitement and possibility, yet leaving everything just as it was—leaving us to wonder: is that good or bad?

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deciphering messages

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Funny the domino effect of things.

Or whatever it is.

Yesterday I read Rona Maynard’s musings and reflections on ice cream. Today the stuff is everywhere I go. On CBC this morning with Matt Galloway. On the side of the semi that pulls out in front of me and makes me say bad words as enormous tubs of vanilla, cherry, chocolate, pecan-swirl momentarily tower over me—I can’t remember the brand. 

And, oh look, there it is again on a sign that I’ve probably passed ten or twenty thousand times on my way to the place where I buy happy meat and eggs and the best butter tarts I’ve ever tasted—but I’ve never noticed the great honking strawberry cone before. 

Most bizarrely of all, it’s in my mum’s fridge.

Three individual servings of vanilla and butterscotch, untouched and melting. So instead of making the usual oatmeal or toast for her breakfast, which has been getting little or no reaction recently, I pour the ice cream into her coffee, then pour some more over canned peaches.

She laps it up, asks for seconds. 

She’s almost ninety. What can it hurt?

A recent stroke has left her unable to do much for herself and this gets her down—everyone ‘doing’ for her, helping her dress and wash, preparing meals. She recently stopped enjoying food entirely, so when I see her licking her fingers, everything makes sense, the semi, Matt Galloway, Rona Maynard—it occurs to me there’s a message in all these ice cream sightings—ie. life is too bleeping short for oatmeal every morning—at least give the poor woman a dollop of coffee toffee mocha crunch with it…

And of course it makes complete and perfect sense.

Funny indeed how these things work.

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