New Website

Hey folks, sorry for the silence.

I am currently in the process of moving over to Wordpress. I am consolidating both of my blogs: Flora the Forager and Raw Canadian Girl. The result is a revamped website with some writing projects available for your viewing pleasure.

You can find me by the same moniker, but at Wordpress instead of Blogger. Raw Canadian Girl.

My new running partner

Danny is 8 months old today

This is my mom's border collie puppy, Danny. This morning my mom dropped him off and we went out for a run/walk (75/25) at Spencer Gorge along the Bruce Trail today for about 1.5 hrs. Danny is the best running partner. He always has a positive attitude and it's constant forward motion constantly! It's a beautiful day outside, around 15C. Most of the snow is gone except in really shady areas and it's not too muddy where there has been sun. I don't have a pair of trail running shoes yet, so my road runners got totally mudded up. But Danny reminded me not to care if your feet get wet and muddy, just keep moving!

811 Travel: Cuba, Florida, Costa Rica?

Hamilton, Ontario, we get a lot of snow, photo by me

I live in Canada. I've been very patient about spring and summer. But this past winter was particularly harsh, one of the worst on record. We got so much snow that we still have snow on the ground that hasn't melted, even though there have been a lot of above-freezing temperatures for the last few weeks.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the availabilty of organic and good quality fruit. Although I will probably never live full-time in a tropical climate, I would like to visit one every once in a while.

I want to go somewhere warm with beaches where I can eat lots of good organic fruit. Here are my thoughts.

Cuba. I am tempted to travel to Cuba but have never heard any 811 folk talk about it, most likely because the majority of internet people live in the U.S. so are not traveling to Cuba much. I wonder whether any 811 folk have traveled to Cuba and what their experiences were like? As a Canadian it's relatively cheap to travel to Cuba but I wonder about the availabilty of fresh fruit and farmer's markets because of the economic situation there.

Florida. Or I could stay on this continent and go down to Florida. Lots of farmer's markets there, but what city to stay in?

Costa Rica. I'd like to visit Costa Rica. Perhaps I should just save to go on the fasting internship with Dr. D next year. I had considered going to H&F week again (I went in 2006) this September. If I were to go for the second week, I would have to fly out just 1-2 days after my 50K trail race!

Stop caring about what other people eat.

Kemble, Ontario, near my cottage - photo by me

You know, I used to drive myself crazy thinking about food politics constantly. When I worked as a cashier at a grocery store, I would judge how much fresh food each person bought at my checkout at the grocery store, then look at the person and see if their order matched their apperance. Now I just don't care. I am happy and content with my lifestyle choices to the point that I don't need to prove my identity to anyone. Being out of post-secondary education and also having resigned from the vegetarian association I founded, I lost this need. Or maybe I just grew up a little, lost the desire for rebellion. I feel so free now that I'm away from all of that.

I recently went back to my job as a cashier at the supermarket and my coworker said I look happier now and that you can see it in my face. I suppose I am a lot happier now. Yes, I'm less mired by the post-secondary institution, looming deadlines and the pressure of being political all the time. Plus, being judgemental is an awful lot of work. I'm not interested in what people are buying anymore. Later that day my co-worker also asked me if I was pregnant. Immediately I touched my stomach, thinking I looked fat. She said no, don't worry, I didn't look fat, but that I had that glow to me, as if I were pregnant. Nope, absolutely not pregnant. Just happy, stretchy, poised and full of fruit.

Dundas Valley, Ontario - photo by me

I went for a bike ride today. My first bike ride of the season, in fact. It snowed a little last night but by the afternoon it had melted on the streets and sidewalks. I went to go check out a trail that is relatively close to my house and goes up the side of the Niagara Escarpment and supposedly connects to the Bruce Trail. I might have walked on it once in the past, but not on purpose. A woman came into my store the other day and we were talking about trail running and I was asking her questions about the trails around here. She thought I had just moved here (I have lived here almost all of my life) because I don't know anything about the trails! I just usually run through Dundurn Park, then the Harvey Park Trail and meet up with the Waterfront Trail because it's right outside my door. But since I'm going to be a trail runner, I need to find some unpaved trails that have dirt, puddles, gravel, rocks and other fun stuff. As I confirmed today, all the trails near me are still covered in a slippery mixture of snow and ice so it will still be a while before I can run on any actual trails.

I am eating 811 again. I really wanted to get back to it. It's funny how sometimes in life we come full circle. I feel like I'm at a point where it's harder to be 811 because I feel like I'm less of a radical in many ways than I was while I was in university. I'm getting older and I'm married and settled down and I have less interested in being non-conformist. I suppose in my values and ideals I haven't changed any, but since I'm not around university kids or in a women's studies department, I have less to prove. It's hard not to think 811 is a radical lifestyle compared to my family and the people I see everyday. I think the secret is not to think about it at all.

Time to evolve.

Haliburton, Ontario - photo from www.haliburtonforest.com

We live here as an egg -- either we evolve or we decay. - Confucius

I am going to run the Haliburton Forest 50K race this September.

I thought I should run a marathon before attempting anything longer, but all the marathons near me are in cities and on pavement (as most marathons are). I prefer trail running and want to do longer ultra events on similar surfaces (dream runs include Vermont 100 and Western States 100), so it would be better for me to head in this direction. The image of running on pavement in downtown Toronto amongst hordes of people does not motivate me. Trail running is way more fun.

The Haliburton Forest is a remote, privately owned 65, 000 acres of forest, bordering Algonquin Park in Ontario. It's a wildlife reserve and there's even a Wolf Centre where a pair of wolves roam freely in a 15 acre enclosure.

I've been tagged by the lovely Angela Stokes!

Write five things about yourself that we don't already know about you and then tag up to five other people.

5 things you may not know about me:

1. My first degree was in magazine Journalism from Ryerson University.
2. I have traveled to China twice, once for over 6 weeks.
3. I was not an athletic child by any means. My parents never enrolled me in any sort of organized sports or lessons (not that I really wanted to.) I could barely run around the block and I got Cs in gym class all through school! I didn't become interested in becoming fit until the most recent past 3 years of my life.
4. A few years ago, I had a mohawk, played bass guitar in a punk band and drank a lot of Jack Daniels.
5. I was a drag king and I performed once on stage in Toronto.

Greenmama: http://rawgreenmama.blogspot.com/
Em: http://avocadogirl.wordpress.com/
Cathy: http://rawgirl2.blogspot.com/
ForestHeart: http://forestheart.wordpress.com/
Heidi and Justin: http://rawfoodrightnow.blogspot.com/index.html