Are you clean and civilized or dirty and not sanitized?

Written by: Attila Farkas

Fishing, blogging, tweeting, texting and your FaceBook status.

You can’t text the fish about the bait you are about to use. What to do, what to do??? You have to put your phone in your pocket and use your fingers for something that you are not accustomed to doing. You have to put the worm on the hook yourself and wipe off your fingers before you pick up your phone to take a picture of the worm and post it on FaceBook as your status. If you tweet about the event you will scare your worm and cause unnecessary stress; worms don’t like birds. The whole thing seems barbaric and dirty. Why can’t someone invent a worm with a built-in hook? I am sure that genetic engineers are working on the problem. When was the last time you touched organic soil with your fingers during gardening and felt good about it? What??? Getting dirty?

Your ancestors have worked the land with their bare hands and through the soil, their skin absorbed trace elements that can help the immune system fight disease, help your endocrine system function efficiently and these same trace elements can also improve your overall health. Some of them are available only through interaction with organic soil and this is when your problem comes in...

You get up in the morning and get into your shower(box), after you are done get something out from your fridge for breakfast(box), maybe some cereal(box), pick up your phone to check your emails(box), turn the TV on to check the news(box), get into your car to get to work(box), maybe take the train(box), once you get to your building take the elevator(box), open the door to your office(box), sit down to your computer(box), start working and wonder why you are stressed out...

Please do something for yourself that does not include a box.

Happy gardening and fishing!

http://youtu.be/5XqdD7gr5yk

Cheers,

Attila

mud bath and fishing

Our best salmon fishing video to date:

http://youtu.be/jzFkD6h5wBQ

living fence

Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic Moms!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic Moms!

Mother’s day breakfast prepared by the kids and myself. French toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee and tulips for decoration.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Flowers

Earth Day Poem

Written by: Attila Farkas

Narrated by: Erika Farkas

Shiny shoes and Armani suits
Fake smiles and hopeless pursuits
Ruling the Earth is an illusion
Ruining the Earth is not the solution
Global warming is not a game
There is nothing political to gain
Money and greed move the gears
Business leaders shed no tears
There is no count for the toxins we made
Flooding the waters and the food we ate
It is your job to take a step
Don’t wait for others to make a stand
There is always something you can do
Don’t wait for governments to do it for you
Grow a garden plant a tree
Thank the Lord that you are still free
Nature is still more intelligent than us
Learn from her and don’t make a fuss
We came a long way don’t turn back now
Don’t blame global warming on a cow
http://youtu.be/zN-pDUcP-bc

Never Give Up!

A story about a fat cat and the cornfield.

Written by: Attila Farkas

I live in the city of Barrie, where most people have manicured loans in front of the house and also in the backyard. My neighbors are proud of their freshly cut grass, flowers and small evergreens, organized as colorful English style gardens. No one had vegetable gardens around my house except for an older Italian lady behind my property. Planting salads, tomatoes, cucumbers cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables seemed out of place and out of style, but I didn't care. I was craving for a lush green vegetable garden. The only truly organic vegetables you can enjoy are the ones that you plant yourself. I grew up on a farm and having non-functional green grass everywhere didn't seem like a good idea. The first year my vegetable garden was so successful and beautiful that my neighbor decided to plant one herself. The tide was turning; maybe I can influence others to plant vegetables instead of just watching the grass grow. My initial success made me want even more vegetables in my garden. I have built a living fence to protect my vegetables from my German shepherd dog, Nero and behind the fence, in relative safety, I had planted a cornfield. The cornfield was 20 feet long and 5 feet wide with five rows of corn. Altogether about 300 little corn plants. That's a nice size cornfield for a city backyard. I could already see my three kids running around it and playing hide and seek just before Halloween. I have planted the corn in late April, watered them and when I checked on them the next day I could not believe my eyes. No, they did not grow overnight. They have disappeared overnight. Something dug small holes where I planted the corn and took each and every one of them. The kids used to feed chipmunks on our patio and it was obvious who the thieves were.

I always tell my kids to never ever give up on their plans and keep going no matter what happens. I also had to teach the Chipmunks a lesson. I have planted about 300 corns in the exact same place where they were before. I figured I'd play a trick on the chipmunks or squirrels or whatever it was that took my corn. After I planted my future corn field I have placed a quarter of a teaspoon of hot Cajun Pepper powder on the soil right above each kernel that was on the ground. That would've made a lot of good Hungarian goulash, but if it can protect my corn field it will be just as good. The very next day my son Peter checked the cornfield and ran back to the kitchen with a strangely excited expression on his face.

“Daddy the chipmunks like the hot peppers! They ate them all, “Peter said. It seemed like he was rooting for the enemy, but he was just excited that they were able to eat all that hot pepper and the corn at the same time.

I went out and checked to see if it was true and it was. Every single piece of corn was dug up and taken against its will which means corn-napping. That is a serious offense in my book and at that moment I have declared war on the chipmunks. I thought about trapping them or even shooting them with my pellet gun, but they are too cute to shoot or to trap. I had to find a way to beat them at their game. I have planted the cornfield again the third time because you can never ever give up and I really wanted to see a beautiful green cornfield by my fence. This time I have built a small greenhouse right on top of the cornfield and made sure that the chipmunks cannot get in. It took me several weeks to take care of the garden water the corn daily, but after about a month it was amazing to see 300 corn plants lining up in five rows just like green soldiers. It appeared that I had won the war against the chipmunks and the corn was about 4 feet tall in the middle of July when another challenge presented itself. The corn plants were very long and thin and were just getting stronger when an unusually strong storm system came through. The wind gusts were over one hundred kilometers an hour at times and even if the cornfield would have survived the storm there was another factor that I could have never calculated in. One of my neighbors owns a fat cat. A really, really fat cat. I have nothing against fat cats but this one was a bit overconfident for its size. It was over 20 pounds, just a gray mass of fur, fat and some muscle and he used to walk along my 8-foot fence. Despite the hurricane force winds, the fat cat decided to stroll along again on the top of my fence, when... The strong wind picked him up from behind, turned him into a twenty-pound hairy balling ball with a tail spinning like a propeller and aimed him right against my corn field. Let’s see how many rows of corn he can knock down in one shot. The corn plants were just like the bowling pins and the cat demolished most of them with the first try. The wind and rain took care of the rest of them.

When I came home from work that afternoon the entire family was standing in front of the sliding door to cover the view of my destroyed cornfield.

“We have some bad news,” my wife said.

“The storm destroyed the cornfield,” my son Peter said.

“The fat cat was on top of the fence today,” my daughter Erika said.

“I saw the Chipmunks again I think they came back,” announced Thomas, my youngest son.

I stood there at the sliding door looking at my cornfield; most of the plants were broken in half only two or three were standing from the 300. I put on my raincoat and went out to the garden and was standing there in front of my cornfield in disbelief. The whole thing was gone, destroyed, mutilated by the storm and the fat cat. I could feel my blood pressure rise and my heart rate quicken. I was getting really mad. I was ready to pull the first broken corn right out of the ground and then rip out all of them.

I’m going to rip the whole thing right out,” I said, not realizing that my son Peter was standing right behind me.

“But daddy, you said to never give up,” Peter said and looked at me with his big blue eyes. I was very close to giving up and he was there to witness it.

I looked up into the raining sky and let the showering raindrops calm me down.

“Can you get me some stakes from the building supply store,” asked my wife and as she was heading out I looked for strings. After she came back with the five feet long stakes I drove them into the ground with a hammer and tied up the corn, one by one. Only a third of them survived the ordeal and produced a half a dozen corn on the cub. I let them ripen and in October they turned golden yellow. My pride and promise had stayed intact and can still say that it is true: You never, ever give up on anything that is important to you.

If you ever see chipmunks around Barrie and they are constantly sneezing; it’s not a genetic mutation. The Cajun pepper finally started working on them...

How to bottle happiness

How to bottle happiness...

Written by: Attila Farkas

By the time your children become teenagers, you will forget thousands of random moments that could put a smile on your face later on in your golden years.

I used to make up bedtime stories for my kids when they were younger; most of the stories were silly and made them have a good laugh just before bedtime and I think that's the best way to go to sleep.

I often promised myself that I soon as I the kids fall asleep I will go downstairs write down some of the best stories, but like for most of us life got in the way, or rather I let life get in the way.

Your life can get in your way too if you let it and will rob you of your precious memories if you don’t write them down. I am planning to use these blogs to try to go back in time and write about some of the stories that I remember.

My advice to you is that when those special moments happen, take a few minutes the same day and write down the details, the random small moments in life with your family or friends. Some of these moments also happen in class when I am teaching. My students make me feel happy, complete and connected.

The random happy moments in your life are also gold coins that you should collect in the biggest glass jar that you can find. If you don't have a glass jar you can record your precious memories on paper or your iPhone or even napkins will work. You can even write a collection of blogs if you want to share your coins with others. Blogging is not ranting on the Internet as many people call it. Blogging is what you make it. For me, blogging is sharing my gold coins. I can even hear that unique sound they make when you drop a few of them on an old homemade wooden table. Schedule time to take some of those memories back; record them before they dissolve into unrecognizable little pieces of history. Don’t let work, overtime, household chores, headaches, always putting others first, get in the way.

Gold coin #1

The monkey bar

My wife and I have spent almost two weeks designing and building a custom tree house for our three kids when they were young. Peter was six, Erika three and Thomas just a baby when we finished the tree house. It is big enough so the three of them can fit inside, it is complete with a monkey bar, swing set, and the slide. 

It was the end of July 2007 and I was placing cages around my lush green tomatoes and tied up some overgrown vines. Every few seconds I looked over to see my son, Peter had made it up on the steps of the tree house.

He climbed up, spent about a minute inside and stepped over to the entrance and looked over at the monkey bar. No one was there to lift him up like other times so he can grab onto the bars. He was not much taller than three feet, about the same height as the floor of the tree house was off the ground. He looked down; the floor of the tree house was high enough to be a bit scary but not too high to be dangerous. He looked up at the monkey bar and raised his arms to measure the distance. He would have to jump almost a foot to reach the bars. He had jumped down from the tree house before and he knew that he would be fine, but it's different to fall when you miss your mark.

 “I can't reach it, I can't... it’s too high,” said Peter. I could barely hear his voice and he didn't realize that I was watching him. I left my tomatoes and stepped over to the tree house.

“How is it going son?” asked him with a big smile on my face.

“I can't reach it. It's too high,” he said. His big blue eyes showed some determination, but not enough confidence.

“Listen if you tell your mind that you can do it and you can picture yourself jumping for it and grabbing it, it will work. Your mind will help your body to do it,” I said.

I used simple words and made it sound like this is as simple as spreading peanut butter on bread.

He nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything. I went back to my tomatoes and noticed a honeybee collecting nectar from one of the yellow tomato flowers.  The midday sun looked at us from a clear blue sky and only an old black crow tried to ruin the moment by sounding a few doubting kraa-kraa words in crow language. I pretended to focus on my tomatoes; even turned my back for a moment and when I looked back I saw Peter swinging on the monkey bar. He was grabbing onto the wood pieces one by one and when he turned back I stepped over, hugged him and helped him onto the landing pad by the entrance.

“Good job buddy, that was amazing,” I said and gave him a high five and a hug. “So what happened?”

“I saw the picture in my head, and I told myself I can do it,” he said, his face was gleaming with pride.

“I did it,” he said.

“You did a fantastic job!” I said one more time and I went back to work with my tomatoes. When I looked back, Peter was swinging on the monkey bar again.

He is going to turn thirteen this year and had some lazy moments lately, but every time he says that something is too hard or impossible, I just have to say five words. Peter, remember the monkey bar...

If you would like another gold coin, please leave a comment.

Thank you for collecting the coins...