Hyperlocal CBC Finalist: Backyard Betrayal

Go to the Hyperlocal website, to check out other stories that map the experiences of our country's writers. The following story can be found at here. 



A decade ago, my back alley was dotted with shelled sentries: rusted Buicks and sheds shrunken by fire. Fence posts leaned like wind-swept trees; the pavement cracks were filled with the deflated balloons of last night’s tricks.  

Today, most of the cars have been towed and sheds replaced with modest garages. Despite the upgrades, it is an alley where people still put out old furniture knowing it’ll be gone the next day, but the furniture is different now. Lamps with silk shades and recently removed bathroom vanities have replaced stained mattresses hosting bloated bugs. Bottles now sit separate from the trash- put out in a friendly way, almost like a tithe. Thankfully, it's an alley that still has grace for my overflowing compost pile and wild gardens: I like to think my cheery red garage door makes the stinking heap of veggies appear quaint and shabby chic.  

It is in this alley where my Italian neighbour introduced me to arugula and showed me the right way to mate a pumpkin flower (with another pumpkin flower, of course). Neighbours bond over gripes about city potholes and the growing army of tomcats. It’s still an alley where strangers can become friends. 

It’s also a place, I realized too late, where friends can become strangers. The sky was darkly preparing to deliver a mid-afternoon thunderstorm and I hurried to strap the kids into their seats for a quick errand before the torrent. I was rounding the van to the driver’s side when I saw him. The veins in his long, skinny arms popped out. Stretched like earthworms struggling for breath, they ended in balled fists that gripped black bags of bottles. His gait was slow, broken, cautious. His eyes were the vacant moons of a cheap high. He didn’t appear aware of me and I looked down to appear unaware of him. But I was hyper-aware of him. I knew him. I knew him from a place 600 kilometers away, from twenty years ago. Flashing behind my downcast eyes, I remembered another alley behind our elementary school. I was the new kid, but he stood out: the only boy with braids.  We acknowledged each other tentatively then. We would grow to know and like each other. We would finish school and go separate ways until this one day, in the middle of the big city behind my grown-up home, we would pass each other without visible pause. My heart beat with discomfort in this alley where dust rises from bumping cars and is trampled back down by the feet of bottle pickers and school children.  All along the road, the fences are being rebuilt. Just now, they are all a little higher and a little tighter than they were before.  

Alberta Venture: From the Farmer's Market to Supermarket- It's a Giant Leap

See Alberta Venture's April 2013 Issue for my piece titled: Secret Sauce.

Here's an excerpt:

While there may be an increase in consumer demand for local products, it still remains to be seen whether Alberta food processors can scale up to fully capitalize on it.

There are some notable success stories of Alberta food processers scaling up from the extremely local farmers’ market setting to retail shelves. CattleBoyZ BBQ Sauce, with its signature beer-style, latch-topped bottle, had its first retail sales in a small butcher shop in Calgary’s Eau Claire Market.
Now it’s sold in stores across Canada. Initially made and bottled in Joe Ternes’s kitchen, it was his family’s time-tested recipe. In 1994, Karen Hope was the Eau Claire Market manager, and she loved his sauce. Hope, a marketing specialist, and Ternes went on to form CattleBoyZ. Together they established the brand and found a manufacturer, and after a year of perseverance (and a bit of luck), the sauce was selling as a seasonal product in western Costco locations.

But the move from the farmers’ market to larger retailers’ shelves rarely happens so quickly. Another successful Alberta food processor, Kinnikinnick Foods, grew more organically, thanks mostly to the powers of the Internet. In the 1990s Kinnikinnick’s gluten-free baking products could be bought at Edmonton’s Old Strathcona Market, and at the time it was one of the few such products available. Jerry Bigam, the company’s current CEO, was a big fan and regular customer, and he decided to buy the company with the hope of expanding its operations. But after struggling to get shelf space at major retailers, he turned to online sales in order to grow the business. “We were the first company to supply perishable food on the Internet,” Bigam says. “For $10, we could deliver product anywhere in North America overnight.”

The online business helped them grow their sales by 60 to 70 per cent annually, and eventually major food distributors started calling them. They now supply product to 65 warehouses and 10,000 stores across North America. But for many local, small-scale processors interested in scaling up, there are significant and often systemic challenges. Ted Johnston, the president and CEO of the Alberta Food Processors Association, has some sobering advice for anyone looking to make the leap. “First,” he says, “they need to buy a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”

Avenue Edmonton: Wooed by the Antique Auction

I'm  a furniture-phile and deal hunter who will willingly spend summer Saturdays hunting through stuffy second hand shops. That said, I'd never been to an antique auction until last fall when I took my virgin trip to Ward's Auctions for Avenue Edmonton (I had the mis-fortune of mentioning 'virginal trip' to the auctioneer, who responded, "I'll be gentle." Then I turned the unprofessional colour of rhubarb.)

"Tripping to Auction" may be the start of a life-long love affair. The deals are great, but the adrenaline rush and energy of the crowd is something else. Pick up the May edition of Avenue Edmonton, or link to: http://avenueedmonton.com/articles/tripping-to-auction.

If you go, please let me know if it captures your imagination too.

My girlfriend, Tina Faiz, dragged this desk to Edmonton from Seattle. The bookcase is from Strathcona Antique Mall, and chair I bought from a film director I met on kijiji.

The couch was the source of major marital tension: it was a five-piece sectional that I brought home without consultation during my "nesting phase" ( pregnant with my third kid). It filled our tiny living room: "but it has a turning martini bar in the corner," was my plea for keeping the massive monument to sixties largess. We negotiated a compromise: three sections. This arrangement has seemed to satisfy everyone, though it's not exceptional for 'sprawling'.

This table was from Stan's Pawn Shop. Quebec maple, the top was sanded by me and varnished by Mat. The chairs cost me $60 a pop through Kijiji.

This piece languished in the Strathcona Antique Market for two years when they finally dropped the price by $500. I saw it and loved it... probably would have paid the previous price too.