Category Archives: Tomatoes

Everybody pets the cranes.

Posted on October 6, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I don’t know when it started. Someone reached out on their way past, gave a wing a pat, and somehow it became a thing everyone does. Kids. Regulars. People who’ve never bought a thing in their life but always say hello to the birds. You can see exactly where it happens — the bronze has gone soft and green everywhere the weather touched it, except down their backs and along the beaks, where a thousand hands have kept the brass glowing warm and gold.

They’re a matched pair — identical, two tall cranes standing just over five feet, heads raised like they’ve heard something interesting across the room. They’re made the old way, brass and bronze together: the brighter brass catching the light at the beak and the high points, the darker bronze going that deep even green over the rest.

They spent years out in a garden — a sheltered patio — and you can read every one of those seasons in the patina. That soft, even green is the honest gift of real time outdoors: sun and damp and frost doing their slow work, a little at a time. It’s the kind of surface you simply can’t rush or fake.

There’s a reason cranes so often come as a pair. In both Chinese and Japanese tradition they stand for long life and good fortune — and because real cranes are said to mate for life, a pair has always meant faithfulness, two together for the long haul. These two have kept each other company a good while already.

I’d love to see them go somewhere with room to stand sentinel: flanking a gate, watching over a pond, guarding a doorway. They weigh about a hundred pounds apiece, so whoever takes them is making a commitment — but a pair like this is the kind of thing a garden keeps for fifty years.

They’re in the shop if you’d like to come say hello before they find their garden. Message or call.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to do better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Ref. no. 234

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A Cat and Four Kittens

Posted on October 3, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

Some pieces give themselves up at a glance. This one made me work for it — and then rewarded the work.

It’s a tribal silver ring, the kind made across Afghanistan and Central Asia: you can read the hands all over it. Wire twisted into rope, laid beside plain wire; little applied circles or coils around the shoulders; a tall domed cup — the bezel — rising up to cradle the stone. None of it stamped, none of it identical side to side. That’s the signature of tribal silverwork — made one at a time, by eye, by hand.

The stone is a banded chalcedony — a cousin of agate — in a warm carnelian-pink. Its colour has very likely been warmed up, which is the usual way with these tribal rings and no mark against it; the old workshops did it as a matter of course. What can’t be faked is the way it’s chatoyant — tilt it to the light and a soft band of brightness, a cat’s-eye, slides across the dome. It’s a gentle one, not a sharp knife of light, and all the lovelier for it. On one side there’s a clear pink band you can see with the naked eye; on the other, just a trace.

And here’s the fun part. The carver didn’t stop at one dome. Out of a single stone they shaped a big central cabochon, ringed by eleven small carved domes — twelve in all. But tilt them to the light and only four of the little ones answer back, each catching the same soft cat’s-eye as the big center stone. Twelve domes, and you have to hunt for the four that are hiding a cat’s eye. A cat and four kittens, hiding in plain sight.

Sit with that number a moment, because twelve is no small thing in the part of the world this ring comes from. Twelve months, twelve signs of the old zodiac that the astronomers of the Islamic world studied and refined; and in the Shia tradition that runs through Afghanistan and Iran, the Twelve Imams. A central figure encircled by a ring of others — the one and the many, the sun and its attendants — is one of the oldest patterns people have ever arranged things into. I can’t tell you the carver meant any particular one of those. But twelve is a number with weight here, and whoever made this chose it.

And then there’s the eye itself. Across Central and South Asia, a cat’s-eye stone wasn’t only pretty — it was a guardian. The “eye” in the stone was thought to watch, to turn away the evil eye, to keep the wearer safe. So this is a ring that, by old reckoning, has a dozen eyes looking out for you — five of them awake and shining.

What I keep coming back to, though, is simply how hard this was to make. One piece of chalcedony, and someone sat and carved twelve separate domes into it by hand — no machine, no shortcut — and shaped them so cleanly that four came out chatoyant, each with the light rolling across it just so. That’s patience I can barely imagine. The kind of slow, exacting handwork that nobody does by accident.

It wears honestly — the small irregularities of hand-work, the wear you’d expect from a ring that’s lived a life. Size 6½, and the shank is cut in the traditional way so it flexes about a quarter-size smaller or larger to settle on the finger.

$85. It’s in the shop. Come tilt it to the light yourself — a photograph can’t quite catch a cat’s eye moving — or message / call 778-708-0454.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to do better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Ref. no. 1159

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Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, It's All Connected..., Tomatoes and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

50% Off Everything You can Wear – This Week Only

Posted on September 24, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The seasons are turning, and I’m making room. So everything in the shop you can wear is going out at half price.

It’s a small room, about the size of a walk-in closet, but it’s packed — and I’ll be filling in the spaces all week long, adding new things as they come. So it’s worth more than one visit; what isn’t there Saturday may well be there Wednesday.

The details:
50% off all clothing, accessories, shoes, hats, coats, jackets and furs — every tag
(Sorry, jewelry is not included in this sale – but we always think carefully about offers!)

Saturday, September 19 through Saturday, September 26, 2026
Open 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
In-store only, at the shop

Starting tomorrow, 50% off every Clothing Tag — all the clothing, the coats and jackets, the leathers, the dresses, the denim, the shoes, the hats, the accessories, and the furs. Yes, the furs too — including a 1970s Hudson’s Bay mink that’s been waiting for the right person.

Can’t make those hours? Give me a call and we’ll arrange a private time — before or after opening — just for you. A quiet browse with the room to yourself.

Come dig. Half the fun is finding the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to write better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Leave a comment

Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, Things that are Real, Tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Something unusual came through the door this week.

Posted on September 21, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

A carved temple head of a crowned deity — most likely Guanyin — clad in worked buffalo horn over a carved wood core, with finely incised detail across the crown and a row of tiny meditating Buddhas set into the flaming lotus petals across the front. The face still carries its old polychrome, softened by age and a little smoke.

What makes this one a curiosity: it has small sealed compartments, still closed, that in temple figures like this often held consecration deposits — prayers, texts, grains. To my knowledge, they’ve never been opened, and they’ll stay that way.

Around the base is a Chenghua reign mark (明成化年製). Such marks are almost always later homages to an admired era rather than a literal date — so it tells us the tradition the piece honours, not its birthday.

Honest age and honest wear — the horn cladding is lifting away in places where the old gesso bedding has let go over the years. We’re not cleaning or restoring it; it’s lovely as it is.

In-store in Richmond. Message or call to view — happy to walk you through it.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to do better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Ref. no. 1077

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Posted in Anthropology, Antiques & Collectables, History, It's All Connected..., Tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

A Little Tag, A Lot of Silver Plate

Posted on September 20, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

This little tag came in among a lot of silverplate — tarnished black, easy to walk past, with what looked like a fancy letter on the front. A proper look under the loupe, and a little light polishing, told a very different story.

It’s a sterling silver wine label — the kind that once hung by a fine chain around the neck of a decanter, so a host could tell the Claret from the Port without pulling every stopper. This one is the letter “C,” for Claret — but in black-letter, the old Gothic script, which is why it looks so unlike the plain C we write today. The hallmarks date it to the year: London, 1848 — early Victorian, Queen Victoria on the throne eleven years — made by Charles Rawlings & William Summers, a London firm known for exactly this kind of small, fine silver.

Now, the colour — because this is the part worth slowing down for.

It isn’t paint, and it isn’t a coloured stone. It’s enamel, which is powdered glass fused to metal in a kiln. But it’s a particular, harder kind called basse-taille (French for “low-cut”), and here’s the trick of it: before any glass goes on, the silversmith hand-engraves the silver underneath in a fine, wave-like pattern. Then translucent red and blue enamel is laid over that engraving and fired. Because the glass is see-through, light passes down through the colour, catches the engraved silver beneath, and bounces back up — so the piece doesn’t just sit there flat, it glows and shifts as it moves. Every wave you can see under the red is a cut made by hand, one at a time, on a piece less than half the size of a business card.

It’s slow, exacting work with no margin for a slip — the enamel either comes out of the kiln clean or it cracks and you start over. Which makes the condition of this one quietly remarkable: 178 years, and not a single chip.

A small thing, a lovely thing — and older than the province it now sits in. (British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871. This label already had a 23-year head start.)

And that’s rather the point. This nearly went out with the plate. So before the next houseful of “old junk” heads for the curb — before you hand the boxes to the fellow with the truck — give the small, dark, unglamorous things a slow look. The tag nobody can read. The dented little spoon. The thing that “can’t be worth anything.” That’s exactly where the good stuff hides, and once it’s gone in a bulk lot, it’s gone for good. If a piece has you puzzled, bring it in and we’ll look at it together. No charge to wonder.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a seamstress, a silversmith, or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to do better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Ref. no. 1075

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Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, It's All Connected..., Things that are Real, Tomatoes and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

50% Off Everything You can Wear – This Week Only

Posted on September 18, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The seasons are turning, and I’m making room. So everything in the shop you can wear is going out at half price.

It’s a small room, about the size of a walk-in closet, but it’s packed — and I’ll be filling in the spaces all week long, adding new things as they come. So it’s worth more than one visit; what isn’t there Saturday may well be there Wednesday.

The details:
50% off all clothing, accessories, shoes, hats, coats, jackets and furs — every tag
(Sorry, jewelry is not included in this sale – but we always think carefully about offers!)

Saturday, September 19 through Saturday, September 26, 2026
Open 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
In-store only, at the shop

Starting tomorrow, 50% off every Clothing Tag — all the clothing, the coats and jackets, the leathers, the dresses, the denim, the shoes, the hats, the accessories, and the furs. Yes, the furs too — including a 1970s Hudson’s Bay mink that’s been waiting for the right person.

Can’t make those hours? Give me a call and we’ll arrange a private time — before or after opening — just for you. A quiet browse with the room to yourself.

Come dig. Half the fun is finding the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to write better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Leave a comment

Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, Things that are Real, Tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

… of things relative

Posted on June 25, 2017 by TheMorningTomatoReport

There are dozens of tiny green tomatoes on this plant.  Even more exciting, there are dozens more bright yellow flowers….

 

Currently Reading:  The A B C of Atoms, by Bertrand Russell.  E.P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1923.  Date of first issue, 1908.

“But even if the size of an electron should ultimately prove… to be related to the size of the universe, that would leave a number of unexplained brute facts, notably the quantum itself, which has so far defied all attempts to make it seem anything but accidental.  It is possible that the desire for rational explanation may be carried too far.  This is suggested by some remarks… by Eddington, in his book, Space, Time and Gravitation…  The theory of relativity has shown that most of the traditional dynamics, which was supposed to contain scientific laws, really consisted of conventions as to measurement, and was strictly analogous to the “great law” that there are always three feet to a yard.  In particular, this applies to the conservation of energy.  This makes it plausible to suppose that every apparent law of nature which strikes us as reasonable is not really a law of nature, but a concealed convention, plastered on to nature by our love of what we, in our arrogance, choose to consider rational.  Eddington hints that a real law of nature is likely to stand out by the fact that it appears to us irrational, since in that case it is less likely that we have invented it to satisfy our intellectual taste.  And from this point of view he inclines to the belief that the quantum-principle is the first real law of nature that has been discovered in physics.

This raises a somewhat important question:  Is the world “rational,” i.e., such as to conform to our intellectual habits?  Or is it “irrational,” i.e., not such as we should have made it if we had been in the position of the Creator?  I do not propose to suggest an answer to this question.”

I LOVE skipping to the end of a book!

 

 

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Posted in Agriculture, Anthropology, Being a Mature Student, Biology, Concilience, Economics, Environment, Food, History, It's All Connected..., Literature, Nature, Political Science, politics, Science, Sociology, Things that are Real, Tomatoes and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

In The Beginning (of this blog)…

Posted on June 23, 2017 by TheMorningTomatoReport

There was a tomato plant….

Several years later, there is another tomato plant!  It is gaining momentum!

2017-06-07_08.19.341

No need for a chain of command to appear here or, is there?

Sir!  Do we have enough tomatoes yet?  Do we need a discussion on this matter?  What about the aphids?  Sir!  Sir?  There are aphids!

Aphids?  This is not the Middle Ages!  We have to ask for permission.  This isn’t something we can just ‘handle.’  We need a committee!

Sir?

Stick around kid, I’m calling parliament — I’m on hold….  Be with you in a minute!  Do we have a call-back number?

SIR?

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Annotated List (with Links) of University Lab, Publications Lists – This is a Work in Progress…

Posted on November 19, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

This is a Work in Progress…

Searching is easy, until we can’t find something that we need….  This list might help.  It takes us to places that Google generally cannot get into unless you know very specific key words to use.  This is usually the entire title of the article!  In fact, if there is something on one of these list that you have trouble finding, try copying and pasting the ‘entire’ title into this search box.  If that doesn’t work, send me a note and I will try to help….

This will be a very long list and it will be added to whenever I find new and interesting lists to add to it!  If you know of a publication list that you would like to see added here, please let me know  —  this type of list can be really hard to find….

~~~~~

Anthropology

Kwantlen Polytechnic University 

The Anthropology Faculty  –  Most of the instructors and professors in this department and are published.  Most have also provided at least a partial list of their writing and there is some very interesting writing here!

Anthropology Department Resource List  –  There are some amazing links here.  If you are looking for information on pretty much anything anthropology related, spend a few free clicks through this page.

~~~~~

Biology

Michigan State University

Richard E. Lenski  –  The Experimental Evolution page is a very long list of some incredibly amazing work!  Track the progress of the 50,000 Generation Project by going back through time (and articles) to get real details and real information!

~~~~~

Chemistry

Kwantlen Polytechnic University  –  There is a good list of web sites, databases and other university chemistry departments here.    I will be checking some of these links out soon.

~~~~~

Classical Studies

University of Winnipeg

Classic Studies Faculty  –  Full and partial publication lists of faculty members.  I just found these lists and have not gone through them too thoroughly yet.

~~~~~

Criminology

Kwantlen Polytechnic University  –  There is only one faculty showing off their writing skills here.  Greg Jenion.   However, the Resources page here is fairly well stocked with good links!

University of Winnipeg  –  Criminal Justice Department Resource List.  I have checked out a few of these links and, if you are willing to put in a few clicks, you may find some publications lists that are absolutely amazing!

~~~~~

Ecology

University of British Columbia  –  The Hinch Lab is an incredible source of information on Wild Salmon!   The articles listed here are from 1986 to present and every article I have looked at is well written with an excellent reference list!

University of Winnipeg  – 

The Publications List at the Lingle Lab is a good source for interesting local information.

~~~~~

Environmental Protection

Kwantlen Polytechnic University  –  A good starting place for information on protecting the environment and staying safe doing it!

~~~~~

Gender Studies

University of Winnipeg  –  Most of the professors and instructors listed here have a biography which includes some very interesting publications lists.

~~~~~

Geography

Kwantlen Polytechnic University  –  The Geography Department has a fair resources page.    Several of the links will take you to resources pages of larger universities.  I will be checking them out!

~~~~~

History

University of Winnipeg  –  There are a couple of professors teaching Mennonite history here.  There are publications lists.

–  German-Canadian Studies.  This department has compiled an excellent list of articles and books.

~~~~~

Mathematics

Kwantlen Polytechnic University  –  There are some sources here that you will find very helpful whether you are studying for exams or just trying to figure out the math that the local newspaper is using to convince you of something (well, maybe not…)

~~~~~

Political Science

University of Winnipeg  –  The faculty list has a bio for every professor and many of the bios do include publication lists.

~~~~~

Urban and Inner-City Studies

University of Winnipeg  –  This goes to the  faculty page for Urban and Inner-City Studies.  There are some well published professors here.

~~~~~

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Posted in Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, Concilience, Education, Epidemiology, History, It's All Connected..., Literature, Microbiology, Nature, Psychology, Science, Search Help, Statistics, Things that are Real, Tomatoes, Zoology and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Précis Writing

Posted on March 27, 2013 by TheMorningTomatoReport

This morning I have come to the conclusion that my writing, my essays and term papers, are a series of précis.  The subject of this paper is the looting of archaeological sites.  At about 3,000 words it is not as long as an average book chapter, however, it divides easily into sections.  There are four examples, each very different from one another, that cover the related topics of looting, conservation, and education.  The discussion brings the examples together and talks about who is doing what.  The conclusion looks at the who and the what and I make a suggestion.

It is a pretty normal paper but, I think that maybe it could be a bit more….  I hand it in this afternoon.  I am, and this is not normal for me, already looking forward to receiving it back!

~

I have a habit, when writing papers, of opening the file and immediately re-saving it using a consecutive numbering system.  For this paper my files were labeled  with the name of the paper and the numbers 1 through 10.  Shorter papers may only have 3 or 4 revision numbers.  These are not really revisions though, they are simply a growing work.  Baby steps that take me towards a finished product.  Each step adds a few paragraphs or even pages.  These will be rearranged and sometimes dropped as unnecessary or redundant.  The final step before editing will be to add in transitional paragraphs.

~

Kierkegaard began Fear and Trembling with the story of Abraham on the Mount.  The first chapter of this book is taken from the Bible.  Word for word.  The second chapter almost repeats the first chapter, there are only a few changes and they are not easy to spot.  When I read this book the first time I thought the publisher had made a mistake and printed the first chapter twice.  No, it was not a mistake!  In the third chapter the retelling of Abraham’s story becomes much more noticeable.

If you have not read Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard I recommend it.  The book is not a long one, however, it is memorable.

~

Translations of a translation.  This morning I am pondering a project that I thought of a while ago.  Kierkegaard did not use a translation to get his points across.  He rewrote the story to make it clear to his readers what the story was about.

I am not Kierkegaard.  (There are friends of mine just let out several deep sighs….)  My thoughts, my project, is to take a work of old or middle English and to translate it.  Then to translate my translation, and again….

What to choose?  Where I could I take it?

There are so many tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  Many written in old and middle English.  Chaucer is in there, and Mallory.  I need to think about this.  I could just choose a small piece of writing to work with – definitely more approachable than an entire work.

~

Isn’t translating and revising and retelling what we humans do?  Writing books, building houses, making dinner?  Mmmm….  This tastes wonderful!  How about if we have the leftovers tomorrow and we can add those wonderful tomatoes your mother grew!

~

Translation  —  Transition  —  Transformation

Pictograph  —  Linear A  —  Linear B

They might all say the same thing, but then, maybe not….

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