self sufficient'ish'

Blog? I have a blog? Oh yeah...

I stumbled on a website that captured my recent sentiments lately, it's called self sufficient 'ish'. The solo style home steader sounds romantic and all, but I'm not up for the isolation (or back breaking work to be honest). Some of the recipes on the page look tasty, the simple veggie burger is one. I'm glad to see the tips for those who rent dwellings and and don't have the ability and/or desire to go off grid and out of town. It applies equally well to many of us in a strata or condo situation as well. Too bad it's UK focussed and not all transferrable information.

summerland letter

I wrote this letter to the Summerland municipal council today and thought it was relevant to the topic of this blog as well (community participation in town planning). I know letters of this nature are supposed to be shorter but I couldn't stop once I got going. I should also have included a specific call for action or at least a response - how do I forget these basic things? Fear of failure or looking dumb almost kept me from sending it altogether so in that respect I'm glad it's done. The written word (including this blog) is one of the few obvious areas in my life where I feel I battle with perfectionism.

late rambles

Hmm, to go to bed or make up a post out of thin air? The kids went to bed late so I feel I should stay up late to preserve some idea that I'm an adult. Or does this prove that I'm not? Nothing exciting to report except that Jeremy and I keep reading about civic development and urban planning and should really start our own town someday. It would have grand civic buildings and the perfect density of housing - no sprawl. We'd all have roof gardens and meet in the square for sing-songs and pot lucks every night.

I am getting carried away by the could have/should haves in the way our society is running. The real challenge is to define what it is I feel is missing and find a way to do something about it. My first step is to take care of the ground we have a stake in, by which I mean our common strata yard. It's all lawn and weeds. No bushes, trees or garden plots. It's not even useful for the kids to play on as all the lawn slopes toward a busy street. Guess where the soccer ball ends up? The next question is whether to run it through the proper channels or just start guerilla planting and see how long it takes for anyone to notice or care. A third option is to sanction and pay myself to do it since I'm strata treasurer. Probably some bylaw against it. Or criminal law for that matter....

do you dare?

Do you dare to check the potential health risks of your personal care products? I've already purged a lot from my bathroom shelves but I sense another round coming on...

principles and permaculture

I found principles that line up strongly with my own on a social work oriented site that draws heavily from permaculture. The little bit of time I've spent looking up permaculture for this entry has been exciting. There is another world open to exploration. It's word that corresponds to many of the values I hold and when you google it, a wealth of different pages come up than I've seen before. Computers facilitate the habits of learning junkies in a blissful way.

It's delightful to find that someone else has gone to the effort of writing up something that I would have liked to put together some day. Saves a lot of time. Some of it is a bit wordy to duplicate so I've edited or paraphrased in brackets.

-Evoke whole system sensitivity: (pay attention to whole cycles, not reduce everything to parts)

-Model ecologically-appropriate lifestyles for others to learn and mimic

-Cultivate wise diets: food systems greatly influence the health and welfare of people, place, and planet--as we are what we eat, be sure to carefully consider the origins and impacts of food choices;

-Use knowledge with humility: the more you learn, the less you will know -Practice inclusivity: embrace, affirm, and advance calls of justice for all human and more-than-human species--at once;

-Integrate competence, confidence, and consciousness: begin with what you know, learn as you go--devote time to reflect on how your actions rightly do more good than harm (all things considered);

-Most importantly--have fun: life is too short for boredom, burn-out,tedium, and the like--be sure to enjoy all of what you learn and do--a healthy mind, body, and spirit (and relationships) can then be enjoyed as well. Help to design and grow healthy organizations, communities, and institutions accordingly.

What? Have fun as a guiding principle? Sweet. Here's a beauty from the permaculture perspective

-Maximum effect for minimum effort: go slow and hone observation skills (enlist all senses) for keen theories and interpretations of system states--Mollison & Holmgren: "apply thoughtful and protracted observation, not thoughtless and protracted labour"

little consumers

I'm reading Born to Buy (Juliet B. Schor) about the mass marketing of products to children. It's not that it's so incredibly shocking but it's opening my eyes a little wider to smaller details and trends. It's highly relevant to me because my 16-month old is already recognizing various cartoon characters and Ivy (3) is very concerned about things being "girlish" enough for her (that makes my skin crawl). The kids do obviously watch some tv, but not hours and hours and not every day. In the CBC kids programming there is about a 5 second spot that says "brought to you by xxx" and Ivy picked up on that yesterday. I can imagine the chaos if there were toy commercials on. It's all pretty disturbing and makes we aware how steeped I am in this culture, nevermind the little ones just growing into it.

she shoots...

she scores! My first goal in a hockey game. It came in the first 30 seconds and I got another one in the next period. I should probably point out that the final score was in the realm of 10-0 to put some perspective on that. Hockey has been a blast this winter and I look forward to it all week. No, this entry has nothing to do with the main purpose of my website but I had to gloat somewhere.