Stretched and Ripped Off

I have been sitting here reading a good dose of my sister's blog posts - almost everyone had a new one from the last time I read and eating a good bowl of borscht made from a rooster named Paganini whose death Laura witnessed. He was the fattiest rooster I have ever cooked - I should have skinned him first. By the time I was done scooping all the fat off the top of the broth, 1/3 of it was gone! He's delicious, nonetheless but that is not what I am writing about today.

Sitting here sipping warm soup, I have to face it. Summer is over. Usually September is a lovely month. Even as the nights get longer, the days are still hot. Its not uncommon to have 30 degree days. It is a time we like to go to empty beaches and swim. The latest I have ever swam in the lake is Sept 30 and it was awesome. I doubt that will happen this year. Since the end of August it has been cool and damp - highs during the day of less than 20. I've been wearing long pants, sweaters and socks! And I had to give in and turn the heat on. And I NEVER turn it on before October - and usually I aim for Eryn's birthday, Oct. 18, which I did the year she was born.

So I feel ripped off. There were still summer things I thought I had time to do. I had a lot of company this summer, which was wonderful. I loved seeing my brother and his family, Bethany, Sarah and Laura - I was pretty lucky to see so many siblings! But I never got a holiday. We had to kibosh our original plans to go camping with Katie and Sarah the beginning of July because a) we were worried the van wasn't up to it and b) because of an extremely expensive chicken coop, we were behind on having the money to replace it. Then we were going to go somewhere close in mid August but by then, the van really had died a peaceful death - the transmission went. We were expecting it but hoping for a little longer. We are in the process of making payments on a new-to-us van. Anyways, that kept us homebound. I feel like I facilitated several other people's holidays but haven't had one. Although me and the kids made it to Winnipeg and had a great time in May, we didn't have our family holiday, which usually involves water, a tent, and nothing else to do but camp. I love those times as a family - they are precious. But the time for that has past. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving at Katie's and I hope to get at least a little of that. We are planning on taking a couple days off so we will be there for longer.

So, I didn't get the recharging that I usually do in the summer. And right now I am working on some really hard (for me) things. I feel really stretched. The kind where there is nothing to do but put my head down and watch my feet make one step after another. I seem to do that with big shifts - put myself in a position where there is a choice between dire consequences (crash and burn) or do this thing I am afraid of doing. I am not too fond of crashing and burning so I am doing it. What exactly 'it' is, I am not going to share just now. Nothing bad, just my own development and growth that I am sure is very easy for some other people.

Wild Friends

It has been a little 'wild' around here lately. Along with the bears whom we haven't seen but who return to leave their scat on a nightly basis (the last one was 3 feet from the kitchen window), a coyote has also dropped in. This time I saw her (him?) from the kitchen window, run right into the middle of the backyard, heading for Roostie. I ran out and chased her off and spent the rest of the morning puttering around the chicken coop. She was beautiful, though, with her bushy tail and light brown fur. I don't think any more chickens have gone missing.... yet....

But our most interesting have been our hooting visitors who have taken up regular residence in the elm tree beside the porch. Usually there is just one owl.
We are pretty sure it is a great horned owl - it has ear tufts and a white bib. It sits there all day and watches us every time we go outside. Usually it sits facing the chickens. We've had the chance to examine its pellets which fall into the flowerbed beneath and to lay on the ground looking up at it, and take pictures. At Rhiannon's birthday party there were two of them. This morning it was back to one. He was quite active and I got to watch him (her?) groom himself.

We've been enjoying our wild visitors and bringing our domestic ones inside every night. Tigger loves it...

New Denver

Hey, not a single word from my sisters about the family reunion? Not a single picture? I keep checking in hopes of reading about what it was like, what was fun and silly... But here is what we did instead. We went camping in New Denver for the Valhalla Suzuki Institute for Rhiannon's violin. We went the week end before it started and camped as a family.

Getting there was rather an adventure. We left Thursday after Dean got home from work. You know how it goes when you go camping.... We could have left at 4pm when he and Kaetlyn got home but we didn't leave until 7pm. And then we were starving and stopped to get something to eat in Lumby (15 minutes away from home) but we were happy and jolly to finally be on the road.

I love that road to New Denver - we wind away from our busy hectic lives into the green mountains. I feel the pressure coming off my shoulders - our stuff and all my favourite people and animals jam packed into our van - a little self-sufficient ark. The scenery is breathtaking and prospect of 10 days of camping before me is enough to make my heart sing.

It started getting dark and with our one dim headlight and all the deer and cattle (!) on the road, we crawled along between 60 - 80km's an hour (I know, very un-Clarke-like of me). It got later and later. At the Needles ferry, where we could see one of the forest fires burning high on the mountain, we had to wait for more than 45 minutes as the ferry was getting gassed up by a tanker truck. We finally pulled into the municipal campground in New Denver after 1am in the pitch black, to discover the campground was stuffed to overflowing. We eventually pitched our tents down by the water where there were picnic tables. It turned out that it was okay for us to do that for one night and the next day we got moved into another campsite - site 21. (Rhiannon's picture of our campsite...) It was a very nice site - close to the bathrooms and to water.

We just chilled on Friday, recovered from our mad dash. Saturday we went up to explore Sandon, an abandonned silver mine town up in the mountains above New Denver. Then Sunday, Dean and Drew left in the afternoon for home and Kaetlyn, Rhiannon and I stayed for the week.

As always, I wake up long before my family does. This afforded me time to go down to the beach and write in my journal and read Bozenka's lessons and ponder. This is the view I enjoyed in the early morning light - just me and Jodi. I thought a lot about what it is I love about camping and New Denver and about how to create more simplicity in my life. I wrote a lot about simplicity. Of course, I could make my life complicated no matter where I lived. Although it seems to me that in a place like New Denver, your life could be simpler just because there are less choices and you have be more organized. There is no pharmacy, stores close at certain times and for certain days and some things are just not available there. If I grocery shopped once a month instead of once a day, life would be simpler. Anyways, I pondered things like this in the quiet peaceful hours of the morning, waiting for my family to wake up.

There was a forest fire quite nearby. Highway 6 was closed after Silverton. The first day we were there it was quite smoky but then the winds changed and it was clear most of the rest of the time. You can see the smoke from the fire here. At night it was quite a sight to see.

Then Monday morning the violin camp started. Here Rhiannon is in some of her classes that week.



It was rather an intense week for her. She had 4 classes a day. Last year, two of those classes were without violins and involved games and rhythm and lots of fun. This year she had her usual group class and master class (one-on-one lesson) and then she had a class called 'play in' with a teacher
from Montreal originally from the former Yugoslavia. I wasn't sure about him at first. He was very stern and a little insulting and for the first two classes, I sat on the edge of my seat, wondering if I was going to have to grab Rhiannon and run out of the class. But he turned out to be an incredible teacher and I think Rhiannon learned more in that class than any other. But it was really intense.

Then after an intense morning of those 3 classes, in the afternoon we had a class ostensibly called 'exploring musical styles' but was really learning to play fiddle music. We went the first couple of times but it was just too much for Rhiannon to be trying to play a whole different kind of music. I thought it would have been better to listen to it, talk about it and play games with it but the teacher tried to get them to play it. So we stopped going to that class and instead spent the time practising. After the first day and Rhiannon realized she had no 'fun' classes, she cried. Even to the end, she declared she was never coming again because there were not 'fun' classes. However, since being home, she is talking about next year already. (although we won't be going next year - we'll be going up north to PG, Terrace and the Queen Charlottes but we'll be there the year after). Rhiannon learned a lot about violin and it was great to have the different perspectives and the group experience of playing. She has come home with renewed vigor in her practising and is already working on the next two songs and is eager to advance in the book.

But the week was not all about the institute. There were several other families from Vernon camping at the campground. We managed to save a campsite right beside us for our good friends and other violin friends camped across from us and there were other families scattered through the campground. The kids congregated at the play ground where several rousing games of 'grounders' were played. Here are all the kids on the last day.

And Jodi. I think camping is like dog heaven for her. She gets to go almost everywhere with us, she is walked constantly, petted often, fed great scraps and all the kids adore her. And everyone notices her and talks to her. She has turned out to be such a great camping dog, I wish we had tried taking her when she was much younger.

Then Saturday morning, our friends packed up and left and Dean arrived to take us home. The weather was sunny so we decided to stay one last night. Dean loves camping. And it was nice to just chill after that intense week. And then we were home on Sunday afternoon but and what I found here is a blog for another day....

For more pictures, check out my facebook account albums

The Perfect Day

Yesterday I had the perfect day. Nothing could have made it any better. So what was my perfect day you ask? Well it started with a quiet morning, up all by myself. The first thing I did was to call my mother and wake her up. It only seemed appropriate considering what I put her through 42 years ago - waking her up at 7am was not so bad. We had a nice chat and I went to work in my garden. I weeded and hoed a bit and planted some seeds - seemed like the thing to do. I make up my own rituals. So I planted seeds with my hopes and dreams for this new year - the things I hope to grow in myself.

Dean made a delicious breakfast and then we packed up to hike into Cosens Bay with lunch food and beach toys.

The hike was beautiful on the sun dappled path and with the incredible view of the jade green lake and rare mariposa lilies blooming.















And for a special treat I had my sister visiting for 10 days so she was here for my birthday. Here she is carrying the cooler bag down to the beach.

It was so beautiful down there. The water was warm and clear and so very green. There were a bunch of boats at the other end of the beach but the hikers beach was almost entirely empty except for us. Everyone was there except for Kaetlyn who is not quite ready for hiking yet...

Dean, Martha, Rhiannon, my handsome boy.

We swam, we visited, we ate, we floated around and laid in the sun. It was really the perfect day!

















But it only got better. We were home by 4 in the afternoon. Kaetlyn, Martha and I got ready to go out and meet some friends for dinner.

Here we are, all gussied up. I think we look pretty hot, don't you? What could be better than going out with my beautiful daughter and my sweet sister to meet some of my closest friends? I can't think of anything....


And my friends spoiled me.





Gave me wonderful gifts and we had great conversation. After they kicked us out of the restaurant, we talked in front on the sidewalk for an hour.


I am so blessed. I have such wonderful friends! I started a new journal yesterday for my birthday and I brought it for everyone to write it to get me started. This is what Kaetlyn wrote: "Amazing,that is how I think you are. I hope I end up as amazing as you with loving friends like yours...." And I am sure she will be far more amazing but she is right, I do have wonderful, loving friends. I am so very blessed. At the end of my perfect day I was filled up with sun, with water, with great food and conversation and with the wonderful, healing, rejeuvenating love of my family and friends. It was truly the perfect day.

And when I got home, late last night, this lily that one of my friends gave me earlier was blooming.

Paradigm Shift

This is not apple juice and this canning jar is not sitting in my kitchen.... Its pee and its on the shelf behind the toilet in my bathroom. And no, no one is sick - this pee is not heading for the lab. Its my pee and when my jar is a bit more full, I am going to dump it on my compost. Soon, I hope to have my whole family peeing in jars and dumping them on the compost.

Did you know that most compost fail because of a lack of nitrogen? Instead of composting aerobically, they compost anaerobically which takes much longer and is much stinkier and encourages dogs and bears and mice to move into your compost. Did you know our pee is full of nitrogen? Did you know you could even mix pee 1 part to 5 parts water and pour directly on your plants as fertilizer (if they need nitrogen)?

I discovered this book. I have it on order from the library but in the meantime, the entire book is available online at that link and I have read most of it online. Reading this book has been huge for me. It has been a paradigm shift. In this book, the author, Joseph Jenkins, brings together his personal experience and practical advice with years and years of scientific studies. Things 'they' have known since the 1960's in North America. It has been a life changing book for me. Eventually, when I have my compost set up properly, I will be composting all my human manure.

Suddenly the ridiculousness of how we live and dispose of our 'waste' seems so blatantly obvious to me that I can't understand how I didn't notice before. Animals in nature, eat nature, digest nature, eliminate in nature and then nature uses the nutrients in the elimination to grow more food for the animals. An unbroken cycle - a symbiotic relationship. Yet we humans, eat nature, digest it and then flush the nutrients that the earth needs with our drinking water, instantly contaminating it and eventually, we flush this toxic water into our lakes and oceans killing what grows there (did you know that as of 2005, Victoria dumps its raw sewage straight into the ocean?) Yet we see this as sanitary and there are many who will find my little jar unsanitary.

We are a fecal-phobic culture. We have come to fear our own manure. In North America agricultural fields are used up and no longer productive in less than 100 years. In Asia where they have been using humanure for millennia, they have been growing on the same fields for thousands of years.... Unfortunately, they are racing to copy our dirty western ways and all this is changing now.

Reading the Humanure Handbook I have come to see what a difference composting can make to our planet. It is amazing what composting can do. When you have enough nitrogen in your compost, you get thermophilic composting. The little bacteria, with the proper food, raise the temperature of the compost and eat and destroy all the pathogens. This process can be as quick as 72 hours. And you can compost almost everything. You can compost animal bones, meat, citrus peels, eggs, animal products - everything. You have got to check out the studies he quotes in his book. They have even composted gasoline contaminated dirt and at the end of 90 days, the gasoline was all gone and there was just good compost. It is difficult to compost chlorine but even with PCB's (which have chlorine in them) after 90 days, there was a 40% reduction in them.

And you don't need a skookum, expensive, plastic composting toilet to get started. You can do it with a toilet seat over a bucket, which is what I am going to do. You should have sides on your compost to keep in the heat. I don't have those right now so I will wait to add poo to my compost until I do. I am going to use straw bales for the sides. So for an investment of $30 and whatever a toilet seat costs, I am going to be composting humanure instead of contaminating the beautiful lakes around here.

This is not the same as an out house. Out houses are not a good idea. They contaminate ground water. They don't compost. To compost you add all that vegetative matter - kitchen scraps and weeds, sawdust, cotton and wool, etc. Those that do compost humanure swear that it does not stink. If you cover pee and poo in the bucket immediately with ample amounts of weeks or sawdust, it keeps it from stinking, apparently (I'll keep you posted and let you know exactly how true that is).

To me, this knowledge has been earth shattering. I am simply astounded and amazed. And I can see what huge implications that this knowledge has for the entire planet. Why, it could solve most of our current pollution problems! It could make toxic earth whole again. It fills me with such joy and hope, it feels like a religious experience! I certainly have not done this book justice with my meagre descriptions(which is not new knowledge but a collation of what is already known). This book is worth reading. There is way more to it than what I am able to write about here and my feeble attempts don't do it justice. Read it!

One of the things I like best about this idea is that you don't have to go and buy anything to start doing it. It is so simple. And he also has ideas and suggestions for how we could implement these ideas in cities with dense population where people can't compost their own.

So maybe you think I am crazy and this is way out there. And unsanitary. And gross. Now the next time you flush your humanure down the toilet and waste it, I want you to think about the fact that you have just eliminated into perfectly good drinking water which is now contaminated. Talk about gross....

Last Sunday

This week I was having some computer issues. I don't know what it was but my pictures wouldn't download from Rhiannon's camera. Luckily yesterday it suddenly started working again.... I have no idea why.... And all week, this post was frustrated and I couldn't post anything else because I kept trying to download the pictures so I could blog this.....

So here it is. Another Sunday in Kal Lake Park. This time with my TWO favourite hikers! Rhiannon wanted to take her bike along which we left at the top of the switch backs like we did with Andrew's bike when he was that age.

It was a gorgeous day and Kal Lake has got to be one of the most beautiful lakes ever. I never tire of gazing at it.








Father and daughter with their facination with water no matter how cold it is (but Rhiannon didn't bring or wear her bathing suit this time...)









Here he is, the man of my dreams, the love of my life....














And I love this picture. I always say you can often tell a homeschooling child by how they are dressed. No one has told her that you don't mix all those floral patterns.... I love it!

For the Beating of M y Northern Heart

Too bad I didn't have a camera. Although how I felt at the sight could have never been captured by the lens. Just the lens of my heart.

Where I grew up, seeing moose was a common occurrence. Many times I glimpsed this ungainly and surprisingly swift creatures of the wood, run alongside the road or on frozen rivers. The Okanagan is supposed to be the natural habitat of moose as well. But in the almost 13 years I have lived here, I have seen only 1 who came trotting through the pasture near my house and frightened the horse out of its wits. It seemed to be moving so slowly but on those long legs it was out of sight in what seemed like seconds.

Today while driving home from Kelowna as I passed Wood Lake, I spotted 4 moose on the frozen lake. My heart leapt to see them. I pulled over to feast my eyes and pretty soon other motorists were, too and there was a line up along the opposite shore of the frozen lake as we all watched in wonder. I sat there, my northern heart full, so grateful to have a glimpse at these great creatures. For their part, at first they were walking slowing, single file on the ice. Then they seemed to notice all the people and they just stood there looking at all of us looking at them.

Saturday Hike

On Saturday afternoon it was between going to the jazz club or going hiking. We went hiking in Kal Lake Park - me and one of my favourite hiking companions. And wow! Walking through that slush gave my calves a good work out!

The view was beautiful, as usual. Here are some of our shots.













But my heart breaks as I walk along the path I have walked for so many years and I see trees that were strong and healthy only 2 years ago now looking like this.




When Andrew was only 5 and we came hiking here with his friend, his friend's training wheel kept falling off. We left it at the base of this tree as we finished our hike down to Cosen's Bay. This tree won't be there much longer.






And it isn't just one tree here or there - it is whole groves of Ponderosa Pines. I could have several shots here of different groves that all look like this. What is Kal Park going to look like in a couple of years? What is our province going to look like in a couple of years?

I was raised in this province - mostly up north amongst dense forests of pine and spruce. I hear it is unbelievable to be up there and see the decimation of the forests.

What have we done? And why does it take us so long to wake up? We need drastic measures now! We know what to do, we just have to do it. The government needs to find a back bone and quit catering to big business. Have you watched 'The Corporation' and "Inconvenient Truth" and "Who Killed the Electric Car"? Watch them and start thinking about what you can do right now. We are the world.