Forgotten Supportive Under Garments Story

So, Laura's post inspired me. After Phil and I had split up, I was devastated - really, really devastated and it took a loooooong time for me to even start to climb out of the pit of my own self-judgement. I thought that I never deserved to ever even date a guy again. But eventually I got over it and started to think that maybe I could be happy again and that life could still be good for me.

After about 2 years, I started to think that I was ready to get out there on the social scene. There was a local bistro (closed now) that used to get in live, original music on a regular basis. I had been once with my (married) friend when her brother was playing. (now he plays on a regular basis and I've been to almost all of his local shows and he plays around with guitar effects in his office downstairs and is the father of my youngest child but then he was just my very good friend's brother) I thought I would go out by myself.

This was a big deal for me. In my previous life as a mormon, I met people at church functions in a very tight community and putting this kind of effort was really not necessary. Although I had been married (and divorced by then) twice, I had not dated much and I had little experience being a single person 'out in the world'.

I arranged it all. It was a Friday night. Erin was babysitting. I put Kaetlyn and Drew to bed before I left. I showered and did my hair and put on my new dress. I called a cab because I didn't have a car in those days and the buses here don't run at night. I was so nervous. The place (Pandoras) was almost empty. There was a band playing country/rock. I sat at a table by myself and ordered tea or juice and when I sat down, there, by myself, I noticed that in my very nervous state, I had forgotten that certain supportive undergarment. Luckily my dress was of the loose type but I suddenly felt half naked and ridiculous!

So there you have it, in sister solidarity! Now, I often go about braless on purpose - at least 1 day a week since my friend, Denny forwarded this article to me. Check out the links - the science seems real to me and it makes sense.

Blessings to all Moms and Dads!
I found some really good links about how bras are linked to breast cancer and fibocystic breasts- I have to say I found this info out about a 2 months ago- I'm experimenting myself because for the last year or so my breasts have become really sore and swollen a week or two before my moon time,sometimes even longer! I'm not a coffee drinker, although I love organic raw cacao =) I haven't worn traditional bras for about 10 years, only the shelf bra types that are built into shirts, but they too cut off circulation with the elastic stuff on the bottom. Just check and make sure that there is no imprints or red marks on your skin after wearing them, because that would be a sign it is cutting off the circulation. Acording to the studies and unlike popular western belief you are suppose to let your breast bounce around especially while you are dancing, running,Yoga, Pilates ect... because it is healthy for your breast circulation and your lymph nodes in that area to be flushed
out!
I'll tell you my story...It's only been a month since I've officially gone totally braless (i'm a small B cup) but it seems it has only taken a few weeks to adjust to not wearing half my shirts with built in shelf bras =( and so far I can't believe it- no soreness! I'm serious! I'm not sure what the answer is to women here that have big breasts by I think women in other cultures have big beautiful breasts too but dont' wear bras either, I'm not sure how they deal with it with sore backs, although I would recomend a good Pilates and Yoga instructor to help strenthen your core and back to support the extra weight. I'm putting this info out here because the bra industry is so HUGE just like the sugar industry and they have a big invested interest in making sure women feel that they have to wear these things, and I'm sure they will tell you that there are no links to bras and breast cancer and fibocystic breasts- just like in the olden days with corsets, and it seems to
have evolved into bras. Even if you can't go cold turkey, try just as soon as you get home take them off... There is a book written about a scientist (I heard him on the radio) who discovered these links and wrote a book and he talks about his journey to try and educate people of the dangers of bras- very interesting story-and how controversial this is! The name of the book is Dressed to Kill :the link between breast cancer and bras by Sidney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer...

here are some more links...
http://health2us.com/bra.htm

http://www.007b.com/fibrocystic_breast_pain.php

http://www.all-natural.com/fibrocys.html

http://www.susunweed.com/An_Article_Bra-disease.htm

Much Love, Peace and Blessings,
Laura

Show Me the Money

So after that hard week of playing violin, Rhiannon had it in her mind to make some money. She wanted to treat Dean and I to some ice cream on our way home the next day. Here's how she earned money....

The Other Thing I Came Home To

It's amazing what a garden can do in 10 days.... When I left, there was barely a ripe tomato to be had and I had to buy some to make the greek salad we had while camping. And the zucchinis were only a couple of inches long so I couldn't take one to roast on the fire the way we like. And there was only 1 cucumber ready to pick.....

And then when we came home, it was over flowing with produce. The zucchinis were gigantic. there were 4 sugar pumpkins ready and there were so many cucumbers, I have enough to make relish. And you can see the basket of tomatoes there.... I love this time of year when we start to really harvest the garden and we can eat all week from it.



Here is one of my favourite harvest meals - stuffed zucchini and greek salad - almost everything from our own garden - a feast! And tonight I am trying this recipe. Yum!

And there is even more than we can eat. Here is the first batch of pickles that I have ever made. Hope they are good!

At Home

So, what I found when I arrived home....

I had left careful instructions for the care of the chicks - the 51 chicks in the basement divided between a playpen and a small swimming pool. This is what they looked like a week before I left. I would put them all in this box so I could clean out their 'pens'. I would close the lid and they would all fall asleep.

So along with constant feeding and regular cleaning of the 'pens' fresh bedding needed to be laid each night so they didn't sleep in their own poo... When I got home, I discovered that they had run out of bedding the day before Dean came to get me... And it was a shit hole down there...

I had plans to build a chicken tractor for them to keep them separate from my other chickens but allow them free range... But this situation called for immediate action. Luckily none of them had died and no disease seemed to be going through the little flock...yet... but in these conditions just such a scenario was all too likely. So I just grabbed them all and put them all outside with my other chickens - closed them all into the coop for the night with some food and water. I wasn't sure how it would go - I was afraid the big chickens would pick on them. Rhiannon and I spent quite a bit of time out there, supervising the next day. I think their sheer numbers - 51 chicks to 6 chickens (yes, I have lost 2 chickens - 1 to a coyote and one of old age) has made them intimidating to pick on. The first day, the chickens would chase them all back into the coop as soon as Rhi or I left and we would have to lure them back out with food. But by yesterday, they seemed to have worked out some kind of truce and the chicks were quickly cleaning themselves up and adapting to their new home with a flourish.

Sampson still drools on the other side of the chicken wire but the rooster stared him down yesterday to let him know that if he wanted a chick, he'd have to deal with him. So maybe their natural instincts are even beginning to kick in and chickens might not be quite as stupid as their reputation...

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

Bird Update

I know, my blogging has been lagging and I have a lot to update. But I'll start with my bird update. After the dramatic hatching you can see here, there was a very sad incident less than 24 hours later that involved a door left open and a certain gray cat. He ate that first little chick whose hatching (birth?) we captured on Rhiannon's camera - the one with the cool black markings around his eyes. Sampson ate the entire thing - beak, feet and all. I felt like crying! The door is now covered in signs made by Rhiannon (who unfortunately is the one who left it open...) and no more such incidents have happened.... although Sampson does occasionally pace back and forth in front of the door...

Then we waited for the next eggs to hatch - there were 19 of them. Some Ameraucaunas and some New Hampshire Reds that we got from the lady who sold us the chickens. 4 hatched. 3 Ameraucaunas - 1 black and 2 grey and one New Hampshire Red. Very disappointing.... I'm really hoping they are all hens and we can add them to our flock. However, we were hoping that we would have enough to add to our flock and to eat all the little roosters and extra hens...

It is getting a little late to start another hatching. So I called Okanagan Hatchery and ordered 35 chickens - 10 each for two of my friends who have agreed to help with butchering if necessary (I'll get into why that might be necessary in a future post) and 12 for me with 3 extra. Okanagan Hatchery only traffic in broilers which I was hoping to avoid as I don't really want to support the over-breeding of birds. Todays broilers have been bred for such fast growth that heart attacks and crippling are not uncommon. I talked to the guy and he told me I could slow their growth by feeding them wheat to avoid those problems. I needed them right away to fit in with my chicks so I went for it. When we arrived to pick them up, he threw in 5 extra. So we have 46 chicks in the basement now.


Here you can see the two left from the first hatching amidst all those little yellow fluff balls we will be eating for dinner... They have become the leaders of the flock which isn't necessarily a good thing as they are very skittish.















You can see the two gray Ameraucaunas here.


And the one standing on top of the feeder and looking right at the camera is the New Hampshire Red - barely distinguishable from all those other yellow fluff balls who will be dinner.... So far we can tell her apart by her wing feather development.

And who is the chicken I am holding at the beginning of this blog? That's Lacey our prettiest Silver Laced Wyandotte who faithfully lays us eggs who let me catch her yesterday.

Holidays

Rather unusual for us, we had company for 16 days straight. So it feels rather like we have been on holidays for 2 weeks.

First Martha came, my sweet, beautiful, little sister. It was so nice having her here - great talks, walks to Friesens for treats, laughing and beaching. She was here for 10 days - left the day after my birthday. She got to meet my closest friends here in Vernon and come out for my awesome birthday dinner. It was just so good to be near her, to hug her and to spend time with her.


Then, the day after she left, Ronni and Megan arrived from Calgary. The Okanagan put on its finest hot days. I have been so blessed with great friends. Just to hang with Ronni puts my life in a certain perspective. She has known me since Kaetlyn was 4 months old. We met at church serving in Young Women's. It was a funny beginning. There were 3 of us and our other friend, was always worried that we didn't like each other and so we each thought that we the other didn't like the other (if that makes sense). Finally one day as we were running errands together (picking up field hockey equipment for some activity, if I recall correctly), I got up the courage to ask her why she didn't like me. And we have been fast friends ever since. She moved away from Winnipeg and introduced me to e-mail in its very early days. We wrote long e-mails to each other. I saw her through a bad relationship and she saw me through the end of my marriage. She knows about everything there is to know about me.... and she even loves me anyways! She has been such a gift to me. I love the continuity of our friendship and how we are embedded in each other's lives.

And so we holidayed together - it's become our tradition the last couple of years. She comes here at the beginning of the summer and we go there at the end. So this last week we went almost every day to the beach, we went to the water slides, ate ice cream at the Garden Parlour, went out to Alexander's and talked and talked and talked, took the girls out to BP in their fancy dresses and talked and talked and talked.

I miss her....

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.

Summer Garden

I took these in the early morning sun yesterday - while it was still cool enough to be outside.

Sunny daisies that I love. I think I've loved daisies since I was my Aunt Heather's flower girl and got to wear a wreath of them... Too bad Dean is so very allergic to them. So I get to enjoy them in the garden only...

And here is a new plant for me this year - Salvia. Finally something that is thriving in this tough spot.








And hollyhocks about to bloom!










This is the first bed I planted this year - well actually lots of things planted themselves. I'm going to have more coriander than even Mary Sue can use! I love this bed's lushness.




And I love the merriness of those nasturtiums peeking through the squash leaves. Its my first year for Nasturtiums, too. I haven't eaten any flowers in salad yet but I will be planting them again, that's for sure!








And tomatoes.... I think I'm going to have lots of tomatoes this year. I have a total of 34 staked plants and then 3 more little volunteers.... well, they are not so little any more, actually!

It's Easy Being Green

Easier than you think or at least, easier than 'they' would have us think it is. Very quickly the corporate machines that depend on our ever-increasing consumerism for their very life and prosperity recognized that the 'green' movement could decimate their fortunes. So the took the concept and twisted it, creating 'green' products. And they were delighted to find that they could charge considerably more - especially by packaging it in very small amounts and so the corporate machines were happy and people lulled into thinking that they were making more responsible choices by continuing to buy, buy, buy green products.

And I don't mean to say that buying organic isn't good or that there aren't some great 'green' products out there. But I have one very big beef with this so-called green movement. Have you noticed the packaging? I can buy conditioner that is made in Vancouver (less emissions to get to me) and has no bad ingredients. But I have to buy it in 1 cup plastic bottles at a time. At best, I can order a 2 cup container in special. I can buy organic ketchup but I have to buy it in the smallest plastic bottle that ketchup comes in. And we use a lot of ketchup around here. What's that about? How 'green' is my choice when I am contributing to the ocean of plastic as I support more sustainable farming practises? Why does it have to be a trade-off?

I've been thinking more and more that living a more sustainable lifestyle means buying a whole lot less and buying in really different ways. We have become so dependant in the way we live. Most of us are dependant on the system for our electricity, our heat, our water, communication, entertainment. What would we do if it were suddenly to collapse or be bombed or something like that? In about 2 generations, so much information has been lost about how to be self-sufficient. Most of us don't know how to make our own soap, our own bread, sew our own clothes and many don't even know how to grow their own food. It's a scary proposition. As we have become urbanized, we have become very vulnerable. I've been thinking more and more that to be more sustainable means to do more things myself.

We've come to think that 'being green' means buying more expensive things and different kinds of things - throw out all your plastic containers and buy metal or glass ones. It's still buy, buy, buy. What if being green was actually a lot easier than that? I mean, isn't it easier to have a rag bag full of cotton rags made from old clothes than to purchase paper towel? Isn't it easier to save your plastic bags instead of buying packages of them? Sure, preserving your own food takes more effort but it is so much more nutritious and definitely a better bargain than buying organic. And thrift store shopping is more time consuming but you won't have to spend so many hours working to pay for all those new clothes.

Thinking this way really clicked for me when reading the Humanure Handbook (have I mentioned that book before....? lol... and I probably will again!) When I realized that I didn't need to purchase a $2000 composting toilet but I could make one from a 10 gallon bucket (did I mention that he included the plans in the book for several different kids of toilets?). I suddenly saw the fraudulent ways of the corporations who had got us to see 'green' living as more expensive and generally harder to do. It isn't. There are so many things we can do right now that are easy and make our life easier and less stressfull. All these thoughts and some great women in my life inspired me to run this workshop at the Inner World School this summer..... It's Easy Being Green. Next Tuesday is our first one! I am so looking forward to it! Following is the write up from our brochure. (maybe tomorrow I'll go back to talking about chickens...)

*******************************************************

Our flagship this summer will be a workshop that will go every Tuesday from 10am - 1pm and is open to all ages. The topic is "It's Easy Being Green". Too often it seems that making a choice that is better for the earth (green), costs more money, takes more effort and generally makes life more difficult. This workshop will focus on the easy things we can do that lesson our impact on the earth. We will be starting it off by decorating thrifted t-shirts with slogans, like: "It's Easy Being Green", "Buy Less", "I Love the Earth", "Can't Be Bought", "Not For Sale", "I Am The Earth", "Don't Pollute" or many other ones that we think up. In the following weeks we will do many things that focus on easily living with less impact on the earth - we will sew cloth napkins and make a rag bag and make rags from old clothing, we will pick up litter, make our own soap, we will make art from recycled materials, we will do field trips to thrift stores and the farmer's market and much, much more. Come every Tuesday or come for a few or only one. The cost per workshop is $20 or $120 (free for members) for the whole 9 weeks. It will culminate in an open house display of all that we have done and how it can be easy being green at the Inner World School that will be open to the public in early September.

It's Easy Being Green

Date: Tuesdays, July 3 - August 28

Time: 10am - 1pm

Place: Inner World School, 3306B - 32 Ave

Cost: $120 or $20 per workshop - free for members

To register, call Andrea at 503-5416 or e-mail innerworldschool@shaw.ca

It's All Related

There has been a post simmering and bubbling beneath the surface for some time now. I've been searching for how I want to say what I have been feeling and thinking about. I saw David Suzuki speak here in Vernon at the Performing Arts Centre June 14. He is such a powerful and passionate speaker I was so moved by his presentation.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming - very overwhelming - to see where we are, and where we are heading as a species and as a planet. It is overwhelming to see what we have done to this incredibly beautiful and amazing planet. Do you know about the ocean of plastic? Please check out this article. You won't be the same after you read it - at least I know I am not. And very overwhelming to find out how long we have been heading that way - how long we have known what the chemicals we are surrounded by are doing to us. I think I have been grieving with the things that I have learned lately - the Humanure Handbook with all its studies performed in the SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES!!! and hearing David Suzuki and the book about the effects of pesticides on the food chain that changed his life written in 1962!!! and what I have been learning about permaculture and this article about what plastic is doing to our environment and then looking around and seeing how I am surrounded by plastic from my microwave oven to the shoes I wear to all the packaging on everything, to Kaetlyn's diabetic supplies, to this keyboard I am typing on, to our window washing equipment, to the toys my children have been playing with for 20 years.... and on and on - take a look - plastic is EVERYWHERE! It has become completely ubiquitous.

It can be so easy to judge myself and to judge others. It can be easy to feel so overwhelmed with where we are to where we need to be, that it feels like way to much to ever accomplish that we don't even try. It can be inviting to believe in God's magic wand that will 'poof' fix the planet and return it to its 'paradisaical glory' without us having to do it. Well what if that happened? We would just destroy the earth again with the way that we are living. How would we survive in such a paradise? We wouldn't know how because the way we live right now is creating a hell of this heaven we have been given to live upon. I think of the prophets of the Old Testament and it seems to me that David Suzuki is a lot more like that than old men handing out edicts about how many piercings a girl is allowed to have...

But I digress. As I was saying, it is so easy to go to judgement; it can be so easy to live in fear and terror. Yet this is the energy that has brought us to the point we are at. You see? It's all related. It's all about love. We have got to this point of disrespect with the earth because it reflects the disrespect we have for ourselves. We cannot love and honour the earth if we do not love and honour ourselves. Real change only comes from love. Only.

Let me expand on that. One of the ways we have got to where we are as a species, is by looking outside of ourselves for validation, approval, happiness. Consumerism has totally tapped into this. We are bombarded everyday by commercials and advertisements that flaunt our less-than-perfectness to get us to buy their product so that we can be whole. Buy this orange juice/cereal/breakfast bar to have this loving family having friendly banter over breakfast. Buy this car, buy this deodorant, buy this shampoo, buy, buy, buy, whatever you do, buy but don't think you will be good enough because you will still need more stuff. As a nation we are carrying an incredible debt load in our efforts to buy, buy, buy but somehow we never get there. Its consumerism's treadmill. Round and round we go but we don't actually get anywhere. Unlike the treadmill, though we are actually doing something, we are getting ourselves deeper and deeper in debt and we are poisoning our own environment bit by bigger bit.

As David Suzuki said, we are the earth - we are made from the elements of the earth that our mother eats during pregnancy, we are made from the elements of the earth that we eat everyday. We are the air and we are the water. We cannot poison any of those things without poisoning ourselves. Yet we are pumping toxic waste into all of those with increasing speed everyday. To think there would be no consequence is sheer stupidity and lacks the sense that animals have who instinctively do what we don't - naturally live in harmony with their environment. And why are we doing this? In our crazed thirst for love and happiness outside of ourselves - in stuff. We work more to buy more we go into debt to buy more we work more to pay the debt with increasing stress heaped upon our heads, in our lives, in our relationships. What is happening in the environment is only a reflection of what is happening in our individual lives. What really can fulfill us - time to ourselves, relationships, all these are destroyed in the is crazy consumer lifestyle.

But I digress again. As I was saying, David Suzuki pointed out as his First Nation's friend's have taught him, we are the air, the water and the earth. So how do we heal what is happening? With love. We love the environment in direct relation to how we love ourselves. Heal yourself and you heal the earth. Heal yourself, get off the destructive treadmill and love. Love yourself, love the land around you. Love and honour your own passions, dreams and abilities - truly honour and love those around you. It is amazing what can happen with a little bit of real love. The world is dying for a little bit of real love.

And this is why I am involved in the Inner World School. We create the Outer World with our Inner World and we have created this crisis in the Outer World with our collective Inner Worlds. I believe real change only comes from understanding, loving and healing our Inner Worlds. Only then are we really capable of understanding, loving and healing our Outer World. It may just be a very small thing reaching a very few children, adults and families in Vernon right now but it is what I can offer from my love. It is what drives me to continue and to offer this small piece of my heart. Because although love can be small, it is never insignificant. It is everything. It is God and the power of the Universe. And if my love touches only one child (and even it if it is my own child) then my efforts are not wasted. And this is what I believe salvation is - not the machinations of any religion or the observance of any outward ritual (although those can help) but what is in our own hearts - it is the love we have for ourselves and for each other that can save us.

This is a very long post. It has been brewing for awhile and came gushing out of me this morning. Congratulations if you managed to read this far!

I promise.... I'll be back to talking about chickens tomorrow...

Fine Feathered Friends

Yesterday we awoke to one wee pecked hole in one of the eggs and the sound of peeping coming from the eggs. We checked and we checked and we noticed each tiny fleck of shell that fell from the egg. But not much happened all day. It was a day of waiting. Here we are:



And then.... and then.... late last night, a different egg entirely burst open. In about an hour he was born (we are calling it a 'he' but we really don't know...) Here he is, struggling with his shell.



It was hard to go to bed last night. By the time we did, there were 2 eggs with little pecked holes in them. This morning when I woke up, there was another chicked freshly emerged from her shell and another almost out. Before long, there were 3 little chicks in the incubator.







Here they are in the 'chick brooder' which is really just an old swimming pool/sand box that I rescued once from going to the dump...

Canada Day Traditions

For the fourth year in a row, the main event of our Canada Day has meant driving to Kelowna to the Canada Day Celebrations there to hear Redfish play. They have an 'island' stage right down by the lake in a little lagoon and banked grass all around. It is one of the few times the kids get to hear Dean play. Last night they were the last slot (the best one) and the people were really digging it!

















And here are some videos that I took with Rhiannon's little camera - not great but fun. In the first one, that is Josh's girlfriend who is always a lot of fun dancing. I especially love the second one with Steve's son and Rhiannon doing their funky dance! And the batteries were low so the camera just shut off mid-song... unfortunately...

Chick has Chickens

As you know it all started by Rhiannon and I wanting to hatch some eggs. Maybe if we could have got the original incubator at the original time none of this would have happened... maybe.... Then the plan was to hatch a few eggs from my friend's flock and give them back to her as chicks.

But that isn't how it happened. By the time we got an incubator, my friend's rooster was gone and the last viable eggs past their 'due date'. And by then, I wanted to hatch a lot of eggs and raise some chickens to eat. And somewhere in the back of my mind at some time (I don't remember when - it just sneaked in there, very stealthily) came the idea of keeping some of my own chickens to lay eggs. And then when I called a place to buy some eggs for hatching, it turns out she was going out of business (moving) and was selling her flock. So in addition to having some 20 of her eggs in my incubator, I bought 8 of her chickens. There are 5 Silver Laced Wyandotte hens and a rooster of the same kind and two Buff Orpington hens. Isn't the rooster pretty? I love him! I am sitting a little on pins and needles hoping my neighbours don't hate him... At first he only crowed a little bit and not until I let them out of the coop in the morning. Now he crows inside the coop at 6am or so and he crows heartily when I let him out. I love the sound. I think he has an awesome crow - rich and expressive. It is a total cock-a-doodle-doo.

The black and white one with the most white on in this picture I named Lacey. Rhiannon has named one of the brown ones Pinky (she's missing some feathers on her back and you can see her pink skin) and the fluffy brown one Brownie. The other 4 black and white hens are very hard to tell apart - she is struggling to come up with names for them. I think Prickly was a name for awhile....





So eggs. Yes, we have had eggs already. Although it will take a week or two before we are in full production after the stress of changing homes. But someone has laid an egg almost every day - she lays it outside the coop - just a perfect little egg sitting there in the dirt. I popped two of them into the incubator and now we are collecting them to put under one of the broody hens so she can hatch some chicks herself. Then she will happily look after all the chicks I hatch indoors and think they are her own. Yesterday someone else laid an egg in the egg box, too.


All this chicken getting and coop finishing happened while Dean was on the road. Rhiannon was so excited to show him the chickens when he got home. And he likes them. (whew!) She has been wearing overalls since we got them and I call her my little farm girl. At dinner she announced to him that he is a farmer now... LOL! Well, maybe not quite! But as it happens, he's married to a farm woman (farmeress?) and the father of a farm girl!

So there you have it, Chick has chickens!