We are running for Council…

Gord, Ann, and Nina sitting in our cob patio.  Photo by Daniel Nayler

Local Government Elections:  It’s official, both of us have put our name in again to run for council in the District of Highlands.  Voting day in BC is Oct 20th.  Please get informed and vote.  Local politics is the most critical for your family and your community.  Here’s a list of just a FEW of the responsibilities that local governments participate in:

• Climate adaptation, GHGe reductions, risk management, resilience, community energy projects, etc
• Fire departments, emergency services
• local food, organic food, etc
• transportation (speed limits, safety, EV’s, transit, walkable communities, etc)
• waste treatment (resource recovery), dumps, compost, recycling, keeping toxic materials away
• providing potable water, protecting surface water, ground water
• creating parks, protecting nature, biodiversity,  (forest and riparian areas, etc)
• Land use, noise, blasting, tree cutting, density, soil deposit, invasive species
• Housing, density, type, how big, tiny homes, affordable housing, secondary suites, green building, sustainable energy, step code, etc
• Resource extraction (mines, logging, rock crushing, LNG, etc but note that many local bylaws can be TRUMPED by higher levels of government.  Don’t you hate that word?
• Invasive species
• BYLAW enforcement, policing, etc
• Strategies to create stronger communities, community engagement, etc
• Social programs, disabilities, meeting places, well being, education, etc
• Economic development
• and the list goes on and on and on…AND all are important to our community.
• And finally the creation of a seemingly unlimited number of acronyms.

Decision making can be quite complex.  Here in the Highlands we have tools to help us think through many of the integrated impacts.  Check this out…it’s only two pages.  It’s based on the subjective flows of capital in each of financial, manufactured, natural, human, and social capital.  Appraisal Form.

Our Garden of Eden:  Just tonight we wandered through our gardens (Natural Capital) and were simply blown away by beauty AND the abundance of snakes, apples, fruits, berries, and copious quantities of food, and numbers of birds, and insects everywhere.  Ten years ago, this land where our house sits was a barren landscape.  It just shows what can be done when we focus on building soil.

Plant Nursery is OPEN:  (every Sunday for 4 weeks) 

• Sunday Sept 16th from 10am-2pm
• 3295 Compton Road, East Highlands, Victoria
• We are well stocked with lots of perennial edible plants.  Here’s our list
• Parking up top for those buying plants, parking in lower garden for others coming to walk the gardens.
• Also available by private appointment.  ann@eco-sense.ca   gord@eco-sense.ca
• Please do not bring dogs as we have ducks and chickens

Photo by Daniel Nayler

What’s new in food?

• Lots.  Our new favourite snack food is Dried zucchini chips: grated *zucchini with a dressing of ground sesame, *leeks, *garlic, *parsley, *lemon, tamari soy, and *apple cider vinegar and mixed together and dried in our solar dryer.  *items are from our garden.
• Lots of hazelnuts are drying (see photo).  We got them before the squirrels
• We have been eating ourselves silly with berries, plums, apples, grapes, asian pears, and now cornelian cherries, and autumn olives (little red fruits)
• Almost daily greek salads with everything except the olive oil from the garden (feta cheese is homemade from neighbours goat milk). 
  

  Corenlian Cherries and Autumn olive berries

  

  Dried zucchini chips – crispy, tangy, salty, TASTY

  

  Hazelnuts drying. Our first nut crop. YUM

  

  Grapes, cucumbers, zucchini, cucumbers, eggs, peppers.

  

  fermenting cabbage, beans, cucumbers

  

  canning tomatoes, and apple sauce

  

  Illinois Everbearing Mulberry

  

  Autumn Olive – edible berries and nitrogen fixing

  

  First Italian Prune plums

Feeling grateful and so incredibly lucky.

Hope to see some of you on Sunday here at the garden on the hill.

Ann and Gord