Woohoo…August Rains

With a big sigh of relief we welcome the late August rain…and some thunder too. Not much rain, but it’s damp, the air is less smoky, and it’s finally under 30 deg C on our hilltop homestead in the Highlands. Of course Gord, as the Chair of CRD Water, gets a little anxious when lightening strikes over our regions water shed in the Sooke Hills when the forests are the driest they have ever been.

Nature’s in charge. With the change in weather from desert dry and smokin’ hot to cool and moist we welcome the fall planting season…and the opening of the Eco-Sense Nursery.  This year we are prepared.

Help in the Nursery. For the first time, we have accepted regular volunteer help on the farm and homestead. Bethany has been a gift from the permaculture god of abundance.  She’s coming out to help once a week in the nursery or anywhere on the land we need help.  In exchange for sharing in the lands abundance and some teaching, we have been gifted Bethany’s help and enthusiasm to build upon her many skills and interests…including her patience with our now 1 year old Pumpkin Pie.

Pumpkin Pie on her 1 year Birthday – Bethany’s photo

Bethany has weeded nursery pots, removed grafting tape, done some summer bud grafting, helped install a small grey water system, blackberry removal, milked a goat, and helped with garden harvests.  We are looking forward to her help through the fall season where she will be pruning some of our fruit trees, potting up lots of nursery plants, mulching for winter, and much more.

NURSERY OPEN Saturday September 2nd from 9am to 1pm. Here’s the poster Bethany made for Saturdays big fall sale in the nursery.   We will all be there to help you pick the perfect plants.  We are ALWAYS available for private plant appointments…just email ann@eco-sense.ca to set up a time.

APPLES-PEARS-PLUMS: We are extremely well stocked with a wide variety of healthy large Apples, Pears, and plums all grafted right here by Gord.  Prices range from $25-$45 (including GST) depending on how large the trees are – Gord in his childish way suggests they are well hung.  (Ann rolls eyes)

ON SALE – HAZELNUTS:  We are overflowing with hazelnut trees and have priced to sell. These should be sold in groups of 3 or more for maximum pollination… normally this would be $110 for 3 trees… but we are reducing to $80 for 3 trees, $100 for 4 trees, and $120 for 5 trees.  Please save us from having to pot up all the hazelnuts into larger parts…Bethany thanks you in advance. 

INVENTORY LIST is online and quite accurate (Bethany did inventory too). Here’s the full list.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j-GtX_ufCTWu8muXbCjqAYfc-cIP7WKl/view 

In Other News…

• Age and transitions seem to go hand in hand.  As we navigate through life now in our mid 50’s, we have developed some freedom from judgement.  This has come from a curiosity of different perspectives, and exploration with a deeper dive into the complexity of the human predicament. Not that we always agree with the different perspectives, but we are able to find connection in the commonalities, and enable engagement without becoming all judgy.  Being judgy only degrades our own well-being.  
• Our favourite podcast/video interview series is by far Nate Hagen’s “The Great Simplification”.  The learning and interesting guests have been very rewarding for both of us…even on topics we wouldn’t normally pursue.  https://www.thegreatsimplification.com. We never…ever…run out of things to talk about.  Drives Gord crazy sometimes…
• We laugh a great deal these days.  Even as the daily news can be crippling to one’s spirit, we are living a life of abundant joy and finding such great pleasure in our daily experiences…laughing at pretty much everything.  Here’s one such video where Gord and I are spitting plum pits and collapsing in laughter…and before you ask, no we were not smoking anything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7GkZcRc0yo 
• We’ve been going to the monthly Highlands’ farm market at the Caleb Pike Heritage site.  Next one is Sunday Sept 11th from noon to 4 pm…at the same time as the Highlands annual Fling.
• Water has become the focal point of Gord’s work, to the point where approval of taking on any new jobs has to be passed by Gord’s red-headed visionary goddess.   We may further select work and clients for those that have maximum impact, change policy, or employ conservation measures such as only working for clients that include conservation strategies in their water plans. (compost toilets anyone?). We heard about a great book out there written by this crazy aging couple that do everything together and live in a MUD house.

At the market

GRAPPLING WITH NEW 

As noted above we are on a continual learning journey.  The more we learn, the more we recognize how little we know.  We started with the idea that we could learn skills and demonstrate mitigation and adaptation for the broader region and the wider world.  Our focus these days is still very similar, yet we are focussed less on mitigation and more of resilience.  Ironically, being more resilient is actually a lower carbon lifestyle.  We dislike the culture that has evolved from fossil energy abundance – yet understand the continued role it plays in all the unseen products, from pharmaceuticals, plastics, and other durable goods – our house and farm would not function without the simple plastic bucket, the wheels for our e-bikes, the technology we type on and communicate with or the pumps that pump our water.  Everyday we have gratitude for something…today…for Ann it’s window screens to keep the mosquitoes out.  For Gord, it’s the first taste from our Rescue Pear tree’s first fruiting, with the thick yogurt Ann’s made from our most precious Gemma and Dabha. 

What are you grateful for today?

Going for evening walks was never so much fun

Our western economies and cultures are beholden to energy, debt, technology and extraction from all the 5 capitals to carry on with business as usual. We have become a society that is too reliant on (or expectant of)  things that 50 or 100 years ago were non existent or a luxury.  As a result, our culture is far from resilient as we face ever increasing stresses and impacts that test our infrastructure and our well-being, our culture is increasingly vulnerable.   Here on our homestead, we’ve extracted ourselves from some of this, though often feel buffered from supply chain issues, the impacts of inflation on food, or the fear of loss from a catastrophic event like fire or earthquake.  The resilience that we’ve built into our systems over the past 2 decades is as much mental as it is physical…we know that we can find joy no matter what.  If our homestead were to experience a massive fire…we would figure it out, make due, and find joy.

A quick and colourful dinner from the garden. Scrambled eggs, beans with garlic, thick yogurt, tomato, broccoli and cauliflower.

As we grapple with the new, we are more intrigued than ever in what tools we have to deal with it – inner tools, social tools or physical tools.  Knowledge and broadening our understanding of those who are more informed on different topics or hold different views is one of our newest tools.

So often in our culture we hear how views/values /ideas separate us, yet what we have recognized is that this is how we bring people together.  This is the philosophy that we employ repeatedly around food, politics and water.  It’s fun…try it!

Gord Installed a sonic well monitor.  Gives us knowledge of how our well is handling a drought and how fast it recharges under different usage conditions.  Tree frog approved!