A Canadian Conversation

My article in The Chautauqua from the 16 March - 

I'm writing this looking out over the freshly white fields, as more snow falls, happy that I don't have to drive anywhere today and even happier to see some moisture hitting the ground.

It wasn't until I lived in Singapore – 1 degree north of the equator – that I realized how much we Canadians talk about the weather. When you live somewhere that has very little fluctuation in temperature, there suddenly seems to be very little to talk about in the elevator. Now I am not only living in Canada, where the weather provides an easy conversation to 'break-the-ice' but I am back on the farm. That means the weather is a factor in almost every decision you make: what work you do today depends on today's weather, tomorrow's forecast and the almanac's prediction for the year ahead.

After Christmas we took our honeymoon in Nicaragua and visited a few farms there. They were talking about the fact that there dry season was (at that time) about a month and a half late. They were pleased because in the same way we stockpile feed (for us and the animals) over the winter, they stockpile to get through the dry season. It made us start to think about the year ahead of us, back home. So there we were – overlooking Lake Nicaragua, eating our breakfast of rice and beans – checking weather back home, reviewing the moisture falls from the very dry fall and winter (so far) and thinking about what we need to do this spring. Despite the rainfalls we received in 2010 and 2011, the dry fall and little snow this winter had us thinking about moisture.

Last summer we covered the garden in mulch: a variety of cardboards, black plastic, wood chips and straw mean that there is not a bare patch of ground, so any moisture that was there before the dry winds came was protected and the spring melt should be held in. (Thank goodness for this snow – there might actually BE a spring melt). We are trying to grow our garden with minimal tilling and we are still figuring out ways to work through the mulch we've already laid – but if that work upfront means less watering and less weeding later on, I am up for it.

We also have the materials for a water catchment system off the quonset. That was one of last year's projects that didn't seem to make the priority list. It's on the priority list for this year, though. If the rains come and we don't need to water the garden, I am sure the ducks and geese will appreciate the bigger pond to swim in.

While the weather is something we can feel at the mercy of in Canada (no ones figured out how to control it yet, although I am sure Monsanto is trying...) the changing seasons and the variation is a constant reminder of the ecosystems that we are a small part in and connects us to the natural cycles that abound. Plus it gives you an easy topic to use to fill in the time while you wait for your coffee.

Ask me in 15 years

Just over a year ago I was starting out on my Master's thesis and was also in the final phase of my move home to Canada (the phase that involved moving back to Canada).  During this process I met some wonderful gardeners and farmers who have inspired me and impacted the choices I am making in terms of the kind of work I do and life I am living.  One of the patterns that kept coming up was the timeframe of 15 years.

At our Organic Gardening course at CAT (in Wales) when the instructor was showing us what he's done in his own backyard.  Looking at the photos and listening to the story, I thought it would have been a 3-4 year project (especially since they don't have the winters like we do).   I was floored when he said it had bee 15 years.

Back in Canada, I met with and learned beside a wonderful farmer, Don Ruzicka, who has become a dear friend and mentor.  Talking to Don and walking his land, you would think he's been farming like this since he began.  But it has been 'only' 15 years since they took their first Holistic Management course and began to restore the health of the land, their finances and their family through ecological agriculture.  

And neither of these gentlemen are done or complete.  They are still learning, experimenting, building and breaking down.  

So... back to me and to now - June 2011.  Being done my thesis for over 8 months, getting married in around 4, working on contracts related to rural community, food and agriculture as well as doing some writing for our local paper, planting gardens and learning about raising chickens, pigs, cows... people around me (family, friends - old and new, neighbours, strangers) still seem to be trying to 'place' me in a job or career that is easy to explain.

 "So, what do you do? What are planning to do? Do you want to be a farmer? Will you open a restaurant or local food shop?  Are you going to write more? I always knew you writer.  Are you still training and facilitating? You're going to be making sausages?"

These questions and statements are all asked with honest inquiry and no judgement.  I feel that they want to support and help but perhaps can't grasp the picture I am painting so don't know where to place their own brush on the canvas.

But the fact is - I don't know either.  I am painting as I go and living my way into whatever I will be or become.  It's worked pretty well thus far (33-15=18... I could have never planned all I have experienced since I was 18, especially not when I was 18).

So I am finding peace in the prospect of a horizon of 15 years.  When the plans we have for a house, a farm, a life seem overwhelming... I try to remember to smile at V. and remind us (me) that we have 15 years or more to let it happen.  I might like it to be up and together overnight but I would miss a lot if it did.

Thus - when asked about what I do or want to be doing, I am learning to smile and be okay with answering "Can I get back to you on that?  Maybe in about 15 years?"

77 million paintings... and as many new wholes

While up in Calgary before my flight out - V. and I stopped by the Glenbow Museum to take in Brian Eno's show, 77 Million Painting.  We walked into a darkened room and sat down facing a wall that looked like it had a kalidescope-type image installed and music created a long, pausing, soundscape.  As I sat and was pulled into the colours - I let go of seeing the changes and was immersed in the colour and sound and the whole 'scape.'  It would only be when I shook my head and looked, that I would see the drastic shift in colours and images that had happened.  Meditating on the experience, I journalled:

"Still points and process... When you pull self out of to a point in time you see the changes but when the flow is subtle and steady, changes of parts are not distinct until the whole is transformed.
Snapshot in time are distinctly different yet the process and flow make them a natural transformation.
The snapshots or pauses give us opportunity for sense making of the change taking place but it it is in the process they are taking place... In the living and not the planning.
I didn't plan to be doing anything I am involved in right now, I live my way into them.  Yet I do take pause to defragment, organise and fit it all in - to recognize the wew whole that has evolved to this point as I release into the process and open to coevolving further."

The 'EPL' strategy to personal planning

First a disclaimer or note to readers:  I did read Eat, Pray, Love and am proud to say I did discover it before it became one of 'those books' that everyone has read and is everywhere and is now a movie... which I doubt I will see anytime soon.  Both because of my current location and because I am hesitant to.  This post refers to the book but please see beyond that if you are one of the people sick and tired of hearing about 'the book.'


It was almost two years ago when it felt like my entire life was under question.  I knew what I didn't want to be doing and who I didn't want to be doing it with but I was still figuring out what that meant in terms of where, what and with who I DID want to be.  My solution was to borrow a simple exercise from Elizabeth Gilbert in the now infamous book Eat, Pray, Love.  Early on in the book she talks about how she just kept asking herself what she really, really, really, really, really wanted to do.  (I may have got the number of 'really's' off here - I don't have the book on hand to provide references)  She kept asking this and kept listening to the responses.  She did dismiss responses nor did she jump on any immediately.  But she listened for the ones that 'stuck' and for the patterns that emerged in them.  I tried that and ended up spending my last months in Asia exploring places and experiences with people that truly made me and allowed me to laugh.  I ended up hopping over to the UK to take up the Masters that I had always wanted to do.  And I landed in Canada to begin a journey of coming home, really HOME.  Thinking that worked out pretty well...  and coming to another point where I see a blank sheet, foggy road, open field in front of me... I thought I would try it again.


So I am asking myself... what do I really, really, really, really, really want to be doing, today - and I am listening to the daily responses - the changes, the patterns and looking forward to how things emerge around that.


Yesterday - I wanted to be eating, cooking, sharing food that I've helped grow - enjoying the abundance of nature and live, friendship and family - over a kitchen table.


Today - I want to work with farmers and rural towns to build resilience and alternatives; I want to raise and cook food that gets talked about in magazines and books; I want to ride horse


What will tomorrow be, I am looking forward to find out...