Almost a Space Bird...

Yup, you heard that right... a Space Bird! What the heck is a space bird? It's... well... it's the virtual equivalent of a gold star... or maybe a platinum star... or titanium. It's a long story but... apparently I am easily motivated by the rather nebulous reward of a virtual gold sticker.

750 Words
Badges

A few years back, I joined the site 750Words... the idea was to write 750 words a day, whatever they might be. It was kind of a spin-off of Julia Cameron's Morning Pages (from her book, The Artist's Way). Except not. Julia Cameron's idea was to write three pages every morning... on paper. If we estimate 250 words/page... we end up with 750 words. But... typing 750 words is not quite the same as writing long hand... or whatever it's called nowadays.

Anyhow... I joined 750 Words and started writing every day... Which is not as easy as it sounds. It takes quite a bit of self-discipline and motivation to sit down every day and just write. It didn't even have to be coherent stuff... just sit down and write. Agh... challenging! So the creators of the 750Words site came up with the idea of Badges... brilliant!!

Every newbie on the site starts off as an Egg. But... write for three days in a row and... you get to be a Turkey!! After 5 days, you get promoted to a Penguin... with a bow-tie no less. This is exciting stuff... seriously. Because... if you miss a day of writing... you go back to being an Egg. Which, honestly, is tragic. Because you are then starting back at Square 1... So there is actually quite a bit of motivation to keep the streak going because once you hit 10 days, you become a Flamingo. And at 30 days, the majestic Albatross.

I can't tell you how many times I got demoted to an egg... it was one of the worst feelings... but, honestly... up to the Albatross... it's not such a big deal, because in 30 days... you're back to being an Albatross... But after that, things get serious. I was stuck at Albatross level for months... I kept going back to being an Egg and have to claw my way back up to 30 days.

750 Words
Badges

The next level after the Albatross is a leap... 100 days of consecutive writing... and then one can level up to the coveted Phoenix. There is some serious motivation going here because one slip-up... one missed day and... boop... it's back to being an Egg.

After that... the next level is 200 days... and a Pterodactyl... It takes a lot of dedication to reach this level. I have to admit... I used a few cheats to make it this far... I'd write a few sentences in the 750Words app and then... copy and paste repeatedly until I hit 750 words. There were just some days where I couldn't gather the oomph to write something even non-coherent! But... any port in a storm.

I was well on my way to being a Pegasus (365 Days) when I logged into the site one day and discovered that... I was an Egg.

WHAT!!!!???

750 Words
Badges

Nooooooo.... this must be a mistake!!!! And then I remembered... I had seen the emailed reminder to write the day before and said "later"... but later never came and... there I was... a lowly Egg again. I have to admit, I snapped. I deleted my account and turned my back on 750Words for good.

I'd never reach the coveted Space Bird level (500 Days)... sigh...

Except... I had been on the site for so long that... those levels are kind of locked in my brain now. And, when I turned my back on my hot chocolate addiction last February... I pulled the 750Words Badges out of my memory banks and used them as motivation. I know... it's weird... but if weird works... go for it!

I used a wall calendar and... while I didn't have Egg, Turkey, Penguin, etc stickers... I found some other stickers that worked... and charted my progress...

I started off with ladybug stickers... then graduated to owl stickers and... finally at 100 days... to cat stickers. I think at 200 days. I graduated to teddy bear stickers... and there I have remained. After 365 days, I had run out of stickers!

But... I am currently at 435 days hot chocolate free (as of April 27) and the 500 Day milestone is approaching and... it's time to dust off the Space Bird. I'm rummaging through my Avery labels looking for some that I can use to cobble together some Space Bird stickers... Except...

In preparation for becoming a Space Bird... and recognizing the 365 Day milestone!

While the Space Bird was the pinnacle of badges four years ago when I left 750Words... I now see that there are other badges! The Flying Squirrel at 1000 days and the Great Griffin at 2000 days. Whoa...

So... while it may seem silly... this little extra boost of motivation keeps me on the straight and narrow with hot chocolate... I have not desire to go back to being an Egg... and hacking my way back up to Albatross, etc.

Grow Food not Grass

When we bought our house seven years ago, the back yard was a blank slate. There was a lot of grass and not much else. A couple of fruit trees, a shed with some grape vines, and some neglected flower beds.

How times have changed... We started with one raised bed built during our first summer and that has expanded each year.

This year's project is to install some squash beds along the south-facing side of the house. That side gets great sunshine during the summer and gets very hot with sun and heat reflecting off the stucco siding. Perfect for heat-loving squash and zucchini.

We don't even have to deal with the sod in that area as the ground was torn up and redeposited during perimeter drain excavation work. We already knew, but learned again, how insanely rocky the underlying soil is - glacial till at its finest. We will never have a shortage of rocks in our yard... Just choose a spot, dig down more than 2 inches and start excavating... We have done a lot of digging in our yard as we have planted various shrubs, grasses, and removed the lawn to build raised beds. It seems we are on point... at least in this area.

Replacing a lawn with a garden, be it flower or vegetable, is a growing trend. A lawn is not very eco-friendly on a number of fronts.

Before...

Lawns use an inordinate amount of water... and given that our summer dry season usually saddles us with water restrictions, lawns turn golden yellow in the summer. Mostly. There is always the older retired gentleman somewhere on the street who believes that a green lawn is a sign of good home ownership, status or something. Apparently lawns in the US require the most irrigation of any agricultural crop in the country...

My Dad was one of those older retired gentleman. When he lived in our basement suite, he could never understand why we didn't water the lawn and spread weed killer and moss killer all over it. I tried to get to the heart of what it was for him... something along the lines of "what will the neighbours think". I would hope that they'll think that we are eco-friendly rather than sloppy homeowners...

After...

Which leads me to my next point... weed and moss killer are biocides... they are poison and there have been more than enough studies to show that things like Round-Up are NOT good for humans... never mind bugs and birds and worms and other creatures that lived here long before we came along.

And the run off from the lawns... as they are watered... means the biocides end up in the streams and rivers where they continue to poison and kill.

There are of course, other options... like tearing out the grass and laying artificial turf. Although... there is a house near us where the front lawn is artificial and... it has weeds growing in it. Real weeds obviously. I'm not sure how that is even possible but it is... Mind you, the older, retired gentleman who lives there seems to be a Snow Bird who doesn't do a lot of yard work...

And then... one could also just paint the yellow lawn in the summer rather than watering it... it's a growing trend although seems rather... excessive. In our community, a yellow lawn in summer is a badge of honour...

Lawns are also a lot of work... even if all you do is mow them... they are a hassle. And let's not even talk about the weeding and feeding via various means. I go over the front lawn on my hands and knees a couple of times in the summer and stab out the worst dandelions and other weeds. It's easier during the dry season because the grass is golden and the weeds are still green which makes them super easy to spot... But all that crawling and stabbing is hard work... although very therapeutic...

A house in Quebec... before and after

We still have an almost unsullied front lawn although it is shrinking from the outside inwards. We added a little 2 foot wide strip of flower garden along the driveway, and then expanded the front of house garden bed by another 3 feet or so.

We have debated turning the front yard into a series of veggie beds but... we also suffer from a plague of deer all year round. And deer love nothing better than to sample each and every plant to see whether it is palatable. Most vegetables would be right up their alley...

Although... perhaps potatoes (leaves are toxic) or rhubarb (also toxic) would survive the deer buffet? We did try a few squash one year which seemed to do OK with their prickly stalks and leaves.

Mind you... raised beds are not all fun and games. Our dry summers mean that watering the veggie beds can be an onerous task. Most vegetables benefit from low and slow watering but in the summer we are limited to hand watering... which means most beds get heavy and fast watering which doesn't benefit things like carrots. We've tried them and they are super fat at the surface, a good inch in diameter but... only an inch long. It's the watering thing... heavy and fast means only the top laywer of soil gets watered. We need low and slow... Our goal is to get an irrigation system for each of the raised beds but other priorities have... well... taken priority. Perhaps this year it will actually happen given the enforced stay-at-home-as-much-as-possible orders. Which show no signs of easing as I write this (April 1).

In the News - Food Security

For years, I've read about "Food Security"... and how, living on an island as we do, we should look at building up our food security. I have to admit, I've never really looked into it all that much, I just took it to mean that most of our food comes from "away" and, in any sort of a disaster, we'd be stuck. Huh.

Now that we're in a pandemic disaster... food security is front page news and... it means a lot more than just where the food comes from. Here's a definition from one local organization...

When a community is food secure, all of its citizens have dignified access to affordable, good-quality, nutritious food. While this may seem simple enough to achieve, the effects of globalization, the rising costs of real estate, and growing income disparity, are all conspiring to disconnect the average citizen from the source of their food.

As people lose the ability and skill to grow and prepare their own food, they become dependent on distant suppliers, out of season produce, and processed foods. In short, the source of their food is not secure and the quality is compromised.

Now that makes a lot of sense. It's not just where our food comes from (distant vs. local suppliers) but what sort of food we access (processed vs. fresh), when we access it (in or out of season) and how expensive it is to access (affordable or expensive). On top of that... with many people relying on restaurants, fast-foods, junk foods and/or the ever popular TV dinners... cooking has fallen by the wayside. And let's not even talk about vegetable gardening which, to many people, is a complete mystery. Then... of course... there's preserving food from the bountiful garden harvests - freezing and/or canning... which is another deep mystery.

In many ways, food security means us (me and you) getting as close to fresh food as possible and eliminating as many of the middle men/women as possible. So many different ways of doing that...

• shopping the perimeters of grocery stores - produce, meat, dairy, bread - and skipping the processed/junk food in the middle aisles
• shopping at farmer's markets and buying locally grown
• growing our own food - even herbs on a balcony is a step in that direction or maybe it's a plot at a community garden
• foraging for food - blackberries are an obvious first choice on the Coast...
• gleaning for food - people post when they have excess produce (e.g. an over-abundance of apples) and gleaners come and pick it and then distribute it to food banks, etc.

Seems pretty simple and low-key until we toss Covid-19 in to the mix... and then all of a sudden food security becomes front page news and a burning topic of discussion. Let's see...

• meat processing plants are reducing production and/or shutting down due to the virus (e.g. (Cargill meat plant in Alberta, Smithfield pork plant in South Dakota, JBS SA pork plant in Minnesota, and, recently, United Poultry chicken plant in Vancouver)
• foreign workers, who harvest a lot of the produce, are having a harder time getting into the country which might impact the food supply

There is, of course, a common denominator in all of this... the meat processing plant staff work elbow-to-elbow in very confined quarters. It's easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. And... the foreign workers are housed in very crowded quarters... again, easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. Wherever we have living beings crammed close together, it's going to make it really easy for any disease to take off... be it in pork processing plants or in dairy herds or fur farms or any meat market where live animals are sold for consumption.

British Victory Garden poster

On top of that... we have the United Nations warning us that the future could bring famines of "biblical" proportions in more than 10 countries. These countries are already teetering on the edge due to war, drought, locust plagues (I kid you not) and/or economic hardship. It won't take much of a push from the Covid-19 virus to tip them over the edge.

It's enough to give one the heebee jeebees... So, what's a person to do? After all, I can't fix what is happening, or going to happen, in Ethiopia... or anywhere else in the world. I really only have influence in my little corner of the world, all 8200 sq ft of it to be exact.

A few blogs ago, I wrote about the idea of Victory Gardens... an idea from the Second World War. I'm not the only one... type in "virus victory garden" and be prepared to be overwhelmed by a tonne of news articles about gardening taking off...

As it turns out, some cities are taking an active role in encouraging individuals to grow food. Victoria, BC, for example, voted to grow more food plants in the cities nurseries, rather than flowers. The food seedlings would then be delivered to individuals in need, who would continue to grow them.

Brampton - Backyard Garden Program

Brampton, ON, has taken it a step farther and started the Backyard Garden Program in which they are giving away free seeds and soil. This is a step beyond what Victoria is doing! Because, let's face it... most people don't know the first thing about growing vegetables. And while seeds do work for many things (carrots, beets, peas, etc)... it can be tricky if you're a first time gardener. The soil... the water... the location... all play a role. The good thing seems to be that there is always someone in the neighbourhood who knows something about gardens... I was reading this one article about an amateur gardener from Vancouver. Her neighbours are wanting to get on board with gardening... even though they've never done it... but at least they have the amateur gardener to dispense helpful advice!

I've also come across the idea that more cities should be planting fruit and/or nut trees instead of ornamental trees. While I'm not sure how this would work along city boulevards (pollution and a morass of fallen apples in the fall)... it certainly would be a good idea in parks and along walking paths. A few years ago, I was in Winnipeg, and came across their Public Orchard at The Forks... a nice little grouping of fruit trees and berry pushes which anyone can pick or harvest. Cool idea!

So, there is some hope out there... and it all begins with some small steps. When we started our vegetable garden... we started with one raised bed... which became two the following year... and so it's gone. This year, we added three small beds along the sunny side of the house. Just another few small steps.

Reassing the Path

When the idea for this blog popped into my head back in mid-January, the Virus was just a teensy-tiny blip on the horizon. I wanted to write a blog about taking tiny steps towards health for myself and for the planet. I wrote posts with wild abandon throughout February and into early March. Some of them were post-dated and are still coming out over the next few weeks.
 
But then the Virus hit and it felt a bit like my blog got hijacked by the enormity of what was happening. So, I began to intersperse real-time posts with post-dated posts. Because, honestly, there is sooo much to write about! I could link to so many news articles and spin a blog post out of each one. So many side trails to explore!!

And yet... I don't want this blog to morph into a Virus blog. Do I? Or is that all part of health for me and the planet? Afterall, the Small Steps thing still works for the Virus. Heck, even the shrinks are recommending small steps as a way to manage our mental health during a lock-down. The uncertainty is overwhelming and incredibly draining, so taking one small step is sometimes the only thing we can do. So, I still sit here, three days a week and look to write something that moves me in the direction of health... for myself, my community and the planet.

Overgrown trail

It's definitely harder though... and part of me feels like I might have lost a bit of my mojo. I was heading up a pretty clear path with my writing and now... the trail has gotten kinda overgrown and I'm having to stop and reassess... where the heck am I? And where am I going?

Part of me also wonders if anyone, other than my partner, is reading this! And then I wonder... does it really make any difference? After all, I'm primarily writing for me, to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper/screen. It helps me work through complex topics and I get clearer on things as a result. So, if I'm writing for me... then I guess I'm the one that gets to decide on the path... and whether it's the "right" one or whether I've strayed too far off course.

Or perhaps, it's just to let the path take me where it will... maybe it's a bit of a detour, or even a big detour... but as long as I'm taking small steps... I'm gonna get there.

Windfall on a trail...

Or, wait... is there even any "there" to get to? Or is this writing all about the journey? Is it not about me making this practice of small steps into a daily habit in so many different areas of my life. From productivity (scheduling tasks is working very well, thank you very much), to diet (stepping away from animal protein and embracing new plant-based recipes one step at a time), to climate action (small steps to use my bike more and the truck less).

Which I guess leaves me with... there is no "right" path... or a "wrong" path... it just is... A Path... My Path... and as I write, I move along a path, one step at a time and the adventure lies in the journey. So I'll stay the course, and work with the detours and the windfall... it's all part of the adventure.

Dusting off the Foraging Habit

I'm a forager from way back. When I was three, my Mom would take me up the mountain near our house to pick blueberries and gather mushrooms. She's German, my Mom, and the Germans have a long history of foraging for wild edibles... and medicinals.

We'd also go pick St. John's Wort, horsetail, club moss pollen, plantain and a variety of other herbals. Have a wound that won't heal? Just dust on some club moss pollen. Works like a charm.

There was even one year where we went out in the early spring, after the snow had melted and gathered moose poop.

Yup... moose poop.

We had a young apple tree that was not doing much except producing leaves. Mom had read that horse manure would be good, although you have to watch it because it can be too "hot". Not having access to a horse... or horse poop, Mom gave figured moose poop would be a good substitute.

Up in the north... in the spring... you see moose poop piles everyone. They're not like murky cow patties... they're more like rabbit poop... except way bigger. Little nuggets of fertilizing goodness...

The deer trail to the stinging nettles

So we went out with our plastic bags and gloves and scooped moose poop. Came home and distributed it around the apple tree and... let me tell you... that tree went from zero apples to 60 apples in one year. Best thing... moose poop.

Anyhow... I digress. There are no moose poops down here and deer poops are a bit too small to scoop. But... my foraging instinct is still strong.

A few years ago, while exploring a deer trail off the beaten path, I came across a patch of stinging nettles. Ooohhh... good stuff!!! I mean, they hurt like heck if you touch them accidentally. Although, apparently people touch them on purpose because the sting helps arthritis. I haven't tried that, not suffering from arthritis. But... I have been stung accidentally and the tingly feeling lasts for hours (sometimes overnight).

Stinging nettles

As I learned from my mother, stinging nettles are a great edible... like, super great. Packed with vitamins, minerals, and other goodness that act as anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories. And it is a leafy green... a dark green leafy green.

On our revised eating plan, we are supposed to eat two cups of leafy greens a day. Most of those greens come from the store where we buy bags of mixed leafy greens.

Until last week, when the store ran out of the pre-packaged stuff... so I bought bunches of kale and spinach and we made our own, slightly less diverse mix.

We are still waiting for our mesclun to grow up enough to begin harvesting it... so we are at bit the mercy of the greens available in the stores...

Foraged nettles

But then I thought... It's spring and... my nettle patch should be ready!

I did a little excursion on the weekend and... it was in super fine form. I picked three bags full and only got a few stings for my efforts.

**Note to self, garden gloves do NOT work if they only have fabric covering the back of the hands...

Took the nettles home, blanched them, chopped them and froze them. We can use them in all sorts of recipes calling for dark leafy greens... like the quesadillas we made a few days ago which needed five cups of kale or swiss chard...

I should perhaps mention that blanching the nettles disarms the whole stinging thing... Just blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes and they are good to go. They are still a bit furrier than spinach but... they are also organic! And... to top it off... the blanching water makes great soup stock.

My next big foraging expedition will come later in the summer when the blackberries appear... they too have defenses to guard them (wicked thorns) but our goal is to stock our freezer with bags and bags of blackberries to tide us through the winter. And maybe produce a few litres of blackberry liqueur... mmmm.... soooo good.

Living in a Slow-Motion Train Wreck

Am I the only one or has anyone else noticed the surreal nature of life nowadays.

On the one hand, everything seems to be just ticking over nicely. The radio station still plays normal music. TV shows are still airing with no sign of social distancing (filmed before C-Day). Water still flows out of the taps. The sun still gets up and shines. Birds are chirping excitedly and making nests, planning for their future.

On the other hand, the news tells us that the number of cases and deaths is rising dramatically. Going out for a walk in the woods is fine until one encounters another hiker and then there is this 6 ft dance around each other with smiled, but cautious Hellos. Traffic is much less than normal. And let's not even talk about going to the stores to shop... trying to find what I want on partially empty shelves while dodging masked and gloved shoppers. Conversing with the check-out person through a plexiglass shield. And the level of anxiety in the stores is enough to make the skin crawl.

But then... I come home and everything seems just fine. Life goes on. We work in the garden and the house, hacking down the length of our to-do lists. But there is always the worry... when is the tsunami of this train wreck going to hit us? Is it going to hit us?? British Columbia's numbers over the weekend seemed pretty good... does that mean we are flattening the curve? But then we read about Alberta, Quebec and Ontario, where cases are rising rapidly and we wonder... have we dodged a bullet?

I know that in the coming years and decades (maybe even months), books and papers will be written about this time. What we did. How we did. And most importantly... what we did wrong. It feels like I'm living in a history book except... it's dragging on forever... this is the slow-motion part. I have read books about the Second World War but... those books can be read in hours and days... I know that the Blitz happened over months and yet... it feels like it happened in a few hours. Because I'm just reading about it... not living it.

And I have to say... this living in slow-motion history sucks! The level of uncertainty is probably the worst thing. The not knowing...

• how long will this last
• when will life get back to "normal"
• what will "normal" look like after this is all over
• will this ever be over
• why are some churches in the US still open!!!
• will we get sick
• what if we get sick
• what if one of us gets really sick
• what if...

With every visit to the grocery store feeling a bit like a game of Russian Roulette... I'm not sure how many more trips I can gird myself for... We only have 72 cases on Vancouver Island but... there is always the unknown of the asymptomatic... the ones who might be infected but not showing symptoms... and the ones who are infected but never show symptoms...

Argh...

And so... we garden, like we do every spring. Maybe with a bit more mindfulness of what seeds to sow... what do we eat the most of, that we can grow easily... Greens! Lots of mesculun (lettuce mix), kale and swiss chard. We sow the seeds... the sun and rain come... and the plants grow. In all the uncertainty around the virus... there is a certainty deeply rooted in nature. So, perhaps, while society and culture teeter with uncertainty, now is a good time to cling to something solid. Goodness... I sound like a prophet for the Gaia religion... Not intended... The shrinks tell us to focus on what we can control... and right now... gardening is that... till the soil, fertilize the crops... and weed. When in doubt... there is ALWAYS weeding to be done.

Being Grounded

When I was a kid, my best friend and I played outside a tonne. Those where the days when you could play out of sight and out of mind. Parents weren't concerned about their kids being abducted and eaten by a bear. We'd go play up the mountain near our homes, or in the water field at the base of the mountain. We called it the Water Field because the ground sloped downwards in one area and, in the fall, winter and spring, there was always standing water. It made for a great hockey rink if you didn't mind playing around the cottonwood trees, red ossier dogwood bushes and other shrubbery sticking out of the ice.

The thing was... it wasn't always clear how thick the ice was... particularly in the spring and fall. We would have our rubber boots on and we would tentatively inch out onto the ice and... sometimes we'd be golden but... other times... we'd crash through and end up with soakers. Some worse than others. I think one time my friend crashed through and the water was up to his waist. That was not a fun adventure.

I still have this Lego house!

Anyhow... we'd squelch home in our soggy wellies and... both of us would get grounded for a week. No going out on our bikes. No adventures on the mountain. We couldn't even talk on the phone. I was stuck playing at home with my sister (5 years younger...) or in our backyard. Luckily, I was an introvert so a grounding wasn't a cruel punishment. I had more than enough books to read and could play with my Legos all by myself for hours... or with my train set or... any number of other toys. I don't think I was every bored...

Today... it kind of feels like Mother Nature has wielded the same tool. Most of us are grounded. Oh sure, we can still go out for groceries and walks or call our friends on the phone or video chat. But we are essentially stuck at home... no... wait... we GET to stay at home for most of the day, interacting with the people in our household. Maybe chat with the neighbour over the fence as he builds his own greenhouse and raised beds.

On Facebook, I see people reading books, decluttering and doing puzzles. I've been doing that too... got a 1000 piece puzzle on the go right now. But... whereas in the past, I might have buckled down and nailed the puzzle in 3 hours... now, I'm kind of just pecking away at it for 15 minutes here or half an hour there.

As for books... most of the ones on my shelves have been read and some have been read multiple times. My usual source of books is the pubic library and that source has dried up. I guess I could borrow books from the e-library or even buy some online but... the interest isn't there right now.
 

Before - Blue Closet

And decluttering... well, I guess I'm doing a bit of that too... organizing and sorting things and then seeing what can stay and what can go. Although... stockpiling the donation pile is becoming a problem!

Which means, I have plenty of time on my hands... and the motivation to handle a lot of the incomplete projects around the house. And there are a lot. Big ones... little ones... I am using my own advice (what an idea) and just taking the next small step in accomplishing whatever task is in my sights.

Case in point... when we moved into this house, the previous owners had some rather eclectic ideas of what a closet should look like. No closet doors for one thing - but that got handled early on thanks to the Restore. But... the one bedroom closet was painted a deep dark red and the other was painted a deep dark blue.

After - Painted Closet

I handled the red one a few years ago when I added some extra shelving to the closet. But the blue one has been lingering for 7+ years now. It wasn't a high priority closet as it is in my office but... every time I opened the closet, it would niggle at me. Plus... being such a deep, dark colour, it sucked up all the light in the closet and it was hard to find things in there...

So, a few weeks ago, I buckled down, dug out the half-full can of primer and some left-over paint from a basement reno (off-white) and... just did it. Took two coats of primer and two coats of paint but... it is complete.

That is a huge weight off of my to-do list because that project had been sitting on the list for years and grown quite weighty. Completing that project has also created some space... and I can now see a few other little projects and are next on the horizon.

I guess, in some ways, at the end of all this, I want to have something to show for days of self-isolation... A rejuvenated body, mind and spirit as well as a slimmed-down list of incomplete to-dos!