Looking at Men

I never used to look for men, being married as I was for such a long time. I took others for granted and looked only at my husband. 

I’ve changed, now that I’m single. 

Lots of men drive past my place on their way to Cultus Lake.  I can see them from my window in the old farmhouse ... being so near the road, as I am.  I’ve noticed a few in sports cars with the tops down, their pony tails flying high in the updrafts of wind.  They’re in pick-up trucks with high under-carriages and they rev their engines to show off the might of their mufflers.  (Or is it that they lack mufflers, and that’s what’s the big deal?) 

One young man made it down three blocks of our brand new paving, on the rear two wheels of a four-wheeled dune-buggy type adult-sized toy car.  ... the kind of toy car that when you pull backwards on the ground and then release, it flings itself forward in a crazy arc and lands flailing on its back like a dung beetle that’s eaten too much dung.

Or men are navigating SUVs,  towing boats. Or Rv’s, towing boats.  The boats look like miniature jet planes with extra fins and fewer wings, and have lots of stuff stuck onboard too... like waterski boards and fishing rods.  No boat having only one of each thing.  They’re new age caddis fly larvae, built for speeeeeed.

Some of the men wear coveralls ... they’re the fastest farmers I’ve ever seen...  they drive their tractors down the main street, at high velocity, whether they’re not pulling wagons of hay, or they are.     

Or they’re wearing black leather and making a motorbike swarm that breezes through in pack-convoys, like wasps smelling meat.   

At least I think they’re all men.  There might be a buxom broad or two, I suppose, under all that shiny smooth black and aerodynamic helmeting. And I’ve seen a few molls and dolls hanging off the backs of various of the vehicles, on occasion. 

Are you sensing that I’m not all that attracted?

We have men here in the ecovillage too.

Builders, framers, electricians, dry wall installers. Really nice men. There are a few women in the crews, but I don’t notice them.  We’ve been having lovely hot weather and a few shirts have been removed, that I have seen.  I come to visit the job site quite regularly now, to keep up with their progress.  It’s easy to show/disguise my interest with offering coffee and saying I want to discuss governance structures at break time.

Shayne has nice muscles.  But I digress.  Shayne, up a ladder, sees me coming and wants to know if I’ve chosen on which wall I’ll be hanging my Firemen’s funding-raising calendar.  Hmmmm...  What an inspiration that young man is, to a creative mind like mine!  (and he really did say that to me...no lie ... ask him yourself)

I think instantly ( ‘instantly’ means with no absolutely no gap whatsoever, doesn’t it?) of a  Carpenters Calendar ... scantily-clad, buff men, showing off suntanned, muscled biceps holding hammers and smiling at the camera.  I’m looking straight at Alan.

Alan is a straight-forward guy. Without missing a beat, he says “Ann, as you’re buying, I’d like half hot chocolate in my coffee.”

I beat a hasty retreat to get the coffee ... down the street to the deli ...and what should pass by, but a truck hauling a boat ...  named  “Fish and Chicks”

Women need men like a fish needs a bicycle and men need women like a fire-extinguisher needs a chicken. 

But it doesn’t stop us wanting, does it?

Soban Wants Me to Tell You.

There’s a lot going on here right now at the ecovillage. Our two timber-frame duplexes are quivering to completion and the kits for two dome homes agitate with anticipation in the bunker silo where they’re being stored. There are building plans a’foot. There’s construction everywhere. Large piles of dirt shift constantly.

In a few short months, eight homes will be finished and then occupied.

People are coming!

And children ... lots of them!

And upstairs in my house, I’m not safe from change. The contents of my laptop ... reports, letters, drafts of letters, emails, proposals, drafts of proposals, initiatives, inboxes-outboxes, flow-charts, overflow-charts ... flood the table, then expand and swell, pushing and shoving me until I tumble down the stairs and out into the garden.

Thank heavens for the little black dog who’s unwavering in her pull in a greener, slower direction. Soban is in his garden this morning as we pass, the black dog and I. He’s crouching down in his cucumber row, clipping the dangling growing-tips to suspended strings with clothes pegs. He hurries over to me ... “Ann”, he says, “What do you think? ... this ecovillage’e ... who are we?”

Soban is from Korea and he speaks with an accent ... ecovillage has an extra ‘e’ at the end.

“The true residents of an ecovillage’e”, he says, “are the people who grow their food here. An ecovillage is so much more than a place to live. It’s about having food that’s grown with heart and spirit so that it will nourish heart and spirit”.

“I can see,” he continues, “You and the others are working hard and under much stress. Why you work so hard? ... Why you worry so much?”

“We don’t want to worry about money,” I reply, “But we do anyway. The houses cost so much”. “If something were to go wrong, who would pay, if not us?” “Ah,” he says, with a knowing, rueful smile. Along with his wife, who’s a textile designer, Soban operated a successful business for many years. He knows about money and its power.

“But,” he says, “Tell the people... never forget why we are here. I cannot speak good English, so you must speak for me at the next meeting ... tell them to remember ... Food ... happy food grown with heart!”

Soban isn’t finished. “The new people in the houses ... will they grow their food here?”

“They’re families with young children.” I reply, “They want their children to be in a village connected to the land, that’s why they’re coming.”

While Soban is talking, he’s leaning down and picking a Japanese cucumber to give me. I bite right into its crisp, tasty flesh. And he picks Shiso too ... an oriental basil ...and fills my hands with a pungent, fragrant purple and green.

I’m remembering my past city life when I offered hospital patients with mental illness some soil and seeds and they understood without telling, how they could connect again to where sustenance came from. The most ill wanted to grow food.

I tell Soban I’ll relay his message, but I’m thinking ... can I possibly convey it fully, as it deserves? Soban’s manner speaks poetry, even when his words do not.

“Soban, ” I ask, “ Will you dig with me? We can choose a patch between your garden and the community garden ... a circle that can expand ... and we’ll invite the children to come and dig with us.”

“Yes” replies Soban, “We’ll start with planting winter vegetables,”

And we will.

They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Drink Coffee

For some reason, the blueberry farmers next door have removed the infernal machine that blasted away every hour or so, with gun shot sounds to scare the birds. The farm is up for sale ... could that be the reason?

Imagine ... For Sale ... One blueberry farm with large gun.

It simply wouldn’t sell!

(All six acres and big house can be yours for only $800,000.00 and you can convert to organic practice and be happy beside our ecovillage ... hint, hint!)

So there are birds galore, now that it’s quiet next door.

The Cedar Waxwings give me thrills. They’re long lost friends back again and it does my heart good to see them. They used to come to my old neighbourhood in the city when I was first there, thirty-five years ago. And then as trees were cut, they stopped coming and became extinct in my mind.

And now, I have them, once more. I love their crested heads, gentle chirping and soft colours.

Why am I telling you this? Because I could feel the having of the birds. Ownership. Not lost, my birds back again.

We’re talking about ownership here in the ecovillage with some sort of a fierce intensity. Ownership of houses. There’s nothing like investing one’s life savings in an experimental venture like an ecovillage, to sharpen one’s focus and encounter fears of the most basic kind. Open the doors of the money closet of one’s mind and the smelly sneakers stored on shelves come tumbling out to boink one on the head.

As I make each payment of mega-thousands of dollars on my new house, I can feel the responsibility grow heavier on my shoulders. I have worked and saved for a long time ... my money isn’t just wealth, it’s my sweat and tears accumulated to help me as I grow older. If something should go wrong, will I be crushed under a burden of debt, not mine?

The experienced among us have come up with some intelligent solutions. Among them, something grounded, called Air Space titles. In a nutshell, you own the contents of a surveyed block of air, but not the ground on which it sits... all of us in the co-op own that. You don’t really have to understand completely what it is, except to know that the people who own the houses will have needed protection from disaster, by being able to govern the land on which the houses sit. You own, you get to decide. Simple.

And with this single breath of Air, those who don’t own, are caught in an updraft of wind and blown to the other side of the fence.

Ah! ... the money!

A few of us are sitting in the park, with take-out cups of coffee, leaning our elbows on the table, talking. Some are owners, some not. I can see my own house from where I sit ...roof, trim, cordwood that looks like stone from this distance. My own house.

“I can’t afford to buy a house”, says one, “and I’ve been a member a long time ...I love to garden here. Will I lose all that I’ve worked for ... (because in the making, is the owning) ... will I no longer belong to what I own?”

The sadness of those eyes.

“What if”, says another, “What if, you could buy and own the Air in which you garden?”

“And you could make the decisions that have meaning for you, along with all the other Air-soil gardeners and farmers?”

There’s a sweet, insistent call of a bird. It has an exotic sound, like the call of an escaped cagebird trilling with new-found freedom. Another of the same kind answers from the tree across the street. Not an escapee, after all, then. What is it? I have an imperative to know.

A flash of yellow. A stripe or two. A lilting flight.

Scarlet Tanager. I haven’t seen one of those in years ... in decades.

I love them.

Naming birds, is owning them, too.

What if we all owned everything, would we love everyone?

On His Blindness

John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Waking up the Neighbours

I saw an opportunity today and so I volunteered to join the duplex construction crew on my house for a few hours as ... Guest Stainer.   Staining isn’t high on the chain of command, but it’s an honoured position, nonetheless.  (Being given a large brush, a pot of colour and a stack of wood, is honour for me)

My brief : Stain a stack of shingles

The context:  For the porch of our cordwood masonry house.

Our house is made of wood, mortar, glass (windows, of course), metal (metallic-hued) and then some siding that’s made of cementious product painted cement colour.

It’s all natural looking.

That’s good, I like natural.

(Yawn)

Whispering now... we’re planning to wake up the neighbours with a little ...  surprise!

Shayne’s been cooking up something special in his mind and inspiring the rest of us (his future housemates) for awhile now.  Showing us samples, giving us ideas.

“Colour is it!” he says.

The rain is drumming on the roof of the bunker silo where the staining operations take place.  But what do I care if it’s raining, when I have pots of stain before me?  I pry open the lids and take a look ... the colours jump out!  ... Safety-railing Yellow,  Hopping Frog Green, Carmen Miranda Carmine and I-have-to-close-my-eyes-it’s-so-bright Blue.

What was he thinking??  Are these the colours we chose ourselves ...each, a different one? What have I got myself into?

Another surprise is the smell from the tins.  Not chemical.  It’s fragrant, and sweet almost.

Looking good  ...  looking wonderful!

Alan (the) Carpenter brings some cedar boards to the table saw that’s next to my work area.  He’s cutting them down for the trim around the windows. I help, as I have done so many times in my Work-Mate past ... receiving the sawn length and lifting it gently to the floor.

I watch Alan’s working hands, covered with a fine dust, finessing the knots in the boards through the straining saw blade.   And then I look at mine ...  mulberry-pink-stained.

Ours is a handmade house, hand-coloured too!

Another Kind of Summer Morning

This morning is summer in an entirely different way than last week was, when we were scorched, wilted, and suffocated in record-breaking heat. Today, the clouds are hanging low and misty against the mountain, their undersides heaving and roiling with another load of rain. The air is damp. Every leaf is moist. I have to wear socks for a change, to stay warm.

I take my little black dog for her morning constitutional down the lane, to the wild part of our farm - the stream - its grassy bank is on one side and a thick tangled bank of blackberries on the other. It’s called the ‘riparian zone’ because the blackberries are ripe now. Just kidding. But it is called “riparian’ (from ‘river bank’) and is a crucial wild area in our Permaculture designated zones.

It’s the place with no rules.


The stream is lazy and busy in just the places it chooses ... meandering through tall reeds, rushing over gravel banks and then easing itself into shallow pools, to do very little ... to rest and reflect on the sky. The little speckled and striped fish aren’t in schools, they’re goofing off, like I am.

The tall grasses run helter-skelter, tumbling and folding and bending their heads to the ground and into the water. It would be riotous living if they were people.

But the masters of chaos and mayhem are the blackberry canes. Their growth is running amok in every direction. They have a wicked sense of humour, too ... reaching and grabbing with sticky fingers behind my back. I retaliate and steal their berries, and I take only the best, ripest, juiciest of them. They stain my fingers culprit-red.

The wasps are taking advantage too. I pick the berries that they’ve have been licking ... they’re the sweetest.

My dog tugs me away with her leash. She strains in high anxiety ... and out of the farming patch, bolts a rabbit. Its tail flashes white in teasing disdain for dogs. Luckily, it runs out, instead of deeper in. Even though the main idea of wild areas near agricultural ones is to bring balance, I still don’t think farmers want their lettuces eaten in quite the way rabbits do!

I’ve been reading about Permaculture on the web and I found Holmgren’s 12 design principles ...among them ...

• Use edges and value the marginal - The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.

And so it is today with ... a wasp and a berry, a rabbit and a dog on the margins.
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Holmgren's 12 design principles
These restatements of the principles of permaculture appear in David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability
1. Observe and interact - By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.
2. Catch and store energy - By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need.
3. Obtain a yield - Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback - We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.
5. Use and value renewable resources and services - Make the best use of nature's abundance to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-renewable resources.
6. Produce no waste - By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.
7. Design from patterns to details - By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.
8. Integrate rather than segregate - By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other.
9. Use small and slow solutions - Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.
10. Use and value diversity - Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.
11. Use edges and value the marginal - The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.
12. Creatively use and respond to change - We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.

August Long Weekend Camping

Shayne and Harold in Soban's garden.