Ann's very personal, highly biased and incomplete guide to the ecovillage ... in a nutshell
Leaping into 2011
The recent completion of the first phase of our septic system has meant a huge leap ahead for all of us in the village. Folks have finally been able to move into 9/10 ... (what we call the Quad, at least on the shared side) and construction can now go ahead on the next two buildings 1/2, a duplex and 11/13 , a triplex. Folks who've been squeezed together in temporary arrangements here in the village, have expanded into the brand new units. And immediately, other people have popped into any unit left vacant.
It's like a magic game of Dominoes-in-reverse. When one domino stands up, it pulls the one beside up, as well. Each home that's finished, releases financing and a construction crew for the next. When folks move into a new place, the one they left behind allows new people in. And each new family who joins us, brings fresh energy and positive attitude for our village life. Each step means more stability, confidence and community solidarity. And we're stepping forward consistently now.
It is deeply satisfying for me to be here right now, able to share this good news with you.
Septic system
I don't know anything about waste water systems, but I know what I like. I like to flush. And I did have a good view out my window of all the various holes, trenches and piles of dirt for the tanks and pipes that make that possible. Dirt and mud, everywhere. Every possible piece of ground, was dug up and then covered over again. The tanks went in and then received official approval.
Kim Rink and Patrick Meyer of Ecotek worked hard and creatively on our behalf. The first phase of our system is complete. Praise them!
Internet connections
Here's another subject I don't know anything about! But Yonas does. He and his merry band of shovellers have joined all the houses with wires in underground pipes that connect our computers to something that will give us lovely, inexpensive internet service. I know what I like! --- Lovely, inexpensive internet service!
Community Meeting- Our latest Community Meeting was on Sunday, January 9th. And as with construction that's stepping confidently forward, so are we in shared village life. Now that we have a sufficient permanent residents and neighbours-in-waiting, we're much smoother in making group decisions by consensus, and proceeding with laying down a firm foundation of policies and agreements. We see what we need, and we're working away at getting it.
Now we have a policy for membership in our coop. . Each individual adult resident is equal to every other in owning, receiving benefits and being responsible for our ecovillage. It looks simple, and it is. But it takes maturity to be able to find the simplicity in a complex development like ours.
We know who we are.
A Butterfly in Winter
I'm lucky being on the membership team. Very often, I am one of the first to meet the new folks when they come to an initial tour or visit. And they and I chat through the sometimes complex process of their decision to move here and then their actual accomplishment of it. I hear many of their stories about how they've pulled up stakes in some other place. Some have had to renovate before selling. Others have put their houses on the market in less than favourable times and then waited anxiously for the sale to come through. Or they've left good jobs behind and packed large households and shifted young children - none of it easy.
And homes haven't been ready for them here; they've had to hang in holding patterns until we have space for them.
I marvel constantly at folks' strength and determination to make this big change in their life in coming here. And I'm deeply honoured to hear their stories of pain and difficulty as well as hope and anticipation.
I have my own tales about the challenges I had in getting here. And memory of them is fading as I settle into an everyday enjoyment of creating the life I really want.
The other day, I had a little project of putting up some hooks on which to hang my cloth shopping bags. I scrounged a board for mounting them, ( scrounging wood is a real treat here) that was the right length, but too wide. I have many practical skills and tools, but no capacity to rip a board myself, so I put it on the tablesaw in the barn, with a note on it addressed to the next carpenter who came along ... 'please would they rip it for me?' Next morning, there is was, waiting for me, ripped to perfection. And in that moment , I knew that everything I had come here for, is waiting for me to discover, one moment at a time.
"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you," Nathaniel Hawthorne
Animal, Mineral and Vegetable
Animal -About 8 Trumpeter swans spend much of their day in the field, next door to the bottom east corner of our pasture
from -
http://www.ecoinfo.ec.gc.ca/env_ind/region/swan/swan_e.cfmOn the Pacific Coast, wintering Trumpeter Swans found new food sources. In addition to coastal marshes, they started feeding on harvested vegetable fields, pastures and cover crops. These agricultural lands are concentrated on the east coast of Vancouver Island and the Lower Fraser River estuary. A combination of the swans no longer being hunted and having access to a rich and reliable food supply during the winter months resulted in the Pacific Coast population increasing to its present level. An eagle now comes regularly to the stump that's been newly 'planted' in our riparian zone (the stretch of Stewart Creek that's undergoing rehabilitation for fish enhancement) The log is part of 'woody debris' that'll make good growing conditions for the native trees and shrubs we'll plant in the spring.
At dusk, flocks of ducks wheel in arcing circles over our fields and then settle into the creek for the night. Mostly, they're wood ducks and mallards
Dick Clegg, our owl-loving neighbour, has moved the barn owl nesting box to the barn loft, ready for the next batch of babies.
Mineral -
Mud- everywhere we have mud now, there will be garden and growing green in the future. And there's plenty of it!
It feels like a sufficiency.
Vegetable-
My crocuses are up about 2 centimetres. The neighbours' Viburnum bodnantense is blooming in fragrant pink and the winter-flowering jasmine in yellow. The catkins on the hazelnuts are no longer tentative. We may still be in winter, but spring is lurking.
Poem of the Week
The Wild Swans at Coole - WB Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
