Nutshells and Niblets Community Bulletin # 35 April 2012

Nutshells and Niblets Community Bulletin # 35 April 2012

Vivian's highjacked, highly biased, and totally unedited version of Ann's Newsletter.

April is the Month of Fools... and Showers.... Then do clowns fall from the sky?

How has Spring come so soon? Is someone playing my life in fast forward these days? Watching out for the good parts? Slowing down only when I sit at the community camp fire our creek? Tea seems to slow things. Holding a hot cup while watching out the window for boys chasing each other with sticks, and wheel barrows pulling hopeful neighbours down our freshly mulched pathways. Some days it seems like it is taking forever to build this village. Other days it feels like it is happening too fast.

I should drink more tea. Perhaps if you were to come for a visit we could drink tea and watch this fast paced sleepy village whiz by.

(Welcomes have been moved to the end of the Newsletter. There are simply too many of them this month.) The picture attached is of my "sales" chart. All blue stickies are sold. Yellow are on their way to sold. Pink are interested and wanting to come but working out how to get here. Green would like to share in another Quad style home, and the light yellow are interested in Seniors cohousing. What a pretty map!

Flowing Forward (Fire Flow attained here comes Strata!)

For those following closely you may know we've had a doozy of a time getting our fire flow permit. Truthfully I don't even know if it was a permit we needed, or an allowance? We needed something anyways, and the city....was.... taking.... a .... long....time.... to.... get.... it..............done.

Well its done. Now all that is left is a submission for the boundary adjustment and we will finally have our Strata! TA DA!!!! (This is very big because it means we can now build out our new units and the common house!)

EVENTS:

Face Painters Wanted for Earth Day Chilliwack. (April 21) Wonder what its really like to be a villager? Come out and paint faces with us at the Chilliwack Earth Day! April 21st. Interested? email welcome@yarrowecovillage.ca and we'll give you the details!

Compost Workshop (April 23 12:00-2:00) Come on out and learn how to make the coolest compost system ever. We'll be working with Shauna to create the cohousing compost system. Bring mud boots and drills! We'll have a great time getting ready to rot our scraps together!

Open Houses, Open Hearts. (April 29)

Once again the entire village welcomes you to spend the day at the village. Farm tours, cohousing presentations, face painting, walk throughs of homes and floor plans will be available. This is a big day for us. It seems as though every year that we do it we end up finding a new neighbour or two. It is also a ton of work and so we appreciate all the help we can get. Are you a friend of the village? Would you be willing to volunteer an hour or two to help us with our big day? Boy that would be great! email welcome@yarrowecovillage.ca

Chilliwack's Garage Sale Day (May 12th)

Got Junk? The Village Matures will be hosting our second annual Junk Show (aka garage sale) Donate, book a free table for your own stuff, or volunteer to buy sell junk for Hope international. We love supporting Hope International because our neighbour Mathew works for them. We know the money we earn for them goes to important work. Mathew can tell you first hand about the work that happens as he actually visits countries and follows up on their progress. Ask me- I'll introduce you.

Drummmmm roll for welcomes please!

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ting!

Welcome Walter!

Okay. He's not moving here.... he was born here! 12:45 am March 31 to loving parents Beverly and Mathew, brothers Leo and Isaac. His birth story will forever be one of community. Some of us ladies at the village had decided to abandon the village for a night of dancing. I- being a former face painter- decided to liven things up with a little body art in the early evening. Beverly was feeling a little too pregnant for a night of dancing- but she let us paint her beautiful belly before we all left. After an almost magical night of painting, laughing, and community in the Quad (thank you Quad!) Twelve of us headed out to dance. We danced... while Beverly brought a new life into the world. A new neighbour to our village. When Linda got the text message that she had a new nephew we rejoiced! All twelve of us hugging and laughing at the miracle of it. As we tip toed through the village the temptation was too great. We stood on the front step and sang "Happy Birthday" for Walter. Its a memory I will always treasure.

Welcome Caitlin and Scott! Welcome to Miles, Deagan, Lex, and Quin too!

Caitlin read the article in the progress about us in January and jumped into her van with four young boys. Linda found her wondering around and Ann asked her in for tea. On her way down she ended up in my place, and then Yonas and Julia dropped in. We invited her to stay for an impromtu dinner. Her boys, Jongkind's, and us. It was... loud. But she liked us anyways! Now how's that for a first day at the village!

Caitlin and Scott plan on having us all over for tea in the castle house they've been living again soon.

Welcome to Christine and son Jonathan!

Christine home schools her son Jonathan. He's nine. They've just come to us from Mission and will be renting the small farm house until the new homes go up. Christine will always stand out for me because she is one of the few people who actually called me on the marketing number rather than email. She asked thoughtful questions and while she had caught me at a chaotic time (which times aren't around here) I found she drew me to sit a talk. Her first tour was followed by a second. She came for dinner. She joined us for the Focus group. Then the kichen's group. She has already brought me home groceries (THANKS SO MUCH CHRISTINE) and she regularly comes armed with contributions to meals. I am looking forward to more time getting to know her now that she's here!

Welcome Devorah and David

Devorah and David have been talking about creating a community like ours for a long time. Imagine Devorah's surprise when she heard about us on CBC Shiral Tobin's "Pinched". When our January presentation was snowed out it was an email from Devorah that gave me hope. A whole group of them! Interested! From Maple Ridge! She made it to Ingrid's Senior's cohousing presentation and she and David signed up on the spot. The next time we saw them was at the Ten Mile Tour with some other friends who were just as nice as Devorah and David. They were all so content, so happy and easy to be around. And now they are going to be OUR NEW NEIGHBOURS!

Welcome Natalie!

Ok...Natalie has been here for awhile. She actually moved in in January but somehow it went under the radar. I suppose it's because Natalie jumped in to life in the village with both feet on day one. She's been running a Yoga class, doing childcare for Julia, working on cohousing facilitation. It sort of feels like she's been here from the beginning. We appreciate her energy and her willingness. Natalie moved into the Quad shortly after realizing her mother Ingrid was living in the best place in the world! And now she does too.

8 eight units left folks. (I already know who the next two welcomes will be so that leaves six.)

(Watch out for falling clowns!)