Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Hello, hello! I’d like to introduce myself - my name is Kirsten, play at home Mama to a three-year-old and a seven-month-old that I made with my husband Robb.

Here I am with my daughter at the park. Hello! Nice to meet you.

And the rest of the family - different day, different park!

I’m a Neighbour-in-Waiting (in the Exploration Phase). This means that I don’t yet live in the Yarrow Ecovillage, but I'm going to. And here’s why:

My Impossible (or so I thought) Ideal Life List:

• Sustainable and green
• Healthy and non-toxic
• Walkable
• Close to amenities (like organic groceries, playgrounds and thrift stores)
• Community-driven (with a social and support network)
• Culturally diverse and multi-generational
• Affordable (for our single-income family)
• On a farm, or enough land to garden (and have the ability to keep chickens. And maybe goats. And bees?)
• Easy access to nature and recreation
• Lots of outdoor space for children to run and explore and get dirty
• Creatively inspiring (with space to get creative)
• Beautiful

One of my future neighbours has a hobby chicken project.  The kids love to watch the birds play on their wooden toy structures.

This is not just a list of some of the many features of Groundswell Cohousing and the Yarrow Ecovillage (because you know the Ecovillage is/will be all this and more), this is honestly my ultimate list for living for myself and my family. Friends, I wrote this BEFORE I ever knew that such a place really existed. When I found the Yarrow Ecovillage website, I felt like I found that somewhere over the rainbow. Choirs sang hallelujah, unicorns cried and all that jazz. But seriously, I never thought that I would ever be able to marry what I loved about living in a city and in our neighbourhood, with my desire to live in the country and keep chickens and grow food and let my children run wild and barefoot in the wilderness.

The Ecovillage is just somewhere over this Fraser Valley rainbow. Via flickr with a Creative Commons license

And now that we have found it, my question is: Why isn’t EVERYONE living this way?

Vivian asked Camille and I (the Mamas of our two-family shared living experiment - read more about her and our backstory here) to write for the Village Tales, so we’ll be documenting our journey from interested outsider to Neighbour-in-Waiting to full-fledged Neighbour. We’re excited to be here!