Yarrow Days 2012 (My third Yarrow Days, and first one living here.)

I actually choked up.  I was standing at the driveway with my daughters waiting for the parade when I suddenly realized that the very first time I ever set foot on the Ecovillage was about half an hour before the parade began two years ago.  I clearly remember getting out of the car.  we'd been driving for a long time and had no idea what to expect.  The first person we saw was a five year old boy.  "Folks are starting the parade!  We're all over here watching if you want to join us!"  And off my kids went.  We collected out baby and headed towards the action.  I remember even then knowing I was going to move here.  How many places can you move to that has its very own parade?

So much has changed.  So much has stayed the same.  I'm exhausted at the idea of changing out all the pictures on the website.  They are all so out of date!

What has changed the most is simply our numbers.  My!  We are a growing village.  It used to be that I was a newcomer!  And now I am considered an old timer!  And yet more neighbours will come.  More neighbours will put their own love and ideas into this village...

 and it will just keep getting better.  The kids will get older, and then they too will begin to shape the place we live.

They do it already!  A group of children actually succeeded in getting the adults to give them back a dirt mountain.  Two years ago Dirt Mountain was a pile of clean fill that was waiting to be used.  It was covered in weeds and the kids would spend hours digging and shaping it.  They would come home filthy and exhausted. Of all the things a group of kids could ask their parents for, a pile of clean fill seemed achievable.  So now they have a dirt mountain again.  At least until we start the next round of construction.

 This is a picture of my son dressed as a farm dog for the parade.  He has just realized all his neighbours are waving and cheering for him.  Two years ago he was barely old enough to grasp the concept of a parade.  Although I seem to remember he had no trouble at all catching candy.

After the parade the park next store becomes a market and stage area.  I have never seen so many families in the park at one time.  I recognize faces from all over greater Yarrow.  Every so often I bump into one of my cohousing neighbours.  We enjoy things separately, but it is sure nice to see a smiling face.  If you want to find at least one ecovillager- head over to the guy selling beautiful silk bohemian wear.  Not many of us bought much, but we all looked and admired.  I couldn't help feeling proud when my six year old select a pink and blue gypsy skirt as her Yarrow Days treat.  My son found an angry bird that a local teen had made of felt for his treat.  Millie chose cotton candy with help from the older two.  Of course they helped her eat it aswell.

Some of the ecovillagers helped out with the BBQ.  I think others worked security at the dance.  The whole weekend was fun.  It is the cutest, quaintest, little festival a city slicker like me could ever ask for.

And the parade floats still throw candy!  My kids were thrilled!

Slow Food Cycle Tour

It was a (the?) beautiful sunny day: spending it at the Blue Heron Reserve with hundreds of organic-farm-loving cyclists was perfect!

The local Yarrow volunteer society has released the latest Yarrow newsletter. (If you are a Facebook user, we have a little ecovillage group there as well.)

NutShell Niblets #22- - November 4th, 2010

Ann's very personal, highly biased and incomplete guide to the ecovillage ... in a nutshell.
　
　
How much does it cost to live here?

Beverly has finished and finessed identifying each home-unit on the plan, that're still available to buy, attaching an appropriate price for its lease and approximating reasonable construction costs. If you're interested in seeing how you'd fit in here, please let us know by replying to welcome@yarrowecovillage.ca and Beverly will take you through the available homes on her site plan.

At this weekend's Community Meeting, the group of current and soon-to-be residents will decide the first steps of figuring out our strata fees. ( The monthly fee homeowners will pay for shared expenses - regular maintenance, insurance, contingency fund etc) Will we count a fair share by household? by number of people in each household? by assessment of home value ? ..... or .... might we try a combination? -- to mitigate for those on fixed incomes, with families, spreadout in larger/squeezed in smaller units?

If you were here right now, we'd expect that you would join us in tussling this out. It might not even be very easy ... consensus takes effort and practice. But you'd be part of the decision-making that affects your everyday life. And you wouldn't be paying your fees to some mysterious, remote management company. We'd be figuring it all out together, for our own benefit.

Same thing with creating this village by building homes... we're doing it ourselves, for our own benefit.

Now, that's a good deal of the good deal!
　
　
Shark Sighting

I walk along the north side of our stretch of Stewart Creek, coming back from a morning walk with the black dog. The fall rye that's planted for ground cover is poking spears through the straw that was laid on top, making a strong matrix to protect the soil. The growth happens so quickly, you could be fooled into thinking it's spring. But there's snow on the cap of Mt. Cheam to the east. It's winter coming, not anything warm!

We're moving ahead, with Dept of Fisheries' help, to stabilise and plant the newly cleared north bank. Joe' has been rooting Osier Dogwood cuttings so they take hold this winter and coming spring. The next steps are to bring in nurse logs that provide good habitat for young trees and keep whacking back any blackberry canes. Vigilance is required.

On the days after rain, the stream swells and rushes through the channel, making many varied whorls and eddies as it floods into the swim-hole. In one quick glance, I see a large dorsal fin rise from the water and surge forward. A fin as large as my hand! Joe and Shayne say there are seven kinds of fish in Stewart Creek and salmon make it as far as the next road over, swimming through channels in the stream-grass that the otters have kept open.

As we replant and restore this stretch, we hope to be able to inspire our neighbours to make changes to their sections of creek too, and bring back the species of flora and fauna that thrive in and around healthy, productive waters. Perhaps this is where the learning centre we want to create is; with the rush of water under the shade of evergreen trees, the birds singing in the bushes and fish returning to spawn.
　
Our Next Door Neighbours
- first in a series to introduce you to the interesting people who live in Yarrow

Shelley White.
Shelley is the hard-working nurse, doting new grandmother, friendly,cheerful community member and talented potter who lives next door. You can slide through the hedge at the end of our row of houses and into the glory of dahlias that is her garden. They're fading now with recent cool nights , but they have been leaning their brilliantly colourful faces over the fence, our way, for months now.

They're a riot of colours that make me dance inside. Shelley tells me she has at least a hundred varieties. "It's one of my passions", she says.

One? There are more ... besides being a full-time nurse?

Yes! Creating elegant, wearable jewelry rings Shelley's bells. And making functional, everyday, beautiful pottery is another passion.

Shelley is talented with her glazes and hand-wrought shapes. Her firing technique is raku, an ancient Japanese art that produces unique and remarkable finishes. Take a look at how Shelley uses horsehair to make startling lines. Truly!

Stroll through her showroom chock full with easily buyable bowls, mugs, plates, and pots and try to come out empty handed!. It's a treat to visit- these are pottery pieces to treasure and use in daily life.

Let the beauty we love, be what we do. (Rumi)

And the beauty of Shelley is what she does, and who she is, in our village.

Visit her and her studio on Erkert Street , one block to the west of us. Open many weekends and at the Chilliwack Christmas Craft sale- November 19th to 21st http://www.chilliwackartscouncil.com/index.php?id=51
　
My Life Here...
　
I have noticed for the very first time, that the glory of leaf's fall colour extends in a long sliver up the stem too. A crimson leaf has a crimson stem.

At dusk, when I stand in quiet on the bridge over the stream, ducks in loose flocks wheel in circles and peep to each other as they settle for the night into the hazelnut groves.

A small boy with guileless stealth opens my front door and slides unannounced into my spare bedroom to find the PlayMobil. My house is within his familiar realm; he will learn to knock before he is four. In the minute before I call his parents, I revel in a special feeling of his belonging, and mine.
　
http://www.stopandenjoyyarrow.com/

Consuelo is creating a website for businesses in Yarrow to buy in and promote their wares and services. She is building relationships between our eco-community and the village of Yarrow. Working together, we'll flourish together
　
Julia says....
I was surfing the web over at Moosewood Restaurant, and found this paragraph. I think it defines Consensus really well and I wanted to share that with you....

Consensus is a widely misunderstood process, and we're still learning how to best use it. It's not just another word for unanimity. The discussions that happen on the way to consensus raise lots of alternatives and disagreement. People have to keep paying attention. Someone has to summarize once in a while to keep ideas alive and available. When someone objects to a proposal, it's not always easy or popular to say so or explain why. We're constantly learning the importance of dissent, listening to each other, and being patient. When we reach agreement, we may not have found the ideal solution, but we believe it's the best we can do for the time being. And when the decision doesn't reflect our personal opinion, the hard part is having the self-discipline to support the group decision and to consciously avoid undermining it. This is a more challenging lesson.

Keep in mind, they have been doing this since 1973...... Julia

read more at http://www.moosewoodrestaurant.com/collective.html

Beauty Shack

Here are some pictures of the Beauty Shack when we first started. I will be taking some more today and then of course at the end when we are all done!

My corporate website is www.beautifullyholisticcreations.com and my two main brands are www.outsideincosmetics.com and www.dingabear.com

Hope you are having a great day!

Yarrow Community Spirit

Where is the Yarrow Ecovillage located? Right smack in downtown Yarrow, a village with the kind of community spirit that wins awards like this.

The ecovillage itself is a treasure, and its setting is spectacular. I feel so grateful to be a part of both.

T-shirt = Destiny

Yarrow Days gave us one perfect day of summer weather, mid-monsoon. This picture shows Shayne in the 1975(ish) Yarrow Days t-shirt and Matthew in the 2010 edition.

Yarrow Days 2010

If you've been looking for an excuse to poke around in Yarrow, here is the schedule for Yarrow Days June 5 & 6. (This is copied from the Yarrow Newsletter: you can pick up a copy at the deli or in the library.)

Saturday, June 5 in Yarrow Central Park

8:00 Fun Run begins at Yarrow Station 42375 Yarrow Central

10:00 parade leaves Yarrow Elementary school (Click "more" to the right to read the rest of this long list.)

How far back does the property go?

When Matthew and I started seriously considering the ecovillage, we wanted to know how far back the land went. (I'm still hoping that the Rail for the Valley people succeed, so I wondered if our land goes right back to the railway tracks for us to walk to the train to Vancouver in the future.)

I've doodled on a Google maps capture to show where the ecovillage's 25 acres are. Look for the red scribbles on this (rather rough) picture:

You can click on this picture to make it larger and clearer.

Working at the Ecovillage

The partners in the Yarrow Deli Cooperative would love to entertain resumes or other interesting methods of introducing yourself for working with us in creating a wonderful place to eat and work in Yarrow.
Ideal candidates would consider training toward management over the next 2-4 years and potentially becoming a partner in the cooperative.

Interested parties can email Cher at cakingscobie at gmail dot com.

Google Maps Streetview

The Google truck seems to have driven down Yarrow Central Road sometime last spring: you can't see the new driveway, Ann's sign, the painting on the barn, or the beautiful new houses out back, but you can sure take a nice look at our street.  Start here;
if you walk west, you'll see the deli, local park, MCC thrift shop, post office, and pizza place; across the street you can see Hank's barber shop, Rick's antique shop, and Community Street which runs 600 metres to the community hall, library, the dyke trail system, the Vedder River, the shortcut to Yarrow Community School, etc...

The Google truck didn't drive up Community Street, unfortunately, but I'll see what I can do about posting some of my favourite walks and bike rides around here.

(If you don't know how to turn around to see the other side of the street, this will get you started.)

Sustainable surroundings

Chilliwack District, (including Yarrow), is one of the few cities in Canada that does not chlorinate its drinking water.
The Sardis Vedder Aquifer, which is located underground in the Sardis area ( Sardis is south of Hwy#1 from Chilliwack) supports its entire community for its water needs.

While many municipalities transport their waste to other locations, Chilliwack does not. The Bailey Landfill has been in operation for over 15 years and with preventative measures, such as recycling, we have been able to extend its life far beyond original expectations.

Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve is a 130-hectare site (325 acre) located on the un-dyked floodplain of the Vedder River directly across from Yarrow. Managed by the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve Society, the site is known for the breeding colony of Great Blue Herons as well as a wide variety of wildlife and vegetation.

The Fraser River is one of Canada's longest and is also one of the most productive in North America for Salmon, Steelhead, Chinook and Sturgeon. During summer, lower river levels expose numerous gravel bars where anglers gather to drop in a line for the day. Chinook and Sockeye Salmon run through until the fall. Steelhead and Coho begin to enter the river in early September.