new beginnings

hello.
it has been a while since i wrote. during this last 3 months or so I have been living on a funky little farm named Metchosin Farm. Work has been to weed the gardens, plant veg, feed animals and tend the watering and various other tasks that need to be done on a farm.
It has been interesting and I have learnt a lot about how to grow organically. it has been wonderful to be able to have a diet that comes from 10 metres away from your dinner table. this was one of those aspects i considered for the environmental countdown. it is making so much sense to grow your own produce...it is time consuming for sure, intentional communities may be the way to go.


farm seen from front garden

Summer has offically ended here and the rainy season seems to be upon us. fall harvest is still under way but my attention has been in other ways diverted. my schooling has started at the pacific rim college. Here i am learning about plants and their herbal properties. i love it. it is super inspiring and it truly feels like i'm on the right path. you know when you study something you really enjoy and you feel like you could listen to the teacher go on for hours. So a move is in the cards next week. the commute is way too long from metchosin into victoria so i have opted to move into the city, this may appear to be the opposite of what a herbalist ought to do but it feels like the right thing to do now.
so tuesday next week we load up the tent trailer with all our paraphernalia and move in with jzero and renee in their cute loft apartment.

the following pixs are a potpurri of various activities from the summer.


poppy harvest


flying my birthday kite


meeting cousin nicole


pm glimm and the strawman performing on the sustainability fair


quick trip to the okanagan. here ollie checking on his new swarm.


lucid 44 show at the blue gator in Kelowna.

until next time...lots of love and giggles
miki

nerding out in nature

the island is truly magical,


what i have seen of it so far makes me feel like i have come home. during the last year or so me and peter have talked and dreamed about arriving here on the island to live an environmental and conscious life. this last week as we have meandered along with the GoldWing and taken in the scenery, stopping to go for hikes and picnics in pretty spots, I feel that the decision to make the island our home has been a right one.







Because our intention is to live on the island i have allowed myself the luxury of buying more field-guides of varying nature. Bugs,seashore findings, mushroom books and some extra plant books. So now when we go for walks peter has to put up with that i take even longer than before, he used to estimate that if a hike was an hour long for regular people, with me it would take at least 4 hours. lucky he is a patient man:)
It is nice to be near the ocean again, we have spotted both harbour seals, river otters and some odd sea creatures that i don't know the name for....yet!



Tonight we are back in Victoria, our friends Jzero and Renee are playing a show with their band at the Logan's pub(i hope that was the right name) and we intend to be there to jive along.

Jzero and Renee at the drift wood lean-to

Until next time...hugs and giggles:)

Island life

We have arrived on this beautiful island and as we came across on the ferry Orcas could be sighted not far from the boat. Exciting to see their big dorsal fins cruising around with the backdrop of green,lush islands with the occasional red/orange barked arbutus tree. The journey in itself, to even get to this point, was an adventure. The Goldwing proved more than able to pull the weight of our tent trailer and all the stuff we loaded her up with. This journey we definitely carry more than we did in Oz.
On our way here we met up with a whole bunch of friends and it's been fun catching up with people i haven't seen in years. Thanks everyone who housed and fed us!
I was incredibly excited about all the wildlife we saw as we travelled in BC. We came across moose, white tailed deer, mule deer, big horn sheep, mountain goat and a very large specimen of a black bear. Unfortunately i didn't catch the bear on film.
During one of the hikes in the stunning backdrop of Canmore, we even came across a wolverine, Peter managed to see it clearer than I. When I finally understood what he was pointing at, only its head remained for me to see. Still, it was very exciting. It is not everyday indeed that one stumbles across a wolverine and an avalanche in the same day. We had hiked up to a very small glacier and the sun was shining on this particular day. As the snow cover higher up in the peaks of the rockies melted a sheet of snow came tumbling down, and watching from a safe distance as we were, it was rather exhilarating.



I will post pics at a later day and write more when I can. Right now...got a motorcycle to pack for a week long excursion around the island before we return to victoria for a small pit stop.
so long
//miki


interesting paw print up at spray lakes, alberta

Spring tribute

hello hello.



The final days of the spring semester at Okanagan college are here. It has been pretty hectic lately but also quite inspiring to produce final works and conclude the courses. I have had a great term at OC and I am happy that I did study there for a while.

pix of the school

and the view from it..ahhh british colombia

My environmental research have been on the back burner due to the strange thing called 24 hour days...some days there doesn't seem to be enough hours for all that I want to do. My interest in the environmental countdown has been renewed and the most recent project is a tree planting endeavour. Since I used fire wood during the winter, now comes the time to plant the equivalent amount of wood burnt. There are other people at the college who also want to plant trees, so now we are trying to organize with the Dean and other higher powers how to do so. It seems like there is a possibility for us to get free trees from a tree research place and the Dean appears to be a kindred spirit so hopefully it can come into fruition.



Other than planning for this and starting a new math course, we are kind of getting ready to leave for Victoria at the end of May. We will travel there in an old, bright brown, 1980 GoldWing. To this we will attach a tent trailer and then make our way over to the Island. Should be a fun trip and I will take photos as we go.
lots of love and talk to you later:)
miki




hiking in no trespassing zone.

random pix. too tired to write:)

sat down to write a new entry and felt like i didn't have anything to say..yeah i know that doesn't sound like me.
so instead i will post a few random pix from the last year or so.



mountain view in Fernie

the end of the road

bamboo planting

old house at dent street

windmill on the outskirts of amsterdam

madurodam miniature land

squim plays a tune

and i don't

sunset in strahan

hello again!

the week that just passed has been filled with activities. University/college has started so i have tried that life out a bit. The course in sociology seems really interesting. the only problem being that the admissions board have dropped me from the course which means that i am not allowed to be there.
i will see if i can argue the case on tuesday next week. if they refuse to give me grades for it, i will see if i can sit in class anyhow. i will be there just to learn and they don't need to put me in their particular system. I have paid for the course so that is not the problem.
i am beginning to think that it's a private witch hunt against me. i don't have energy to tell you about all the road blocks i have run into during admission,translate transcripts etc etc....but believe me it's a few.
so i am feeling very drained by the whole system that(at this point in time) feels more like a dinosaur beaurocrazy than a learning institute. I hope that my initial view of okanagan college will improve.I hope that soon they will actually allow me to learn something which is why i am here.


beside this little minor annoyance i have had a good time. it was peter's birthday on the 8th so i took him to a cabin on top of larch hills. the cabin was very rustic so we had to carry pretty much everything we needed.
therefore i had packed a ton and we lugged it all uphill on skis. he didn't look too pleased as he struggled up the hill with a heavy load.

i was beginning to think that it's a bit cruel to give a workout as a b-day prezzie.
once we got to the cabin and dropped our packs and started a nice fire though he looked pleased as punch. it was a beautiful evening, away from everything,stars in the sky and snow on the trees.


we gorged ourselves on the goodies i had brought along. half because we were ravenous after a good hike up and half so that we didn't have to carry them down again.
going down proved a lot easier at first.....until my ski boot cracked in half. i think i must have put it too close to the fire over night and it had dried it out completely. the other factor that could play a role is that the boot was made at the beginning of time and might be feeling it's age.
anyway, this cracked shoe left me with absolutely no steering ability. when i finally slowed down and landed soft in a pile of snow the repair kit came out. i jury-rigged it with rope to tie it back together and this took a few trials until it was as good as new.

in the same manner as last week i have been recording my impact of the environment.
i have a lot of numbers and no real knowledge as to what they mean and what i will use them for. i figured that as i jot down my life as a calculation i will learn aspects of it that i wasn't aware of.
Take electricity for example.

The first weeks usage was 31 811.55W that is for one person- minus the freezer, fridge and washing machine.
to me that sounds like an awful lot. This was during a week when i was very conscious of my lights etc and tried to turn off stuff as much as possible.
so what does these numbers mean.
well i am not sure. one thing i know however is that it would be very hard to power our house with the energy creating bike that peter has created.
we calculated that in order to achieve 4200W we would have to cycle 6hrs a day for 7 days a week. we are still not even a quarter to the number thirty-one thousand eight hundred eleven and fifty five!!!w.
isn't that crazy.

I don't know yet how much an average household use. not that it matters so much.even if i don't use as much as someone else i still need to lower those numbers by a lot to make a self sustainable home a reality.

moving on to water consumption and i found after i added the numbers on the research sheet that i had consumed at least 800litre by myself in the last week. then i think about people in poor countries that have to walk for miles and miles to get a bucket (25 litre?)of water that is carefully used because of the scarcity and hard labour involved in getting it.
our way of life is not fair and it is not sustainable. how can we in rich societies assume that we should have all these privileges and not share them with people in poorer countries.
according to the coursebook in sociology the richest 20% of world population takes 80times more of the communal cake.(john j macionis)
if you had a kid like that at your birthday party you would call him/her a greedy,spoilt brat with no manners.

i guess i have to try harder still to become less of a negative impact on the planet.
i will continue to let you in on my research as i go.
for now...got some anthropology to study:)
lots of love
miki

week one findings/weak one finds

hello there you people!
good to see that you still check my blog even after my fanatical environmental project has begun.
it's all good.

so this last week has been interesting.
I guess you saw the research sheet i made up for myself to record everything in everyday life. Well it proved to not be enough. I still had missed vital aspects that previously i had just taken for granted. For instance the need for electricity to even get the water pumped into the house.
All you people with houses...(sigh now and say ahh that young and naive girl...tell us something we don't know:))
Then just the energy to heat up the water for say a 5min shower.
I took a shower the other day for 10 minutes and that alone used 64liter of water. Then add the electricity to get pressure 125W and warm it up(not sure how to calculate this yet), plus light in the room 7W.
Each and every activity has it's consequences. I guess the consequences would be worse if i decided not to have any showers at all. Losing friends, work etc etc.
Still this lesson showed the importance to me(If australia didn't drive the point home with it's water shortage)to get in,get clean and get out without time for lingering and daydreaming.
I have also started an interesting little experiment to see how much of hygienic products i actually do need and what they consist of.
I have been trying to do without shampoo this last week and my hair feels shinier and healthier than it has the last 5 years. perhaps a little bit greasy but i figure it will stabilize itself when the hair gets used to having to regulate itself.
I am still not ready to give up on conditioner...on the lookout for a local brand with no toxins added.

The little cleaning i have done this past week has been done relying solely on vinegar and baking soda. I tell you that stuff really works. besides i can buy it in bulk at work so i don't even need to get plastic containers.

one thing that was an eyeopener this last week was how much water the toilet takes each time you flush 16liters approx each time if you have an old toilet like the one i do.
So to combat this there are a few ideas floating around. one is to add a bag of pebbles to the canister that holds the water so that it doesn't fill full each time and in this way conserve water.
since i am lazy i employed the method of not flushing each time (if i only had a wee,let's just have ideas floating around) but instead i just threw in a litre or so of water to dilute the piss to make it less smelly.
this seemed to help to get my water usage down by at least half.

I remember living in dalarna in a little house where i had a compost toilet instead. the wee was separated from the poo to eliminate odour. then the poo and sawdust was put in a pile in the garden and covered with leaf and clippings from the garden. it disappeared in no time. Far better than washing our excrement away with perfectly fine drinking water.
vernon is on a high plateau and is very low on water, it is almost classified as a desert here so in the summer this water-squandering makes no sense.


completely irrelevant pix from oz speaking of shit.did you know that cows emit huge amounts of methane gas from their dung and constant burping(you would too if you had eight? stomachs).
me in my get-up as a milkmaid in bunbury.

So for those of you who thought i could not possibly get any grubbier, i have decided to not wash my clothes as often as i now do. just one load of laundry used 180 litres of water. i intend to see how much longer use i can get out of my clothes if i air them between uses instead of automatically throw them in the dirty washbag.
within reason of course...i still want to employed and be allowed to take part in classes at school.
i believe that the clothes in themselves would last longer if they were washed less often and less warm.
i am trying to use a warm wash with cold rinse. if i can get away with cold wash and a cold rinse i will do that. This would all depend on the situation of course. i remember when me and Holly tried to carry a dead dolphin ashore in bunbury australia. I had it's fishy smell covering my clothes for days on end. two hot washes later and the clothes still smelled like blubber.

Enough about water.
The trickiest to figure out actual numbers for has been groceries and where they come from.
here in canada they don't specify as much where a product is grown. it's easy enough to know where a company is based but where they in turn get their products from is very hard indeed to find out.The local aspect is one of the points that i grade my groceries on, the other being if it is organic and how much wrapping it has around it.
So the other day i walked into one of the food stores here with intention to buy some fresh produce. I came straight from work and was sufficiently tired. i saw a box of organic mandarins with only a paper box around them and some paper and thought great!when i got home, to my horror i realised that these very same mandarins had been flown here to canada from china. can you imagine the co2 emissions from their transport to me.
i am still trying to find local suppliers for my food.
listen to this:
some fish from BC gets fished here, then they get transported to korea to get packaged, then sent back here to be sold in the supermarkets as local fish from canada.Doesn't this sound like madness to you?

being in a country in the northern hemisphere in the winter if i want local products i will have to be satisfied with things like apples, potatoes and cabbage. Can i get all the nutrients i need with a local diet?How much am i willing to give up? How much can i do without and still feel content? I guess this is the question we all have to ask ourselves. If we are not willing to give up even a little we might lose it all, what risk am i willing to take,do i dare gamble, that the environmental scare about global warming isn't true after all. I don't know which i think is the scarier prospect...to live without tropical fruit and jet travels or to wake up one day on a destroyed planet.The first one is so directly affecting my life right now and putting restrictions on it, the other is so hard to grasp. The massive implications it would have. Crazy as it may sound,the globes health feels more impersonal. I guess it will not feel personal until that day when we run out of all our resources and war and famine take over.
I hope that it will not come to that.If i can take small steps to live more sustainable now, perhaps in the near future i can make larger strides once i get used to another way of living. I'd like to look at it, not so much as something i am giving up as something i am gaining.
Of course this past week has given me a lot of facts but i will not add them all here today. little by little i will let you in on how i go.
tomorrow university courses start for me so i will also have to make time for studies,work and relationships.
i will be back with further updates in the next few weeks.


me and ruth out skiing at sovereign lake