Seriously.

So, yesterday yet another ominous report was published:
Europe’s oceans changing at unprecedented rate

The day before we heard that:
Earth’s Coral Reefs May Be Wiped Out Entirely By The End Of The Century

A few days before we were told that:
Arctic ice set to match all-time record low – Satellite measurements reveal that volumes have fallen consistently over past 30 years

And the week before:
Scientist left speechless as vast glacier turns to water

These articles were all published within the last two weeks – but it’s not as if they are new news.

For several years there have been numerous reports predicting the scenario ahead:

• sea-level rise affecting coastal communities;
• ocean acidification destroying coral reefs as well as numerous other species that we depend upon for food;
• accelerated melting of glaciers and ice caps;
• extreme weather events – flooding, tornadoes, droughts, heat waves – many of which are likely attributable to climate change;
• and more…

And then of course there was that letter written nearly 20 years ago, addressed to humanity and signed by 1700 of the world’s top scientists, warning us that “If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.”

We have all this knowledge, and we’ve had it for some time now. Those warnings of nearly two decades ago are coming true – with many of the predicted changes startling the scientists, because they are happening even more quickly than had been foreseen.

But what I don’t get is how we can hear all this, yet not take action. I have talked to several of my friends about it: they know how concerned I am about the future of our planet, and for all life on the planet. (Obviously, the planet itself will be fine, continuing to hurtle through space with or without us. It is our knowing destruction of the lives upon it, including our own, that disturbs me).

And a lot of what I get back from people is that they don’t like to think about such unpleasant things.

Well, as Noam Chomsky wrote last week, “The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat.” (Chomsky stated this in a different context, writing on a different subject – but the quote applies equally well here).

Pretending that these grave changes to our planet are not happening: going on with our daily “normal” lives; looking on the bright side; and choosing not to think about climate change and what we need to do about it (or, more precisely, what we should have done about it a few decades ago) is not going to make it go away.

I can’t help but be the kind of person who wants to be informed about things. As I have written here before, sometimes I wish I didn’t know the things I know. But I think it is my responsibility to know. And I also think that, if I see something bad that is going to happen, that I can prevent, it is my duty to take action to prevent that thing. For there is no point in having the knowledge if you are not going to use it. We have a responsibility to take action. (Even more so, if you have kids who you claim to love).

But really, I am just tired of it all now. We have set our path. Climate scientists know what is coming, and how the momentum of our society (still, even today, pushing for economic growth as if it will be the saviour of all things!) is probably too great to change now. It’s already happening – and there is a part of me that just wants the rest to come quickly, get it over with, so I can stop reading about it.

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.“
Rush, from their song “Freewill”

On one level, I am really happy that I have such a strong Earth Sciences background. But I find, more and more, that I wish I didn’t know the things I know. Especially regarding the future of our planet and the future of our species. Last week I talked about our planet, this piece of rock whirling its way through space. It’s been doing that for several billion years now – and it will continue to do that.

But it’s quite possible that, within a few decades or a century, it will be doing that without us… or at least without most of us.

The problem with having this scientific knowledge, this understanding of the magnitude and scale of earth processes (e.g. how long it takes for something as big as a planet to heat up or to reverse that heating; how significant a degree or two of warming is when you consider how much energy that represents when that degree of temperature is an average over the planet – in other words, a huge addition of energy) is that it makes it hard to feel optimistic. Because my outlook on what we are doing, where we are taking ourselves, is too grounded in fact. In reality.

I think a lot about this idea of optimism. Often, I feel like optimism is an evil thing. We can feel optimistic that someone will find a solution, or that technology will save us, or that the Lord will intervene. But by feeling that optimism, it gets us off the hook: instead of realizing where we are headed, instead of doing something to prevent that bad outcome, we can just look on the bright side, have faith that it will all be OK, and go about our merry business.

I remember feeling this way when I worked on an adventure race in Chile. I was in charge of safety for the kayaking sections of the race. To me, that meant that my job was to foresee what could go wrong, in advance of it ever happening, and taking the actions to prevent it from happening. To think of all of the “what-ifs”. What if someone broke their paddle – do we have spare paddles on the compulsory gear list? What if the teams are far apart and a strong wind comes up and tips several kayaks at once – do we have enough support boats to effect all the rescues? My Chilean colleagues accused me of being a pessimist. “Just think positive,” they admonished. “Pray that the wind doesn’t come up.”

But I wasn’t being pessimist. I was just looking ahead, being realistic. These things happen in Patagonia: the wind does come up, and the water is very cold. We are an intelligent species. (So they say). One thing that we humans can do is look ahead and see where things are going, and take action to influence that course.

As I look ahead, though, with all of this bloody Earth Sciences knowledge that I hold, I find it hard to be optimistic. In fact, for the past few years I have felt that this knowledge, which forces me to be a realist, has also turned me into a pessimist.

In fact, until this week, I thought that I held out no hope at all.

But on Monday, Jack Layton, the man who epitomized hope and optimism, died. I am surprised – no, shocked – that for two days I have been in tears over a man, a politician no less!, who I never met, who I never once saw in public.

And I realize that I must still have some hope left in me. I would not be crying if I had already given up.

Jack gave hope to our whole country – even to a realistic pessimistic cynic like me. It is so sad, so very very sad, that we will never know what he would have accomplished in these coming years, these years that he should have had, as Leader of the Opposition.

Jack Layton’s last words to Canadians have been oft-repeated these last two days, but they are worth repeating:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

But I looked at the garbage bag. There was little over a fistful of garbage in it.

This is how much garbage I produced this week! I have been putting a lot of effort into reducing the amount of garbage I produce – but even so, I actually surprised myself!

Yes, it definitely takes extra time to not produce garbage. Just like it takes time to undertake other initiatives that are good for our environment, such as walking or riding a bike rather than driving. I am not saying that it doesn’t take time. It takes time.

But honestly, I am tired of hearing people tell me how busy their lives are, and how they just don’t have the time in their busy days to cook real food rather than heating up something from a package, or walk (or make their kids walk) instead of zipping around in their cars. Many of those people can talk about TV shows that I have never heard of, and keep up a pretty active social life online. It’s not only a matter of time – it’s a matter of priorities.

The garbage thing, the consumerism, the waste… to me, these are important. They are important to our future and, especially, if you care at all for kids, even more important for their future. So I make the time for it. It’s a priority.

I am not trying to be preachy here, or to say that I am perfect and you guys should all do what I do. I screw up too – you will notice in my garbage bag there are a few paper teabag wrappers that I should have put in the recycling… but I got lazy. I’m just trying to provide encouragement and inspiration by showing that each individual’s actions do add up, and the collective action of many individuals add up to even more. We each really do have the power to make a difference. But we have to exercise it.

So I am going to share some of the strategies that have worked for me:

Reject packaging, reject bags:
Remember we were taught the three Rs? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Well there are actually four. Number one is Reject. Recycling is last on the list, the worst option of the four. It encourages the manufacture of single-use disposable items – plastic bags, plastic packages, metal tins, glass jars – exactly what we should be rejecting. All these substances required energy to extract the resources from our natural environment (trees, petroleum, rock, metal), and energy to manufacture, and energy to transport to your home; they will still use up more energy to transport away again and to recycle them.

I have posted before that recycling is evil; all it does is make people feel good about their consumption. It’s not actually helping the big picture.

So, Refuse. Refuse to buy anything that your grocery store over-packages – for example, when peppers or cherries are plastic-wrapped on a styrofam tray. Don’t buy it. And tell the produce department why you are not buying it. If your store doesn’t listen to you, find other sources.

I know a lot of people justify getting plastic bags at the grocery store because they say they use them for garbage. And fair enough, to use one or two a week for garbage (because hopefully you are not producing more garbage than that). But if you find yourself with a kitchen cupboard or drawer jammed full of plastic bags, well… here’s my way of remembering to take my reusable bags to the store….

Punish yourself:
Yes, it is definitely hard to change habits, or to acquire new ones. Like remembering to carry those reusable bags. But if you let yourself off the hook every time you forget, you’re not going to learn, right? You have to punish yourself.

Usually I am on my bike so I have a backpack with me anyway. But when I am in a car, if I have forgotten my bag, I punish myself for it: I do not allow myself to accept a bag. I make as many  trips back and forth, from the store to the parking lot – tomatoes  or limes or whatever tumbling out of my hands – as I need to to get everything in the car. And same thing when I get to the house, multiple trips. It takes extra time and it’s a pain in the butt. But by punishing myself, it reminds me for next time. It’s a way to change my behaviour. Just saying “Darn, forgot the bag again!” and accepting the store’s plastic bags doesn’t change anything.

Make garbage a hassle:
I deliberately make it a real pain in the butt to have garbage. So I don’t really have a proper garbage bag in my kitchen. Instead, I reuse some food packaging that I was forced to buy (no, not plastic grocery bags – we are not forced to use those, that is a choice). Usually it is something like a potato chip bag (you just cannot buy potato chips without the bag) or a bag that pasta came in, or one of those thin plastic bags from the veggie department (I don’t use them at all for large or dry things like tomatoes, beans or broccoli, but I do for small things like cherries).

The little bag sits on the counter, and it gets in the way. It makes me not want to have garbage, because it is just a pain in the butt to have around. And even more of a pain in the butt if it gets full, and starts tipping over.

The garbage bag on the counter is a hassle. It makes me not want to produce garbage. But look at the photo: it’s working.

The power of the masses:
I know that it can feel like all of these small actions hardly make a difference. But this is where the power of the masses comes in. For a bit of a humorous example of that, check out this article in the Onion from last year: ‘How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?’ 30 Million People Wonder.

This concept, how the small actions of many individuals add up, was demonstrated to me in reverse a few weeks ago. I happened to have a lot of house guests over a period of two weeks. They are all fairly environmentally conscious people. But still, each one brought a couple of plastic bags into my house. By the time the last group left, my kitchen cupboard was stuffed full of plastic bags! No one had gone overboard with what the amount of plastic they brought in. But when you added it all up, it was a lot.

And that is what I mean: the power of the masses. It all adds up. Individuals’ small actions make a difference in the big picture. For the better, and for the worse.

So there, that is the power that we each have, that you have. Your actions may seem so small that they seem to be mere tokens. But they really do add up. Yes, it takes time. But this is important. These problems are not going to fix themselves.

Use your power.

It’s absolutely not intentional – but I find that so many of my blog posts have to do with gardening. I think that’s because the way that I think is in terms of connections (as opposed to objects, or things) and that gardening, especially vegetable gardening, represents the ultimate connection between humans and this planet we live on.

Growing my own food is really important to me. It is relaxing and meditative, a definite part of my personal mental-health program. It is also good exercise, it’s good for the environment, and it is definitely good for me: eating fresh, tasty, local, organic food.

A lot of people I know say “Well you’re lucky, Jackie. I don’t have a yard.” Well, I have not had a yard for the last two years (I was living in a townhouse in Tofino). And even now that I do have a yard with a productive little veggie garden in it, I still grow a lot of my food in pots on the balcony.

Here’s a little video of my balcony garden this year, just to give you an idea of what can be done with a very small space.

So I’m going to give a few tips here, for those of you who’d like to try:

First of all, remember that plants are people too. (Well, OK, not people exactly – but they are alive and responsive to the environment). You need to know your own climate and what you can and cannot grown there, and you also need to seed and transplant things at the right time of year. This is different for each plant type you grow. If you have never grown veggies before, there is a bit of a learning curve involved.

Out here on the west coast, West Coast Seeds is an amazing gardening resource. Their planting guide http://www.westcoastseeds.com/admin/files/2011PlantingChart.pdf is my planting bible – it tells when to seed, when to transplant, everything you need to know for each crop. If you live in a different climatic zone, your timing will be slightly different. You can find out what your own climate zone is (for Canada) by checking out these maps. (If you live elsewhere, you will have to Google the maps for your own country).

Each plant has specific needs regarding the soil, nutrients, moisture, and timing. There are many good gardening books out there – but again, West Coast Seeds has the equivalent of a planting textbook on line for free.  These planting instructions, for almost every type of food plant, would apply to most climates.

For setting up a garden on a balcony or a deck, the main things you need to provide your plants with are sun, water and nutrients. A balcony that faces east, south or west will usually get enough sun for most crops. A north-facing balcony can present a bit more of a challenge, but you will still probably be able to grow cool-weather crops. If your balcony is exposed to strong winds, you might need to erect a transparent barrier to protect the plants a bit. As for the water, well… that’s just up to your remembering! Regarding nutrients, plants growing in pots require more fertilizer than those grown in the garden – pretty much any liquid fertilizer will do, used according to the instructions.

Certain plants do very well in pots, while others really need more space for their roots. Things that do not do so well in pots are root crops (such as carrots and beets) and plants that require a lot of space, like zucchinis and other squash.

Cool-weather plants that do great in pots are most leafy crops (especially those with smaller root systems) like lettuce, chard and kale. I like to plant four or five lettuces in a row in those long narrow flower planters. You can harvest the whole head when it is mature (some small new leaves will grow back from the stump) or just harvest leaves as you need them.

Hot-weather plants that do well in pots include tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. There are so many varieties of tomatoes out there; try to get one of the easier-to-grow varieties. Some of the most fail-safe cherries are Tumbler (my all-time container favourite) and Golden Nugget. Of the large cherries, Early Cascade and Early Girl are two of the best. The beefsteak varieties are toughest to grow, so I would avoid them when growing in containers.

Tomatoes need large pots for their root systems, and lots of water while the fruit is swelling. It is also critical that you follow instructions for growing the tomato plants when they are young, or you may not get much fruit. Keep them indoors in the spring when the plants are young and tender, then gradually acclimatize them to the sunshine (they will get sunburnt and lose all of their leaves if you just one day thrust them out into the sunshine, just like us!) You can put them outside permanently in late May or early June.

Scarlet runner beans are extremely productive and grow great from pots. Seed them only when the weather gets warm, in late May or June, directly into the pots that you will grow them in (they don’t like transplanting very much). You need to place a trellis or strings for them to wind around and grow. They like to grow up, but if you pay attention to them you can force them to go sideways along balcony edges. They get beautiful red flowers in early summer, and big tender green beans in late summer.

Herbs and strawberries are other treats that are easy to grow from pots – and they are lovely to have just a few steps away from the kitchen. Rosemary, oregan, marjoram and sage will survive winters if they are not too harsh. You will need to start other crops, such as thyme and cilantro (coriander), fresh each year.

What about you? How does you balcony garden grow? Do you have any advice or questions?

There’s this land-sharing cooperative that I’m a member of, up the coast. A few times, an email has circulated around the group because a recent clearcut* is visible from our lots. That bothers some property owners.

Whereas for me, that one clearcut does not bother me any more than the many other recent clearcuts in Clayoquot Sound (UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve – and please note, there is no “P” on reserve). To me, cutting ancient forest down is not an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue about processes. Whether or not I ever lay eyes on any one specific clearcut, I understand what each clearcut means:

• in terms of lost habitat for wildlife,
• in terms of affects on the ocean via anadromous species (those that live in both fresh and salt water such as salmon) and debris runoff,
• in terms of effects upon our atmosphere and global ecosystem.

I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot this week, because of Canada’s decision to block the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention. Since the listing of hazardous substances can only be changed by consensus, it only takes one country to stop it.

And why would Canada do that? Because our government has some new, cutting-edge unpublished study that demonstrates that chrysotile asbestos does not actually cause cancer? Or because our Conservative government has already approved expansion of an asbestos mine in southern Québec, in a riding that they hope to wrestle away from the Bloc Québecois?

Yup.

But it’s not only on the federal level that this kind of decision-making is taking place. It seems to be the only way of thinking in the resource extraction industry: people employed in [fishing/logging/mining] don’t want to see their industry shut down because of what it would mean for their own personal jobs. (Intersting that they somehow avoid considering what kind of world their own personal children will grow up into).

But I see it here among the supposed environmentalists too. There has been a strong local movement on the west coast of Vancouver Island to block the proposed Catface open pit copper mine which, if it goes ahead, would be developed in the heart of Clayoquot Sound. I find it hard to rationalize the actions of people who use metals in their every-day life to block the development of a mine. Are we against mining? Or are we just against a mine in our own back yard?

I think these are important things to think about: every time we make a decision; every time we choose to take action, or not to take action.

And it’s not just about big industrial projects like logging and mining. There are decisions and actions that we make every day.

For example, plastic grocery bags: How could anyone who considers the issue, and not just their personal challenge of remembering to bring a bag (we remember our wallet and keys, how hard can it be?), not support the banning of unnecessary single-use items that harm the environment? (And don’t give me the “but I recycle” argument: Recycling is evil).

Personally, I don’t hold much hope for the future of humanity on this planet. And sadly, we’re going to take down a lot of other species with us (we already are).

But if we are to have any hope at all, we need to look at the big picture. We need to examine our each and every action, and make our decisions based on examination of the whole and looking out for the long-term – not on just how something will affect us, personally, right here and right now.

Where do you stand? Do you have any stories to share about your “big picture”?

*I understand the word “clearcut” has been redefined because supposedly BC no longer undertakes clearcut logging. As I understand it, these patches where the forest has been cut and cleared are now supposed to be labelled “openings”, so in this post I use the word “clearcut” informally.

This disconnect, between our knowledge and our actions, is really difficult for me to understand. To my way of thinking, when you see something that can go wrong in the future, you act to prevent it.

I finished my PhD in 1992, nearly 20 years ago. That same year, a group of 1700 of the world’s leading scientists published a letter warning humanity that we must change how we live if we are to avert disaster. That letter began:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

I don’t think that this week’s Guardian article will be “news” to any earth scientist or climate scientist. We have known all this for 20 years or more. And on some level, everyone – scientist or not – knows it.

So what I don’t get is how people can refuse to act.

I don’t even have children, but I look at the children around me: my little neighbours who knock on my door and ask me to ride my bike with them, my little niece in Ontario, my friends’ children. I want these kids to have happy lives, to grow up into a healthy world. I can only imagine the love that a parent must feel for their child – but in my imagining, that love is so strong that I would do anything, anything, to be able to promise my child a secure and happy future. But people aren’t. (OK, some people take feel-good steps like recycling – but I am talking about the steps that effect real and meaningful change).

There was an insightful article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, too, by columnist Ross Gittins, who commented:

“It’s a sore test of faith when people put power bills before their children’s future.”

We know all of these things. We know them, but – just like the smoker who means to quit, or the diabetic who keeps nibbling on sweets – that knowledge always comes with a “but.” But I was in a hurry. But I don’t have a choice. But it’s too hard. But I like my [insert noun here]. But everyone else does it.

We have the knowledge. We know that we must drop our consumption of resources and our greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically if we are to survive. We know this, yet we are doing little about it, far too little. What is stopping us?

For most of human history, the world around us has changed very, very slowly.

It’s a bit hard to define exactly when humans first appeared on this planet, because there is no exact date; rather, it was a gradual evolution over many millions of years. But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s call it 200,000 years of human history, which is about how long anatomically modern humans have walked this Earth.

For most of that history, our ancestors existed mainly as nomadic hunters and gatherers, walking in small family bands (or societies) through small territories in which they collected their food. Communities were oriented around “place” – they didn’t have any travel options anyway, right? – and their knowledge of that place: seasonal changes, plant growth, wildlife movements, was key to their success in finding food… and, so, to survival.

By around 10,000 years ago, following the end of the last Ice Age, many of these societies around the world were making the transition to agriculture. Now they were even more bonded to their place, and their knowledge of natural cycles such as seasons, weather and growing cycles were even more critical to their survival.

Connection to place was not simply an airy-fairy spiritual thing – even though rituals and spiritualities did, in many cultures, develop to symbolize this connection (e.g. the Thunderbird on the Mountain, or the Pachamama). Connection to place was a practical key to survival. And caring for that place – ensuring that wild animals were not hunted to extinction, and that soil remained fertile for subsequent years and subsequent generations -  was a logical key to survival.

Up until only a few hundred years ago, most people on Earth never ventured far from their birthplace. It’s only just over 500 years ago that Columbus embarked on his voyages of “discovery”. By the 1700s and 1800s more of a mass movement of humanity started to occur, as Europeans set out on journeys of colonization. But even these were mostly one-of trips: people emigrated (mainly from Europe; also some from Asia and – not by their own choice – some from Africa) to new lands where they made their new homes and developed their new connections, learning what to hunt and how to cultivate crops.

But what’s happened now? In the last century (or less!) we have arrived to this state where nearly everyone in our western society is mobile. Most of us no longer live where we grew up – or our children no longer live near us. Many of us have moved several times in our lives already. And, more significantly, we know that we have the option of moving again. Our lives and our communities are no longer centred upon a place.

Caring for place used to be critical to our survival. It was in our face every day, our place. If we didn’t care for it, the consequences would be felt quickly enough: no animals to hunt, or crop failures.

Our increased mobility, this last century (which, if you take 200,000 years as the length of time humans have walked the Earth, means only 0.05% of our history) has affected our connection to place. In fact, I would argue that it has pretty much destroyed it.

And once we lose that connection: our knowledge of natural cycles and any awareness of our impact on our place, it suddenly becomes much easier for us to damage our place. We no longer understand the consequences of our actions.

What do you think?
Do you have a place you feel connected to?
Do you still live there?

Well, it was a technical success. My harvest (pictured) wouldn’t have quite sustained me through the winter. Yup, that’s the whole thing.

But at least I got a harvest! I wonder if this is perhaps the first rice ever grown on Vancouver Island (I actually haven’t even heard of it being grown in British Columbia – although someone must have tried). I am quite sure it’s the first rice ever grown and harvested in Tofino!

So, for those of you have been following along, you’ll remember that I had rice growing in shallower and deeper containers. (For those of you who weren’t, you can check out my previous reports May 25 2009, September 5 2009, and November 27 2009). For some reason, the plants in the shallower plastic container flowered more. However, many of the flowering stalks did not produce rice grains – the little things that look like rice are actually empty (e.g. the one at the left of the photo is empty, compared to the full ones at the right).

So I guess they did not pollinate – but I am not sure why. (I am actually surprised any of them pollinated at all – by the time they were flowering, it was mid-winter and I had them growing inside, on my bedroom windowsill. No insects around, no breeze). I had pretty much given up on them – tried to keep them as wet as I had been before, but I was no longer expecting much from them. (They are very pretty though!)

So the little rice that was there matured as I let the plants dry up, around March. So it took nearly a year to grow the plants from seed right through to “harvest” – longer than it’s supposed to take (around 200 days), but no surprise in Tofino’s cool damp climate.

I didn’t get around to seeding rice this year – it was a very busy spring for me – but I will try to do some next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to source some varieties better suited to our climate (these ones were just standard Product of California brown rice seeds from the supermarket).

Anyone else have any rice-growing stories to share?

I keep seeing the same advice: Build your brand. And that is fine if you are only interested in, or only working in, one thing.

But I am interested in everything. To some people, that might look like I am all over the place. (Which, in a way, I am, I admit… )

But the thing is: everything is connected. And that’s what I am most interested in – the connections. So this is what I write about - both in my non-fiction and my fiction – and what I try to show through my sound stories (the radio dox) and my photos as well.

I don’t want to travel to some game farm to get the technically perfect, tight close-up of a captive wolf. I want to show that animal in its natural environment, connected to the habitat that it needs to survive. To me, that’s the story: the connection, the relationship.

Everything is connected. I feel that, in our “modern” and “advanced” society, where most of us live in cities far from the places where the things we consume come from, many have lost that sense of connection – but that doesn’t mean that that connection is not there. We’re just not aware of it. Every plastic-wrapped product you purchase is connected – both to where it came from (likely extracted from an oil well just like the one spewing out in the Gulf right now – so who’s really at fault there?), and to where it’s going (trucked to a landfill? or consuming energy as it gets transported and reformed into another product?)

Even if we are not always aware of the connections, they are still there.

So I think that is what I think about, and now what I blog about. Connections. Relationships – to our planet, to our food supply, to movements of our planet, to each other, to our own bodies.

But if I am supposed to be a brand – well, how do I make “connections” my brand? It’s a pretty big thing, not very definable.

A lot of what I do (i.e. why I left my well-paying job in the mining industry to earn a pittance as a writer) is about helping people to have the knowledge to make good decisions. To have the actual information, as well as to try looking at things differently – at times, even popping out of our ingrained “western” world view and reassessing our values and, therefore, our actions. Both about the big thigns and the little things: be it about personal health, or about treating our planet in a way such that the next generation can also live well here, or about preparing ourselves for the earthquake and tsunami that are coming here to the west coast. Every decision we make affects something: the world around us, the people around us, and the people to come.

So if you look at everything I blog about, the theme is there. Connectedness. But if you look at my list of blog topics – well, it looks like I am all over the place.

You’ve probably noticed that my blog activity has been a bit slow lately. That’s partly because I’ve had a busy spring, and have been focussing on my major projects rather than the blog. But it’s also because I am reassessing this blog, and I need your help! I plan to start posting more regularly, but I am just trying to figure out where I should go with the whole thing.

So, for those of you who have been following my blog this year – as well as for those of you who are new to it – what would you like to see here? What do you think I should do? Are you getting the connections I am trying to make, or do I seem to just be going all over the place?

Yesterday, Merry Bewick down on Chestermans Beach called me up and asked if I would come over and sign a copy of one of my books, that she had purchased as a gift.

I’ve been carefully tending my tomato seedlings since March. I’ve done a great job, I must say – some are approaching a foot in height, and a few even have buds on them.

So imagine my surprise when I saw Merry with a window-full of full-size tomato plants, many of them laden with fruit!

The challenge growing tomatoes here in Tofino is that we are on a skinny peninsula, surrounded by the North Pacific. Although we get a good deal of sun most summers, we just don’t get the heat that you need to ripen tomatoes. The plants grow; they even look great. And you can usually manage to get some hard little green tomatoes by September. But to get them to ripen before the winter starts to set in again (usually the second week of October; we don’t have fall), you really have to grow the fastest-ripening varieties. I have had the best luck with cherries: Tumbler and Golden Nugget. In the full-size varieties, Early Girl, Early Cascade and Alicante work best.

So I asked Merry what variety they were. “Oh, you know, stolen seeds,” she said. “Tomatoes from the store, that I ate and took the seeds out of.”

June tomatoes, I thought… no bugs around in winter, when they’re blooming. “Did you pollinate them yourself?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, holding up a little blue paint-brush (see photo, above). “This is the bee!”

Merry said that some of the tomatoes were plants that she seeded about a year ago, and others she had grown from cuttings. “I just lop the tops off and thrown them in there,” she said, pointing to a bucket on the floor.

Well, you just keep on learning, don’t you? I am surprised that the tomatoes continued to grow through the short days of winter. But then again, I kept a green pepper plant alive and growing at a south-facing window a few winters ago, using a Q-tip as my bee, and getting some early spring green peppers too. I think the secret is two-fold: lots of light, and also that the plants don’t chill down at night, as they would in a greenhouse.

Thanks for the tips, Merry! And especially thanks for the tomato, which I enjoyed with my fresh home-grown Port Alberni lettuce (transported that same day from Port by bike!) in an extremely tasty and environmentally-friendly salad last night.