das loft

Another little summary of the area that I just wrote to someone. (Hopefully the more I do this the more I can convince some of you to come out here... ;-)

The West is treating me well. I love Nelson and the Slocan Valley. You'd probably love it, too. It's such a happening, ecoactivist-friendly place. There's so much good stuff going on here: gardeners raising chickens in their backyards, a great organic food co-op where you see everyone you know, an in-town organic coffee roastery and an organic brewery, the Kootenay Co-op Radio station that airs a great program called "Deconstructing Dinner"... The houses are colourful and unique and practically everyone has a vegetable garden, and fruit tumbles onto the neighbourhood back alleys. There's so much amazing arts and crafts in the downtown. Every business features the works of local artists on its walls. And then you go into the valley and you meet timber-framers, carpenters, natural builders, textile designers, illustrators, website designers, permaculture gardeners and raw milk farmers. Canada's first grain CSA is just around the corner in Creston; the local French bakery bought several shares, which they'll mill fresh for their dough. There's such a concentration of good people here that are so with it!

It's really exciting to imagine making this place my home. It really feels like being part of something important and meaningful.

I'm still looking for land. I'd like something close to Nelson... maybe even in Nelson. But if so then ideally on the outskirts, because I don't want to be far from the wilderness. Meeting those urban chicken farmers is inspiring me to do urban agriculture here. In any case I'd like to wait until real estate prices take a dive, because I think everything is still pretty inflated at the moment.

[To my friend who's in Europe:] I'm so glad you get to enjoy Europe for a month! How lovely. One thing that gave me the warmest feeling about Nelson was how much it reminded me of a little Bavarian town in the mountains.

Labels: art, food, gardening, land, nelson, winlaw

Here's an update I sent Jon not too long ago:

I met Peggy at the permaculture course, which finished 3 weeks ago. She has a farm in Winlaw, and she's super fun. 34, really experienced in natural building as well as gardening, super friendly, pretty frank, and you can ask her anything. I came to Peggy's and one of the first things I asked her was whether she had a scythe. (I was inspired by the tall, thick cooch grass that came right up the edge of her garlic, onion and potato beds.) At first she didn't think she did, then she remembered that someone had visited her once and left their home-made scythe here, but nobody's made use of it since. She wasn't sure if it was any good, but showed it to me and I fixed it up a bit. The "bar" of this scythe was carved wood, and the blade was attached by that copper stripping stuff (looked somewhat makeshift) and was getting a bit loose. I added another screw and it seemed to tighten it well. I sharpened the blade with a file and got it quite nice. It only had one handle on it - for the left hand - so with my right hand I had to hold it by the bar. I used it to scythe around the vegetable patch. It worked really well - very sharp, maybe sharper than Ricardo's scythe, even - but I found myself switching the way I held it with my right hand pretty often because it would get sore. So I think I need a proper right-hand handle which would allow me to turn my wrist exactly halfway between the two positions I keep switching it between (as I imagine most scythes have). I haven't had a chance to build one, but that's the next step. At the end of scything, I noticed the blade had come a bit loose again, probably from all the dirt and/or rocks I banged the blade against as I used it (which can't be good for the blade anyway). I'm sure I have to learn how to avoid banging the blade against anything, but it's a bit tricky when the grass is so tall and the land isn't flat and hasn't been fully rock-picked. That just seems to be how most of the land is around here.

Yeah, BC is awesome. You know it. I'm having trouble coming up with reasons to prefer Ontario over BC. Sure, the land isn't flat here, it's rocky, and it's expensive. People are worried about the private hydro-electric installations and say the rivers are at risk. I learned today that California has destroyed most of its rivers extracting gravel, and it now relies on imports from BC's gravel pits, thus destroying BC's rivers. The way clearcut logging and planting happens here is apparently the reason for the annual droughts and also the proliferation of the pine beetle. And it's common knowledge that the economy of the Kootenays is sustained by the drug trade. The mosquitoes are bad in Winlaw (not that it matters much). But the people are fantastic, the markets are wonderful, Nelson has the largest selection of bulk items in Canada at the Kootenay Co-op (bulk essential oils?!), the air is incomparably fresh and delicious, the summers are hot but not humid like in Ontario, the vegetables and fruit trees grow large, the creeks supply the cleanest water without filtration (for now), organic, raw milk is not difficult to obtain, the mountains are gorgeous... and I haven't even been camping or gone to the natural hot springs yet (I will be soon, though).

As you can tell, I'm pretty tempted to make this place my home...

More updates soon.

Labels: bc, drugs, farm, food, gardening, nelson, winlaw

Easter and equinox blessings to my faithful and unfaithful readers alike.

Please don't overdose on chocolate this weekend. I will be most upset if you do.

Labels: baking, easter, food