Small Steps With Hope

Maybe this will be my last post about gardening for a while, but I have to share this!   If you're interested in the idea of a Homegrown National Park and you like the idea of using the land in your care for the good of our animal cousins (I mean the animals, not your crazy human cousins!) then this guide might be helpful for you.   My dad sent this website from Birds Canada this morning and I'm so excited about it.  You can figure out what bird zone you live in and it will help you choose native plants specifically to feed your local ecosystem!  How cool is that?  Now I'm really ready to get planting! Small steps. Dirty hands and a shovel.   And hope. 

Since moving to Tinker Creek in 2018 I've been wondering what to do with the huge expanse of lawn that we are now caretakers of. Dotted with trees, mature Ash and Spruce mostly, we carefully mow around each tree and add bark chips, etc to keep the grasses down around them.  Last spring we planted about 60 baby evergreens that were dug up from road allowances in the Sandylands.  Many have survived, some have not. What's captivated me are the accidental transplants.  When Barrette dug these trees, he kept as much of their root as possible and in most cases, a circle of forest floor about 12 inches in diameter.  A month or two after planting these trees, we began to notice the hitch hikers.  Clovers, ferns, lilies, wild strawberries, wild raspberries, wild rose, and even a lady slipper at the base of one tiny cluster of larch and cedar.  This spring we watched as these guests greened up and began to grow, even before their trees did.   When we buy a ...

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a link to  Homegrown National Park , a site that issues  A GRASSROOTS CALL-TO-ACTION TO RESTORE BIODIVERSITY - NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY - The dream is really an invitation: Restore native plants to our human dominated spaces in order to provide food and shelter for all the creatures in local ecosystems.    I had never thought about this, but what we grow has a huge impact on   all the diverse creatures - from the micro organisms in the soil to the pollinators, nesting birds, amphibians and mammals that balance our ecosystems.   This article in Yes!  explains all of this much better than I can do here, but the upshot of it is that those of us who are fortunate to have land in our care, have an incredible opportunity (dare I say a responsibility) to be part of the solution.   A great benefit of spending time and energy restoring biodiversity in your space, however big or small, is that it makes home s...

On Tuesday morning I woke my kids at 8:15 and took them into the woods.  We sat in some morning shade on a trail and ate crackers and cheese, apples and peanut butter and drank some sweet, milky Earl Grey tea. I read from A Wrinkle in Time  to them while they ate, until the shade was gone.  Then we walked home.   Late morning we strung twine around some branches for our Morning Glories to climb.  Anticipating bright blossoms and full vines. In the afternoon I picked up a bucket of cover crop seeds from a friend and then came home and seeded a quarter of our garden with it.  I covered it with a composted mixture of chicken manure and wood shavings.  The wind blasted me as I worked, sending my lovely seeds and compost mixture far from where I was flinging them.  I kept losing my hat.  It was hot.  After a supper of salad and wieners (yep.) I felt really tired.  I put my feet up and read a little from an old copy of Geez magazine ...

Last weekend while I was digging composted wood chips and spreading them around my apple trees, baby spruce trees and other tree babies I started listening to Season One of David Suzuki's new podcast. There are 5 episodes and their themes are Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Spirit.  It was like sitting down with an old and very kind friend to receive a warm welcome into the world of creation care.  Definitely worth the listen! This is from the  David Suzuki Foundation podcast introduction : "COVID-19 has uprooted our lives, causing devastation for millions. It’s also forced us to slow down, pause and consider how we might learn to live healthily and sustainably on this planet. Let’s use this time to rediscover some fundamental truths about our place on Earth: fire, air, water, earth, spirit — the basic elements of life. Without them, there is no life. When our relationships with them are unbalanced, we put our very existence at risk."  If you are standing at the threshol...

In certain settings and circles I have a hard time talking about what I'm up to around the issue of climate change. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging.  I don't want to be seen as an "eco-poser" or called a hypocrite.   But I wonder if   not  talking about what I'm up to or what I'm "thinkin' about these days" has risks too.  If I don't open up about what's on my mind, I miss an opportunity to invite others to join this awakening to climate and justice advocacy.  And then there are other good folks who quietly care about climate or human rights or salamander ecosystems who won't know that I'm a kindred spirit when it comes to these things.  I'm robbing us both of a co-conspirator in this good work.  And perhaps even more dangerous is the possibility that these same good folks may lose heart or momentum or hope because of the lack of community around these things they care deeply about.     Wouldn't that be wor...

  Rain I put my glasses on  as I cooked supper  so I could watch the buds turn green the grass having its first bath of the season at the end of each thin branch of the cotoneaster a fat drop of water hung trembled  then fell to the ground lapped up in a moment  by the living soil under the thatch and leaves I could almost hear it thirsty earth giving thanks

I've been moving wood chips this week.   Shovel, wheel barrow, closed shoes.  A toque on the colder days, a hat and sunscreen on the warmer ones.   As I dug into the pile, the top and outer layers were dry and loose.  Further in I met up with frost.   Deep in the pile I found a treasure trove of rich, black humus!  The oldest and deepest of the shavings (some of them have been sitting there for two years) have become compost.  Just all by themselves.  No help from me.   I moved the blackest of that good stuff into my garden to cover the painfully dry soil.  I'm told that the soil needs armor - who knew?  The rest went to the flower beds and around the baby trees.  Shovelling and dumping and spreading feel like actions of hope today.   Hope for healthier soil and better water retention.  Hope for a living soil to feed some of the plants that will feed my family.   Sweat, dirty hands, ...