WooHooo! One for Friends of the Wacissa AGAIN**

I do not know why it will not let me post the e-mail, but Nestle's backed down. There should be media on it tomorrow. But we will never stop watching over our river. You never know when they will buy out another neighborhood. But tonight we celebrate!!!!!
Yes! and we will still support County Commissioners August 18^th to vote in the laws to protect all our springs and aquifer.

My Garden before and after GOOD TO BE HOME!

One of the things we learned in permaculture was to work with our constraints. My biggest constraint and challenge is going to be poor sandy soil. We do not have the resources to pour hundreds of gallons of water and chemical fertilizers on our soil to grow vegetables. And we wouldn’t do it if we could. But I have been thinking about this a lot and ways to change the OM or Organic Matter of our sandy soil. I thought I was doing this in the beginning of the summer when I put in my permaculture beds and drip irrigation system, but now I am armed with a permaculture design certificate, and as Starhawk said just enough to be dangerous. Oh, and when I find a way to over come the damn little tiny ticks that are eating Noah and I up I will be happy.

This weekend we picked blueberries and wild hog plums. O I loved spending several hours just walking through the trails and seeing and feeling the energy of our home. I felt like I got lost in Faery for a while there. Noah cut many trails through the woods and around the blueberries but the deer and animals have cleaned out a lot more this summer searching for food. It is good to be home!!! We CAN grow grass when it rains!

　

 ALL ABOVE ARE BEFORE I LEFT JUNE 10th

Below are this weekend July 24/25

　

Florida Summer...hot and sticky

July 23/24, 2011
I have been home for 11 days and life has yet to return to normal. I guess that is what life changing experiences are all about, which this is not the first time I have had such and will explain those experiences later. I must say I have been thinking about my trip, my experiences and my Earth Activist Training most every moment and even in my dreams. Last night I dreamed of building a community garden with children. I was giving direction and designing and we were laying cardboard on the ground and planting vegetables. I am thinking about presentations and making mental notes about how to do this, where and when. This past week I worked a lot and worked really hard with others to make it possible for Starhawk to come to Tallahassee for one night in November. We have not confirmed our plans. She has a new book coming out in late October about building community and using all her experience of years of living and working in community of diversity. It is the Empowerment Manual. I truly honor her and her work as well as her courage and experiences. Today Noah and I watched The Growing Edge, her Permaculture film which I will be using as an introduction to my presentations and we also watched Feast or Famine again the DVD I got in Nona Scotia I just love about farming and bio-diversity.

My garden is a mess and the grass has taken over the project beds. I can hardly see my drip irrigation system. The corn is 15 feet tall and the ears are not ready yet, yet some are drying up. Noah still has peppers coming in and it is hot, the sand burns my feet. But I have plans… I am working on my fall garden and my projects and just need to find the time to get them down on paper, I have them in my head….. I am charged up and ready to go, other that it feels like a sauna outside and needing to gather my thoughts. More sweet ice tea!!!!

Bonnie would have been very proud of me... I made it back home with a full box of Mr.Maple that my family inhailed the first night back, wouldn't let them open it till we were all together. I now have my Nova Scotia altar up. Below are some of my favorite photos from the Botanical Gardens and the Biodome my last day in Montreal... enjoy I have many more.

　

I made it home!!!

Just wanted to let you all know I made it home OK, Noah (husband) Jamie (youngest) and grandson Wiley met me at the airport and the flight was 30 minutes late. We laugh and played road games, had a good trip home getting there almost at midnight. Leslie (oldest) both grand children and her baby sitter were at our house. We were up till 1 am and I got up at 7 am and was in class at 9 am till 1pm. then I was held there working on the irrigation system until a huge thunderstorm rolled in and it was too dangerous to drive home because the rain was so hard I couldn't see the road. I got home about 2:30 and started working in the garden and with the animals till dark. Then I cooked a huge pot of spaghetti and salad. So this is the first moment I have had to sit down. We had a baby horse born today, a little colt. My goat did not have her babies but my husband bought three more little ones. Every one else is fine. I did have time to talk with Noah about Permaculture on the way to the feeds store and my garden is almost gone, I picked okra, egg plants, bell and hot peppers and a few tomatoes. The corn is 15 feet tall but not ready. I ate pears and figs off the tree and picked fresh brazil for dinner. Talked to Noah about making a spiral garden and sheet mulching.

 

So I have to go back to work in the morning because my boss has been working open to close for days without a break, so I will have to pay back some favorers. It will be good to be back in the store and back to some routine.

 

I still haven't gone through all 380 photos that I took in the Gardens but i will over the next few days and post the best ones here. I have a lot of catching up but I am aslo excited to start on my permaculture design.

 

July 12 Biodome and Gardens, headed HOME!!!

July 12, 2011
I slept late and Louise didn’t get up till 10:30 I didn’t run because I was tired from walking all day yesterday, Good thing too. I played with the huge cats and made myself breakfast of French bread and cheese. I lounged in the hammock and waited for someone to stir. When Louise got up she gave me my instructions for the day and directions on how to get to the Botanical Gardens, bus to bus…oh here I go again. Her son walked me down to the bus stop. And off I went. The bus was busy with mid morning commuters and I almost missed my change over but made it, then I got off at the gardens. I found the entrance, it seems that everyone seems to think that finding the entrance to things is easy, it is not as the day goes on I find this more challenging. There is no way I will be able to explain to you what I saw in the gardens, I did a full photos tour, I walked for almost four straight hours and know I did not see it all. I took a lot of photos, it was a trip all it’s self. My favorite was the Bonsai trees and that is about all I can say. For a Master Gardener to spend 4 hours in a garden was just insane….I loved it!
I made my way back to the entrance and then back to where I was to cross the street to go to the Biodome, where the 1976 Olympics Games. It seems I walked for hours because there were no directions and I couldn’t figure out how to get to the entrance. The huge concrete spaceship looking monster just loomed over my head and was a constant shadow over the beautiful gardens. But when I did find the biodome I loved it. It was a huge inside zoo with climites ranging form the rain forest to the arctic. I will have to down load photos and do a whole page or two but not today…..
It took me an hour and a half to get back to Louise’s and I walked more than half way, the bus was very late and very crowed, but I saw more of the streets and I enjoyed it, even though I spent two full days on my feet and walking.
I am on my way home! Flight arrives in Jacksonville at 7:15 so I will post the garden and biodome photos in the next few days.
　

July 11 Montreal adventure

July 11, 2011
Montreal street sounds… people moving all around. They are repairing the water main and they come by with this loud alarm truck to tell you they are turning off the water. There is a broken water main a few houses down from Louise’s. People speaking French and laughing in to all hours of the night. Cats drinking water from the bathroom sink. I put on my eye mask and earplugs and slept hard last night. Up this morning about 6am running through the streets of Montreal to the park where I watched a gray squirrel and several large pigeons eating something in the grass, thinking how much Louise hates both very much. I have made a good friend that I had to trust completely today.

After breakfast we took the bus to the metro (subway) and then the metro down to China town where she left me with specific instructions about how to get back. Yes, I trusted her and I was very nervous to be in a city where I did not speak or read the language but…I had a blast. I walked the streets in China Town, ate Lunch at a Buffet and went into several shops and talked to many people from all over. Things in China Town are very inexpensive and I bought some really cool stuff even though I had to keep in mind I have limited funds and very little room to pack stuff but it was fun. Then I made my way to old Montreal and it started raining. I ducked in and out of shops and shelter of churches. I bought a heavy waterproof bag so my stuff didn’t get wet and a cheep umbrella and continued to walk the streets. I finely found the museum that Louise circled on my map and went inside because I was tired of walking in the rain. The exhibit was about Wine and the Gaul and how wine was made and I found it pretty interesting but I also had a headache and reading all the stuff in a museum with a headache wasn’t enjoyable. I made my way into the theater and the movie was in eight languages and they got around that with headphones dialed into your language and you were set. It was all about the founding of Montreal and the museum is build on top of the foundation site of the city and I too found the history interesting. When wee left the theater we went down stairs actually to the underground city and archeological site, now that was cool but also a little stressful for me and may have been why I had a headache. After winding my way around through the site and back out on the street my headache was gone and it had stopped raining. I made my way down to Saint Paul, the main tourist drag. It reminded me of walking St. George in St. Augustine full of little shops and then I went through the art galleries and was thinking of how much Noah would have just loved that part of the city. Besides there being horse drawn carriages everywhere. I would have taken one but it just seemed stupid for me to do that. But I found the Amber Gallery, the owner was from Poland and I just drooled over a piece of cherry red amber. I have wanted one for a very long time and looked for just the one, this one was $138 and I just had to walk away from it, but it was pretty! I wandered around for a while and decided I had been out long enough and my challenge was coming. I was so proud of myself, yet very nervous, I caught the metero at a different stop, remembered which way to go back in French, had my map in hand and found the right stop, found the bus going east and got off at my stop (in French) and found my way back to Louise’s just in time for dinner. My feet were tired, she was a little worried about me but I feel great that I had such and adventurous day. I have only been on a subway once and that was in DC with people I knew and I have only ridden a city bus maybe 3 times in my life and that was in Tallahassee. So this was a big things for me.

Louise fixed a nice salad from the vegetables she bought in China Town and added real chicken!!! To show my appreciation to my host I did a reading for her and her friend Nathan. It was a good day, but she has plans for me tomorrow too. We are going to the farmers market and then she is going to test me again by having me switch busses to go to the Botanical Gardens, I just assume they are inside.

July 10 Heartroot to Montreal

July 10, 2011
I spent the last morning at Heartroot snooping around and reading books in the old barn. I walked the areas where we had worked over the past few weeks but did not run the steep hill. For some reason I was just not feeling that energetic, I guess since I had hauled all those wheel barrows of horse manure up the hill the day before, I was tired. About 8 am Shabina got up and I had found the book she had lost in the huge piles of books through out the barn, most of them on gardening or healing. I did several loads of laundry and hung them on the line and just puttered around relaxing and played my flute.

About 1:00 pm Shabina’s parents arrived and I knew I would have to catch a later bus from Sherbrook, I was hoping for the 3PM but we spent some time showing them around the farm and our projects. Our ride to Sherbrook was interesting and I found her parents very charming. He was at least half Indian and maybe Italian, she was all Quebec. But the both spoke very good English and we chatted from politics to bee keeping on our hour and a half ride while Shabina slept. I was happy to get to the bus station and the first thing after buying my ticket back to Montreal was to buy some pizza. Sherbrook is a college town so listening to rock and roll songs in the little café in French was very cool. The bus ride was much more enjoyable that the one there. I had two seats to myself and I was on and express, meaning we did not stop at every little town, which I really enjoyed. I also thought it was strange that I had the same bus driver that spoke no English or I had this odd feeling he was a clone….hum I will have to ask Louise since she rode the bus the day before. Coming into Montreal was very entertaining, there are two huge bridges that feed the island and over a million people in Montreal, outside the island over 6 million people. The bridges are massive and from what I understand very old and always in need of repair. But when we went over the bridge it didn’t feel like it was very long, the St. Lawrence river was down there somewhere but I do not think I ever saw it because there was so much to look at. I got off the bus and into a cab. Riding down town in Montreal was very interesting, every other shop was a different culture, French, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Haitian, Tai, Latino, English and of course Canadian. And graffiti in most Canadian cities is an art style all it’s own. The streets are clean and organized, they have to be with such a small space and so many people. Someone told me that in their school the spoke 48 different languages, and I think I have a hard time understanding….

I got to Louise’s about 8 PM to meet her son and his girl friend and Louise’s gay friend boy that I have heard all about for the past two weeks. They were all charming and spoke enough English dinner was not too strange. After dinner of French wine and salmon, bakery bread and cheese… oh the cheese….we walked so I would know were to run in the morning. The streets are safe and the people friendly in her neighborhood. All the houses on her block and surrounding area are one big house connected together for heat mass and conductivity. It gets 30 below here in winter and most of that time there is 6 foot or more of standing snow. So everything here and in Quebec must be made or designed around six months of winter weather, but they all seem to love it. But for now it is beautiful gardens in every little back yard, tomatoes and beans growing on balcony and porch stoop. Flowers everywhere. It is actually very charming.
Louise said it was perfect timing as most things have been for me making this trip. She starts a new job on Wednesday and has the next few days off. Her son just graduated high school and is working at a day camp for kids and his girlfriend is a house painter in summer. Her daughter is in Greece and it is full summer here and the weather is beautiful. But I will be very happy to get home in a few days. But for now I plan to see the beautiful Montreal I have heard so much about.

 Dinner with Louise's family

Nathan and Jennifer Louise's son and girlfriend