Consumable Earth – Kamloops

My daughter says when she is grown up there is going to be no money.

I say all the power to her. “Money is the root of all evil” or so it goes. Think about what you could do with your life and your days if it did not revolve around getting a paycheque to ‘pay the bills’. It is tryly a hard thing for people to conceive and wrap their heads around. I mean we have been raised in this reality and another is sometimes thought of simply not possible. But what if we all worked together? Or for each other for the benefit of the community instead of for some obscure corporation or ‘the man’. What if I tended your children while you fixed my car? What if Susan down the street made our clothes while Henry from next door grew potatoes for our supper? What if the world rolled back about 150 years and we started again, tried again.

Ok, obviously it is not as simple as that but one has to start somewhere right? My vote is for the change to come from within the communities. People, populations are vehicles for substantial amounts of change though we are sometimes often led to believe that this isn’t true it truly is. We are powerful. We are creators. We are the people.

So I have a profession and services to offer occasionally even stuff and I am sure you do too. Heck we all do. What if we had more time to help each other out? Start small. Do what you can for your neighbours and ask them to return the favour. Build the community and the resources we have right at our fingertips.

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Sunday May 31, 2009
Doors open at 5:30 dinner at 6pm
At Church of Nazarene, 7th and Columbia, left side door, downstairs

Please bring:
A Vegetarian or Vegan dish for about 8 people, eggs and dairy are ok
Recipe or list of ingredients is mandatory
Your own plate, cutlery, and cup
A suggested $3 donation

After dinner: Ellen Duncan will share her experience working as a Dietitian with Qwemtsin Health and Interior Health and how her working life and home life converge a passion for food sovereignty.

Earthcare Kamloops is a non-profit group of caring citizens who promote a plant-based diet, and support sustainable, local farming practices.  We strive to create a healthier, more connected community by discussing environmental and health issues at our monthly Vegetarian potlucks.(September to May)

When was the last time you looked in a phone book? Ok I did this week but honestly I could have just as easily looked online. Every year thousands of phonebooks are printed, trucked to doorsteps and discarded or never used. Until we can manage to convince the publishing companies to make recieving a phone book a request based system do the opposite and request to NOT get yours.

The InfoTel book – stop sending me phone books!

The Yellow Pages by filling out the online directory form
or call Yellow Pages Group at 1-877-909-9356
or email the request to call.centre@ypg.com

A while ago I came across this trailer about a family living in the middle of suburbia who is literally self sufficient. Infact they grew 45 tons of vegetables on their typical suburban lot! It truly is amazing and inspiring. I have planted a garden this year that won’t come close to this but hey, you have to start somewhere right?

They have made a movie about it and it is called the Homegrown Revolution you can check out the trailer. I assure you it will cause you to look differently at our use of land in city centers.

Check out their story at Path to Freedom.com and be inspired to create your own freedom from the conventions of society that we have been led to believe is the only way.

In order to strengthen events across BC, Bike to Work Week will be held from Monday May 11 – Sunday May 17, 2009 in all communities.  Interestingly, this timeframe also coincides with National Bike to Work Day in the United States (May 16, 2009).  The combined efforts will reinforce how wonderful and satisfying biking to work is!

The Aberdeen Community Garage Sale is this weekend you can check out the particiapating addresses on the Aberdeen community website. Man, my community needs a website…

Sorry to the other communities whos Garage Sales I missed posting please comment here and I will be sure to get your info up next year. Or if any one has lived here long enough to know the rotation please comment!

Gort’s Gouda Cheese Farm

Village Cheese – home of squeaky cheese!

Carmeli’s Goat Cheese

OK Cheese – making soya cheese products

Happy Days Goat Dairy

Okanagan’s Choice Cheese

Vernon, BC V1T 7G8
(250) 545-8879

- great article about Okanagan Cheese production

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Freecycle is quite possibly one of the greatest sites going in that it connects the local community in a way that is completely unique – everything is FREE. Post what you want or what you have and someone from your community or better yet your neighbourhood will come and get it if they can make use of it!

Recently my partner and I moved in together and have done a big renovation (highlights include: high efficiency furnace, tankless water heater, better insulation, cork floors and low VOC paints) which means a lot of waste and a lot of extra stuff. The answer: freecycle. Every time we create a pile of things that have to go I head upstairs to the computer with a list and post it all on freecycle. Within a few days it has all gone to new homes where it can be useful!

This is nothing short of amazing and beautiful. Imagine if even more of the things you ever had or will get were obtained in this way? Freecycle couches, furniture, kitchen items, clothing, movies, it is endless and we certainly have enough stuff to go around, no doubts there.

Short of getting what you need for free there are always thrift stores and it is garage sale season. It has been a habit of mine for years to try and hunt something down and buy it used before I resort to getting it from a store. We all can make do without a lot of the things that we consume on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. When we make time in our lives for these things it is my belief that we will all feel better in our hearts, our minds and generally with our selves.

Be good to yourself and to others.

This comment was posted at the bottom of an article I read recently about eco-friendly shampoos. I have long bought shampoo and conditioner in bulk and I think I’ve only bought two bottles of conditioner in my adult life. I have recently been trying to brainstorm a more natural solution to the supermarket no-name brands and I dug this girls comments:

I have been using the system below for the last year and am very happy with it. I have VERY thick, curly, frizzy hair, so my old routine involved shampoo, conditioner, and lots of products. No more!

I buy Dr Bronners by the gallon. And I buy lavender essential oil, since that’s good for calming the scalp. A gallon of Dr Bronners and a small jar of lavendar oil lasts a LONG TIME. So there is very little packaing involved. I make an herbal tea from rosemary & thyme from the garden, or just use leftover green tea from breakfast, depending on how much work I feel like doing. In a shampoo-sized plastic container (maybe half a liter) I mix:

20% Dr Bronners soap

50 drops lavendar essential oil

Fill with tea

That’s it. You have to shake it before using it. It is very liquidy, but I find it easy enough to squirt some on my head and work it in. I also use it as body wash, and find that a sponge is the easiest way to apply it. This shampoo leaves my hair feeling squeaky clean–which at first was strange but then made me realize what a weird nasty coating store-bought shampoos leave in to make your hair feel artificially smooth.

Conditioner? I was so pleased to learn that even for my curls and frizz, I don’t need it! I buy jojoba oil by the gallon. After I get out of the shower, I massage a small amount into my wet hair. When it dries, its not oily at all, but my curls are all separated and un-frizzy and my hair is shiny and beautiful. I get so many compliments on how healthy my hair looks since I switched to this. I also use the jojoba oil on my body instead of lotion (rub on in very small amounts while your skin is still wet). Jojoba oil is not as expensive as you think if you buy it by the gallon (see Amazon retailers). So that’s pretty much all the cosmetics I need. Except toothpaste… but making toothpaste is another post entirely!

Gloria in Altadena, CA

.: Be good to yourself and to others :.

I found this recipe on a wordpress blog the other day. I have been on the lookout for a good granola recipe and this one seems like it might be just that.

If the method seems slightly odd and unfamiliar it is because this is a raw food recipe and you can read more about the raw food revolution here and for ingredients that are quite close to home you can source them at Real Raw Food in Naramata.
gRAWnola
recipe by Ellen Allard

1 cup buckwheat groats, soaked in water overnight
1/2 cup sunflower seed, soaked in water overnight
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, soaked in water overnight
1/4 cup walnuts, soaked in water overnight
1/4 cup almonds, soaked in water overnight
1 tbsp flax seeds
1 apple, cored
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup pitted dates, soaked for 30 minutes in boiling water
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tbsp shredded coconut, unsweetened

Drain the buckwheat and rinse repeatedly in a strainer. I found it best to run my fingers through the buckwheat as I did this. It took a LONG time to drain it until it wasn’t slimey anymore. Offputting indeed, but it’s kind of like flax seeds which get slimey when wet. Set aside.

Drain the sunflower and pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and almonds.

Put the sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds, flax seeds, apple, and sea salt in a food processor and pulse, being very careful not to grind it into a paste. You still want it to have some texture.

Add the drained dates, cinnamon and agave and process until just blended. Remove from food processor and put in large mixing bowl. Add drained buckwheat groats and coconut. Mix until blended.

Spread onto teflex sheets and dehydrate for about 10 hours at 115 degrees.

When the dehydrating is complete, remove the gRAWnola from the teflex sheets and break into small pieces. Store in a container of your choice, though doesn’t it look lovely in the glass jar!!!???

This is a great snack right out of the jar. Or have it for breakfast – I poured pieces of gRAWnola into a small bowl, topped it with strawberries and homemade almond milk and had a yummy breakfast!