Simplicity Home After CYM

Our home is twenty-six kilometers from the nearest small town of 2000 people; our nearest neighbour is one and a half miles away. It is on a land trust, the vision of which was a working collective some members thought would be dependent upon the produce of the land. (Never part of my vision, I planned to work in Wynyard as a physician.)

Times changed, the other couple moved away, their children really required on a more intellectually challenging academic setting in the city but Bill and I carried on. We’d fallen in love with the site in 1969 and were determined to live there, even without close neighbours. We’re still in love with the site and the home we’ve been privileged to plunk down here but nearer neighbours would be nice. Elizabeth, our daughter, and her partner, Erin, are in the process of purchasing the three season house but this is pretty ambitious for them – both of them need a certain population density for their talents.

Canadian Yearly Meeting’s Bible study on Simplicity was very thought-provoking. Is this home simple-living?

The chickens provide us with eggs – in return, we feed them oats, purchased feed that looks like kitty litter, and kitchen scraps. There are too many chickens to overwinter in the coop so we will have to make a decision. The first step is to see who is laying; count the eggs daily – there can be up to ten brown eggs, seven white eggs, two blue eggs and one green egg. Maj lays the green egg and she is very interested in “setting” these days – she figures she has laid enough eggs and she will “sit” on them until they hatch. Sorry, Maj, wrong time of the year for chicks, we'll take those eggs right out from under you!

The garden is overrun with “friendly weeds” – dill, coriander, calendula, poppies and chervil. In fact, the potatoes, corn, onions and carrots are practically choked. The raspberries need picking – always a pleasure, I usually do it when I want to eat them as well. Dealing with gooseberries is an urgent matter – it is one of two jams that I like, the other is strawberry. (And, of course, marmalade – the kind that Brenna and I and a host of others make.)

The door of the chicken coop – intended to last the time that we were away – barely lasted the week, the temporary hinges more temporary that I had expected. Coop also needs cleaning. Chicken fence could be moved so that the “pasture” was more friendly.

The tasks that I would like to outsource (in other words, pay someone to do) are: cutting down the trees that are encroaching upon our house, clearing the weeds in the paving at the front of the house and shingling the roof of the greenhouse. (This spring I came to the realization that I am afraid to climb up there. The slope is just enough to disturb my sense of security.) And then there is the guy who is supposed to be fixing our well – excuses, excuses – maybe time to find someone else.

Indoors the piano needs tuning and the cracks in the living room needs plastering followed by painting.

Making things simpler includes de-cluttering one’s brain. If we can really put teachings of the Spirit into action, it means really living the Biblical phrase “take no thought for the morrow”. This doesn’t mean, don’t plan anything; it means don’t worry over it – it also means be ready to always change as “moved” by the Spirit.

Making things simpler means disposing of things not useful, things not used, and this includes all the things that we keep around ourselves for the “just in case, I ever want to (insert whatever activity eg. SCUBA) again. I think that it means living the uncluttered life. It means disposing of the cumber. I don’t think that means that we become obsessively tidy – besides disposal of the physical items, it could also mean “disposal” of the attachment to the items.

Making things simpler may also mean giving up some cherished beliefs of right and wrong, of “right” or “wrong” ways to do the task, of “right” and wrong directions to travel. It means contributing to the greater good, the commons of the world by our ethics, morals and philosophy.

We should all be living more simply; in fact, it is the only way in which the human race will survive. We must have fewer children, and less possessions. We must learn to contribute less CO2 to the atmosphere and poisons to the water. Not just a good idea – this is a “must”. This is not an onerous task – the corporate capitalist economy makes it sound as though everyone must give up all their pleasures when what they really mean is that the richest 1% is going to have to give up luxuries. Most of the rest of us already fail to contribute much to the global climate chaos.

“In Nature’s economy, the currency is not money, it is life.”   Vandana Shiva

West Coast Friends - Again

The West Coast is rich with remarkable vistas – mountain tops from below and above. Ever changing ocean views. So rich with flowers, vegetable gardens – Mary Louise was right, I didn’t really want to know that they were still picking carrots fresh from the garden at Christmas time!

Years ago friends Joyce and Herb retired to this Eden – setting down roots on Vancouver Island. She said that, after struggling with prairie gardens all her life, she was in gardening heaven! Grapes hanging over her doorway!

Friends have left the prairies for Salt Spring Island, the Sunshine Coast and even Vancouver itself! Bill’s Uncle and Aunt have a backyard verdant with blossoms – rhodendrons and clematis to knock your eyes out - and I know that his tomato plants in the slit between the house and the wall will over-produce again this year.

Gordon Lightfoot sang of his friends leaving for California - well, some do come back but there is something to be said for places where "the living is easy".

While here on the prairies, the fields are either black or still beige with the death of last years’ crops. The trees are just starting to leaf, the chokecherries and saskatoons beginning to bloom and the morel mushrooms didn’t even come this year.

The mosquitoes started – and seemed to have had a slump in population – but the ticks are out in full force! I found seven on my body yesterday and two more in the bathwater! Fortunately, the type of woodticks in the Touchwood Hills carry no weird diseases. Yet.

So, what do we have? Open skies – and lots of space. Mercury beside the waning moon out the morning window. Finches, hummingbirds and robins – and one silly song sparrow trying to feed at the finch feeder. Chickens in the pen, eggs in the nests. A dog at my side – or racing around the field, or barking his territory late at night to keep the coyotes away! Cats – four working animals in this mouse-infested place. A garden in the planting phase – crabapples and plum trees in bloom.

Machines that don’t work – need more expertise than we have. A house that needs work. The never-ending mending basket.

A room of my own. Friends and neighbours – four kids and one man on a raft in the pond. Bill. And home. Home is really where the heart is.

And then there are other issues - Fukushima pollution will reach the Coast first, rising sea levels will affect the coast while changing weather patterns will affect us too. What does the future hold?

Coming Home from Elsewhere.....

The last two times that I came home from elsewhere, I was either copyediting or preparing something for the next departure. So I wasn’t really home. This time, I don’t have anything to prepare – my next departure is simply to be a doctor, I’ve had thirty years of practicing to be one, and like every other doctor I know, I would like to be the best that I can be, the challenge being that the horizon “fades forever and ever as I move”.

So home – with follow-ups from the trips to Ethiopia and to Banff to complete, to re-integrate my learnings and re-adjust the trajectory of the future.

Coming home is always a bit of a plunge.  There are huge differences between where I go and what home is – other places and experience collapse precipitously  – like feeling the cold water envelope your body as you dive into it. How do you compare city noise to nature’s silence?  The limited sky view under city lights to the depth of the stars in the heavens? Concrete and leashes to freely run dogs, cats and chickens?

Exotic foods? At the coop dinner, there were cabbage rolls and perogies with a traditional mushrooms sauce. I realized that I hadn’t had these foods for a long time and they are at least as exotic as some of the Ethiopian foods.

We’ve heard the saying: “Think Globally, Act locally”. I’ve been a bit remiss on the second half and a bit too much action in the global sphere.

When I travel, doing my yoga/physio exercises first thing in the morning anchors me. Often it becomes difficult to get that rhythm going at home – I seem to spend more time whining (not literally) and distracting myself first thing in the morning instead of just getting the job done. Perhaps I am experiencing a little rebelliousness over routine? I can do the exercises any time of the day – so I do, even they relieve pain for the rest of the day when they are done in the morning! Yup – this procrastination seems the sign of a whiner, desiring an trace of suffering, maintaining an element of masochism. I know that my days will become more settled when the routine gets back into the early morning.

In the distant past, Bill and I used to circle one another as he had to shrink to let me into the space and I had to become ready to accept his intimacy – I don’t mean physical intimacy because we’re more likely to jump onto one another like a dog onto a bone but the psychological space was often as much my difficulty in accepting the smaller circles of activity (and saying good to my recent experiences) as his ability to share. I cannot express how grateful I am for the home fires he keeps burning – the cooking and cleaning, the feeding of animals and the watering of plants. How fortunate I am to have such a home friend!

The dog. At first he is so appreciative of my return that he does everything I’ve ever taught him – as the days pass, he starts to behave more like a mischievous child than a trained six-year old dog.

The chickens. They don’t see me as anyone special – just a human that brings food and amusement. As they climb onto their roosts for the night, they purr.

When I get finished “coming home”, I’ll purr too.