my local coop ROCKS

One of the best things about living in Everett, isn't the Kimberley Clarke paper mill. One of the best things about living in Everett is the SNO-ISLE FOOD COOP, just a couple dozen blocks south on this street of encampment. On a good day Pete is able to ride his bike with his back pack and pick up some goodies there at the Coop. On most days, I'm working on keeping clear and clean from the possible and probable chemical warfare from the peeps and the streets. Still, the proximity of this long standing and successful people-owned food cooperative is a very, very good thing for this town and this county.

We're keeping the holiday thing low-key, with gifts recycled treasured and i'm thinking about how to have a sidewalk solstice cider party for the neighbors around here. I've got two glass jugs of organic apple juice, cinnamon sticks and ...

What else goes into good homemade hot apple cider?

This post started out because we are putting together some Northwest treats for my son and his girlfriend. A jar of small batch made organic peanut butter called CB's PB (cool since my son's initials and small kid time nickname is 'CB) seems to call for some homemade jam or jelly to go with that. Our tiny kitchen setup doesn't make for jam making, so I thought ... 'CO-OP'.

While looking for homemade jam at the local coop I found this very cool link to a contest (already complete with winners!) for "my local coop ROCKS videos" The First Place video is very fun and filled with a great message. Click on the link and enjoy the bounty of a central Wisconsin winner. And, rather than buying jam off the shelf my friend Lois (from just outside my vardo window) called while I was finishing up this post. I asked her "Where would I find some local or homemade jams we could send to CB?" "Hmmm... wanna send him some of Christina's canned preserves? She puts all this stuff up every year what's she gonna do with it all!" So, the gift fairies are making magic with black berry jam to go with local organic peanut butter. Small delights, local treasures.

Things are lightening up, reaching out for help, surrendering to the reality of life as Human and peanut butter and jam sandwich makings for someone ya love.

And do tell me what you add to apple juice to make tasty hot apple cider, in the comments. Thanks!

Growin' organic, Blueberry Sauna, Workin' for food

Donned with my be anything Turtle Pareau, shades and visor I was in blue berry heaven. We left the Ledge for a day of workin' for food with Claude The Greenman. It was 85 degrees and more in the sun ... a perfect day for a blueberry field sauna.

Claude and Pete get to know each other, and start to pluck the juicy berries.

Talulah, the resident farm dog waits patiently for me to catch up. That's a bit of a view of the magnificent farm The Greenman stewards. Acres and acres of stream feed food in the Shelton Valley, Wa.

Back on the Ledge our squash blossoms and broccoli were awesomely embracing yesterday's summer sun. Ahh...they are beautiful our organic compost gardens grow last year's seeds and this year's (purchased) starts.

Barely visible and simply invisible if you don't slow down to notice, the miniature world of free tree frogs are delighting in their work for food ... teeny bugs and other things make these beautiful friends happy. And we are sooooo happy to have them in our gardens.


More of our dreams are coming true with this season's connection with 'aina(land, that which nurtures and feeds) and organic farmer Claude Mahmood. We have been long time investors in growing food and teaching others to use the food that comes sans herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Now that we have built our beautiful Kolea Nani (aka VardoForTwo), there is time to grow community and that's what we have begun to do by working for food.

When we lived from the car and on the road the dream waited, resting for another season.

Dreams wait
Dreams rest
Aware of fickle will
They sniff nature and come when an opening reveals...
There!
Dreams wait after resting and grow.

ORGANIC Compost Gardens

We bought organic broccoli and cauliflower starts a month ago and set them in the compost. I water them daily, sometimes twice a day when it gets real hot ... using our dish-cleaning soap water alternating with just pure sweet well water (with no fluoride or chloride added). I talk with them on the way to the big house, cheer them on to 'grow happy' and LOOK AT THE VOLUNTEER company that showed up.

The bed is filled with organic potato plants and organic squash of all sorts (we don't know and can't wait to see who shows up in come harvest time.)
This bed has the one organic marigold flower we just brought home from Seattle. More potatoes and squash, and silly us we buy zucchini starts ... and now there're all kinds of squash cousins tay boot! A few sunflower seeds have sprouted too so we hope for a riot of compatibility and deliciousness.

We've been on the Ledge for nearly nine weeks ... nine weeks! The pic above are the raised beds Pete built from the scrap lumber (fir untreated 2X4's) left over from the building of our friends' home.

Beneath the black plastic bags split in two was the beautiful year old organic compost we collect and tended while we lived in Seattle. The wonderful worms truly did dig it ... Because look at those garden beds NOW (two top photos).

Growing our own organic food is a major bit of our dream come true. The time it takes once you have a raised bed or two:

5 minutes a day take food scraps to compost pile
5 minutes every week turn the compost
5 minutes every week wet down the compost pile if it hasn't rained
15 minutes a day water and chat with the veggies

I add lots more time in any given day every chance I get.
Living on the ledge has slowed time down for us.
The quiet, the sound of winds and the sight of tree skin makes time timeless.
Earth is good. We find our place with time and find there is space for us.

Thanks Akua, thanks dirt, thanks seeds, thanks bees, bugs and fairies.

Choose your company

Kupuna La`au Nui
... the eldest of all trees, a grand, grand, grand 325 year old fir living just across the creek from us on the ledge

A clump of vine maple makes a delightful swing for a fairy bower of columbine plucked from Anna Paint's gardens and stuck in a 25 cent St. Vincent DePaul treasure.


True heat ... up into the 70's has come to the woods. The wild flowers and creatures are blooming. Teeny tiny flowers are showing up every day, winged life of all shapes and colors are filling the sky.

Yesterday was a big city day ... an hour and a half drive from the ledge to Olympia for our once a month big shop at the Olympia Food Coop...a tremendous place to remember what a good company can be. We find our organics there, get a good deal for the long drive it takes to find the food we choose to eat and the people and ideas that fill the place make it a feel good thing.

We applied for a low income membership with the Coop (since we have no income right now) and there were no PROVE IT OR LOSE IT policies, just a check of a box that says this 10% on all purchases discount would need to be reassessed in a year. I carry a simple purple card that has my name on it and show it at check-out.
Trusting, kind, good product, good people, and shopper participation (you need to write down the codes for the produce and the bulk items).

Grand tree, fairy bower and a Food Cooperative that works.
There are my three choices of GOOD company.

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? and GENETICALLY MODIFIED HAWAII

HOW DOES OUR GARDEN GROW?

Remember those little beauties that we planted and entertained?

See for yourself. Here they are.

The wheatgrass and buckwheat --the sunflowers are hiding behind the buckwheat-- we soaked, began sprouting, planted in organic soil (Black Gold Organic mixed with a sprinkle of crushed glacial rock from B.C. for mineralizing) are doing great.

What will we do with these greens?

I'm sipping on wheatgrass juice as I type away. Wow, that's powerful! The buckwheat greens and sunflower sprouts are wonderful snacks just clipped and washed; delicious in salads/green smoothies; wrapped in a sheet of nori(dried seaweed) with hot basmati rice = veggie sushi.

How tall are the greens today?

Size perspective: There's a quart jar on the right for comparison.

How many days does it take to grow edible, organic greens?

Time perspective: The height of a quart jar in less than a week.

Where did we grow this food?

Growing place: Grown inside with no extra heat, in front of a large window.

How much did it cost to grow this food?

Excluding the time to grow ...

For a full-tray of wheatgrass: $1.00 - $1.50

For a full-tray of sunflower seeds: $ 2.50 (we grew 1/2 tray)

For a full-tray of buckwheat greens: $ 1.00 (we grew 1/2 tray)

Building VARDOFORTWO, both this blog and our home-to-be, is as we've written many times before, a dream come true. The challenges of living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities are just as the 'name' implies multiple and different for each of us. The exposures and the physical affects that tamper with my body's natural abilities or limitations often leave us (both Pete and me) stunned ... like a honey bee zapped into disorientation after sipping on poisoned blossoms. We dream a future based on our today: a dream of a safe home, a dream of safe food, a dream of community. Dreaming without Acting reminds me that a seed can remain dormant for years, centuries even. So, we dream and we act with inspiration.

There are things we can dream and act upon every day ... and we pray for the guidance to do those things in harmony with all that is. Sometimes, and more often than most of us can count, the actions of others can affect me ill. We Canaries of the MCS Tribe now that more than most.

OUR NEWEST POLL

Our newest POLL asks: How do you feed yourself, your family? Is growing your own feed part of your life? If not, would you like it to be? When you vote with your answers, know that you can check more than one answer. Again, we'll keep the poll going for a week.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED HAWAI`I

The final part of this post is a link to a story sent to me by a sister with MCS from O`ahu, Bobby McClintock. I have never met Bobby in person. We have become friends through the internet. When Pete and I lived without safe housing on O`ahu, because of the affects of yet one more pesticide poisoning, it was Bobby who offered me online support and suggestions. This is a story about HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW in very big, bad fashion. The Hawaiian Islands, the Island Home I have fled has become the "GM (genetically modified) Capital of the Earth." This is an outrageous reality. I grieve the facts that support that description. I am stunned by it and activated by the arrogance that justifies "GENETICALLY MODIFIED HAWAII". Read the entire article for yourself. Those of us who know, love and grieve the hewa (wrong-doings) that happen on the Islands are not unfamiliar with acts such as these. Others, visitors or would-be visitors to Hawaii may be unaware of the Islands history of occupation, genetic modification of her food source is just too much! It's an issue close to my heart. I pray that my inspired action finds like actors, and at the very least I have put the story HERE. Read and then grow a little of your own food.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=genetically-modified-hawaii&print=true