Lewis becomes 26 years on this earth

Lu in her birthday tree

Me sitting in the forest.
Happy in Hamilton

Stu's reunion hike with Ben

Here is Stu and I on our reunion hike.

Cold enough to freeze
Bright enough to enjoy beauty

Something was hiding in this tree trunk, ready to attack.
photo credit: stu

Poncho enjoying the river.

ManorunSong

Have you heard?

Have you heard the stories
Have you heard!?
Have you met the unemployed
competent folk who’ve come obsolete?

It’s no wonder the jobs are leaving
We do business with people we don’t know
we eat food from people who don't grow
we don't value each other
The people we live with,
we give our value away
in money
Who would’ve thought, hey?
The person I pay
Is the person I value.

But what if I don’t know
If the cashier
At the grocery store
Is only a person in a system
That values machines
Who don’t care for coins
And let their owners take their share.

Why is it that
the fewer people with work
The better things work
while we look for work!
And we don’t
Save the seeds
Plant the seeds – nurture the plants
Pick that fruit
Drive the produce and stock the shelf

Where’s the democracy when it’s not human energy?
There is silence in machine fed food
Dinner conversation prepackaged and artificial
Compared to prayers sown with crops
Seasons pass like family reunions
welcome back asparagus
that conversation is a celebration

And winter is less joyus, in my opinion
When food comes from outside the home
Negating The joys and magnificence of a root cellar
Of those well stocked pantries
Glass holding summer’s sunshine
Strawberries – tomatoes
Carrots in sand – piles of potatoes

Cows birth
Milk comes again after we dried her up
Healthy calf soon to be playing in pasture
Makes the others look so old

A glass of milk can be so many things,
Jam on toast
The dry smell of wheat fields
late summer

I prefer prayers made with dirty hands And dirty knees
Surrounded by plants
worshiping life with my life
There is so much life
Surrounded by plants

I live
Surrounded by plants

So have you heard

Have you heard people are losing their jobs
Our places within the machine driven paradigm

And we still buy food from away
Wearing clothes from away
Or worse yet
From machines others own
So let's choose meaningful work
and let this work be for our real needs
Let it be because people
Are doing the work they have reason to choose
And to trust in the love of each other
To be whole in this world which we belong

I think we need more people doing less
maybe if we deny comfort as sonsciousness
so we can get over what it may mean to work
and enjoy ourselves as beings, not employees of jobs

Have you heard
Have you heard that people are remembering
That there are good ways we’ve known for so long
And just now

When we listen
Life may remind us
That all of our lessons
Are waiting for us
here
-2009

Self Portrait
BC Ferries Cabin window
((windy but not cold))

Anticipated Clothing

The garment making working surface
in dad's shop, due to the smokey nature
of the buckskin and all of mom's fabric
in the house that can acquire smell.

The lovely shirt, jerkin, jersey or jacket
as modeled by a scruffy little pine
looking west, towards Vancouver island
from Cortez.

Useful Questions

B.C. has been great these last couple of weeks.
beautiful geographically and socially.

There's been numerous conversations about the ipp (independent power projects?)

here is a list of questions, as posed by Rafe Mair, of the Tyee
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/02/02/PrivateRivers/

1. Why the lack of real consultation?

2. Where's the proof that we need more power and, if we do, are there alternatives?

3. Experts tell us -- so does BC Hydro, for that matter -- that with conservation, upgrading present facilities and adding generators on existing dams plus taking back the power we're entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty, we have no need for many years for more power. So why are going down the privatization route?

4. Why is BC Hydro not permitted to create any new power?

5. Why are we giving away to large corporations the hundreds of millions of dollars BC Hydro puts into the public purse every year to help with schools, hospitals and the like?

6. Why is BC Hydro forced by the government to enter contracts for energy with private producers which cost Hydro more than they can sell it for -- buy high, sell low is a strange policy especially for a capitalist government!

7. Why are we approving intermittent power, which only can be produced during the spring run-off?

8. What will be the effect of NAFTA? Will it mean that any American company with rights on a river has all rights, including the right to export it?

9. Will it mean that as long as the American company uses the river, it can ignore the time limit in the lease? The answer to each is probably "yes."

10. Why are we disabling BC Hydro so that it must go broke under the proposed policy?