Nicole Faires

There are a million and one things on my mind right now, and yet I feel strangely at peace. There is calm amidst the chaos.  Here are a few things that occupy my thoughts right now:

• Planting.  Our planting schedule is tight.  We plant something new every week from now until July or August or something ridiculous like that.  We can’t get sick or busy because we have to stick to this.  It takes self-discipline and we do it by hand.  Why do we do it by hand rather than using even a small seeder?  Biointensive/French intensive and permaculture all require a planting technique that you could just call crowding.  There is no seeder right now designed to do this. The seeds are spaced about 10-25% closer to each other than the packet recommends, and the rows are asymmetrical so that plants grown diagonally from each other rather than being directly across.  In a bed that would normally have about 300 leeks I planted 700.  By the way, chopsticks make good dibblers.  I dibble all the holes first and then drop in the seeds.
• Politics.  Food is so entwined with politics, and our government representatives grant power to people over our food so quickly and with such ignorance.  It has been interesting looking into the BC Egg Marketing Board’s regulation on Small Lot producers under 399 hens which pretty much cripples all small farms from producing eggs in BC.  The government granted this board absolute power over all of the laying hens owned in BC and the board has no ethics at all about what small farms should be able to do.
• Interns.  In 10 days our first two interns of the season arrive.  We had over 60 applications for what ended up being 5 internship positions, and I found the whole process very challenging.  So many highly overqualified young people with 4 year university degrees and farming experience coming out of their earlobes.  This will put us at 4 full time farm workers and two part time workers at any given time during the year.  When I set up our internships I was appalled at some of the conditions some farm labourers deal with… other farms ask for ‘5am to 5-7pm farm days 6 days a week’ and then pay them almost nothing and don’t cook for them either.  We offered 30 hours a week no more than 5 days a week and we pay very little but we cook for you and put you up too. A student who is here to learn won’t learn anything by working 12-14 hour days over 70 hours per week.  That’s for full time salaried workers only. 
• Ducks.  We’re building a duck pond and I have to decide what kind of ducks I want.  These ducks aren’t for sale, but we’ll probably eat a few and they have to earn their keep by eating slugs and providing me with poop.  I am also planting a duck garden around the pond to help feed them.  I’ll keep them supplied with duckweed and grass and then have a bunch of insect-attracting flowers around.
• 9 year olds.  My oldest is turning 9.  I don’t feel old enough to be the mom of a 9 year old.  She still has anxiety and sensory processing disorder and it drives us crazy.  She is also brilliant and beautiful and obsessed with fashion.  Maybe she’ll be the next Coco Chanel.  
• Food Activism.  Food activism?  I’m writing a third book right now, it’s about food activism.  I’m not sure if the title will stick, but it’s the most depressing book to write that I have yet attempted.  I have to take a situation that seems completely hopeless and turn it into a positive, an opportunity.  In the process I am turning into an obsessive person who annoyingly spouts statistics as you put things into your mouth. That chicken you’re eating?  Injected with water!  You think that farmer is old?  That’s not OLD… the average age is 57!
• Why am I still sick this winter?  WHY?!  Everyone I know is sick.  Time to get out my zombie apocalypse kit.

This decade has seen the passing of the greatest visionaries of our time, in fields of art, drama, politics, literature and technology. 

Rosa Parks.

Fred Rogers.

George Harrison.

J.D. Salinger.

Pete Postlethwaite.

Jack Layton.

Steve Jobs.

It is in society’s darkest hour that great minds have the opportunity to shine with the most brilliance. Who will step in and take their place?

John said to me the other day, “I like this kind of life.  It’s good to reset all the time.”

We are a funny mishmash of technology and Luddism.  Gardening is mixed with computer terms. Conversations around handicraft projects are filled with movie lines and internet memes.

We don’t plant and harvest gardens. We Start and End them.  We organize our life with Tags rather than labels.  When I make a mistake, I don’t wish I could go back.  I wish I could Delete.  We read out loud from book in the evening to each other, and we don’t skim to find our spot… we Scroll through the pages.  This kind of language has become embedded in our speech, despite our best efforts.

We have lived in the bus for a while, but not very long in the capacity of an RV.  It had been stationary for almost a year. A motorhome is moveable, constantly in transition and made to be so.  It doesn’t have the infrastructure to stay in one place for too long; the trash and compost must go somewhere and at some point the tanks must be emptied and filled. 

Every time this happens, everything must be Reset.  When we lived in a house, clutter would appear.  Things collect on top of kitchen counters, stacks of books sit on end tables waiting to be read, toys get left under things and little pieces scatter to the corners.  The same thing happens in the Albatross, but we are forced to square it all away every time we move.  

This week we are parked in Qualicum.  It’s only 45 km from the city we were in before, but now we are staying with some friends working on building their own super energy-efficient house and starting an organic farm.  They are clearing pasture and milling timber and it’s all quite exciting.  

In the middle of our visit we drove back to the city to run some errands, and stayed the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  This was an entirely new experience for us, although all the old-timers laughed at how amazed we were.  There were 14 other RVs parked around us, and many of them were obviously living in their motorhomes.  Our expectation had been to fall uneasily asleep on the side of the road, but instead the feeling was of a small like-minded community of strangers all meeting for a common purpose, although we didn’t talk to each other. It was a very reassuring feeling. We stopped at the park and we took walks and we practiced driving the bus through the city and finding parking.  Parking the bus is an adventure in and of itself.  To get to our PO Box it took almost half an hour to find a 40 foot spot two blocks away and John had to dash across a busy highway.  

I’ve ditched my purse and diaper bag in exchange for a backpack full of hats, water bottles, extra coats and cloth shopping bags.  It has become our little adventuring bag.  We don’t have that extra vehicle anymore either, so we walk from wherever we can park the beast of a bus.

We’re soon ready to venture a little farther afield, when we have the new tires.  We also need to raise more money for the gas and emergency repair fund for the super duper trip.  If you are interested in helping us out, check out our Start Some Good campaign.  We appreciate it!