Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Clarifying. Goal-setting
I’ve been a bit disatisfied in the last week or so. Not sure why, perhaps because I have a birthday coming up? That could easily be it. This getting older puts a lot of things out of perspective if you ask me. Suddenly I’m not happy with where I’m at or what I’ve accomplished even though my life is ticking along quite nicely if you measure it on any scale. Mostly I think it’s just that a few adjustments are in order and I need to prioritize some things in order that I get them finished! So here, for the record are my short-term goals.
By the end of February:
- I have finished the environment piece.
- I have finished the first draft of my novel.
By the end of March:
- I have submitted all my current polished writing for publication consideration.
By the beginning of April:
- I am riding my bike to and from work at least three days per week.
By the end of May:
- I have a passable second draft of the novel and have submitted it to the Writer’s Studio contest for unpublished manuscripts.
- Viaducteast.ca is fully resurrected with a weekly article and/or photo-essay.
I think that’s probably enough of a forecast, and each of these things is entirely realistic. Mostly I want to get back on with the writing because it gives me the greatest peace of mind even as I’m questioning *why* do it at all. And the bike – well – I’ve just got to fit more activity into my days and travel to-from work is one place to do it. This really is where I want to be by the end of May….. so now I just have to get to it!
More backyard.
My backyard is a mess and there’s a foundation with a single wall sprouting from it at the moment. I hope by the time I go home today there will be at least two more walls – and a doorway from the patio into the enclosure. They say the roof trusses have been ordered, I’m hoping by Monday we’ve got the roof going up. Which would mean the shell of the new structure could be done as early as Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I’ve got pictures of the first two days, having trouble getting home in time for there still to be light – but will eventually post the project start to finish. At the moment everything looks like a bit of a disaster, but I’m confident that once the guys come and get rid of the detrius, it won’t be quite so scary for me.
In other backyard news, I’ve discovered that it *is* legal to keep honeybees even if you aren’t 25 feet away from your neighbour’s property line as long as you have a six foot high fence where the hives are located. That means if I simply trellis along my back fence I’ll have an enclosure that’s within city guidelines for keeping two hives. My friend Sam wants bees as well so I’m thinking two hives, but looking into low-impact beekeeping ala the barefoot beekeeper. Apparently it’s easier and less chemically than the standard victorian frame-hive beekeeping we’re all so familiar with, not to mention better for natural bee/honey production!
Upshot being, I’m very distracted by my backyard at the moment, and as much as I have lots of work to do I just want to rush home and start reading more, planting more seed starts (oh – did I mention that I’ve got shallot, herb, tomato starts on the go in my little windowsill greenhouse?), watching the shed/studio go up. Really, by May when things are growing and we’ve got it mostly cleaned up, our yard is going to be quite the refuge from the city. That’s the plan anyway, even though it’s hard to see in the gloom of January now that my patio is covered in building detrius and there are old roofing tiles littering the lawn.
People sometimes do care what I have to say….
Kate Milberry published her doctoral thesis “Geeks and Global Justice” online today in which I am fairly extensively quoted in a couple of sections and a history of the Resist! project (which I helped establish) is given.
Enviro Canada 101.
I’ve recently agreed to write a 2500-3000 word article on the history of the environmental movement in Canada since 1970 for a US magazine. Easy, right? I mean, there’s got to be a seminal text out there on the subject I can just crib some notes out of – at least that’s what I thought. Turns out, that isn’t really the case and in fact there is no sweeping overview text that some professor wrote in order to support her environmental studies course sometime in the last decade. There are histories of Greenpeace, Clayoquot Sound and a few other specific instances of protest environmentalism out there…. but nothing that surveys the whole gamut, and very little produced outside of British Columbia.
Fortunately I have enough of my own personal knowledge of Canadian environmental movement that I have an idea of where to start (Farley Mowat) and finish (Tar Sands protests), and who the key players and organizations are (GreenPeace was the only thing for the better part of a decade), so instead of being daunted at the moment I’m a little bit excited to sculpt something out of the bits and pieces that do exist around me. I have comandeered my roomate’s old editions of the Earth First Journal to scour for Canadian action items, I have started to note every action that comes to mind in an expanding chronology. Even with the little research I’ve done so far, plus my own history of involvement in protest movements I’ve got enough material to at least start myself off. Now I’ve just got to decide on what form the essay should take. Personal narrative, historical/factual, literary? Do I start with a story of the first clearcut I ever saw? How that moment in 1986 was the same moment that people across the country were having around that same time when they woke up to the industrial slaughter and fought to change it?
Not sure yet. But with 3000 words I’ve got room to maneuver a little between personal narrative and the more chronological/historical piece. I just really don’t want it to be dry! That’s my biggest worry with something like this. The tendancy towards pedantic writing looms large.
If any of you out there have any thoughts – either about sources or approach, I would love to hear them. What tips or techniques could help make an article like this really work?
Starts!
My garlic seems to be sprouting *way* early owing to the mildness of the El Nino winter. Not to mention some of the other bulbs in my back garden. We start the rebuild of the studio tomorrow which means that even though it’s not even February yet, the spring renovation is also beginning 🙂
For sake of record keeping, I started these plants inside this evening:
- Asclepias (Butterfly Weed)
- Marigolds (Gold Gem – Citrus-scented, edible)
- Parsley
- North Star Peppers
- Gypsy Peppers
- Orange Sun Peppers
- Oregon Spring Tomatoes (Earliest of the earlies)
- Conserver Shallots
- Florence Fennel (Selma Fino)
Red Cedar 