Mud Houses on Mud Houses
We start this month’s update with the realization that we have some explaining to do. Our land is not zoned for multi-family residences, and yet this spring we turned a blind eye and have allowed three families to move in with us. It seems that others have taken to our home as we have.

A few people might suggest we are a bit flighty with our endeavors, but we have enjoyed the comfort of community where birds of feather flock together. With this, two families of winter wrens and a third family of red breasted barn swallows have moved in, all wonderful additions.

The barn swallows are amazing, especially since they are a disappearing species in our part of the planet. They showed up unannounced at our door step, literally, and without a permit started to build. The husband and wife worked tediously, side by side, for hours collecting little clumps of mud and placing them layer on layer to make strong curved walls on our curved walls.

Their house is safely perched and protected from the wind and rain with good overhangs, overlooking the surrounding valleys, and pointed towards the sun for their morning warmth. A beautiful place to raise a family there is no doubt in our minds.

Food is abundant as the other velvet-green and tree swallows demonstrate as they all swoop and glide following the curves of the massive cob walls, collecting insects in the evening, warmed by the radiating warmth of the wall.

At days end the husband and wife settle on the clothes line, where the wife sits quiet (literary freedom here); the husband turns his head towards her every few minutes and speaks to her. Sure that she is not listening, he hops closer to her, again turning her direction and commenting on how lovely her red feathers are. Staring away she nods then turns and gives him a look. Foreplay is always tough.

Over the next weeks they make the mud house cozy, venturing into ours at times to get some ideas, or maybe to just poke fun at us for taking so long. Now the nest is inhabited by eggs, and soon the family will grow.

Just off the nest is their patio, a wind chime Ann made that has always been silent but now chimes with chirps, where the husband sits, watches and protects. I swear they have listened to every word we have said, even picking up on the joke told on all the tours how the house is “dirt cheap”, as we hear the husband joke to us and his other neighbors (the wrens), that his home is “chirp cheep”.

We like to say that there is no boundary between our home and the rest of nature, they are interconnected. Having the swallows build their mud house on ours symbolizes this, with the special knowledge that this disappearing species has chosen our home to be their home. The reality is that everything we seek in a home is shared by others.

Busy Tour Month
How lucky we are to share these observations with more people. With recent visits from engineering students from UVIC, grade ten students from Chilliwack, a home school group of parents and kids, Parker’s grade five class, a group of Emerging Green Builders (including lots of architects), two public tours, and 5 policy analysts from the BC Building and Safety Policy Branch. We have been busy promoting simplicity, natural systems, and sustainability. To read the outcome of the tour with the policy group please check out our website where it will be posted soon.

Daily Life
Within the midst of this we fit in gardening, parenting, and helping another couple start building their sustainable home. Progress on the house is slow but it’s really looking beautiful with all the plasters, floors, milk paints, cabinets, etc.

Our apologies go out to those who have asked us to participate in trade and green shows this past while, but we have chosen to hang onto our quiet moments, pausing long enough to take the family (all six of us) for a visit to the Royal BC Museum for an uncomfortable photo with the life size photo of ourselves.

A quick note on tours. We have decided to cancel public tours for the rest of the summer, but are still booking small private tour groups. The large groups are hard to manage with the wet plasters and wet floors.

RBCM Book
“Free Spirit: stories of you, me and BC” is a book by Gerald Truscott and published by The Royal British Columbia Museum in association the exhibition in celebration of 150 years of BC history. The front cover of this new book displays our sustainable earthen home complete with solar PV and solar thermal evacuated tubes. Follow this link to see the front cover of the book or better yet check out the full museum exhibition which also displays a wall size photo of us and our home powered by the sun, amongst all the other very interesting people that make up our local history… including Cougar Annie (Ann’s favorite character).
http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Shop/history.aspx?id=2897

Fundraising
Eco-Sense is participating in the TYEE program called “Green Your Campbell Bucks” to raise funds for our educational program. For every $200 donated we will give one tour to a grade 6 class this fall. Under this program we are the only organization called a family. It may seem odd for people to write us a cheque personally but we just say…”we are a family…NOT a corporation”. Check out this link to learn more or to vote for your favorite project.
http://contest.thetyee.ca/greenyourcampbellcash/projects

Climate Change and Kids
Of course our month wouldn’t be complete without some form of controversial observation, and especially one spawned by James Hansen’s speech to the US congress. James Hansen originally spoke 20 years ago on climate change, and re-addressed his discussion topic, pointing out that we have wasted the past 20 years and now are left with one or two at most to make some drastic changes.

While listening to this on the CBC, Parker asked me to turn the radio off, obviously causing him immense sadness. Do we all turn off what we don’t want to hear? What do we want our kids to hear?

Attending a recognition ceremony of grade five’s we listened to each student’s predictions of where they would be in ten years. It was clear their plans of being doctors, veterinarians, actress, athletes, dentists, and lawyers were in sync with what culture has sold told them. We were proud of Parker who wants to be a biologist (or a cartoonist). Not one kid stood up proudly saying, “I want to be a farmer and grow food”. What we hear through their predictions is parents telling them it is business as usual on our planet; a sad preparation for what is in store.

The adults seem to teach kids to turn off what they (the adults) don’t want to hear themselves. I see a reluctance in our society to teach kids the reality flowing down the pipeline, and hence their world view will be hard to change.

Who is teaching our kids about climate change and sustainability? We wrote on this topic 10 months ago but did not post as it is not palatable for public viewing.

After listening to James Hansen, I commented why Climate Change is hard for people. As I was driving the kids to school in Victoria (a 30 min drive from our Highlands home) I discussed with the kids what no car (or reduced driving) would mean in our family, (the kids alternating weeks in two different homes). The choice to reduce our CO2, would mean not making two daily trips into Victoria every other week, resulting in the kids spending a majority of their time at the home closest to their school.

For either parent to give up being able to see them as much is a hard decision. These “local love miles” are our biggest challenge to sustainability. Yet imagine what extreme fuel shortages/prices would prompt…it seems that being forced into such decisions are easier than making them for ourselves.

The best choice is to not look at what is given up, but rather to look at the positive benefits for all. If the kids spend the weekdays with Mom, step dad, and baby half brother and walk to school in the city they are able to be close to their friends and participate in all the culturally normal activities such as swimming lessons, drum lessons, violin lessons, day camps, etc, etc, etc. They then spend 3 out of 4 weekends here living close to nature, gardening, walking to the local lake for swimming, running around outside, playing without TV or gadgets, participating in tours, and learning about our biocentric way of life. In this scenario the kids continue to benefit from both homes and the driving is dramatically reduced. A bicycle commute would even be possible when the kids are a bit older and there are fewer cars on the roads.

Looking forward to the future and the challenges of adaptation,

Gord and Ann