Success!

So, we have our first batch of seeds now! The organic conference was super busy, and we have our new seed ready to go. Now we just have to get them to grow....

Work, Finally!!

So, today was the first day back in the classroom for me in a long while; and wow, it was nice! About two weeks ago, I interviewed, and was offered the job, for vocational instructing like I was doing at Laurel College in Guelph. So far, it is officially just substituting, but today was the first full day, so it was quite nice to get into that setting again. And, it looks like it will become full time pretty soon, so that is always a bonus!

I got to explain the basic rules of accounting to one of the students, and with another, go over the finer points on English language. Of course, in between, I heard all about their lives, described with the usual colourful language. It's always an interesting day at a vocational college! I'm sure there will be some interesting stories to come out there as time goes on.....

We're heading down to Guelph this weekend to see some friends and to go shopping for our first batch of seeds for our garden this year! Looking forward to it!!

Last Sunday

Well before I go and build that shelf, I thought I would try and post what we were up to last weekend.

We went to the TSN curling skins final match. It was a good one! Kevin Martin (Canada) vs. David Murdoch (Scotland). Martin won $58000!

First Post #2 (huh??)

Yay, now it's my first blog! Sweet. Thamara touched on most of the main points about what's been happening with our lives. We moved up to Orillia when the job offer for Lakehead came through. I left my job as a vocational instructor and moved on up with her to a totally new adventure in life. It was a big move for sure, but in the end it was an easy decision. Well, when there is a love and a bond like Thamara and I have found with each other, it's not hard to make a decision to uproot your entire life; you just naturally do it! (If anybody knows a cliche expression about relationships please insert here; I haven't been able to bring one to mind.....)

Alright, enough with the mushy, relationship stuff, geez!!

So, moving to a new city, and trying to integrate into a different social scene is usually a challenge, and it has definitely been that in Orillia. Orillia has shown itself to be an interesting city in a couple of respects. It is a city with an interesting dichotomy; there is a large population of economically depressed people, but then there are people that have a high earning potential as well. So, this means that Orillia is on the rise, correct? Well, almost. The main problem the city seems to be having is that the population that have the highest earning potential in the city don't spend their money within the city limits. Barrie, Vaughan, and other 'major' shopping centres are too close for comfort. As well, Orillia has a lot of undeveloped brownfield sites that are ex-industrial and require a lot of environmental cleanup in order for the city to truly develop. Orillia is a city on-the-cusp of true growth. Which way it goes, only time will tell.

So, anyhoo, what does this have to do with us? Besides being the city that we are currently living, it has been the final push for us to look at creating a self-sustaining lifestyle for ourselves up here. What do we mean by self-sustaining? (I can see the eye-rolls and the 'hippy-tree-hugger' comments flying out right now!!) No, we aren't planning on going out in the back-woods, building a log cabin, installing bicycle powered generators, nor growing a "I haven't seen civilization for years' beard. We simply want a low-impact lifestyle that is healthy, happy,and Fun!! For the past couple of weeks, we have been busy in a make-it-yourself phase that really has been amazing! Homemade food from local sources really is different. For some reading this blog, I am sure there are a ton of stories in your head about how bad food is now-a-days compared to when things used to be grown close to home and prepared fresh. Well, we are starting to understand that now.....

Here's a couple of things that we've been reading up on:

http://100milediet.org/

http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/

http://smallfarmcanada.ca/

http://www.yougrowgirl.com/

We are going to start (read 'attempting') incorporating the ideas we've been so busy reading into our everyday lives. Starting to make everything from scratch, and sourced from local suppliers has been our first step. This weekend we are going to an organic conference in Guelph to hopefully find some seeds/plants to start a little home garden. Hmm, guess that means I need to go and get that shelf put together in the kitchen.....

Our first post

So here we are, or I should say I am, writing our very first post. I guess I should start by writting down why are we doing this.
We moved to Orillia at the end of July of last year. After living in Guelph for 14 and 7 years respectively, Mike and I packed it all (including our crazy but very cute dog) and moved 2 hours north-east to the much smaller "sunshine city". Orillia is very nice. Especially in the summer. I biked all over the place. There are so many trails around here that I think even Mike is considering to start biking. We took Nikko to the lake quite often. Couchiching beach is only 10 minutes away from our house, walking. To get to the park, you gotta go through "downtown". I put on quotes because it really is just a main street. Very picturesque with its stores and little cafes, but a single street nonetheless. We also had friends visit us over the summer. Everyone agreed, Orillia is a very cute lil' city.
But then the winter came. And even though we got ourselves a night pass for one of the sky resorts around here to keep us busy, being away from our friends and families made us pretty sad. We were lonely.
I should mention that the reason that we made the move was so that I could take on a new job that was very much my 'dream job'. Mikey on the other hand, dropped it all (including his awesome, flexible, well paying job as a vocational instructor) to come with me and Nikko. So as in every little town, finding a job for him was really tough. And I mean, tough. Mostly, he was overqualified for every single job posting out there. Unbelievable. Finally, having worked in costumer service for years got him an interview to work in the front desk of the hotel of a huge casino around here. The job sucked big time. The hours were terrible and the actual job was mind-numbing. He lasted an impressive three weeks. I would have quit on day 7. Anyways, abandoning the 'corporate world' he managed to get a seasonal job at a meat market, just around the corner from our house. Even though he had to work on Saturdays for not a great pay, the job was miles away from the hotel junk. He enjoyed learning to make sausages, cut moose, deer and even bear down to pieces and a bunch of other things that I can't remember right now. He also learned about livestock and all the government permits, regulations, standards and all other nonsense that's behind the meat, chicken, eggs and dairy that we buy in a regular supermarket (btw, I've been vegetarian for over five years now). At the same time, working at a butcher shop that has a bit of a grocery store at the front allowed him to be in close contact with your 'typical' downtown orillian inhabitant. Let me describe to you this type of individual: Your typical Orillian is between the ages of 20 and 40 years old, is unemployed and on welfare. However, they are unable to budget their monthly check and usually have no money. They survive each month, because the meat market owner capitalizes on their inability to manage their money and allows credit to these people until they can pay with their next check. No money, and still they smoke like chimneys. Of course not *everyone* is pennyless. You also run into individuals that have rolls of small bills in their pockets on any given day. Makes you wonder...
All in all, what I'm going at with this long story, is that it was a combination of factors what made us steer our future into what is now our master plan. We realized that we didn't want to buy eggs that came from an industrial facility in which chickens are so crowded in their little cages, that they have to remove their beaks so that they don't cannibalize each other out of despair. We started reading more and more about being sustainable or at least about being a little bit more responsible about our food and our environment. It's true what Mikey says, we're not going to change the world, but that's not why we're doing it. Most of all, we realized we wanted a safe place we could call home. Preferably, outside the city limits. With some (but not much) property where we can grow most of our own food.
At first we thought of jumping in "cold turkey" then we realized, we had never even planted a tomato plant, let alone raise a chicken or a goat (boy do I want a goat!). So we started reading a lot: New books, used books, old books, internet, magazines. We've spent a good chunk of our winter planning our spring and summer. We learned, sadly, that Orillia by-laws don't allow raising chickens in the urban areas. We also realized, that we can't really plant that much when you rent, because you're not free to do whatever you want to the property. However, being as outgoing as we can be and in the name of getting our hands dirty for our own learning, we settled on container planting. We have tons of plans for a number of vegetables to be grown on the front porch, the back deck, the widow sills and on the roof. We are buying our seeds at the end of this week and I can't wait to start planting.
The other main thing we've been doing is trying to eat more in line with the season. Maybe not necessarily the 100-mile diet, but close enough that it just makes sense and it feels good. So for example, no strawberries in December. Or tomatoes, or leafy greens. The last time we bought a loaf of bread from the supermarket was about six weeks ago. We've been (rather Mikey's been) baking our own bread. And lately we've gotten our whole wheat flour from two old ladies that mill their local grain and sell their bread at the farmer's market. True, we've been eating potatoes and squash, onions and carrots more than our usual, but it tastes delicious. Dunno if we're just biased or if eating produce that was picked green so that it could travel thousand of kilometers before reaches our table was that bland, but we've been eating like kings and having fun with it on top of that! The house smells delicious all the time. Our neighbor down stairs has even commented on that (we promised him a loaf of bread).
Now, don't get me wrong. We're not your psychotic couple that will only eat potatoes. The idea is to be aware of where our food comes from. That doesn't mean that I deprive myself of the occasional avocado that travels all the way from Mexico, or the red grapefruits that grow in Florida. No. What it means is that we've realized that all the garlic that you can buy in the supermarket comes from China. As does the frozen fish. That one that is sold at $3 a pound. What it means is that if I have to pay a wee bit more in the farmer's market for these items that were either grown or caught closer to home, I will. At least until I can harvest my own.
So there, now you have a rough idea of what this blog will be like.
Stay tuned for our next post!