Change = River Haven Farm

Change is the only constant. How true that is. I was reminded by a friend that my last blog entry was dated, like 6 months old. And SO much has happened in this 6 months that I don't even know where to start, and I don't even want to undertake the task of writing about all of the change that has occurred. Instead I will write about what is inspiring me the most (well, 2nd most behind my beautiful daughters). For about 1 month now I have been spending most of my free time on a farm. On a community farm named River Haven. I created a group on the Transition Whatcom website as follows: http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/riverhavencommunityfarm. As you may or may not read, here is the intro to this community farm the owner and I wrote.

"We are working to create a farming community. This is an amazing opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this nascent community starting up in Whatcom County on the Nooksack River. We are looking for people who want to get involved and start investing their labor, skills and intelligence into the land to help create a community that can be a model of self resilience and sustainability. The community is being founded on Permaculture principles and will pull together a diverse group of people with a common vision of self resiliency, varied skills and talents, and a common respect for the earth & her inhabitants. Skills and talents such as permaculture design, animal husbandry, gardening, child care, cooking/preserving,

carpentry, farming, composting, alternative energies, rainwater harvesting, natural building, etc. that can help build this ecovillage are desirable. We plan on growing most of our own organic

food and processing our own fuel (straight

vegetable oil and/or biodiesel). River Haven is also the home of the Straight Vegetable Oil Co-op where members can share equipment and space and provide their own fuel."

This farm is something that I have been wanting for a long time. Last summer i was a part of 4 different groups at one point exploring ecovillages, and everyone of the groups dissolved, and one even imploded into a huge pile of shit that I still can't help but step in from time to time :) Then, out of the blue a couple of months ago I got an e-mail from a friend telling me about this man who bought this amazing farm and is looking for people to come help get the community  started. I came out, met him, we hit it off, are totally like minded, he offered me the house and asked me to help create the community, I accepted, and now I am here. Living my dream, on a farm, on a confluence of a stream and a river, happy for the first time in a long time. There is still a lot of sadness within my happiness, but i know for the first time that I am on the right path, not only for me, but also for my daughters.

I now have space for my waste vegetable oil conversions (WVO) and oil storage and am therefore back into fueling my vehicle on WVO and bought my dream truck, a 1980 VW Caddy. OK, it is a total piece of shit, but i love it. I have started my WVO co-op and have 3 other couples involved in storing, filtering and collecting WVO. I am even cooking using WVO on a little veggie oil stove I bought, which I am now distributing through my E-Bay store. And I am working on designing a larger scale veggie stove.

I am pulling people together and learning new things, last weekend we had 2 amazing instructors put on a workshop on Primitive Skills, including lighting a fire with a bow drill and making cordage from natural, local fibers. The next day we had a workshop on building Rocket Stoves for cooking/canning and i have my own stove 90% finished and ready to test. I am inspired to improve the design, document and share what is learnt (www.greenconversion.net/rocket-stoves). I found some guy on craigslist and we now have 6 hives of bees. We host them in exchange for honey/pollen/wax at some point, once the hives are healthy to support sharing. We have the most amazing barn ever. I am working on creating my sleeping loft something like 40' up off the ground with the best views of Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters on the property. We have a pretty descent garden started considering the late start. We now have chickens. I plan to get 2 cats very soon. The farm came with a farm dog, Lucy. She is great, but barks a lot and looks like she has a taste for chickens. I could go on and on, but I will save that for other blog entries.

Travis the TWOG

I have been spending a lot of time working with Transition Whatcom (http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/) to "achieve our vision of resilient and more self-reliant communities throughout Whatcom County with a local food supply, sustainable energy sources, a healthy local economy, and a growing sense of vitality and community well-being." I am a member of the Transition Whatcom Operating Group (TWOG) and together a group of 8 of us try to lead the efforts of the over 800 member group through consensus decision making. It has been educational for me. Below is a blog entry that I recently posted explaining a little bit about my efforts as of late to become more present and connected with myself. I have had an awakening of sorts and am excited to continue to journy down my path of enlightenment.

I have always struggled to live in the Now, stay Present and not dwell on the past nor future. I can look back at my life and see how poorly I have done this at times. I have allowed the fear of the future, doubt regarding past decisions and stress induced onto me by others to control my life and steal from me the precious present moment. I feel that over the last year I have made more progress towards ignoring that which does not matter and thereby focus living in the present moment. I am enjoying time with my family and friends so much more than ever. I hate that I allowed unimportant things to steal from me time with those who are most important. But hate itself is not a useful emotion. So the best I can do is to learn from these past mistakes and never allow them to occur again.

When I first started learning about Peak Oil, I was obsessed with it. I read everything I could find, watched all the documentaries and largely reacted out of fear of what was to come. I was never content. I felt that I needed to be doing much more. I felt the incessant need to prepare. My connection with my family and friends suffered. The connection with myself suffered. It took me losing my job and almost myself before I came to realize that what I was doing was crazy. It was not sustainable. I was stealing the present time from myself and my family. I have since changed for the better. I still have a LONG way to go to learn to be more present and to ignore my egoic mind, but the most important aspect is that I am continuing to make progress. Continual improvement is huge. Small little steps in the right direction can bring about major change.

When I attended the Heart and Soul’s event titled “The How to Stay Sane as the World Goes Crazy: Economic Hard Times, Climate Change and the Messy Issues of Oil” by Kathy McMahon, aka 'The Peak Shrink' I was relieve to find out that my reactions to learning about peak oil was not unique. I was relieved to find that many people react in unique and nonproductive ways. And what I got out of this presentation and through this whole process is that which is most important is the building of Community. Connecting with likeminded individuals who also share your concerns regarding the future, and to find productive ways to work to become more resilient and self reliant in a way that does not steal away being present and enjoying life to its fullest NOW. This is what Transition Whatcom is all about. Bring us together to build community, to make connections with others, to connect with the world and to connect with ourselves in the process.

Through Transition Whatcom I have met so many wonderful people and made so many wonderful connections that is has literally changed my life for the better. I feel a sense of collective momentum towards positive change that draws me in and excites me. I am looking forward to the future, whatever it brings, and know that by continuing to make relationships and working together to build community that we will be able to handle whatever the futures throws our way, together!