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drenajean's Journal
Created on 2007-12-10 23:50:03 (#14436178), last updated 2009-03-31
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Basic Info| Name: | drenajean |
|---|
BioI am a recently retired educator who has worked as an academic advisor and as an advocate for battered women. I am in the process of constructing my new life outside of wage slavery on a very modest pension.
I will be living at least 6 months of the year (the gardening months)in an old farmhouse on the upper Sunshine Coast, 15 km south of Powell River, B.C. My partner and I are building a large vegetable garden and new perennial beds on an acre of land that is Sechelt Indian band land and was homesteaded (squatted really) by the Cornell family before 1920. It has lovely old fruit trees, a hedge of 2 kinds of lilacs, wild roses and laurel separating the house from the beach (very useful when the sou'westerlies blow in November through March).
We are near the mouth of Eagle River which recently has had 3 species of salmon return to spawn after many years extinction -- because the "Friends of Eage River" have successfully lobbied with 2 forest companies to improve their practices.
Our community of Powell River is a once-thriving pulp and paper mill town which has lost a lot of jobs over the last 20 years and is increasingly a retirement/recreational hub. There are lots of people engaged i environmental and food security and fighting to save medicare. It has a great farmers' market and artistic community -- especially in music and visual arts.
The 4 non-gardening months will see us staying in Vancouver, where our two adult children live, or travelling. The next trip planned is Italy in April 2009. We also are desperate to be away from Vancouver (perhaps in Argentina?) during the 2010 Olympics.
I was initially very excited about the Olympic. As an ex-competitive figure skater, I imagined myself volunteering or billeting an "Eddy the Eagle" competitor -- perhaps someone from Africa who had to train on rollerblades because they had no ice! However, the politics of land use, bullying neighbourhoods, displacing the poor, bringing in the same private security teams that are running Iraq and bankrupting the province have soured it for me. So, like many Vancouverities, I will be skedadling out of town. Anyone who wants to rent our place for a gadzillion dollars during the games, please contact me!
I don't know how to upload pictures yet -- but will shortly post some of my wonderful dog, garden and the beach -- perhaps my family too, if they agree.
I will be living at least 6 months of the year (the gardening months)in an old farmhouse on the upper Sunshine Coast, 15 km south of Powell River, B.C. My partner and I are building a large vegetable garden and new perennial beds on an acre of land that is Sechelt Indian band land and was homesteaded (squatted really) by the Cornell family before 1920. It has lovely old fruit trees, a hedge of 2 kinds of lilacs, wild roses and laurel separating the house from the beach (very useful when the sou'westerlies blow in November through March).
We are near the mouth of Eagle River which recently has had 3 species of salmon return to spawn after many years extinction -- because the "Friends of Eage River" have successfully lobbied with 2 forest companies to improve their practices.
Our community of Powell River is a once-thriving pulp and paper mill town which has lost a lot of jobs over the last 20 years and is increasingly a retirement/recreational hub. There are lots of people engaged i environmental and food security and fighting to save medicare. It has a great farmers' market and artistic community -- especially in music and visual arts.
The 4 non-gardening months will see us staying in Vancouver, where our two adult children live, or travelling. The next trip planned is Italy in April 2009. We also are desperate to be away from Vancouver (perhaps in Argentina?) during the 2010 Olympics.
I was initially very excited about the Olympic. As an ex-competitive figure skater, I imagined myself volunteering or billeting an "Eddy the Eagle" competitor -- perhaps someone from Africa who had to train on rollerblades because they had no ice! However, the politics of land use, bullying neighbourhoods, displacing the poor, bringing in the same private security teams that are running Iraq and bankrupting the province have soured it for me. So, like many Vancouverities, I will be skedadling out of town. Anyone who wants to rent our place for a gadzillion dollars during the games, please contact me!
I don't know how to upload pictures yet -- but will shortly post some of my wonderful dog, garden and the beach -- perhaps my family too, if they agree.
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