Last post, I swear

Hey cats and kittens,

As some of you might know, I am no longer living at the storied Farmhouse. To that end, I won’t be keeping up with this blog any longer. While I’m still committed to food security issues, rabblerousing, and sustainable living, I just don’t have the time to keep up this blog in any way, shape, or form. It doesn’t help that this is one of three blogs I have, four if you count my Tumblr account, five if you count the fact that I work full-time for the Georgia Straight.

 

However, if you want to keep up with the further adventures of the Farmhouse, Sir Dan has started a new blog: Farmhouse Animals.

 

And here’s how you keep up with me… I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing!

 

The easiest way to keep up with my shenanigans is through my Twitter account. I twitter like a twit.

My tumblr account: heartbreak hangover. Yes, it makes me sound like a whiny 17-year-old girl. You’ve been warned.

Sometimes I do real writing, too: check it out on Straight.com. You’ll notice my beat is primarily feminist outrage, bitching about commuting by transit, and marijuana.

I’ve had a lot of fun writing this blog. I hope you’ve had fun reading it.

Peak oil encourages local sustainable behaviour

From the Georgia Straight:

What if you woke up one day and found that the world as you knew it had ceased to exist? It’s a thought that has probably crossed the minds of many and perhaps been quickly dismissed by most as silly.

For Brennan Wauters, this prospect is real. That’s why he’s preparing for what he describes as a “collapse”.

From Wauters’s perspective, the game changer is peak oil. He believes that in the past five years, the world has reached the point of maximum production of oil, and that the supply of this fuel source is on the decline. One day, the pumps may run dry.

But the 42-year-old Vancouver man is not the type to hunker in a bunker. He isn’t storing food, buying gold, or stocking up on weapons to survive in a post-oil world.

“I’m more a survivalist in the sense that I think we have to be psychologically prepared,” Wauters said. “I concentrate on being able to do things with as little as possible. It’s also an exercise to me, like there’s many things that I could just go to the store for. But I deliberately take a harder route just to test my own capabilities, to give me confidence that whatever happens, everything will be fine.”

Read the whole article here.

No farming in front yards in Toronto, either

Hey, the Farmhouse isn’t alone in unfair persecution by city officials!

What constitutes a “natural” garden to the City of Toronto?

Grass, apparently. Just grass. Plus, perhaps a few flowers. But certainly not vegetables.

That’s what Sylvie and Vic Oliveira discovered this summer after they turned their Bloor West Village front yard into a vegetable garden.

Read the whole story here: The real dirt: City squashes front yard veggie plot

A better kind of Google Buzz

Image shamelessly stolen from the article's source. Please don't sue me. I don't have any money. I don't even have bees.

Google has an official beekeeper? Now that’s pretty cool.

Dripping honey from his hands, from his white, sting-retardant bee suit and even from his face, he looked like a giant, slightly deranged Pooh Bear. He also looked happy. As he stood in one of the cafes on the search giant’s Mountain View campus, Tomaszewski held a jar of the golden nectar from Google’s first honey harvest.

Totally awesome. And I completely miss having bees.

Need to find a water fountain in Vancouver?

It’s about friggin’ time: Metro Vancouver’s Tap Map app shows iPhone users the closest water fountains

The free app takes your location and shows you sources of tap water in the vicinity.

These sources include 550 public drinking fountains across the region.

Metro Vancouver is also encouraging restaurants and others businesses that are willing to refill people’s water bottles to add themselves to the map.

Here’s the Web-based version for those of us lacking fancy tech gadgets, too.

Recycling + cycling = WIN!

From the Globe and Mail: Waste-collecting cyclists put a new spin on recycling

ReCYCLISTS is the green vision of two trash-talking men, Aaron Bichard, 34, and Jason Adams, 36.

For Mr. Bichard, a committed cyclist who grew up in a funky Okanagan home where he “ate carob instead of chocolate,” nimble bikes are the answer to downtown waste collection for small businesses.

So three years ago in Duncan, B.C., he started a business where traditional recyclable materials are picked up by bike.

Looking to Victoria’s dense downtown, he realized the capital could be well-served by bikes that can wheel into spots unsuited to bigger vehicles.

Mr. Adams approached garbage from another angle.

While a University of Victoria student, he worked for a garbage-collection company that “made good money at the expense of the landfill.”

With three trips a day, Mr. Adams saw how quickly the dump was being filled, even with material that had value.

“There were commodities worth chasing,” he said.

Read the whole article here.

Video: The Majestic Plastic Bag

Oh, poor plastic bag. Your life is so difficult. Look out for that dog!

So, I’m moving

Buh-bye, Farmhouse. I’m moving out at the end of the month, the last of the Core Four to depart your hallowed walls. It’s been a long time—four years, pretty much the sum total of the time I’ve lived in Vancouver.

Now the question is: what happens to the blog?

Video: The Flower

The Flower contrasts a utopian society that freely farms and consumes a pleasure-giving flower with a society where the same flower is illegal and its consumption is prohibited.

(Stolen from the Georgia Straight.)

That’s right, Tuesday links are BACK!

First of all, my extreme apologies to the followers of the Farmhouse Blog. I’ve been … busy. Lots of fun life stuff. Haven’t spent more than three nights at the house in the past two weeks. Consequently I’m ridiculously behind on an update! But the garden is looking a-maz-ing and I will take pictures as soon as I can.

But until then, I’ve got a few links for your reading pleasure!

 

Is vegetarianism always worse for the environment? The bacon lovers and the soy huggers square off.

 

Cycling is sexy. Don’t deny it; it’s true. Mmm, sexy cycler ass.

 

Print this list out. The foods at the top are the most pesticide-free while the ones at the bottom are not. Food closer to the bottom has the most risk of being coated with chemicals and it’s recommended you buy organic versions whenever possible. (Check out your local farmers’ market for them!) The Farmhouse has a similar checklist hanging in our kitchen.

 

Alright. That’s it. Short and sweet. Hope you are all having beautiful summers!

Much Farmhouse love!