The Gift of a (Jersey) Community

Moving into a new community is always an adventure in discovering new and exciting lifestyles and passions.  Dutch Harbor was all about the water; the fishing, the diving, and swimming at the local recreation center.  Cordova was its music.  Here it's... well we have yet to see.  But what's rural Manitoba if there's no cow around somewhere?

A few days ago we were gifted with two gallons of milk, straight from the source.  Wonderful, brimming glass gallon jars of fresh milk.  We skimmed the cream off the top yesterday and left it sitting on the kitchen table overnight.

This morning it went into the churn.  I remember this churn from my childhood, and we were able to track it down from my niece who graciously agreed to borrow it back to us.

Very quickly the cream changed from foam to solid.  I had butter!

Not too bad for today's breakfast.

And tomorrow it's buttermilk pancakes.

The cost of being cheap

There's an underlying irony of living cheaply in an affluent country that niggles me.  It's the bothersome truth that my frugal-ness is quite closely related to my neighbours extravagance.  If I didn't live in a country that regurgitates its products every six months there wouldn't be the abundance of second hand and recycled goods for me to select from.  Furnishing my home for under $500.00 with one weekend of perusing the local thrift stores would be a lot tougher if everyone was on the same mission.  In other words, my success in living cheaply is directly connected with compulsive shopaholics and their perceived obsolescence of their stuff.

But there is a deeper thread that's even more disturbing.  It's the concept of "subsidized goods" - the idea that my "good deal" comes on the backs of many other less fortunate people.  The elderly cashier that is working for minimum wage with few or no benefits.  The third world worker that is assembling some electronic product on an assembly line for pennies a day.  Or, as recently brought jarringly into focus, the migrant worker in Ontario working on a chicken farm and sending his meagre earnings back home to his family in Peru.

My $4.00 Second Hand Garden

Then my pathetic attempt to distance myself from the obsessive shopper seems profane against this stark reality of the horrific cost for my "new" extraneous gewgaw, no matter how "cheap" or "recycled" it may be.  Many, many people have contributed to the cycle of goods that churn their way through the queue of consumers in my world, no matter where on that chain I may be.  Just because I shop second hand doesn't mean I'm all that different from any other shopper in my neighbourhood.

And there's the rub.

Some benefit of living in a rich, affluent world with our prolific shopping habits should somehow trickle back into those cultures that indirectly support my cravings for stuff.  So what if I find a great second hand deal on a mahogany table and chairs.  Or a wonderful buy on Nintendo DS at a garage sale.  I am quite thrilled at the $100 bargain on the table or the $20 DS for my kid.  And for a moment I feel penny-wise and proud.

But then there is that indirect subsidy angle that needs to be addressed.

"Made in China"

So here's where I'm at.

Kiva, a non-profit organization that uses the internet to connect microfinance organizations with individuals, allows people like me to lend as little as $25.00 to struggling entrepreneurs  in all different parts of the world where life is a little more than simply going to work and shopping.  Most of these struggling business people are women seeking to earn enough money to feed their families and possibly, if there is any left over, send their kids to school.  My efforts to purchase carefully and cheaply, recycling and reusing someone else's refuse can now not only remove me from the consumer cycle of new products but can also provide a little chump change to assist someone that lives in a totally foreign world to mine.

Like Mushkiniso, a divorced mother that would like to buy some watermelon seeds for her farm.

Or Kalbubu, a 56 yr. old widow with a 7 acre farm in Kyrgyzstan that would like to add to her herd of five cows, two mares and one work horse.

Maybe it'll be enough to keep them off an assembly line.

And that makes my nights in my second hand bed just a little sweeter.

What you can't find at Walmart

Having lived for the last ten years in a 35 foot sailboat our stuff took some serious downsizing.  Now that we had moved back into a more conventional lifestyle, we needed to rethink furniture.

Where do we sleep?  Eat?  Sit?

Our first choice was to find used.  Recycled.  Maybe even free.

It helps when you can access Kijiji, and one weekend in Winnipeg filled a U-haul with a plethora of beds, dressers, a desk, kitchen table and chairs including two sitting chairs for the living room.

And we spent under $500.00.

Not too shabby for some craftmanship and style.

A journey is but one thousand steps

Having recently relocated my family from Alaska back to Canada's middle province of Manitoba the steps have at times seemed like one thousand.

The packing, loading and inventory for Canada Customs.

The last minute maintenance on the van.

And the driving.  Lots of driving.  On ice, snow, gravel, and sand.

But every day was a step.  And every step brought progress, and progress brought renewed strength and clarity.

Not unlike the rest of our life - our character, our integrity, our morality.

Our children used to train with a renowned sensai, Katsutaka Tenaka, in Anchorage.

One of his daily mantras he had the kids repeat was

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Because every step is taking you somewhere.

Active Waiting

We don't often enjoy waiting.

Waiting for transit, waiting at a light, waiting in a waiting room.

Yet sometimes we manage to turn waiting into a relaxing pastime.

We recently stopped by Wabasca AB on our travels south to visit family.

It was a beautiful day.

We spent one afternoon watching the kids idly casting a line into the unknown, waiting for the faintest twitch on the rod.

Eventually it came, the bite and the excitement, the line buzzing out as a nine pounder took the lure.

Not bad for an afternoon of practicing patience.

Going where no kitchen has gone before

Three weeks in Cordova isn't a lot of time.  Not when you're remodeling a basement room into a functioning kitchen suite.  But with perseverance, some help, and a whole lot of work, amazing things can happen.

We relocated temporarily back to Cordova from Anchorage while Theresa was studying for her board exam and I could do some house maintenance for a friend.  This is one of those times when you feel good about being able to bless someone that has spent her whole life giving to her community; in service, support, or encouragement.  But this time grace comes not from her giving, but from receiving.

Too often we have trouble with the receiving part.  We can make it on our own.  We don't need help.  We're fine.

But the truth is in being able to live with both hands open - one to give, and one to receive.  If either hand becomes clenched, then our lives become unbalanced; either from only taking what society has to offer and giving nothing back, or from giving and never being able to receive.

Both take work.

Both have their reward.

Both define community.

Those Golden Hills

A short drive north from Anchorage puts you in the Talkeetna Mountains.  These rugged, granite peaks jut viciously into the air proclaiming their dominance over the landscape, inspiring awe and reverence to anyone that ventures into their valleys.  We drove up into Hatcher Pass this past week and spent a few days in the majestic beauty of this area of Alaska.

Robert Lee Hatcher staked the first gold claim in this valley in 1906, and the next thirty five years saw his claim develop into a booming mining consortium that at its peak mined 34,416 ounces of gold in one year with over two hundred men blasting away miles and miles of tunnels into the rock.

The remains of the Independence Mine is mostly in ruins, but some of the buildings have been restored as a heritage site.  An interpretive trail winds through the rubble giving a brief, unique glimpse into the lives of families that lived in these hills prior to World War Two.

Children played and taught themselves to ski in the surrounding hills after a day of learning in the small schoolhouse that was incorporated into the mining camp.

The sawyers found time to make them toys in between milling timbers for cribbing in the mine shafts.

 

And the men cycled routinely through the underground, blasting, pounding, and loading their ore into buckets and hoppers in search of the flakes of gold that swept them all into this forlorn, isolated valley in the far north.

Today the hills are silent with only a placard or two adorning the rusty old equipment remaining as a witness to the vibrant, thriving community that once found its future in this valley.

As we drive away, the image of an Atlas Imperial inline 8 cylinder diesel generator, producing 275 hp at 514 rpm tugs at my mind.

I would like to have heard it run.