We are happy to announce that we are accepting applications for 2-6 week internships for March-August 2012 season. This is your chance to get your hands dirty implementing permaculture principles in paradise!

We are going into our third season of growing food and building, and are looking for eager and hardworking interns to help us implement more permaculture techniques, test theories and explore new intergraded systems. Essentially we want WWOOFers who want to dig in to permaculture hands on! We have 1/3 of an acre of primary gardens, which employ many interesting techniques; guilds, sheet mulch, companion planting, swales, herb spiral, etc… along with a newly guilded fruit system, the foundation of a food forest, many established fruit trees and vineyards. 2+ year round creeks, and over 6 acres of mossy diverse mushroomy forest.

Our projects this season include: adding to our animal systems, building and planting food terraces, establishing a living fence for rotational grazing, and planting a willow basket field, meanwhile we plan to be building our cargotecture timberframe upcycled home! We currently have 26 laying heritage hens, and are breeding a couple varieties, as well as 2 working dogs who keep the beasties away (bears, coyotes & cougars to name a few). We are welcoming worms to our farm next month, who will soon be snacking on rabbit droppings as we expand our animal systems.

Interns will have humble but private accommodations, and be provided organic homegrown meals; you host is passionate about food and blogs regularly at eatingwithSOLE . Interns will enjoys vegetarian or ethical omnivore, as well as allergy friendly foods, all of which are focused on eating seasonal organic and local whole foods. You’ll drink and wash in living mountain fresh creek water from the source, and enjoy a magical forest full of wildlife, wild edibles and medicinal plants, right in the heart of the Kootenays most diverse and wonderful community, with it’s ample art, music, learning living events. Rivers and lakes, beaches and mountains to explore.

Your hosts have a wealth of knowledge to share: Permaculture design, master carpentry, fabrication, cooking, allergy baking, canning and food preservation, & gardening to mention a few. Along with many alternative building experiences including: undertaking an earthship internship, building with strawbale, composting toilets, waddle and daub, yurt building, log building, and of course our favorite building material… GARBAGE! We are a young small family eager and open to constant learning and exploring of new ideas. We also have an extensive permaculture / building / growing / cooking / primitive skills library which can be accessed. And we have an extra canoe and bicycle interns can use on hot and sunny days off.

Applicants should have reasonable amount of permaculture knowledge, and should be physically able to dig, shovel, lift and haul heavy piles of shit (literally). Applicants should also be prepared for near off grid living; no TV, limited and painfully slow internet, limited access to power, use composting toilet outhouse, outdoor showers, and not create or bring unnecessary wastes onto our site. We expect any intern to follow the permaculture ethics, and understand that those are our guiding principles. Interns would work 5 days a week, aprox 5 hours a day weather and project permitting. For more info or to apply please email shauna@rbrand.ca your interests and experiences along with availability  and any other relative information. Couples are welcome to apply and work together. Interviews will begin Feb 15, so spread the word and drop us a line!

We have been drown in deep fluffy snow, and for the last  24 hours it has barely stopped… inches and inches have accumulated and finally after a really COLD week (the first one of the year) it is warm and wintery! I actually starting whistling Christmas songs this morning as I was ploughing through feet of snow in a virgin parking lot! Today is a lot like last winter… I guess I had forgotten the fun of big snow, and doughnuts in he snow!

Dave and Colin are here this week (Dyl’s Dad and Bro) and the boys have been hard at work building a hunting blind up in the forest, way way way up in some trees! It looks a little scary, but I am sure once it has railings and some camping chairs and a beer cooler it will be a great place to piss away a day. Dave tucked into the shovel today and carved out a path all the way down to the barn and his car, which was well buried. Thankfully they have delayed their departure due to the epic snow storm we have on hand. We have been catching up on our Settlers of Catan gaming, and  all this extra Fidler testosterone.

Colin was the first to carve out a snowboard track on our driveway ever… I think Dylan is envious that his bro thought it up first… Colin didn’t so much like the treck uphill but enjoyed the runs down both driveways. The dogs sure loved chasing him down!

Unfortunately and sadly as I was running down to snap a picture of him carving up the new road I notices a bunch of black feather on top of the crisp white snow… followed by the prompt departure of a beautiful bastard hawk, who murdered one of our “little blackie hens” (an amerucana) poor dear:(  I screeched at the hawk and it did a tricky tango with the deer netting before taking off… and while I sat in the coop with a loaded gun, I hoped and preyed his chicken buffet days were over and I am hopeful he was spooked enough between me and the fencing tangle to not return.. but tomorrow I will net the girls into their tiny snowed in winter space, and hope for the best.  Otherwise this moma bear is going to get mean.. because I am getting sick of loosing my food security, and I take a lost bird pretty seriously. I know Dylan thinks I am a little overboard but I have raised these chooks from babes and everyday I trudge out to make sure they are safe, and sound, warm and fed, loved and happy, I thankfully receive their beautiful rainbows of eggs each day and I count them as a commodity and blessing. These gals (and the cocks too) are a huge part of our food security and I’ll be damned if that hawk is going to dig in to my pantry!

Today’s snowy morning was the perfect time to FINALY finish my million hour socks! I am wearing and loving them, and was happily toasting my tootsies by the fire  before noon today. Thanks ever so much to my back road girlfriend Renata at the Red Snow Shoe, who gave me “some assemble required” hand knit socks for my Birthday! I think in actuality I spent about 40 hours total knitting these babies… and while I am eager to dress my toes in more hand knit wool sock.. I am not sure just how eager I am to knit more.. just at this moment, though like child birth I am sure I will forget the pain, and start another pair soon!

We just said good bye to our friends Rob & Michelle (and baby Rowan) from Verge Permaculture, who enjoyed our yarn yurt for a few nights on there travel though the Koot’s, a winter oasis from the crazy urban centre of Calgary. It was great to spend time visiting, cross country skiing, and dreaming up exciting futures!

I am offering an Introduction to Permaculture class, March 17th at the Slocan Valley Hall, through the SVRC and Rob Avis has been super supportive and helpful, as I prep for my first full day permaculture class! Thanks Rob for everything!

To Register or Inquire call: 250-226-0008

I know lots of you think we are crazy living in the sticks on the side of this mountain, and mostly I think your all crazy for living in a concrete jungle … but the other night I had a stomach dropping few minutes of fear, walking in our forest, this though actually crossed my mind…  ”Am I insane living here???… OMG there is a cougar killing something in my yard!!!”

Thats right… Dylan and I went for a forest stroll to enjoy the last little bit of light before the sun went down, we though we would check our “hare snare” when all of the sudden the dogs went quiet (from a crazed barking frenzie) long enough for us to hear, not 200 feet away a crazy loud BIG CAT hiss and snarl and yowl, followed by the cow like moans of some unfortunate deer (or the like) being eaten. More dogs, more hissing, more panic rising in me, picturing my faithful dogs on the menu as they were out of eye site and silent again, more yelping, moaning, hissing…. shit! time to get out of the bush… calling the dogs, heading down the mountain… do we get the gun? are the dogs dead? why is there a cougar in my yard??? all these things raced through my mind.

We had decided to spend the night in the yurt and had it well warmed up after a day of loom set up, and the forest was alive with the food chain in action. What a musical! My interpretation of what happened from the soundtrack went something like this… The dogs finally got the cougar off on his way after an hour or so, and that is when the murder of crows chimed in which invited a pack of howling yelping coyotes to the carcass. Poor dogs they worked for hours patrolling the cougar kill and mountain side, before they got to enjoy any of what was left. Dylan and I will venture out soon and see if the scavengers have left behind any antlers for his new hobby of knife making. I was so happy that Mia was at the local outdoor rink sating with friends, rather than in the bush with us. Oh the joys of living in a wildlife corridor in a scarcely inhabited wilderness area!

With all of that excitement I feel like the rest of what we have been up to seems far less thrilling…

Like I said I have been getting my first (solo) warp set up on my loom, and am looking forward to turning this basket of creamy recycled yarns into a warm and cozy throw!

I spent a few hours with my weaving mentor JC going over my design and having a set up refresher, then Mia gave me a hand winding the warp and my friend Renata came by to help me with my threading. It’s a big loom an a big job, so It was lovely to have so many eager helpers!

I can’t tell you enough just how much we have been loving this yurt space, as a family creative outlet, and our own cozy private home away from home. We spend probably 25% of our nights sleeping in the yurt and I am out there working and organizing as much as I can manage! It’s turning into a really lovely place to be.

We are looking forward to having Dylans Dad and brother out here in the next week or so, which will be great! We sure missed our family this holiday season, but we were happy we made the decision to stay home, as the road conditions just after Christmas were horrible in the passes with avalanches, and fatal collisions and crazy storms. whew, nice to forgo all of those stresses.

Still plugging away on garden and house plans, and trying to finalize designs for the worm bin system as well as the rabbit housing and how they will work together. We have also decided to do a run of turkeys in the spring.. and now I am thinking Bacon….?! hmm it would be easy to work a couple pigs into the mix here and have them do some ground work for me! Get the benefits of rotational grazing and play with curing meats!

Mia is back on the slopes with school and is trading in her ski’s for a snowboard this week! Lets hope she has better luck than I did with that sport!

We are drowning in eggs still so I am cooking lots with all the food I put up and as many eggs as I can muster into any meal. I am blogging lots on my food blog sharing yummy recipes for eating from the root cellar.

Must dash, the dishes are calling and the wood needs hauling.

Best to all,

We simply couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to celebrate the winter solstice on. The sky is huge and bright crisp blue, and although there is very little snow, it feels like a fresh winter day!

We wish all of our friends and families the happiest of seasonal celebrations. We miss you all so much, and we are sending our warm thoughts and wishes of joyful celebrations to everyone, as we will be hunkering down in the mountains this season, enjoying some quiet and cozy fun, sharing meals with friends and enjoying the outdoor ice rinks and groomed cross country ski trails… not enough snow for snowshoeing yet , but I am honestly not complaining!

We sacrificed a sweet little tree to be decked out in lights and felt, and decided to give our umbrella plant the year off of playing christmas tree! Miss Mia picked the tree and sawed lots of it,  carried down the mountain, then carefully decorated it with sweet little needle felted fairies, she has been working hard at creating. Grandma shipped us our holiday stockings and old decorations which we haven’t seen for two years, so we all had nostalgic fun adorning our little tree.

Life has been pretty busy and sleepy all at the same time, what with darkness blanketing us as early as 4 pm these days . I have been knitting up a storm (learning to knit socks even!) and baking lots, eating from the pantry and still enjoying the bounty of our harvest. Dylan has been working two jobs back to back, and is looking forward to a major snow dump to hit the slopes with Mia. Mia is enjoying lazy days now that school is out, she is reading and crafting to no end. No rest for the wicked! We got the loom moved into the yurt a couple weeks ago and I am looking so forward to my first yurt weaving!

Our firewood is running low which will mean some more trips up the hillside for dead standing.. and a REAL effort for future wood stacks. I guess each year it will get easier, and maybe soon we will join the kootenay elite who do their firewood in Feburary for the following year.. that is once we have enough wood for the current year! Heating the yurt has also added to our wood heat needs so our piles of birch (remember the trailer killers?) are almost gone.

We are all healthy and happy and promise to post more in the new year, as we get garden expansion and food planning underway, and get ready to welcome our first WWOOfes in the spring! Dylan and I are working each night on house plans, and are pretty keen to use more shipping containers in the design, along with passive solar details, rain water collection, an attached green house and utilizing the trees we have on site. It will also be nice to finally get out composting toilet in action in the new house. Looks like we are in for a very busy building season ahead!

We have found many snowshoe hare tracks up mountain and maybe just maybe well have rabbit for some holiday meal, tonight for Solstice we are gouing to take the bows for a wonder up mountain and deck out the yurt in balls and holly, and cozy in for a sleep over, complete with a special festive meal.

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas & Happy Chanukah

We have been pushing to get the yurt ready and heated to host guests this week for two exciting events… nothing speeds up a building project like the words “honey I have invited some people over”

Last night was the virgin yurt party and I hosted members of the Slocal Valley Threads Guild, for a gab and jab. The space was AMAZING! It was warm and bright, welcoming and cozy, I think there were 13 gals (and one gentleman artist who was happily sketching our busy knitters) in all, and I realized how many more people we could easily and comfortably accommodate.

The yurt was heated in the nick of time (which seems to be our happy valley pace), the last pipe went in close to midnight the night before the big event, and we were so very toasty warm all night. I think my carpenter wanted to walk on this job, good thing he kept at it, as he made many many ladies happy last night.

I was so caught up in the buzz I failed to take pictures during our stitch and bitch, but I did snap a few before the guests arrived as the dogs and I enjoyed a lingering few moments of quiet and calm in my very own studio space. SPACE… what a concept. Moving from spacious heated homes in the city to cramped micro tin can dwelling in the bush has certainly left me needing some space of my own to stretch my achy cramping artistic wings in.

ahhh. It feels good.

I can’t wait for our first visitors to spend a night in the yurt

I am mid way through my birthday week and this weekend, we are hosting  ”dessert in the yurt” in celebration of having space and being 33, with a dessert pot luck! Maybe I will remember my camera this time!

We are a custom ladder and a rail away from having the cozy sleeping loft competed. That and a final cinch up of the yurt tarps and Dylan won’t have to lay a finger in that space again … until spring that is when I can imagine a lovely wrapping deck and wheelchair ramp from the road to allow easy access for all of our friends and family.

* Look at the lovely custom roof cap! A solid fir pyramid with ample flooding natural light and a hinging access panel for a breathtaking view (and easy maintenance), It has even been keeping out the great deal of rain we have had over the past week, without shedding a drop.

What a talented guy I found! how luck am I?

Every day we watch the frosty tree line drop lower and lower down the mountains… burr. On Tuesday morning we woke to the first snow fall of the year, and Dyl and I did the snowfall scramble… running around the yard picking up tools, and hoses and all of the little bits we lost under a blanket of 6 feet snow last year. The snow was gone by 2 pm but it was a good kick in the ass to get ready for more of the same.

We have been spending lots of time getting the yurt ready, and not a lot of time doing the 10 million other pre winter tasks that need to be done still like: winterizing the chicken coop, getting the rest of the wood in, covering and stowing materials and tools, seeding out the hillside, winterizing the cars and my motorbike, bla bla bla the list is so very long, but each day we tackle what we can, and try not to the let the rest overwhelm us!

The yurt is amazing! What a peaceful and wonderous space! And it is so much roomier than I had imagined. It’s 1/2 the size of our home, so It should swallow up my art supplies and be a warm space for future guests.

We had a trial fire today in the new to us wood stove installed in the yurt we tested out positions for the pipe and ensured the stove was up to the task… and indeed it got toasty warm and looks nice and safe. Once the final essential detail is in place: the roof window cap,  I will move in my creative life. We were hoping to have a family sleep over in the yurt tonight.. but that was maybe just a little optimistic.

The yurt will sleep 4+ and accommodate Ursula (my loom, and her giant footprint). We have designed a really usable space maximizing every inch utilizing recycled and unique materials throughout. My favorite part is the “tuning fork tree” which will eventually be a ladder as well as the primary support for the nearly completed and oh so cozy 1/4 round loft sleeping space. The repurposed tongue and groove floor boards will double as the ceiling to my studio space that can be easily hidden away behind curtains when we have guests, leaving a futon sofa bed, bar table and wood stove for our visitors to enjoy. I can’t wait to stretch out into this lovely round space.. and get artsy…

Oh and on that artsy note.. I learned how to weave a willow basket this weekend! I took a wonderful class at the threads guild, and left with the feeling that I had reconnected with some ancient skill from somewhere deep within my DNA. Basket making was like weaving on the loom in so many ways, but so much more primitive feeling and tactile. My basket as you can see is a rainbow of wild crafted willow suckers in shades of purple, rose, amber and browns, it’s a hearty size too: I put 5 dozen eggs in it with room for another 5 dozen no problem! I am now looking forward to collecting grape vines from the yard and making another basket soon (before I forget what to do).

Our egg production is on the rise these days as our new little birdies are starting to produce. We are steadily getting 10 eggs a day, 3 of which are tiny little banty eggs; 2 of which are deep pale green. We have eggs of all shades of brown, with and without speckles, as well as pale blue and now those tiny deep green ones too. It’s like an easter egg hunt each day! Soon all the “blackies” will be laying blue eggs each day too which will take us up to 16+ eggs a day… Good thing organic heritage eggs are such a great commodity out here, and our dozens are quiet fetching if I do say so myself. The chooks have also been so happy as they are foraging the rows crops and doing a great job cleaning up parts of the garden. Oh and our little baby chick (whom Mia has named Winner) is getting so big, and defiantly has her fathers fathered feet. I think she must be the work of one of the Beetles and Elvis( of course), loving brought into this world and under wing of Madonna.. She is destine to be a star too (or maybe just a spoiled addict, who might be more aptly named Paris, only time will tell)

Miss Mia was Cleopatra for Halloween and we took in two nights of fireworks, bonfires, and haunted houses which was lots of fun. This really is a great community to be a kid in, I think so often how lucky she is to be growing up here,soaking up all of these amazing and practical skills and participating in so many unique classes and workshops, learning life skills and caring for livestock. It’s all pretty wonderful. Her latest lesson here is learning how to drive the quad, and she is doing remarkably good at it! (I guess she takes after her mom). Meanwhile I got a lesson in cheese making by my favourite “milk maid” girlfriend. We made beautiful rounds of goat feta, mmm more on that topic at eating with SOLE.

Once the yurt is settled and looking pretty I will snap some more pictures to share.. until then we will try to stay warm and keep plugging away at the to-do’s.

Poor little fellow

Our little homestead is in grieving today for the untimely death of our most charming mini bantom rooster.. yes that little guy with all the attitude and charisma who had become our little mascot, the little chicken who won the heart of every visitor we’ve ever had.

We have lost our share of chooks in this backwoods adventure, but this guy was about the most special bird I ever did meet. It looks like the neighbour puppy struck again, but other than one heck of a trail of feathers there is no way to know for sure. True to his nature, he fought very hard to the end.

We will really miss our little lone ranger the Red Baron.

Yeah we have a yurt skeleton!

What an exciting weekend, after all these weeks and weeks of making yurt parts, moving earth, leveling ground, playing with foam blocks, and building decking.. it all came together over the past 3 days!

By 4:30 today we had lattice walls up, centre ring up and standing proud on top of all the roof rafters, complete with compression cable and lovely wood door… with two big pushes and the help of some good friends we are one giant step closer to my art studio / guest house!

The woodwork Dylan did is amazing! beautiful clear fir with lovely round overs, and snug custom pieces.

You can see in the image of the garden gates where the yurt sits cozied up to the back of the garden, which sits just below the new road, eventually I see the yurt as a part of the garden, rather than separated from it.

We have come a long way to get here and have a lot more to go before I am cozied up at my loom in a wood fire heated yarn yurt! Just wanted to share the joy

of our latest achievements, while we rush to beat the winter weather.

OH.. and check out the big fish I caught last weekend on our thanksgiving fishing trip!

We have been so busy this season…. I always forget in spring when I think it’s so busy planting, and planning.. how entirely crazy it is in the fall with harvest and getting ready for the snow!

Here is an except from my eating with SOLE blog entry today.. which about summarizes what has been keeping me oh so busy, while Dylan is working away at yurt parts (getting so close to yurt raising day), roof patching, road maintenance and target practice with the bow.. as the hunting season is upon us and Dylan is ready to bring home some meat, we even got a new deep freeze for just the occasion!

Tomorrow we are celebrating the harvest with a day away from the homestead for a trip up to arrow lake with some friends to fish dolly varden, along with some chanterelle mushroom picking, and a mineral hot spring soak!

“giving thanks for abundance…

Along with the abundant joy and abundant fulfillment that comes with living and building our little farmstead on this stunning mountain side, in this magical valley… comes the abundance of harvest time. What a wonderful thing it is to be exhausted with putting up food. Good food, grown with love in my very own dutifully built soil… or from the overflow of abundance our friends are also sharing in. We are thankful to be in this place, in this pinnacle time, drowning in food that needs putting up.

In the last 3 days alone I have:

Shucked a mountain of dry beans, harvested nearly 1lb of dill seeds, harvested and passively dried dozens of kung pow hot peppers, in fear of the tomato blight I harvested everyone of my pounds and pounds of green tomatoes many of which are destine for a spicy green tomato salsa type relish to be canned today, we picked 3 enormous baskets of apples and pears which are drying into sweet snacking chips in a borrowed electric cadillac dryer, tonight I do both pear and apple butter batches too, I pulled blanched and froze a good little supply of purple carrots, I stowed away the last of the ancient Peruvian fingerling potato’s, I have bagged up the last of the passively dried bee balm leaves for earl grey tea, and the ancho chillies a precious few are also passively drying. I have fruit leather to make still at my daughters request (this will be shocking news to those of you who know her), and I want to dry a bunch more kale and some onion flakes from some of my wee little onions while I have the big food dryer here.

Whew!  To think this season alone (with the help of many many people I adore) I have :

canned and added to the pantry:

grape jelly, hibiscus jelly, strawberry jam, kung pow crab apple pepper jelly, smoked salmon, HP sauce, pickled carrots, dilly beans, dill pickles, & drunken apricot jam.

dried and stowed:

bushels of peppermint (or mosquito mint as I like to call it), bee balm, mullen, comfry, oregano, coriander, dill, basil, kale, peppers, peas and beans beans and more beans.

harvested and frozen:

fried chanterelle and shaggy main mushrooms, blanched carrots, beans beans and more beans, salmon steaks, dill, some roosters, strawberries, saskatoon berries, and huckleberries.

That my friends is a good amount of foraged and grown food all ready for the cold winter ahead.

no recipe today… just gratitude for the bounty of mother earth and the lessons we are learning in utilizing healing foods and giving back.”