Traced Elements

Tag: traced elements

  • Happy Anniversary, to me.

    Happy Anniversary, to me.

    It was a year ago to the day while consuming a couple tasty Steam Works IPAs in a Richmond Irish Pub en route to a family vacation in Mexico that I took the plunge and joined the Traced Elements family. Maybe it was liquid courage that egged me on because at the time I was scared to dive into a world I knew nothing about: writing. The only constant I had to offer was my deep love for gardening. As luck would have it I learned I also loved to write – or maybe this whole endeavor came into my life when I needed a new outlet more then I realized at the time.

    Regardless: it’s one of my favourite decisions to date.

    The winter’s sun, as of late, has been flooding my living space with a warming heat reminiscent of sandy beaches and margaritas while the arctic air swirls around outside. My cheeks are constantly blushed in colour having been kissed by the cold. Overall, I welcome this false warmth; it’s a perfect excuse to devour a bowl of spicy miso ramen, everyday.

    As the days get longer I look forward to my garden springing to life, even if they are currently blanketed in more snow then I can recall in the valley in years, my thoughts are hopeful, green and full of blooms. Many days I get lost and overwhelmed by the potential of things to grow as I browse numerous websites. Basically, my urge to propagate as many cool things as possible usually wins. You already know if you’ve read my other blogs that I’m a firm believer in the, “there is no harm in trying” experimental method.

    Seeds; they fuel everything. (A little bit of love doesn’t hurt either.)

    Plant anything and something good is bound to come from it. Sometimes there is growth and sometimes there are failures; either way you’ll learn something.

    I have been carrying the following quote with me for years but it is only now that I finally feel like I am acting on it (after all spring ushers in rebirth). So, in the words of Byron Pulsifer I leave you with this,

    “Passion creates the desire for more and action fuelled by passion creates a future.”

    …get ready to see some really cool things from me.

    #summerofmeesh

     

  • The Dirt on Food and it’s Power to Heal

    The Dirt on Food and it’s Power to Heal

     

    chooks

    Fuck calories.

    To which I would add, fuck “clean eating”, fuck salmonella poisoning, and fuck the commodities trading of food futures.

    Let’s bring eating back to earth.

    By which I mean, let’s put the dirt back on your produce, the scruffiness into your hospitality, and relationships back into your consumption.

    Let’s put ecology back on the table.

    Literally, let’s place the dinner table into a web, instead of at the end of supply chain. Let it be part again of a network of living things, that flow through and from the table, in a million different forms – energy, sunlight, worm food, fresh produce, dead animals; as an anchor to conversation, to nourishment, to relationship, to healing.

    Reclaim the table, and the garden, the power that food has heal – not just our bodies, but our relationships, our sense of agency, and our role as stewards and restorers of the earth. And the opportunity food offers us, to grow – not just out there in the soil, but as humans.

    We’ve been consumers for long enough.

    This website is a place to map food stories, from the heart of the Pemberton Valley, in order to turn consumers on to the idea of being growers, creators, culture-shapers and restorers of the planet. Without guilt. Without pressure. With joyful messy experimentation, scrappy gardens, candour and dirt.

    Community Garden