99 red poppies

On this 99th anniversary of the birth of my paternal grandmother, and in the absence of a digital record of her life, I will write her a memorial obituary, now that the fog of losing her have lifted a little, after fifteen years.

Annie Yvonne Iona Chadwick nee Hutchings
Born 1920 Quebec City
Died 2004 Scarborough


My grandmother was my best friend, mentor, confidante, supporter and provider of a special and unique type of unconditional love.  She was tough yet fragile, brilliant yet humble. She had a million stories yet she always prefered to draw out the stories of others rather than share her own. She was adamant that she did not want people looking at pictures of her after her death...   But her rockery was her landscape engineering pride and joy, so here is one of her checking in on the woman enjoying a moment on the slate slabs that appear to have been recently constructed... my best guess is that is likely Mrs. Hunter, from two doors down. Perhaps my dad will remember....

It is my grandmother who taught me to make time for walking, enjoying the wind and learning about the plants that surround us. She lit fires on the days that were darker, wetter or colder than the others. She took me to see ballets and operettas and she loved hearing classical music playing on her kitchen radio... the only form of media she consumed on a daily basis. My grandmother was so very careful about what she allowed into her body, and into her home. Once, she scolded me for bringing in items that were over packaged that resulted in doubling her weekly garbage output, which was one small plastic bag full. Everything else was either avoided at the source, or composted in the backyard bin. A lifelong member donor to Pollution Probe, my grandmother was equally careful about what we put back out into the environment from inside our home. Fires in the fire place were carefully monitored to ensure that plant based products only found their way up the chimney stack....

I hope as I continue my journey through adulthood, I can aquire some of the traits she had.... the balance between careful and carefree attitude, the service to community and an unwavering commitment to support life through her relationship with the earth and her community.

I love you... and miss you... and as your second great grandson reminds me... I know you are also always with us.... thank you for your service and love.

Winds of Change

#MesoamericanDanza presentation at Treehugger Organic Farms

Today we said our farewell to a piece of land that has sustained us and our community here in South Broward County for the past 4 years... a permaculture oasis in the midst of the concrete jungle we know as South Florida, east of the Everglades... a local food sanctuary known as Treehugger Organic Farms, now listed as permanently closed on your google GPS mapping system.

It was a bittersweet walk through the daikon radishes, lesser known banana species, greens, fruit trees, birds and butterflies. This farm felt like home, that safe place you can go to for peace, quiet, and tenderly cared for oceans of green.

@bawshkeengwabigun @treehuggercommunity #togetherwegrow

A post shared by Scott Evan Schlossman (@iloveushutup) on Apr 30, 2017 at 2:34pm PDT

There was a food forest on a mulch hill, a coconut grove interspersed with comfrey plants, florida nopalitos, tumeric and ginger, a spring fed pond that supplies water to the farm, and rotating fields of boniato, tomato, kale, collards, mustard, fennel, spinach, beans, millet, sugar cane, and just about everything in between.

Winds of change... @TreehuggerFarms -> #TogetherWeGrow https://t.co/uRJ5XiRj2L

Sign up for news on how you can help create #foodsecurity pic.twitter.com/y5Sqb5TSzK

— Tara Chadwick (@wabigun) May 1, 2017

One day after the mega #PeoplesClimateMarch in several cities, and on the eve of #InternationalWorkersDay, it seemed like a huge mountain to move.  The reality of agricultural land tenure here in Florida is that access to farmable land is unstable, market based, and temporary.   In reflecting, I realize that personally, I subscribe more to the Haudenosaunee approach to land management whereby we humans are responsible to protect, nurture and strengthen the land/ soil/ earth, on behalf of it's only true owners, that generation of unborn children who has not yet arrived here via the miracle we know as birth.

Miami Herald photo by Al Diaz

What a timely consideration given the fact that I am, for the first time in my life, the biological auntie to one of these not-yet-born owners of the earth.  But in the volatile market economy that most of us are engaged within by choice or necessity, land is but a commodity, like humans once were, to be bought, sold and traded at the will of those who believe themselves to be in positions of power over others.

But this momentary twinge of grief in losing a space in which to enjoy the company of others, and ourselves in the company of Mother Earth and her pretties, is just a reminder that in fact we are owners of nothing, but rather bearers of ideas, thoughts, insights, and the potential to seed a new generation of humans with the capacity to return to a life steeped in nature, health and harmony with the cycles of all living beings including the soil, rock, sand and oil that make up the material we know as earth.

Summer fun!

July! Last leg of the freedom of summer vacation. End of the carefree "lazy, hazy, crazy dayz of summer."  Here in South Florida this is the time to prep for the possibility of the occasional hurricane.  And in the meantime, we enjoy those summer fruit jewels - mango, mamey, and the family of annona.  The heat is so intense but the sweetness of a tree-ripened tropical fruit is so very delicious!

Its that time to also start sending our thoughts toward preparations for fall. That means setting those marigold and milkweed seeds to germinate, as many as possible! Those monarch butterflies will be gliding through our greater everglades flyway before you know it and in our overdeveloped coastal areas, this means we need to plant more milkweed! [Get your free milkweed seeds here.] Then we can start to plan for which veggies will go where and what soil conditions each needs... soil type is so crucial here in the tropics... northern gardeners really just don't get it!

Finally, it's that time to start thinking about ofrendas. This year's #SouthFloridaDayoftheDead Celebration will host free community workshops throughout the fall, including family friendly puppet, mask and ofrenda making. Follow South Florida Day of the Dead for event postings coming soon! There's also a couple of adult only events too, including Roast of the Calacas which offers a showcase of your best off-color puppet humor (call to artists coming soon).  Applications are open for the community to participate as artists in the month long Ofrenda exhibit at History Fort Lauderdale. And everyone is welcome to dance, walk or roll in the November 2 Day of the Dead procession from Huizenga Plaza through the downtown historic district to Revolution Live.

In the end it's all a cycle, with art, love & planting holding it all together for us - let's work!

Learn more about Mesoamerican Danza
Photo credit: Kendall Clarke

Carnival!

Carnival Season is here.

Yes, I'm a somewhat slow learner... not growing up a religious person per se, I'm just beginning to see the links between the Winter Carnival that I heard so much about in Quebec, the Saint Paul Winter Carnival we love so much, the Mardi Gras of New Orleans and Carnival of Rio and Trinidad that is now celebrated so vehemently in Belize, Miami-Broward, Toronto and throughout the Caribbean.

It's incredible to see the emergence of such amazingly vibrant colors and textures on incredible engineering designs expressing sailors, flowers, fire, birds, butterflies and bugs! Trinidad Carnival Queen Competition For the first time, I'm learning the history of carnival and connections to cultural, ecological traditions marking the scientific cycles of seasons change. Even the correlation between Valentine's Day and carnival traditions are surprisingly relevant to our increasing desire to play mas.

Agriculture. That basic necessity for food and water is at the root of what still drives our motivation to participate in community even today. 

So in an effort to ensure that our access to safe and healthful food and water will improve rather than deteriorate, we take notice and action on current events and steps to the future. Clean water is one of those primary building blocks of life. Right now, it's our responsibility to clean up our mistakes, and train ourselves for a future that protects water as a basic right of humans and the natural world. 

Obviously, besides air, food is the next basic element that we need. And to protect our food requires us to fully comprehend and defend the complex and interconnected systems that contribute to our ability to access safe, healthy food.  Pollinators. Climate. Biodiversity. Hydrology. Harvest. Distribution. Seeds.

These are milkweed seeds. We brought them to last week's Martin Luther King Day Parade and celebration. Because these seeds represent a human decision to take action. In this case, action on behalf of one family to encourage others to replant this single source of monarch caterpillar food. That butterfly that is now endangered due to habitat loss and pesticide pollution. That plant ecosystem that once sustained aphids, ladybugs, ants and butterflies... that no longer exists as expanses of fields holding fuel for the seventh generation of monarch before their great annual journey south and north across this great continent... I remember those many, many monarchs... gathering like orange maple leaves changing over a frosty late summer evening on the north shore of Lake Ontario... And I intend to see the day when my children get to witness those monarchs en masse, following the cycles on a path to safe, clean food and water across the lap of our beautiful earth mother once again.

Milkweed seeds by Adrienne Chadwick

Florida Fall

Just a little stream of consciousness blogging this time - it's my birthday month after all! And that beautiful time of year when I get to enjoy avocados from the tree so generously planted by my mother in our almost non-existant back yard! It's amazing what you can grow, even with very little space.  The eggplants that sewed from seed at the start of summer have blossomed all month, but not a single fruit.  The leaves are beauties though - not sure why no one has them as houseplants! Maybe they're like squash and it takes a human touch to ensure pollination...

So many thoughts, so little time. One of the most exciting highlights of the month was seeing the bald eagle again across the street. Signs of hope. Hopefully. And of course knowing that we've entered a new era, according to the count of the moon. New is always good, at least if it's all natural - by the way, it may not be actually, if there's a label involved....

Okay, so now that I'm feeling all shy and embarrassed for providing a short glimpse into the raw, unedited mind of me... I'll close for now... Enjoy the beauty of the season!

Bawshkeengwabigun.

Happy Autumn!

Here it is:

• the fledgling results of my deepest soul searching
• a summary of the things I really enjoy filling my life with
• an almost shameless effort in self promotion

Your brand new comprehensive guide to services available from yours truly! If you know of anyone who shares our values and has an interest in or need for any of the offerings I can provide, I deeply appreciate connections assistance.  I'm still working on the references and testimonials section - so if we have worked together before, I would love to see your thoughts in the comment section!

Thank you so much for your good thoughts, work and inspiration.  May we all move forward together!

Tara

Back to the Basics

As a mom of two young boys, I invest a lot in their future.  Today, at the dawn of this 21^st century, I often wonder: what will they truly need in order to live a healthy, happy, fulfilled life to its fullest? (As visions of ad logos dance in my head.) More space, money, cars…? Does more lead to fulfillment? Happiness?

Of course, as a mom, I want my children to always have what they need to live a full and productive life.  And now, more than ever, I think and worry about how our basic building blocks of life – air, water, earth – seem increasingly in peril.  And so, part of the investment I make in my children’s future is feeding them with food that is as safe and nutritious as possible.  But I also think about how far that food has traveled and how much water and energy was used to produce it.

We are hearing much about drought and water shortage these days, I know that we are going to feel that too, before the arrival of rainy season here in South Florida.  Did you know that throughout the US, a good 50% of our national water supply goes into the food we eat? It can take 200 gallons of water to produce a pound of beans.  A pound of beef can take over 2,000 gallons of water to produce.

Another thing that we feel here in South Florida is the real need for clean air that is cooled down to a liveable temperature. In the US almost 50% of our energy use is in heating and cooling homes and buildings.

But we have structures available to us to build our homes, businesses and public buildings in ways that use less than ¼ of that heating/ cooling energy.  And there are farming systems that grow food with minimal inputs of energy, water and chemicals. We just need to utilize them!

Climate change is happening, no matter how many $$$ you put into denying it.  Our temperatures overall are rising, ice sheets are retreating, and we have only one choice: ADAPT.

So that is what I teach my children – creativity, adaptation, and the importance of observing and considering the cycles and patterns of nature in all our actions and decisions.  It is what our ancestors have done, and it is the only way we will successfully navigate the changing times ahead.

We – our whole planet – are an ecosystem.  And yes, we are diverse, competitive, and at times, ruthless.  But we are all interconnected, bound together by our commonality and our dependence on the air, soil and life blood of our first mother – Earth.

Tara Chadwick works as a community outreach consultant for Earth Learning and would like to invite you to the 2014 Local Food Enterprise Summit in Miami May 31-June 2. Registration information is available at www.financialpermaculture.com, spaces are filling quickly.

   

It is time for us ALL to rise!

Climate, drought, floods, storms, damage, rebuilding, resilience, adaptation. It is time for us to rise!

A very
urban
bald
eagle
came
over to
look
for fish
in the
lake
as I
began
to
write
today.

Throughout the years of my teenage-hood, I carried within me a vision of “what I want to be when I grow up.” And despite the fact that I am a born and raised city girl, I knew from a very young age that my life desire was to learn about who I am as a part-Maya woman, and to work toward a time when I would have the skills, capacity and connectedness to sustain my own life using materials and resources that occur naturally on the Earth.

It seems a very practical and noble vision today, but in the progressive days of the 1980’s, a life goal of self-sustainability, self-sovereignty (though I could not describe it that way in those days) was seen as overly humble, too modest, and even today is often regarded as unrealistic.  And yet, one cannot undo one’s vision.  It can be designed, planned and implemented, even tweaked or reformatted, but that underpinning image, the reality with which it is emblazoned in one’s soul, and the memories of recalling it over many years of reflections just simply cannot be undone…

And so, I continue to move along on my life path, carrying memories of learning, experiences of doing, relationships (at least some of them anyways), and I realize, to my surprise, that I am on a journey toward the completion of a great circle!  Watching carefully how the weather patterns are changing, how our food and access to it is being modified, I wonder where the other 99% were when I was sitting in 9^th grade geography class listening to Mr. Thompson teach us about the two possible scenarios that would occur due to the increasing greenhouse effect… I am so confused by climate change skepticism.

But I am also more certain than ever now that my choices to live a humble life in pursuit of happiness, freedom and harmony with Mother Nature are more than responsibilities, these footsteps are my legacy…

April 28, 2014

Pinelands Park

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Spring 2014 - The season of regeneration has arrived!

I spent the day of the equinox sorting corn soup corn seeds thanks to George & Syd Martin's kind sharing of their precious seeds, instructions and memories at winter ceremonies 2012

It’s a beautifully cool and grey morning here in South Florida, the spring season has arrived and with it the excited sounds of the birds whose beautiful songs seem to reach new heights of pitch and melody…

I can’t say that I miss the raw wind, snow and cold that so easily penetrate one’s final layers of resistance to the winters of the northern latitudes, especially this year where the average daily temperatures reached far below any recent human memory.

But I do miss the beauty of the snow, the intricate interplay of geometry and light we see reflected on a single snowflake, I miss the warm coffee stops on cold days, and I especially miss feeling the comraderie of people working together to keep their families and communities intact even in the face of such bone chilling environmental realities… the fridgidity of the weather I think helps to cultivate the warmth of people’s hearts…

In many ways, I have found Minnesota and Florida polar opposites, in terms of much more than the obvious weather patterns. There are so many people here, four times as many at least.  And the social disparities while they are obvious in Minnesota, are as amplified in South Florida as the temperature difference on an average early spring day.

The bio diversity of plant, insects and humans is incredibly rich and beautiful, but the relationships that exist between us all seem as fragile as the scanty layer of subtropical topsoil which, fertile though it is, takes 1000 years to produce just one inch of fine, silty soil over the porous limestone that is our area’s bedrock (hence the litany of sinkholes that seem to be opening at an increasingly rapid rate).

Getting to know and understand a new geography is a daunting, seemingly lifelong task.  But the exercise in trying leads to the realization that our parents and grandparents, wherever they are from, were grounded in the knowledge of how to best utilize the gifts of the land and its processes, in a way that also preserved and ensured their continuity in perpetuity.  This regenerative use philosophy, I am now coming to see, is encoded in our cultural, family and community values, traditions and the teachings we pass on to our children and loved ones.  Many of the things we don’t do anymore because we don’t have to, are the very things that contribute to our success in sustaining the ecosystem that we depend on. (Think of the things our grandparents make fun of us for not knowing or doing anymore… walk to school, haul water, chop wood, empty the chamber pot, keep a compost…)

For the few who remember and find ways to replicate and share these treasures of knowledge that others have cast off as “old,” with the connotation of no longer useful or valuable, our future generations of human beings will be eternally grateful to you.  For those who can, LISTEN, LEARN & PRACTICE!  Our grandparents do not stay with us forever, so spend time with them when you can, ask questions, and above all, remember what stories of nature they tell you… OUR grandchildren will have many questions about the world and our place in it and they will need to hear us tell them the stories from the land of our grandparents.

Happy Spring!  Wherever we are right now, let's plant seeds that will feed our minds and bodies with nutrient dense soul food… and milkweed… please plant extra milkweed for our friendly neighborhood pollinators.

Corn boy exploring the permaculture plantings

Links:

Free milkweed plants, seeds and monarch larvae

Microbiology of subtropical karst soils 

Amazing how many of our grandparents used these foods! 

A Plug for Earth Learning and the Financial Permaculture Institute

EL 3.0.2

A blog by T.A.Chadwick

2.25.13

We are now at the midpoint of the winter season, and regardless of one’s relative geographic location, nature is relentlessly reminding us: you know what to do… you know you can do better… you must take another step… the wind whispers our instructions, blue jays never let us forget, butterflies, bees and hummingbirds gently enforce Earth’s patterns and cycles.

Our growing collective human realization that we must do our part to regenerate Earth’s biosystems is an awareness that’s fostering a renewed focus on sustainability and a closer examination of the intersection of economy, finance, business development and an ancient concept with a pointedly contemporary potential for innovation:  permaculture.

Permaculture, in a nutshell, is designing human systems that replicate and regenerate Earth’s natural processes.  Financial permaculture is “working with local communities to create holistic and regenerative economic solutions for local and international sustainability.”

On May 31 – June 4, Earth Learning and the Financial Permaculture Institute are hosting the 2014 Local Food Enterprise (LiFE) Summit in Miami to continue building local food infrastructure here in the Greater Everglades bioregion. This is an open call to participate as a trainee, investor or food lover!  Our objective is to engage entrepreneurs and consumers in growing the local ecology of “a life sustaining culture” to expand access to delicious food grown safely and sustainably right here in the Greater Everglades.

Four local food enterprises will serve as this year’s design clients.  Everyone who registers as a LiFE Summit participant will have the opportunity to join one of four design teams who will work together to develop real-time, case-specific permaculture business/ farm/ enterprise models for each design client to implement.

Registration is open now for the week-long Summit or the keynote lectures only, including the final evening’s unveiling and launch of the newly designed Local Food Enterprises!

Sign up today and refer a friend to get rooted in “growing a life-sustaining culture here in the Greater Everglades bioregion.”

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