Sometimes entries are as natural as can be. The miracle of sun in seattle. It is a great city. As far as cities go. And Aunties named Amy from Alaska with home caught sockeye! We love tante amy!

This week has been stunning is many ways. My gal is 7, no small deal around here. I believe that hearth is about to make a major and important transition to being a wider community effort. I got up the nerve to ask for help from friends who have offered to do just that. And they seem really enthusiastic about what we may be able to do!

The work I do for CEI/ BEN is allowing me to get back into grant seeking – and I am loving it all. I have several skeletons of applications that can finally get polished up. I am really, really looking forward to learning and doing more of this for my group.

The whole corporate driven government of this nation/globe is being revealed for the psycho power money freaks that they are, and it seems many are finally ready to engage this system and tear it down. Making the world a better place for my girl as she passes 7 years old into the rest of her life.

It all turned out “way alright.”

I have been experiencing successive waves of organizing. And i have to say that i love it. i have a new persistence based on efficient motion. it applies to moving bins of popcorn as well as getting everything else done. not new, just an increase in frequency that it crosses my mind to do a little more with a little less. or a lot more with the same. In any event and on every scale, I am enjoying the results of the anti-entropic work. More of the chop wood, carry water but applied across some motions that I never incorporated into a rhythm before now. We will just have to see how long I can maintain this energy level. It feels like I can do it!

I had the best time this last Tuesday seeing the turn out for the Vancouver Watersheds Alliance showing of Queen of the Sun. It was a packed house and tremendous to see the active bee and VWA community talking and listening. Energizing all around. It really did give a boost to WestVanBeeStewards and I am shortly off to start the BFZ – Bee Friendly Zone project. More info on that will show up on the WestVanBeestewards site!

I used to love public speaking and then I didn’t. I preferred all the back issue stuff like fact checking and information gathering or materials prep. Or even the physical labor of building, doing hauling. After that long hiatus away form talking and “teaching” (ha!), I realized that it is necessary, needed, wanted, and part of the overall community dialogue. And that to skirt around that public dialogue makes the gathering of information a bit useless. Not only that, but I get to meet likeminded folks!

I look forward to more engagement with my neighbors and co-conspirators about how powerful a group of people can be in creating cleaner, better, stronger communities. Bee Friendly Communities!

p.s. the picture is of me talking and talking, but not at the bee event….. It was taken last year by Abby Harris. (The fabulous Abby Harris)

p.p.s Go see Dirt! the movie. on February 28th, 2012. It is awesome.

i hear many lament that they learned stuff in school that has no purpose. hell, even i have made the argument that i will die of a heart attack if someone actually paid me to draw a picture of the book lungs of a spider! that said, i am damn proud that I can still compare breathing apparatus of birds, spiders, insects, fish, mammals etc!

even if pride and memory stretching aren’t good enough to be called “useful”, most of everything you learn you CAN find a way to apply. I kid you not! Now, learning how to apply knowledge is a knowledge in itself. And the first rule of learning that is to never be discouraged. No matter what officials, teachers, or your peoples tell you.

i am working hard on labels and applications in addition to contract work that deadlines at the end of the month.  And what I am beginning to really feel is the need to talk to a million different officials about the rules and regulations that might apply to the next phase of my project. or not.

do i need to observe a setback, is it allowed in city limits, what kind of license. are you sure that this is the way? until, at last, i can do what i want to do somewhere within a 5 block radius of my homespot. i just love the look on people’s faces when they realize that i won’t go away until i get an answer that fits.

I am always thoroughly excited when projects overlap and both can be strengthened with one effort. I have been gazing and meandering through farm listings in our region (and how awesome the selection is!), and I have been preparing the pasture list and looking for those that keep bees. I now have a great grass-fed beef and other meat animals listing for the 2012 season AND I have a list of farms where I can ask about beekeeping practices and talk shop about bees in Clark County. Winter may quiet the soil and the hives, but it is damn busy here above-ground on the market-front! But very sweet too.

There are so many things that i have actually accomplished n the last year that I am a bit stunned myself. I told myself at the beginning of 2011 that I would make the year special in terms of my determination and courage. After a sucktastically not good 2010 on the personal front, 2011 was like lightning and fireworks. For 2012, I dream of poblanos and getting back to farm circuit and adding the market stall at urban growers market. Here in the weird, warm January it is a lovely dream.