Every day needs to be Earth Day

It's wild how quickly the days keep flipping past -- with me only now finally getting around to saying a bit about how I spent Earth Day. Where the theme of this year's observance was Environmental and Climate Literacy, it was appropriate for this to also be the day when scientists marched, with the goal of science being respected again as the basis for decision-making.

As for my day, I was lucky enough to be invited to a conference on Permaculture. It seemed like an appropriate way to spend the day, even though much of the time was spent indoors. Topics addressed ranged from disaster-preparedness (and forming community in our neighbourhoods) to understanding the nature of currency. For the currency session, all 50 of us walked down to nearby Crescent Beach, where our history lesson included rocks and a stick with notches carved into it.

I first heard about the permaculture movement when I lived in Australia, back in 2002. I suppose it's taken a while for it to take hold here. But, the same way I like to think about postings on this blog, better late than not at all.

It was encouraging to see a range of ages represented at this event -- for a nice change, there were more young people than older ones -- certainly a positive sign for our future.

And I was especially happy to come home and be reminded of the ways we practise so many of the tenets of permaculture in our little yard -- our rain barrels, our compost bin and of course, our 'kitchen garden' which will soon again be providing our summer salads. Yep, those tender green shoots in the image above are some of the seedlings we've started for our outdoor salad bar. Yummm!