Common Ground

This week is Common Ground at MacEwan University, where I work with The Students’ Association, and we are focusing on acting local. It is easy to get super excited about sustainable living and supporting local business, especially food producers. If we grow our own food or buy from local growers we can drastically reduce our carbon footprint. Plus the food tastes better. Shopping in the organic food isle, at the grocery store, doesn’t count as shopping local. A lot of that produce is shipped, on average, 1500 km and often more just like the non-organic. Growing some of your own food can also make a significant impact on carbon waste reduction. At the very least, I like to grow my own tomatoes, chives and basil. It doesn’t take a ton of effort and it makes me feel great when I cook with items I grew myself.

Growing up, I enjoyed the benefits of a family who found the value in living sustainably. Truthfully, my parents were starving-students with three younglings and it was much cheaper to live this way. My mom and dad have always kept a garden, even if it was just a 3x5 plot in front of their student housing townhouse. My dad has hunted for much of our meat and caught a great deal of our fish. They freeze veggies and there was time when my mom was canning various things and even making yogurt from scratch. At a time when she was also making vanilla pudding from scratch it was always a little risky, as a five-year-old, to grab a spoonful of whatever creamy substance was in a bowl as it wasn’t always sweet and yummy, yet.

At the peak of their sustainable living efforts we were living in Worsley Alberta. My mom was grinding wheat for four, my dad was hunting deer and other game and they were both gardening and raising chickens and pheasants. Our family was in one of our poorest financial states then but we were defiantly eating well. I remember that food tasting the best, and those years being when we ate together as a family the most. We were involved, together, as a family building and creating a life rather than just moving through it.

Although us three younglings where barely three apples tall, we had our roles. My brother at two-years-old was the designated egg dropper and the designated dog fetcher to clean up dropped eggs. He would grab an egg from the basket one of us had set down, step away and drop the egg then holler, “Puppy! Egg!” Then our dopey cocker-spaniel, Andrew, would gallop up with his ears flopping everywhere to devour the egg mess. I think he got as much on his ears as he did in his mouth.

My sister, then four-years-old, and I would fetch eggs and feed the chickens. Sometimes we would help tend the garden with close supervision from Mom. My favorite times where when our mom would take us for walks to search for edible wild plants to garnish our salads with. Pigweed, I think that is what she called it, was my favorite. It had leaves sort of like spinach that where dusted with a sparkly purple. I still find it from time to time but not often in places I am willing to eat from.

My dad got his first deer in Worsley, in a field across from our acreage. He came running home, burst through the door and franticly asked my mother where I was. She told him I was outside playing and asked where else I would be, slightly worried by my dad’s frantic tone and confused by the giant grin on his face. “I got a Deer!” he responded and ran out to find me.

If my mom had had time to think about the situation I probably would have missed my first biology lesson. I remember standing on the edge of the field and my dad explaining the circle of life to me. I know realize he was testing the water and preparing me in case I decided he had killed Bambi. Bambi was the last thing on my mind. The whole “dad hunting” thing had a lot of hype built around it by then and I was so stoked that my dad got a deer!

We walk up to the deer and I crouched down beside him as he began to explain his steps. He pointed out all the different part or the deer’s body and how they worked as he field dressed the animal. I honestly think that day is responsible for both my short stint of vegetarianism as a teenager and my now treasured hunting hobby.

We moved from Worsley shortly afterward. I was six-years-old and partly through grade one. My parents continued to garden and my dad continued to hunt in the next town we moved to and then when they finally settled in Peace River. There we no more chickens or pheasants or walks to collect sparkly-purple edibles but their gardens evolved in to what is now a park like setting complete with a creek, fish pond and wee little bridge.

My family, and myself as an individual, have slowly come back to a higher level of sustainable living. Not to the extent as we had in Worsley but somewhere in-between. I shop at the farmers markets here in Edmonton for as much of our groceries as possible. My dad and I still hunt for some of the family’s meat. My parents grow a fantastic amount of vegetables in their garden. And we are learning everything we can about how to grow and live more sustainable and efficiently. We do these things not only because they help to reduce our carbon footprint but because they help to create and maintain connections and relationships that make us the family that we are. You could say that working together to provide some of our needs gives us Common Ground.



Dad’s Patio Tomatoes and Zucchinis


My dad makes this dish on the side burner of his barbeque a few times every summer. With stuff from the garden, of course. To me, it is the taste of summer.


Ingredients:
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium Red onion diced (White will do)
1 large or two small zucchini
2 small to medium tomatoes chopped in bite sized pieces (Roma are best)
½ cup of fresh chives
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a frying pan at a medium heat. Add and sauté the onions until they are translucent. It is important not to brown them, just soften them. Add the zucchini then the chives and tomatoes about 3 minutes later. Toss together and simmer until the zucchini is your desired tenderness and the tomatoes have made a sort of sauce. Usually about 3-5 minute. Serve as a side dish with your favorite patio main course.

I’ve added shrimp, a squeeze of lemon and basil to make a pasta dish that is quite a bit different but still very good.



I am currently planning a patio garden for the condo Nik and I are moving into. I look forward to applying some of the permaculture methods and indoor garden methods I have been reading about. I’ve included some of the links to these methods below and encourage anyone reading this to look into growing a little of your own food. Also, if you haven’t already, check out your local farmers markets and other local and sustainably focused businesses and organizations in your area.

Links:

http://www.windowfarms.org/
http://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-design/saving-food-fridge-it-will-taste-better-may-even-last-longer-and-reduce-your-energy-bills.html
http://myphytopod.com/
http://www.edmontonpermaculture.ca/
http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/