Vancouver Island Sustainable Future

Well, the end of the this three-week challenge is almost here. Most days I have managed to complete my two daily challenges, even though it has been a busy time that has included travelling, houseguests, and other commitments. I found it difficult to source meatless meals in restaurants when I was travelling. It would. To have been so hard if I...

I have begun shopping regularly at an independent grocer that carries local, organic, and sustainable foods. For example, they have grass-fed beef and local seafood. 

About mulching. I have not had much time to work in the yard lately. For one thing, I have been travelling and away from home. The other thing is that it has been rainy here. I am glad it is raining, as the water is good for the forests, the garden, and the watershed. But rain is not conducive for working in the garden. My plan is to work some...

One of the downsides of choosing to live in  a rural area is that I have to have a vehicle. Presently I drive a small, fuel efficient car. It has options like econo-mode, an engine that shuts off at stoplights, and a digital readout that gives feedback about how accelaeration relates to fuel used. It gets good mileage. But it does require...

I have been travelling for the last two days. It is much harder to find healthy meat-free meals on the road. I’m sure it would not be so hard if I was travelling in or through urban locations, but in regional airports and small towns, it is not so easy, especially when pressed for time, and without a car. In fact, it is hard to even find food...

I live in a semi-rural area, and I have been looking into options for sourcing groceries locally to reduce the amount of driving I do. The other thing I have been looking for are places to buy locally raised foods, ideally at locally owned stores, farm gate sales, and so on. There is a small grocery store only 3 kilometres away from me....

I belong to a service club and sometimes, as a fund-raising initiative, we cook breakfasts and lunches at community events. Typically breakfasts are pancakes and sausage, and lunches are hamburgers and hotdogs. Tonight at a meeting, I proposed that we provide a meatless option at an upcoming lunch (veggies dogs) along with the meat options. The...

There are a lot of elements that work together to make a community sustainable. As most of the world lives in urban areas, I will write about urban communities. I think a city should be designed to include distinct neighbourhoods, each clustered around a town centre area that included shops, a community centre, library, medical clinic, schools,...

A one-time challenge that I chose is to mulch around the trees and shrubs in my yard. We have a lot of them. Last fall, we raked the leaves, needles, and pine cones around them, but we have more trees than mulch. In the summer it will be especially important to much so we don’t have to water as much. I guess I will have to go to a garden shop...

I volunteered with my grandson’s eco-preschool today. We went on a forest walk. Although we were in the forest for nearly an hour and a half, my wearable fitness device did not even register it as exercise because we stopped so often to look at things. We were looking for signs of spring. We stopped and looked at skunk cabbages that were...