‘…Betty Crocker never existed. She was created by advertising manager Sam Gale in 1921. General Mills wanted a ’spokeswoman’ to personalize responses to letters it received from consumers.’
Anonymous

Somewhere that’s green

There is a danger these days of true intentioned ecologically-sensitive projects being lumped in with the ‘Walmart biodegradable, eco-friendly, disposable garbage can liners’. Everyone, it would seem, wants to put ‘Green’, ‘Sustainable’, ‘Bio-Degradable’ and ‘Eco-Friendly’ on their products whether or not there is any evidence to support it. There is equally a possibility of such false claims flooding the market and turning an important social movement into a cliché. I already find the word ‘Green’ to be a cliché.

What I’m interested in learning about are the values that live within these catch all phrases?

How are we actually interested in living our lives? If we strip off all of the competitive crap that seems to go a long with making a change in life we are left with our actual value system. I know personally that some things that I possibly ’shouldn’t’. Or I should consider these values obsolete.

For instance, I love taking long hot baths. I can admit it. I probably shouldn’t take a long hot bath every night. It is very wasteful. Likewise, I probably shouldn’t drink beer every day. But I do. Should I therefore pretend that this isn’t true? Shall I keep it in my dark, secret, closet of hypocrisy? Are these Eco-taboos of any use? I see them every day. People coyly admitting that ‘well they really shouldn’t… but they do’. I see absolutely no value in this fear. I mean I can respect the fear. But I don’t respect behavior that perpetuates the continuation of our societies need to hide from itself.

‘Cast out first the beam of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.’
King James Bible,
Luke 6:42

I’m interested in creating an environment where people can make some significant tangible changes without feeling that they are being scrutinised by their neighbours. These changes may seem minuscule or enormous but they are all important.

A family that commits to composting not only reaps the benefits of healthier soil, it gains a new status quo. Children growing up in these families will believe this to be absolutely normal. They will see a connection between what they eat and the earth that it comes from. One family composting is not going to ‘change the world’ as we often like to say. But is it true? Everything (positive or negative) changes the world.

I have only my life to change.

I will make it exactly the way that I want it to be.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein

On Wednesday September the 3rd, About 40 young students from UNB’s Forestry and Environmental management department came out to the One Tree Orchard as part of their fall field trip. UNB has kindly offered to allow their students to work with our project as part of their studies. This partnership offers some fabulous ‘real-world’ opportunities for students as they will be working first hand at creating a very new type of forestry management at the One Tree Orchard. Without a doubt, it also offers to the project a wealth of new talent and strengths.  We are thrilled to have you aboard!

It was so fabulous to see so many people walking through the grounds of our project area. The students were very intelligent and asked many difficult and provocative questions!  A great word of thanks goes out to Tom Beckley and Shawn Dalton and to the students for coming.   My thanks go also to Yolanda Spithoven of the UNB department of Forestry and Environmental Management for having organised their visit with us.

From One Tree Orchard