The Tilsons

Yesterday, my fabulous husband decided to start dinner, which was super sweet because I was out for the afternoon.  I cam home and found him and the Sun Oven out in the Garden, cooking away.  Since the chicken was only at 80 degrees F, we decided to turn it and come back in a while.

The thing was, when Justin went out to check the chicken, it was gone, along with our garden potatoes, thermometer and Sun Oven.  Someone stole the whole show.

Justin came in to tell me - and if you know how much stuff we’ve had stolen, you could understand - he was defeated.  Neither of us could believe it.  We decided to go for a walk and see if we could find it, maybe someone just tossed into the bushes.  Nope.

We did find some homeless people under the bridge though, and asked them to please let us know if they see anyone with it, or get it back if it was in their power at all.  We decided to finish the trail under the Burrard bridge and head to GI to get another chicken.  Then, the most amazing thing happened.

One of the guys that was under the bridge, cycled up to us and tossed a 20 at Justin.  He told us to go buy ourselves some dinner and that it is wrong to steal someones food.  If he could, he would find it and bring it back to us.  And no, he would not take the twenty back. Then he zoomed off.

I burst into tears. Someone with apparently so little, and sadly the last person I would expect,  just gave us something that we lost a long time ago - a sense of greater community outside of our friends.

I have no doubt that he will find the Sun Oven and bring it back - hopefully he will except a hot meal in return.

Suzanne and Dominique of Rocky Mountain Flatbread threw a media event today to promote Feast of Fields. Feast of Fields brings farmers and chefs together at three different events each summer including Vancouver, Whistler and Vancouver Island.

The morning event included some delicious dessert like pizza featuring toppings from our garden and two other urban farmers: Ward of City Farm Boy and Craig of Kitsilano Farms. Fresh fig with blackberry or fig with apple and a bit of cinnamon are incredible! The figs were so good I plan to go buy a Desert King fig tree tomorrow. It was a great event with many passionate and committed folks in the room. I was able to connect with some allies who may be able to help get Vancouver’s bylaw (9150) changed that prohibits keeping chickens in the city.

Numerous media folks attended the pizza tasting including the daily newspaper 24 Hours. 24 Hours wanted to snap a few shots in the garden for a short story so I gladly jumped on the opportunity to give the urban farming movement a little exposure. I got page 3, right across from from Kate Moss and some other celebs. Sadly, no calls from Oprah or Martha yet. The article, like the attention span of the intended audience of urban commuters, is short but carries a positive tone. Maybe a few more people will make the connection and realize just how nourishing urban gardening can be.

I’ve been hoarding our soft plastics for over a year now hoping that I would find some place that would recycle it all. The two boxes we’ve accumulated are full of food and product packaging that is almost impossible to avoid in our plastic obsessed, consumerist society. I finally found Happy Stan’s Recycling Services after calling the Recycling Council of BC’s Hotline (604.732.9253) yesterday.

Now the trick is to get our two boxes of plastic to Happy Stan’s facility in Port Coquitlam using less resources than will be gained from the materials recovery. I am sensing a bike adventure in the spring or perhaps building-wide monthly pickup.

My recumbent and Justin’s handbike were were stolen this morning at 6:00 am from our apartment’s garage. If you see them, please call 911 or Justin’s cell: 604-671-6370.

Mark, our photographer came by yesterday to take our engagement pictures. He’s really excellent at what he does and will be sending us a cd of the images shortly. We’ll post them when they are available.

We have decided to go with Mark from Softlight Photography. His customer service was amazing, emails were returned immediately, he was at ease in our home (even though we sit on sheepskins on the floor) and took our PC vs. Mac comments gracefully! His work is beautiful, he has so much passion for his job and it really shows in his ability to capture great candid shots of guests. Marks lighting skills are excellent, the receptions shots (which I think are so important) were perfectly lit even though the rooms were dark.
I learned a very important thing from Mark: make sure your photographer takes pictures in RAW not JPEG.

Keep checking the gallery for engagement shots!