I’m not one for settling into a predictable boring life. There is a lot I have to do to maintain a friendship with myself. For example, last year, our car was on it’s last wheels so to speak, and instead of buying a car with the money in  our tiny bank account, we bought a little boat. Still a mode of transportation, we figured. It didn’t help that our car died in the next 6 months. But things tend to work out.

My point in that story, was that I have to do adventurous things to maintain a friendship with myself. I have to be able to look at my life and find myself interesting. I like change and adventuring, unless- apparently, I’m pregnant. If I’m pregnant, I prefer being boring. I prefer nesting into a cozy little hole and piling the blankets around my head and reading classic pregnancy books like “The Guide to Childbirth” and “The Active Birth” and “Birth Reborn” and “Your Birth, Your Way.” But instead, I am tucking my instincts away, under the pile of blankets, and I am packing my house up into boxes to go to the recycling centre, the Nu-to-U and the dump. I am extracting my treasures and putting them in tupperware boxes with labels like “In Case of Fire, Please Grab First!” and “Manda’s Most Precious Possessions, to be brought into the after-life.”

And we have been avoiding small breakdowns like “All I want is frozen pizza for dinner and we have no pizza pan!” and “Where is the pepper? Don’t tell me we packed the pepper?!”

Yes moving is challenging. But, we now have somewhere to move to. Granted, we will be in limbo for a few weeks as we sort out mooring etc. But, read this: We now have a home!

This is our 47 ft home. It is sitting in Sidney, BC right now, awaiting transport, and awaiting a mooring slip at the dock on Pender. Awaiting a new adventure. From farming to sailing, we are onto a new stage.

Don’t worry, the bees will still be happening. I can’t give up my favourite spatula and half my kitchen appliances and the bees now can I?

Last year I went to a girl’s weekend on Quadra Island. This year there was a return of the “estro-fest.” Aptly named from last year.

It is so refreshing that we all have to leave our homes, our husbands/boyfriends, and our responsibilities, and we make a journey to a place that is neutral for all of us. Then we get to see where we have come in a year, what we have done, where we are going. I love this tradition. It is so refreshing.

This group of women are some of the best that I know. They are so committed to experiencing life with dignity, with integrity and approaching challenges with intention and thoughtfulness. I am blessed to know them.

Also, we approach this weekend with heaps of food, fantastic cooking, great wine (which I could not partake in this year) and gut-bursting stories where we roll on the ground from the hilarity.

We also bring our children. Last year, one child was 8 months old, now a year and a half. It was fantastic to see her growth. Another one was 4 and we’ve all known her mom since before her pregnancy. What a great honour to share her journey. And now me. Pregnant, and next year with a baby to look forward to.

It’s so interesting to me, the way that friends can have a moment, a spotlight, a microphone into our lives. These girls do not live close to me. We don’t keep in touch very well in between visits. Yet they are still so dear to me. I come to the weekend, with questions as to my current life situation, but also with answers to their life situations. No one monopolizes the conversation. We all get our turn to share, and then to listen as we discuss our experiences. This is so powerful to me, it is so validating to hear from other women, and it is so wonderful to be loved, no matter where you may find yourself this year. The words that we offer to each other are wrapped in love, wrapped in good intention, wrapped in the best of wishes to bring healing in our midst, to encourage courage in difficult decisions, to offer empathy.

It amazes me, the communities that we move in and out of. The places that offer intensity to really reach down and dig out parts of us that we didn’t know about. I love those moments. It gives me courage for the other moments, like arriving home, and transplanting my herbs to my mother-in-law’s garden so that they won’t be lost when we move. Where are we moving? We still don’t know though we have some ideas. All I know is that I know am refreshed and have the strength to deal with those daunting decisions. It’s amazing the courage that sushi, cheesecake and giggling for 3 days can create.

Dear Baby,

I feel you kicking often now. Especially after I eat. And I think about you a lot, now that you’re reminding me every couple hours with your demands that I eat, or when you nudge me hard in the bladder. I know there is no offense intended.

Already in the 6 short months that you’ve been my belly-resident, you have been squished as I’ve crouched in the garden, weeding. You have been keeping bees with me, when I am so focused on moving slowly, on being unintrusive, you remind me that you are there by giving me a sharp elbow to the belly-button.

You have been sailing, swimming, eating berries with me, petting cats, exploring this beautiful world, but I haven’t met you yet. What are you like, you littlest being that will change my world?

I have so many hopes and dreams for you. But I don’t want to impress my own expectations on you. I want you to feel loved, wholly and completely. I want you to feel validated in your passions, in your likes and dislikes. I want to show you the world, and then be taught how to see the world through your eyes. I am so excited to introduce you to the things I love. But I will try really hard to listen to what you love.

I hope you don’t resent us the life you’re being brought into, the choices we are making of how we want to raise you. I hope you won’t begrudge me for wanting to keep you in cloth diapers, to limit your toy collection, for the alternative lifestyle we are living. Please know we do this with the best intentions, with thought of the impact not only to you but to the world we leave you with.

You have so many people that love you so much already. I’m so excited for you to meet them. I hope you have a great next couple months getting bigger and fatter and slightly squished. Be easy on me and I’ll try to eat what you like, rest, and get Daddy to read aloud to you a lot so you love his voice as much as I do! Happy Belly Living! See you soon.

Love,
Mama

My life seems to go in stages.

Maybe everyone’s life does this. Maybe it’s just mine. But I have significant stages in my life where I live in different places, do completely different things.

I have lived on the very edge of the Pacific Ocean in a tiny fishing village. I have lived in New Zealand, Scotland, and even a short stint in the South Pacific Islands. I know what it’s like to be a nomad.

And I know what it is to have a home.

We’ve been given notice that we must leave our paradise on the Farm by September. It was a surprise and a sad surprise. I spent a couple days walking around the farm, imprinting the smells, the textures of the soil and leaves and the way the sun sparkles across the pond at dusk. It is a beautiful place that we’ve had the privilege to live in for a year and a half. And now it is time to move on.

Having a home is a very rare thing, because often I forget what home is. Recently I’ve realized again, that the box I sleep in isn’t my home- it’s definitely a house. Where I keep my stuff isn’t a home. Home is being with Marc, home is the sense of belonging and being safe. I haven’t had that taken from me.

Imagine the next adventure! Imagine the next stage in life that could be completely different than what I have been doing. Though the bees will be staying as part of my “home” now. I’ll be spreading them out all over the island to willing hosts. I will continue to do this as I simply love it!

But the rest of it, well it’s up for grabs.

So what’s the next adventure? I’ll keep you posted as it unfolds.

Have you been here before? What great adventures did you find yourself in that you never would have imagined? I’d love to hear your stories!

It’s Friday morning. I awake at 6am from bleeting cats. After letting them in for their breakfast, I boil the kettle for French press coffee while I could hear my husband stirring upstairs. After bringing him a steaming cuppa’ java, and checking my email, I put on a huge pot of water to boil for making sugar syrup. It’s August and this means there are far less flowers for the bees to suck on. So the feeding begins. Did you know that Costco 40kg bags of sugar cost approximately $33. And in full feeding time, that may last me a week for 23 hives. Greedy bees!

Then I pull my bee-suit on over my growing belly and my pjs and tromp out to the hives behind the house. I crack the first lid open with my fancy new hive tool.

This is my cool new hive tool. It works great. I got it from Bees ‘N Glass. I try them for my every beekeeping need. This is not only because they give great service, but they have become friends, they are teachers and they host a herd of barn cats where we managed to procure our lovely balls of fluff.

The smell as you crack a hive lid is intoxicating. Especially in the Summer when the bees are drawing their wax comb and filling it with sweet honey. In the early morning sun, there are few smells that compare to the warm golden smell of honey wafting from a calmly buzzing hive.

After checking on my flower-girls, (the beehives behind my house are all named after flower names) I have second breakfast with my husband and perhaps a cup of tea. Then I proceed to the blueberry field hives. They are 4 in a row, Rapunzel, Lucy, Beatrix and Adelaide.

After spotting Rapunzel and her very extended backside, (Rapunzel let down your golden bum…..?) I load up the truck with the supplies I need for my outyards. I have 10 hives that are not on my property. Sometimes it’s inconvenient to drive to all these different spots on the island and it would certainly be faster to have them all in one spot. But I don’t believe that it’s best for the bees on Pender. I don’t think that there is enough food in one place. And I like the fact that if one hive gets a disease, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s spread to all the other hives.

Plus, I get such different scenery at each of my outyards. I have one on the ridge of a cliff that looks out onto the San Juan and Gulf Islands. It’s so peaceful there I can hear the tiny feet of the bees pattering against the frame as I examine them for mites, check that they are making babies and that they have food.

After finishing my rounds, I am exhausted. The baby is kicking and hungry and I’m ready to head home. I have this great idea for a luscious pizza with extra mozzarella.

After fulfilling this craving and sitting down to home-made pizza crust topped with golden bubbling mozza, like a blanket over the chard, mushrooms, olives, artichokes and green-striped cherry tomatoes, Marc and I sit down for a re-run of Dr. Who.

Sometimes life is sweeter than honey. Just by the company we keep.