Deep Fried Onion Ring

October 26, 2023

Fighting Words, Part 2 – Team TIG

October 19, 2023

Fighting Words Part 2 by Team TIG

In last week’s The Islands Grapevine (TIG), we published a denouncement of the false claims made by Bronwyn Schuster, publicly slandering TIG as having published transphobic hate-speech, following their email to TIG that was an attempt at influence peddling using public funds. While other Denman public servants have publicly endorsed Schuster’s admitted misuse of their position, the seeds of the malice directed at TIG had already been planted. From Bronwyn Schuster’s threatening email:(July 19/23)

“I understand you have been holding an editorial policy of no curation”.

“I have found it difficult to weed through article after letter of COVID misinformation.”

Ironically, both of these claims are misinformation. TIG publishes its editorial policy in each issue, and we spend time each week asking contributors for revisions. Ninety percent of all the public health information TIG published was from government sources, at the local, regional, and Provincial levels. Prior to the pandemic, TIG had not received any critique of its editorial policies.

The small fraction of dissenting content TIG published, has in some cases turned out to be correct, and in some cases the Public Health advisories turned out to be incorrect. TIG was one of the very few media spaces that did not censor ALL dissenting viewpoints. What is clear from Schuster’s claims, and the claims of other local public servants, is that they have now declared that dissent is impermissible, and will not be tolerated. This is the elephant in the room, and it is a dangerous and authoritarian ideology.

After TIG committed the “original sin” of publishing a few letters that held a dissenting view on the response to the pandemic, some of the privileged liberal class of our community have aligned themselves with censorship of dissent, and granted themselves the entitlement of attempting to cancel a local business and the extremely modest livelihoods it supports. They are publicly spreading slander and lies, including the false accusation of “promoting” bigotry, in order to justify their anti-democratic and censorious ideology. While these bullies never provide any evidence, they rely on the silence of those too afraid to speak up. From Aaron Muirhead, on Denman social media, in a moment of self serving opportunism:

“I for one am thankfull and think its about time that a ‘public official’ actually took responsibility and refused to use ‘public’ money to support a private for profit buisiness that as a matter of policy, regularly publishes clear falsehoods and promotes bigotry in the community… this seems to me a case of a responsible use of ‘public’ funds [sic]”.

Muirhead made the above comments as part of his announcement of his rival publication. He could not cite any specific “falsehoods” or “bigotry”, but takes pleasure in the act of joining the mob slandering TIG. Some Board members of Denman non-profit organizations have joined the chorus of hateful comments directed at TIG and in support of directing publicly funded advertising dollars away from TIG to Aaron’s new publication. From Laura Busheikin’s Denman social media post:

“From what I’ve heard, [Schuster] let a business owner know that she (as an individual and as a contract employee responsible for advertising choices) would no longer be purchasing their product unless the business practices changed. This could be seen as a threat, but not in a criminal way. It could also be seen as a decent thing to do, as it gives the business owner a chance to consider making changes in response to customer feedback.[sic]”

Let’s start with Busheikin’s words, “From what I’ve heard”, as it speaks to her reliance on hearsay, and an assumption that the accusations were true. In this case, the “customers” are each and every local resident, not the publicly funded employee. More from Busheikin:

“If I have responsibility for an advertising budget for a publicly funded activity, unless my contract or a terms of reference states otherwise, I would be within my rights to make decisions about that budget. And yes of course I have done this, and will continue to do this in my various community roles. That has included seeking out alternatives to the Grapevine when possible.” And further: “to talk to the staff person directly, and CERTAINLY NOT to repeatedly make inflammatory public statements about the contract employee on social media. (And omg why I am even weighing in on this????[sic]”.

This is an astounding admission of unethical behaviour, and an incredulous take on the issues at hand. Had Busheikin not relied on hearsay, she would have known that we DID reach out to Schuster privately, offered to publish their concerns, and received NO response from Schuster at all. TIG did NOT take these issues to social media, Schuster did, where THEY made “inflammatory public statements” about TIG. And why indeed is Busheikin weighing in on this on social media, after saying that social media wasn’t an appropriate forum for addressing these issues?

TIG has reached out to Busheikin privately on two occasions, and in a cruel irony, she has refused to discuss these matters or comment at all. Busheikin’s lofty declarations on Denman social media do not align with her own actions. She has joined a slanderous social media mob in attempting to cancel a local business, based on hearsay and provable lies, and admitting she has done the same thing with public advertising dollars relating to TIG, in her “various community roles.” TIG wants to know which publicly funded roles? As a Local Trustee, this behaviour is a violation of the Islands Trust Standards of Conduct.

All of these bullies, dressed up in performative virtue suits, have lost any moral or ethical authority in managing a public service on Denman Island.

Sandwich Summit 2, Roadside Edition

October 19, 2023

Date: March 28, 2007

Another day of work and another day along the same stretch of highway. The monotony of this existence is beginning to root itself in my restless mind. But as always, there are moments that intercede the sameness of the routine. Moments that delineate one day from another. And it is these instants that propel me in my writing.

As we were heading out this morning as always we hit the kitchen to pick up our coffee and lunch fixings. As C.O. Person sorted through the assembled fare his ire began to boil. Meat and cheese sandwiches once again! He posed the question to Paul, the cook, “Is there any butter or mayonnaise on them?”

Paul rather smugly replied, “No.”

The day was not getting off to a good start.

Back at the crummy, Mr. Person unwrapped the cellophane to inspect the sandwiches himself. In a fit of blind rage, he stormed into the main building, sandwiches in hand, leaving us there. Minutes afterward, he reemerged from the building without the sandwiches and we were off. We were all cracking up in the back of the crummy as we sped off to work. Fred piped up, “he’s going to have a heart attack!” which only spurred us onward. Once at the work site, Mr. Person conveyed to us that he went above C.O. Wight’s head and plunked the unbuttered sandwiches, without mayo, down on the desk of some white shirt who’s name escapes me. If not for Person’s indignant insistence that the lunches need improvement, I doubt that we inmates would raise such a fuss. It is jail, after all. To have our C.O. invest such emotion about it could conceivably lead us to believe we have rights beyond the reality. Lunches certainly have gone downhill in my short tenure here and every C.O. that I’ve spoken to on this matter has told me that when they were in charge of Crew #2, the lunches were a comparatively lavish affair. But this is of little consolation to us these days. Repeated attempts to address the perceived shortcomings of our midday jailhouse meals seem to have butted up against a much more immutable force. BUREAUCRACY. Somewhere within the bowels of this multi-headed beast, our calls for attention to this matter get lost without prompting nary a burp of indigestion or the discomfort of heartburn. Where the same cannot be said of our lunches.

So anyways, as we reluctantly crept upon the lunch hour, who should arrive upon the scene but Mr. Wight. Tossing a last few alder branches on the pile I was stacking, I turned to heed Mr. Person’s call for lunch. As I approached the crummy Mr. Wight, all 6’2“ 260 lbs of him, appears around the side of the crummy and declares me ‘spokesman’ of the crew. It seemed that a lunchtime discussion about the lunches was in the offing. As Mr. Person was frying up potatoes and onions (staples he brought from home out of utter resignation at our plight), Mr. Wight and I chatted. The crew idly stood by. With the occasional inciteful remark from Mr. Person wafting over from in back of Wight’s imposing frame, I listened to the Senior Correction Officer’s ability to recite the formatted responses to my questions. No doubt revealing just how he rose to such an esteemed rank. He was unflappable. He was good. He was big! He explained to me how the diet we’re given is derived from the empirical knowledge of a dietician, and standardized. ‘X’ number of this, so many millilitres of that and so forth. He even went on to say that the reason there is no mayonnaise in the sandwiches is because of the potential for it to spoil in our cooler tote. Whilst waiting out the perilously long 5 hours from being spread to being consumed, it seems. The reason for no hot-dogs or hamburgers in our tote is due to the presumption that we might not cook them properly and get ill. Salmonella. From in behind me Fred pipes up, ”Salmonella? That sounds better than what we’ve been getting!“ The tone of our summit suddenly besieged by stifled laughter and outright guffaws, Mr. Wight informed us that we need to have a certified cook in order to perform such a tricky feat. A potential trump card was thrown out in the form of Person, himself. It turns out that he IS a certified cook, but I suspect this fact was seen more as an inconvenience to Mr. Wight’s stonewalling. I was beginning to see the futility of it all. If anything, Wight’s appearance, there on the side of the highway, was meant to placate us rather than relent and forge a revised, more appetizing menu. Having to let go the lunch I decided to take up the seemingly more benign issue of our lack of coffee. His reaction was to again swaddle himself in the standardized response to any affront to the standardized wisdom of what I can only assume is one seriously gaunt dietician. We’re apparently allotted but a mere 8 oz cup of black gold per head!

Now, a person’s skin is their largest organ. Prone to all sorts of stimuli. Upon hearing Mr. Wight’s token response, the entirety of my largest organ began to constrict! We’re talking about the elixir of life now. Of which, by his view, I’d drank enough for five inmates prior to starting work and still I felt deprived. With dilated pupils and my bones creaking under pressure, I decided turnabout was fair play. It was time to humour him. Using his most eloquent recitation of the dietician’s spreadsheet as a template, I wondered aloud about the likelihood of a standardized amount of work expected from such a standardized approach to fuelling such work. “Surely Mr. Wight, you can agree that every individual has their own metabolic rate. Each person that eats the standardized diet therefore processes said diet differently.” He not only agreed but offered that his 260 pound system metabolizes much more slowly than my 145 pounds. To look at his belly, that much was evident.

“Further to my point,” I continued, “each individual possesses their own unique approach to work. But presumably, with such a standardized caloric intake, would it not follow that those who have a tendency to work at a higher rate conceivably run out of energy from the provided calories sooner than the others who don’t exhibit such qualities? If there is no standardized amount of ergs expected to be expended by each individual, would it be prudent to pace oneself in their work? The herd mentality that prevails when feeding it must also prevail in expectation of output, no?”

It seemed that he was genuinely perplexed. I said all of this with a straight face. A hint of a smirk to confirm it was purely a red herring proposition. The glint in his eye and the return of a smirk told me I hadn’t overstepped my bounds as crew spokesman. He conceded with a promise of a pound of Hawaiian coffee for tomorrow that he had sitting in his freezer at home. I had won! No changes in store for our lunches but when it came to the beloved black gold, he said that beyond his offer of a pound of premium coffee, he hadn’t a problem if Mr. Person wanted to contribute extra beans beyond his. A small but sweet victory over a three stripe corrections officer. I couldn’t help but take my little trophy and raise it on high by saying, ”seeing that you’re willing to offer us something from Hawaii, do think you could get us some pakalolo?“

”Pakalolo, what’s that?“ he said.

”You know, the crazy weed!“ I countered, replete with a cheeky little hula sway of my hips and arms for emphasis.

Standing beside one of our many roadside piles, Wight reached down, snapped a twig off a branch and deadpanned, ”Here, smoke this!“

Fighting Words – Team TIG

October 19, 2023

Fighting Words by Team TIG (Originally published Oct.12th, 2023)

The Islands Grapevine (TIG) would never publish hate-speech directed at a marginalized group, but an online and word of mouth gossip campaign has mounted into a mob mentality of hateful smears of TIG. While wrapping themselves in virtuous flags of inclusion and diversity, community values and respect for neighbours coexisting, these bullies have joined together to try to destroy a 32 year old community newspaper with false accusations based on hearsay, while TIG employs people who survive month to month on its modest income.

When TIG received an email from Denman Island Bus Service (DIBS) employee Bronwyn Schuster that threatened a withdrawal of publicly funded advertising expenditures in TIG unless its publisher agreed to changes to its editorial policy, TIG replied immediately and privately to inquire whether Schuster wished to share their concerns by publishing them in TIG. We also clarified to Schuster that their accusation that TIG published bigoted hate-speech in relation to transgender people was categorically false. While weeks went by, we did not receive a response from Schuster. It was then that TIG published Part 1 of our Team TIG editorial, Threats, Lies, and the Misuse of Public Funds in its Aug.10 issue.

Schuster’s response was to post on Denman social media, admitting to the misuse of their position, but doubled down on accusations of transphobic content published in TIG without providing any specific example, other than to say the transphobic content was contained in TIG contributor Phoenix’s article. In that article Phoenix expressed concern for the safety of both cisgender and transgender inmates from convicted cis-male rapists who wished to transfer to women’s prisons under a newly enacted law. Phoenix’s source was the Government of Canada’s Correctional Services website. Whatever one’s view about Phoenix’s expressed concern, it was the opposite of transphobic, as she had led off the article with a lengthy preamble of her positive feelings toward the LGBTQQ2SiA+ communities.

Anyone can read Phoenix’s article by reviewing it on theislandsgrapevine.com in the archived July 6 issue.

DenmanWorks (DW) Chair Anthony Gregson’s response to this was to admit that Schuster had misused their position, but immediately fired TIG publisher Mike Van Santvoord from his job managing the visitdenmanisland.ca website without explanation, or giving him an opportunity to speak with the DW Board prior to a vote to remove him as a Director as is required under DW’s bylaws and the B.C. Societies Act. Gregson has been acting as DW Chair past his 4 year term limit, and has not advertised for new board members, or published the minutes of any DW meetings, both required under the B.C. Societies Act.

DIBS Coordinator Sam Borthwick claimed to want these matters handled in a more “collegial” manner, but neither he nor Schuster made any attempt to contact TIG in support of a resolution. It was TIG who reached out to Borthwick privately and made an agreement that an apology from Schuster would appear in the following issue of TIG, and that same apology would be posted by Schuster on Denman social media. When the “apology” did not appear on Denman social media, Borthwick claimed that he could not keep his commitment to the social media post, where his spouse Schuster had made the false accusation.

TIG contacted the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD), the local government responsible for funding DW and DIBS. CVRD Community Services manager Doug Demarzo offered to support the hiring of a mediator to help resolve these matters. TIG gratefully accepted his offer. Community mediator Karen McKinnon contacted TIG and told us she would be contacting the other parties to see if they were willing to enter into a mediated process. Weeks have gone by, and we have not received an agreement to mediation by Gregson, Borthwick, or Schuster. TIG has now filed complaints in B.C. Provincial Court, under the B.C. Societies Act, and with the B.C Ombudsperson. TIG has also retained legal counsel to file a defamation lawsuit relating to damages to TIG’s reputation, and for the financial damages that have resulted.

Highly respected and 11 year Islands Trustee Laura Busheikin weighed in on social media to endorse Schuster’s misuse of their position and public funds. Members of the DIRCS executive and Concerts Denman joined in the smear campaign, demanding an alternative to advertising in TIG. Smelling blood in the water, erstwhile “anarchist” Aaron Muirhead took the opportunity to announce a rival publication, based on his disdain for TIG, and proudly endorsed Schuster’s admitted malfeasances. When publicly pressed on his issues with TIG, Muirhead was unable to muster any specific complaint. These are all endorsements of a publicly funded employee influence peddling using public monies.

Apparently, all these virtuous members of our community have misplaced their ethical compasses and any sense of mutuality or integrity. No one is required to advertise in TIG, but they ARE required NOT to attempt to extort policy changes in a community newspaper using public funds as a weapon, especially based on a false accusation. We have reached a point in local culture, not unlike the broader world that surrounds us, that an unfounded accusation is enough of a reason to attempt to cancel a local business and the livelihoods it supports.

TIG is committed to using every legal means necessary in pushing back on these lies and unwarranted attacks, as we demand legal, social, and community justice, and while we continue to serve Denman and Hornby Islands and surrounding areas, 50 weeks a year.

Relish the Gaps

October 19, 2023

“Relish the gaps,” said the old woman at the nursing home, grabbing at my hand as I walked past.

“I’m sorry… do you need your nurse?” I said, reluctantly giving her my hand to hold.

Her bones felt frail. I wasn’t there to see her. I didn’t know this woman.

“Everyone lets life pass them by,” she said urgently, ignoring my obvious discomfort. “They’re always focused on attaining and accomplishing, meeting their goals, winning people’s approval. Then before they know it they’re sitting in a place like this, wondering where it all went.”

“I’ll tell you where it all went,” she continued, cutting me off before I could reply. “It zipped right past them while their minds were wrapped up in the next thing. The next event. The next goal. The next accomplishment. Then it’s all over, and all they’ve got is a handful of memories of those few things they were focused on, with all the gaps gone unnoticed and unappreciated.”

“The gaps?” I said.

“Yes the gaps child, the gaps in between! In between all those moments they spent their lives looking forward to. That’s where all the life is!”

She smiled and gave my hand a little pat before relaxing back into her chair. Her exertion had taken it out of her.

“Or almost all of it, anyways. All those moments where you’re sitting, walking, working, talking, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling. Everyone lets them pass them by while they’re focused on other things. They don’t relish them. They don’t enjoy them as they come. It’s disrespectful, really.”

“Disrespectful?”

“Yes, love! Yes! Life goes to all this trouble to present them with a beautiful moment — a bird singing, the smell of coffee, light through the window — and they spit on it! They snub the invitation to relish and enjoy what’s on offer, just to focus on their own thoughts about what they did or didn’t do in the past and what they will or won’t do in the future. Do you not think that’s disrespectful?”

“It kinda is, huh?” I said. “I guess we get so wrapped up in goals and accomplishments that we don’t focus on the things that really matter, like family, kids, love — ”

“No no no, you’re still not getting it,” she growled, cutting me off again. “That’s not what this is about! Sure, loved ones are fine and good, but even if you focused on that you’d still be missing the gaps. If you focus on finding love, on spending enough time with everyone, on having kids and raising them, on making sure everyone in your life gets what they need from you and making sure you’re getting what you need from them — that’s still missing all those moments in between. The moments that don’t have any stories to them, that don’t depend on your thoughts about them. What about those? Are you there for them? Are you showing up to them?”

“Ohhh.”

“You have all those gaps whether you have ten kids and a hundred friends or whether you live your whole life alone, and they’re just as beautiful and worthy of appreciation either way. I’ll tell you something for free lassy, I’ve lived more life in the last year here in this old folks’ home than the eighty-three before it, because I finally stopped thinking about life and started living it. It finally clicked. After I came here I was sitting here looking at my hands, and it just washed over me: Oh, this is it, isn’t it? This is where the joy really is. And so now I really relish each moment here. The hustle and bustle out there in the hallway, the chatter on my roommate’s TV, the light through the curtains, the cotton on my skin. And I really relish them. I relish each and every moment here. And it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.”

And with that she gave my hand a squeeze and sent me on about my day.

I never saw her again. The next time I was back at the nursing home there was another woman in her bed. I didn’t bother asking where she went; people don’t leave that place because they found work overseas.

I expected to feel sad about that, but the sadness never came. All that came up was a deep, squishy gratitude. A deep, squishy gratitude that never really left.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Israel-Palestine: We’re All in This Together

October 19, 2023

Israel-Palestine: We’re all in this together Sally Campbell

Everyone in Israel-Palestine must be suffering trauma right now, and those with connections to

that troubled region and its inhabitants are heartbroken, deeply concerned and afraid of what

is to come in a catastrophe worsening by the day.

We grieve all the losses of life. No life is less valuable than another. We grieve Hamas’ violent

and murderous assault on Israelis, amplified by the memory of the Holocaust. At the same time,

we grieve Palestinian longtime suffering under occupation, and the ongoing pummeling of

Gaza. We watch in horror as governments send more weapons to an area that needs no more

warfare, an area already darkly marked by the blood of innocents.

I remember taking a three day course on Trauma at the Justice Institute of BC many years ago,

presented by New York psychologist/trauma specialist, Dr. Joe Solanto. He said that after 9/11

all the therapists arrived in town to help ease the situation, but “talk” was not what people

actually needed at the time. What do body and soul need when trauma is up close? Comfort.

Warmth. Food. Hot soup and bread. Not analysis, not endless explaining or condemning, or

especially, vengeful planning of retaliation.

So here is my very simple recipe for Walnut-Date Bread from one of my esteemed role models,

the late great artist Georgia O’Keeffe. I hope it will offer some comfort.

Georgia’s recipe, only slightly altered by me:

. C softened butter

. C brown sugar

. t. salt

1 t. baking soda

1 C dates (8)

. C walnuts, chopped

1 egg

1 . C organic whole wheat flour

1 C boiling water

Cream butter & sugar, add egg & salt. Combine flour, nuts & dates and mix water in. Combine

with butter mixture.

Bake @ 350 in an oiled bread pan for 50-60 minutes. Delicious warm or cold! Enjoy.

Letter to the Editor – Perri Gorrara, Thomas Provençal & Louis De Ernsted

October 19, 2023

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and, thereby, eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.”

Julian Assange

We are standing up for Freedom of Expression and the peaceful exchange of ideas. From the onset of Covid, we have witnessed deep polarization in our beloved community of Denman Island. The Islands Grapevine was our only news source willing to publish all sides of various contentious issues.

Since the end of August, some contributors have felt that they have been censored. Free Speech is the foundation of a free society. We feel strongly that we need to support critical thinking.

We encourage The Grapevine to embrace its policy of encouraging all points-of-view to be expressed in our weekly newspaper.

By supporting The Islands Grapevine through advertising we can support free speech in the long run. It is our hope that Denman and Hornby islanders will be encouraged to contribute their ideas and opinions on a platform on which Free Speech is honoured.

Perri Gorrara

Tom Provençal

Louis De Ernsted

Preparing for the Future

October 19, 2023

A friend gave me a couple of feed bags full of organically-produced pears. Pears are a wonderful crop but they must be picked unripe and then ripen off the tree. The lore states that you need only bring a bowl of unripe pears into the warmth of the kitchen and they will ripen in a few days. I have found this to be not quite true and have sometimes found a whole box of pears in cool storage that have gone ripe all at the same time, necessitating a day of impromptu canning.

This happened again to the sacks of pears my friend gave me but I was ready for them and canned over 100 half-pint jars of pear baby food. Yes, we are expecting an addition to the family. I have never made baby food before but it seemed like a good thing to do and is a simple process. Parents tell me that pear puree is the most tasty of all the baby foods.

To make the baby food, I cut the pears up and took the seeds out. I did not peel them. I put the chunks of pear in a pan of boiling water for a few minutes and then put the cooked chunks in the blender. I poured the resulting puree, with no added sugar or preservatives, into the half-pint jars and put lids on and popped them into the water-bath canner. When the water came back to the boil, I timed 15 minutes and then brought the jars in to cool.

The next day, we take the rings off the jars and lifted each jar by the lid. If the lid is secure, you know you have a good seal. Food preserved in this manner can last for years.

Baby food, in general, is easy to prepare. Steamed vegetables can be pureed in a blender or a food mill which is an old-fashioned handrolic device that does much the same thing as a blender but has the added advantage of removing skins and seeds as it purees food.

I spoke with one young family on Denman and their baby had cost them almost nothing as they simply pureed some of the food they had prepared for themselves and fed that to their chubby, happy baby. I see those little pots of baby food for sale in the grocery store and really wonder at them being able to sell such a product when freshly-steamed vegetables and fruit or stew would be so much better for a little person and a lot less expensive.

Another way we are preparing for the future is to manure, lime and leaf empty beds in the vegetable garden. You always have to put more in each year then you take out from the garden. We add heaps of lime in the autumn as our soil on the Coast is so acidic. The soil is both acidic and nutrient deficient because of the heavy rains we experience, with any luck at all, in the winters. Rainwater is naturally a little acidic but we get it in such quantities that it both turns our soil acidic and washes nutrients out of the soil.

So, after liming, we manure with compost and waste hay and manure from the stable. The hay will send up grass seedlings which are not wanted in the garden so we rake up all the leaves from our huge maple tree and cover the manured beds with maple leaves. This is enough to stop the seeds from sprouting and adds a layer of both food and insulation to the soil.

I am protecting this year’s garlic bed under a layer of oats and buckwheat that I sowed right after we got the garlic up in the summer. I did not get as many oats as I had hoped but the buckwheat filled that bed with lots of lusty plants and had heaps of white blooms that the pollinators went crazy for. We even got a crop of buckwheat seeds!

The oats are an excellent cover crop for a heavy soil as the roots are as deep as the oats are tall. This is a way of pumping carbon into the soil. When the winter kills the top of the plant, the roots also die and decompose deep in the soil, leaving channels for both air and water to penetrate the soil. The roots are mostly made of carbon and that stays in the soil and enriches it. The standing plant matter and the compost and leaves all protect the soil from frost, the punishing effects of rain on bare soil, erosion and provide food and habitat to all the creatures that are essential for soil health.

One day, we hope to pass our smallholding down to future generations in a better condition than we found it.