Last weekend I attended a Cold Weather Water Management workshop put on by the Harvest Moon Society.  Takota Coen of Coen Farms in Alberta, was the presenter and he was amazing.  The whole workshop was amazing.  I choose to go because I have been looking for help in planning the best possible way to impact and change my land during my new build.  I knew I was going to be taking earth from somewhere to build up my driveway and foundation for the house, and I was seeking help for that process.  I wanted and still want to create a happy ecosystem on all of my land, and I knew that digging a big hole had great possibilities.  I had spent time seeking help from Ducks Unlimited and the various inroads they sent me on to no avail, I am just outside of all of the conservation districts so this workshop was a godsend. I went for a quick fix idea to this problem but came away with a whole new attitude and view of my land.

It is hard to pin point the change, but it is in the view I was taking, and how I can view things now.  With the help of Adaptive Habitat Land Design Tool Self Study and Google Earth Pro, I was able to see my land from above and really make some plans.  In the past I just had a vague vision that I was hoping someone else would turn into reality.  Now, I have a fairly focused vision that I can turn into reality.  I have decided to reclaim 13 acres of my 1/4 section to start my regeneration process, to experiment with healing the land and restoring a healthy ecosystem.  This is so much more manageable than the full section, and I can still support my neighbour with his farming enterprises by keeping the status quo on the rest of my land and having his cattle graze there a couple times a year.

The most exciting thing about Takota’s approach to this workshop was his focus on a holistic view, and not just holistic with the physical land and it’s needs, but holistic with the humans and their needs beyond the physical.  It is so important for us as humans to see what a huge impact our emotional, spiritual and physical state has on the environment around us, on the ease or challenge in which we can fulfill our dreams, on the viability of our dreams and on the overall well being of our ecosystem.  I loved seeing this awareness.  He discussed the 8 forms of capital which include financial, but only as 1/8th of the equation.  I tend towards focusing the majority of my time and effort on my impact and my emotional and spiritual state, this helped me to go beyond that and start taking action.  Some of that action will include focusing on my false beliefs and emotions that have prevented me from taking action before, as well as building up my physical capabilities.

I was so inspired by the workshop, by seeing a young passionate man sharing the truths he’s learned and experimented with on his own land, the love it requires to see things honestly (our motivations for what we do with ‘our’ land) and make choices that support the whole and not just our selfish and often counterproductive desires.  To see the strength of character it takes to be honest in the face of a world that likes to live in delusion, was awesome.  A simple statement like, “if the land you have can’t support your dream, buy new land or change your dream” – can shake people to the root.  The skill of seeing reality for what it is, is not one cultivated by many humans.  We tend to have a big dream and do whatever we can to force that dream to come into reality, even when our circumstances won’t support it, and instead of seeing the truth of the situation and choosing change (either in our own desires and beliefs, or in actual location) we fight a losing battle.  Changing the future and healing our earth takes this kind of honesty and strength and it renewed my faith in humanity to see Takota embodying the truth.

I got home from the workshop and started exploring my 13 acres.  I discovered so much that I really didn’t know was there.  For 8 years I lived surrounded by this forest that I had barely explored.  The time of year made it perfect for this exploration, before the forest filled in with leaves and the marshy areas were fairly dry so I could easily walk on them.  It was a gift to see this land with new eyes, to see what amazing gifts it already has, to identify the wounds left by human manipulation, and to see possible futures.  With the build of my home imminent, digging starting in just under a month, I have very little time to go through the whole design process.  Because I have just started to explore this land I am not overly familiar with the patterns it has over the seasons.  I have seen the periphery throughout my years here, and this is where majority of the changes are taking place so I should have enough knowledge and experience to make good choices.

This workshop has sent me down an interesting and ever deepening rabbit hole.  My thirst for knowledge is surprising me, as I am usually so focused on the product that I don’t stop to learn all that I needed to learn.  I am so happy there is a shift in my desire here because I have had so many failed attempts at things as I tend towards rushing in and focusing only on the end product.  I see the direct correlation between releasing old stuck emotions and false beliefs and my increasing desire and motivation to learn and do more.  It is so absolutely cool and reinforcing.  I have been researching weather patterns, wetland habitats, and growing in my biome (which is changing with global warming).  I’ve been paying attention to my land, to the water patterns, the snow melt, the growth and the animal tracks.  It’s like getting to know a friend, and just like that, I am falling in love.

Yesterday I went out to explore the other half of my 13 acres which I thought was all just prairie, and discovered so much more.  It is amazing how small land feels when you observe it in passing and how massive it feels when you are exploring it for the first time, then how small it feels again once you get to know it.  I am in the massive exploration phase.  This part of the land is going to just be what it wants to be over the next little while as all of my resources are going to go into building my house and this wetlands ecosystem, but I want to observe and document it now and what it becomes without interference.  For a certain number of years, I’d say over 50, this part of the land has been used for traditional agriculture, for cattle for the last decade and I am not sure what else before that.  I am going to document as much as I can to see how the land recovers on its own, if it needs to recover, what recovery actually looks like, and how to see what happens in general.  I may add some seeds to the soil and may cut a pathway if needed, but mostly, I will let nature take its course.

I am beginning to have a desire to document and track the changes that occur on my land as I begin to make these changes.  I am going to send in soil samples from a few key places on my 13 acres that I am reclaiming and one or two places in the other section of my land.  I am hoping to gather data so I can scientifically show the changes that occur as a result of the changes I make in how the land is managed.  I hope to be a force of good in this world and make an impact on how we do things in the future.  It is one thing to restore this little section of land, it is another to help to restore the entire earth.  Being in Manitoba with such extremes in temperature, 6 months of winter with sleeping lands, and still wanting it to sustain human life is an interesting challenge.  I am very interested in documenting and seeing how this goes.  Having said that, I have not been scientifically minded in the past, so this will be a learning curve, but my new motivations and desires will help me through it.

I will continue to write about the design process, how this overlaps with my natural build and how it continues to give me insight into myself and my spiritual growth.