It’s election time here in BC, and D was recently thinking out loud: “why should the politicians be the only ones to shovel horse manure?”  So, as you can see, he decided to get into the act too.  But don’t worry: he’s not running for office….that was promise number four when we got married – to love, honour, obey, and never run for office (mostly #3, actually, since we started building the house, but that’s another story).

All metaphors aside, the organic material in question makes a point.  Once the house was substantially complete we turned our attention to our new community and thoughts of how to get involved with it.  To be disengaged with your community is to be adrift on an ocean of possibilities and experiences.  So we joined the Newcomers’ Group.  We met many recent immigrants to BC’s Sunshine Coast and discovered we were an amazingly similar demographic: by and large close in age and interests but with a very wide spectrum of experience and paths to the Sunshine Coast.

An old friend used to comment that “every family needs a pickup truck”, and what applies to family can also hold for community.  So we let it be known amongst the Newcomers that our old knockabout ’93 Toyota T-100 was available to all and sundry.  And sundry often takes us up on the offer.  T-100 has removed loads of blackberry to the green waste dump, returned a beautiful antique Wurlitzer jukebox from the antique Wurlitzer repairman, and, in this case, hauled several loads of political messaging.  Our friends had sourced this free fertilizer, so, after they’d hauled all they needed, tossed in one more load for our garden.  It’s a beautiful equation: community + engagement = friends (+, occasionally, free organics).

And the fertilizer?  D noted that we maintain an organic garden and, if the material wasn’t organic when the horses first encountered it, it certainly was by the time they were finished with it.