DEN Enews

Welcome to the Enews. Thank you for subscribing. In this issue:

• More 40 Day Clean up Tips

• Kitchen Table Connections

• 4 Petitions

• a discussion about Trash, garden beds and cookies

_{DEN Lenten Study: Returning to the Garden: There will no session this week as Blane presents his Grad Project at AST. Please keep him in your prayers.}

_{The following is a snippet from Blane Finnie’s Session 3 of the Lenten program. This slide preceded his discussion on land rights.}

_{“Still unknown is the degree to which feedback loops will compound these effects and produce runaway impacts. For example, as warmer winters fail to kill pests and diseases — such as the mountain pine beetle infestation that has devastated so much of British Columbia’s interior forests — our forests die and become a carbon source rather than a carbon sink. Or when melting permafrost in the north releases ancient carbon and methane stores (methane being a much more potent GHG than CO2). Or when acidification and dying coral reefs undermine our oceans’ ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 . Or when melting ice no longer reflects the sun’s light away from the earth.” Seth Klein. A Good War : Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. ECW Press, 2020, 11.}

_{Editor’s Note: This sentence really grabbed my attention: “Or when melting ice no longer reflects the sun’s light away from the earth.” Blane raised the point that Climate Change Nova Scotia says that research projects an increase of up to 1 metre in relative sea level in Nova Scotia by 2100. At the risk of being political it begs the question: why did the province abandon the Coastal Protections Act? Your thoughts? Anyone more knowledgeable than this editor is more than welcome to chime in with an editorial piece.}  

_{March 10, 2024 • 4^th Week of Lent}

_{March 14^th is International Day of Action for Rivers. Rivers, streams, and creeks were of paramount importance to Jesus, his friends and family, and his entire society. Rivers are essential for the survival of billions of people today who need access to clean and flowing water for drinking, washing, fishing, irrigation, and transportation. What is the nearest river or body of freshwater to you? Consider doing a trash pickup along its banks or shoreline this week, then enjoy some quiet time with God there}. © The Pastoral Center / PastoralCenter.com. All rights reserved.

Kitchen Table Connections - A Conversation with Local Food Producers

_{March 26th at 7 pm - Lunenburg Fire Hall}

_{How can you support local food producers? A panel discussion will consider the challenges faced by producers and how the local community can support them}.

 Save our Old Forests🍀SOOF Soup Sunday 🍀 Sunday, March 17, 2024 Time: 12:00pm - 2:30pm

Location: Centrelea Community Hall (3495 Highway 201, Centrelea)

Registration Required:  [email protected] to register!

Details:  Join SOOF on St. Patrick's Day for a free lunch of soup and bread and a discussion about old forests!  This month we will be focusing on what happens under the forest floor featuring guest speaker Keith Egger. Keith is a retired professor and mycologist from BC who now lives in the community of Centrelea. He'll be talking about the importance of fungi in the role in forests and sharing some beautiful photos of mushrooms! This is a free event, but a free will donation to the Hall is appreciated.   Please register in advance so we can plan on how much soup to make and let us know if you'd be willing to contribute a sweet treat to the dessert table. 

_{President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania wants to empty Maasai homeland for luxury safaris and trophy hunting. Maasai elders from Northern Tanzania say that any day now tens of thousands of their community could be forced off their ancestral lands to make way for elite tourism and trophy hunting. They are asking citizens from around the world to call on the government to oppose any attempt to evict Maasai from their traditional land or require them to relocate to make way for foreign hunters. Years ago when they faced these threats, more than 2 million Avaaz members rallied behind the call! Together, such a storm was created that the former President promised never to evict the Maasai from their lands. However, the disgraceful eviction plans are being revived! Please sign the Avaaz petition.}

_{Grassy Narrow is a First Nations community that consistently has been violated by mercury, clearcut logging, and hydro dams. In 2018, Grassy Narrows enacted a Land Declaration, enshrining into their law a ban on all mineral staking, exploration, mining, and logging in their territory. Mining requires the free, prior, and informed consent of the First Nation whose land it is, yet thousands of online mining claims are being made without consent and often without any communication. Recently, the Chiefs of Ontario, who represent all 133 First Nations in the province, called on a 365-day pause on mining claims. This petition is urging Ontario to listen, and to respect Grassy Narrows and their moratorium by withdrawing all mining claims that do not have their consent.}

_{The size of Trash}

_{Every two weeks I get my trash ready for the collector. I am allowed six bags including one loosely termed “blue bag”, my green composting bin and one “large item” like furniture or appliances. Putting the trash out every two weeks, it didn’t occur to me how much trash we each make. Or at least it didn’t until I started saving things to fill the bottom of my new box gardens.}

_{The new gardens are four feet high. My first garden was simply raising the sides of a 4 x 6-foot-high box garden. First, I filled the bottom with campfire wood. I added any tree pruning. Then I started adding egg cartons, cardboard, newspaper, and anything else I found that would in time decompose. That was a large pile but being newly retired I loved cleaning my shed. Forty buckets of ground later it was near the top.}

_{In a month it had settled down a foot. That was when the seaweed was dry and easy to move. I filled the box up again. Yesterday it was down the depth of one of my ten-inch boards. Come spring I will probably need another 20 to 40 buckets of topsoil and then add the mulch waiting to top this garden.}

_{I’m thinking of a shed full of materials at the bottom of that garden that went down from little to nothing. It decomposed as it was originally organic material.}

_{Since November, not quite five months ago, I have been saving for the next garden. My shed is 8 x 18 with about eight feet in the back being filled with stove wood. In the front sits the generator and a few garden tools. In the middle is everything saved for the next garden. Again, there are newspaper, box board, cardboard, egg cartons, bamboo take-out containers (duly washed), bags of egg shells, cardboard tubes, and any non-plastic packing material. My nice clean shed is getting full again.}

_{Within a month I will build the sides on the next waist-high garden and the shed will be empty. This will decompose, and my gardens will sink to be topped again with natural materials}

_{What I learned is that even a small household of two, who don’t consider they purchase or use a great amount, really do. Keeping only materials that will decompose, two older women have accumulated at least a 6 x 6 x 6 space in five months. It makes you think what a village must throw away. How much goes to our municipal landfill six days a week? I don’t dare allow my mathematical mind to study any further. It is too scary. I need to study “reduce}”.

 _Oddity

_{This picture shows how nature takes over what man has thrown aside.}

_{Something to Eat}

_{Hating to waste, Grandma looks at her cereal storage boxes every few months to see what is NOT being eaten. There are many cereal cookie recipes. This is the boiled syrup over crushed cereal method.}

 _{Cereal Cookies}

_{1 cup sugar}

_{1 cup corn syrup}

_{1 cup peanut butter}

_{2 tsp vanilla}

_{6 cups crushed cereal.}

_{Put sugar, corn syrup and peanut butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir and cook 3-5 minutes till well mixed and hot. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and pour over cereal. Drop by spoonful on waxed or parchment paper, form into balls or fill  a pan}

_{They disappear quickly when placed near children.}

 _{A Prayer for Trees}

<sub>Creator God,
Out of chaos you brought order.
Out of nothingness you brought life.
In the middle of all life stands the tree.

Trees provide the air that nurtures all your creation.
Birds make them their homes.
Cats climb them for protection.
Trees recycle life that has come before.

Bless the trees of this word, loving God.
Remind us to serve as their caregivers and protectors.
Give them long limbs and long life.
The gift of their breath is as special to us as the breath of the Holy Spirit</sub>

 _{https://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2008/06/a-prayer-for-tr.html}