What's in a name, a rose by any other name.....?

We like labeling concepts in the "Ecofriendly" 21st century such as:

• Green (I had to start with the big one!)
• Ecofriendly
• Organic
• Sustainable

What do we mean by these labels? Do we even understand them? Or is it just cool to be green? In legal terms it is something that can't be proven, but yet in this age of litigation we freely use these terms in most areas of modern society.

Anyway, rant aside, i asked myself these questions because we are trying to build a cabin and want to go "off the grid" and pandoras' box opened........

What is "off the grid"? The easy anser is that it is away from the power grid. Nice and easily defined. But what is the power grid? Electricity - obvious answer - but what about petrol? natural gas? How "off the grid" do we want to be, and how can we do it? What would be "EcoSensible" in terms of cost, environmental impact, impimentation schedule, usability?

I hope this is going to be the first blog of many about our cabin, and as we start to define our version of "off the grid" and research how to build and service our cabin.

Too posh for poultry.....

West Vancouver is too Posh for Poultry.

Vancouver passed a bylaw allowing (with restrictions) backyard chickens. Burnaby, New West and Surrey also allow back yard chickens, even North Vancouver allow them in the "District of North Vancouver" but West Vancouver do not. It begs the question, is West Vancouver too posh for poultry?

According to West Vancouver bylaw you are allowed to keep birds as pets, as long as they are not classed as "Poultry". What is the difference?

My Definition of "EcoSensible"

The idea behind this blog started with my daughter. She was born last July, just before the BPA bottle debacle, and just before the lead paint recall of toys made in China. In fact we seemed to be "just before" everything we were trying to research!

Even before our daughter we would "try" to limit our eco footprint - as long as convenient/easy/cheap etc. She made us "try" a bit harder, so when she was born we decided to limit her toxicity by limiting her exposure to plastics.

However, as we were in the "just before" brigade everything we tried to research was far from convenient/easy/cheap. From this research I came up with the term EcoSensible (which I am sure someone has used before, but it was original thought to me!) which I feel describes generally the processes in which people living in a modern urban environment can be Eco friendly in a sensible manner.

This started with my daughter, and similar to her influence, it spread to all aspects of our life.