Canada’s National Parks exist to protect and present outstanding representative examples of natural landscapes and natural phenomena that occur in Canada’s 39 natural regions. Of the over 40 National Parks in Canada, possibly the most well-known is Banff National Park in Alberta.

In the summer of 2008 the municipality of Banff became the first in Canada to introduce an all-hybrid electric transit fleet. Not only are the busses in Banff environmentally friendly, they’re cute too!

James Marriott, a Canmore, AB based wildlife photographer, provided four images to decorate the ROAM busses; grizzlies, elk, goats and wolves, each representing a season of the year in the park.

“We live in a national park and Unesco World Heritage Site, so it is really important to us to always consider the environmental impacts of our decisions,” says Banff Town Councillor Stavros Karlos. “With these new hybrids, we’ll reduce emissions and lower our fuel and lifecycle costs. And the buses look amazing. I think people are going to want to leave their cars where they are, and Roam instead.”

The next time you’re lucky enough to be in Banff, hop on a bus to get around town and know that you’re contributing to preserving such a special place. And check out James Marriott’s photography anytime online – www.wildernessprints.com. A photograph of his was on the cover of Canadian Geographic in December 2009. (You can also read the heartbreaking story about the wolf who is on the cover, and featured on one of Banff’s busses, on the storybook on James’ web site.)

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy & ceo at hippy grandma

Are you a heart centered and soul filled shopper? Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul brothers & sisters.
www.hippygrandma.com

So…how are those new year’s resolutions holding up? This is not a time to judge yourself, but maybe to ask: what other support do you need to achieve your goals, or dreams, or visions this year?

Here’s a quick suggestion from the category of eating in a more healthy and even more local way (see our previous post on the 100-Mile Diet). We can recommend an amazing cookbook that we just found. The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook by Alissa Segersten and Tom Malterre, a personal chef and a nutritionist from Washington State. We made the Fragrant Lentil Soup and the Winter Quinoa Salad over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and they were both fantastic. Flavourful, nutritious and, best of all, they didn’t take an unreasonable amount of time to prepare.

We really appreciate this cookbook because it begins with several chapters explaining why eating more whole foods matters to both our bodies and the planet, and also has a ton of information for people with various allergies (wheat, gluten etc.). The authors have had tremendous success with some of their clients who had previously undiagnosed food allergies, whose lives have been transformed simply by changing their diets.

The book was recommended to us by a naturopath and it’s easy to see why. This naturopath’s favorite quote is “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food”: Hippocrates.

You can find the book and order it online at wholelifenutrition.net.

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy & ceo at hippy grandma

Are you a heart centered and soul filled shopper? Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul brothers & sisters.
www.hippygrandma.com

You may have heard of the 100-Mile Diet, made famous a couple of years ago by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon in their book of the same name. From their web site: Locally raised and produced food has been called “the new organic” — better tasting, better for the environment, better for local economies, and better for your health. From reviving the family farm to reconnecting with the seasons, the local foods movement is turning good eating into a revolution.

It has been a couple of years since James and Alisa’s book was released and we wondered what they’d been up to lately. A lot, it turns out!

First, in the town of Mission, BC 100 people took up the challenge of eating locally for 100 days. By all accounts the experience was rewarding and enlightening, providing a few surprises that James and Alisa hadn’t encountered when they spent a year on their 100-Mile Diet.

Second, they’ve got news about a ground-breaking (pun intended) urban farm that will be created in Richmond, BC. More details about that on their blog as well.

From getting individuals to think about the impact our food choices make to influencing larger grocery store chains to stock locally-produced food, the experiment of two people and a question about what was possible has created a lot of unexpected change in the past couple of years. Congratulations James and Alisa!

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy & ceo at hippy grandma

Are you a heart centered and soul filled shopper? Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul brothers & sisters.
www.hippygrandma.com

Christmas Morning 2009 in Hippy Heaven, Yelapa, Mexico

Hotel Lagunita, Yelapa

By Zoey Ryan

The gentle waves muffle the Mexican “rancho polka music” which has started again after a brief respite. The music plays all night on Christmas Eve and for me is a strange blend of irritating and slightly hypnotizing. Earplugs simply take the edge off. Earplugs plus pillows, with my head sandwiched, seem the most effective method of muffling, which I successfully utilized at 4:17 am.

I sip my coffee, wishing it were organic Chiapas blend but enjoying what we brought from home. The roosters interject an occasional crow, although their additions are less frequent since sunrise.

I hear a water taxi leaving, a dog barking. The tiny hummingbird hovers at the brilliant red flower spindle. I hear the slap slap of flip flops on the stone stairs. I would have said ‘thongs’ a few years back but my daughters have trained me otherwise.

The temperature rises and a black and yellow striped butterfly glides in front of the tiled patio. The musky wet smell of the jungle intermingles with wood smoke, sea water smells, manure, diesel, fragrant flowers and a waft of laundry detergent. The air is wet and each breath seems to bath individual bronchioli.

I saw a furry little mouse this morning, hiding behind the dish soap (bright orange “Salvo- mi Salva Detergente Liquido Concentrado para Platos”). I startled it and so fast I wasn’t sure I had actually seen it, the tiny thing squeezed under the brown and gold Osterizer blender we use to make fresh fruit smoothies (our favorite is a papaya, banana, coconut, yogurt blend). Or, maybe, what I saw was a gecko.

The mama grey whale and her calf are quiet this morning. Perhaps they too are exhausted after the marathon night of music.

The ‘gang of teenagers’, my phrase to describe the flock of wild canaries who swoop and chatter in the morning, following the sun along the trees, scream by. They are quite unruly.

I notice a new flower has opened, yellow with saffron orange streaks and a fragrance that is mildly spicy. A lime plops to the ground. A velvety brown bird comes for a visit, perching on the iron railing at eye level. I hear chacalacas in the distance. Their sound is identical to their name. I am waiting for the pair of military macaws to cross high overhead in their daily fly by. It is said that there is a tree up river where many macaws roost and if you get there by 5 am you can see them. I’m not up that early here.

My mosquito bite itches, even with a thick pink coating of calamine lotion, glop, glop. The smell of the lotion transports me to my childhood on the Prairies and hot, lazy summer days playing in the fields and flushing out gopher holes. I wonder if I will get Dengue fever and am mildly concerned. Would it be gopher karma?

The church bells rang early this morning, calling the community to mass. I counted 16 bells, with a pause and then another bell. I may have miscounted.

The ants are busy this morning, scavenging the crumbs from the banana bread we ate out on the patio yesterday. A bright orange butterfly floats by and another magical Yelapa Christmas Day begins.

Our family in Yelapa (minus one)!

I hope you enjoyed my “Yelapa day” as much as we enjoyed our holiday. I’m back now, excited about 2010 and doing some great values based business planning.

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy & ceo at hippy grandma

Are you a heart centered and soul filled shopper? Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul brothers & sisters.
www.hippygrandma.com