ATANGARDEN: We're baaaaaack!

There are hundreds of worms out there! We are pumped! They are busy working their magic on our soil, doing their thang, and we are thankful to each one of them. Without them, I don't know where we'd be.

We've spent a number of saturdays out in the garden prepping things; weeding those annoying lego plants, re-building the inukshuk with great care, transplanting compost, lugging cinder blocks, adding new garden boxes, talking with curious passersby, painting signs, pruning, more weeding of lego plants, PLANTING many seeds, and praying for sunshine. It has been RAIN town. But we have gum boots and gumption. So all is well.

This is a picture of me putting saw dust around Blueberry Lane, which Tessa has made a beautiful sign for. And Sofe is taking some compost from the mother box and putting it into other, smaller ones.

Here is another action shot of Sofe sharing the compost wealth. And also proof that the tulip bulbs Sofe picked up for free last year grew.

A rare sunny moment in the garden. I can't wait for more of this! (Dan + Vicki = lovebirds)

So far we have planted the following:

-brussels sprouts (started sprouting)

-broccoli (starter plants, about 4 in tall)

-kale

-potatoes (sprouting)

-garlic (sprouting)

-onions

-parsley (starter plant)

-oregano (starter plant)

-sage

-leafy greens (started sprouting)

-sunflowers (started sprouting)

-basil (it died :( )

-chives (came back from last year)

-mint (came back from last year)

I hope I didn't forget anything.

We plan on still planting zucchini, carrots, corn, tomatoes, and whatever else our collective hearts decide upon....

(All photography done by Tiffany Suderman, merci beaucoup)

Old Atangard Articles!

Articles from 1944:




Atangard Sold to Vancouver Hotel People! (article August 4, 1943)





Article from the Abbotsford News Feb. 8, 1939...

Keep Walking

I was asked the other day if people here have been let down by the expectations they had when first moving in. I can only speak for myself. I do not think I had specific expectations, only hope. With years previous spent living in different situations with different amounts of people I did not think it would be a walk in the park. I only hoped that whatever that walk looked like, it would be worthwhile.

People and relationships can be complicated and messy, but I would not want life without them. Sometimes people ask me how things are going. I usually respond that it is good but hard, or hard but good, depending on how I've been most affected lately. People seem surprised or curious. I imagine that most marriages, journeys, or life paths have been hard but good too. It's part of life. I believe that everything in life worth doing will have hard or unpleasant elements.

I've been living with a lot of these people for almost a year and a half now. Many of them I would not've come to know otherwise. The first year was quiet, a time of acquaintance, you could say. The last six months have more so been learning what it is to live together and with some to share life together.

I have at times felt defeat. That because things have been hard, or did not go as planned, that ambitions to live and love have been in vain. In such moments I have been advised this is not failure. This was in fact what I wanted, what I set out for. I just didn't know what it would look like. In that I find desire to keep going.

Some people have tasted and tried a year or so of living together and have lost interest and are ready to move on. Some people may've lost heart. To some it no longer serves their needs. As in every practice you must continue to go deeper to receive the benefits. I am so grateful for those who continue to come alongside me in this endeavor.

Sophia

Converge Magazine Article

Recently, Converge Magazine published the article below about our community. The magazine's website can be found at http://www.convergemagazine.com/

Why I Moved In, Part 5

"The person who loves their own dream of community (even if intentions are ever so earnest) will destroy it, but the person who loves those around them will create community."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's hard for me to think back with clarity to a time when I was not utterly enmeshed in Atangard. For me, Atangard Community Project began long before we moved into 33790 Essendene Ave. My energy and thoughts started funneling towards community when I moved out here from Saskatchewan over 3 years ago. A group of people interesting in living in and working towards creating a community living space was one of the reasons I made the trek to BC.

After high school, as you may have read below, I went to a Capernwray school in Greece and was lucky enough to landed a beautiful roommate named Tessa Marie Suderman. She taught me a lot - about God, about friendship and about myself. She also showed me how to look at myself in a way I never had before. You see, by the time I got to Greece, although I may not have looked it on the outside, I was in pretty rough shape. I had spent the previous three weeks alternating between depression and elation and arguing with my family while travelling through Europe. Before that had been a year of tremendous lows, screaming, unusual behavior, tears and finally - seeking help and opening up to my parents about what was going inside of me and how scared and confused I really was. To tell the truth, that year is a little hazy. Like many bad months or episodes since - it is closer to a bad dream than a real experience.

To be a little dramatic, Greece was really the beginning of new life and although it took me several years to find my way back to Tess after Greece and really, here, to the start my life - that was where it all began. Let me explain what I mean.

My time in Greece gave me a love for and an interest in community that I never had previously, because I had never experienced it. After leaving, although I did another brief stint in Austria at a bible school in a community setting (equally good), I continued to battle ups and downs and was diagnosed as bipolar. I was on and off different medications, struggling to grow up and figure out how to live on my own, and mostly did not do this very well. I did this in Winnipeg, Manitoba as I was attending design school at Red River College. The support system that I was blessed with there was amazing, but it wasn't enough. Or maybe it was me that wasn't healthy enough, mentally or physically, to reach for or create a community like the one I dreamed of.

After all of that, design school behind me and blank slate before me, I did what I always did, moved to a new place. This time, Abbotsford, BC. What happened next however, was unusual - I stayed. And this staying has brought me a community that has enabled me to live life in a way I did not dare hope I could. Pharmaceutical med free, healthy and happy.

My dream was a community that worked, slept, ate, cried, laughed - LIVED together. That is what I was reaching for when I stuffed a lot of junk in a U-haul. Since then, my dream has been complicated by the complications of living in and trying to be a leader in an actual community. And as I try to do that leading, along with four other directors, sometimes we make mistakes. I worry that decisions we make, even with the most earnest of intentions (which I do not worry about, we are very earnest), will destroy our community. I am reminded, wisely, by others that this place is remarkably strong and resilient. That strength is something I draw from more than I realize, except when I take time to reflect and realize how much this place and these people have given me.

Beth

our pilgrimage together

A Music Video By Rags to Riches Filmed On Location In Atangard