The past two years of writing for Steward’s Notes has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Those of you who follow and comment and send me such pleasant emails really make this project a lot of fun, and it is much appreciated! As some of you may know, I have been in the process of writing a master’s thesis: Polycentric Models for Urban Greenspace Management. I am desperately trying to finish writing in the coming month, and I really need to set this project (Steward’s Notes) aside for a little bit. I miss you lots and I really can’t wait to come back! I have lots of exciting plans for the months and years ahead and I can’t wait for you all to take part. However I really need to hit the pause button for a little bit. Make sure you don’t miss the return by subscribing below! Thank you all for your understanding and I’ll likely see you in the new year!
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This year I’ll be celebrating 2 years of writing Steward’s Notes. This week I’ll be celebrating a year of taking it more seriously and a nomination for an award! When I started writing Steward’s notes in 2017 I was just starting a Masters of Sustainability Studies at Trent University, part of my job as a student was to reflect on our regular colloquium events on Trent’s internal communications tool “Blackboard”. These reflections were meant to be presented in a blog format visible to other students in our program. Unfortunately people who are not students of the program were not able to access the reflections of some of the brilliant minds in my program. In an effort to tie my studies closer to the community I started writing my own blog on Sustainability and Environmentalism in Peterborough. (Initially I included some other content, but that has since migrated to another site) I believe the interest in this blog reflects a real desire in the Peterborough community to hear real grounded stories on environmental issues, where people can and are making a real difference in our city. I also believe that this has been an excellent opportunity to share the diversity of life and nature in our own back yards.
For myself this blog has been an opportunity for catharsis,
when the issues of the day frustrate me, I like to write about how I might act
to solve them. The name Steward’s Notes comes from my desire to take real concrete
action to care for the land we live on and to do the best that we can when we
can. I have a fondness for the term stewardship, it conjures a picture of one’s
labour being reflected in the places and people they care about. I believe that
others appreciate the work that I have done and have used it for inspiration to
take their own actions.
Reflecting on the stories that I have written over the past
year, I see that the most popular stories are ones that share the hidden beauty
of our home, or those that promote real action that people can take (And one
April fools joke). I think that in a period of political disenfranchisement,
being shown a way forward is an act of empowerment that people can latch onto.
In a recent interview someone described to me how for their organization,
moving forward was the only option and that banging heads against a wall is a
pointless exercise. In a land where we enjoy the privilege of freedoms that we
have, it is possible to take advantage of a world of opportunities for caring
and stewardship before we need to start pushing boundaries (Not that we
shouldn’t push boundaries). I was recently reminded of this by a good friend, and
it goes to show that sometimes being forced to refocus can have incredible
effects. I like to think that in my own little way, Steward’s Notes is an
outside beacon encouraging people to refocus when they get lost in the details
of environmentalism, sustainability and stewardship.
As a final note, I’ll say that I’ve discovered that the
three (or four) pillar approach to sustainability makes for good and engaging
content in addition to being much more holistic way of viewing the world. Much
of the most popular content I’ve written in the past year has been when I have
made a conscious effort to consider an issue from all environmental, economic
and social perspectives (I’m still not entirely sure how to separate culture
from social in the four-pillar approach). Logically this makes sense, since you
could expect that readership would have some vested interest in viewing any
particular issue from their pillar of expertise. Mostly I view the world
through an environmental lens, but it is a useful tool to remind me to leave my
comfort zone and consider other ways of thinking and being.
An additional fun little tidbit I’ll share is that according
to my internal analytics, the large majority of my readership has a love of
dogs. Not sure what this says about the blog, but as a bit of a dog person
myself, I’ll take it.
With the coming spring and increased readership of Steward’s Notes I have decided to introduce some exciting changes! Some of you may have received an email late last night that read like a cryptic field note, and for that I would like to apologize! I am adding a section to this site where I will be publishing my regular field notes. To keep email spam to a minimum, subscribers will not receive an email in the future when field notes are published, only for the more substantial content published here. If you are interested you can find a link at the top of the page.
Additionally, I have recently removed all of the content from this site around some of my other projects such as the 3D printers, DIY cell phone etc. You can find all of that at my sister site patchworksmfg.com This change is to keep the content of this site focused on my passion for Peterborough and the outdoors. It always seemed rather clunky to me to have a site dedicated to nature and making even if I did try and create some overlap. I found as time went on that blog subscribers would drop out when content they were not interested in was published. I have therefore decided to entirely focus this site on Peterborough’s natural heritage and natural history.
Thank you to the Peterborough Community! The support I receive for this little blog is nothing short of incredible. I look forward to sharing and hearing stories of the land we love in the coming years!