Trust, Abundance and Unpacking Alternative Food Systems On Holidays

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Hi, I'm Christina.

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I'm from Prague.

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Hi, I'm Jen, and I'm from Canada.

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Hi, I'm Ola Bji, and I'm from Nigeria.

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Hello, I'm Leaky and I live in Paris.

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Hi, I'm Brian and I'm from New York.

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Welcome to Carbon Sessions, a podcast with carbon conversations for every day with

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everyone from everywhere in the world.

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Hi, I am Jen.

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Hi, I am Christina.

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And hello, I'm Nikki.

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How are you?

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Great.

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So as the, at the time of recording this episode, we are about to, we are getting

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ready for the summer holiday and, uh, we were talking earlier about some very nice

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initiatives on in the, some rural places that we will be going to or we've been to.

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That's right.

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Who wants to start with their stories?

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Hmm.

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I have been thinking about how people are resourceful and, uh, in Czech

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Republic, a lot of little farms or little gardens have, uh, baskets with their

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produce in front of their doors with signs and little bucks for donation.

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And this is the way to get around all the rules around selling produce and being

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official farm and official business.

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And it's, uh, it feels so comfortable and I feel so connected

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to the community when I see that.

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I feel like I'm not shut out and, uh, it feels good.

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That's lovely.

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I was, uh, talking before we hit record about a place that, um, that we have gone

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every summer for probably 12 summers now.

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It's a, a Gulf Island, um, here in British Columbia, a little island, and.

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You can drive all over this island or you can walk or, or you can hitchhike.

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'cause they have, uh, they have this whole hitchhiking system set up,

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um, where you, if you can, you can, there's special spots you can stand.

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And, uh, and wait.

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And people who are driving by will pick you up, um, which is wonderful.

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And you can drive all around and find the most amazing food and products

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that people have made in their homes, , that they are offering for sale.

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Um, there is one woman who on a particular day of the week, bakes the most.

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Phenomenal bread, all different kinds of bread.

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And people line up at seven 30 in the morning waiting for the

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bread to be released for that day.

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And it goes in about half an hour, it's all gone.

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Um, I guess she bakes all week and the bread is, is um, is delicious.

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, we were driving around last year and we'd been going for years and years and years,

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but we found a new little neighborhood we'd never been to, to before and.

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This street, what they've done is several people have put refrigerators

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at the end of their driveways.

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And they have very imaginative names.

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One of them is called The Fridge of Cheesecake, and one of them

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is called The Fridge of Wonders because it has many things in it.

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And the fridge of Cheesecake was of course, all different kinds of homemade

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cheesecake and the fridge of wonders.

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Had, um, homemade vegan ice cream and different kinds of cold treats in it.

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And then also all sorts of produce from the garden right there at the house.

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And eggs, uh, from the chickens that people had.

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, and we drive around other places in the island and we found beautiful,

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uh, new potatoes and , flowers.

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And just gorgeous things.

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So it's always fun.

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In the summer, one of the things we like to do is go around and

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see what wonderful things we can find that people are offering.

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And they usually just have, like you said, Christina, a little

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box that you can put money into.

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So I wonder how does it work?

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Do, do they have, um, it's, it's donation based, but is it like a price

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or minimum charge or something like that?

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I mean, how, how does it work?

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I.

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They have a usually, well one of them has a chalkboard with the prices listed.

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Um, one of them I did notice you could actually etransfer the money if you didn't

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have cash, which was really, really neat.

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It had the email address and you could etransfer.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's even better because I'm, I'm starting to think of, you know, of the

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ugly side of some humans that if you designation box, you know, one of the

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thing that can happen is that it can.

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Gets so each transfer could be even better.

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Yeah.

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Plus it's fun.

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Yes, it is.

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Yeah.

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Uh, I've seen one of this thing as well in, uh, when I was on holiday a

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few years ago in Scotland in a very, oh, it's like a, it's a magical place.

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It's, um, it's in the Highlands in and, um, it's, it's a tiny village.

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I mean, I remember when we were driving there, I thought it was like a dream.

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It was so green.

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They were, you know, the, the roads are, I don't know if you've ever

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been to Scotland, but they, I mean, in rural area, generally in a lot of

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places they, the road is, there's only, there's enough space for one car and

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then when, when there's a car that comes to on the other side, you know,

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just go, there's some like little place that you can, um, what is it called?

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You know the place you can just park and let the other call.

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I dunno what it's called, but, and, but the, the, the road was really, really

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narrow and it was a very hot year and, uh, and it was so green, it was so beautiful.

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And there were flowers and goats and everything and, uh, it was like a dream.

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And we arrived on this.

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Island, not island.

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It's um, it's um, um, it's um, you know, it's this, um, there's little Glen Glens

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like, you know, this little harbors in, in Scotland and we arrive at this

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place and it was like a small, very tiny community that was really different for

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me coming from, you know, a big city.

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And, uh, so we rented a house, a small house there for week.

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And um, it's like, you know, we're part of the village because we keep.

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Because it's, it's very difficult to get to this village to, and

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so we keep bumping on people.

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Like, you know, we, we were walking in the village or we were hiking.

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It's always the same people.

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So we was like, what is it?

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Is it true or is it like, you know, because at some stage I thought, wow,

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it's like, you know, this movie with, um, Jimmy Carey, where everything is perfect.

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What, what's his name of the, the title of this movie?

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Um, What is title of this movie where he's living?

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He's he, he, he brought up a TV show and.

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Everybody is very nice and very smiley and you know, the

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whole thing is, is just dreamy.

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So I thought it was in this type of movie and, and it's so beautiful

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that, you know, we met, um, a man who's, um, I think he's a gardener.

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Um, and because it takes a all different.

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Gardens because there are a lot of holy homes.

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And he his locally takes care of the different gardens while they're, and

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he told us that he had a, um, his own garden for produce and, you know,

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he was talking about his passion for growing like, you know, rare.

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Produced like rare fruits.

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Rare herbs, rare, rare, like ancient species of salad and all that.

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And so we had a tour of his little garden and then um, And then they say,

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yeah, well actually, yeah, , there was no shop in this village as well.

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I mean, this just one tiny shop with almost nothing.

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And say, you know, what you could do is just, just come and, you know,

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and pick up the stuff you want.

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And then, you know, and then, uh, there's a donation box and you

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put the money there if you want.

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And so there's a Wow.

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Yeah.

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So, yeah.

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So that was, that is just, I mean, yeah, I can see that it could happen in these kind

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of places because it's very isolated, but.

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I don't know how it would work in the big city like Paris, but you know, sometimes

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even in the big city people, people share.

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I mean, we have community gardens, um, in some of the cities here.

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And the way the community gardens, at least this one particular one I'm

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thinking of work is, um, the people.

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Uh, take what they need from what they garden, and then any extra gets,

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uh, donated weekly to the food bank.

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Mm-hmm.

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And so somebody comes along and collects anybody's extra.

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If you have too many tomatoes or you have too many of something, they'll

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take the extra and then take it to somewhere who, for people who need it.

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Um, there's also another initiative that I, um, I read about recently where

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it's called Front Front Yard Gardening.

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Mm-hmm.

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Front yard gardens and this company will come and turn, uh, front

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yards into beautiful food gardens.

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And they will either do it and the people who live there look after it or they

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will do it and they will look after it.

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And the people whose property it is get some of the food, but the

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rest of the food then gets donated.

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Um, and I thought that was a beautiful.

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Concept for a company.

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It's a great alternative to grass.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Oh, that's a.

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That's a great concept.

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Uh, when I was taking Permaculture certificate, our teachers lived

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in Calgary and they started food for us, a permaculture garden in

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front of their house in Calgary.

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And it was really interesting.

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They were talking, it was so cool when kids walking around picking raspberries

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and strawberries out of our garden.

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It was, it was good feeling, good neighborhood feeling.

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That's right.

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Our neighbors across the street have a very established

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plum tree and an apple tree.

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And every year I can see people walking by and they see the fruit that's

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ripe, that's fallen on the ground.

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And they, they pick it up and they look around to see if anybody's looking or

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they, or they look around and they look up and then they reach up and they take

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something, you know, they, they look a little bit guilty, but it's funny

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because the neighbor doesn't mind at all.

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Yeah.

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And often.

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She'll bring us bags of fruit and uh, and then we went and planted apples and

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pears and plums in our backyard, but they're just starting to get established.

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So one day we'll have lots of of fruit, I think.

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Yeah.

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Talking about plums, I have an, um, an experience with plums when

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I was on an island in, in France, on holiday again, and, um, it.

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Is, um, a tiny island with, um, love tourists and usually

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tourists go there for a day or two because it's not a very big place.

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And it, it's great for hiking.

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And there's some residential, like your holiday homes.

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And, um, and I was walking on the street in one of the streets and , I

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saw someone hanging a, a, um, fruit basket full of plums, and there was

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a sign saying, oh, you know, Um, hikers or something like, , welcome.

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You are welcome to, , to help yourself.

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You just have some because I have too much.

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Oh, that's, uh, oh, that's amazing.

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Yeah.

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I think it's just, yeah.

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And I've been talking to some neighbors and actually this, the lady um, who

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owns this, this house, she has , a couple very big trees that, that, um,

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uh, what do you, what do you call it?

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Uh, when you know that's of.

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Gives a lot of fruit every year and she , gives away the plums

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all, you know, all summer.

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I think it's, it's, it's great.

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Yeah.

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Well we're thinking we're, yeah, we're thinking of actually moving in the spring.

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Um, I.

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To a, a smaller yard and a smaller place and, and for less driving

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for where I have to work, even though we're using an electric car.

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And we can't have fruit trees in yards over there because of bears.

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Oh, wow.

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We don't have bears over here.

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We have raccoons, the steel fruit, and we have other things.

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But, um, it'll be interesting to see how to, uh, How to do that again in

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a way that doesn't attract critters.

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Big critters.

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You really said bears like.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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There's bears over by where I work and, and sometimes they walk down the streets

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and sometimes they're in, one of them walked into the mall one day, um, because

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the mall had doors, those sensor doors that opened, and this bear was walking

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through the parking lot and I guess.

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The, the shopping mall door open and the bear just walked

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right into the shopping mall.

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Not kidding me.

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That's which caused not, you're not kidding.

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I'm not really The Bears No.

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Which caused a bit of a hoopla.

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They got the bear out.

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Um, but yeah, we've had, um, yeah, there's, there's lots of bears over

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that way across the river and, uh, but they're not over where we are.

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Most of the time we have cougars and we have other creatures, but

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cougars are afraid and shy and we don't really see them except

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on security cameras in the night.

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Big, beautiful bobcat like bobcats.

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Big cats.

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Yeah.

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Oh my God.

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You live in a very dangerous place.

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No, it's not really, but you just have to know.

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So where, where we're hoping to go, we can't plant fruit trees because

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the bears will wreck your fences.

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They'll come down and, and itch, cross your fences down

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to get the fruit when it's rip.

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And so you have to, you have to do different things.

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So we'll see.

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Hmm.

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Yeah.

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It's all an adventure.

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Oh, that's great.

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Well, that's good.

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It's nice that people are generous and are willing to share and can grow

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such abundance right where they live.

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I think that's beautiful.

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Yeah.

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I think it, and it's reduces transportation costs because there's none.

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Yeah.

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And all the carbon that it takes to, uh, transport and store,

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and then it's fresher too.

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Yeah.

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And it feels so good to share.

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What's the takeaway from this conversation?

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I don't have a garden.

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I don't, I don't live in the house, so I cannot share fruits produced, but I

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planted some tomatoes and I'm hoping to have one or two tomato, just one

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or two, because there are a couple flowers and so I'm hoping to have them.

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So, but I think it's great when you can, um, share the, you know, what you produce

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in your garden and um, or in your kitchen.

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Yeah.

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Have basil leaves, right?

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Yeah.

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Have basil leaves.

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Can always bake things and share them with the neighbor too.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Good shows.

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There's abundance.

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There's such a big abundance in the world.

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Okay, so, and thanks, Fran.

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Yeah.

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Andrea Summer.

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You too.

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Thanks.

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Have fun.

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