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Is there anything more beautiful than these water drops that glitter like Swarovski crystals in the sun? Nature creates this kind of perfection effortlessly, without trying - naturally. So different from us, when we try to create beauty. We have to apply skill and technology. We need to work at it, spending years of practicing and perfecting a skill, before something becomes naturally beautiful without trying too hard.
Here - another blog post - on nature's effortless perfection.
I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags. They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can. Yet, I bought a big box of sixty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily. The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, be a good example, and do my share to save the world. Plastic is an environmental
I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags. They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can. Yet, I bought a big box of fifty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily. The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, lead by example, and do my share to save the world. Plastic is an environmental nightmare that never (well, at least almost never) decomposes! It swirls the Pacific in plastic islands the size of Texas, plastic shopping bags hang from our trees like rags and fly across roadways and fields, softdrink loops ensnare fish and seabirds, and fish and marine mammals ingest plastic bits and pieces that float in the ocean. I don't want to be yet another contributor to this horror show.
Remember the days when we didn't care because we didn't know? But sometimes life, and practicality, takes over and I think I'm done with these compostable trash bags because they just don't work and I really have tried and done my very best. For now I will settle for sturdy bags that are made from recycled plastic (at least something good), but, alas, are not compostable. And I think the world will survive, and I will be ok. What are your thoughts?
I'm not much of a fiction reader but I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees and enjoyed it a lot. The story conveys what I keep saying, that life is all about relationships. And life is all about relationships because life is about experiencing love in its many forms, as well as through its lack and absence. The Bean Trees' metaphor for this realization is the wisteria vine, whose root system attracts rhizobia, small bugs that attract nitrogen to the roots and assure the wisteria's survival even in poor soil. Bug and wisteria live in a mutually beneficial and interdependent relationship. One cannot survive without the other.
We may think that we can go it alone, get off the grid and be self-sufficient, but nature is not like that. Nature is an entirely interdependent and mutually beneficent interrelational web of support that we humans are an integral part of. The more we care for each other, the more we enjoy love, life and happiness.
We go to restaurants every once in a while and enjoy the experience. But what we enjoy a whole lot more is having people over or going over to friends' homes and sharing good food and good conversation. It costs a whole lot less and it cultivates relationships. That's what it's all about.
Read here a previous post on nature's interdependence, piranhas and the eco-mind.
photo credit joinedtohim.com
It is time to move aside and consider the rest of our planet's inhabitants. It is time to shrink our economies. It is time to leave some nature unraped. British philosopher Alan Watts wrote
".......a permanently victorious species destroys, not only itself,
but all other life in its environment."
We depend on all other life on this planet. Without trees for oxygen, without plants for food, without wood and fiber for building and clothing, without water for drinking, without the animal kingdom for balance of our ecosystems, we do not exist. We have already destroyed so much of life on earth, let's not keep winning to the bitter end.
Our bat house is an important conversation piece even though it is still uninhabited. Bats are in as dire a straight these days as bees. Many of them have died off due to white-nose syndrome (a fungus disease), while bees have succumbed tocolony collapse syndrome en masse. Bats are important insect population regulators and can eat their weight in mosquitos and other insects on a daily basis (wow, I would need to eat 130 pounds of food each day). We like to give afflictions fancy names. But what is the real cause behind these massive die offs?
Why do we humans become so sick in later life with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease? Many signs point to diet, toxins and a stressful unnatural lifestyle. Studies into white-nose and colony collapse syndrome have also indicated that toxins aka pesticides aka neonicotinoids may weaken these small creatures' tiny immune systems. Our toxic agricultural practices are upsetting the apple cart aka ecosystem balance. Not only is it likely that our pollinators and insect population regulators are dying for those reasons, but their die offs are causing further ecosystem imbalances down the line because we'll have trouble pollinating our produce and the insect population will grow out of whack (watch out for Zika and West Nile).
Luckily many bats live in the cliff next to us. Bats flutter around at dusk on warm summer nights, when most birds have settled in for the night. Have you seen any bats lately?
dandelions
lambs quarters
For the past few weeks I have had an abundant supply of wild greens in my backyard. Lambs quarters and dandelions are growing with abandon. Both can be eaten raw as salad greens, used in a smoothie, or quickly sautéed or steamed with some garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice. Dandelion leaves become bitter as the leaves grow bigger and older, so harvest the smaller ones if you don't like bitter greens. The yellow flowers are edible and look very pretty in a salad, or you can put them in your smoothie. Lambs quarters is a mild tasting green and can be substituted in any recipe that calls for spinach or chard.
In a few weeks we are looking forward to a bumper crop of blackcaps. What's growing in your backyard?
budding blackcaps
Ice cream servings in a cone are small in Europe, probably a bit less than half the size of the big scoops we are used to over here. Generally we equate big with good because bigger is better, right? Cars used to be the size of boats in this country until people became more energy aware. "How was the food at that new restaurant?" "It was great, we had a lot of food." Huh? But how did it taste? May be the portion was too large if you need to take half your meal home in a doggy bag.
E.F. Schumacher was way ahead in 1973 when he argued in his economic classic Small is Beautiful that building our economy on eternal growth is not sustainable. Indeed, our planet doesn't expand. Around the same time Frances Moore Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet. She pioneered the discussion around the terrible environmental impact our industrial "meat production" causes and argued for vegetarianism.
Interest rates have been shrinking, they are even lower in Europe than here, and discussions on negative interest rates are popping up - getting penalized for leaving your money in the bank. So spend it or put it under the mattress.
All of these are signs that small is beautiful, bigger is not sustainable, our economies need to shrink to halt the consumerist excess and environmental damage we have created. Think quality over quantity. "How delicious was that meal?" not "How big was it?" "What beautiful material is that dress made of?" not "Buy 2 for the price of 1."
Mahatma Gandhi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." He has a point.
More of us need to know how the majority of animals raised for human consumption is treated - it's dreadful, and maybe this term isn't even strong enough (read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals if you really want to know more). It also says something about us that pharmaceuticals are tested on animals kept in captivity and subjected to potentially harmful side effects. And that kill shelters exist is a horror. Betta fish are routinely kept in solitary confinement in minuscule bubble tanks. Thank goodness big game hunting is on its way out, the ivory trade also (they kill the whole huge elephant just for the tusks and don't even bother eating the meat), almost, and shark fin soup popularity is down (see an earlier post on that). But people still wear fur coats and the Chinese still illegally trade animal parts they believe have healing properties. Nevertheless, zoos treat animals much better nowadays than say a hundred years ago, providing them with habitats that resemble the places they came from, diets as close to their natural diets as possible, and distraction and exercise in enclosures that are much smaller than their natural territory.
I believe that we are unable to harm an animal once we look it deeply in the eyes - because then we connect with its soul. When animals are kept in pens under anonymous conditions we don't connect with each one individually. That's why people have no qualms about eating supermarket meat. If we all had to look our steak in the eyes, work in a kill shelter, spend a week in a slaughterhouse or a pharmaceutical animal testing lab things would change very very quickly.
I am a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to recycling because I want to make sure nothing that doesn't need to go to the landfill goes there. In the kitchen, in the spot originally designed for the trash can, I have a big recycling bin for the usual paper/glass jars/bottles/various packaging items, which the weekly collection truck picks up. A canvas bag hangs behind the pantry door for the returnable bottles and cans for which I get 5c each back from the supermarket. In another canvas bag behind the pantry door I collect recyclable plastic bags - the supermarket has a drop-off bin for them. And then I have a bucket for all the produce scraps, eggshells and tealeaves that we compost in the composting bin in the backyard. I recycle clothing six ways from Sunday - by giving it away, bringing it to the second hand or thrift shops in my area, or dropping it into one of the many clothing drops. Cable, phone stuff and very small electronics go to Best Buy, but a few old phones are lingering on the hallway table while I am trying to figure out what to do with them.
My son always comments that the back of my car looks like a junk yard. Indeed, it can get crowded back there between the mountain of reusable shopping bags, two freezer bags (you never know), various items waiting to be dropped off somewhere, and the carton I use to safely transport my weekly raw milk, yogurt and egg order back from the farm.
The only thing I am really frustrated about is styrofoam. They don't accept it for recycling anywhere in our area and it will linger in the landfill for a million or so years! No kidding!
Also revisit a previous post on the joys of composting and one on wasting less.
Let's not throw her to the dogs, let's not pollute her any longer, or blow her up to smithereens, we can't go live on the Moon or Mars. Besides, I kind of like it here. Do you?
Without the Earth we're nothing. We do not exist without her, at least not in our human form. The Earth furnishes us with everything we need, food, fuel, material for shelter and clothing, and beyond those basics beauty and wonder. Gaia and you and I are one. She exists so we can experience her and all of us together.
On this Earth Day consider becoming aware of what you see and experience, then unravel it backwards to unearth what beliefs lie behind it, under it, buried. What you experience and see is based on your thoughts and beliefs. On this Earth Day the second phase of our solar installation is being completed so we can produce 100% of the energy we consume. Zero footprint. It's about mutual respect, and it's an investment in the future of our planet.
Also take a look at this one and that previous Earth Day posts.