keep enjoying

              We have created a throw-away society to feed The Economy.   We are used to so much abundance, and, granted, it's often cheaper to replace something than to have it fixed.  But this habit encourages needless consumption and expenses, more trash, and the making of more (cheap) stuff.

            In the fall people go on mum buying sprees, and by Thanksgiving the wilted plants end up on the compost pile.   But mums are perennials.  They may not come back entirely as vibrantly as the first year, but they don't deserve the trash treatment, you can plant them in your garden.  Same thing with poinsettias.  They have become such a Christmas industry because people buy them new each year.  Lo and behold, the three poinsettias I received as a gift last year are blooming for the second time around, and just in time for Christmas.  Spend less and keep enjoying.   Here a previous related post, small is beautiful.

on experiencing adversity

              Have you noticed that a lesson sticks better when you experience something?  We need to do, we need to feel, we need to experience in order to get it.  With a skill it's more obvious - you can't learn to cook by reading a cookbook, it remains theoretical.  Ultimately you have to get into the kitchen and do it.  You have to get into the water to learn how to swim, watching a movie about swimming is not enough.

            The concept is a bit more abstract when it comes to projections and possible implications.    If you have twenty people over for Thanksgiving some planning ahead is a must so everything is ready when your guests sit down for dinner.  This requires projections you can make based on your own experience.

            When it comes to far reaching ideas, however, when we need to rely on others, experts, scientists, it seems to me that we are not so good at accepting projections, that oftentimes we have to experience first in order to get it, to act, to make a change.  I am thinking about two examples.   One is proactive wellness and the other is climate change.

            In a documentary about his career Chef Dan Barber mused about the early hardships on his path to fame and concluded that adversity teaches us where we don't want to go back to.   Is it wisdom that might prevent us from having to go through an actual experience to avoid hardship?  Is it trust in someone else's scientific truth?  Is it distinguishing fact from fiction?  Not sure.  Sometimes we need to experience illness before concluding we'd rather be healthy and decide to eat a better diet in the future.

            What is it with climate change?  There are still many skeptics out there who don't believe in the scientific compilations and observations by so many reputable organizations.  Maybe we'll need to experience the dire consequences of our inaction, the more frequent droughts, the more pronounced weather instabilities and implications for our agriculture, the global warming and projected migration of millions of people from the global South, the torrential rains and storms, the more massive snowfalls, the melting of the icecaps, the submersion of coastal areas and low lying islands.   All already going on in real time right now.....does it need to get worse?  What are your thoughts?

learning to lose

         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.

where do you draw the line?

           A few years ago I bought a lovely linen summer dress at a second hand store for about $20.  I still like the dress but noticed that two seams were coming apart, which made it look a bit shabby.  I brought it to the local alterations seamstress, a lady from Europe who does superb work, because fixing it entailed a bit more than simply going down the seam with the machine.  She looked at it and said "Well, I don't want you to be surprised when you pick the dress up, but I have to undo both seems almost to the top, take the material in and then resew the seams, and it'll cost $60."  I thought that was a lot.

            Where do you draw the line?  Some things do, unfortunately, boil down to money.  I decided not to spend $60 to fix an old dress I bought for $20.  But it's a shame that fixing something should cost so much more than buying something new (since I buy a lot of my clothes at thrift stores I'm not used to $200 dresses).  When do you stop supporting your local business and watch out for your wallet?  I have the same issue with our local independent bookstore.  I support them however I can, but sometimes I just can't.  When a book costs just a few dollars more I'll buy it there, even if they don't have it and need to order it.  But what if I need to buy a bunch of books they don't have and would need to order, which would take at least a week, and their cost would be at least $30 more than if I ordered the books through a huge famous online store? 

            Where and how do you draw the line? It's a quandary.

poor bats

       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?

net zero

       We are finally net zero after having added more solar panels on our other two roofs this spring.  Our original panels met 45% of our electric needs; together with the new panels we should produce enough power to meet all our electric needs - for heating and air-conditioning, hot water, lighting, household appliances, as well as home office computers and office machines.  No fossil fuels, clean and silent energy.

            Taking the federal and state tax credits into account the payback on purchasing solar panels is somewhere around 7-9 years for us.  Given that the panels are good for 20-25 years we expect between 11 and 16 years of free utilities.  Not bad considering that energy costs are steadily inching up and fossil fuels are on their way out.  At today's rates that translates very roughly into a $52,000 to $75,200 savings over the life of the panels.  Not bad.  How would you like to put that kind of savings towards paying your mortgage off early or your kids' college fund?

foraging 101

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

small is beautiful

         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."

a million years!

               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.

the earth is all we have

             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.