complex shopping logistics

             Thirty, forty years ago things were simpler.  You'd go to the big supermarket to one-stop shop for most things.  We weren't worried about pesticide residue, we didn't think much about where our foods came from,  we didn't see the bigger picture of the conflict between profit and growing food sustainably, and the Western Diet hadn't blown up in our face yet.

            Nowadays I spend quite a bit of time running around to different places to fulfill my many food philosophies:  local food from local farmers to support the local economy and get the freshest possible food, produce that has not been sprayed or at least as little as possible, foods that are grown sustainably, pasture raised meat and sustainably fished seafood, eating more vegetables and lots of greens, and of course being cost conscious of the higher cost these types of food command.  It creates an intricate and more time consuming web of food related errands. 

            While we still do eat meat we eat a lot less of it and every few months I stock the freezer at a local farm where the animals graze outside all year round.  We get our raw milk and yogurt from a farm that is twenty-five miles away and have organized with several other families to take turns picking it up for the group so each of us only has to drive every other month.  Eggs come from the family whose place serves as the local weekly milk pick-up point.  Once a month our buying club gets a grocery and produce delivery from our food coop - we buy in bulk and share and save.  Some of the things I buy from the coop are bulk legumes, seeds and nuts, bulk tea and spices, condiments, nut and seed butters, also some personal care items.  Since the coop produce only lasts for about two weeks I fill in from a whole bunch of local farmers, and sometimes the supermarket.  I buy my recycled paper goods at Trader Joe's, where I also get some other organic basics such as vinegar and oils, chocolate, frozen organic spinach, and organic canned tomatoes.  Most of our supplements I order online as well as some specialty items I cannot readily find locally or through the coop (like our favorite smoky tea lapsang souchong, which our daughter humorously calls lapsang sooch).  And, believe it or not, I recently found a 5.5lb container of organic chia seeds at Walmart of all places (yes, I admit that I go there, too).

the new values

         A few years ago we hired a bright young man who left our company after only three short months.   He decided that he didn't want to work as much, and proposed to work less hours for less pay (which didn't work for us at the time). 

            There is a new set of values around, and it's quality-of-life based.  The younger generation, of which many did not vote in this past election because they did not feel heard, has a different set of values from the profit-based, fast-paced, career-track oriented hustle for the next promotion and bigger salary of the twentieth century.   The new values are not about chasing the next buck, but about a better quality of life, sustainability, trust and transparency, as well as sharing, cooperation and creating community.

            We get a glimpse of these new values in the many grassroots movements that are popping up everywhere:  deeper awareness about food issues (such as veganism, reduction of food waste by way of redistribution, organics, the local food movement); increasing awareness of social values (fair trade movement, raising the minimum wage, shorter work hours); the many environmental organizations, whether awareness raising or preserving land for future generations;  transparency (such as promoted by Wiki Leaks) and pricing information available on the internet; free sharing of music, education, and information on the internet.  Skills and things are shared and swapped, without the exchange of money, in hour exchanges, seed exchanges, repair cafés, tool libraries, cooperatives of all kinds, clothing and book swaps, and via Freecycle.  Some communities are experimenting with local currencies, some employers with job sharing, flex time, paternity leave, summer hours, and more time off.

            In an earlier blog post I introduced the Cultural Creatives, the name Ray and Anderson gave to these people, including myself and many of us, who share these values.  Know that these impulses are glimpses of a new cultural-economic model breaking through from underneath.  It's incredibly exciting to know we are part of something bigger, and that we are experiencing this shift to new values in real time. 

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."