The Story of a Dollar: Or How Hana Learns to be Smarter with her Money

"A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; 

only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something."

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

It's an embarrassing tale. Last fall, Walmart had a sale, a buck a bag for compost. I try and avoid Walmart, but the deal sounded so good!  Of course, after I bought five bags and brought them home, I found that the compost was clay with a few roots and moss thrown in. It looked much like the dense, non-draining black clay of my yard, in fact. I managed to find uses for it nonetheless, but I still had a bag left this spring. A bag of  finely ground up rocks.

"Compost" Riiiight...

I was in the Dollar Store (another place I try to avoid, but I go sometimes with G), and I realized that a wire trash bin ($1) would make a great compost sifter.

Easiest DIY compost sifter ever!

 I don't have enough compost to make a hot pile, so my compost takes it's sweet time going from kitchen scraps to dirt. The brown chunks in the wheel barrow (above) are a year old and mostly still recognizable as former food and leaves, but there's some fluffy black gold in there.

Fluffy black gold, also known as mostly finished compost.

Left: a dollar's worth of "compost"    Right: a dollar's worth of homemade compost

 Twenty minutes later, I had an equal amounts of clay and compost (above) and mixed them together (below).

Compost and clay mix

I planted some Viking and Yukon Gold potatoes, watered thoroughly, and mulched it with some pulverized straw (the car is too small to fit the cheaper straw bales, so next time I'm bringing a truck!).

Now comes the hard part: waiting for the dang things to sprout!

 

Things that are hard to dwell on

 I've been reading the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon and marveling how clear her thoughts, feelings, and emotions come through centuries later (and via translation!). She would have made a great blogger. She writes in snippets of her life, but also in lists. It inspired me to make a list of the things that can bog me down with environmental guilt...and also spur me forward.

Things that are hard to dwell on, Trash Edition:

• Every time you place an object in the trash, you are making a decision that will last at least a hundred years.
  
  
• Every time you litter or leave litter lying out (even biodegradable things) you are making a decision that may last a hundred years  and will probably sicken or even kill an animal or a child.
  
  
• Trash is not inevitable. It starts with every purchasing decision.

Environmentalism can bring you great joy and crushing, crippling guilt. I think all environmentalists enthusiastically love the natural world, but the vast majority of us use fossil fuels on a daily basis, and most of us make plenty of non-compostable, non-recyclable trash. However, the solution isn't for us to all move to the country and live off the grid. The solution is to change our point of view.

Aerial photo taken somewhere between South Dakota and Minnesota

Take this photograph: Productive farmland, useless crops that spread disease, a ravaged, severely endangered ecosystem, and a great heaping opportunity. I'll get more into the grass vs. corn debate in a later post, but seeing trash as treasure (or even consciously seeing trash) is an important first step.

Trash is a choice, that we, as individuals and as a society, don't have to make. So go forth, pick up litter, say no to excessive and non-recyclable packaging, and maybe even think about composting. Worms are your friends!

Where I’m at right now:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.dIwQAfKF.dpuf

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.dIwQAfKF.dpuf

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.dIwQAfKF.dpuf

   

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.dIwQAfKF.dpuf

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15397#sthash.dIwQAfKF.dpuf

 —Emily Dickinson                                                           

     I live in a small rental home with my grandmother. She’s the breadwinner in my family and an awesome human being. She puts up with my eco-craziness but doesn’t see a point for most of it. We recycle everything but glass (the city won’t take it) and we compost. I’ve had a small vegetable garden in the backyard for three years and and a bit. Total harvest so far: a handful each of peas, green beans, strawberries, and carrots. Literally a handful each. I’m stepping up my game this year with two modified African-style keyhole beds. Since we rent and the yard is small, I can’t do anything too off-the-wall, like solar panels, graywater, front lawn garden, get fruit trees, or putting in permanent raised beds. 

Current garden plans have been derailed by snow...in April. I live in South Dakota, it's a special place.*

Chickens are illegal in town, and G (my grandmother) has nixed rabbits, guinea pigs, indoor worms, and bees. I managed to get a chest freezer for cheap (classified ads are awesome) last year, so when I made friends with a deer hunter and someone who had an extra half a hog to sell, I actually had a place to put the meat, yay! G’s mistress of the kitchen, so I have to keep reminding her that we have all this meat, but that’s a whole 'nother issue. 

I finally bought a rain barrel, so I won’t be using my big plastic bin, scoop-out-the-water-with-a-bucket system that I’ve used for the last three years. I have a drying rack in my basement for drying clothes. Less wrinkles than my old leave-it-in-the-dryer ways, and things like linen don’t wear out as fast. I’m working on cloth pads, and I only shower about once a week (don't look at me like that, I use deodorant). 

All in all, I’m being somewhat green in the things I have control over. My dream is to have a small house with a big garden, no trash, grey water, small livestock, be eating local,have renewable energy, and maybe a place out in the country where I turn marginal farmland back into prairie.

This project isn’t necessarily about the destination, though: it’s all about the wild ride!

*Disclaimer: Image taken in North Carolina, though with a similar snowfall to the one we had this week. South Dakota doesn't have Tulip Poplars.

Begining a Journey

    The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet."

--J. R. R. Tolkien

     Welcome to Rainchains and Wildflowers, a record of my twisty-turny, topsy-tervy road towards being as eco-friendly as I would like to be. I know about the danger to our habitat and home, but actually going out and doing something about it is a very different thing. I had several names in mind for this blog, Beyond the Pale and Environ-Mental being my favorites. Both were taken, but they express my views on environmentalism. You cannot be a true environmentalist and work wholly within current societal norms. You have to seem a bit crazy to your peers, to push the envelope, to go a step beyond the pale. Eventually, however, I hope that environmentalism will just be a part of everyday life. 

     Already, I know I am far from alone. I read amazing, breath-taking books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and No Impact Man, glorious blogs like Zero Waste Home, and I know there are places like Warren Wilson College where composting, recycling, and ethical meat are an intrinsic part of day-to-day life.

Pretty picture of a hiking trail...do I need a reason?

 

     My personal revolution starts with rain chains and wildflowers: rain chains to replace a too-short drainpipe that wouldn’t let me harvest rainwater effectively, and wildflowers in my vegetable gardens to attract beneficial insects. I already do some “green” projects, but I have a long way to go to achieve my dreams. Want to come along for the ride?