Notes from Real Life

Gah, sorry about the lack of posts! so I moved, no internet for a few weeks. Internet withdrawal, so not my friend. But I finally got my computer connected to the internet, whoot!

Some notes from the trenches of the battle that is real life:

• G's refusing to stop feeding me...oh the hardship ;)
• Worm bin is doing okay, but I need to make the drainage holes bigger.
•  Reducing trash needs to wait until I get my hierarchy of needs 100% squared away.
• Balcony herb garden is flourishing (my immortal basil still refuses to die)
• House garden is going wild with sunflowers, super potatoes, and GIANT kale.
• I actually am getting to know folks at the farmer's market. Best strawberries on EARTH!
• I'm biking or walking to work every day, though sometimes G picks me up when she needs work done at the house.
• The local co-op is slowly getting on it's feet and I'm thinking of seeing if I can sell some of my up-cycled crafts there.

I'm slightly obsessed with collecting plastic bags and weaving them. Might as well sell them, right?

         I'm picking my way through American Wasteland, so I'll have a review up of that soon. I have slight issue that every time I read it I want to quit my day job and start a compost business. Unfortunately for all the food waste out there, I kinda need my day job ;)

Why Can't I Quit You? Reducing the trash in my life

I am majorly inspired by the Zero Waste Home Blog, even if my cluttered, un-minimalist soul disagrees with their house's color scheme ;)

What I am doing to:

1. Reduce

• I'm paying attention to what I buy and what it comes in! I'm trying to buy less (do I really need that thing?) and to buy things in reusable, recyclable, or compostable containers.
• Somethings in life are free and trash. I've stopped my junk mail, and I say no to free packets and return pamphlets after reading.
• I'm trying to avoid plastic bags. I make plarn, but I can get plenty from friends and family who aren't trying to avoid them.
• I'm also avoiding the dollar store, if I can. Dollar stores are often aren’t cheaper per ounce and have SO much excess packaging.

2. Reuse

• I'm sticking to my usual repurpose, upcycle, and donate cycle. Goodwill is my friend.

3. Recycle

• I know my local rules and am sticking to them.

4. Sneaky Trash

• Straws at restaurants. Sometimes I can't stop the server from giving me one. This is harder than it seems it should be!
• Fast food is full of sneaky trash, so I'm avoiding it.
• Bring your own leftover box to restaurants. I haven’t tried this yet. 
• Bring mesh vegetable and bulk goods bags to the grocery store. I just bought some lingerie bags from the dollar store for this. I should have made my own or bought fair trade, organic ones but right now I'm all about the baby steps.
  
  
  
  
  Keep at it!
  One or twenty setbacks does not a failure make!
  
  
  Disclaimer:  It’s hard to “buy less” when you’re barely making ends meet. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, and all you can afford is fast food or things from the dollar store, please disregard my advice. Feel free to submit your own suggestions in the comments, though!

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!