Category Archives: Sustainability

Firewood

14 trees have been taken down on the property I inhabit.  All of them dead, but still full of moisture.  We’ve been cutting and stacking and splitting, then covering with black plastic weighted down with empty 2 liter (?) soda bottles filled with water and hung by ropes across the stack.

When those trees hit the ground, the earth shook. They must’ve been 80 – 100 ft tall. Making firewood sounds like a bland, benign event.  It is an all encompassing, vital engagement with Nature.

Emergency Kits

I went to a meeting about earthquake preparedness yesterday.  Do you have a grab-and-go disaster kit made up?  What about a hunker-down-for-a-few-days kind of kit? Or are you the type that has a bunker full of food and supplies?

I’m curious to know what you consider essential in an emergency – short term and long.  Now that I know I’m living right on top of a major fault line that is due to become seismically active soon, I bought a backpack suitable for 4 people.  I also posted one here that’s available on Amazon in case you want one that’s ready made.

Just go down to the Comment area and click it.

 

Emergency Preparedness

Everyone’s talking about emergency preparedness since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I live on the Washington coast and am seriously pondering the fact that we’re overdue for a big one.  Really?  Is there a way to prepare for something that catastrophic?

The Red Cross and other emergency prep folks say we should put away food and water for 3 – 6 months. Costco sells 6 months and 1 year supplies of dehydrated canned food. Here are a few websites that might be useful:

Emergency Preparedness Kits at REI. Shop Emergency and Survival Kits and First Aid Kits.


72 Hour Emergency Meal Kit for ONLY $59 (Cook in the pouch entrees. 3 days/4 servings per day/ 20 ounce lunch and dinner entrees) – Order Today!

Signs of the times

Have been sitting here this morning thinking about the time we live in and what a challenge it is to stay in the Light.  An astrologer friend and I had a discussion this morning about how, astrologically, each quadrant of the astrological wheel offers the cardinal energy (creative/desire/passion), the fixed energy (manifestation/destruction) and the mutable energy (mental/integration/preservation) that, when taken together, create the patterns of all life.

I appreciated a way to think about and feel into the patterns I see around and within. I’ve been pondering all the ways we use to explain the magnificence and the mystery of life.  In case you want to explore,his website is: http://www.signsofthetimeshistory.com/

Lake Superior

lake superior shoreline My friend Carol lives on the shore of Lake Superior and this is is a view not far from her property. I grew up in a small town on this lake shore and still miss it. Probably always will.

It was a small community of a couple thousand people that, despite the foibles, existed together by virtue of common geography, history, or simple accident of birth.  Last night my cousin and I were talking about the sense of belonging we experienced there; how, having that as a frame of reference, we yearn to replicate it.  We were wondering aloud if it’s possible to do that with others who don’t have a similar frame of reference.

There’s a lot of talk about ‘community’ these days as a lot of us seek to re-tribe ourselves. Seems to me that communities form because of affinity or geography or common goal.  And when we try to create intentional community, the issues (and questions) that arise come out of the same three elements.

What is your definition and quest for community?

Oh Deer!

Here on Whoopie (Whidbey) Island, I have no garden space.  It’s the first year in 25 years I haven’t actively lived and breathed through my garden.  I finally decided I HAD to have something, so I planted about 10 containers, with just the right (researched) soil mix, planted and waited through the weirdest summer weather I can remember in my adult life.  Finally, after way too long, it produced…beans, sunchokes, leafy chard, peas, herbs, and the tomatoes were hanging off the vines…and all of this was on my deck, not 3 feet from my front door.

Went to work one Thursday morning and visited all the plants on my way out the door. They were lookin’ good — full, lush. I was finally going to get a harvest!  Came home that evening and everything, and I mean everything (except the sage, rosemary and parsley) was eaten down to about 3 inches of stem.  All the beans, chard, peas, tomatoes and plants, chokes…the whole shebang…chewed off by a mamma doe and her two frisky fawns who’ve been hanging around, and who I NEVER thought would come within 3 ft. of the front door to steal the garden goodies.  Sigh.

With nice summer weather being so sporadic and fall already beginning, and no harvest, I feel like I’m in some kind of time warp.  Leaves are already turning on the maple outside my window.