Finally, I have a real job

And by a real job, I mean a job doing what I want, for more than 4 hours a week, with room for advancement. Shall I tell you about just how awesome my new job is? And how happy I am that I can quite my part time jobs that require lots of travel and in which I don't have a future?

So, 12 minutes by car (30 by bike) away from my house there is a small, organic farm. They are currently raising chickens for eggs and meat, beef cows, and turkeys. They are expanding into ducks for meat, and are looking at guinea hens and dairy cows. These are all animals that I have lots of experience with; but there are also areas that I don't have experience in, such as the running of a farm. Thus, I'm working for a combination of money, and experience which I will then be able to apply to my own farm, in due time.

I'm also making twice what I was making (now, granted, that wasn't very much), and it sounds like I'll be getting more hours in the future. I like the people, and I think that I can do a pretty good job there.

Are you ready for chicks?

I hear a lot of concern that backyard chickens will become another fad, leaving in it's wake dead, abandoned, unwanted and mistreated chickens. I've also read first hand stories about people who got chickens with out knowing how to care for them. Chickens are great, wonderful animals, and it's very nice to have eggs from your own back yard. But for a lot of people, they are animals that they've never encountered before, and they have no idea what to expect from them. There are many things first time chicken owners should consider before getting chickens.

First thing people should know about chickens: they poop everywhere. The jungle fowl, from which chickens evolved, had plenty of room to roam, and did not use waste to mark territories (unlike cats and dogs), and thus did not need to constrain where they pooped. They will poop while roosting, while foraging for food, while walking around. About the only time a chicken won't poop is when it's taking a dust bath, or laying an egg (and some unfortunate people have chickens that do poop in the nest box....). If they run loose in your yard, they will poop. In your grass, on your drive way, on your flowers. You will step in it, kids will step in it- and babies will not know that it's icky. Just a warning. Chickens will also poop on you- unless you train them not to. Now- if you have extreme amounts of patience and determination, you can potty train a chicken using positive reinforcement (here is a link that discusses how) . Most people aren't dedicated enough to potty train a chicken though, which means you need to learn how to deal with the poop. This is as easy as confining the chickens to their pen most the time, and hosing off the sidewalks/lawn after they've been out.

The second thing people need to know about chickens is that for the most part, they just aren't as friendly as a dog or cat. If you don't work with your chickens, they won't be tame. I know one person who was worried about stressing out their chicks when they were young, so they didn't hold their chicks, and they tried to limit interaction as much as possible. The result? Adult chickens that ran away when ever they came close. Animals need to be socialized to be comfortable with humans. If you want friendly chickens that come up to you and eat out of your hand, you're going to need to work with them daily when they are young. This is easy to do, of course, just pick them up gently when you go about feeding and watering. I've never seen a chicken beg to be petted like a cat or dog, but they will stand on your shoulder or arm, and they will follow you around in hopes of getting a treat.

Third: chickens are food. This means that your dog, or your neighbor's dog, will see them as food. You must have a dog-proof run and coop for your chickens, or you will have deaths. Dogs can dig under fences, they will jump over fences, and some dogs will chew through fences. Chicken wire is not dog proof. You may also have to contend with hawks, raccoons, opossums and coyotes, depending on where you live. You may not even know there are predators in your neighbor hood, until you wake up to the screaming of an attacked hen, or find a pile of feathers in the morning. So, obviously, you need to put a bit of thought into the safety of your chickens. Also, keep in mind that chicks are vulnerable to cats. If you choose to keep chickens, their lives are your responsibility. You can't just say "Opps, I'll do better next time". You need to protect their lives, and you need to do your research before you get them.

Chickens can get sick, and you have to know how to heal them. Your average vet will not know how to take care of a chicken, they probably haven't studied chickens, and you probably will know more about chickens than they do. You need to know how to keep your birds healthy, and how to care for them when they do have a health issue. You also will need to learn how to recognize a sick chick, what pasty butt is, and what causes stress and illness in chickens. You have control over their lives, so you must take care of them.

Speaking of which, whose going to take care of them when you want a vacation? They aren't hard to take care of, but you will still need to find someone who is willing to come over twice a day to feed, water, and let them out in the morning, and shut them up at night.

These are just a few things you must consider before you get chickens. Chickens are great animals, and I love having fresh eggs, but unless you know what you're doing and you've done your research, you could be in for a lot of stress, frustration, shock and sadness. Please do a little research and have a safe coop and run for them, know what they need, and be able to care for them before you get any.

A herd sire? (Baby goat pics)

Here we have a picture of a buckling that may just become my future herd sire:

In this pic he is just six days old; but he is already gorgeous, and I have great hopes for him. Below is another pic of him, with his dam.

 He comes from great blood lines, and his mother has a great looking udder (in my opinion.) His grand dam and his great grand dam both have udders I'd be proud to have in my herd, and his sire is one of the top bucks (perhaps the top buck) in the area.

Look at what was in our apple tree the other day

Casey took these photos while I was at work. This is a Red Tail Hawk, he tells me. Before the developers chopped down the trees and bulldozed the land next door, there was a pair of Red tailed hawks, but we haven't seen a pair since then. We've seen this one flying around, but never perching quite so low to the ground. I mean, he's perching on a lawn chair here!

Brrrrrrr

I don't know about your neck of the woods- but here it's been blowing, raining, storming. Water is starting to collect on the roads, but so far none of the roads I have to use have been closed. It's much colder here than it was last year- remember how I told you there were tomatoes on the vine at Thanksgiving last year? Definitely not so this year; we've already had several hard frosts. And hail. Brrrrr.

The chicks are already headed to new homes, I've sold 6 to one lady just starting out, and 3 to another. There is someone coming down from Seattle to purchase chicks from me this Saturday- what a drive for chicks. I'm hoping to be all sold out by the end of this week.

Mean while, Maggie my darling doe is out visiting a buck- Rascal from Beth' el Acres. Patti has been a great source of knowledge, and it's always fun to talk goats with her. She's who I got Splash and Mesa from. So, Splash is due in 6 weeks, Mesa is due at the end of January, Nala is due the beginning of April, and Maggie, if she cooperates, will be due sometime in mid-April.

Hatching Update # 2, with more pictures

So far, 14 eggs have hatched, and they are all heathy and cute little chicks. The four remaining eggs were put in later, so they'll probably be out in the next day or two. The humidity inside the incubator was a bit low, but I fixed that by adding a moist wash cloth. And without further ado, here are the pics:

Chicks pics

This first chick to hatch yesterday was this chick, hatched at 9:10 am:

  This is the pile of chicks as of this morning, including one that literally just popped out:

Please do excuse the dirty appearance of the incubator; it's been in use for over 10 years, and the stains are a bit ingrained. As always, I did sterilize the incubator before starting the eggs.

And here's a nice cute pic of the first one all fluffed out:

I helped one of the black ones, it's membrane had dried, so it was stuck and couldn't move. So I opened the the shell a bit, and then left a moist washcloth over part of the egg; and this morning it was hatched. Helping eggs is generally not a good idea, because if they can't get out on their own there is probably somthing wrong with them. In thise case, however, I was fairly certain that I knew why he wasn't getting out, and so far he looks fine.

I'll post more pictures when they are all hatched out and dry.

Hatching Update #1

Ok, I think it's really cool, but maybe it's not that practical.

I have a clutch of eggs in the incubator right now, and I learned that if you candle the eggs a day or two before they are due to hatch, you can see that the air cell isn't the perfect round circle it was- now it has dips and rises! I think this is probably from the little chick moving around in there.

Why was I candling the eggs? Well, I neglected to write down the day that I put them in, so I was hoping to catch a glimps of the beak breaking the air cell, but I got this instead! So now I know I need to set up the brooder box for tomorrow.

Of course, the eggs start peeping pretty quickly ( the first about 12 hours after I first noticed) afterwards, but I still think it's cool! In short, this method is good for those of us who forget to write down important dates, who are impatent to find when the chicks are going to hatch, and are checking their eggs with a flashlight every day!

I'll put up pictures as soon as they've hatched!

Buffy the Buff Orpington Update # 2, and other chicken news.

 As you can see here, Buffy is pretty well healed from her ordeal with the Opossum, and is again hale and hardy. She's now walking about with just the barest hint of a limp, and today I let her and the Black Stars out to free range.


It's very convenient, because for some reason the chickens only range about 15 feet from their coop when I let them out. I guess there is plenty of forage; bugs and green grass hiding under the leaves of the apple and Asian pear tree. This means I don't have to worry about them "visiting" the neighbors (unlike the goats......) or wandering off too far into the field. 

I probably should get around to naming these two- but they just aren't as hand tame or personable as Buffy. They are, however, the mothers of the eggs currently sitting in the incubator, which I'm expecting to hatch out in the next few days. You see, after I sold the rooster, I saved their eggs for a week. These happen to be the first eggs these girls laid, but more importantly, they are fertile because hens "store" the rooster's sperm for up to a week. These chicks should be good egg layers, comeing from such a cross, but I'm probably going to sell them all as chicks. "Buy them now, and they'll be laying by Spring!"  "Get a head start on your neighbors!" I wish I could keep them my self, but I think 3 chickens is a very good number for us, and I have 18 eggs, half of which should be boys. Ideally, I'd be able to keep a rooster and the best producing hens and start my own flock, but it's not time to do that yet. I need to wait until I have just a bit more room, fewer neighbors, and a market to sell the eggs at.

A website for our farm

We have a name, we have a plan, and now we have a website! This website is of course still under construction, and has ads because I'm using a free server (hopefully I'll be able to change that as we turn a profit), but I will be spending a lot of time working on it, so you'll see improvements quickly. Here it is: Stormhaven Farm.

ETA: New web host because the old one decided to crash, I'm now using google, and I gotta say it's great. Please go to this website instead: Stormhaven Farms

If you've been reading my blog(s), you probably have the sense that I've wanted to be a farmer, but haven't ever quite gotten up the gumption to start. Since I graduated college, I've half-heartedly (well, more like 4/5-heartedly) tried to find a good job. I wanted a job so that I could save up money and hopefully in a few years buy a nice piece of land and start farming, the thing that I actually, deeply want to do with my life. The problem with this is that whenever I looked for a job, or applied for a job, I got this terrible feeling of despair and hopelessness. Not exactly the kinds of feelings you want when thinking about your future. I've been wiffiling and waffling between just setting down here and farming, and forcing myself to get a "real" job.

Well, I've now settled. I'm going to make a real job of it farming here. The plan is to grow fresh herbs (like basil, oregano, etc), and sell them to small, local businesses like restaurants and food co-ops. Hopefully by 2011 I'll be established enough to have a stall in the local farmer's market. While I will still work my two part time jobs for now, I hope that the evidence of the garden is strong enough to let me quit and devote all my time to the garden next year. I'm not looking to start a big business, I'm aiming to supply fresh, healthy herbs the local populace, while making a living wage, and hopefully saving enough to eventually move to a larger farm.

So, please, head over there and check it out. If you have any comments or suggestions, please tell me. It is of course under construction (it might even change while you're looking at it), and I could use all the advice and experience I can get.

I smell goaty

That is, I smell like a buck. Bucks have a very particular odor, that tends to linger long after the buck has departed. It's part of their charm, really.

I happen to smell like a buck because I took Nala to meet one Wednesday. Spent half an hour with that buck, with him acting all bucky, which is to say, ridiculous. Tongue and leg waving, smelly, odd creatures are bucks in rut. So, five months from Wednesday, Nala will be due. I hope she has triplet does, but I suppose that might be a bit greedy....

Did I ever write about Nala and Maggie, or Splash and Mesa? They are the goats that I bought, and they are all Nigerian Dwarf goats- certainly one of my favorite breeds of goat. I chose to go with Nigerians for a few, very important reasons. First, they are very small goats, all about knee high (Nala, for example, is 17.5 inches tall at her shoulder.), without the barrel-on-legs appearance often found in Pygmy goats. This means they eat less, need less space, and are easier to fence than a full-sized goat. They are also very cute, friendly and sweet, which goes a long way in suburban neighborly relations. Nigerians also are capable of breeding year round (enabling me to have a year round milk supply), and are multiple birthers- I've seen goats with 5 kids, and twins and triplets are common. They are good milkers; it's expected that a first freshener will give a whole quart a day, and the milk is good and sweet, too.

I got Nala and Maggie first, the weekend after my birthday (this means I went a whole 6 months after I graduated college to get my first goats). Nala is 2 1/2 years old now, and Maggie is now 8 months old. Nala, at the peak of her lactation was giving me 3 cups of milk a day, which was delicious and wonderful, and quickly consumed. When her production started dropping in the fall, I started looking for another doe, perferably in milk or bred.


What I found was Mesa and Splash. Splash is a 6 year old doe, and Mesa is a 3 year old. They were both bred to a buck with a great pedigree. Splash is due on the 30th of December, and Mesa is due on the 30th of January. They are, unfortunetly, a bit skittery, and untame. Neither would at first come near me, instead dashing to the farthest corner of the pen. Mesa will now come up and smell me, though she's still a bit nervous, but Splash only comes near if I have hay or grain. I'm going to be working with them a lot over the next few months, because I want both of them tamed down before they kid.

With those to due in the winter, and Nala due in April I should have pretty close to year-round milk. Especially since Maggie dear hasn't been bred yet (she up to size and weight, she just hasn't come into heat yet). I should also have enough milk to make yogurts and cheeses, too. I am so eager for the little kidlings to be born! It's still more than a month away to the earliest due day, but I'm still very excited. I promise you that I will post lots of pictures when the kids are born.

The woes of the vegetarian

This isn't just another discussion, argument, rant, whatever about dietary choices, ethics, morals, and the effect on the environment. I'm going to cover a particular corner I've not seen nor heard discussed before. That is, the situation of the person who has decided to raise their own animals for eggs and milk, or has decided to simply stop eating meat, but is still eating eggs and milk.

Let us first consider how one might come to be in this position, or rather, how I did. I acknowledged that I, personally, was eating way more animal derived protein than I needed to, and I knew that I'd be fine if I cut back to eggs and milk. I also think that factory farms are immoral institutions, bad for the animals, humans that work there, humans that eat the food produced there, and the environment. I also can't see myself paying the prices required for organic and free range (by my definition) eggs and milk, long term. I kept both dairy animals and chickens as a child, and know how to care for them. I also wanted them.

I went out, bought 2 goats, and 4 chickens, one of whom turned out to be a rooster. Ahem. And then I bought two more goats, so that I could have milk year round, and have enough extra to make my own yogurt and cheese.

The real question when switching over to a vegetarian diet, is what about the boys? Unless we use in vitro fertilization for breedings of cows and goats, there will be an fairly equal number of boys and girls born. Unless we do the same with chickens, there too, will always be a fairly equal number of boys and girls born. Cows and goats generally have to be rebred to continue supplying milk (thought there is the occasional animal that will continue producing milk for years from one breeding, this is rare), as other wise they naturally reduce production of milk and eventually (usually with in one year, sometimes two) dry up.

Let's look at what happens to most of these excess males, considering that most people get their food from commercial farms. Male chicks of egg laying breeds are killed as soon after birth as possible, because egg layers don't put on weight the way meat breeds do, so these chicks are worthless to the farmer. Even if farmers recieved these chicks for free, ecomonmically it wouldn't be worthwhile because these chicks are very ineffiecent at converting feed to weight when compared to meat breeds. The cost of the chick is not the great expense when raising meat birds, it's the price of the food that goes into them.

Now for dairy animals. When you decide how to breed your dairy animals, there are two main consideration, for the commercial dairy farmer. First, you generally "replace" your cows once they are 4 years old. This means that out of any one year's calves, you need 25% to be replacement heifers, which are of course purebred dairy. Another consideration again is that males don't produce milk, and pure bred dairy type calves just don't put on the meat like beef breeds do. So, half the cows are bred to beef breeds, so that these calves can be raised for meet, and the other half are bred to a dairy bull to produce dairy replacements. Both female and male dairy/beef crosses are raised for meat, and of the purebreds, all the females will be used as dairy cows. That leaves half the males (those who are purebred dairy) to consider. They generally have two options: be raised for veal, or be killed immediately.

This, of course, is not the only problem. After all, most commercial chicken farms "replace" their laying hens after two years (some of them are culled earlier), and dairy cows are replaced after four. Where do these hens and cows go? Not to a beautiful grassy field for retirement, I'm sure.

Have I painted a sufficiently dreary picture yet? Now, these are the choices most commonly made about these animal's lives; after all, most of our eggs, milk, and meat come from commercial operations. This does not mean that the small farmer has to make these same choices. I, for one, am not going to. But at the same time, I don't thing we can completely remove consumption of meat so long as we are still consuming eggs and milk.

Commercial farms choose the chicken breeds they do because they are the most efficient at producing eggs or meat from the food provided. They are kept (as you know) in confined space, and aren't allowed to free range. I, on the other hand, can allow my chickens to range within their pen as well as feed them scraps from the kitchen, and that will significantly lower the amount of purchased feed they consume. This means that I can choose breeds that might not be as efficient at converting sacks of food in to eggs, but instead are better foragers, getting more of their food from nature (and making tastier and healthier eggs while they are at it). I also don't have to pay wages to everyone from the farmer to the check out clerk. Which means that a bag of organic feed, which costs 25$ only needs to make me 8.3 dozen eggs before it pays for itself. What I hope all this means is that I can choose a heritage multipurpose breed, and breed it myself instead of buying mail order chicks. It also means that I can keep my hens for more than two years; they won't wear out so quickly in my much less stressful environment. And if I'm only raising eggs for myself, I only need a few chickens, so when I do hatch out more eggs, there will be fewer males, and I'll simply raise them for meat. I think that this is what it comes down to; if you are going to eat eggs, there will be males that will be killed. I personally think that they might as well produce food if they are going to live and die anyway.

As for the goats, well, it's a slightly different matter. As stated before, the does will need to be rebred every year; thus, there will be more goats produced each year, even though a female goat has a productive life of 8 to 9 years. Fortunately, I chose a breed that is very popular as a pet. They are cute, small, and very friendly. They are rather in demand in my area. So any boys I have will be whethered, and then sold as pets. Doelings too, are in demand, and won't be hard to sell as pets, or breeders/milkers.

This, of course, is not an option for everyone, but it is how I'm dealing with it. If you are going to eat eggs and milk, you need to consider at some time how you are going to deal with the issue of excess males. I will deal with it by giving my roosters good lives until I butcher them, and by selling my goat boys as pets. The only way to remove animal death completly form your diet is to become vegan, and even then, animals will always be affected by human's actions. I personally don't think it is morally wrong to eat animals, but I do know realize that being a vegetarian is at least somewhat hypocritical.

Buffy the chicken update

Buffy seems to be healing well, though I still have the fear that she might develop an infection. She was returned to the chicken coop yesterday, limped around a little, and seemed to be healing pretty well.

The two black sex links are really mean to her; it took more than a month to integrate Buffy into the flock, and in the beginning I'd often find her hiding in a corner. This is despite housing them where they could see each other, but separated by a fence for 2 weeks, and then gradually increasing the time I allowed them to mingle together. So despite the fact that she was only gone for a few days, the girls still pecked at her, and made her hide in a corner. Well, I fixed that- I let the two mean girls free range out in the yard, and set Buffy in the coop. They paid her no mind while they were out foraging, and by night fall she was back in their good graces.

I think I've critter proofed the coup now- both the doors take a good deal of strength to open. The chicken door is blocked at night with a 5 gallon jug of water, and the human door has to be lifted and swung, so I don't think any dog, raccoon, coyote, or opossum will be able to get in.

Opossum in the hen house

I will not wait for the chickens to squawk twice next time.

See, yesterday morning, at about 5, I heard a chicken squawk, and I said to myself- if it squawks again I'll do something about it. Well, it did, and then it did again. So I leap out of bed, bang on the window (the chicken coup is right outside our bedroom), grab a towel and run outside (what, you expect me to put clothes on before running out side in the dark to face some unknown creature disturbing my chickens?) and ran out the door. On my way to the hen house I hear something, so I make my most fearsome growl, and open the coop door to see an opossum with one of my chickens, which looks dead. It then runs out and perches on the top of the fence, and just sits there, looking mighty confused.

See, this opossum was a young and dumb one. It never hissed, it never growled. At one point it was cornered, and we threw Jack in there, and they sniffed noses. Dog and opossum sniffing noses in the dark. Great. What a useful dog I have!

Anyway, after the opossum was taken care of (which is a story in and of itself- ), I went back to check on the chicken (her name is Buffy, by the way, because she's a Buff Orpington. Terribly creative, I know), which still looked dead, laying splayed awkwardly on the ground. She wasn't though- just in shock. She was badly injured though- two small holes on her side, and a 3 inch long slit in her back skin. She wouldn't stand, she'd just fall over, and lay there, gasping. The skin on her back was spread a part, and there were feathers in the wound. I made a saline solution to wash it out with, then treated it with an antibacterial, and used a bandage to hold the skin together (quite tricky, I tell you).

After I was done, I put her in a small box with a towel- she just closed her eyes and flopped down like she was dead. By 9 am, however, she was lifting her head, and by noon she was eating and drinking. Today, she even stood up once, but she hasn't moved more than a few inches. I'm keeping her inside the house for now, where it's warmer and she won't be disturbed. Here she is, in her box in my bedroom:

Well, that was interesting

So, how was your summer? Heck, geeze and whiz, how has your spring, and the first half of fall, for that matter? I am now going to attempt to revive this blog, please to forgive my fits and starts, drastic changes in direction, and complete incongruity. After all, what to you expect from a just graduated, 20 year old, still no full time job, decided to go back to school, with no idea of what I'm going to do person?

What am I doing now? Well I'm taking Physics and geology at the local community college, have a very part time job, do yard work for two clients, have 4 goats, 3 chickens, and a yard that needs to be refenced.

Why am I blogging again? Because I yearn to read of people gardening, raising animals, struggling to reduce their impact on the world. And, I seem remarkably incompetent at finding these people online. So, if I want to see something and I don't see it, what should I do? Write it myself of course.

Now, don't expect huge, five page long blogs from me; I don't know how other people find the time, and I sure don't have it. However, I will endeavor to write at least once a week, and I'll try to make it engaging and fun while I'm at it.

In the meantime, I go back to studying, and trying to determine whether this is a cold, or merely a case of seasonal allergies.

Shampoo less life doesn't have to be stinky

So, recently, quite a few bloggers on the green side of life have chosen to stop using shampoo (including Crunchy Chicken and Life Less Plastic). Why? Well, obviously, there is the wish to stop using so much plastic. Some people may also have concern over the ingredients contained within shampoos- some people have sensitivities, and some ingredients aren't the most trustworthy.

Now, what gets me is that the only thing I've heard tried is the baking soda and vinegar rinse method. This is arguably the most hash method and I think it's the least likely to succeed method for replacing shampoo. There are so many varied alternatives, and almost all of them are far more pleasant than baking soda and vinegar.

So, please, please, if you're going to try going with out shampoo, dig a little deeper, and try more than just baking soda and vinegar. The other options smell better, and are actually more gentle to your hair. And what's more, they are simple, and easy, and will not increase your water bill!

I my self have been experimenting (after reading a lot, and getting a lot of input) with my own alternatives to shampoo, and yes, conditioner. And, I believe that I've found a easy, no fuss, nice way to cleanse and condition. Ever heard of soap nuts? Turns out, not only are they good for washing dishes and laundry, they are also great for hair. They are very easy to use, and they are making my hair much softer and shinier.

To use, it's pretty simple, here's the recipe I use, directly quoted from the source:

Step 1: Making the Soapnut Liquid
There are a variety of recipes for making soapnut liquid. After much trial and error, I found the only one that works for me (for oily hair and scalp) is 1 c. soapnuts (approx. 22 nuts) soaked overnight in 1 c. water. (I just use lukewarm tap water). (I know it seems like a lot of soapnuts, but it does make 8 washing's worth).

NOTE: Be sure your soapnuts do not have seeds inside - if they do, crack them open with a nutcracker and throw the seeds out.

Strain out the soapnuts and add 1 T. lemon juice to the liquid (If your hair tends to dryness rather than oiliness, you may want to adjust the number of soapnuts.) The lemon helps cut grease, although it also seems to help add shine and avoid dryness for me too - my hair looks and feels much better with the lemon juice added. FYI - lime juice works great too! (Also, if your hair tends towards dryness, some folks pre-oil, I do not however). The liquid will be a medium brown color and will make 8 oz. total (which makes approx. 8 washings!):
Store your liquid in the fridge for best preservation (some folks even store it in ice cube trays in the freezer - each cube will equal 1 oz.). Some folks have had success leaving it out of the fridge for up to one week.

You can dry out and reuse the whole soapnuts again for shampoo (if your hair isn't too oily naturally - it doesn't work as well for me) or use the 2nd-go liquid to wash dishes (works great!) or for other uses.

After much trial and error, I've found that it works best to make foam out of it. It cleans much better as a foam than as a liquid, and also you have more control over where it goes and keeping it out of your eyes (because it will burn your eyes like soap!).

Step 2: How to do Soapnut Foam Washing:

Pour 1/2 oz. of your liquid into an 8 oz. bottle (sorry, the pic shows 1 oz., but it will foam much better if you do a half ounce at a time, then repeat for the other half ounce). 1 oz total should be approx. all you need for your washing, since it's the scalp you will be concentrating on. Shake it up till it's 100% foam - nice thick foam that's not runny or liquidy. Take off the lid and pouf the foam onto your hand.

Wipe it on top of your hair, concentrating on the scalp and not on the length. A good way to do it is to turn your head upside-down, or push your hair forward, to make sure you get all of your scalp around your head. No need to rub or use any friction, it actually looks best when I just wipe it on and leave it to soak in on its own.

Helpful tip!: You can put this foam on DRY HAIR, in front of the mirror, and that will make sure you don't miss any spots or get it in your eyes (IT WILL BURN IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR EYES!!!). Then jump in the shower, leave the foam on while you finish the rest of your showering, then rinse it out! The dry hair method really works great!!!

Make sure you get it everywhere on your roots, otherwise you might have greasy spots. If it starts to go back to liquid in your bottle, shake it up again to make sure it's 100% foam, no liquid. I find that the less liquid I use, the better foam it makes! Then I just refill it and repeat one more time to make enough for all my scalp.

Leave on between 30 seconds to 2 minutes, then rinse out. (If you've oiled, it works well to leave it on longer before rinsing out, as the longer time helps remove the oil). As the liquid is already acidic, I find no need for conditioner or acid rinses. And it's that simple!!!

That looks like a lot doesn't it? It's not, I assure you. Here's my condensed version:

Soak 1 cup of soap nuts in 1 cups of water over night
Drain, reserve soap nuts for another use. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
Store in fridge/freezer
Pour one ounce in a bottle, shake until it's all foam
Apply foam to hair (hair doesn't need to be wet)
Let sit 30 second to 2 minutes
Rinse. Done.

This has been working very well for me, and since it's pretty easy, and soap nuts aren't as hard to aquire as some other alternatives, I recomend it. And the site I found it on? It's a community
of people interested in growing out their hair. Now, I know that it might seem dorky to some to use such a site as a reference, but there are literally hundreds of people on there who have tried lots of alternatives, and so they have a lot of information that I find very interesting. There is a vast store of information, including alternatives to commercial shampoos and conditioners.

Oh, and what I said about switching blogs? Not gonna happen. Because just as I have ideas that don't fit in this blog, I have ideas that don't fit in that one, so I'll keep writing them here.

Time for a shift

I'm not blogging about college any more. I'm not blogging about living in an apartment, and what you can do when you do live in an apartment. 

I'm in a new phase, and that is focused very closely on gardening, farming in suburbia. So, I'm leaving this blog and will write in another. 

The new blog is GreenGardenWashington, and that's where I'll be talking about all my organic, permacultural, and agricultural deeds. All are welcome.

Good bye. 

Cheating the season

So you know how I said it hadn't frozen for a whole week? Well, guess what happened last night! Pretty light though, and today was gorgeous. That is what happens when it's not cloudy- really cold nights but wonderful warm days. 

I finally got a greenhouse up, of sorts. It's really amazing how hard it is to build something like a greenhouse when you have absolutely no experience! I can't be the only one who has taken a weekend project and made it last for more than a month. Hopefully. 

Anyway, we totally gave up on our plan of a pvc pipe frame, 8 by 10 green house. Instead, I used a little ingenuity to create a lean-to. I'd say it was yankee ingenuity, except I don't remember having any ancestors from there, so I'll have to say it was red neck inventiveness. 

Anyway, I took the 8 by 10 foot base (2x4s), leaned in against the house, making a triangle. Then I pinched the plastic between the house and the frame, and weighed it down around the sides with rocks. It has two doorways, and I put some hay around the outside of it for extra insulation. It works pretty good, and will serve my purposes just fine- until we build something better. I also found uses for the 20 foot long pvc pipes- a hoop house for the pumpkins, squash, and water melons.

When it warms up a little more, I'm going to move some house plants out there, as well as some coleus that I over wintered, and my tomato seedlings. I really hope that the extra heat gives them a good boost. Also, as soon as my cucurbits sprout, I'll move them out there. 

I am so glad I finally got something done with those green houses! It's been so irritating just having them sit there, being completely useless. And I'm really happy with how the yard is turning out- it looks good, underneath all the trimmings and bales of hay.

The frogs are chirping, but the snow's threatening

I find it slightly ironic that after checking the weather report at noon, and setting my tomato starts out to harden up a bit, when I check the weather report at night snow is forecasted for two nights. I mean really, going from a forecasted low of 38 to 29? That's a bit drastic.

I am happy though that my temperatures have been consistently warmer than what is predicted. I really wish I had a digital thermometer so I could start recording what the temperature actually is. It hasn't frozen for over a week now, despite what was forecasted, so I'm quite pleased. I believe that the symphony of frogs chirping out back may be a good indication that the weather is turning to spring.

I've been doing a lot of preparation for spring. I made two more raised beds (out of some 1x4 rotting on the ground) in a shady area to grow lettuces and other shade tolerant crops. I put down a layer of horse manure, and then I covered it with some compost. I planted spinach, carrots, and lettuce. I'm not sure how well they'll do, but it seems fairly lit at this time of the year. I should also not that the horse manure isn't actually all that rich- it's mixed with a lot of saw dust, and is decomposing rather slowly, so I don't think it will affect the carrots badly.

I also made one of my beds for growing melons, corn, cucumbers, and zucchini. First I dug out a foot deep, then I put down 6 inches of hay, and then 6 inches of horse manure, and watered it really well. Then I put the soil back on top (this is one of my wicker raised beds, and this is an old English method for growing cucumbers). There were some chard plants that over wintered in the bed, so I put them back, and will continue to harvest them until they go to seed (at which time I will collect seed). I also left some chick weed, since it grows so well, and so many things like eating it. The soil in this bed is just beautiful- dark, moist, and practically fluffy- no sand or rocks here! I am eagerly anticipating the day that I can transplant my melons, cucumbers and zucchini!

But not all is sunshine and light. Some of that snow last week severely damaged my broccoli seedlings (not the spinach or the peas, though). So even though broccoli seedlings are fine with frost, they're not cool with snow. I'm trying to save them, but I'm starting more just incase. It's a lesson learned for next year.

And now for these guys. Sweet looking darlings, aren't they? They are doing well, and are remarkably well-behaved and quiet. Casey and I have been holding them a lot, and working with them to get them used to humans. My theory is that if I expose them to enough new things, loud noises, etc, they'll be used to it, and thus much more calm and thus quiet adults. Which is a very good thing in a city chicken.

So, is the world going to end?

A slightly silly question, I know. 

But I'm hearing so many opinions, from this guy in Russia who thinks the US will break down completely, to my friend's uncle who says we'll come out of the recession in 12 months. 

And I'm reading all these blogs, some saying that everyone is hopelessly optimistic, and the others who say, well, there aren't that many who are saying we'll be perfectly fine, actually. They mostly disagree on the degree of doom that we face. I mean, have you all checked out Crunchy's blog? She's practically cheerful, compared with some of the thing's I've been reading. 

But then, there are the others (including myself, for the most part), who don't really blog about the economic or ecologic disasters. Some of us write lovely posts about our lives, and what we're doing. One of these is a blogger down in Australia, where I go to read and drool over all the tropical plants I can't grow. 

I don't blog about it much because I'm simply unqualified, other than to say, we're in trouble, and because I probably seem a bit naive. I am deeply worried about the world, but at the same time I have the over-confidence of my age, and believe that I will be able to deal with anything. I think that humans are a very adaptable species, so I'm not too worried about us all dying out. On the other hand, a lot of otherwise advanced civilizations have collapsed because they mistreated their environment. 

And what can I do? After all, the economy was destroyed right as I was finishing up college. What good will worrying do at this point, besides distracting me from what little I can do?

 It's very hard to be green when you've just graduated college and the only job you can find is ~8 hours a week, and makes you drive all over town. And how am I going to pay off this college debt when I can't get a job because their are hundreds of more schooled and more qualified applicants to every position? 

Most of my energies have been focus on growing food- vegetables and fruits, and I suppose I should blog about those more- after all, I would be very interested to read about someone else's workings. I may not be exotic, growing in New Zealand or California, but I do have a lot of enthusiasm and a long-ish growing season. And about chickens. 

Chicks: all those questions no one else will answer in one place

Well, as of yesterday, I am the proud owner of two members of the Phasianidae family. Specifically, the kind that doesn't crow, but does lay some eggs. With luck I'll get two more soon (3 if I'm not careful...). Anyway, I thought I would be a good idea to follow along with their development, and post answers to common (and not so common) questions.

First of all, do I need a heat lamp? No. Not if you're raising small numbers of chicks (less than, 12, say), and are willing to improvise a little. We've raised many batches of chick successfully using desk lamps and the like properly positioned to give enough heat. This is much cheaper than going out and buying an eight dollar bulb and the special lamp.

Do I need a thermometer? Not if you can pay attention to the chicks' body language. Chicks know much better than any thermometer if they're too hot or too cool. If they are too cool, they will cluster together under the light. If they're too hot, they will spread out, and get as far away from the light as possible. Happy chicks will be milling around, with some sleeping in small groups, and some wanderers.

What do I feed them? That depends on you. For their first days of life (if you find yourself caught off guard), you can scramble up eggs and feed them (well cooked) to the chicks. You can of course easily find chick starter in your local feed store- but it might be hard to find it organically. I intend to mix my own this time, and I found this great site with two recipes. You also should supplement with a small amount of weeds, and any bugs you find out side. If you're mixing your own, be sure to include some grit- otherwise they won't be able to grind down their food.

What is Pasty Butt? Pasty butt is something that happens sometimes to young chicks. Basically, an accumulation of poop sticks to their butt feathers, and if you leave it long enough, it can prevent them from defecating. Not good. Some say it's caused by stress, some by too much protein, and some say it's because they are too hot. It's not too big of a problem, and there are a few ways to clean their butts:

1. Warm wet wash cloth and water,

2. Q-tip and warm water,

or, 3, the one I use in severe cases: stick the chick in a warm cup of water. They relax because of the warmth, and you can take them out after a few minutes and it will be much easier to remove the poop. Just be sure to dry them off very well afterwards. Remember, these are very small animals, and they catch cold quickly if they're wet.

Do I need to buy those chick feeders and waterers? They are convenient, but you don't need to buy them. They help keep the water and food in the container, and poop and dirt out. But chicks are plenty happy to scratch food out, and peck it from the ground. Be careful with the water dish though- too shallow and it will load up with dirty quickly, and to deep and you might loose a chick (to hypothermia, or drowning). Do your best to keep the water clean, as that's how chicks get coccsidiosis.

My chicks, of course, are doing just fine. No pasty butt, no chills, and they are walking around quite happily. I've feed them a mix of grains, some weed seedlings, grubs, and so scrabbled egg. I'm also handling them quite a bit, as I want them to be very used to humans and very calm adults.

Planting a little extra for the poor

Worked some more in the garden today; transplanting mostly. I set out chard and cauliflower, and I'm beginning to to harden off some broccoli in the cold frames.  I had some fun with it; putting the chard in some of the ornamental beds, and the cauliflower went into the cold frames. Then, of course, I looked at the forecast for the next few days. Of course, it's going to freeze, yet again (or at least that's what the forecast says). So I covered all my seedlings with cloches, and then put a nice fluffy layer of hay over the top. Tomorrow, I'll pull the hay aside, and then cover the seedlings up again in the evening.  

While I did all this, I thought about the conversation my parents and I had the other day. We were talking about the economy, and me not having a "real" job, and the unemployed came up. There are going to be a lot of hungry people over the next year, and my parents had mentioned reading about a grassroots movement to help. 

The idea is simple: plant a little extra for all those who lost their jobs. Maybe 10% of your garden, maybe just an extra row. Maybe have a separate vegetable bed or fruit tree devoted to the purpose. Just have something there to give it to hungry people.  Because, as my dad pointed out, the percent of actually unemployed people is rather small- it's less than 10% of the population. So, if those of us who garden plant a little extra- that should go a long way towards feeding those who need it. 

I think this is an important idea; right now we're hearing daily about the massive layoffs from companies. It doesn't take too much foresight to see that soon we're going to have lines of hungry people. This is a real, effective way that you, personally, can help keep people from starving. This is a way you can help you friends, family, and neighbors.

I'd suggest planting high-calorie, and fairly easy to grow plants. Potatoes are great: lots of calories, and very easy to grow. Zucchini also seems like it would be a good choice. Any plant that grows well where you live, that over-produces every year is a good candidate. 

You can take it further, too. Do you have a church with a large lot area? Perhaps you could convince them to grow a garden for charity. If you have land that you're not using, perhaps you could let others garden on it. Perhaps you can offer people without jobs the trade of work for fresh food. Maybe start one of those school garden programs. Encourage those with the time and ability to garden, and provide them with a source of experience and encouragement. 

As I'm working towards my own self-sufficiency, I'll also work to provide food to others. I will work to create as healthy  a garden as possible, to maintain and improve the soil quality and life, and to make my animals healthy. More on that in the next post. 

5 ways to have a more awesome life in these less awesome times

1. Get rid of your t.v. Yes, I know you're tired, I know you want to zone out. I know it's uncomfortable to have free time. But it's really not helping you; it makes it easier to ignore what's wrong with your life, makes it so you don't have to face it. Which means you won't, and you won't change, or grow, or fix your problems. And, yes, I know it's addictive. That's why you have to get rid of your t.v. (send it to the secondhand store, or pawnshop). Be honest. You're not watching it for the news, or the educational programming (all of which you can find online, or in print). If it helps, think of how much you'll save, not having to pay your cable bill.

2. Pay for experiences, not objects. They've actually done studies on this, and they found that people were happier when they spend their money on experiences, rather than things. So, instead of buying a new car to make you happy- go out and live. This could be anything from going on a hike in your local park, going out to dinner with friends, or going on a week long vacation.

3. Don't think you have to be like everyone else. Everyone else is unhappy, so why would you want to be like them? Think about what you really want out of life, besides money and security. Be daring. Go after what you want. It may be that what you want is incompatible with the standard 9 to 5 job. It may make other people think your crazy. That doesn't matter, what matters is that you are happy with your life.

4. Don't eat anything with ingredients that you can't pronounce. Why? Because it's almost certainly not healthy or fresh, and it almost certainly costs too much for what it is. Sure, buying real food costs more, but the way I see it, when more than half of us are over-weight, limiting the amount of food you buy is a good idea. Pay for quality, not quantity.

5. Grow something. Invest your time in something that is alive. It could be a flock of hens, a pet dog, or a garden. As my sister says, there is something immensely satisfying about planting a seed and watching it grow; it's not work, it's a vital part of life that most of us miss out on. I never thought I'd be proud of tomato seedlings- until I started them myself from seed. Taking good care of animals and plants, caring for their happiness, brings a particular satisfaction and joy that nothing else does.

Green gardening

Well, by now it is a well known fact that this year backyard vegetable gardening is very popular. Seed companies are seeing huge increases in sales, likely fueled by the economy's poor health, as well as people desiring better tasting and healthier food. 

Hopefully, some of them will realize that organic gardening produces healthier food, is better for the environment, and if you do it right, is actually cheaper than conventional gardening. For example- you have to buy artificial fertilizers, but you can find tons of manure for free if you look for it. Sure, it takes a little more time, but it's much cheaper. So, when you don't have much money, but you have a lot of time (because you can't find a job), which is the better option?

I myself have been saving myself a lot of money. I'm starting my own seeds indoors for the first time this year, and have been trying a lot of different things. 

The first experiment was using my finished compost instead of special seed starting soil. Of course, it didn't occur to me to sterilize it for the first batch, so I had a lot of weed seeds come up. Now, that didn't seem to hurt my seedlings all that much, but it still was a bother to pinch off all the little buggers. So, then I tried pouring boiling water over the soil. Bad idea. Ruined the texture of the soil, and I seem to have gotten very poor germination from those pots. But, then, I found a much better method: Baking the soil in your oven. Just put your soil in a pan, in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour or two. It leaves the texture intact, while killing all the weed seeds and bugs. 

The other thing, which I have yet to do, is  to make my own pots. I read online some where about cutting toilet paper rolls in half, which seems a good idea for plants that don't like to be transplanted, such as cucurbits. An other idea, is to roll newspaper around a glass with about a half inch of paper beyond the bottom, and then smash the end down to make the pot's bottom. That's also a good idea, because once you plant the seedling outside, the paper will decompose rather quickly, allowing the roots to spread. 

Yesterday I started another compost heap (seeing as I'm using it up so quickly) by alternating layers of horse manure, rotted hay, and kitchen wastes. Since it ended up being a bit carbon heavy (the horse manure had a lot of saw dust), I covered the pile with 6 inches of hay, and then put compost bunny to work adding nitrogen. He's a happy bunny. 

Now, granted, I've been able to get away pretty cheaply because of the stores Lib had laid up. There are hundreds of pots in the garden shed, and I had my own grow lights in addition to the ones Lib had. That certainly made this a lot cheaper. If you aren't so lucky as to already have grow lights, check out the second hand store before heading to the garden store- old aquarium and shop lights work just find for growing seedlings. 

Look where you're going!

Not really about being green, but certainly a life lesson: look where you're going, dinglebutt!

See, Casey and I were out on our first bike ride of the spring. I'm always trying to get him a little more knowledgeable about local plants (and which ones you can eat), and one way I do that is to point out the plants, and identify them. So, as we were biking down the bike trail, and due to the speed at which we were going, and the time of year, we were pointing out the various firs, big leaf maples, alders, and hazel nut trees.

In short, I was looking everywhere but right in front of my tires. Now, in my defense, there had been absolutely nothing on the bike trail, until that branch that sent me over the handle bars. I'm pretty well off, considering, as I only have a skinned elbow, and massively bruised thigh that hurts like the dickens. Walking is a pain.

This is actually a good metaphor for most of my mistakes- I tend to jump in before I have quite all of the facts. Learning, yes, that's what this is called. I actually think this is a quite common phenomena, actually. Just thing how different the world would be if people thought about the future, and what they were doing. Would the current situation be nearly so bad if people had thought about what they were getting in to with all these uber huge mortgages?

I declare it Spring (in my very special defintion)

Which is of course defined by a number of factors:

~When the air has that particular feel that I associate with summer in Yakima.

~When you go from useing the heater in the car to using the A/C, overnight

~When the crocuses and snow drops start blooming

~When I awaken to bird song and sunlight

~When I stop wearing a coat

I don't know if other people notice, but when the weather changes from winter to spring here, the air feels different. There is a certain warmth that is lacking even during the warmest days of winter, a particular way the breeze moves. One of these days I'm going to have to quantify it, but for now, it's just instinct. And it makes me happy. Ridiculusly happy.

Because while the change may take a while, it signals to me that soon the chickens and ducks back on the farm will soon be setting their eggs, and all my little seedlings will soon really take off.

There's been a lot of work in the garden- and it's pretty messy right now. I guess I'm thankful the garden is mostly in the backyard, sheltered from neighbor's disapporving glances. There's piles of rotten hay, along with baled hay, horsemanure, and willow branches. Organization, that's what I need.

Over the weekend, Casey and I coppiced/pollard a middle aged willow tree. It is to the south of the garden, and was creating quite a bit of shade, even though it hadn't leafed out yet. We chopped off it's main branches at about 4 feet (it's quite bushy), because we (I) liked it's branch sturcture. Coppicing/pollarding a wilow causes it to produce hundreds of marviously useful long, thing branches, which can be used for weaving basketss and making waddle fences.

Now, the branches we cut this year were around 3 inches in diameter, and a lot of work has yet to be done. We need to take all the sections that are thing and bendy enough, and use them to make waddle raised beds (so much fun). And then we need to clip all the short, stubby, unuseful side branches and find a use for them. And then we need to take the main branches and chop them up for fire wood.

So that's one mess. And then there are the trimmings from the apple trees that I left as I headed off to work- and the kiwi pruning, too. Maybe that will actually produce fruit this year? And of course, that pile of hay.

Oh, and some guy on Craig's list was giving away free bulbs. So I went over there earlier, got some, and will head back out tomorrow, after droping Casey off at college. It looks like a bunch of hyacinths and crocuses. Corcuses are one of my favorite flowers. And yeah, they aren't edible, but I can take a few loads out to mom, plant them, and then sell them next year (or at least that's what I'm telling myself). Or give them to friends. But really, the sheer happiness crocuses provide me is reason enough to dig them up.

I've got too much stuff

It's becoming quite common knowledge that Americans quite simply have too much stuff. We work long hours to acquire more stuff, which we then have to work to keep in good condition, which eats up our leisure and family time. The more we work, the more money we make, the bigger the house we buy, and the more junk fills it. We need to learn to say no.

I admittedly have quite a bit more than I need myself. That's what happens when you inherit a house, and combine three people's belongings. You get 3 times as many towels, dishes, and lamps as you need or want. And a whole lot of clutter and a lot of potential for mess.

Ok, sure, there are those who like cleaning house (and those rich enough to hire a house maid). But I really can't bring myself to work for hours each day just to maintain things I don't actually need, and which I'm not gaining anything from. I've tried before to spend just an hour each day cleaning, and you know what? I might do it for a day or two, but then I stop. "Stuff" simply isn't important enough to me for me to maintain it. Since moving into a house, I've started living in a mess. And there is a lot of dead room, too, rooms that just aren't used.

What does that leave me with? Well, if I don't care enough about it to keep it clean and clutter free, I shouldn't have it. I've already put this into motion with the dishes. We used to have way too many dishes- and when a pile of dirty ones happened, that made cleaning dishes a huge chore. So I got rid of a bunch (and by that I mean I took them out of the kitchen). We now only have 6 each of plates, saucers, bowls, cups, and glasses. And I cleared out all the redundant pots and pans (why would I need 3 identical pots?).

That includes rooms in this house. If we aren't keeping them clean and neat and if we aren't using them, we clearly don't need or want them. So, let's rent them out. Let someone else have the room that we don't need. Let them clean it and maintain it. Let them have a cheap place to live.

I really don't have the time (actually, I have time, but I'd rather spend it growing food) to take care of these rooms and these dishes that we don't need and don't particularly want. So, yes, I'm simplifying. Because when you combine three households worth of stuff, you really do have too much, and you really don't need it.

A warm and cuddly thought for you

Spring is on it's way. (You should thank me, I was going to post a much more disgusting blog)

I say that because today seemed especially spring-like (perhaps because I'm comparing it to the snow we had last week). But there was something about the air that just felt warm and alive, even if it was only 42 degrees. And the sunlight that came in through my windows as the sun set? Glorious!

And in the light of my distinct lack of confidence in the ability of this government to solve our rather large problems, that is indeed a cheering thought. See, I just don't think they are going to be able to fix it quickly; I think it's going to be a long, slow, hard fought road, and I think the effects will be felt for a long time.

However, soon it will be warmer, and we won't need to heat the house so much (it's back down to 60, after C raised it to 70 when I was sick). Plants are starting to sprout and grow, heralding the coming bounty I expect from my garden. I think there will be a lot of new gardeners this year.

One of the things I've been thinking about is the unemployed. I've been hearing a lot about how there are millions of unemployed are languishing without jobs- and how there just aren't jobs for them. And you know, I think there aren't going to be jobs for them (at least not for a while). At least, not traditional, conventional, easy to find jobs.

I think my generation is going to have to start making jobs for ourselves. Many of us will likely not be able to get a good job with a boss, at least for the next few years. I think many of us will choose (or be forced) to employ ourselves. I know that if I can't find a job, I do have a source of food (at the worst) and a good source of income (at the best) in my backyard.

Everyone who is unemployed needs to consider their situation. You of course are going to be spending a lot of time looking for a job. But you (or at least I) need a break every once in a while, and I don't think I can just sit and fill out applications all day. So take stock of your time, and find something that is good and productive to do while you're not working on getting a job (ie, stay away from the internet, people). I'll be working out in the garden when I'm not job searching. If I don't end up with a job, I'll have the garden, which I can certainly make a living off of.

Not everyone has these things; but I'm pretty sure there is something most of us can do. Think about what you have, what you know, what you want to do. Your knowledge and skills are valuable to somebody; you need to find a way to make a living off of them. Because there just aren't jobs out there waiting for you; you need to make work for yourself. Think outside the box, because you're not going to find work otherwise.

The latest crazy gene patenting proposal

There is a seed company, going by the name of Siegers, that thinks it should own the rights to all the warty pumpkins in the world. Why? Apparently because warty pumpkins are weird, and weird pumpkins sell well for Halloween. So, they intend to sell these warty cucurbits under such trade marked names as "knuckle head", "goosebumbs", and "super freak".

Now, I think this is just a little ridiculous. This is not a new mutation that they discovered and carefully bred into a population, nor is it a gene that they introduced from a separate species using gene splicing. No, I remember "warty" squashes and pumpkins from my childhood. In fact, warty pumpkins (and squash) have been around for quite a long time; we're talking fact in the 1500s. This is not something that they created; this is not something that they have a right to control.

But they are trying to control it. Check out this post on the matter, which includes a letter from the company threatening legal action. According to another article, the Siegers' "patent application includes 25 broad claims covering a range of pumpkins with bumpy surfaces (i.e., 5% to 50% of surface is “warted”), a range of wart sizes relative to the pumpkin's surface and a range of wart colors. The application also claims a range of pumpkin patches (i.e., 25% to 75% of patch contains warty pumpkins). It also claims specific varieties – the application states that the “invention” may “comprise a Cucurbita pepo and/or maxima,” encompassing fruit called gourds and squashes, as well as pumpkins – and it claims plant, seed and tissue of warty pumpkins.
The patent application, if granted, would impose a monopoly position in the U.S. over all Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita maxima exhibiting a warty surface."

These features were present in pumpkins long before Siegers came along. Siegers should not have the right to control a previously selected for trait that is common in the species.

While this instance of gene patenting is pretty mild compared to some I've heard of, it does demonstrate the greed and stupidity behind the idea. How can you patent something that is spread by the wind and insects (after all, that is how pollen and seeds are spread)? How can you say to someone, you can't have that, it's mine, when they had it before they even met you? This is utterly ridiculous, and shameful.

By the way, if you want to tell them how you feel, here's their contact: http://www.siegers.com/process_email_form.asp

Valentine's day, let me enumerate how I despise thee!

Oh, yes, I dislike Valentine's (hate is probably too strong of a word, I'm simply not that emotionally involved). I think it's immature, wasteful, cheap, and, as my lover muffin would say, "schlocky". Let's look at why I feel this way:

1. Talk about a guilt trip. All these ads I've been listening to on the radio have the central idea that if you're in a relationship and you don't buy a gift, you're a no-good, heartless loser (and you'll get in trouble with the wife, becuase they are always talking to guys). If you're single you're hearing thousands and thousands of ads that make you feel bad for not having a date (my single friend likes to call it "Singles awareness day").

And, why are we trying to get people into relationships anyway? If we look at the heteronormative subtext of guilting people into relationships, the goal behind dating is to get people married and having children. Last time I checked, we weren't in need of a massive repopulation. So why all the pressure to get a relationship? Oh, yeah, money.

2. Sheer wastfulness. I mean, look at roses. Are roses in bloom where you live right now? Because they sure aren't here. Which means that billions of roses are being flown in refridgerated planes, from their climate controled greenhouses or fields in a completely different climate zone to your local florist. And what for? To decorate someones table for a week before they are thrown into the trash? Is that really a good symbol for your relationship? At least chocolates yeild at least a little caloric value, but they are pretty overpriced for what they are.

If my mate and I did exchange gifts, I'd want them to be a lot more useful and longer lasting. Or, at least something more exciting that one of those over-priced candle-lit dinners. Perhaps a nice hike in the woods, or, a nice long walk on the beach.

3. The comercialization of something that could be a nice, private and deeply meaningful holiday for couples, without throwing it in the face of those who are unhappily single. It could be simply a time to do something special with your mate, and really focus on how much the relationship means to you. Instead, we're made to focus on buying short-lived gifts, and cheap cards. I really do think comercializing holidays cheapens them- it takes a lot of the thought out.

4. Did I mention the cheapness? The lack of craftmanship and pride in construction of all these valentines hearts and teddy bears? So, not only is it an unnessecary use of resources, but most of it is going straight to the dump in a matter of days. Way to conserve our precious resources.

5. I also really don't like the idea that this is the ONE DAY of the year that you have to demonstrate your love. And that if you screw it up, you're really hurting your romantic partner, and they'll be angry with you. Very angry. Sleeping in the dog house angry. I think that it would be better if people took the time to show their feelings year round, and made special efforts multiple times a month, rather than once a year. You know, if they actually acted like they loved each other. But, of course, that's a lot harder to make a proffit off of. Much more convient to convice everyone to focus it all down to one day, and buy cheesy gifts and cards on top of that.

So with these 5 reasons, I go off to totally ignore Valentines for yet another year. Despite all the horribly desprate-sounding ads. Cheerio.

My seed order came!

After many days of eager anticipation, my seed order came yesterday (and I would have a photo of a pile of seed packets, but my camera and my computer aren't on speaking terms). I am so happy- I've got so many lovely seeds just bursting with potential. I've got several types of tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, broccoli, cauliflower, swiss chard, onions, watermelons, beans, peas, dill, chives, lettuces, carrots, corn, spinach and zucchini.

I think it's going to be a really delicious year. It's also going to be a fun challenge- growing all of this in my first, rather space limited garden. I'm looking forward to utilizing my land as well as I can: growing as much food as I can, in a healthy, noxious-chemical-free way, that builds the soil and the ecosystem. I'm defiantly going to be learning a lot; I'm growing many things that just couldn't grow in mom's climate.

Today I started tomatoes, peas, swiss chard, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, bunching onions, and brussels sprouts. These are all indoors, under some shop lights that I found. My other seedlings are doing well; I moved some tomatoes to larger pots today. I love the smell of tomato leaves.

I'm also thinking of projects to do with my seeds. For example, creating a catalog of what various seedlings look like before they grow their first true leaves. I imagine that might help some people decide what was weed and what was seedling in their gardens.

One thing I'm going to be focusing on is showing people how much you really can grow, even if it's your first garden, and even if you have a day job. I'm also going to track all of my expenses, to provide a counter point to the "64 dollar tomato". I believe that we can grow our own food, and I am sure we can save money doing it.

Might have noticed I hadn't been posting much

What can I say? We're still crazy kids. We're young and sometimes we're a bit too enthusiastic, and we don't see all the details.

Two weeks ago, I stubbed my toe upon a gorgeous 7 acres in the Nisqually valley. Nisqually, for those who don't know, has marvelous soils for agriculture. As it should, being a flood plain and recipient of volcanic inputs.

Sigh.

Long story short, we aren't going to get it (flood zone, lahrs, the economy, etc, etc). Point of fact, we probably won't be moving out to a farm anytime soon anyway. We were in over our heads, and being fairly unrealistic. Monetary, short-term speaking, we could have done it. And it might have been a success. But, the risk is too great, and it's just not a good idea for us to buy right now. Later.

So, I've spent the last two weeks drooling over something I will never have. Time to get back to reality. I will now attempt to turn my focus to what I have now, what I should be doing now (though it is so hard not to think about leasing land, or joining a commune with land). I do have a home on 1/3 of an acre. I do have fruit trees. I do need to get a job (even in this blamed time). Casey does need to experience the life of a farmer at least a little bit before we rush head long into full time farming.

We need to learn and to grow, and become adults. We need to work with what we have, where we are, and who we are.

What role does environmentalism have in this economy?

In certain respects, the present economy will reduce or eliminate some of the things people do currently to help the environment; whether or not it's a conscious decision. For example, people are already buying more processed foods rather than whole foods. Why? Because, per calorie (which is what you care about if you're hungry) junk food is cheaper than that carrot over there in the produce section. They probably will cut back on other things that cost just a bit more than conventional products- like laundry detergents. People who have to buy new appliances will probably try to get the cheapest they can. Depending on whether they take the long view or the short view (and the individual appliance), they may or may not get energy star appliances. They certainly will put off the purchase as long as possible.

But, think of the things people do (or should do) when the economy goes down. They drive less, right? They certainly don't fly as much. And they don't buy so many new things. Perhaps they cut back on their movie going, or dining out. Perhaps it's bad enough that they start eating less meat (it's pretty expensive, after all). All of these are good for the environment. Some may decide (or be forced to) heat their homes less (hopefully not to the point of harm), some may decide that second hand goods are something they need to consider.

And while I don't wish poverty on anyone (been there, done that, don't want to do it again); an economic down turn doesn't displace environmentalism. It probably will give a little extra motivation to people to "go green", even if it is for monetary reasons. I suspect (and judging from the seed company's sales) that gardening will be one place that we see this. More people will try to grow their own fruits and vegetables, rather than buying them from the store. A smaller number will consider getting chickens to help provide meat and eggs.

Other places we might see changes in? I bet more people will start shopping at second hand stores, as well as deciding that maybe they don't need quite as many clothes as they thought they did. Depending on how bad it gets, we may see people giving up some luxuries. Perhaps they'll drop the expensive TV services. Maybe they'll give up home internet services, and use the library more.

I see the economy as a possible motivational force pushing people to live more sustainable lifestyles. For some, they may see a collapse coming, and therefore may choose to learn how to live closer to the earth, and take steps to prepare for that. Some may see it as a time to tighten their belts and use a little more restraint with their consumption. Some may take it as a time to reevaluate their lives and their choices.

Our world is being shaken up, and now is a really good time to take a moment and think. What do you really want to spend time, money and energy on? What is worth your limited supply of money? I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that the mainstream, normal way of life is actually rather...empty. People do want change, and they really need to change themselves.

Internet companies my my blood boil

Let me begin by telling a story.

My boyfriend's mother died over the summer, three months after receiving the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. My love and I then inherited the house, and transferred the internet and phone company (a "Quest-ionable" choice) to his name.

This company kept billing his mother for 6 months. Despite us assuring them she was dead. Despite the executer of the estate telling them she was dead. Despite sending in the will, and letters of testamentary on four separate occasions. Despite them telling us they'd fixed it.

No, what they did was declare my boyfriend dead, and cut off the internet for 2 weeks. And they kept billing his mother, which caused the executer (her sister) a horrible amount of grief.

And then, after 4 months of this double-billing stupidity (because they were billing him, as well as his dead mother), our internet stopped working when ever it rained or was windy.

Oh, and we had police coming to our door (3 separate times) because our phone was for some reason dialing 911 and then disconnecting. Twice when no one was home, and once when I was home, and talking to my mother on the cell phone.

And then, to top it all off, the internet just stopped working. For an entire week. We called, and they couldn't fix it.

So, a week later, we canceled our account (by the way, the bills to his mother didn't stop until then). Because, really, why should we pay for internet that we aren't getting?

So they send us a cancellation fee. A bill for internet service which we did not receive, and which they couldn't provide.

And, because they didn't take this off, even after I called them, I am publishing this story. Because for capitalism to work, the citizens need information so that they can make an informed choice.

My dog is soo funny

So, Jack is a very smart dog. He is very clever, and he figures things out pretty quickly. And I guess he doesn't like eating his food alone in the bedroom.

And you see this picture? This is a picture of our living room. You can see Jack is eating out of his food bowl. Which he very carefully carried out of the bedroom and into the living room with out spilling any of his food, and then simply commenced eating out of it.

I'm just impressed that he grasped not only the concept of moving his food bowl from the bedroom to the living room, but also the concept of carrying it up right, and not tipping it over.

What a cool dog.

Cold house, cold frames and seedlings, oh my!

It's been cold here, again. Freezing, blowing, snowing, cold days. Which happened to coincide with when I turned the thermostat down. Which caused Casey to turn it back up to 72. Which made me get up this morning and lower it down to 65 (instead of the 60 it had been).

And you know, maybe going from 70 to 60 in the course of one day was a bit quick. Or at least that's what my toes told me (I shall not go on about how I was wrapped in a blanket). So, a bit of slow adaption- I'll turn it down by a degree each day, and start off the mornings by starting the fire and running the fan. Just to break the chill a little. If that works, I'll just have to convince Casey (he-who-hates-heat) to leave the A/C off during the summer. Yeah, that'll be eaaasy. Sure.

Anyway, on to more enjoyable topics! Growing food! Yay! You see these darling little seedlings:















These are purple sprouting broccoli that I sowed on the 19th, in some finished compost. Once they sprouted, they sure grew fast, and they are kind of leggy as you can see in the photo to the right. They are also leaning quite a bit towards the light.

I was going to wait until they had their second pair of leaves to move them out into the cold frames. But, they obviously hunger for more light, so I moved them out to a cold frame today. I'm putting them out for just a few hours at a time, to harden them off a little. Soon, as in when they have their first true leaves, I'll leave them out over night.


Speaking of cold frames! I've made three so far, using free windows and sliding glass doors, and hay bales, all from craigslist.org. Under the hay bales, I've planted potatoes. The idea is, that by the potatoes grow up and through the hay, the cold frames won't be needed anymore, and I can use them as raised beds. Here's a pic:
You can see that I angled them to the south, and that will help catch a little more sun light. And the cold frame on the left dosen't actually have potatoes under it, for two reasons. One, I ran out of potatoes, and two, that's where potatoes were last year. No need to tempt fate! You can see just the tip of the third frame in the far right. It's a smaller one made from a window.

I'm also thinking about digging up some of the billions of lilac seedlings all around the yard. I'm going to put them in pots and try to sell them for $10-15 dollars on craigslist. That would be really cool if it works out.

New motivation to be thrifty!

Over the last few days, there have been a few incidences that have brought to my attention that we really need to be managing our money better.

First, was the electricity bill for December. It was over $300. I am not willing to pay $300 dollars a month for electricity. So, despite my love of walking around the house without a coat on, I turned our heat down to 66 degrees (Fahrenheit). Right now, it's down to 58, and over the next few days, I'm going to get it down to 55, because I really don't like spending that much money on a luxury.

We also found out that Casey's mom had only been paying the interest (+ a little more) on the mortgage (it's a 30 year mortage), so instead of having 1/3 of the house paid off, we have less than $10,000 in it. Which boils my blood, seeing as she put more than $80,000 into it (the other party wouldn't let her refinance).

And, due to time management errors, we've been eating out a lot. Which is really expensive, and stopped last night. If we are out with out food- we'll buy bananas or some other "real" food, rather than going to a restaurant. Or, we'll just plain not eat.

On the other hand, it's not all bad news. For example, the other day, I made granola. See, Casey loves the stuff, but he also tends to love the stuff with dried fruit in it, and that's kind of expensive. So, I made it at home, and saved a lot of money. And it was really easy. I'll post the recipe, and the cost comparison later.

Also, the broccoli seedlings are starting to come up, as are the tomatoes, I think. See, I don't remember what tomato seedling's first pair of leaves look like, or how big they are. Since I used compost from out side, there is a strong possibility that they might be something else. Guess I'll find out in a few days.

College Student Green Tips #2: Thrifty and Green

You know, thrift stores aren't just for hobos and fashionistas. Thrift stores are a place where you can save money, while at the same time completing the cycle of reuse. Much like buying products made from recycled materials, reusing stuff is a great way to reduce your consumption of resources and while saving money at the same time.

I mean how much do jeans cost new? Like, $30 or more, right? And how much do they cost at a second hand store? Like, 6 bucks. And they look perfectly fine, and some still have their tags. And as any bargain-hunter or vintage enthusiast will tell you, there are some great deals. I got a coat second-hand years ago, and on one of our field trips at college, the tour guide asked me where I'd gotten it. He was really disappointed, said that they were really high quality clothes, and the business had gone out of business 30 years ago. I still wear it, and it still looks good (and it's really warm).

When you move out of the dorms and into your first appartment, I really strongly urdge you to skip the new, and buy your plates, bowls, cups, and silver wear second had. You'll be paying 30 cents for a cup instead of 5 dollars. Not to mention my mom has found multiple full matched sets at thrift stores. And furniture? That stuff is expensive, but you could get a table for $20, and a chair for $5. Why spend more?

You can save a lot of money on furniture, dishware, cultery, lamps and a lot of other things, if you know what you're doing. You should take a close look at what you're buying. Check the sturdiness of chairs, tables and bookcases. Make sure your plates, bowls and cups aren't chiped or cracked. Look over clothing for stains, rips or loose threads. Give that blending a test spin. Added to that, most thrift stores have a pretty good return policy now, so even if something slips by, you're not stuck with it.

Also, keep in mind that thrift stores aren't the only places to get second hand goods. Check out Craigslist. There are also many online mailing lists and sites for people to post things that they don't want or need anymore, and most are pretty localized. Washington has 2Good2Toss, and I'm on the Olyreusables yahoo group. There are also stores that specialize in selling used appliances- mom and dad bought their dish washer from one, and it works really well.

If you look around there are lots of options for buying (or getting for free) used goods, and if you look at what you're buying, it's a really good deal.

A steaming pile of horse manure!

I've borrowed my mom's truck for a few days to aid me in constructing my garden. So far, I've gotten two loads of horse manure and three 4' by 4' windows to make raised beds out of. I hope to get a few loads more of horse manure, some sliding glass doors, spoiled hay, and a few loads of compost, too. Did I mention that this is all free, via Craigslist.org?

I know I've already told you that I made raised beds, but I want to show you a bit more of the whole process. First, I made the "walls" of the bed by laying down some logs and boards. Now, these are pretty short walls, but I'm just using them to contain the creep of soil away from the beds. Then, I put down a layer of cardboard or paper, depending on the bed. This is what it looks like, in this first step:














Next came a layer of raked leaves:














And then a layer of unfinished compost:














I then added a layer of dry grass, and of horse manure, and topped it off with a final layer of finished compost:

You can see the bottle bottoms I'm using to protect the peas in this photo. You can also see the neighboring bed which has lots of spinach and peas. I've also planted some leeks, but I have to wait until my seed order gets here to plant more. In the mean time, I'm tackling the horrendous job of pruning a kiwi.

Working and improving

Thought I'd start you off with a pic of my cute puppy. He's adorable, friendly, energetic, and a mess of trouble.

I've been with out internet for the past 2 weeks. Add that to the fact that I still haven't started working, and that means I've been getting a lot done around the house.

I have a job, and I start this Wednesday; however, it is only a few hours each week, so I'm still applying to any other jobs for which I'm qualified. For example, I applied to a job with the Dept. of Agriculture certifying organic farms. That would be so awesome, I really hope I get hired.

One of the first jobs I tackled was taking down these horrible metal shades on the outside of our only 2 windows that face south. Why do I think they are so terrible? Well, because they come down almost a third of the way down the window. So, I’ll be looking out my window, and all I’ll see is this metal shade. It’s so far down that it doesn’t let any direct sunlight in, even now, in the dead of winter when the sun is at it’s lowest. Why would anyone ever think that was a good idea? I guess, if we lived in the hot desert it might be nice, but here, in the cold and wet northwest? Where it’s dark and raining 2/3 of the year, it’s not that great of an idea. I need all the light and passive solar I can get!

Here's the before pic:














And here's the After pic:












It's amazing!

I also have ordered most of my seeds- unfortunately, the company I ordered from, Heirloom Seeds, is so busy right now that it will take them days just to get to my order. I do recommend them, I’ve heard good things about them, shipping is pretty cheap, and their prices are really good. I’m really excited about the prospect of growing my garden this year, and I’m really happy that I’ll get to save my seeds so I won’t have to buy them again next year.

I've also been doing a lot of work in the garden. When I did get around to pruning, I did a lot of it. There are these current bushes that were moved to right next to the fence a few years ago- and they appear to have suffered a massive die back. More than 70% of what I pruned off was already dead, and a lot of the rest was black and rotten more than a third of it’s thickness. I also pruned 2 wisterias, a willow, and I still need to prune a hardy kiwi. So I have lots of trimmings, and I’m very happy to have found a way to make them into a resource instead of a waste. Instead of throwing all of these trimmings behind the compost pile (I don’t have a chipper so it would take them forever to break down), I’m using them to weave the walls of raised beds. I think I looks rather good, and I can’t wail until I can plant them. The current branches are surprisingly supple, while the willow branches (twigs?) I’ve chopped into one foot sections and I’m using them as posts to weave the current and wisteria clippings through. I also made three other beds just from some large branches, and I've already filled them with layers of compost, leaves, horse manure and soil. Outside, I've planted peas and spinach, while inside I've got broccoli and tomatoes started.

Here's a pic of what one of the raised beds look like:


Yes, it looks a little funny, but there is a purpose, I assure you! See, those are all the bottoms of juice bottles I picked out of our recycling (roomie drinks a lot of juice), and they are providing a little extra warmth to the seeds at the same time as preventing the birds from eating my seeds. When I'm done with them, I'll wash them out, and either store them for next year, or recycle them.




I also got a bunny from the shelter. He's a rex, and his main job is to add some nitrogen to the compost bunny (although really I just like rabbits a lot). Because of this, and because I put him in an over grown compost bin (lots of grass), Casey's been calling him "Compost Bunny", though I named him James. Here's a pic:




Isn't he cute? The rabbit that he came in with got pregnant, and is in foster care right now with a litter of kits. I hope to adopt her and a couple kits to aid in my composting. Well, that, and because I really love rex rabbits. And I can't have any other even vaguely livestock type animals.




Casey are also in the middle of building a green house- I'll make a separate post on that later.

No 'net

No net until Thursday (it's been out for a full week now). Which means no blogs (I use the Library's net), but it also means I'm being particularly productive. Just wait until you see the pics I'll post.

What now?

I'm done with my B.S. Now I get to find a grad school program. The problem is, I know exactly what I want to do with my life, but I don't know how to get there. It

I basically want to work to shift the country, and our world, from unsustainable methods of agriculture to sustainable agriculture. I also want to shift agriculture back to a more local scale, rather than shipping in bananas from half a world away.

But how do I do that? Do I go to grad school? Get my Master's? Doctor's? In Biology? Ecology? Agriculture?

Do I start working now? Do I buy a farm and lead from example (a wee bit of wishful thinking there)? Do I try to get a job with the Government? Department of Ecology, or department of Agriculture?

And, really, how can I be worrying about all of this when I don't even have a job? I wish there was someone who could tell me what my next step should be, because I don't have any clue.

Home and the new year.

I've been home for about week now, and I have really been enjoying myself; sleeping in, cooking my own meals, playing with the cats and my dog, 3 different Hannukah celebrations, friends, family. Casey has a lot of friends and family who celebrate Hannukah, and I really enjoyed eating all those latkas, and lighting the menorah, and the beautiful prayers and songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. I really appreciate the sharing of food and family time.

I'm also looking forward to the new year. The snow has finally melted, so I can start working out in the garden! Ah! I am so looking forward to growing my own spinach. I just find it so annoying to buy a bunch from the store, and they are all dirty and there are at least 3 leaves that have turned to slime. I hate that! I am really liking the concept of going out to the garden to pick our food and bringing it right in to eat. We already do that with the chard and kale (unfortunately the snow made most of the chard wilt and die back), but soon it will be for broccoli and carrots and all shorts of vegetables too! And fruit! And soon I'll have the bees out at my mom's place and we can have honey. Ahhh. I'm still thinking about the chickens.

I also have a job interview tomorrow. It's teaching kids science, so that's good, but it's part time (4-8 hours/week). So I'll still be looking for work in addition to that, but I figure it's a good idea to jump on any job opportunity I see. It also sounds like fun.

Well, I'm off to order my open pollinated seeds, so that's it for now.

College Student Green Tips #1

See that? Those are my stairs a few days age. A whole foot more has fallen. The snow here has closed I-84 (my normal route), and snowstorms have kept me from driving home. Yesterday my sister came from a neighboring town and picked me up, because I was the last one in the apartment, and I was bored. Well, that and mom was worried about me if the power should go out, and food, and you know, general mom worrying stuff.

So, here’s my first post for college students trying to be green. These are all things I began doing in my first year of college, and they really aren’t that hard. They also are a good starting point for first years.

Let’s start with heating and cooling. My dorm was an old hospital that was remodeled into a dorm, so each room had it’s own radiator, and there wasn’t any A/C. Cooling was only an issue for the first few weeks of class, but those first weeks sure were hot! I just opened my window and ran the fan. It’s best to sleep with the window open at night, if you feel safe doing that, and then close it in the morning before the temperature outside rises above the temperature in your room. Draw your blinds, and if you want you can even put up a thick, dark blanket to keep out the heat and light. Running fans help a lot, too. As for heating? Well, the first thing I did in my new dorm room was to turn the radiator off. My room never got too cold, and the pipes didn’t freeze. That is because the building had good walls, and also because it had central heating. If you don’t have a radiator or private thermostat in your room, there are still options. You can probably close off your vents, for example. Your room will probably never even drop below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

And of course, every time you leave your room, shut the lights off, and unplug all of your electronics. Why have them on when you’re not even there?

Now for study habits. Try to study in your library as much as possible. You’ll probably get way (and I mean way) more done, and save energy at the same time. See, the library has lights and computers that are already on, so it makes much more sense to use them instead of turning on your own. When you print your papers, make sure to print on both sides of the page. I like to use other people’s one-sided waste paper for scratch paper and working out math and chemistry problems on.

And of course, every time you leave your room, shut the lights off, and unplug all of your electronics. Why have them on when you’re not even there?

Now for the dining halls. If your college is like mine, you’re going to eat out of the dining halls for the first 2 years. Try to eat things that are actually healthy, and eat less meat. Try to take no more than you’re going to eat- you can always go back for more if you’re still hungry. Don’t buy bottled water or drinks, get your own reusable water bottle or canteen instead. If you’re really into being green, you can do what I did, and stop using paper napkins. If you must have a napkin- bring a cloth napkin with you instead. You can wash it with the rest of your laundry.

Speaking of laundry, wait until you have a fully load to run it. Wash your laundry on cold- except for really dirty things you probably won’t notice a difference. Buy those “untra concentrated” laundry detergents- same prices, same number of loads, but less packaging. And, of course, wear your clothes more than once- if they still look and smell clean, then it’s fine to wear them again.

These are just a few of the habits I adopted while in college. All of these things are fairly easy to do, and none of them cost money. I did all of these in my first year of college, and I think they are a good place to start. More coming soon!

Plastic bag are evil

Plastic bags are evil; everyone knows that. They are swirling around in our oceans, killing sea turtles, blowing around and getting caught in trees, and it's not profitable to recycle them. Everyone knows that. They don't breakdown in the normal manner; instead, they photodegrade into smaller and more harmful molecules. A lot of people are trying to stop using them by using reusable bags instead.

But, of course, there are still millions of people out there not trying to stop. And there are many, many plastic bags that have already been produced, and many that have already been handed over the the consumer. What are we going to do with all those bags?

I may have a solution! You know how people build houses using straw bales? How about baled bags? And you know how they use recycled paper cellulose and denim for insulation? Why not plastic bags? They are already making recycled plastic insulation from plastic bottles, so why not shredded plastic bags?

Plastic bags are free, they don't degrade, they are light weight, and they are very insulating. And think of all the bags that could be reused to insulate houses instead of being released into the world. Do I even need to quote the billions of bags used, and what small percentage currently gets recycled? Insulation is widely used, creating a large market for cheap,  non-irritating, efficient and environmentally friendly isolation. I think someone should look into this. 

DONE!

I just took my last final from Whitman college! I am done with undergraduate college! AHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Sweet!

When are people going to wake up?

When are people going to realize that having money and possessions aren't what makes a person happy? When are people gong to realize that feeling good comes more from friendships, accomplishment and doing good deeds than wasteful hedonism?

One of my primary goals in life is to live a life full of joy and happiness. But, apparently unlike most, I have realized that true happiness comes from maturity and being responsible, and taking joy from what you do. From creating good in the world, whether it is through a soundly built and long lasting home or by helping someone who is in need. My computer doesn't make me happy. Jewelry doesn't make me happy. Money doesn't make me happy.

I think a major driving force of out economy is the unhappiness of our people. That's not healthy. People are trained to buy stuff when they are unhappy. They are trained that the only way to be happy is to have a house, car and job that pays well. People are sacrificing their lives to make money, because they think money will make them happy. It won't. People are working in jobs they hate because they get better wages.

People, please, look at what actually makes you happy, and work to include that in your lives, even if it does mean a smaller house and cheaper car. Look around. Is your world happy?

Transitions!

So I've been thinking about the fact that in a matter of days, I will no longer be a college student. Instead, I'll be one of the thousands of 20 something people in this nation, and perhaps I should change my writing a little bit. After all, my life conditions will no longer be the same (although I think it is funny that I started this blog less than a year before I would be done with school).

For one, I'll actually have a house with a yard. Just one more house in the endless spread of suburbia (although at least the house is 20 years old, and is kind of small, at least when compared to newer houses). Two, I'll have the ability to really put my convictions to the test: I'll have access to a car, and much of my traveling will be very inconvenient to do on a bike. And three, I'll actually have time!

So, I will do a number of posts on what I did learn, and how I was able to green myself during the college years, and then I will transition to how the general populace that isn't in school can green-ify their lives. I'll be talking about exactly what you can do when you have a home, and a lawn. I'll talk about growing your own food on that 1/3 of an acre that is the average American lot size. I'll talk about the price, effort, and worth difference between cooking your own meals, and buying them pre-made. I'll also talk about how to convince other people you may be living with to go along with all the changes you want to make.

I'm going to be talking directly from experience, so that people can see what it's really like. And, I'll do my best to include the factors that effect people's ability to be green, such as money, with out getting too gloomy. I also realize that this is the time peroid where I'm going to set the pattern for the rest of my life; this is when I need to develop good habits and ways of doing things. I'll also take more pictures, as I'll have the aforementioned time, and I'll be talking about things that are easier to take pictures of.

Asthma and the environment your baby is exposed to

I found this article from the NY Times interesting because I have asthma. In fact, every single person in my family has asthma: my mom, my dad, my 2 sisters, my 2 brothers, my niece and my nephew. Seems like there is quite the predisposition to it, eh? Which is why I'm always on the look out for ways to treat it (naturally, though. I hate the thought of dependence on a drug), and prevention, because some day I may choose to have a child (or two).

Basically, they covered a few factors. The first was the fact that children born in the fall have a 30% greater risk of developing asthma. Apparently, this is because they "tend to be about 4 months old at the peak of cold and flu season. By that age, many babies are in day care and regularly exposed to the outside world. " Now, that automatically made me think of cultures that take great care in shielding their babies from infection- the particular one that sprung to mind was the tradition of never letting the child touch the ground until they are 1 year old. There are others who simply believe that babies should be kept out of the public until they are a little older- and I find myself agreeing with them here. What was odd to me though, was that they didn't suggest parents keep their children out of daycare, or keep them out of the public where sick people are walking around, which is what I immediately thought would be the logical thing to do. Instead, they mentioned timing conception so that children wouldn't be born in the fall and suggested that "it’s good sense to use typical hygienic measures to try and prevent illness". But it seems that that's not working- I mean, I think most people are using good sense with their babies (or at least trying to), and most are very keen to keep their kids healthy. But maybe my automatic reasoning is a direct result of my up bringing.

I was home schooled by my mother, and we never even had a sleep over until I was like, 8, and that was with family. She tried to protect us from exposure to sick people, and was a nurse, so had a pretty good idea of what she was doing. I was never in daycare, or preschool, or grade school for that matter. Thus, it's always a little surprising to me when I see people leaving their babies in day cares. 'Course, my mom has made many comments about tiny babies and how they shouldn't be in public, being exposed to all those germs.

They also found that babies born via the vaginal canal had a much lower incidence of asthma than those born through C-sections (which were 80% more likely to have it). Kind of interesting, seeing how many births are C-sections now-a-days, and how many of those are scheduled C-sections with out any medical reason.

The third factor was country of birth- they found that children born in the US had higher incidences of asthma than children born else where. That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

Kind of sounds like there's something that could be done about this asthma epidemic, eh? Perhaps we should encourage vaginal births, and keeping your baby away from sick people. That, of course, is a whole lot easier when you're homeschooling.

Just one more step to reduce

You know, it's been a rather long time since I've actually read a fashion magazine......er, scratch that, there was that one next to the toilet...

Anyway, point is, I don't follow the fashion trends anymore. And I think that helps the environment, and I think you should give it some thought.

Why? Well, because your self esteem and self image will improve once you're not seeing all those photoshoped perfect faces and bodies. See, there's this phenomena that occurs in humans: what we see becomes what we think is normal. So, if your reading and seeing anorexic models all the time, do you really think that's helping your self image? Do you think they're healthy? 'cause, if you do, than you probably aren't.

Secondly, all that time and money will be used for other things. How much money do you spend, on say, your hair, per year? I spent about $12 (if that). So, I get to spend what I saved dates with my boyfriend. And how much time do you spend? I spend about 10 minutes, tops, per day. And that picture at the top is how I look (or, well, how I looked before I chopped my hair off...). That's a real person, not one who has been photoshopped. And I'm not wearing makeup, either.

Point is, I think I look pretty dang good, which is due to my own remarkable arrogance, and because I stopped paying attention to all those ads and magazines. Point of fact is, that no matter what a woman does, she won't look as good as people on tv or in adds (same goes for men, too). Not only is each and everyone of those appearances preceded by hours of makeup and hair stylist, they are photoshopped afterwords. So no human will ever look that way! I strongly encourage you to watch at least one video about photoshopping. Here's just one random example I found on youtube:

And, well, then there are all the environmental aspects as well. First of all, there's all that packaging. Then, there is the actual products themselves, and all the energy wasted in producing them as well as using them (hair dryer, anyone?). Add that to the fact that a lot of them aren't entirely healthy, and a lot of makeup actually makes your skin worse- why are you doing this, again? And what about all that goo you put on your hair? Is it good for it? I don't think so.

Did I mention the money part? How I spend like, $12 bucks this year? Maybe? Probably not even that much?

For you? For your health? For your self image? Reconsider, and throw out those magazines, and mute the commercials, and ignore the ads. Or, if you can't bare that, turn a critical eye on every image you see. Ask yourself, is that really a real person? Or are they photoshopped? Do they look healthy?

I don't wear any make up (aside from chap stick, seeing as my lips get so badly chapped they bleed...). I shampoo my hair every three days, and condition once a month, if I remember. I have a brush, and a comb. That's it.

And I feel really good about how I look. How many people in this society can say that?

13 days to go!

Yes, people, I have made it. I've taken the GRE, the Orals, given my thesis seminar, and taken all my tests. Now, in these last few days, I have merely to revise my thesis, turn it in, and take 2 finals. And then, assuming I pass all my classes, I am finished with college!

To help with my procrastination, I'm going to post a list of things here, that I have to do in the next 13 days.

Tomorrow:
1. Revise thesis (Email to prof. Monday night. Then revise again, and email again, Wednesday night. Email final version Friday night.)
2. BUY FOOD (I haven't gone shopping in a while, and thus have been eating potates, pasta, and cherrios. We don't even have butter!)
3. Clean Room

This Week:
1. Revise thesis (Email to prof. Monday night. Then revise again, and email again, Wednesday night. Email final version Friday night.)
2. Go to class. Do homework.
3. Review math
4. Review Physiology
5. Buy food so I have enough during finals week.


Next Week:
1. Study math
2. Study physiology
3. Take math final
4. Take physiology final
5. Sell bed
6. Pack
7. Drive home

Ah Christmas

That time of year when time is consumed with shopping, decorating, and preparing for the onslaught of relatives. Festive lights, parties, and Christmas trees. All that warping paper, all those gift cards and trips to return un-appreciated gifts.

This probably won't be a popular post. I'm going to suggest something that for many will be hard to swallow.

Christmas, as it exists now, is both a hollow holiday, and a waste of money. Stop it. This year, instead of focusing on all the money and material gifts, focus on your people. What are we celebrating? God, our families, our friends? Our lives? I don't see it. I see people buying, buying, buying, and not because they truly want to, but rather because that is what is expected.

Does celebrating Christmas actually make you happier? Is keeping up the tradition worth the stress, anger and debt incurred?

How about this year, you shift the focus from the greed, to the people? I suppose it's a little late for most people- but why don't you stop giving so many gifts? How many people will be honestly, truly happy with your gifts? It seems like today, that most people have already bought the things they want- so what is left to give to them?

And all of this money is spent on one day, all of these resources spent on one day. Is it really worth it? Would you really miss it if it were gone?

I don't celebrate Christmas. I see no reason to. Religious? Nope, has nothing to do when Christ was actually born, but it does have a long pagan history (which I'm not particularly interested in). Family and friends? I visit them, I go to big get-togethers, but we celebrate each other (and food). Gifts? I don't do them. I don't need anything, and what I want, I can't have (namely, a Nigerian dwarf goat). And what gift could I give that would be used and appreciated?

Shhhhhhh!

What happened to the concept of a library being a quiet place for studying and reading? We used to communicate in whispers, if we dared talk at all. Where did this idea of having conversations at full volume come from?

Surely my year was not as loud as this! I can remember studying here in previous years, and never hearing more than a whisper- now people are having cell phone conversations in the middle of the building! I can't bare to study with out ear phones in because of the constant burble of voices.

Where, o where did the respect go? When did the library become a place to socialize and converse?

The library is my favorite building (aside from the Hall of Science); those shelving units containing wondrous amounts of knowledge. The comforting couches for reading text books, the desks and tables for working out chemistry and calculus problems, and of course those tempting computers- so useful, and yet so distracting.

To see it disgraced by these first year's lack of silence offends me.

So the next time you are in a library, consider that there are students studying for orals, the GRE, for a giant math test, writing a monstrous paper, or reading thick philosophy- and shut up!

The Greening

I think that for our society to become a sustainable, stable one, we will have to make a fundamental change in the way we live our lives. I don't think that it is enough to recycle, or to buy things with less packaging, or to only eat organic. We need to truly change the way we live, and the way we see the world.

Our society has become based on disposability, short term convenience, and inequality. Everything we buy comes with packaging- from a laptop's box to the coating on an apple, packaging is every where. It's unnecessary. It wastes energy and it can't be recycled in a lot of cases. But, our society has made it necessary; it is what people demand. Every vcr, dvd player, computer, microwave, tv, cellphone, comes with it's styrofoam cushioning, it's hard to recycle plastics, and boxes. And the vast majority of people are going to throw all of that 'away'. I'm not even going to go into seasonal 'fashions' and planned obsolescence.

We need to change the way we live; we need to change our lives. We need to stop driving to work, buying our food from people we don't know, stop seeking fulfillment and happiness from machines and turn instead to people and actions. We need, in short, a revolution of thought and action. It's not impossible, it's happened before. Think of the world before, and after, cars and petroleum. That was a bit of a revolution, wasn't it? The key to persistent revolutions is that they take place slowly, and that it is driven by the masses.

We need to show the average person in our society that a green lifestyle is a better, happier lifestyle. People need to realize that the driving force of materialism is an empty, hollow drive. We have to realize that working in a factory or behind a desk is no more gratifying or intellectually stimulating than working on a farm. We have to realize that our greatest assets and helpers are not machines, but people.

Look around, and you will see that it is already starting to happen; green washing is a sign of this, as is Wal-Mart carrying organic foods. But we need to carry on through this phase of the fad- we need to reach people, teach them, and help them to see through the thing facade of commercialistic greenness to truly ecologically sound living.

We need to make the radical green the mainstream. We need to talk about humanure, rainwater catchment, solar panels, buying no plastics, throwing away no garbage, all as if they were the sanest, most common and mainstream ideas ever. They need to be. There is already a demand for change- people are already waking up. We've had this industrial complex for long enough and people are already getting tired of it.

Challenges for the new year

Ha, yes, I know I'm early! But by another standard, I'm quite late! See, back on the 20th of November, Sharon made a challenge regarding skills and competency. Which I entered, and then promptly forgot about. Heh. What can I say, it's my last semester of college (whee!).

Anyway.

There are quite a few skills that I would like to gain/improve on this coming year. They all relate to self sufficiency, and thereby sustainability. And they are all things that I've wanted to do for awhile, but have been unable to do, due to being a college student with no home of my own.

I want to sew. I want to be able to make new clothes, as well as mending old ones. I want to learn how to garden most effectively with the land that I've got (I mean, seriously, if the Dervaes can grow 6000 lbs of food on 1/10th of an acre(!), shouldn't I be able to grow a lot from 1/6th?). I want to learn beekeeping, and keep them out at my mom's place. Along with these comes carpentry, seeing as I'll be building cold frames and hives, and possibly a greenhouse. I'm also going to learn how to cook really well, using the food that I raise.

I'm challenging myself not only to become competent in these areas, but to learn how to do them best. I want to learn how to build and sew so that what I create lasts and works beautify. I want to learn how to garden well enough that I can feed myself and Casey from the garden, and eat well. I want to learn how to cook food that is good for us and tastes great. I want to keep bees healthy, productive and resistant to mites and diseases.

In short, I don't want my skills and projects to be a part of disposable society. I want them to last, and be useful for decades-lifetimes in some cases. I want to do my part in changing the world, and this is a small step towards that.

Thank you for being atypical

Thank you for not following the stereotypes. Thank you for your devotion and commitment; for your warmth, kindness and compassion. For being open to me, and communicative, and talkative. Thank you for being gentile, yet strong, and laughing with me, as well as at me when I deserve it.

I am so grateful that I know you, and I never wonder worriedly about you, only amusedly. I am grateful that you are always there to support me, and always there to point out when I'm wrong. I am grateful that you are my joy, and not my stress.

I love your humor, no matter how absurd it is, no matter how much I roll my eyes. I love you because you are so bright and open minded and I love you because you are open to change, even when you don't think you will. I love you because you see the world in such an odd way; I love that I never know what will come next out of your lips.

I trust you; to be there, to tell the truth, to love. I trust you to reason; I trust that I am safe with you, and that we can face every challenge together. I trust you to see the humor in life and death. I trust you to never hide from me.

You are my friend, my love, my partner and my companion. You make me happy, and you've helped me learn that money and status are not really important, and you don't need to worry about them.

Weirdest keyword search yet:

"if you put olive oil on your hair and it will help your hair gorw very quickly?"

That is the weirdest keyword search that has guided someone to my website so far. I mean, how does that even get them here? Really? What in my blog ever refers to olive oil or growing hair? I mean, if you saw my hair, I doubt you'd ask me for hair advice (mainly because it's really short right now).

BTW, no, it won't. Hair growth is determined by genetics, nutrition, and health in general. If you want a site about growing out your hair really long and making it healthy, check out The Long Hair Community- they are the first hit on google if you search that phrase. My sister learned a lot from them, and they seem pretty good

Oi, I'm too helpful. Here I am typing out a blog relating very little to my blog's purpose, just because I don't like people not getting information that they need. Shoot.

November 2008: the month in review

Possibly the best thing I can say about November? It's over. The orals and the GRE are over. The bulk of the semester is over. It went by really quickly actually; with two weekends consumed by tests and another two by thanksgiving break. But, my, what a stressful 30 days it was.

I am glad about somethings, though. I got to see Casey, and I got to visit my family. The tomato plant at my house still had tomatoes in the last week of November. Cats sleeping on the bed. Warm, fluffy blankets and cuddling.

I've also had a few new experiences, like staying up until 4 am studying. And sleeping on the floor because my bed frame might just be the most uncomfortable contraption ever disguised as a bed. And insomnia- used to be, that I could fall asleep within 10 minutes anywhere, anytime. Not anymore, or at least not right now.

I'm also happy somethings didn't happen- like my wisdom tooth deciding not to come in, after all. And I don't have skin cancer, that's always good.

So, what was your November like?


(Did I mention that there are 18 days left until I'm done?)

It's all about the grease, man!

So, on the drive-back-to-school drive from hell, I heard this really bizarre ad on the radio. Basically they were saying that instead of dumping your leftover grease from cooking down the drain (which would cause sewage water to back up into your house, apparently), you should put it in can in your freezer and then throw it away.


What?

I'm sorry, it's just such a bizarre idea to me to freeze cans of left over fat in your freezer, so that you can toss them in the trash afterward. (then there was the fact that the company was selling a "kit" to get you started that included lids to put on the cans...) Of, course, it's sounds weird to me to be putting it down the drain, too. Just another effect of my bizarre childhood I suppose.

I mean, when I was growing up, we never did either of these things. Sometimes mom used the "drippings" to make gravy. Sometimes my sister spooned them over her potatoes instead of butter. Sometimes they were collected in a jar on the stove to grease the frying pans with (in case you're worrying, fats don't rot- think of those tubs of lard in the grocery store). Sometimes we let the dogs and cats lick out the pan (it really makes their coats shine). And sometimes they went to the chickens or the compost (worms love fat).

Never were they thrown away. Why would you throw away something that energy rich and tasty? So people, really, don't throw away your drippings. Make gravy, or use them instead of butter in your cooking. Or, let your pets eat them. Or, compost. It's just silly to put it down the drain or in the trash.

Anyone live in a mobile home?

See, I have a bit of a conundrum. When I'm back on the west side of Washington after school, I'd like to turn down the heat in my house (round about 60), and use our (efficient) wood stove to heat the living room and kitchen (along with the stove), leaving the bedrooms and bathrooms fairly cool. Casey is fine with this; in fact the heat was off until someone visited and turned it on (we turned it back off when they left). That's fine. Dandy.

Now, for the problem.

We live on the west cost of Washington- a very wet and mild place. Average temperature is 51 degrees, and it's rainy for 2/3 of the year (not a single month went by with out some rain). A perfect place for mold to grow. We also live in a mobile home, which aren't known for their mold resistance, to put it mildly. It's also around 20 years old- pretty old for a mobile.

Casey and I are both allergic to mold. We can't really live in a moldy house, which means it has to be kept warm and dry.

So what to do? As far as I can see, we have a few options.

First off, we could just not heat the house. Before our visitor turned on the heat, we didn't notice any mold allergy symptoms. But as soon as she turned it on, we were sneezy and snotty and congested, headache, itchy ears, etc. So, it seems that most of the mold is in the venting system, which we'll get cleaned (but the mold will grow back if we don't use the heat). We could just leave the heat off, and let the vents be, but apparently then other parts of the house would start molding. I don't know how true that is.

Secondly, we could use the heat- I'd like to keep it around 60-65 but I don't know if that would be enough to keep the mold out. Apparently we need to have hot air circulating in the vents, or the mold will just grow back- but will keeping the house at 60 be enough?

The third option is to simply keep the house really toasty at 70 degrees all winter. This is the most expensive, and possibly the most likely to keep mold out.

But then again, I'm not so sure I believe this person who says that we need to have the heater going. It's only one person who is being so vocal about it all. I get the feeling that she thinks that Casey and I are incompetent and have no idea how to live in a mobile home (ignoring the fact that I grew up in one, and it is his mother's house, after all!). She goes on these tangents about how you have to turn on the fan and open the windows, but kinda peters out before she actually gets to anything that I don't know already. She's probably just worried about Casey.

I do know that I'm going to clean out that house, and find every area with mold and kill it. I'm also going to talk to my mom- after all, she has a lot of experience with mold allergies and mobile homes.

Vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores: nature, science, morals and the environment

Diet is a very touchy subject in our society, especially when it comes to telling people that they shouldn't eat. Obviously. I mean, when I first heard about vegans, I sure thought that they were kinda crazy. But I've been reading a lot (and when I say a lot, I mean "so many that it would take 10 pages to site them all") lately about diet; particularly on the matters of vegan, vegetarian and omnivorous diets.

I think that what one has to understand is that this is a multi-faceted problem. It's not so simple as saying "oh, we don't have well developed canines, so we can't be meant to eat meat". Even if you are just looking at the physiologic reasons, it's not that simple. But it's not just our physiology that determines what we should be eating, at least not now a days. There are so many more aspects that have been melded into this issue; there are just too many humans alive on the planet today for our diets not to effect each other and our environment.

So, first, the environmental argument. Let's work with one of my favorite animals, the cow. Livestock produce more of those green house gases that we're so worried about than all forms of transportation put together. The EPA says that "globally, ruminant (ruminants are cows, goats, and sheep, for ye who don't know) livestock produce about 80 million metric tons of methane annually, accounting for about 28% of global methane emissions from human-related activities." That's a third of the methane emissions, and that's a lot of flatulence. And who hasn't heard that the production of a kilogram (about 2 pounds) of beef releases more CO2 than driving for three hours?

But it's not just all farts and hot air. It's about the nitrogen, polluted rivers, and the dead zones in the ocean too. It's a well known fact that nitrogen fertilizer run off from farms causes eutrophication in our rivers and oceans. But how well known is it that 80% of the corn grown in this country goes to feed livestock? Or that it takes about 5 times as much grain to produce the same amount of calories from meat than if you just ate the grains? There is a massive amount of nitrogen that is produced by livestock operations, and it's produced in such a way, and in such quantities that it's a major problem that has huge and unhealthy effects on the surrounding ecosystems.

Next is the moral aspects of our diet. I don't have a problem with killing animals to get meat (at least in principal). If I wasn't killing it, it would be killed by some other predator, likely in a far more painful way (having seen first hand what cougars and canines will do to an animal).

Having said that, I know that most slaughtering standards aren't as high as mine. I know that most slaughter house employees don't care about the animals, and don't respect them, and are quite callus. I also know that the vast majority of the meat in stores came from animals that were mistreated and lead highly confined lives fed on a diet of things that they would never eat naturally. You know how BSE (mad cow disease) was introduced to cows? By feeding cows (which are herbivores) the ground up remains of other cows and livestock. Pleasant, no?

Some may call me a sissy-hearted crybaby liberal, but I was raised to understand that we respect the animals we are going to eat, and give them the best life possible, and then kill them as quickly and painlessly as possible. That's what the bible says to do. This doesn't happen in factory farms. Animals are mistreated and abused. I'm not going to go in depth, but I'm sure that you can easily find out more.

And lastly, physiology. I've read a lot of really uneducated arguments about humans being "meant" to be vegans or not. People look at our teeth and either say "oh, we have canines, we must be carnivores!" or, "oh, look they are really underdeveloped, we must be herbivores!". Then they look at the length of our intestines and either say "oh, they are really long and well developed, we must be herbivores!" or, "dude, they are so short, gotta be a carnivore". What gets me, is none of these people are biologists, zoologists or physiologists, and they generally don't have a clue about what they're talking about.

Guys, really, take it form me, we are omnivores. Humans are incredibly adaptable- from vegan Buddhists, to the primarily meat-eating Inuits, humans have been able to adapt to a very wide range of diets, and that adaptability comes from the fact that we are omnivores. People get bogged down looking at teeth and intestines, when all that can be concluded from those is that we are omnivores, highly adaptable, and capable of using a wide range of food stuffs, with out being too specialized. Our anatomy is the classical trade off between herbivory and carnivory found in omnivores. So, yeah, humans can live on nearly completely carnivorous or herbivorous diets- but just because we can adapt to something, doesn't mean it's healthy for us.

Another interesting thing is that chimpanzees and bonobos (our closest living relatives, the bonobos, share 98.4% of our genes, while chimpanzees share 94%) both are omnivores with fruit being the main staple, and most their diet consists of plants. They also eat honey, eggs, mushrooms, insects and small amounts of meat. Their diet is not influenced by people's arguments, and it is likely that what they eat today is very similar to what we were eating millions of years ago. Curiously, I've never seen these facts used in an argument about vegetarianism (which is funny, seeing as I have seen us compared to horses, dogs, and pigs{with the false assumption that pigs are herbivores}). I am not saying that we should eat exactly like them, rather, I think it gives us a good idea of what we started with. Scientist think that our brains developed due to a better diet- a higher calorie content as well as more protein. Note that it's not hard to get more animal protein than a chimp- about 1.4% of their diet is animal.

Oh, and the argument that we need to eat animals to get protein- patently false. Oats have 26.35 grams per serving, while beef only has 19.98 grams per serving. Now, there are some nutrients that are harder to get on a entirely vegan diet, but it's not impossible. It's just easier if you're vegetarian. The fact is that the vast majority of Americans are eating way more protein than is necessary, or even healthy and the same goes for fats. And, you know, you aren't even keeping all that extra protein- your kidneys have to process it, and in the end you pee it out. It's well known that eating less meat is healthier, and reduces your risks of many types of diseases, and cancer. Meat just wasn't that easy to come by for most of human history- and we really didn't eat that much of it. In fact, between 1961 and 2007, the amount of meat a person ate per year doubled. We are eating way more meat now than we ever have, and it shows in our rates of disease.

And milk wasn't so common either, back in the day. We're drinking way too much of it. Yes, our ancestors drank milk, but think about it. Their milk wasn't pastured or homogenized. Their cows weren't freaks that produced 16 gallons of milk a day, year round, being feed on anti-biotics and hormones. We didn't have milk year round, and not nearly the amounts we have now, until fairly recently in human history. Fresh milk was a rarity, even when people did have cows, they only had fresh milk during the spring and summer. The rest of the time, the milk was fermented- made into cheeses and yogurts. Same goes for eggs, chickens don't lay eggs year round- they need at least 14 hours of light a day to lay. That means no eggs in late fall, winter, or early spring. We just didn't have the access to animal proteins that we have now. It's not normal, historically speaking, how much animal protein we eat.

Meanwhile, we are constantly hearing about all the benefits of vegetables and fruits- all those antioxidants, vitamins, minerals (did you know that dark leafy greens are a better source of calcium than milk?) and cancer-preventing properties. They are much more effcient users of our prime farmlands, feeding more people with less land, less energy, less fertilizers, less pollution. There aren't any ethics issues either- unless you're one of those fruitarians, and if you are, well, you're going to have health issues, and I don't think you are reasonable at all.

However, there is one nutrient that you cannot find enough of in plants: vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is actually made by bacteria, but the diatary sources of it are meat, milk and eggs. So, unless you are willing to take a supplement, or eat fortified foods- like grains and brewer's yeast, or drink kombucha, you'll need to include at least little animal-based food.

So, that, cumulatively is why I've decided to switch to a diet based around fruits, vegetables and grains, supplemented by eggs and raw, fermented milk, and the occasional animal. I am convinced that a plant based diet is healthier for myself, as well as the environment, and I can not in good conscious continue to buy animal products from the grocery store knowing the conditions those animals were raised in, and the effect that has on the environment, and the human race. Because, by buying milk, meat and eggs, I am supporting the commercialization and industrialization of farming which is something I cannot condone.

It won't be an immediate switch, just as in life most things are very gradual. Because it's expensive to buy meat, eggs or milk that meets my standards, and that includes seeing the farm they are raised on. Although, really, it's mostly because I would rather raise the animals myself. Therefore, I will be raising it myself as soon as I can. This means illegal chickens in the backyard, and once I have acreage, I will be getting a goat or cow. There will be meat in my diet, simply because I will eat eggs and milk, and animals die. It won't be a common occurrence, because we don't need that much meat, but it will happen.

So I was wrong

It's not going to get any easier this semester. No, not even though my first month was as stressed and busy as the final weeks of a normal semester. No, not even though I've taken the GREs and Orals. No, not even though the only things I have left are 2 texts, 2 finals, my thesis, presenting my thesis, 1 rugby game and a dance production.

No, I don't have any more time now than I did a week ago, and it was a mistake to think that I would.

It's not going to get any less stressful until it's gasped it's last breath and died. Not until my last final on the last day of finals week will I have any guilt-free, anxiety-free breaths.


So this is what being a college senior is like.

Just a pondering

I've noticed that I'm getting pissed off more at people for killing insects. Like, there was this guy at O's rehearsal who was literally whimpering about a spider. I shooed it off the dance floor, but he still felt the need to smash it, quite loudly, even though it wasn't a poisonous spider and posed no risk to him. And I just saw pictures of some guy making a swarm of honey bees fall into a fire (quick fact- bees that are swarming are very docile, and don't pose a risk to anyone with a brain in their head). It's just angering me that people are killing things for no reason, when the insects aren't going to hurt them. It just strikes me as incredibly immature.

It is just odd, seeing as it wasn't that long ago that I was squishing spiders. Seeing as I usually don't care about invertebrates what-so-ever.

Maybe it's because I know have learned a bit more about them, and have seen a little of how awesome the little creatures are.

5 weeks and 6 days

Five weeks and six days until the semester is entirely over! Minus 9 days for Thanks giving break, 10 weekend days, and 7 for finals week, and that comes to 15 days of class left until I am done with my college career. That's kind of scary, actually. Kind of feels a little like panic, actually.

Perhaps this gives some insight into why my blog hasn't exactly been the highest of quality, or most interesting lately. Well, that and I took the GRE Biology subject test yesterday. And I have my orals coming up this Friday. And I still need to write more than a first draft on my paper.

So, basically, for the last, oh, 3 weeks I've been spending every hour that I'm awake, not in class, and not showering, studying. No, I haven't even taking a break to eat. And I'm not even really exaggerating that much. I have been using this blog as a study break, though. It's way better than surfing the web, because there is only so much blogging you can do at a time (while the net can suck you in for hours). And Now that the GRE is behind me, I'll have a little more time, and thus can start writing about all the things that I've been thinking about. Here's a list, in no particular order:


How to Study for the GRE
Vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores: nature, science, morals and the environment
Farms as ecosytems
Humans as active members of the global ecosphere
Industrial agricutlure v. Organic agriculture: Profits
Industrial agricutlure v. Organic agriculture: Health
Industrial agricutlure v. Organic agriculture: Sustainability
The Nitrogen cycle, and why our oceans are dying
Industrial agricutlure v. Organic agriculture: Nitrogen
Small scale vs. large scale agriculture
Urban Agriculture

I am now 1/3 graduated!

Because I finished the GRE! Now I just have orals and writing and presenting my thesis, which I think will be easy in comparison.

So happy, and right now, so tired. Yuagh. Three hours of testing is exhastive! I think I did pretty well, actually, a lot of the problems seemed easier than the practice test- but maybe that's because I spent the last week cramming ever piece of information that would fit into my cranium. Weiredly, there wasn't a question about brain structure. I wonder how they come up with the questions for the GRE? I also wonder if there are several different tests passed around for each group, or are they different from test date to test date? I suppose I'll never know, unless, that is, I some how end up with the job of making them. Which I won't.

My post Whitman Plan

So, with 4 weeks of classes left (we get a week off for thanks giving), I thought I'd write up my plan for post Whitman life.

Mid- December to January '09: Breathe. Visit family and friends. Apply for a job with the Dept. of Ecology. Start working on the garden. Register for statistics and ceramics at SPSCC, or statistics/calculus/physics at Evergreen.

January to May: Work, take classes, work with garden. Apply to internship on local organic farms, e.g. Evergreen's Organic Garden. Look for interesting ecology related internships. Tie-dye.

May to September: Visit Iowa State U. and U.C. Davis, talk to professors, students. Visit the California Academy of Science. Work, tie-dye, work in garden.

September to December: Apply to grad school. Take more statistics/physics, or any other classes that are interesting and related to biology. Work. Improve garden, harvest.

December to January '10: Relax, start planning for move to grad school.

January to September: Decide which grad school to go to, find house, find job, move.

September '10: Start Master's program in agroecology!

Tips for homeschoolers headed to college

This is now my last semester in undergraduate college, and I look back with some regret. I had a few misconceptions and I really wish someone would have told me about life in college. So, from a college senior to any home schooled students headed off to college, here follows a list of what I wish I could have told myself 4 years ago.

1. College is nothing like homeschooling.
First off, you no longer are learning at your own pace, you're learning at the rate the professor talks. You won't understand every thing the first time you encounter it- because you won't get to pause and think about it. I didn't study for my first year of college, and still got A's, but don't expect that to continue once you are past first-year work. Your professors will act like their class is the only one you're taking (and they'll assign homework that way)- instead of just one of 4 or 6.

2. College is hard.
Really hard. It kind of sneaks up on you. You'll think you're doing fine, and then you'll get your first test back, and BAM! How did that happen? You will need to study. But you aren't going to want to study. You'll want to party, or play frisbee, or surf the net all day. And there isn't going to be anyone to tell you not to. There isn't going to be anything motivating you to study besides concern for your grades, and love of learning. These aren't as strong of motivators as you'd think, at least in the moment. But, you'll look back, and really wish you'd known how valuable and important studying was.

3. Do not procrastinate.
If you procrastinate, you will die. You'll get C's, you'll be stressed, and you won't sleep well. It's really hard not to procrastinate (at least for me), but you have to avoid it at all costs. The only way I can study effectively, is to go to the library, sit down, and not let myself move until I've accomplished some goal.

4. You don't get to study what you want. There are requirements, and you'll probably hate at least one of them. But you still have to take them, and you still need to do well in them. On the other hand, there will be classes that you really want to take, but never get to. There will also be topics that you find amazingly interesting, but your class won't cover them.

5. On top of all of that, the subject matter is hard. You just won't understand, and that's when you need to ask for help. The first time you don't understand something, ask a fellow student. If they can't clarify it, ask your teacher. If you find yourself not doing so well in your class, go talk to the teacher. If nothing else, talking to your professor will motivate you to do better.

6. College is stressful. Probably one of the most stressful times in your life. Take a breather once in a while, even if you don't think you can afford it. Take ten minutes to calm down, meditate, or watch a clip of the Daily Show. Trust me, it's a good idea. Also, if you're not doing so well in one of your classes, don't take it too badly. It's not the end of the world or your life, even if it feels like it at the time.

7. Don't sell your books back to the bookstore. It's not worth it. Those books will be a recourse to you for years to come. Also, they come in handy when you're studying for senior exams.

8. If it seems easy, be very suspicious. If a teacher says, "you don't need to know all of this", learn it all by heart. If there is a short cut, don't take it, it's a trap. If something is supposed to make it easier, chances are that you won't get what you should out of it.

Well, that is it for now. Back to studying for the GRE.

Gardening plans

I am very excited about the prospect of my first garden next year. I miss eating the flower petals off my mother's roses, daylilies and digging up the potatoes at the end of summer to find monstrous tubers 17 inches long. I want to grow sugar pie pumkins, lemon cucumbers, and sweet corn. I want to grow tomatoes and make sundried tomatoes from them. I want to grow heirloom and open pollenated varieties so I can save their seeds.

And I want to do all of that on less than 1/3 of an acrea, much of which is taken up by the house, drive way, permanant inedible plantings, and back sheds. Some of which is actually gavel. So I'm going to combine three methods of intentsive organic argiculture in my back yard: squarefoot gardening, companion plant gardening, and lasagna gardening.

When I get back (mid-December), I'm going to start my lasagna beds, in order for them to have a little time to break down before spring gets here. I'll start by putting down a layer of carboard/paper, to block any weeds that think they're going to come through. Then I'm going to layer alternating layers of food scraps, horse manure, tree leaves, and rotted hay until it's 2 feet deep. I'll put a layer of soil over the top so it doesn't look to bad.

I'm going to make cold frams and use various methods to help my plants have a little extra heat. For example, the cold frames will be surrounded by hay bales (or the closest thing I can get to hay bales) for extra insulation. My corn, tomato, squash and other heat loving plants will have their own idividual mini-green houses made from plastic milk jugs. I will also surround my seedlings with milk jugs filed with water; they will release heat during the night to protect my plants. Hopefully this will allow me to extend the growing season on both ends by a few weeks.

I'm also square foot and companion planting. This means my plants will be much closer together than in a normal conventional garden, and they will be planted next to other plants which are benefical to them. An example of this would be planting peas and corn together: corns are heavy feeders, and peas can fix nitrogen form the air.

In addtion to that, I'm also going to mulch deeply. I read Ruth Stout's books a few years back, and I'm convinced that deep mulch is the way to go. Way less weeding, enriching the soil, and conserving water all at once.

The warmest, sunniest place on the property is a 70 ft by 6ft (ish) patch of river rock underneath 1/4 inch of dirt. It faces south, and but right up against the road in front of our house. I want to grow corn, squashes, and peas there. I obviously need to add some soil and organic matter here, and I'm going to do that by making a rasied bed/ lasagna garden. The last frost for the last 2 years was in April, but we're in a pretty sheltered location, so we'll see. I figure that until I can start the corn and squash, I'll grow cool weather crops in cold frams on top of the lasagna garden. When I plant out the squashes and sew the corn, I'll use old gallon milk jugs as mini-green houses to help them get a little extra heat. Sense it is such a large area, I want it to look good, and I'm companion planting, I'm intending to gorw corn, butternut squash, melons, sugar pie pumpkins, peas, chives, mint, marigolds, nasturtiums, white geraniums, parsley, cucumbers, radishes, borage, maybe potatoes.

In the back yard, we've actually got soil, but there is much less room. In a bed that held potatoes last year (6 by 10 feet ish), I'm going to plant brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, radishes, lettuce, spinach, chard, onions, thyme, sage, rosemary, dill, mint, chamomile, garlic, and carrots. Most of these are pretty cool weather plants, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get them started pretty early, if I use cold frams. We have enough day light hours, it's just that the temperatures tend to bounce around between freezing and 40 degrees until april.

The third and forth beds (about 8 by 6 each) will be where the chard and kale were this year. I'm going to grow tomatoes, carrot, cucumber, onion, parsley, basil, bee balm, marigold, lettuce, peas, chives in one bed, and potatoes, peas, beans, cabbage family, horse radish, marigolds and nasturtiums in the other bed.


Of course, that's not all I want to do, but you'll have to wait to read more because I really should start studying again.

Obama wins

I, personally, am one of those who won't be sure he's our president until every last vote is in and all the recalls have been completed- but, seeing as everyone else is calling for Obama, I suppose I'll say it too:

Obama is my president.

Now, let us pause a moment in this time of jubilation (or disapointment, in the case of McCain supporters), and realize that this is not the end. Obama is a very intelligent man, but just because he's won doesn't mean that the economy is saved, the war is ended, or that our environment is going to be taken care of. Now is not the time to relax. Obama needs to pick advisers that truly advise, are wise, and put the good of the nation ahead of themselves. He has a very hard road in front of him, and he needs good people behind him.

And we need to tell him what we want. We need to tell our governors, our senators, our representatives, our president, and everyone else in the government what we want. And we need to tell them that we expect them to turn this country around. We need to stop being timid as a nation, and take to the streets if we see something that we know is wrong. We need to write letters and make phone calls.

Republican or democrate, green or otherwise, make yourself heard. Now is the time.

Chickens in the winter

I'm not keeping chickens myself this winter (living in an apartment kinda precludes that), but I've noticed a lot of people coming to my blog wondering about chickens winter time needs.

First of all, light. Chickens will not lay unless they have at least 14 hours of light per day. This light can easily be provided by a light on a timer in their coop, and plugged into an automatic timer. Simply set the timer so that it provides the additional light the chickens need. For example, if daylight lasts 8 hours where you live, you would need to have the light on for 6 hours when it's dark.

Secondly, make sure that they are warm enough. The shed or coop they are in shouldn't be drafty, but chickens are pretty good about keeping themselves warm. If you notice blueish or darker than normal combs, that is a sign that your chickens are too cold. You can add a heat lamp, add litter, and have flat boards for roosts.

Third, keep up the quality of their food, make sure it has enough calcium and protein. Layer crumbles are an easy way to provide what your chickens need. My family fed wheat, food scraps, and provided oyster shell for calcium, and our hens were always happy. Chickens can lay right through the winter if properly cared for.

Eat on a dollar a day?

“I challenge anyone to try to live on a dollar a day and eat fresh food in this country,” Mr. Greenslate said. “I would love to be proven wrong.”

I've just been challenged, from a NY times article about the price of food. This article was talking about the fact that calorie-rich junk foods often is cheaper than fruits an vegetables. It seems that some people are worried that the economic down turn is going to force people into eating more junk food, and thus greater numbers of people will start getting sicker. Two of the major issues with cheaper- yet still whole foods- are knowing how to make it, and having the time to make it.

I think it would be hard, but not impossible. It sure would be a lot easier if it was summer, the farmers market was still open, or I had vegetables from the harvest. I don't. I typically spend around $30 on food per week, but that's with giving myself little splurges like Parmesan cheese, butter, and sour cream. Still, I'll be trying to cut my food bill, while at the same time trying to eat reasonably healthy.

I'm not, however, going to jump into this right away- not with the GRE this Saturday, and then my orals next Thursday. No, sir. I'm not going to risk slowed mental processes while I'm taking the greatest tests I've yet taken. Nope. In fact, I don't think I'll begin it until I've finished classes- that will give me time to think about it some. And time for readers to make suggestions.

Thesis draft part 4

And now, for the part you've all been waiting for!

Dissuasion, or what does this all mean, man?

We found that, contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant effect of chemical versus organic fertilizer on the density of microbial populations in either of the two agricultural systems we studied. However, our other hypothesis, that there would be greater species diversity in an organically treated system, was supported by the data.
Microbial populations were much more diverse in the Organic Raspberries when compared to the Conventional ones. Some weeks microbial diversity in the Organic Raspberry soil community was 200% of that in the Conventional Raspberry soil community. This is true even though the Conventional Raspberries were on the lower spectrum of chemical inputs, with herbicide and fertilizer being applied once this year, and no pesticides applied.
When comparing the Organic Lawn to the lawn that had just ceased receiving chemical inputs this year, the microbial communities were once again more diverse in the Organic system. This shows that even a year after the cessation of chemical application the soil microbe community still has not reach the level of an Organically treated lawn.
Interestingly, in the last two weeks of the study (when temperatures and rainfall was at the highest) the both of the Conventional systems caught up with their Organic counter parts (even though neither of the organic areas where mulched this year.). This may indicate that the organic systems, which support symbiotic relationships between plants and microbes, might enhance survival of certain types of microbes. This would be an intriguing area for further study.
Further research could be done on agricultural systems that are being switched from conventional agriculture to organic agriculture, to determine how long it takes for soil microbe communities to stabilize and what processes they go through.




So that's the first draft. Now to flesh out all those sections and make it a master's piece that every one on the face of the earth will be astounded by!

Thesis draft part 3

What, did you really think it would stop there? Really No.

Discussion: or, What does it all mean!?

But first, we need the results, don't we?

At total of 11 weeks of useable data was used for the density measurements, and 12 weeks for diversity measurements. Data form the second dilution (10^-2) at 24 hours was used to measure densities, and data from the third dilution at 72 hours was used for diversity measurements.





Densities were determined by counting the number of colony forming particles. Plates using the second dilution were used because the first dilution consistently produced >300 colonies per plate. Two T-test were run separately on the density data; one comparing the organic lawn to the conventional lawn, and the other comparing the organic raspberries to the conventional raspberries. The p-values, respectively, were 0.232786786 and 0.301089068.


Diversities were recorded after 3 days of incubation, and were taken from the 3rd dilution. The extended length allowed for rarer and smaller colonies to be observable. Colony color and morphology was used to identify different types. Two t-test were run one comparing Raspberry community diversity between organic and conventional fertilizing practices, and one comparing organic lawn maintenance with conventional methods. Respectively, the p-values were 1.98548^-5 and 5.26458^-5. These results are statistically significant, and thus we reject the null hypothesis.

Thesis draft part 2

Materials and Methods: Or, how did you do this, anyway?

Our methodology was adapted from "source"'s study of bacterial and fungal communities from fire ant mounds.

Collections were made once a week from four different areas: a conventional raspberry row, an organic raspberry row, an organic lawn, and a conventional lawn,. The samples were taken from the same area each week, and vegetation and organic matter were removed to ensure samples were only taken from the soil. All samples were collected within 20 minutes of each other. After the soil core was removed from the ground, the soil was immediately placed into a labeled Ziploc and sealed. Weather conditions and temperatures from the past week were recorded, and samples were stored in a freezer. Interviews were conducted with each of the farmers/owners to determine fertilizer dosage, irrigation practices, and use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Also collected was any additional information regarding the care of the plants.

The first sampling location was raspberry farm that utilized integrated pest management. They applied lime (150 lbs/acre) in addition to 10-20-20 fertilizer at a rate of 150 lbs/acre, applications were made to the raspberry rows, not the areas in between. This was only applied once this year, in mid may. They didn't use any insecticides this year , but a herbicide (150 lb/acre) was applied in February, before the raspberry plants leafed out. Irrigation was not necessary this year.

The second and third samples (organic raspberries, and organic lawn) were taken from an organic farm 4 miles from the raspberry farm. Here, no fertilizer or herbicide was applied this year, although continuous additions of organic matter have over a 14 year span has greatly increased the fertility of the soil. The raspberries were watered twice this year, once the soil was dry to a depth of 9 inches. The lawn received no water or fertilizer aside from the defecation of passing animals. The lawn was not mowed, but kept to a short height by constant grazing.

The forth sampling site was the neighbor to the organic gardener. This land has been receiving non-organic fertilizers and pesticides for the past 14 years, and just this year stopped applying chemicals. It received no fertilizer, no pesticides and no irrigation. It was mowed every 2 weeks.

For each soil sample, 1 gram of soil was transferred into 9 ml of CASO broth, which was then shaken for 1 minutes to help homogenize the mixture. Each sample was diluted twice more, to have dilutions from 10^-1 to 10^-3. 200 µL of each broth solution was then spread across an agar, marked, and incubated. Cultures were observed and photographs taken after 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours. Microbial colony density was recorded, as well as the diversity of the microbes.

Why?

Why would someone buy dozens of water bottles, to put in the fridge at home? When there is brita water filter, that they could easily fill a cup or bottle from? Why would some one waste money to buy water? How is this more convenient?










Why would someone buy case after case of tiny, over-packaged, expensive individual serving yogurts instead of just buying a quart? The single serving yogurt costs way more per serving, has 3 active cultures instead of the normal 4 to 6 (which, by the way was it's main advertisement point), it doesn't taste as good!





Why do people buy 'whipped' butter and cream cheese, or 'fluffy' ice cream? Do they know that it's the exact same thing, only with air added? That they are paying more for less food? That they are paying for AIR? Why do they buy the brand of sour cream that has all the additives, but still manages to taste horrible and have a disgusting texture?


How does this happen in an apartment with not one, but two environmentally aware people? Why do people do this when they know better?

Buying new stuff isn't the answer

to limited resources. Reusing old stuff, and buying used stuff is. It also happens to be the key to saving money in these "hard economic times".

See, there's a rather large aspect of green-washing that hasn't been called out yet: the fact that by merely buying something, even if it is 'green', you are using up resources. From those bottled water ("now using 30% less plastic!") to organic bamboo socks still there remains the essential ignorance of the principle of reuse.

A few examples:
---That Kleen Kanteen or Enviro Product polycarbonate water bottle? Buy it second hand (you can sterilize it, people), or simply reuse that sobe glass bottle (I'm sure you'll see some friend of yours with one, and they probably won't want to keep it). Now, instead of buying a new product that takes materials and resources, you're helping to decrease the amount of waste that goes to the land fill. Cost? Cheaper than a disposable bottle of water/free.

---Replacing a appliance? Don't buy new! While you should use care (research, and inspect), why not buy a used washing machine, refrigerator, oven? You could probably find used energy star appliances, and save a lot of dough. While I haven't done this myself (as I've never bought an appliance that was bigger than a blender{used, by the way!}), this is the way my parents go about getting new appliances, and they've never had a problem.

---Need a new car? Why not used? Hybrids and fuel efficent cars have been out long enough that they are now on the used market. And you know how they say a car loses %30 of it's value once it's off the lot? Well, after 2 years, it has lost even more, and still (if it's a good make/model) has a lot of life in it.

I find that buying used is particularly useful to me. All my dishes, silverware, pants, shirts, jackets, blankets, plant pots, shoes, a table and my bed were bought secondhand. Of course, I was raised buying second hand, so its a shock to walk into a store and see a shirt for $30 dollars, when I'd only pay $3 for it. The quality is the same, it's just that you're actually paying for what the item is worth, instead of all the advertisement, appearances and packaging. This holds true whether the item is a house, a cup or a scarf. A lot of things are in secondhand stores because someone bought it, or received it as a gift, and either never used it, or used it once or twice. That means you can get things that are practically brand new at a 90% discount.

Going hand in hand with this is the commitment to use things until they are no longer useful, and to maintain things so that their useful life time is longer. Instead of throwing out that blanket, pair of jeans or shirt when it gets ripped, learn how to mend. When the knees wear out on your pants, make a pair of shorts. Keep your car in good shape, don't wait until there is a major problem to get minor problems fixed. Change your oil. Reuse those jars and yogurt containers to store left over food in. Instead of using sponges to clean your dishes, use old, worn out tee shirt rags.

Use what you have, and reuse it until there's nothing of value left. If we are headed into a major depression, it won't be long until you'll need to.

This is my life

~15 hours until my calculus test
38 hours until my physiology test
9 days until the biology GRE
15 days until I take the Oral examinations
1 month, 20 days until the end of the semester

- 3 days since I planed to have the rough draft of my thesis
- 3 weeks since I last cleaned my room
- 2 months since I said I'd call my friend

An easy, quick, delicious, vegetarian (with meat option), eggy, cheesy, spinachy, mushroomy pile of goodness for a college student's breakfast

I was one of those kids who mixed all their food together in a huge pile. I mixed everything. For breakfast, I'd have 4 (or more) brands of cereal all in the same bowl. At dinner time, I'd mix the peas with the mashed potatoes and ketchup, and dip the steak into my concoction. When there were two foods I didn't like, well mix them together and now they taste good! And if I did like foods, I'd mix them together anyway, and they'd taste even better!

So it should come as no surprise that my favorite breakfast to make growing up was an odd ball collection of things thrown in a pan, and then mixed with eggs and cheese. I'd use left overs, and things from the garden, and basically anything I thought would taste good. Jalapenos, potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, chives, mushrooms, carrots, onions, all went in the pan. After they were cooked to my liking, I'd crack an egg in, mix it all together, and some cheese, and eat it.

It's so easy, it tastes so good, and it's pretty healthy, too.

Step 1: Decide what you're going to eat. I used onions, spinach, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and minced garlic.

Step 2: Put it all into the pan with a little butter.

Step 3: Cook until the food is in the condition you like. I like my onions soft and slightly caramelized, my mushrooms browned, and the spinach wilted.



Step 4: And the egg, and mix it all around.

Optional: Put bread in the toaster.







Step 5: Add cheese once the egg is mostly cooked. Mix in, allow to melt.






Step 6: Eat! The reason why I say this is healthy is because I used an egg-sized portion of spinach (post-wilt), 3 halves of a sun dried tomato, a handful of mushrooms, a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic, and half of a small onion with 1 egg, and 1/4 cup shredded cheese. That's way more vegetables than most people eat in the morning. And it may not look so hot, but I think it's one of the best tasting breakfasts out there. And plus, it took about 10 minutes.

Why this is a green choice to eat:

1. The only packaging was the egg carton, and the plastic the cheese came in. Compare that to a cereal, breakfast bars, instant oat meal, etc.

2. No processed foods (besides the whole wheat bread), no food coloring, artificial flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. No meat either.

3. All of the ingredients can be either grown in the backyard, or bought from the farmer's market (including the cheese), eliminating transportation and storage costs, as well as being way fresher and tastier than what you'd find in a store.

4. Since you can use left-overs, it eliminates waste. The vegetables, meat and potatoes from last night's dinner can be included in today's breakfast.

Calculus free verse

Ah, calculus, what is there that exists that is like thee?
What else can life my spirits, exalt my prowess, and then in the next moment smash my very soul upon the bitter coast of disappointment?

How can you lead me forward with such exalted successes from so minor a solution, while with the same hand destroy my hope?

O, how can you make me feel so intelligent one day, and the next like the greatest fool?

How can simple knowledge evade me for hours, days, weeks, and then crash, open, explode in my brain in on instant of pure clarity?

What indeed is there like thee in this mortal world, for not even love causes me such pain and frustration, and feelings of elation!

Pain is pain, and joy is joy, but in you they are mixed more complexly then in any other matter. You distill, concentrate, and yet intermingle these highest and lowest of emotions.

O, the frustration and anger you have caused me! Why, o why are you a requirement? Why must I struggle with you, instead of pleasurably taking sips at my own pace? How do those other minds grasp you so quickly and clearly, leaving no doubt of their greatness, and how was I denied that gift?

What saddens me most is that I think we could have been great friends; your difficulty might have challenged me, your mathematical formulae inspired me with their beauty and simplicity. Alas, it was not so.

I wish to meet you again in the future, and enjoy your brilliance. But for now, the fight must continue. Alack, alas.

A brief explanation of WHY we study fruit flies.

A Sarah Palin quote:

“Some of these pet projects, they don’t make a whole lot of sense, and sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good, like fruit fly research in Paris, France. “

Now, people with out a background in biology or genetics might not understand why this is such a stupid thing to say, especially given the context about the common good, and genetic disorders.

Fruit flies share 60% of their genes with humans (mice share 85%). These genes are what is referred to has “highly conserved”, because they remain much the same as they were millions of years ago, because they are so vital to survival. An example of this could be genes in mitochondria, which exist in most eukaryotic organisms (plants, fungi, and animals), which break down molecules to provide energy to the organism. If there is a mutation in one of the genes that codes for a protein in the Krebs cycle or electron transport chain- well, oops, instead of 36 units of energy per glucose molecule, you get 2. Sucks to be you. Or, type 1 diabetes, where the beta cells don’t produce insulin. Bummer. Or cancer, where the genes that control cell division don’t work anymore.

What this means is that we can find out what a specific gene does in humans, with out having to screw up someone's genes, or find some one with already screwed up gene and get their permission to study them. It means we can study things all the things related to mutations in genes, (cancer, downs syndrome, etc) with out having to inflict the disease or the testing on humans. And when we can understand a disease, we can find ways to combat it, and hopefully eventually cure it.

I kinda think that’s important.

Wow, really?

The New York Times just referred to the US as "the only superpower on earth." Really? Because I really don't see America as a strong nation right now; and it seems to me that while we are falling back, other nations are advancing.

Russia is flexing it's muscles after the long recovery, China has a huge populace that is determinate to prove that they can be better, and India just sent a orbiter to the moon. Meanwhile, out economy is sinking like a rock, NASA receded from it's former glory, and everyone thinks our school are failing.

Does the rest of the populace think of us a Superpower? Do other countries see us as a bastion of hope, strength and integrity?

This country needs some healing.

How are we going to green the country?

I think the answer is that we need to change the society, not just the way we live. As anyone who has tried to go green know, it's really hard. It takes dedication, effort and near-constant evaluation of the situation. Unlike a typical American lifestyle, you can't glide through life with nary a care of thought.

And that is because the system is set up to favor the wasteful, empty, person-as-costumer lifestyle. It depends on it. It is the same system that thinks infinite growth is possible, forever. In our culture, people are always striving for more, more more. More material possessions, more money, never is it ever "enough". Our economy is based on the idea that there can always be more, that people will never be content with what they have. Has anyone else noticed that "reduce, reuse, recycle" is in opposition to our capitalist notion of disposability, greed, and (material)growth?

A system with infinite growth in a world with finite supplies is inherently unsustainable. It may take it a while to crash, but eventually something will run out. Whether that's oil, housing, food, or our health is anyone's guess.

So it's not (just) ourselves we need to change, it's the whole system, culture, economy. We need a system that supports sustainability, that makes it as easy to be green as it is to not. A system that encourages open minds and questions and investigation, instead of stigmatizing them. Can you imagine a grocery store that only contained 100% recyclable packaging? Is it possible for our nation to turn around, and move towards a more fulfilling, real life? To stop focusing on material goods, and start focusing on our own quality of life? To stop being so distanced from ourselves, our families, our world?

I think it is. Changing ourselves for the better is a good start, but we really need to change our society, and our perceptions of what is normal.

Thesis draft part 1

Introduction; or Why is this study of scientific interest and what is your objective?


In this study our aim was two fold. The first part of the study was done to compare the microbial density and diversity between raspberries that were raised organically, and those that were raised in the conventional manner. The second half was done to compare the bacteria communities between a lawn that had been under organic procedures for over a decade, and one that had just recently stopped receiving chemical inputs. Currently, there is no general agreement on the effects of inorganic or organic nitrogen fertilizer additions on microbial communities in soils (1)

According to (2), “Often, microbial community composition is determined by examining an entire microbial community's “fingerprint”. Here, a fingerprint is the presence/absence pattern, and sometimes abundance, of microbial groups in an environmental sample…These methods can indicate if a treatment or perturbation changes over all community composition, specific groups or individual taxa.”

In terrestrial ecosystems when water is abundant, nitrogen is the most common limiting factor of plant production. Although nitrogen is abundant in the atmosphere, it occurs in a configuration that plants can not utilize, and mineral nitrogen is limited in soils. Several microbes have evolved to fix atmospheric nitrogen into organic forms usable by plants, in exchange for a supply of carbon (3). However, supplying this carbon to microbes is energetically expensive, so when there is a readily available source of nitrogen, symbiotic relationships between plants and microbes are thought to decline.

In addition to fixing atmospheric nitrogen, bacteria and fungi play a key role in the cycling of nutrients and the formation of soil aggregates. Microbes are the sole decomposers, returning valuable nutrients to the rest of the ecosystem. In addition, they extrude many exudates that are crucial to micro-aggregate formation, preventing many nutrients from being washed away, and improving soil structure and texture.

Raspberries were selected as a study crop because of the author’s knowledge of them, and because they typically are produced with high inputs of fertilizer and pesticides. However, it was discovered that in our study area of Western Washington there was a geographical anomaly of disproportionately high ratio of organic to conventionally raised raspberries. In fact, there was only one non-organic raspberry farm in a 90 mile radius of the author’s home, and that farm used integrated pest management, which significantly lowered the usage of pesticides.

For the organically treated lawn vs. the lawn that had just stopped receiving chemical inputs, sampling was taken from two neighbors’ yards. One has had a history of 7 years of organic practices (before which the land had been bulldozed), and the other has had several years of high-maintenance practices.

It should be noted that due to the wet weather of western Washington, none of the crops were irrigated this summer.


Comments, questions, and grammatical suggestions are welcome.

Frustration!

So, after months of trying to get a hold of the person whose lawn I was using for my "conventional lawn" sample ( aka, uses artificial fertilizers and pesticides), he informs me that he didn't water, fertilize or use pesticides on the section of his lawn that I sampled this year. At the beginning, when I obtained permission to sample his lawn, I explained very carefully that I was trying to so the difference between chemical treated lawns and those that were organic, and he directed me to take samples from this area. Which he then didn't use chemicals on this year. After years of doing so. And he kept treating the rest of his lawn as he had previously.

Now, I have to salvage my research, seeing as it is required for graduation. I'm now looking at the difference between a lawn that has just recently reverted from artificial fertilizers and pesticides and a lawn that has been organic for more than 14 years.

I'm just a little irritated, seeing as I described to him what I was looking for, and he directed me to an area which he then didn't apply any fertilizer or pesticides.

Logic and sleep

If, I feel more energetic when I've slept between 5 and 7 hours than when I've slept more than 8 hours (usually more like 10...), and am most productive when I am in that particular state of wariness that occurs between one half hour and 3 hours after my usual bed time, does it not follow then that I should restrict my sleep to 7 hours of sleep per night?

For a college student, I have a most unusual relationship with sleep. I find myself getting between 9 and 10 hours of sleep a night- no matter how early I go to sleep, and I usually am asleep by 9. However, the longer I sleep, the more tired, slow-witted, and useless I feel the next day. An oddity: If I fall asleep after 12, or one, I unfailingly get up 5 to 7 hours later. Meanwhile, I have gone to bed at 8 and awoken the next morning at 10. Alas that my cognitive function is so reduced by the extra hours of sleep!

Further more, when I have slept around 9 hours the previous night, my brain is too active to really settle down and do a great deal of studying- it flits off like a butter fly at the merest hint of distraction. If, however, I have had a long day, and my eyes are dry and my legs on the verge of cramping, I can do a surprising amount of work, and it takes a great deal more to distract me.

Perhaps I should begin to limit my sleep- particularly considering how much work I've got to do this semester. Have I mentioned that? In the next 2 months, I have to take the orals, the writtens, the GRE bio subject test, write my thesis and present it. On the 8th, I have the Bio GRE. I should start studying for that. Not to mention the two jobs, rugby, classes, finals, and normal life.

Being a college student: Money and Food

Being a college student has a lot of cliches attached to it: top ramen, no money, and laziness are chef among them. I have found that the population of my college has a huge blind spot when it comes to money, quality and food. There seem to be 3 camps: those who buy cheap instant meals, those who buy more expensive instant meals, and those who take the "luxury" to make their own food from scratch. What about those of us who do it because it is cheaper?

There seems to be this idea that if you're making your own food you have a lot of extra time, are wealthy, and what's it call? Hoity-toity? Does no one realize that when you are buying pre-made meals you are paying for some one else to make you your food, and that it's of a much lesser nutritional quality than if you had made it yourself? How much do you make an hour? If I can make a pizza in less than 10 minutes of active time (equalling $1 of my hourly wage), and the ingredients cost ~ 3 dollars, why would I pay $8 for an inferiour product (which is smaller anyway)?

I make most (i.e. all of it since I got here) of my own food from scratch. Aside from things like plain yogurt, butter, and cheese that is (altough I have made all of those in the past). I don't do it because I'm rich, or because I have an overwhelming desire to cook for my self. No, I do it simply because it is the most cost effective way for me to feed myself, without resorting to pure junk food.

And, contrary to popular opinion, it really isn't that much work. How hard is it to pop a potato in the microwave and then top it with green onions, cheese, salsa or what ever else you like? How hard is it to make a pizza that tastes better than any thing you can find in a store? What about a peach dutch baby for breakfast? These are really easy to make; once you've done it a few times, your active time (i.e., the time you're actually working) is less than 15 minutes- more like 5 in most cases.

I am running in to a problem, however. Finding easy-to-make, quick recipes that don't have things I despise in them is turning out to be a bit more difficult that I anticpated. Especailly now that I no longer have access to a large garden with lots of vegetables. Compounding this is how busy I have been, and my tendincy to eat the same thing over and over agian until I'm sick of it (remember the laziness aspect? After that first pizza I made, I had it about 10 times in one week). Also, there is the fact that I only go shopping once a week, my ingredients misteriously disapear, and I don't usally plan ahead what I'm going to make in a week (which makes buying the necessary ingredients a bit challenging). It got bad enough that today I just stood in the kitchen, staring at the cupboards and trying to think of something I could make, and would like to eat. I did that for each and every meal today, and needless to say, didn't get as much nutrition as I usaually do from my food.

So what am I doing? I'm making a meal plan for this week. I'm planning ahead all of my meals, and then I'm going to go shopping, but just for the ingredients I need. Thus, I will get my yummy yummy, healthy, vegetable and fruit-y goodness for every meal. So far, I've got Saturday through Tuesday planned. And it looks really yummy.

Ah, October

Month of presidential debates, massive exams and nightmares of what is to come. Alack. Although, honestly, I'm not having nightmares about the economy or the elections. Nope, this is entirely school based.

See, no matter what the economy does, I'm fine. Total and complete failure? Great, I'll go farm at home. No economic disaster? Great, I'll go get an internship dealing with either ecology or organic agriculture (in other words, work on a farm). Yeah, not really worried here, mainly because I've got basically nothing to lose. Casey, on the other hand...

As for elections? I'm pretty sure that Obama will win. And you know, that doesn't look to bad. For one thing, he taught constitutional law ( so theoretically no more of this screwing around and taking away our freedom bit), and for another, even if he is inexperienced, he's a smart fellow, so I'm sure he'll pick good advisers. And as for McCain? Well, I am worried about his stance on the war, and he's not my favorite for energy, but I have this sneaking suspision that he's pretending to be more of a stauch republican than he is. But, I may be wrong. Who knows.

How ever it is know mid October, and seeing as I'm done in December-! Two months until finals. The GRE Biology subject test in early November, the writens and orals, the thesis, the presentation, on top of classes, two jobs, rugby and life in general? Yeah, just a little stressed and busy.

Well, that was my 10 minutes of blogging. See ya!

No, this blog is not dead.

I've just had a very horribly busy month, and am going to have a very horribly busy next three months. I probably will post pieces of my thesis as I write them, but besides that, it'll be pretty sparse until mid-December.

Peaches

Peaches are my favorite fruit, so sweet and fuzzy, with that just-perfect-ripe smell they have at the peak of wonderful flavor. Yes, peaches are indeed a favorite of mine; merely having one in my hand makes me happier.

And so, wandering my local farmers market, it was very pleasing to me to find peaches (and nectarines). A moment to reflect upon the implications of a farmer's market's produce. First of all, it's local- that means that not only are you supporting the local economy (instead of Peru's), you're also not paying for the transportation cost from Peru. Secondly, the fruit is actually picked right when it turns ripe- meaning it has a flavor and sweetness the cardboard look-a-likes at the store have no hope of ever emulating. Third, it's dramatically cheaper. Unripe, hard, flagrance-less peaches from the store cost $2.75 a pound, these cost $.80. This my friends, is an instance where taking the greener path, is also the cheaper and more tasty option.


So, obviously, it should fallow that I've been making a lot of peach-based foods this week, what with 20 pounds of peaches and nectarines. Today's was a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes and a peach compote. You know, I assumed that a compote was really fancy and hard to make. It's not. And, may I add, cooking at home eliminates the wasted packaging of pre-made foods. And is cheaper. And tastes better. Sensing a theme here, yes?

Recipe for buckwheat pancakes and peach compote:


The buckwheat pancake recipe can be found by doing a quick blog search for "buckwheat", so I'll not repeat myself here.

1 peach
1 tablespoon of water
1 tablespoon of unrefined sugar, honey (or whatever you like using)
Dash of nutmeg
Big pinch of Cinnamon

Before you mix up the pancake batter, start heating up both the pancake pan and the compote saucepan. Pancake pan should be mid-low range, while the compote should be mid-high range.

Cut up your peach (or peaches, just multiply the other ingredients) into what ever size pieces you want. Add peaches, water, sugar, and spices to sauce ban. Simmer, and stir once in a while. As soon as you've added all the compote ingredients to the pot, and stirred, you can ignore them mostly as you mix up and cook the pancakes. I stirred about once every 2 minutes. With first pancake, tack the pot off the heat, and spoon a little compote over the pancake. Yum.

Societal Greening (Part 1)

Unlike many people out there I don't think that saving the environment will happen by to society at-large deciding en masse to save the environment. No, indeed not. I think rather that what will change the world, and save our ecosystems, will be small, mostly technological developments. I just don't think that the majority of people who have a high standard of living will voluntarily give it up, and I don't think the people in developing nations will just decide that it is fine for the US and other "developed" countries to have all the tvs, cars, and refrigerators. I just don't see that happening.

What is then needed is the development of green alternatives; products that have become green via technological innovation.

Yes, there is a segment of the population (and perhaps larger than I think) that will give up cars and instead bike to work. And perhaps the monkey-see-monkey-do effect will be larger than I suppose. But the rest of the population is going to go on wanting to drive a car, blow dry their hair, and watch t.v. That means that we need to develop alternatives to current products that don't harm the environment. We need more efficient, less wasteful, and longer lasting goods. We can see an element of this "greening" already; wind energy is a prime example.

The current most popular energy source is oil, but we can see that wind energy is becoming more and more popular and visible. There is a lot of research and development money being poured into wind energy right now. Part of this is due to legislation that sets quotas for percentages of required green energy, but some of it is driven by pure profit and foresight on the part of energy companies. If gas prices continue to go up (as is their wont), wind energy will soon be (very) competitive price-wise. And that is just what we want: the green version of a commodity to become the better option. Do you really think that energy companies will keep buying oil when wind becomes cheaper? Nope. They'll follow the bottom line, and switch to wind.

And it's happening in other sectors too. Companies in the US has started to penalize the use of plastic bags at grocery stores, compact florescent lights are becoming common place, and research is focusing on improving the efficiency of many products. This is where the economy and common sense will take us. These developments will allow people to retain much of their lifestyle, while at the same time drastically reducing the harm to the environment.





Next post: Societal Greening Part 2 (monkey-see-monkey-do, or how being green causes others to follow)

Now that's determination!

You see that folks? That pile of delicious food there is what I carried back from the farmer's market- in my backpack. Actually that's not even all, because I forgot 6 peaches in one of my pockets, and I'd already frozen a quart's worth of nectarines and peaches.

That was more than 20 pounds people!

10 pounds of peaches ($8), 10 pounds of nectarines ($7), ~ 5 pounds of Honey Crisp and Rome apples, and a pumpkin. Did I mention I carried that in my backpack?

This is what I call determinedness, or perhaps more accurately, stubbornness.

Apple snails, mystery snails (Pomacea bridgesii diffusa)

Apple snails, also known as mystery snails (scientifically known as Pomacea bridgesii diffusa, sometimes with out the diffusa) are an excellent snail for the aquarium. Let me enumerate the reasons why:

1. This species won't eat your plants- unless the plants are already dead. They eat dead plant material and algae only. In fact, they have been known to starve to death in a heavily planted tank with out any algae. Be warned, however, that Pomacea canacliculata will eat all your plants. However, it's unlikely that you'll get a P. canacliculata by mistake, because they are now illegal to ship or sell.

2. They get big, about the size of a golf ball, and they are pretty active in the tank. They also come in a lot of different colors- from white to dark purple. If you want to see for yourself, check out this website, or aquabid's snail section. At aquabid, they are often referred to as Briggs.

3. You can control their reproduction. Unlike other snails, who lay their eggs in small clutches underneath the water, P. bridgesii lays large clutches above the water line-making removal easy.

They do however have some requirements. First off, you either need to have a lot of soft green algae in your tanks (most people don't), or you need the feed them fish food, algae wafers, and cooked vegetables. They are pretty good scavengers too, but don't force them to live off other's scraps: How do you know that they're getting enough?

Secondly, they don't do well in soft, acidic water as it erodes their shells. At a bare minimum, the water should have a pH of 7, but they really want 7.4 pH and hard water.

They also like a lot of calcium- some breeders put calcium pills in their tank. Others feed them a lot of high-calcium vegetables. Still others make calcium feeders for their snails from plaster of Paris; be careful about what kind you get though, some have anti-mold agents and other things which might kill your snails. I personally haven't found this necessary, but my water is pretty hard anyway.

A wonderful site for all things relating to the Pomacea family is : http://applesnail.net/
They have a lot of information, and a discussion section for all your questions.

Nikon Camera error (and how to fix it)

So, last night, as I was photographically logging the results of my experiments, my camera informed me that the memory was full. "Memory is full" is my sign to download pictures, and then erase them off of the camera.

You may be wondering why I'm writing about this. I'm writing because even after I deleted all the photos on my camera, it still said that the memory was full. In the middle of my time to photograph my agar plates after 24 hours of growth. At 9 pm. This is the time my camera decides that it won't take any pictures!?

Anyway, I tried to google an answer, but google failed me- half way. The first result I got was someone who had the same problem(the rest of the results didn't have anything to do with my problem). The answer was less then helpful "GET A MEMORY CARD"(the original poster had one), however, another person with the same problem inspired me.

See, they hypothizised that the error was due to the chip being intended for use with a PC, and he had a mac (I, too, have a mac). He thought that you needed to go on to a PC and reformat your memory card. Not necessary, my friends. I found a better way.

I went down to the computer lab, found a PC, and plugged in my camera. Sure enough, there was a little folder named "trashes", which, for what ever bazzare reason, contained photos that spaned from the time I got the camera. There were over a thousand; however, it wasn't every picture I took- just some of them. I have no idea what determines a particular photo making it to this folder or not. I just know that once I deleted them, my camera worked again.

Now the other reason I'm writing this is because I think can prevent a lot of frustration for people, and at the same time, pervent them from buying unnesscary memory cards (because their's is perfectly good).

Ok, today is apperently a picture day.

See, last winter, I found this really cool twig from a pine tree right after a strong windstorm. It's needles were all in whirls and spirals, and it looked like it was from a side branch. After that, I tried to figure out where it came from; it was right next to the door of the science building, but I couldn't find any trees that resembled it. I looked all around, but I never did find that tree.

Well, today I did. The tree was right on the opposite side of the Science building, a place which I've walked by many, many times. I just wasn't paying attention!

Here it is:

And here's a branch:

Apple snails (Pomacea bridgesii diffusa)

I took a few pictures of my snails today. If any one is curious about them, I could write more.

This is my wild-type:
And here he is next to a quarter. Yes, he, this species is not hermaphroditic.

Another pic of of a different wild-type, spiral.
And here is one of my goldens:

All my golds are females, it's kinda funny. This one has a pond snail hitching a ride:
Here's my two wild types together, out of water, looking very reddish:

What to do when a passion conflicts with the environment

When I first became aware (or shall we say, more aware) about the environment, waste and and energy in this country, I was greatly saddened.

See, I really like fish keeping. I like developing little ecosystems in my tanks, where the plant vs. animal balance is healthy, and everything is growing and reproducing. I like endlessly tinkering with things, making them better and better looking, too.

Unfortunately, this hobby of mine also happened to use up a lot of energy- especially for the kind of fish I was interested in. These fish needed a tank temperature of 82 degrees Fahrenheit, crystal clear, acidic, soft water, a variety of foods, and a lot of coddling. This means that for each tank I had I needed: 1-2 heaters, a filter, and 2 fluorescent lights. This was a pretty big energy drain compared with the rest of my life- I mean, here I am turning off lights when I leave a room- except for the ones over my fish tank. Not to mention the heaters and filters which had to stay on 24/7. And the fish were getting better light than I was.

So, after those last fish lived out their lives- I down graded. I stopped using heaters and filters first. I selected fish that would be fine at room temperature (feeder guppies and white cloud mountain minnows), and I populated my tanks with a lot of plants. I then stopped using lights, instead having the tank next to a window. In this set up, there wasn't much breeding on the fishes part, but my water hyacinth did bloom. This tank was completely neglected for quite a while I was busy with other things, and yet the fish were fat and contented, and had even bred a little.

Currently, I have one small, unheated tank with me for my last semester of college. It contains a few apple snails, water lettuce, frogbit, hornwart, duckweed, a few pond snails, algae, and sand. It has one 60 watt light bulb (but only because I don't have a good widow), and nothing else.

When I get home, I'll have a much bigger 40 gallon to work with. I still feel guilty about the energy consumption of the lights, and the 40 does need a filter. However, I'm offsetting that by giving up other things- as in, the refrigerator. Additionally, these are pretty minor energy suckers- probably about 90 watts all together. I'm also being careful to select species that don't need the extra heat- corydoras, guppies, and the minnows do fine at room temperature.

The point is that even if you have something that takes a lot of energy, or pollutes, or is just plain wasteful, and you want to be green, it doesn't necessarly mean that you have to give it up. There is probably some way that you can change whatever it is you're doing, to make it better, and healthier.

Take a totally random example, lets say, oh, taking very long showers. Now, you could just cut a minute or two each time, until you are down to something reasonable. Or, you could divert your shower water from the sewer, and into an irrigation system for your lawn or garden. That could potentally save a lot of water, and the soaps you use will be used by the plants as fertilizers. See how this works?

What's up?

Didn't we just "bail out" two of the nation's banks last week? Now Lehman is filing for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch is to be sold, and WaMu (my own bank) is faltering?

One quote from the Times:

"Washington Mutual, which is based in Seattle, said it would close 190 of its 336 home loan centers and sales offices as well as 9 loan and processing call centers. It will cut 2,600 positions, or 22 percent of its home loan staff, and 550 corporate positions, and will also close its institutional broker-dealer business, called WaMu Capital Corporation....The company’s shares have lost 56 percent since the beginning of the year. Before the announcement yesterday, they rose 4.5 percent, to $19.88. In after-hours trading, its shares fell to $18.20."

Does that sound good to you? Because it sure doesn't sound good to me. That and they keep talking about this 'weird' environment. Like they don't know whats going on. Yeah, that'll help consumer confidence.

Oh, and gas is bellow $100/barrel - but why is that? Because consumers have been consuming less. It's interesting that they were once forecasting $200/barrel, and now they've gone down to projecting $70/barrel.

Here's another Times:

"Analysts said the market had become convinced that Wall Street’s meltdown could spread to other parts of the world, and that Asian economic growth would suffer, slowing down global oil demand."

I'm watching the market with interest- while I'm not in as much debt as many, I still have school loans, and I'm wondering what (if any) affect there will be on me?

Feminine Beauty and the Eco-green

Let me warn you now, this may become a bit of a rant. I'm not quite sure where this blog post will go- it's even more unplanned than the rest of the posts I write. Let me say this: it combines two topics that can get me irritated quite quickly: beauty standards and senseless wastefulness.

I have a lot of irritation built up in regards to this society's definition of what women should look like. It seems to me that it's driven completely by the manufacturers, and they've decided that the best way to make money is by making women think that there is something wrong with them. Also, they've noticed that the best things to describe as ugly and unfeminine are the things that most women have.

Take hair. Hair, hair hair. Body hair, leg hair, arm pit hair, arm hair, face hair, groin hair, hair is everywhere. We are mammals, mammals have hair (and mammary glands. Those are the two characteristics that differentiate us from everything else). Some of us have more, some of us have less. And some of us have a ton. Oh, and let's not forget that this hair doesn't really become evident or noticeable until you hit puberty.

Now let's consider this culture's feminine Ideal: Hairless every where except head hair (which must be thick and gorgeous, though fought with daily), eyebrows, and perhaps a small amount daintily covering the mons. That means that millions of women waste precious time (and energy!) removing hair from everywhere else.

Why? It's sexy! That's why. Why is it sexy to look prepubescent (remember that the hair doesn't show up until puberty)? How have we convinced women that they need to be hair free to fit in with the majority- when the majority are hairy? When did being a mammal become un-cool? Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Why do we deny that we are mature humans?

Has anyone noticed that we're supposed to be mortified by the slightest hint that we might be human- a little fur on the legs, stubble in the arm pits- heaven forbid a slightly longer chin hair!

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the ecosystem and being green. Am I right? Imagine how many razors the average American woman uses over the course of the year. Now imagine how many years it is that your typical woman shaves. Now multiply that by 50% of the American population. That is a blood huge pile of garbage!

Why am I even wasting my time and energy on such a petty issue? Because millions of people are waster their time, money and energy on it. The entire beauty industry is founded on making people feel inadequate. The wastes produced by it are completely unnecessary; and I truly believe that people would be better off if they would just ignore the ads.

Wind energy for the home

I've been reading a lot about small scale turbines for the home recently. For some reason, a small wind turbine attached to your roof appeals a lot to people- on par with, or above the appeal of solar panels.


Unfortunately, most of the press has been about how they are too expensive to be economically feasible, how they kill birds, and how noisy they are. I even read one article that talked about how the rich people where getting them and putting them on the roof- as a fashion statement: Oh, look at me, I'm green! But that was three days ago, and things seem to change fast in this world.

Right after that, in fact, I found this article about a kid in the UK who made a diy wind turbine that costs $37, plus rubbish collected from dumpsters. That got me thinking. I mean, if you can build one for $37, that seems like it's economically feasible. Why in the world are people paying $5000 for them?

Then yesterday I ran across the "Energy Ball"- a spherical turbine. It apparently is more efficient, quieter, and can run on lower wind speeds because it makes use of "the Venturi effect"- which is to say some fancy fluid-dynamic physics that is a little outside of my field. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out how much the Swedish company is going to charge- mainly because their website is in Swedish.

I like the idea: it gives home owners another clean energy source besides solar. Not that solar is bad, no, it's just rather inaccessible to a lot of people. Solar has been around a long time, and still the energy produced rather expensive, and it seems like it's appeal is limited to a fairly small number of people.

Wind, however, seems to be cool- it's not just the truly eco-conscious people who have them- it's the uber rich people too. And perhaps wind energy could become available to common folk, people who can't see themselves shelling out $1ooo dollars for a roof decoration.

Title of next entry: "Feminine beauty and the eco-green"

What's better than hitting an elk?

Being behind the person who hit the elk. Perhaps a little explanation is in order.

This weekend, I had to drive back over to Olympia, because I wasn't thorough enough in my search for soil samples in the freezer, and had left 3 weeks' work (from right in the middle of the summer) at home. (Yay run-on sentences {they tend to happen when I'm tired}) I couldn't have them mailed because 1) I need them for tomorrow, and 2) because they needed to stay frozen. Normally, I would have been very happy to go home, but seeing the distance involved, and the timing (literally less than a week since I left), and the tightness of money right now, and the wastefulness inherent in using a gasoline powered vehicle, I was less then thrilled.

So, today was the day to drive back to Walla Walla- and I got a later start then I like, and had planned (2pm instead of noon), and the drive took way longer than usual- lots of construction, and slow drivers. As such, on the last leg of the journey (from Umatilla to Walla Walla) I was very tired, it was dark, and I just really really really wanted to get home. I was the kind of tired where you go for that 2nd extra cup of double shot espresso coffee and have the radio on very energetic music turned up way too loud.

So I was going the speed limit, following at a safe distance the car in front of me- this way, I could let them lead me, you know? And not have to worry about being in front, turning on and off the brights, sudden turns and if there's some idiot who crosses the center line, they hit them instead of me-- I don't like driving after dark.

All of the sudden, I see my leader car pull off the side of the road- no clue why. A few seconds later, I see an elk sprawled out in the middle of my lane, like 10 feet in front of me, with their car at it's feet, and it's head across the double yellow line. On coming traffic is about a city block ahead, I have no time to break, and they've got the shoulder. This is the point when my brain does math quicker than it does otherwise, time slows down, and I pull into the other lane and around the elk in about .5 seconds, all with out the slightest jerky-ness or fear. My coffee didn't even spill. All very clam and cool and in perfect control.

Nope, wasn't until 10 minutes later that I started yelling about how I just wanted to be home already, and wanted to drive 45 in a 60 zone with my brights on constantly. But you know, I made it home safe, and with way too much adrenaline and energy to fall asleep, instead of being in a smashed up car on the side of the road, calling 911 and my parents to get help. And yes, I did call the state patrol to let them know about it.

Back at school...

It's been a rather crazy few days. For example, I didn't know where I'd be living until the night of the first day of classes. I needed my insurance card to get the school to recognize that I was attending (which I left on the other side of the mountains), I found out I wasn't registered for a class that I needed to be in, and I got a second job.

I'm also living in an apartment with 4 other people, and they had the thermostat set to 75 (!). And they didn't know you could compost napkins. And they don't cook. But, I like them a lot, and they seem like a fun bunch of people. I'm turning the thermostat down a degree each day....I figure that they won't notice. I'm really glad that they compost though, that's an encouraging sign.

I also need to start culturing my bacteria for my research-but my adviser is....kinda distant, and I feel a little lots. Lots and lots of book reading in my future, I'm sure.

Want to see something that is troublesome?

Check out this news story. I guess the good news is that people can't say it isn't happening any more.

9 days and counting....

Until I return to school! For my final semester at Whitman....oh, it's going to be a busy one! I've got to write up my thesis, take the orals, and do all of that other graduation stuff. In half the time other people have. I'm considering putting off the GRE's until winter, after I'm done with everything else, which would make my load a little easier.

Looking back, my summer was nothing like I thought it would be. I never thought that I would have self-employed myself, nor be living in a *real* house by the end of summer. I defiantly didn't foresee all the stress and sadness, but I suppose that's part of life.

And now I need to start thinking about what to take, and school and money even more than before. Time, as usual, has slipped by extraordinarily fast, but this time I do feel ready to face the challenge.

A different take

I've had the thought that by saving the environment, we're really saving ourselves. Here's a site that puts it in quite a clear light, I think.

The fact is that life on earth can recover from quite a lot of damage- unimaginable catastrophes have occurred in the past (the dinosaur die-off, for one), and life has survived. The problem is that we, as a species, probably wouldn't be able to survive in the recovery period, or even the time afterwards, if we finally do manage to pollute our world to the point where it is uninhabitable (by us).

We may have a rather advanced civilization- arguably the most advanced in the history of the world- but our society is entirely dependent on the earth. We are dependent on the soil, the air, and the water. Sure, there are many, many species that will go extinct before humans realize how much illness is caused by pollution, and many more will go extinct before there are enough human deaths from pollution that everyone will be willing to actually change the way we operate as a culture. But the fact remains that if we prevent the pollution (poisoning) of our environment, we're also preventing all the illnesses caused by that pollution. Asthma, cancer, and other disease are directly correlated to pollution.


Life will go on, no matter what we do to the environment. Nuclear holocaust, acidic oceans, poisonous air, all of these can be adapted to. But not by us. The lowly single cell organisms, and lower invertebrates will undergo mutations and adapt to the new environment, but fish, birds and mammals aren't that adaptable. They will die.

So really, it is to our advantage to protect the earth, and to keep the environment clean. It is important. We need clean air, drinkable water, and soil that can support life. We aren't separate from the earth, and we need to stop acting as if we weren't part of the ecosystem.

Tie dye

Hello, everyone.

I've made a different website to sell my tie dye and art through. Check it out, please!

http://harksarts.blogspot.com

Rehabilitating the garden

There is a lot of work to do in this garden.

See, Lib had a very different focus on the garden than I do. She loved flowers and pretty things. I want to grow fruits and vegetables (not that I don't like flowers). In addition to that, she'd been working to write her doctoral dissertation, and I'm sure she didn't have time for the garden over the summer.

And so, as I walk around the garden, first I see beautiful flowers, lilacs, roses, wisteria, and all sorts of pretty things. Then, say, I notice a blueberry bush. It's tall, and scraggly, with about 10 berries. The poor thing looks horribly dry and tired.

There are a lot of plants out there, and I'm discovering more daily. Like a butterfly bush, hidden in the corner, and the red and black currants of yesterday. Or the dark purple clematis climbing over a rhododendron hidden in some trees.

And like this red current, many are in need help.
Do you see the size of those currants? They are tiny, and that was about half of the total crop for this poor bush. I'm used the currants as big around as the tip of my little finger, and berries practically covering the bush.

Yesterday's job was to clear all of the money plant (Lunaria annua) from around the red currants. Here's a before pic:


And here's what it looks like after 30 minutes of pulling out the L. annua:


And here's the pile of L. annua:


And lest you fear I am removing this plant entirely from the garden, let me assure you that there is plenty all around. That was probably about half of it. L. annua is also a freely seeding biannual, so I'm sure there will be plenty more springing up next year. I removed it from around the currants because the currants need a lot more water and nutrients than they've been getting. They look so sickly and ignored that I really don't think that they should be having to compete with other plants.

I have a long list of projects to do, and I'm sure more will pop up as I go. I want the garden to be very productive next year, and that is going to take a lot of work. The black currants and red currants need to be pruned, as does the hardy kiwi and wisteria. They and the 2 apple trees, the Asian pear, the 2 pears, the three blueberries, and the row of raspberries all need to be heavily mulched and watered. The apples and the Asian pear did have a good crop this year, but every thing else was unbelievably small.

In addition to that, I want to get the rain water catchment thing up and working before the rains start, Casey wants a fish pond, and some sort of water holding device to store the house's gray water before it's applied to the garden. Not to mention the composting toilet compost- need a spot for that. And I really would like some sort of green house, or hot house, or small frames that I can put over tomatoes and melons and that sort of thing, until they out grow it.

But most of this will have to wait until I'm back from/finished with school. Meantime, I'll just have to look up and learn about all these plants, and the best way to grow them.

Continuing on the green thread

So we've covered sanitation, water, and a little bit about energy. (You know, I think these posts would come more easily if I actually thought them out ahead of time) So we'll continue with energy. Particularly, the energy required to keep your house at a pleasant temperature.

3. Solar energy the easy way

You don't have to have solar panels to make use of sunlight's energy. (this is where I wish I bookmarked every site that was interesting, because now I don't have my old one.) It's called passive solar, and it can be as simple as opening the blinds on south facing windows, or as complex as building a collector into your wall or onto your roof.

At this point, I'd like to point out that my mom heats about a 1/3 of the house in winter with windows. They face south (very important for collecting sunlight), are about 6' by 2', and there are three of them. She lives in western Washington, in one of the very wettest and dreary places there is.

Build it Solar is a good place to get started; they have basic information about all sorts of solar projects. The one I like the best so far is the Thermosyphoning Air Panel, which also happens to be one of the most efficient, cheapest, and easiest to understand. According to them, it will pay for itself in one or two years at 2006 fuel prices. Basically, it's a collector that you place out side your wall, with vents leading to and from it to heat the air inside.

The point is that using solar energy doesn't have to entail getting really expensive solar panels, and what's more, you can build it yourself.

4. Cooling, not just A/C any more

You probably know this already, but what ever. In the summer, you can drastically reduce the amount of energy you use to cool your house. At night (or as soon as it's colder outside than in), open the windows, and then, in the morning (or when the inside and outside temperatures equalize), close them. You have now trapped cool air inside your home. To keep the insides cool, you've got to block sunlight from coming in, especially from the south. You can do this by outside awnings, and heavy curtains. My mom used those emergency solar blankets to reflect the light and heat right back out. It worked amazingly well; the temperature difference was quite striking, like walking into a green house in the middle of the day.

Also, remember to cook outside as much as possible. Nothing makes the summer unbearable like oven heat.

5. Trees? What can they do?

Well, have you every hidden in the shaded shelter of a large tree during a hot day?

It's old time advise, but still worthy today: plant deciduous trees around your house. Close enough to shade it, but far enough away to keep the foundation safe. They are there to provide deep, cool, luscious shade in the summer, and then to lose their leaves in winter so your house can get as much light as possible.

If you haven't the room for a tree, consider growing vines over your house instead. I've heard of people using hops, clematis, kiwi, melons, and more. Anything that grows fast, but isn't too heavy, and nothing that attaches too strongly, like English ivy. Though, I wouldn't suggest kudzu unless you have killing frosts.

4. Adjusting

Believe it or not, but you can comfortably live in a house that is 60 degrees, or one that is 80. Easily. It just takes a bit of adjusting.

Part of this, your body will handle: revving up your metabolism, burning your own energy stores to keep you warm, or increasing sweat production to help cool you. The human body can be comfortable at a much wider range of temperatures than we normally keep. You just have to let it adjust.

The rest is behavioral. If it's cold put on more, and heavier clothes. Cook hot foods on the stove, put more blankets on the bed, carry around a hot thermos. If it's hot, either wear less, or go for light weight, light colored clothes. Make sure you're drinking water, a lot. Don't work from 10 to 2 outside.

Some pictures of the back yard

Spent some time in the yard yesterday- burying potatoes, training some blackberry-type thing up the fence, trimming the hardy kiwi, etc.

Here my friends, is the hardy kiwi:


Marvelous, isn't it? I estimate that the top vines are around 12-15 feet tall. And here is a picture of the trellis holding it all up:
This picture doesn't show it very well, but the top bar of the trellis is, well, a little skewed. One end is about 4 inches lower than the other.

Anyway, if any one has experience keeping hardy kiwis, could they tell me how much to prune off during the summer months? It really is quite vigorous. Unfortunately, they've never born fruit (there are 3 vines, one is defiantly a boy, but Lib never did find out the sexes of the others), and they've been here for 10 years at least. I think I'm going to cut them back severely mid winter, as there is a lot of old, dead, and fairly unhealthy looking wood. Once they bloom, I'll be able to tell their sexes, and hopefully they'll set fruit.

Anyway, on with the show:
A seeding allium of some sort.

A radiant chard:



And the vegetable patch. There's quite a lot in there; chard, rosemary, kale, etc, etc. Unfortunately, as you can see, a lot have gone to seed.

Also in the back yard is Jack, and so I leave you with a picture of his happy countenance:

Time to admit some ingnorance regarding beans

So, needing to stay up tonight to wash my shirts for tomorrow's market, I decided to plan out next year's garden. (If my spelling is odd, please forgive me, it's 10:46 now, and I usually am asleep by 9:30) First, I sketched out the approximate landscape, including trees, sheds and the house. Then I wrote down a list of vegetables and fruits I wanted to grow. The next logical step of course is to look at the catalog and decide which varieties you want. So, I start alphabetically, with beans. I'm very particular about beans- I only like green beans- not wax beans, and I pretty much hate things like pinto beans, unless, of course, they're in the form of refried beans. Anyway.

I realize that I have no idea what green beans are called in seed catalogs. I'm pretty sure they aren't shelling beans, what with what 'shelling' implies. But, what's a 'haricot'? Filet? Roma? I'm pretty sure I don't want 'fava' beans- the name alone brings up unpleasant memories.

After about five minutes (with the help of Google image search...), I narrowed down my choices to bush and pole beans. I think they are both what I'd call green beans- but I'm still not entirely sure.

What more will I find out that I don't know? I'm only on the first vegetable!

And now for the more uncommon ideas

You know, I assume that anyone looking at this blog has done a few google searches already, and knows the basic, easy green ideas that are listed all over the place. Carpooling, unplugging electronics, recycling, etc. I'm going a bit farther than that; to the ideas that aren't quite accepted by our dear society. Some ideas may be considered gross (even though they are actually much more sanitary), or too much work. But I think that we as a society need change; we as a people need to go farther along the path of ecological sustainability.

I also think that there will be forerunners, doing what is new and strange, so other people can point to them and say, 'see, it isn't that odd'. I think that part of the change will be people widening the range of what is 'normal', being extremists, and weirdos so other people can follow more easily.

And so, with that intention in mind, herefore follows my list of green. Grossest first!

Section A: Sanitation

1. Get a composting toilet. Think of how much water you flush every day, and it's not even enjoyable, like a shower is. If you haven't yet, you really should go read the Humanure book. It's a great read. And plus, you can download it for free! After that (or before, I don't really care) take a look at this page, and this one too. Its really not as gross or dirty as you think it is. I want to go simple toilet seat and bucket method. Casey's a bit hesitant, but I'll find a way.

2. If you have a baby, go the cloth diaper route. Your mom probably did, and your grandma almost certainly did. It really isn't that hard, and I bet the babies like soft cloth a lot better too. You've probably heard or read those statistics about how many diapers a baby needs, and you sure know how much they cost. Well, cloth diapers certainly aren't nearly as wasteful, and I bet that they are economically more feasible than your typical disposable. Or if you're a little more, shall we say, daring, you can try "elimination communication" or infant potty training with your child.

3. Menstruaters, get a diva cup, or switch to cloth pads. Having used these myself, I can vouch for the fact that they are waaaaay more comfortable, and well worth the initial investment. There are two livejournal communities that were extremely helpful when I first heard about these, cloth pads, and menstrual cups. These are communities of people who have discovered these alternatives, and whom were very helpful to me when I first started with cloth pads, and then a diva cup. Trust me, I will never return to a disposable product; these are so much better.

4. Personal hygiene and makeup. Well, here is a minefield of a topic. People really think they need all those products; their soaps, their deodorants, etc. Well, you don't. I know this comes as a shock (believe me, it shocked me, too) but it really doesn't help the way you smell. Sorry. I read a little while ago that they had actually done a study on the effectiveness of deodorants. They found that out of the highest rated, 'prescription strength' products, only 30% had any effect on smell at all. 60% didn't do squat. Further more, they found that people couldn't tell at all that you were wearing a deodorant. Talk about a waste of money. If you really must have something, check out crystal deodorants. I've read several reviews (not on the product site, on personal blogs that I was reading anyway) that these are really effective. So give it a try.

As for my self, I shower weekly (sometimes biweekly), I never use any soap besides shampoo, I don't use deodorant, I don't brush my hair, and I don't wear makeup. I've never gotten a comment from anyone indicating I look or smell bad. In fact, I get comments on how good my skin is and how lucky I am.

Section B: Water works.

You all probably know that conserving water is a major topic, and is good sense anyway. A lot of us pay for our water, or at least the energy required to pump it up from the well.

1. Any easy, no risk way to conserve water is to collect your dish washing water (if, that is you don't use a dishwasher), and then use it to water you plants- inside or out. Don't worry about the soap- the phosphates in it act as a fertilizer to plants.

2. Take shorter showers. When I was taking daily showers, and washing my hair and all of that, my showers took 5 minutes. I'm told that that's unbelievably short, but it's more than enough if you don't dally around and sing. If not that, then at least get a water efficient shower head- they don't have to be lousy, either. There are good ones out there.

3. Catch your rain water. It can be as easy as diverting your gutter system into a few barrels. You can then use the water to irrigate your garden (or lawn, if you still have one), or water any animals you may have. Some people filter the water and drink it themselves.

4. Rip out that lawn! Lawns (according to the EPA) use at least 30% of our water. On top of that, are all the pesticides and fertilizers applied to the typical lawn, which runoff to our rivers, lakes and streams. If you can't stand the idea of no lawn, consider putting in English clover (which you don't have to mow), or some species of grass that is drought tolerant. Better yet would be to put in a vegetable or fruit garden, and produce your own food, watered with rain water and grey water from your home.

Section C: Energy

1. Did you know you could live without a refrigerator? I'm serious. You can keep (mostly) your same diet, and not have to use a refrigerator? How? Well, most things don't need to be refrigerated. I can't think of a single fruit or vegetable that needs it. Cheese doesn't. Mustard, ketchup, vinegar, oil, and butter don't. Milk does. Eggs don't. Meat does, but if you buy the meat the day you eat it, you don't need to. For more information, read this blog post "No Refrigerator-for 30 years". You can also live with out a microwave, a tv and so on.

2. Every one talks about light bulbs. Everbody. How about just not using them? Open up your blinds! Let the sun shine through, naturally and freely (in both senses of the word). Go to bed when the sun does, and you won't need to extend your day with artificial lights, you'll also sleep better. Skylights are great, as are double-planed windows to conserve heat. Free light!

This list to be continued...

A few green ideas

Alright, so I keep running across things like this on the internet:

"Take the time to start tissue and paper towel rolls

This might seem stupid but when you’re the first one to use a new roll of paper towels or toilet paper, you know what I’m talking about. It always seems impossible to use the first piece of the roll. It always get ripped and shredded, and sometimes if you keep pulling it tears through 5 more sheets. The next time you have to start a roll, relax, breath, and take your time to save that first sheet."

Or how about the plastic bottles claiming to be green because they use less plastic? Hel-loooo, they are still plastic, still disposable, and still not necessary!

Here we see prime examples of missing the forest for a leaf: focusing on a tiny itty bitty thing, and completely missing the point: you're still using plastic bottles and paper towels!

I mean, seriously folks, is that the best you can do? I'm going to operate under the assumption that people just don't know any better, or they just haven't thought about it. So, I'll posit my ideas for being green. And they aren't hard, and they won't cost you money, so there go about 99.999999% of your excuses. Oh, and I'll leave the 'squiky' ones for a different post, too.

1. Instead of paper towels, use a napkin, or better yet, a rag. (and I mean a rag in the true sense of the word, not the kind you buy) Really, how hard is it to throw something in the wash pile? Is it that much harder than throwing it in the trash (or possibly the compost)?

2. Instead of those stinky, slimy, gross dish sponges, use a dish rag. Seriously. Dude, this is a no-brainer! Sponges are slimy, and you know where that slime comes from? Bacteria! You know why a rag is better? Because you can wash it as soon as you want to and kill all those slimy little buggers. As for the scrubber pad, just get one of those scrubber-dealies (as Casey calls them). They last longer, and work better too.

3. Wash your laundry on cold. Hey this one actually saves you money! And I assure you, unless you're washing something like baby's diapers, you won't ever notice a difference in your clothes. And plus, you won't set in some of those nasty stains.

4. Now for one that saves the world and your sanity: Stop all those piles of junk mail arriving at your house. I mean really, when was the last time you actually used them, huh? Never having had this issue, I don't know how to stop it, but I've heard others talking about it. I'll leave that little bit of research to you.

5. Wrap your water heater in a blanket; this will save you money, and you only have to do it once.

6. Instead of buying that new book, get it from the library. Cheaper, and just as convenient, most of the time. I mean come on, why go to the book store, or order it online when your library has a free copy for you to use. Do you really need that book sitting on your shelves for the next 3o years?

Well, that's it for the completely painless, costless, workless, and ick-free green-ifying ideas that I have right now. Trust me, there's more!