words that make me happy

flowered dress, camp fires, sister and brother, sweaters, twinkle, harvest, joy, chocolate, daisy chains, full moon, firefly, barefeet, complete, ocean, pico de gallo, periwinkle, laugh lines, kitten, powder day, beach, contentment, children, topo maps, bouquet, courduroy, golden, fjords, omm, raspebrries, shadow, independence, shooting star, honesty, friends, butternut bisque, travel, peace, sprouting, sunshine, pops and mops, twirling, fields, crystal clear, yarn, van, love, strawberries, rainbow, sewing, twilight, laughing, creamy soup, together.

children as enviro warriors

I was getting ready for work the other work when my 9 year old brother bounced into my room. Slapping his hand down on my bureau he proclaimed “YOU are the cause of global warming.” That to me, was one of the worst things he could say. “What am I doing” I asked. “You drive your car to work every day of the week,” he said “you need to not do that.” I admit it, I do. I live 20 minutes drive from work, with my parents and no public transportation available. I sat with him and described the situation and how living at home is also saving resources, and how my car is very fuel efficient, and how I will try to not drive as much on the weekends to help out. He smiled and left and hasn’t mentioned it since. But I wonder what’s going through his head…does he think I’m still a slacker? Does he think I don’t care about his generation who will inherit the earth?

Then, today I read an article about this very thing. Kids out there as the new generation of environmental warriors. I thought this was such an endearing and telling article. All about children and their interest in environmental activities. There are two sides represented, the parents that really took their kids advice to heart and acted in a manner that would make their kids proud. Then there were the parents that complained that their kids were too extreme and pesky essentially and those concerned that their kids shouldn’t be concerned about such big issues. I realize that not every family can afford a new prius or solar panels on their homes...but we can make small everyday changes that are both economical and environmental.

This piece was excellent. It gave me hope. Here is a whole generation of children that have the passion and the persistence and the drive to change the world. They are undaunted by politics, not overburdened with defeats, nor do they realize when to stop pushing...that's fantastic. These kids have the most interest of anyone here in the future of our planet, and they, whether consciously or not, are realizing it, and taking it into their own tiny, soft and yet extremely capable hands. Go kids go!

And, I hope my brother is scheming about how to make the world a better place. I’ll try my best baby brother.

Inconvenient Youths - WSJ.com

farming up

hmmm. this is an intersting concept to me. my younger sister sent it to me. the idea is, that as world populations grow, we are going to need more and more food. in fact we will need a space the size of brazil in 2050 solely to produce food. i feel a strong affinity with those big, rolling, farms in iowa, those extensive orange groves in florida, the blueberry parcels in michigan, and those gorgeous and ultra productive fields of vegetables in california. there is somethign so beautiful and real about taking the soil and water and sun that occur naturally and combining them to produce food. yet, we haev industrialized most of this beyond these natural processes...so the idea of vertical farming doesn't seem as farm removed, technically. the idea is to farm in a building, floors and floors of palnts growing, both hydroponically and aeroponically. there are concerns over the energy used to operate a vertical farm. however, it seems to me that if you have a big surface area there will be lots of room for solar, and the roof could definitely be used for wind capturing. interesting...yet, does this mean my great grandchildren may not know the sensation of driving across iowa, all that food laid out in front of you, growing in golden rows, wave after wave in the sunset?

Could vertical farming be the future? - Innovation - MSNBC.com

Recycle or Repent!

a friend sent me this article. what a great idea! a catholic priest will be sitting in a cofessional at a festival. what is he doing there? hearing people's eco-sins and giving them equally appropriate penance. finally a funny and hopeful story involving the catholic church. i love it!

Roman Catholic Church To Offer Green Confession Booth GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow

Dinner Plate to Climate Change

Finally! an article which just says it how it is. eating meat does in fact contribute to climate change. and pollution of rivers. and deforestation of the rainforest. and spread of disease. oh, wait, the article doesn't talk about those. in fact nothing in the news talks about anything other than climate change. it's become synonymous with environmental anythings. but i digress. i agree actually, almost 100% with this article. that said, as i have mentioned before, diet is a very personal thing. and i wouldn't tell a friend that i think they should become vegetarian. but, i will call all meat eaters out here, now. hello!!? are you just turning a blind eye? i know i've always been a vegetarian and so maybe i don't understand the annoyance of giving something up. i try to drive less. and make my showers shorter. and eat organic and local. and reuse things. i make changes in my personal life too. why can't others take this on? why would it be so hard to start giving up meat? especially beef. i don't know if anyone i know actually reads this...but i hope lots of people read the article. and most of all, become conscientious enough to make a change.

Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change - New York Times

fresh raw tomatoes

this year we're growing 34 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. and garden looks super lush and vibrant, yet the tomatoes just aren't there. well, in as great numbers as regular, more hybridized varities. there are some benefits to hybrids..like great size and abundance. that said, it's more fun searching for tomatoes when they are striped and purple and green and orange and pear-pepper-cherry-or-sausage shaped. much more fun! here's the fruit of last night's Great Tomato Hunt.

imaginary hikes in ireland

Ah, back at work. After a 3-day weekend spent backpackign in the Weimenuche. The sun shone brightly every morning, and disappeared mysteriously behind a veil of clouds and mist and straight down-no-nonsense rain after a few hours every day. We might as well have been in Ireland with the undulating green hills and rocky out-croppings and damp weather and abundant water. But when the clouds parted just enough we could see the jagged and shiny wet peaks around us and we were reminded that we were very much in the heart of my favorite mountains. And I fell in love as I do every time I visit the MFMs (My Favorrite Mountains). I love their cragginess and expanse and clear lakes and basins of wildflowers and softness of the rolling green fields in contrast with the sharp stern mountains. The wildflowers were, amazing. It was as if someone had taken multi colored paint and poured it down from the top of the mountains and the paint had settles in the basins and the valley floors in amazing patterns of pinks and golds, magentas and blues, lavenders and mauves and red, greens and whites and saffrons. The unreplicable (I think I just made up that word) manifestation of some greater good, some greater being, some greater beauty, draped on the hills. And in the evenings the rain would stop and sleep was peaceful and quiet.

And the company was lovely. My friend took tea breaks and moved quickly, and didn’t complain sincerely about the rain, and made delicious meals, and laughed, and we experimented making cheese toast on a camp stove, and we talked about our childhoods and dreams and traveling and relationships and meditation and tax credits and goals and love and herbs and families and all things wonderful.

What, as usual, a beautiful weekend! pictures to be added soon!

i want to be a river gypsy

So, wow, after 6 days and 6 nights of being on the river…phew, it's a lot of work being back here in the world of land conservation. A- lot. I'm tuckered out already. It was a sweet 6 days of not having an idea as to the time of day, floating down the river, stopping to eat when we felt like it, finding a good campsite, setting up camp, sitting in the occasional rainstorm, eating dinner with my feet in the sand, swimming naked in the river in the early morning, sleeping under the stars, laughing at crude jokes, learning to paddle and steer a canoe, learning to row a raft efficiently, swimming some more, wearing the same bikini and long sleeved shirt and hat for 6 days, eating lots of Pringles, having an excellent mud bath-spa treatment, changing into my sarong for dinner each night, swimming in clear pools in a side anyon, reading, making drip sand castles, and just enjoying life as it came and went. I felt like a river gypsy. These river people like to call themselves river rats, but I much prefer the phrase river gypsy, sounds elusive and transient and mystical and fun. It was fun!

I was very sad to come back last night. We had a late dinner in Moab and there was something so comfortable about being crammed into a big diesel truck pulling a ginormous trailer with 2 rafts and 2 canoes, couple sleeping in the backseat and B, J
and me listening to songs and chatting as we drove across the midnight dark desert. And I was very sad about comming back home. But, when I got my cell phone working I had a message my boss' wife had her baby this weekend! Yay, I am so excited, and everyone in the office has been over to see her…now I'm just waiting to hear back so I too can pop over for a visit. Finally a baby around these parts!

(hmm, my last post seemed to sit there for quite awhile)

why i love summer

1. it's warm and so i am not cold

2. best friends from school come out for visits

3. backpacking trips are amazing, i went backpacking this weekend
with girlfriends from grad school this past weekend. we went outside of
aspen and it was perfectly beautiful. gorgeous weather, the
wildflowers were perfect. the pictures in this post are from then.

4. happy music is very appropriate for summer and it puts me in a
good mood

5. free riverfront concert series at the state park. saw dirty
dozen brass band playing last week...outdoors with teh red sandstone
cliffs and the colorado river in teh background.

6. speaking of rivers...it's warm enough for rat trips and this
afternoon i head off on a 5 day rafting trip on the San Juan river
in far southeastern utah. 5 days of no showers, too much heat, camping,
no cars/technology, good company and hopefully lots of swimming. i
packed two t-shirts and 1 skirt and 1 pair of shorts and two
bikinis..i hope that's sufficient. i will be dirty and stinky and
am kind of looking forward to it.

7. cherries, apricots, plums and peaches. all fresh, all local.

8. the days are long.

9. two of my favorite baby girls were born...happy birthday sonya
and penny!

10. the possibilities are endless in summer.

little video

here's an intersting and artsy video with a definite enviornmental point. sorry, i just can't tell you what it's about, you'll have to watch it for yourself!

here it is:

Vivacious Vegan

in the afternoons i start to get kind of hungry here at work. and i just think of food. and every once in a while i start perusing various vegetarian-food related blogs. and i really enjoy reading this one. first of all, because it is colorful and happy (incentive to change my own blog), and Crystal's pictures of food look so wonderful. though i have been vegetarian all my life... over the past couple years i've been thinking of going vegan.... and the photos and descriptions of the various vivacious vegan foods make it seem quite appealing. mmmm. i'm going home to have some of the homemade mocha vegan icecream i have in the freezer. it may not be "real" food but it's a start!

Finally: the banning of plastic bags

so it turns out (and i know this is almost old news) but san fran has made some of the steps forward in banning plastic bags. excellent. it will mainly affect grocery stores and pharmacies...and not necessarily all the other little stores, but it's definitely a start in the right direction. the larger stores will be allowed to only use compostable bags or bags made from recycled paper. not bad, not bad. and if you are thinking (like i often do when i hear about san fran) "well, lucky them, living in that perfect little liberal eviro-city"...do not despair, apparently Melbourne, Australia and Hong Kong are implementing similar plans.

i wonder how long until this dusty town will follow suit? at least our friendly health food store had a great deal going on in june. if you bought $30 or more you recieved a reuseable shopping bag. and then, everytime you bring in and reuse the bag, they donate 5 cents to the local shelter. that's a nice incentive!

S.F. FIRST CITY TO BAN PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS / Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use recyclable or compostable sacks

food, class, and what can you do about it?

this is not the first time i've referred to an arcticle by tom philpott. yet, this is a very fitting article because today is the first farmer's market of the year here in town. here is another by him from grist. tom speaks about the slow food movement and touches on sustainable agriculture, affordable alternatives to industrial-over-processed food, and those people that may have the opportunity to affect change and yet...may not take that opportunity.

i usually enjoy tom's writing and i woudl love to sit down with him and talk, yet this piece ended rather unsatisfactorily for me. i want to see solutions, and ideas, and resolutions, and suggestions, and the answeres to these questions. how do we make some of the principles of this "slow food" movement and the organic movement and the local movement part of most people's everyday lives? (hey, look, even the slow food movement is it's own little empire!)

how do we provide better food for the masses, at the same time providing the same qulatiy, and allowing farmers an adequate wage, and making the better food availble to more classes of people, and more local. you might ask, well, when will pigs fly. but if i were to be going back to school or getting a phd right now i would love to study the process of making better organic more natural food available to the masses. (despite the fact that it is all intimately tied to economics and subsidies and large corprations and governmental control....all subjects which are rather less intersting/arousing/tangible ... and yet all have very real effects on what we eat everyday and even our personal health...and thus the costs of health care.)

i'd love to delve more into these issues. i am becoming increasingly intersted in food and where it comes from and health benefits and availability and cost and what we can do about it. i'm off to the farmer's market.

Ruminations on food, class, and Carlo Petrini By Tom Philpott 07 Jun 2007

bigger gas prices and smaller cars

i grew up pretty much every summer of my life on a small farm in rural quebec. and we spent parts of a few and one solid winter up there....never again. it was so cold. so snowy. so dark. a great expereince as kids, and i don't have unhappy memories of the winter, but i think my parents probably felt a little more sheltered. the gravel roads were snowpacked and icy most of the winter, that was when we coudl reach the road. our 1/4 miles driveway was snowed over for most of the winter. but when we did manage to get out, the grocercy store was hoppping on friday nights, people were socializing at the local french fry cantine and life continued as usual. people were bopping all around the roads in their tiny, and i mean tiny, cars. everyone there drove (for for the most part, still drives) small cars. i think it was mainly a function of economy; there wasn't/isn't a lot of money in that area, or in most of quebec and so people just bought smaller, cheaper vehicles. and, though i never thought of it at the time, much more fuel efficient vehicles.

now, gas prices are sky rocketing here in the US. i filled my little tercel up with $3.23 per gallon gas yesterday. it definitely makes me think twice before driving into town for something that could wait until tomorrow. but, i felt slightly better when my dad came home yesterday. he'd been in quebec for a few weeks and gas there is $4.74 per gallon...though they sell it by litres so it seems cheaper. so, we shouldn't complain.

not that i mind paying more...i think gas should be less subsidized and cost more, reflecting the actual cost of fuel, and hopefully people will act accordingly...use less fuel, buy smaller cars. (though, i do regret the oil companies just lining their pockets...continuously!) WHY do people think they need some fancy, gas guzzling, 4wd, vehicle to survive here (here as in all over the US). the only time we use 4wd in colorado is on the rocky roads in the mountains where you need high clearance and it's either 4wd, or off you go over a cliff. which brings me back to quebec... people drive fine in these tiny cars, over snow and gravel and ice. and use way less gas on average than we do. so, what's the deal? why are americans so caught up in this mind set that we need a big vehicle to survive out there?

and stretch hummers? ...don't even get me going...

vegan blog site

mmm. so, i'm not vegan, just vegetarian. but i thought this was a fun little blog with a random assortment of vegan treat recipes. Shmooed Food. and while we're at it, here's another site that has vegan ice cream recipes. Vegan Icecream Paradise. mmm. here's to a nice rainy weekend with lots of time to experiment with cooking up new, good-for-you-good-for-the-earth food. yum yum.

more on that 100 mile diet thing...

i think i wrote about the idea of the 100 mile diet earlier. somewhere around thatnksgiving..an apprpriate time to be writing about food i suppose. but now may be even a better time. it is SPRING. we shoudl be planting our gardens, and thinking about what we want to can/freeze/dry/and other wise preserve for the comming winter. think of the fall and winter and next spring and what we'll want to be eating. and how can we grow some/a lot of that starting now. now is a great time to be planning and begining a more local, if not all local, diet.

in the middle of november it's a little more difficult to find local foods to make your thanksgiving meal, so start planning now. greg and i decided to have a local meal for thanksgiving. we (i pushed it really) decided this in mid november. and can i just say that the meal was, well, not too great. we had pinto beans with a tomato base flavored with herbs and onion. and we had some collard and mustard greens. and and apple pie, sweetened with local honey. ...and we made an exception for salt. so i guess it wasn't awful, but darn, it sure would have been better had we started planning in spring.

so this year, i'm starting my planning now. i am organizing seed packets. getting my parents involved. and thinking of what foods will lend themselves to being nicely preserved. mmm, i can't wait!

and here's a little article about Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon whom essentially started this 100 mile diet new way of life. apparently they've put out a new book. might be an intersting read. and i also just finished omnivore's dilema...what i learned the most from that: every meal we eat is a political statement. every single one. a simple act that can have so many implications, on our taste buds, our health, the economy, the enviornemnt, the local food movement, immigration policies, oil exploration...diet really connects it all together.

Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon chew the fat on their 100-mile diet By Kate Sheppard Grist Main Dish 24 Apr 2007

my thoughts go out to them

my heart is saddened. my thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the tragic events at virginia tech. i cannot understand what causes people to do such harmful things. i hope people affected feel the love the world sends them as they try to begin to heal.

on small changes

my wednesday afternoon-evenings are usually spent out on the trail, mountain biking with my dad and a couple of his buddies. most of them are in the housing/development/construction/painting/etc business. they are all nice guys, and hard workers and have great families and like to talk about their bikes and harleys and grandkids and babecues and sports. last wednesday, on the way back from a gorgeous ride, my dad's friend asked me when i was going to upgrade my dilapidated tercel to a prius. "well, we're getting a prius next" he said. "if it's just a little thing we can do, well, then i guess that's a good thing. i'm not worried about saving money on gas, but if can help out with our health then that'd be good. like taking the cardboard downtown to be recycled or something." in typical guy-dad type fashion, that was all he had to say about it. not more, not less, but just enough. it's amazing how, while trying not to judge people, we usually do. and chances are, we're wrong. and that can be very refreshing and hopeful!

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

...or another byline might be "the world as you might not want to see it."

this website has essentially compiled lots of facts about countries around the world and projected those facts into map form. wow, some of these are amazing. it's one thing to know that we as americans are welathier, fatter, more educated, and generally more comfortable than lots of other countries in the world. yes, disgustingly, that's how it is. and, when you see these facts displayed visually in a worldmapper format, it becomes quite clear just how fortunate (maybe?) people in certain countries are.

the two maps i haev displayed here highlight a pretty weird and convoluted fact. us has the largest military budget. in fact we look like a swollen tick after it's wobbled off from a huge meal on some poor animals neck. we also have the smallest number of casualties since 1945. strange... where does all that money go? do we have to spend all that money? why are so many people dying in other countries and yet we have tons of military power? does this make you feel a little bad?

war deaths

military spending

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: You Call Yourself a Progressive -- But You Still Eat Meat?

well, well. i am a vegetarian. i have been my whole life and you know what? i never really thought about the general/environmental/social implications of being a vegetarian until i went to college. all of a sudden, at my liberal arts college, it was the buzz word, the hip thing, the only option if you wanted to be "cool"...and cooler yet: vegan!

i grew up in a family of vegetarians and we were vegetarians for personal and spiritual reasons. i saw cruelty to animals as the number one reason to being a veggie. and then, at 18 in a brand new college, in a brand new state i was introduced to the concept of vegetarianism being environmental and progressive and saving the rainforests. interesting. and i actually began to find it easier to tell people i was veggie for those reasons rather than spiritual reasons. eating and diet are such personal things, and yet spirituality having an influence on one's diet was even more personal, too much of myself could be exposed. and so i was on the enviro-veggie wagon.

after a few years of that...well, i realized that diet is very personal. food is a tradition and many times one of the few traditions that families observe today. and though i am fairly certain that a vegetarian (and even more so, vegan) diet is better for the planet overall...it is a very hard point to sell. it's like trying to convert someone to a different religion or make them wear a different style. it's a huge life change and sacrifice for many people...and a burden. the argument should be made from a factual stance. and equally from a spiritual-emotional stance. telling someone they are not progressive because they eat meat is (i believe true) not going to convince them to give up meat. it raises defenses and does nothing to win over omnivores.

i enjoyed this article, but what i found even more interesting were the comments. a lot were very defensive and a lot were rude and a lot were compassionate... and i think it teaches that, we, as a culture, are very dependent on food to give us a place and a common ground. eating and food choices are very personal, no matter how right or wrong another person may claim them to be. and also, after reading the article, i think people need to remember we have free speech... just because somebody writes something doesn't mean you need to take so near to your own heart. we need to respect the opinions of others and let them speak as they see fit.

that all said... i would encourage close friends and relative of mine to go veggie for health and spiritual and environmental reasons. i care about those people and i want them to lead healthy happy lives...though i would never lose a friendship or try to cause arguments based around our differences in diet.

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: You Call Yourself a Progressive -- But You Still Eat Meat?