Can we make it?

Don Delillo's White Noise.

"Here we are... knowing all these great things after centuries of progress but what can we do...? Can we make a refrigerator? Can we even explain how it works? What is electricity? What is light?... Name one thing you could make."   (from blog post at fair companies)

 

Sustainable living continues to intrigue me on many levels.  As I am sure I have said before in one of my blogs somewhere, the term has been upcycled over time encompassing everything from waste not want not thriftiness, frugal cost saving, simple and/or meaningful living, do it yourself, homesteading, living off the grid, recycling, green or eco-living, but whatever it might mean to you, I have a stronger sense of what it has meant and means to me. 

 

A few years back I set upon myself the task of learning to do more that would equate to what is today’s term of sustainable living by trying to teach myself more of the old homemaker skills that seem to elude my grasp.   It was both fun and challenging and I learned some few new skills, but not nearly enough to survive if the way of life as we know it does not sustain. 

 

I keep thinking I will blog about it, make a website collection about it and I do go about getting projects started but fall seriously short of goal.  Enough years have elapsed with the internet now that there are many such blogs, websites, groups, forums, social networks that cover sustainable living far more comprehensively than my meager collection efforts. 

 

So what is the point of this blog entry?  I have One Note which is a great piece of Microsoft software that works like several expanding file folders.  For the most part that is where I keep my collections.   There is no need to blog it as a means to harvest or collect information intended for my personal use.  Blogging then has changed shape for me as blogging is a sharing of information enterprise, and I am not sure what I have to share that hasn’t been shared somewhere else by someone else. 

 

I’ve seen a number of blogs that serve as collections of source links pointing to other peoples accomplishments.  I could perhaps do that as well, and find I am likely unwilling to devote the time to keeping such a blog updated regularly, nor spending great amounts of time searching out the internet.  So this blog will be a bit more random and irregular in it’s purpose, theme  and what catches my interest to share.   Mostly though, it still feels to me like the overarching theme for me is what amounts to sustainable living – on several fronts. 

 

Having taken all my blogs and integrated them into one, I find I have far too many category tags for the tags to be functional.   Yet I am unwilling to spend the time to condense the category tags for each blog post into more functional categorization.    Wishing any interested reader well in trying to sort through the too lengthy list of tags, but I sure wouldn’t blame you if you gave up after seeing the list. 

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Make Your Own Seed Tapes

Make Your Own Seed Tapes - More DIY How To Projects

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Link of the day: vegetarian opportunity

Kathy Freston at Huffington Post

Excerpt:

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;

● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;

● 70 million gallons of gas--enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;

● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;

● 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;

● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;

● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;

● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

My favorite statistic is this: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?

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Article I came across this morning at Washington Post turns out to be much more than one article.  It is an article collection in a series on the clean up efforts and lifestyles of the  Chesapeake Bay reported by the Washington Post.  I read with interest, recognizing that I could well be reading the future of Willapa Bay were it to become more densely populated; were it to become less ecologically sound due to carelessness of it's stewardship.   Were it to lose it's oyster population as it already once historically did when the native oysters were harvested into extinction. 

We moved here about 10 years ago from an upscale urban center in Seattle area, with an eye to the pristine beauty of the Willapa region, the historical context, and to downshift gears to a calmer, quieter way of life.   While we are indeed 'transplants', we settled in with intention of integrating into a lifestyle that somehow seems to have maintained keeping the Willapa region not too much undisturbed by carelessness of  human contaminations.   We are, for the most part, still considered 'newcomers' to the area and we recognize that some families are generational families, having lived here over many generations.  Of course, we are newcomers to that kind of generational family history.  Yet we have felt welcomed, embraced, and if there has been any joking sense of us as newcomers, it has been in good humor.  We have not felt at any time unwelcome. 

I recognize that is in large part due to the sparse population and towns of Pacific County and a rather untouched land.  One of the things I find myself thinking as we go from place to place within the county is that this must closely resemble how this land looked one hundred, two hundred years ago.  This land must look a  lot like it did to the early settlers.  This must be something close to what Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery saw when they arrived here.   This land must still look much like what it was like for the Native Americans who dwelt here, primarily the Chinook people. 

We habitat as guests in this region comparative to the history of the region, and we recognize that we are guest dwellers on this land.  Our lifestyle is not that of living off the land, in fishing, in timber/lumber, in farming (unless our  small kitchen vegetable garden counts).  By osmosis we become somewhat acquainted with the reality of the issues that beset the mix of people choosing to live in this region.    Some of our neighbors are oyster farmers, and we learn a bit about what is important to them in their livelihoods as oyster farmers.   At least one of our neighbors owns and operates a modestly sizeable dairy farm, and we learn a bit about issues important to their livelihood.  Some neighbors are agricultural farmers, and we learn a bit about issues important to their livelihoods.  And many of our neighbors are part of the timber/lumber industry, consequently we learn about issues important to their livelihoods, for example, the environmentalists efforts to save the spotted owl, which people in the timber/lumber industry will tell you about killed off their entire livelihood in that industry.

Gradually, over time, we come to know a little bit about a bit of what are important issues to the people who live in this county, who reside along the Willapa Bay, who live in the Willapa Hills .. all our neighbors in the Willapa region.    What is highly important to the livelihood of some does encroach on the livelihood of others and it seems to me a harmonious disharmony has developed over the generations. 

Where we reside now,  homeowners buying one of the older properties still standing in this community, we have a strong regard for the history of not only our immediate community, but the region where we have chosen to live.  We did not buy 'weekend getaway property' and we do have a fair share of new residents who are weekenders, along with a fair share of  new residents from out of the area who choose to settle here, buy existing property or build new homes and live here  year round.  We have lived here only ten years, but we can 'feel' the shifting tides as the older sense of not only this immediate community but the older sense of the community gives way to the new sense of community in this region. 

For property developers, driven by the property bubble, they began to look upon this region as one of the last vestiges of property development, having developed everything else along the Interstate 5 corridor regions.   As they began to look, signs of what I consider encroachment began to appear; the very things we wanted to get away from - housing developments, condos, and with that the people who buy them and want the accompanying convenience of close by stores and malls and I began to fear the beautiful landscape would give way to .... well, what development looks like, pretty much cookie cutter one to the next.   

But Willapa is an estuary, and as such has environmental protections, making too much development too quickly unlikely.    And, as my own concerns began to take root, the property bubble burst -- the mortgage crisis we are in now.  With it the start up developments in our region seemed to quickly wither.  I can't say I'm sorry to see that happened.  But I also realize it is momentary, contingent on recovery,  the marketability and at some point will once again be back on the developers map as an area to develop. 

Which brings me back to the Washington Post series on the Chesapeake Bay and the seemingly unsuccessful efforts to revive that bay.   Several components are cited as contributing factors to the demise of the vibrancy of the Chesapeake Bay, and they are the very components that affect Willapa Bay.  Why, one might ask, is one bay (Willapa Bay) still considered pristine, vibrant and productive where the Chesapeake Bay is considered contaminated and nearly beyond repair?   The Washington Post series or articles attempts to answer the question of what went wrong, what is trying to be fixed and what is or is not working about the Chesapeake Bay, so there is little need for me to repeat or condense it here.  But it has caused me to look protectively at our own Willapa Bay in a new light, perhaps in recognition that the fact of the wilderness aspect of the region which has a still manageable human population could easily go the way of the Chesapeake Bay in over development, over population, and carelessness of human contaminations.

The thing weighing a bit on my mind is that this region is under study as part of the Columbia - Pacific National Heritage Area (link to House bill and Senate bill)  , spring boarding from the historical Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery.  Regions designated National Heritage sites promote tourism, tourist $$ and enterprise and perhaps expand the regional economy, but at what cost over the short run?  I have been asking myself this question since I learned of the Columbia-Pacific National Heritage Study Act last summer.   With that question, also comes the issue of Federal recognition of the Chinook people as a recognized tribe - Chinook Nation.  It can hardly be on one hand acknowledged that the concept of  the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery could be used to advance  this region into a National Heritage site without simultaneously acknowledging that  the Chinook people, as a recognized tribe, who gave considerable aid to the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, and are the backbone of what makes this region historically noteworthy.

I watch with interest the events ahead, with the efforts to make this region a National Heritage site, the progress for the Chinook people in being officially recognized at Federal level, the land and property development market, the responsive reaction from the various industries in the region; tourism,  commercial fishing, timber industry, agricultural community, and the newcomers who are less responsive to the history and more anxious to make the area into a region not unlike the area from which they came --- overly developed with more cookie cutter type housing developments, malls,  stores and Starbucks on every other corner.   Should that happen, the unique richness of this region will be forever lost.   Should that happen, the arguments are made and some might consider it a good thing for an ailing local economy, livelihoods unlikely to sustain in the coming years, and necessity to make way for change, lest........ 

And I ask lest what?  Lest the region remain pretty much the same as it is, and if so, what is terribly wrong with that?

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Wind Power Plans Coming to Pacific County? Will the communities accept new eco-industry?

article at Daily Astorian

If a project isn’t sold to the community it will struggle to gain public acceptance

There are suddenly plans for a lot of wind-based power generation blowing into Washington's Pacific County, possibly a hint at what may occur in many of the coastal counties of Oregon and Washington in the years ahead.

A "joint operating agency" of Washington state electricity providers is planning an 82-megawatt wind turbine farm in the Naselle area, with completion of up to 45 wind turbines eyed in 2011. A smaller, very interesting four-turbine project is getting started in northern Pacific County and southern Grays Harbor County. In total, all this may be enough to power some 40,000 average-sized homes.

The Pacific Northwest and the nation need more of the relatively clean energy that wind farms provide. Pacific County can use the construction and operation jobs that Radar Ridge would generate along with electricity. A similar-sized plant in Calgary cost about $140 million Canadian in 2006, perhaps not far different than what the local project will cost in U.S. dollars a year or two from now. That's a mighty big and mostly welcome investment.

At the same time, it's important to note that phalanxes of giant wind turbines have not met with universal acclaim everywhere they've been constructed. Residents often complain about the impacts they have on landscape, bird migration, traffic, hunting access and other rural values.

Quoting Canada's National Post, "Activists now decry windmills with a fervour once reserved for nuclear plants. To some, it seems strange to waste time railing against a power source that does not generate greenhouse gases, is relatively quick to construct and can serve as a powerful symbol of a community's environmental convictions. They say critics are only displaying a modern strain of 'Not In My Backyard' syndrome.

"Opponents, however, say they are driven by concerns about windmills' effects on everything from bird migration to health to property values to earthworms.

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Rural life offer's MORE choices, not LESS

The link to the entire origianl article is in this post's title above.

The writer, Linsey Knerl - wheverever in rural America she is living - describes herself as a

"Stay-at-home Home-Educating Mama of four, I'm just cheap!"

The article is Linsey's contribution to:

click on image to go there.

Excerpts:

After landing a very nice job at an insurance-related company, I was slowly seeing the world in a new way. Sweaters became suits, my pager was traded-up for a cellphone, and $2 taco dinners at the dive down the street gave way to $9 wings at the upscale brewery. Even my car (which I adored) was feeling the pressure of this faster, more expensive social circle. (I remember telling my new co-workers about my Dodge Charger. They ran outside to see it, envisioning some souped-up Dukes of Hazzard look-alike to be waiting there. Their disappointed faces told me that 1982 was NOT the year for that particular model. We took my friend’s pre-owned, 2-year-old Lexus to lunch after that.)

... 7 years after I moved away from my tiny rural town, I’m moved back again.

Right away, I noticed that nothing much had changed. I recognized my neighbors right away, because they were still driving the car they drove when I was in Junior High. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Since it was largely still a farming community, no one gave me a second look when I popped into town with muddy tennis shoes and a tore-up baseball cap. I wondered what my old friends from work would have said.

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Socially revolutionizing our Life on Willapa Bay

Lietta and I have allocated enormous amounts of our spare time to a serious examination and plan of our response to the implications of Peak Oil, gas guzzling transportation and what to do about potential shortages of commodities, services and medical expertise that stare us in the face as we move into our 60's.

All this business causes us to miss some of the prime entertainment and diversion available via the media and often the question arises, do we need to prepare and participate in social revolution or should we continue mindlessly on distracted by corporate bread and circuses? (Well, not all. We've recently discovered Eddie Izzard who is sufficiently entertaining to get me to turn the TV on at night and stay subscribed to Netflix.)

This excerpt from Lietta's post July 2, about U.S. Rep. Brian Baird's Town Hall meeting in South Bend:

Gas Prices; Astonishingly - well to us anyway - when the question of gas prices came up, as we knew it would, and someone asked about off shore oil drilling and leased land not being used for oil drilling, Brian Baird started to discuss it and then asked the audience for a show of hands as to who was in favor of off-shore oil drilling. And almost all the hands went up. Then Brian Baird asked who was not in favor, with my husband, mine and probably 3-4 other hands going up.

I was stunned. And in somewhat confused language pointed out peak oil and global warming and then gave up, saying never mind. I could not believe what I had just witnesssed. An expectation that enough information is out there now about the growing oil crisis, that I had thought more would be appreciative of our need to change our lifestyle to become less oil dependent and the urgency in finding alternative energy lifestyles

The majority of hand-raisers were approving of off-shore drilling. When asked by Baird whether or not this community - whose economy is heavily reliant on the ocean - is willing to risk oil spills and damage to marine life (economic or otherwise), the hands stayed up. In fact one of the attendee's who had "done her homework" justified her vote based on the preserved integrity of off-shore wells in Louisiana during and after Katrina.

So why not?
Peak Oil is here. Demand now outpaces supply and the number of global competitors for a diminishing supply is rising.

Regarding Peak Oil, all we need to understand is that an SUV getting less than 20-30 mpg needs to be jettisoned in favor of something smaller and now more expensive that reaches for 50 mpg. (BTW, I ran the trade-in value of a 2002 Ford Explorer Thursday. Where it normally hovered in double digit thousands, Kelly BB indicates $1850.)

My thoughts on Peak Oil

Peak Oil explanations have for the most part not told it all.

Surprising observation from Certified right-winger and advocate of the Corporate American Core Values, Charles Krauthammer:

"Forbidding drilling [in the Arctic refuge] does not prevent despoliation. It merely exports it. The crude oil we're not getting from the Arctic we import instead from places like the Niger Delta, where millions live and where the resulting pollution and oil spillages poison the lives of many of the world's most abysmally poor"

So should the amount of energy input required to get the oil include the 'cost' of basic human life?

Economic statisticians love to estimate the value of things and enterprises in terms of man-hours, labor units and whatnot. This from the point of view of valuing how much we First-Worlders must pay to get our oil from Third-Worlders who probably have very little say in whether or not we move in and take out there resources.

When a talking head expounds "knowledgeably" about the high costs of finding disappearing pockets of new oil, our wallets wiggle, self-focus increases and we begin to think of our 4-cylinder 1985 diesel pickup in the back yard with weeds peeking out from behind all the wheels.

But beyond our comprehension and more than likely not even considered by the authoritative Think Tank Energy Know-It-All is what reality is to our neighbors on other continents. Do they have a right to the stuff (as Carlin put it) in their own back yard?

You know, them folks who live in a society older than ours that already possesses a physical infrastructure older than ours. Theirs was built by how many millions of man-hours, labor-units, blood, sweat and tears?

I agree with the asker of the following question (all quotes in this article come from the reference link posted at the end of the article.)

" Do all the billions of hours of materialized human labor that have historically been destroyed by Westerners in the Middle East enter the equations telling us how many energy units are needed, under the current market conditions, to produce the equivalent of one BTU (British Thermal Unit) of energy? "

At the Baird Town Hall questions about immigration came up (see Lietta's article) and Baird gave excellent responses to an audience that included many who have some vague resentment of all foreign poor people that is driven by broadcast rhetoric regarding the status of aliens in our midst.

As we discuss our own and other nation's populations related problems - especially since we are an electorate which has approved by ballot an aggressive corporate imperialist rape of someone else's natural resource assets by the use of force, need we remember and understand that

"any proposed 'cost analysis' that excludes historically accumulated human social labor is not an a scientific explanation. Further, such a perspective is racist since the only human life worth its consideration, implicit in its tenets, is the ethnocentric, western self.

Just the amount spent on the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan is in the trillions of dollars. How many tens of trillions of dollars worth of human creation has this war actually destroyed? Do these destructions enter American environmentalists' calculations?"

Now this ought to remind baby boomers about sixties-era notions such as that book and movie entitled The Ugly American.

Problem is not so much the absence of lots of citizens who remember the Great Depression with intense feeling. No, our problem is the generation missing at the time of the Oil Embargo in the 1970's; today's primary consuming generation for whom all this is mere intellectual or conscious "information" buttressed by little if any real understanding or intuition as to what it all means.

"Now, we know that even in the worst locations on earth (except war zones) those fires, shootings, school fights due to hanging nooses, teachers and priests having sex with students/believers, and all the millions of miles of footage on this or that celebrity seen locally (or anywhere) were obviously not the only things happening within the local universe in the 24-hour interval between last night and tonight.

Some selection has clearly taken place, which is of course what 'news' organizations do to prepare their programs. This carefully produced selection, when repeated daily and over the decades, keeps the public on edge on two levels: envious of the rich and the famous and, more so and more importantly, scared and insecure about their own lives.

And that, not information sharing, is the rhetorical agenda of 'news organizations': Danger creeps around every corner! Put your trust in the authorities! State violence is your only security!

Peak Oil serves exactly the same rhetorical purpose in a more nuanced way, with regard to the 'energy crisis': it keeps people revved up and on edge about the coming doom regarding oil and 'our way of life'. And who to trust to solve the problem?

Since Peak Oilers don't say, the actually existing answer is provided happily by, who else, the western corporations, the global 'free market' and the first world governments.

Now I'm curious in a kind of conspiracy-nut way as to the reality of how short we Americans are on native oil under our control. If as claimed, 60 percent of the current price of oil is caused by the futures traders in this commodity has nothing to do with supply shortages, is there in fact "too much supply for the actually existing capacity of refineries to refine the available oil fast enough?"

Chief Seattle could have uttered these words:

"Since Peak Oilers work with capitalist vocabulary, their solutions will never have anything to do with a fundamental reconceptualization of property rights, and no form of socialization of natural resources will enter their platforms."

As we read this, what comes to mind in terms of what we really need to be thinking about?

What is suggested is "nothing short of a social revolution."

That's what drives the small plans being implemented in our own household and on our little plot of land where we're investing in new personal infrastructure such as raised bed gardens, vegetables hanging from plastic buckets and turning one of our basement rooms into a root cellar.

It seems that a social-economic revolution in our personal and societal lives would be the "politico-logical thing to do."

Let me then speak to Rep. Baird's position vis-a-vis my son-in-law existing in harm's way for Baird's political justifications (and all those who insist that the broken pottery barn will go to hell in a hand-basket if we leave now. )

Any who believe that the United States of America is the global Roy Rogers wearing a white hat and spreading peace, prosperity, truth, justice and the American way to an ignorant, needy world are stuck knee-deep in their own personal intellectual quagmire.

We are not and have not been Roy Rogers. We are now and have been Oil Can Henry.

" ... the U.S. is a world imperialist power that historically has as often projected power through 'civil' means (corporations and financial institutions) as through state violence (coups, bilateral security agreements previously, and now open military interventions). For this type of imperialism, local or regional powers willing to and capable of acting independently and wielding power are not desirable, unless (as with Israel) such a local power is in a fundamental fashion (existentially?) dependent on Washington's patronage."

Other than quoting Lietta's post, all other quotes are from Peak Scam by Reza Fiyouzat, Online Journal Contributing Writer, Jun 30, 2008, 00:18

Hm .... looks like an Arab name. According to American jingoists, that probably means that Reza has written nothing truthful and that it only looks like Oil Can Henry riding Trigger.

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Independence Day Challenge 2008 - A Food Management Challenge

I'm pleased to have found this great challenge and it is a challenge - Independence Day Challenge 2008 - at Casaubon's Book blog. The blog is full of useful information and worth a look. We (husband and I, oh and our dog and cat) are already into our efforts of trying to learn how to take care of ourselves (primarily feed ourselves) as the oil/food/economic crisis continues. And we recognize we will fall seriously short in our efforts unless we learn the skills and make them part of our daily habits.

Much of the blogging that I've done to date has felt more like 'heed the warnings' sort of messengering. But I think the 'warnings' now are coming from many messengers, and I want to change the direction of my blogging efforts.

With that in mind, I'm liking what I'm seeing in taking the Independence Day Challenge 2008. It seems like good practice to get in better shape for food management challenges headed our way.Read the details at Casabon's blog - Independence Days; My First Challenge. Simply stated --

That means in each day or week, try to:

1. Plant something.
The idea that you should plant all week and all year is a good reminder to those of us who sometimes don’t get our fall gardens or our succession plantings done regularly. Remember, that beet you harvested left a space - maybe for the next one to get bigger, but maybe for a bit of arugula or a fall crop of peas, or a cover crop to enrich the soil. Independence is the bounty of a single seed that creates an abundance of zucchini, and enough seeds to plant your own garden and your neighbor’s.

2. Harvest something.
From the very first nettles and dandelions to the last leeks and parsnips dragged out of the frozen ground, harvest something from the garden or the wild every day you can. Be aware of the bounty around you realizing that there’s something - even if it is dandelions for tea or wild garlic for a salad - to be had every single day. Independence is really appreciating and using the bounty that we have.

3. Preserve something.
Sometimes this will be a big project, but it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t take long to slice a couple of tomatoes and set them on a screen in the sun, or to hang up a bunch of sage for winter. And it adds up fast. The time you spend now is time you don’t have to spend hauling to the store and cooking later.

4. Prep something.
Hit a yard sale and pick up an extra blanket. Purchase some extra legumes and oatmeal. Sort out and inventory your pantry. Make a list of tools you need. Find a way to give what you don’t need to someone who does. Fix your bike. Fill that old soda bottle with water with a couple of drops of bleach in it. Plan for next year’s edible landscaping. Make back-road directions to your place and send it to family in case they ever need to come to you - or make ‘em for yourself for where you might have to go. Clean, mend, declutter, learn a new skill. Independence is being ready for whatever comes.


5. Cook something.
Try a new recipe, or an old one with a new ingredient. Sometimes it is hard to know what to do with all that stuff you are growing or making. So experiment now. Can you make a whole meal in your solar oven? How are your stir-fried pea shoots? Stuffed squash blossoms? Wild morels in pasta? Independence is being able to eat and enjoy what is given to us.

6. Manage your reserves.
Check those apples and take out the ones starting to go bad and make sauce with it. Label those cans. Clean out the freezer. Ration the pickles, so you’ll have enough to last to next season. Use up those lentils before you take the next ones out of the bag. Find some use for that can of whatever it is that’s been in the pantry forever. Sort out what you can donate, and give it to the food pantry. Make sure the squash are holding out. Independence means not wasting the bounty we have.


7. Work on local food systems.
This could be as simple as buying something you don’t grow or make from a local grower, or finding a new local source. It could be as complex as starting a coop or a farmer’s market, creating a CSA or a bulk store. You might give seeds or plants or divisions to a neighbor, or solicit donations for your food pantry. Maybe you’ll start a guerilla garden or help a homeschool coop incubate some chicks. Maybe you’ll invite people over to your garden, or your neighbors in for a homegrown meal, or sing the praises of your local CSA. Maybe you can get your town to plant fruit or nut producing street trees or get a manual water pump or a garden put in at your local school. Whatever it is, our Independence days come when our neighbors and the people we love are food secure too.


Sharon does have one of those challenge buttons at her blog and provides the html code. I couldn't seem to get the html code to work so don't have the button on this blog -- yet. But I will make weekly reports, I think, about how I'm handling my Independence Day Challenges.

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Iraq war has me down; in another venue doing something positive to counter the malaise

Not the usual kind of content or material that I post to my Dying to Preserve the Lies blog. I have other blogs for other elements of my life, and sometimes there is a cross-over. Somehow, I think the post I'm sharing here is a crossover -- well, for me, and where I am with myself after 5 years of activism in trying to bring conclusive end to Iraq war. I'm activism weary, war-weary, military family weary, and in trying to resume areas of our lives that I've let drift in my activism intensity, I am reminded of old teachings about the need for balance in our lives in order to have the stamina, strength to pursue with passion the things we love.

Well, I surely don't love anything about the Iraq war, and I grow disheartened with the repetition in the activism activities seemingly not getting any better results in year 5 than in year 1 of the Iraq war. I never much liked politics and these days like it even less and yet politics governs aspects of our daily lives in powerful ways, that ignoring the fact of politics is perhaps why we find ourselves as a country and nation where we are now.

But in the feeling of defeat that direct activism, direct head on activism to end Iraq war, to get out troops home has not brought about that result, I am in need of finding things I can do that bring about positive influence. Being a young wife and mother in the 1970's, I appreciated the back to earth living principles of that time that are revived in 2000 with a whole new look - sustainable living. Before it was called sustainable living in reaction to global climate warming, it was known by other names; homesteading, spirit of independence within community, simplistic living, abundant living, meaningful living, reductionism, communes, living off the grid, communities caring for each other, self sufficiency and/or any other labels by which the lifestyle is called.

Before 2001, before this country's Administration decided to invade Iraq, I was on my own path towards reviving some of those old skills while we tried to fly in the face of the norm by reducing to a one-income household. And along the way, we kept up with that goal, but only with my half-hearted attention and not half the measure of the intensity and focus I was giving to my calling as a military family to speak out in opposition to Iraq war as exploitive of the principles our military holds dear.

My son-in-law says goodbye to his wife and children (my daughter and three grandchildren) to leave next week for his second deployment to Iraq. It will be another extended 'stop-loss' 15 month deployment for him. It is being whispered that it will be an 18 month deployment, a rumor prospect that once he and his unit arrive in Iraq, another 3 month extension, 'stop-loss' will be added on top of the already 15 month stop-loss deployment. I feel a deep sense of personal failure, a difficult sense of futility in not being able to do enough or the right kinds of things that would have prevented he and all the troops from having to do repeat deployments.

Out of that sense of futility, I find myself uninspired to participate with any of the planned 'anti-war' activist projects. I recognize this is not a good place to be with myself, personally. I also recognize that one of the strategies that does seem to be working in holding the supposed 'anti-war' movement in check is that activist will tire and get weary and lose stamina, lose intensity, lose focus, lose heart.

Much as I'd love to see a nationwide 'Consumer Strike' where no one purchased anything for a week or more; or everyone didn't go to work for several days; or everyone got out into the streets to express their concern with the multitude of current issues that are breaking down our country; or my deep concern that a military draft will have to be introduced at some point bringing about the furor of concerned parents and a military draft is not something I want to see but given that the current military is spent and exhausted and no end in sight to war in the Middle East.....

In turning my attention to some positive kinds of things we can do, with absolute results, I post the below as part of my own respite. How does this help ---- well for one thing it suggests in positive ways how to create and build community - commonality - communities caring for each other and looking out for each other, the foundation stones of stewardship for caring for our very home on this planet. Stewardship, caring, actively engaging --- all these are principles that, I like to think, can unite us towards life-giving pursuits, detouring us from this path of fostering hate-mongering and destructive pursuits.

Doing Something Positive - The Urban Pioneers are doing it, so can we!

Excellent video encapsulating wide array of concepts in Sustainable Living. These Urban Pioneers got a jumpstart back when it was called self-sufficiency- meaningful living, abundant living, simplistic living, getting off the grid. And they go even further back ... see the video below. Big hat tip to Path To Freedom Journal blog.



from the Path to Freedom Journal blog 'about us'
On 1/5th of an acre, this family has over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The homestead's productive 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds (3 tons) of organic produce annually,providing fresh vegetables and fruit for the family’s vegetarian diet along with a viable income.


In addition they have chickens, ducks, goats, brew their own biodiesel (made from waste (free!) vegetable oil) to fuel their car, compost with worms, solar panels provide their electricity needs, a sun and earthen oven is used to cook food in.

Read more

Doing Something Positive - The Urban Pioneers are doing it, so can we!

Excellent video encapsulating wide array of concepts in Sustainable Living. These Urban Pioneers got a jumpstart back when it was called self-sufficiency- meaningful living, abundant living, simplistic living, getting off the grid. And they go even further back ... see the video below. Big hat tip to Path To Freedom Journal blog.



from the Path to Freedom Journal blog 'about us'
On 1/5th of an acre, this family has over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The homestead's productive 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds (3 tons) of organic produce annually,providing fresh vegetables and fruit for the family’s vegetarian diet along with a viable income.


In addition they have chickens, ducks, goats, brew their own biodiesel (made from waste (free!) vegetable oil) to fuel their car, compost with worms, solar panels provide their electricity needs, a sun and earthen oven is used to cook food in.

Read more

I found a couple of sites today where it looks like people are taking consuming less, conserving more, being environmentally conscientious to the next levels - trying to find alternatives to being purchasing consumers.

I love it, because quietly that is what my husband and I have been doing for several years now, rather contrary to the mainstream of buy, buy, buy. Guess I've been a bit self conscious about it, but now that it is gaining popularity, looks like we're a bit ahead of the curve.

For us, the lifestyle change provided us with a challenge to buy less, conserve more, re-use and find creative ways to make a single income budget work for us. We were both in career employment, social work, and permanent employees of State of Washington. And the benefits include retirement, health insurance, paid vacation and sick days. That is almost becoming obsolete in these times, isn't it? So why would I leave such a job? Short story is that I broke my public service job before in leaving so I don't have retirement accumulation for consecutive unbroken service. I took out my retirement contributions so when I return to state service, my retirement begins all over again, as if I am a brand new, first time employee.

Already having that history behind me, I would have to work another 18 years to actually get retirement benefits and that has been an uncomfortable stretch for me to envision. When the U.S. military was ordered to invade Iraq in 2003, my daughter's husband was deployed, and she was left alone with their three children. A rule of employment with State service requires neutrality on discussion of politics in the workplace. I looked down that road and realized there was no way that I would or could retain neutrality on the politics of Iraq war. I believed my time would be better served trying to be 'there' for my daughter and grandchildren.

My husband and I discussed and agreed that my leaving would bring us up short on budgeting, but he is committed to my developing my artistic side (home, garden, oil painting, and such) and agreed politics of Iraq invasion or not, our coupleness was better served with me at home and him retaining the employment income. I left my employment August 2003. I do not regret doing it, and helping out where I could with my daughter and grandchildren while son-in-law was deployed to Iraq was immeasureable in terms of lost budget dollars for us. I actually became quite the military family speaking out activist against the Iraq war over the years since then, but that is a quite different blog.

We learned to give up purchasing 'things' we at first believed we couldn't afford. But over time that thinking changed to 'things' we didn't actually need but were more in the habit of buying and thinking we needed them. The challenge became trying to find ways to do more with less, live a quality lifestyle purchasing less - consuming less, live a meaningful lifestyle of choice. Now the trend is moving towards sustainable lifestyle, environmentally conscientious lifestyle, consuming less lifestyle.

Sometimes for some it is very intentional, sometimes for others it is the forced circumstances that cause lifestyle changes. However people arrive at trying to make more out of using, spending, consuming less, people arrive at various points on the continuum. I like the idea of sharing ideas, oldsters and youngsters, as my generation and the generation before me have much good 'old fashioned' learning to pass along. And the youngsters are very clever at making what is old seem very new, refreshing, charming, and they bring new information to cleanse away old information that has, in fact, become dated. They bring a 'makeover' quality with them as they embrace the consuming less, recycling, sustainable lifestyle. I find it energizing and exciting.

I think, for example, of my oldest daughter and her family, who through circumstances had a spiralling decline in income and literally have had to find their way back via the pulling up from the bootstraps method. Along that journey, though, I believe, they have found some meaningful changes in thinking that enriches their lives rather than takes away from their lives. Her experiences though, are not mine to tell, they are hers to tell in her own way, in her own time.

It would be a mistake to glorify reduced income, reduced circumstances when it can, in fact, interfere with a person or family's well being. It's not my intention to do that here, but the definitions for what is a person's or family's well being is subjective. Buying the latest gizmo is not buying happiness or reward - it is simply feeding the consumer machine and the consumer machine has had decades to develop marketing strategies designed to make consumers out of all of us from early childhood. Perhaps, along the way of this blog, I will get into more about that, but for now, it's not hard to find the information and begin learning just how much of an indoctrinated consumer we have all become.

So - with that I give you the blog I bumped into today - Compact - which has this intro

1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socio-economic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc. -- a step, we hope, inherits the revolutionary impulse of the Mayflower Compact; 2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er); 3) to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact)

and a link there to Revernd Billy and the Church of Stop Shoppping.

I've given only a precursory glance over, but it does make me smile and capture my imagination, so I wanted to blog it here.

posted by Lietta Ruger

Read more

So we aren't the only ones wanting be less consumer or consumerless

I found a couple of sites today where it looks like people are taking consuming less, conserving more, being environmentally conscientious to the next levels - trying to find alternatives to being purchasing consumers.

I love it, because quietly that is what my husband and I have been doing for several years now, rather contrary to the mainstream of buy, buy, buy. Guess I've been a bit self conscious about it, but now that it is gaining popularity, looks like we're a bit ahead of the curve.

For us, the lifestyle change provided us with a challenge to buy less, conserve more, re-use and find creative ways to make a single income budget work for us. We were both in career employment, social work, and permanent employees of State of Washington. And the benefits include retirement, health insurance, paid vacation and sick days. That is almost becoming obsolete in these times, isn't it? So why would I leave such a job? Short story is that I broke my public service job before in leaving so I don't have retirement accumulation for consecutive unbroken service. I took out my retirement contributions so when I return to state service, my retirement begins all over again, as if I am a brand new, first time employee.

Already having that history behind me, I would have to work another 18 years to actually get retirement benefits and that has been an uncomfortable stretch for me to envision. When the U.S. military was ordered to invade Iraq in 2003, my daughter's husband was deployed, and she was left alone with their three children. A rule of employment with State service requires neutrality on discussion of politics in the workplace. I looked down that road and realized there was no way that I would or could retain neutrality on the politics of Iraq war. I believed my time would be better served trying to be 'there' for my daughter and grandchildren.

My husband and I discussed and agreed that my leaving would bring us up short on budgeting, but he is committed to my developing my artistic side (home, garden, oil painting, and such) and agreed politics of Iraq invasion or not, our coupleness was better served with me at home and him retaining the employment income. I left my employment August 2003. I do not regret doing it, and helping out where I could with my daughter and grandchildren while son-in-law was deployed to Iraq was immeasureable in terms of lost budget dollars for us. I actually became quite the military family speaking out activist against the Iraq war over the years since then, but that is a quite different blog.

We learned to give up purchasing 'things' we at first believed we couldn't afford. But over time that thinking changed to 'things' we didn't actually need but were more in the habit of buying and thinking we needed them. The challenge became trying to find ways to do more with less, live a quality lifestyle purchasing less - consuming less, live a meaningful lifestyle of choice. Now the trend is moving towards sustainable lifestyle, environmentally conscientious lifestyle, consuming less lifestyle.

Sometimes for some it is very intentional, sometimes for others it is the forced circumstances that cause lifestyle changes. However people arrive at trying to make more out of using, spending, consuming less, people arrive at various points on the continuum. I like the idea of sharing ideas, oldsters and youngsters, as my generation and the generation before me have much good 'old fashioned' learning to pass along. And the youngsters are very clever at making what is old seem very new, refreshing, charming, and they bring new information to cleanse away old information that has, in fact, become dated. They bring a 'makeover' quality with them as they embrace the consuming less, recycling, sustainable lifestyle. I find it energizing and exciting.

I think, for example, of my oldest daughter and her family, who through circumstances had a spiralling decline in income and literally have had to find their way back via the pulling up from the bootstraps method. Along that journey, though, I believe, they have found some meaningful changes in thinking that enriches their lives rather than takes away from their lives. Her experiences though, are not mine to tell, they are hers to tell in her own way, in her own time.

It would be a mistake to glorify reduced income, reduced circumstances when it can, in fact, interfere with a person or family's well being. It's not my intention to do that here, but the definitions for what is a person's or family's well being is subjective. Buying the latest gizmo is not buying happiness or reward - it is simply feeding the consumer machine and the consumer machine has had decades to develop marketing strategies designed to make consumers out of all of us from early childhood. Perhaps, along the way of this blog, I will get into more about that, but for now, it's not hard to find the information and begin learning just how much of an indoctrinated consumer we have all become.

So - with that I give you the blog I bumped into today - Compact - which has this intro

1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socio-economic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc. -- a step, we hope, inherits the revolutionary impulse of the Mayflower Compact; 2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er); 3) to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact)

and a link there to Revernd Billy and the Church of Stop Shoppping.

I've given only a precursory glance over, but it does make me smile and capture my imagination, so I wanted to blog it here.

Read more

Leaving an impression of an imprint..sustainable living choices.

Leaving an impression of an imprint, an outline of a footprint, instead of Bigfoot evidence of squandering resources - sustainable living. A more respectful way of taking and giving back and leaving something for the next generation(s). Pass it forward.

What has been a journey for us that started years earlier, has taken on differing identifying terms as the definitions have changed. Sometimes definitions cross paths, creating junctions, and it is at the junctions that I stop and take notice that where I thought I was headed is a direction many others have willingly taken.

Meaningful, intentional lifestyle living in respect for Mother Earth. New definitions include sustainable living; concerns of global warming but there were definitions trying to point in that direction that preceded these current popular definitions.

So yes, I prefer that my husband and I leave an impression of an imprint of our lives and stewardship for the resources we've used and returned.

Thus, begins linking up some of the blogs and websites that point to the broader definitions that are inclusive of meaningful, intentional lifestyle. Some people have more choices in making deliberate lifestyle changes where other people wind up making lifestyle changes due to changes in their own life circumstances. Single mothers, loss of career or job, changes in economy, catastrophic life changes, catastrophes of nature - forced reductionism. Whether you arrive by choice or by circumstances, there is much to be said for consuming less, choosing more deliberately, and finding the pleasure and joy of living more connected to the flow of Mother Earth, nature.

I'm not there yet, don't pretend to be more than a traveler on a journey to getting there, but along my own travels, I can write of my own experiences. Perhaps other travelers will join me, perhaps we will meet up at the junctures that mark this journey as more than one path, more than one highway, more than one journey that criss crosses the map of life.


For my husband and myself, at our mid-life ages, our goals and hope is to move into our later years with vitality, healthy habits, and fill our life with the joys of living amongst Creator's gifts and nurturing those gifts.

We live on lands considerd Estuaries; we live in area still considered by some wilderness; we live in a tiny community which is more fishing village than town; we live among a way of life that still reaches back into yesteryear. We are about to be 'found' among developers and commercial enterprises, but for now, we still enjoy a treasure of a lifestyle that we have deliberately sought out for ourselves.

posted by Lietta Ruger

Read more

Leaving an impression of an imprint..sustainable living choices.

Leaving an impression of an imprint, an outline of a footprint, instead of Bigfoot evidence of squandering resources - sustainable living. A more respectful way of taking and giving back and leaving something for the next generation(s). Pass it forward.

What has been a journey for us that started years earlier, has taken on differing identifying terms as the definitions have changed. Sometimes definitions cross paths, creating junctions, and it is at the junctions that I stop and take notice that where I thought I was headed is a direction many others have willingly taken.

Meaningful, intentional lifestyle living in respect for Mother Earth. New definitions include sustainable living; concerns of global warming but there were definitions trying to point in that direction that preceded these current popular definitions.

So yes, I prefer that my husband and I leave an impression of an imprint of our lives and stewardship for the resources we've used and returned.

Thus, begins linking up some of the blogs and websites that point to the broader definitions that are inclusive of meaningful, intentional lifestyle. Some people have more choices in making deliberate lifestyle changes where other people wind up making lifestyle changes due to changes in their own life circumstances. Single mothers, loss of career or job, changes in economy, catastrophic life changes, catastrophes of nature - forced reductionism. Whether you arrive by choice or by circumstances, there is much to be said for consuming less, choosing more deliberately, and finding the pleasure and joy of living more connected to the flow of Mother Earth, nature.

I'm not there yet, don't pretend to be more than a traveler on a journey to getting there, but along my own travels, I can write of my own experiences. Perhaps other travelers will join me, perhaps we will meet up at the junctures that mark this journey as more than one path, more than one highway, more than one journey that criss crosses the map of life.


For my husband and myself, at our mid-life ages, our goals and hope is to move into our later years with vitality, healthy habits, and fill our life with the joys of living amongst Creator's gifts and nurturing those gifts.

We live on lands considerd Estuaries; we live in area still considered by some wilderness; we live in a tiny community which is more fishing village than town; we live among a way of life that still reaches back into yesteryear. We are about to be 'found' among developers and commercial enterprises, but for now, we still enjoy a treasure of a lifestyle that we have deliberately sought out for ourselves.

Read more