small change

going local

Like so many other people these days, I am making more of an effort to reduce my ecological footprint (no small task living in the suburbs) through all sorts of measures. I have read some of Michael Pollan's books, I have shopped at the local farmers' markets for years, and we also get weekly deliveries of organic produce from local farms -- and, for the last year or so, I have been pretty much a vegetarian for all practical purposes.

Reading Wendy Johnson's Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate about her stewardships and cultivation of the organic farms at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, I was struck once again by that desire to garden. But here is the thing: I am not at home in any garden. Not as much at home as I am in the kitchen. I don't think that my way to Zen and making a difference in the world is in the garden. Not even in the Voltairian sense of cultivating it.

My soil, that which the gardener starts with, is the gardener's reward: the fruit. I have always been a translator of sorts, so it is with the world of plants for me, I suppose. I much prefer to cook than to prepare the soil. I am more interested in feeding others than fertilizing the soil. Instead of the company of plant, I prefer to serve those plants to company....

And so I am taking my cooking into more eco-friendly directions these days. Using local produce is just part of it. I am also cooking with the idea of feeding the body, not just satisfying the desire for new tastes. The dehydrator I got a while back is finally getting a lot more use, as I experiment with making crackers out of local vegetables and seeds. Today's experiment involves local sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, cilantro, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and flax, for mortar. We'll see how it all turns out, in about 8 or 9 hours..... And running the dehydrator doesn't take much electricity -- certainly not when we already produce our own with the solar panels on our roof!

 

Seeds

After 15 days of rain and gloom, sun again. And heat. The birds come to the feeder in larger groups and in more varieties. In the mornings, when I go out with the cup of seeds, the bushes tremble and chatter, that's how filled they are with avian forms. The sparrows, the juncos, the finches, the doves, the scrub jays and the quails ... they all take their turn. Some seem to enjoy the mixing, others spend more time fighting with each other than eating, and others yet, keen observes, study the feeding habits of their brother and sisters to learn more efficient ways of extracting the most the can from the various places I place the food.

Inside the house, there are other winged creatures lately, mostly moths. It can't be from the wool I have on hand for those knitting projects. Too soon for such nests. I think these moths come from the bags of bird feed, which makes me worry about the quality of the seeds and that I might be doing more harm and than good by feeding these birds. Only in Marin do people have the luxury to worry about the quality of birdseed, eh?

Which brings me to my latest beef: biofuels. Corn, is Michael Pollan already has pointed out some time ago, is winning the evolutionary game by taking over larger swaths of the earth, using us as its vehicle for expansion. Forget the killer tomatoes and start worrying about the alien corn!

Boifuels are not the solution, if you ask me. Not that anyone cares what I think, but thanks to the Internet, I get to weigh in nevertheless and regardless. In fact, the solution has nothing to do with alternative fuels. But it has something to do with alternatives, definitely. Alternative ways of organizing our living and working spaces -- our communities.

Marginal as I am, there is nothing much of substance that I can contribute to this discussion toward coming up with a solution, let alone make an informed argument. Still, the ideas are there, stashed and sacked, like seeds in that feedbag. Alas, what hasn't been nibbled at by moths is all for the birds....

Forecast

With that gentle sunlight, fluffy clouds,  and calm water, it is hard to imagine that in a couple of days a mighty duo of wind and rain is supposed whip up waves, bend trees, some to breaking point, and cause all sorts of other havoc that is bound to bring misery to some of us. A storm is on its way to my part of California. Nothing unusual or unseasonable about this, given the time of the year. I am, however, weary of storms, having been caught in two of them early in December in Boston, under not the happiest of circumstances either.

Should the neighborhood lose power, we won't be in the dark, thanks to our solar power installation, part of which is a battery that will provide enough power to make it painless for us, as well as eliminate the need for candles and other pollution-generating illumination devices.

Odd, how this step we took to be "green" with our solar setup is the same thing that could (in theory) make it possible for us to carry on as if we were exempt somehow from the jurisdiction of the weather and let us carry on with business as usual.