Author: jennynazak

As a kid, I HATED yardwork. We’d come back from a family camping trip to the beach or woods or mountains, where there was NO yardwork, just nature’s beauty.

And back home, the shrubs and lawn awaited us. They had grown shaggy in our absence and had to be beaten into submission by lawnmowers, hedge-trimmers, rakes (at least leafblowers did not exist back then, which was a mercy).
I hated all the work and fuss that was for nothing except complying with suburban cultural norms.

When I grew up, I got into learning about where our food comes from. This led me to spend a bit of time working on small farms. Funny, THAT “yardwork” didn’t bother me at all, because it produced FOOD (and community).

Later, as a climate activist and permaculture designer, I became aware of our damaged soil, damaged water-cycle, declining biodiversity. And learned that a lot of the damage could be mitigated or slowed by replacing toxic manicured landscaping with native and/or adapted trees & plants.

Honestly, I’m a sucker for beauty. Because I was privileged to have early childhood exposure to wild nature, my brain got “formatted” in such a manner that I could never see manicured landscapes as beautiful. To me they were ugly in a cold, smooth, creepy way, plus meant a lot of work and a curtailment of time I’d rather spend walking, reading, daydreaming.

As an adult I’m pretty much that same kid. My yard isnt 100% native, but it is a mini nature park that is a sanctuary and creative incubator for all who spend time here.

Doug Tallamy’s “Homegrown National Park” movement definitely motivated me to step up my efforts. I have started to include this topic in my repertoire of public talks that I give to congregations, neighborhood groups, permaculture classes, etc.

My “maiden voyage” of this presentation happened this past Wednesday at 10, at the environmental learning center in my neighborhood.

For all who are interested, I have just added this presentation to my roster of eco motivational talks about how we as everyday people can help with ecological restoration. It includes tips for responding to typical objections raised by HOAs or other governing bodies. The length of the talk can be from as short as 15 minutes to as long as 2 hours or more, and can be tailored to the needs and mission of your group.

This talk and all my other talks are available to communities and groups everywhere. I do them either hyperlocally or by Zoom (or equivalent) in order to minimize carbon footprint & keep expenses down, allow people to partake from the comfort of their own neighborhoods and not have to be out sitting in traffic, and maximize reach.

Disclaimer: “Save the world” (or “save the earth”) is just a convenient shorthand or figure of speech. It mean save human life on earth. The earth will be fine with or without us. But you knew that already.

Just 4 basic handtools — ratcheting screwdriver; drill (either hand-cranked, or punch drill “Yankee drill” as shown here); small saw; and hammer — can do a lot! You can make or repair lots of things with these.

I once used them to build an entire pallet porch with roof and screen walls at my place in the RV park where I lived for 10 years in Austin. And I use them for smaller projects and repairs all the time, such as repairing a broken chair at my neighbor’s house.

I typically work with materials I find discarded at curbside. Old wood can be super hard and/or crack easily, and old nails & screws can be dullish and rusty. No worries; I just take the extra step of drilling starter holes (pilot holes). If you don’t have a drill, you can make pilot holes by gently tapping with hammer on a skinny nail.

I’ve always preferred hand tools to power tools. And I love projects that divert unwanted materials from landfill and give them new life.

You can see pics here on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page, and see my TikTok video tribute to the tools here. Also check out my TikTok video about using scrounged materials to repair a chair.

As the disasters and pandemic and economic hardships and everything have piled up worldwide, it has crossed my mind to publish an updated edition of my book.

But I decided all it really needs is a preface. Here’s the preface, dated May 2022:

A lot has happened since 2017 when I wrote this book. Everything that’s happened — intensified storms; droughts; wars; pandemic; social upheaval; community violence; housing crunch, worsening income inequality, and other widening economic hardship; disruptions in supplies of food and other essential goods; fuel shortfalls — just underscores the ideas I’m promoting in this book; just makes the information and suggestions herein more valid and valuable.

Public Service Announcement for motorists who don’t see walking, cycling, and bus as real, valid forms of transportation: Please stop saying we pedestrians, cyclists, and public-transit users “don’t have transportation,” when what we don’t have is CAR ownership. We have transportation!

And please stop trying to shame us or scare us into quitting walking & cycling “because it’s dangerous.” Just STOP that please!!!

If YOU really think it’s dangerous, then do something to actually help fix the danger you perceive. Ask your elected leaders/police to crack down on speeding & drunk driving. Teach self-defense to kids, women, or other vulnerable populations etc etc etc.

What about the dangers of depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar from a sedentary lifestyle! I’d rather pick the kind of “danger” that lets me be outdoors and talk with neighbors, meet new people, see cool buildings & beautiful nature close-up.

And if the real reason why you’re wanting me to stop getting around by foot or bicycle is because it makes you question your choices … then hey, go ahead and question your choices! You might find out something interesting and useful. (I always do, when I reexamine my choices and defaults.)

Oh, and you can stop asking me where my shoes are. I expect they’re right where I left them.

My chosen approach to eco-activism is to effect systemic change by motivating people to make changes at the personal and household level.

This presents me with certain ethical challenges, which I attempt to navigate as follows:

• My target audience is my fellow environmentalists, not the general public.

• My target audience is residents of the USA and other wealthy industrialized nations, as we are consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s resources and are setting toxic cultural norms of a “civilized” standard of living. So, I’m not trying to tell residents of India and China and Mexico and South American countries and African countries and so on that they need to cut their footprint.

• I don’t ask or expect anyone to do what I myself am not actually doing. I’m not driving a gas-guzzling car and telling people they should ride bicycles, etc. Or would do if my situation were applicable. For example, I don’t have kids or grandkids, but if the time comes when I settle down with some nice old man and have some “Brady Bunch” insta-grandkids, if I have any input into their education I’ll strongly advocate for homeschool/unschool with a heavy emphasis on the three R’s plus earth-based skills.

• Furthermore, I accept that I’ve been privileged to enjoy things in the past that other people have never had a chance to do. The main example that stands out for me is travel. Just because I now minimize my travel and have pledged to quit flying doesn’t give me the right to tell people who’ve never gotten to travel that they should forgo cross-country trips, visits to other countries, and so on. (I do often try to encourage my fellow environmentalists to purchase carbon offsets for their travel. And I have become very vocal when it comes to flight-shaming politicians who jet all over the world for business that can just as well be done by phone or Zoom.)

• Although the prime motivation for my actions is to benefit the biosphere and all living creatures including humans, I never try to get people to do anything for just that one reason. As important a reason as it is. I don’t try to get people to make changes or take actions unless they’ll get personal benefits in addition to the planetary. So, for example, I never try to get people to purchase “eco” products that will cost them extra money.

— These are the principles I can think of off the top of my head, that govern my advocacy. I may think of more later.

A lit of people think I have a green thumb just because I have a densely planted yard, and because I talk a lot about growing plants for food and wildlife habitat and stormwater mitigation and heat mitigation and restoring the rain cycle and such.

Actually, though, I do not have a green thumb; I’m just very persistent because honestly, plants are non-optional, for the abovementioned reasons and more.

As a person with a NOT-green thumb, who nonetheless feels a strong duty to add as many trees and other plants as possible to our denuded landscape, I am everlastingly grateful for the existence of plants that grow really easily.

There are some plants you can literally grow just by sticking them in the ground. As in, just take a cutting or a twig or whatever, stick it in the soil, and voilà. Sure you might have to water them a bit to get it established, but basically they are a guaranteed success even for someone like me who has a proven ability to kill even the hardiest plants.

Where I live, my go-to’s in this “stick in the ground” category are prickly pear (both spiny and spineless variety), plumeria, chaya (Mexican Miracle Spinach Tree I’ve also heard it called), and a couple of non-edible succulents whose names I don’t know.

Prickly pear is edible (both the pads and the fruit); plumeria offers beautiful fragrant flowers (that are also edible); chaya is delicious and nutritious (but needs to be cooked a certain way to remove toxins, so do your research and don’t just eat it off the tree!!).

But the main thing I value all these plants for is their usefulness in creating a living privacy screen, and some shade. It’s easier and cheaper to make a living fence than it is to build or replace a conventional fence.

A popular fence-plant for drier climates is ocotillo. Here’s a beautiful example of a living ocotillo fence.

And here’s my TikTok video of a living fence I’ve started as a privacy screen for our shaded patio area.

Though not a fence per se, these gorgeous living bridges in India can be hundreds of years old, and I include them here as another inspiring example of how plants can serve as a super durable and lovely part of the human-built environment if we’re nice to them and recognize their value. As Katie Hunt writes in the article on cnn.com, “They’re not the world’s tallest or longest bridges, but a string of humble river crossings sculpted from tree roots in India are engineering marvels that contain lessons for modern architects.”