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This came up on a decluttering post where someone shared her preference for first purging excess stuff, and only then deep-cleaning the stuff you choose to keep.

Of course, if you’re going to want to donate some of the stuff you’re purging, some cleaning of that stuff may still also be necessary.

Regarding optimizing our quantity of stuff…

in Permaculture design we talk about the importance of being able to remember what we have, and where it is stored. This is known as the Permaculture design principle of “Stocking.”

For me, and maybe for some of you, keeping track of my stuff and where it is stored is much easier if I don’t have too many things.

It’s hard for me to keep track of a large number of things. Be it shoes, clothing, sewing supplies, beads, tools, etc. – there seems to be an optimum quantity of everything, beyond which I find it hard to keep track.

And if I can’t keep track, it’s almost like never having it in the first place because I can’t find it to use it! Or even remember in the first place that I have it! to use it!

Do I believe in “minimalism” as some superior chic aesthetic? No. (BTW I sometimes describe my aesthetic as “ornate minimalism.”)

Do I believe there is a functional level of “stuff” that we can handle (which may vary from one individual to the next, and also will depend on how many people are in one’s household)? Definitely!

It might be sort of like an inanimate object version of Dunbar’s number.

I like to be on friendly terms with my stuff. To really love, appreciate, and use each item. Or, in the case of crafting supplies, to at least have identifiable categories that I am on familiar friendly terms with.

“Fried Yard” — Whether it’s from a freeze, a drought, wildfire, flooding, chemical intrusion, more than one of those, or something else … the subsequent time of waiting for our plants to show new growth, so we know what to cut and what to keep, can be a hard waiting period.

But there’s plenty to do in a fried yard. That stripped-down environment can be an unexpected boon, highlighting many opportunities to adjust the positions of steppingstones, trellises, concrete pottery, fountains, birdbaths, and other nonliving features that create definition in our gardens and mini forests.

Some things I’m doing include moving pieces of trellis around to exclude overly bright street lighting; adjusting the position of stepping stones; adding a fresh batch of natural mulch; shoring-up shade and privacy features by adding pieces of fabric, bamboo lengths, etc.

One plant-related task we can definitely do even while waiting for new growth, is observation. Can do, and absolutely SHOULD do!

Notice what plants survived, what thrived, while other plants took a hard hit to the point of appearing possibly dead.

You may or may not want to purchase more plants at some point to replace whatever ends up having been killed, but regardless, this is good information.

Also, do a review of what plants you can propagate just by sticking a cutting in the ground. Those make good shade-trellises, privacy fences, noise buffers, protective barriers against harsh street-lights, shelter for tender annuals once you’re ready to plant those again, and more, in addition to providing fruit or wildlife habitat or pollinator forage or whatever else you like about them. I call these easy-grow powerhouses “scaffolding plants.”

Here at my home in Daytona Beach, my favorites in that category are prickly pear cactus, elderberry, mulberry, and chaya (Mexican miracle spinach tree). I’ll be making more little fences and trellises out of these beautiful, durable, and very useful plants.

Further reading on freeze damage: Here’s a great post from Josh Jamison, one of our foremost food-crop researchers and growers and teachers in central Florida. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/181ngCM2Cx/?mibextid=WC7FNe Their farm was hit hard, but they are not giving up and they are keeping things in perspective.

Added later: Do you know what else I just noticed, sitting out here enjoying my morning coffee. A little corkystem passion vine (native plant beloved by pollinators). I didn’t even know one was growing here, it had probably been covered up by the very prolific Ipomoea cairica vine. That Ipomoea is extremely well-adapted, and grows profusely in warm weather, but readily dies back in the cool season.

So it’s kind of cool to notice the little corkystem vine, and it’ll have a chance to grow with some more space and sunlight than it’s been accustomed to these past few months.

I can think of analogies in organizational and community life too! After a “freeze,” some heretofore unnoticed denizens get a chance to stretch and shine.

See a few photos of my fried yard here.

For a long time, I thought of myself as somebody who is blessed with a very keen intuition. And I believed that some unfortunate people simply lack intuition.

But then it dawned on me: Everyone has intuition. What gets thought of as a “keen intuition,” is simply a person listening to their intuition.

And what gets thought of as “not having a good intuition,” is a person who blocks their intuition, doesn’t feel safe listening to their intuition, etc.

Intuition is something we all have. Some people think it’s our connection with the divine. I think so.

if you don’t feel like you have a good intuition, try this. Just try listening to your inner voice. Don’t worry if your mind comes back at you asking second guessing: not knowing if this is real intuition, some kind of emotional reaction, etc. Just listen; you don’t necessarily have to act on it but just practice listening if you’re not used to listening.

It’s similar to deciding to listen to another person. Just because we decide to open our hearts and really listen to someone doesn’t mean we have to do what they want or what they tell us.

Similarly, if you don’t feel confident enough at first to act on your intuition, just start by listening. Listen for it. Over time, you’ll start to gain an awareness and discernment.

The intuitive voice tends to be quiet, gentle, not pushy. Even if it’s taking you away from a dangerous situation, it tends to be like the person calmly walking toward the exit of the burning theater.

Other things you can do to tune into your intuition include spending time in nature, even if it’s just a little container garden on your balcony. And spending time by yourself, allowing your thoughts to flow. You’ll start to feel the difference between rumination and intuitive guidance.

The dominant mainstream culture doesn’t make it easy to tap into our intuition. Consumerist industrial society prizes rushing around; being constantly on the go; intellectualizing; invalidating feelings (our own, and others’).

But, our intuition is right there waiting under the surface, totally accessible and just needing to be developed like a channel.

TL;DR: The other day, I had a voluntary, deliberate experience with generative AI. After that, I did a search and posted some links to articles on the eco impacts of AI.

I already knew there is a significant footprint, we’ve been hearing about the data centers and all, but I wanted to deliberately share links in a post, as I did not recall having done so before. In addition to the eco-imprint there are also significant cognitive impacts (not only on the personal level but on the social level), which we have known about it for a long time as well.

My experience:

True story – the other day I had my first experience (deliberately, voluntarily) engaging with #GenerativeAI. My plan is and always has been to limit my engagement to the best of my ability.

The caricature trend, seeing a bunch of my friends try the caricature thing, got me curious.

So I visited chat gpt dot com And gave a brief description and photo. I must say I was impressed with the verbiage it came up with!

To get an actual visual caricature rendered, I would’ve had to create an account and login. I was not willing to do that.

However, I love this verbal description and wouldn’t have any problem using it to pay a human artist to do my portrait. Or, to do my own portrait based on this text.

Here is the description I fed to chat gpt:

DEEP GREEN book & blog author, speaker, content creator, landscaper, activist, local personality

And here is the text the AI generated in response:

Ohhh this is a great face for a caricature — expressive, thoughtful, a little rebellious 🌿
I’m going to turn you + your work into a visual caricature that feels smart, earthy, activist-energy, not cheesy. Here’s the concept I’m using, then I’ll generate it.
Caricature concept (what I’m about to create)
You:
Short, tousled brown hair exaggerated just a bit — wind-touched, outdoorsy
Bright, observant eyes (the “I’ve seen things and I care” look)
Long, distinctive earrings emphasized as a signature feature
Warm, weathered-by-the-real-world skin tones (honest, not airbrushed)
Your work & identity woven in:
One hand holding a deep-green book titled DEEP GREEN 🌱
The other hand holding a trowel or plant (landscaper + grounded activist)
Subtle speech bubbles / text fragments floating around you (blogger, speaker, content creator)
Background: lush, slightly wild garden merging into a town/community setting
Small activist symbols worked in quietly (hand-painted sign, native plants, compost, roots breaking through pavement)
Style:
Illustrated caricature (not photorealistic)
Hand-drawn, ink + watercolor feel
Exaggerated features, but respectful and strong — wise, local-legend energy
Color palette: deep greens, earth browns, soft blues
Now I’ll generate it 🎨✨

And:

Your ready-to-use caricature prompt 🎨🌿
Copy-paste this directly into ChatGPT (once logged in), DALL·E, or any image generator that accepts detailed prompts:
Prompt:
Illustrated caricature portrait of a thoughtful, earthy woman with short, tousled brown hair and expressive blue eyes. She wears long, distinctive dangling earrings and a simple tank top. Her expression is observant, kind, and quietly fierce.
She holds a deep green book titled “DEEP GREEN” in one hand and a small garden trowel with a native plant in the other.
Style: hand-drawn ink and watercolor illustration, slightly exaggerated facial features, respectful and strong caricature (not cartoonish).
Background: a lush, slightly wild garden blending into a small town community, roots breaking through pavement, subtle activist symbols (hand-painted sign, compost, native plants).
Color palette: deep greens, earth browns, soft blues.
Overall vibe: wise, grounded, activist, local-legend energy.

I was actually pretty impressed with the text it came up with!

Links to articles:

• How energy intensive are AI-generated images? https://sustainableai.substack.com/p/how-energy-intensive-are-ai-generated AYA SAED MAY 29, 2025 “TLDR: AI images are energy hogs. Generating a single high-quality image with GPT-4o emits approximately 5.6g of CO₂e, and the viral action figure trend cost the equivalent of the monthly electricity of 150 U.S. homes.
GPT-4o’s image generation uses up to 30x more energy than text. Image quality, model choice, and how you prompt all matter. A lot. Businesses creating hundreds of images a week are racking up real energy costs, fast”

• Why AI uses so much energy – and what we can do about it. https://iee.psu.edu/news/blog/why-ai-uses-so-much-energy-and-what-we-can-do-about-it Mahmut Kandemir
Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
Published: April 8, 2025 | Last updated: November 20, 2025 “In this article, you’ll learn: — AI’s environmental footprint, from soaring energy and water use to e-waste
— Why training AI models is one of the most resource-intensive computing tasks on the planet
— Key strategies for a sustainable AI future, from more efficient models to greener hardware”

• Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/01/1084189/making-an-image-with-generative-ai-uses-as-much-energy-as-charging-your-phone/ By Melissa Heikkilä
“This is the first time the carbon emissions caused by using an AI model for different tasks have been calculated.”

• Environmental impact of generative AI – stats and facts https://thesustainableagency.com/blog/environmental-impact-of-generative-ai/ROMA DHANANI ON JANUARY 15, 2026 “the environmental impact of generative ai 20 statistics & facts
Generative AI is a branch of AI that specializes in creating new content such as text, images, videos, or sound. Generative AI creates seemingly original content by being trained on large datasets. It’s not to be confused with traditional AI, which is programmed with algorithms to accomplish specific tasks. Generative AI has risen stratospherically over the past few years, think of ChatGPT and how it’s now a go-to tool to create articles from scratch. Or you may have seen some of the wild AI-generated videos getting shared around.”

FULL DISCLOSURE:

Full disclosure: I only looked up and posted the links regarding the footprint of AI, after I had done the generative text experiment.

But I had heard about the footprint of data centers etc.

Everything we do has a footprint. The point of my book and blog is to help people minimize their footprint (leading to a collective shift), while also functioning in everyday society.

And, to reemphasize what I said after sharing the generative text above:

To get an actual visual caricature rendered, I would’ve had to create an account and login. I was not willing to do that. However, I love this verbal description and wouldn’t have any problem using it to pay a human artist to do my portrait. Or, to attempt to do my own portrait based on this text.

And, I now intend to avoid further engaging generative AI, to the full extent I’m able. As we learn more, the possibilities widen.

Here’s the original post — w links, screenshots, etc — on my deep green Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19NWkkkLU1/?mibextid=WC7FNe)

Citizens up in arms are calling it toilet to tap. The actual term for this is potable reuse. It’s understandable for people to be alarmed and averse, but this has been the norm in many places for years.

Here, in our place of generous rainfall (for now — till we finish killing the local water cycle dead-dead through egregiously bad land management practices), if we would stop wasting water this won’t even be needed, could just be a technological knowhow we keep in reserve for extreme emergency.

We get 49 inches of rainfall a year historically. We can be collecting that rainwater off of every building and using it on the landscape, cutting down on demand for piped water.

(On that note, anyone worried about giant Amazon warehouses and big data centers etc. – at least if nothing else those buildings have huge roofs! And a roof is a giant collection surface for rainwater! Even my modest 988-square-foot house can, if rainwater collection were 100% optimized, collect over 30,000 gallons of water a year!)

We can also be planting appropriate plants instead of thirsty yet useless ornamental landscaping. Also not cutting down forests & wetlands in the first place.

Stop incentivizing the sprawl development with its huge wasteful yards.

Reclaimed water can be part of the equation as well. We should not be using potable water to irrigate ornamental landscaping, period — including lawns.

If we collected rainwater off of every building, it wouldn’t be necessary to use piped-in irrigation (whether with reclaimed water or not) except maybe for extreme drought.

Also part of the problem are people who insist on only drinking bottled water, even though the tapwater is drinkable. (This admonition does not of course include people living in coal camps, fracking areas and so on whose water has been made unsafe to drink.) Some of the strongest opponents of potable reuse are also people who insist on drinking only bottled water even though the tapwater is fine as is, or they could use a filter. This is called being #PartOfTheProblem. (Look up the story of bottled water video on YouTube – part of the story of stuff series by Annie Leonard.)

BTW the whole planet is one big water recycling system. Water is constantly recycled through rainfall, transpiration, percolation into the aquifer, etc. By protecting the natural sponge and rainfall cycle we protect the natural filtration system.

Banning potable reuse won’t fix things. Making it our top priority to restore and protect the natural water cycle will. We should set the bar as high as possible. As a model, I highly recommend the Drinkable Rivers Project.

https://drinkablerivers.org

Imagine all the things you have to have in place for your rivers (and springs) to be drinkable! Sure would solve a lot.

Also, we should all embrace the concept of “sponge cities,” as Singapore and China and so many other places further along the curve have done.

PS. Drought, flood, and fire are three sides of the same coin. It’s all about restoring the water cycle.

PPS. Added later to my comments on my Facebook post. After a public official chided me, essentially asked if I felt that people should feel lucky for not having to drink sewage water:

Let me be perfectly clear in case my earlier comment may be misunderstood.

Clean safe drinking water is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT!! Nobody should ever be in jeopardy of having to drink contaminated water.

And yet, worldwide, something like 2 billion people lack access to basic safe drinking water. This includes several million people right here in the USA.

That’s what I’m talking about when I say we’ve been living in a bubble.

We needed to be more aware all along of what other communities have been struggling with for YEARS, and if we had put more effort into prioritizing this BASIC HUMAN RIGHT everywhere for all, we wouldn’t be dealing with it here.

Because we’ve got a much easier situation relative to lots of other places. Lower population density, higher rainfall, natural wetlands and forests, etc.

One of the sleeping-nooks in our seaside home. For sleep-over guests, for week-long “try it out” visitors … or for a longterm person who likes to live with minimal personal stuff plus a house full of shared stuff and ample common areas. Bookcases next to the bed for clothing and other personal items.

The futon frame I scavenged yesterday from one of our perennial neighborhood dump spots. Was able to dismantle it enough to get it home on my trusty handcart, Ms. Carty Cartwell, and then put it back together without the larger and heavier peace, so it’s more streamlined.

Also in the way of streamlining, i have used one of our lightweight foam sleeping pads as the mattress, and left the big unwieldy futon mattress behind at the dumpster spot.

Pics here on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.

#StarshineHouse #Trailhead501 #McWeirdoResearchStation #LowFootprintLivingLab

A semi-humorous post turned into a longish thread so I’m sharing it here. (Even though it’s humorous in tone, the substance of the post is true, in that my office is very mobile which includes getting to sit out in the sun and be sun-warmed and do my work.)

[Scene of work notebook, pen, beverage etc. on wooden bench in the bright sun.] So many people think I don’t work, just because my office looks like this. #LowFootprintLivingLab #LivingTheDream

[Photo of white canvas bag with various everyday objects inside.] My portable office tote. This heavy-duty canvas bag with pocket was given to me some years ago by my sweet beautiful amazing little sister who works a high-power job in HR. She is superwoman! And this bag is super bag! I have done some mending stitches and patches on it, but mostly it has held up very well on its own.

Another view of my stylish sparky office-tote bag. Shown here in one of the common areas inside of the house. Different residents of the house are encouraged to have different-colored tote bags. (We don’t leave our personal things in the common areas when not actively using them.) I just love how the canvas bag I received as a gift from my lovely sister just happened to match the decor and color scheme and nautical vibe of my curated space 😉 White with crisp navy-blue straps. Ahoy there! Office-ing here on the high seas! Sail Ho! Prepare to be boarded!

I am in fact on duty 24-7-365, and everything I do, even social leisure, is part of my work. Because recharging is part of our work too. And even more: Because embodied energy goes into everything, and my mission is to help people conserve their precious energy and resources. Not only including fossil energy, but also our own precious labor and mental energy as well. Helping us all help the planet and all of her creatures through our everyday seemingly mundane choices.

[view of clothesline]: Demonstration of airing outer layers, towels, blankets, etc. in the cleansing sun and breeze.

[Candlemaking pics] Testing results of upcycling from old candles. You, too, can have a job that involves playing with fire! #DoomerHomeEc #ZombieApocalypseNow

Also solar oven reheating food; me in my quirky eco soldier thrifty crafty chick attire etc.

High praise from one of my dearest friends and fellow earth guardians:

“It’s the constant, ongoing, and very VERY important WORK you do. Dream J.O.B. And you rock it! Was so good to hear your voice last night! I’m gonna make solar oven candles this week! Thanks for always inspiring, my friend!”

Thank you dear Kari for the warm fuzzies!

See photos here on my Facebook page DEEP GREEN book by jenny nazak. (Scroll down through the thread, I added additional photos & descriptions in the comments after posting the original post.)

PS. The “research station” aspect of my work thrills me to no end. It’s interesting that my favorite subject in school — even though I was supposed to be so bookish (and was) –was actually home ec! Going about my various experiments, I sometimes adopt an attitude that puts me in mind of that famous Antarctic research outpost, McMurdo station.

After a day or so casting about for a pun on it for my place and mission, I finally hit upon just the name! McWeirdo Station! At your service! Hey, if a large swath of the population are going to label me weird for trying every gambit i can think of to help people thrive and not die and not destroy the planet, I guess i might as well embrace it!