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Someone in my Facebook circles who I have a high opinion of, who has been a schoolteacher and a community activist and a lot more, was talking about how certain politicians and journalists have failed in their role to reach the public.

” … Well, as a teacher, I could have told him, and DID, that people hear this big word and their brains shut off. Sorry but it’s true. When your students are not reacting appropriately, then you step back and see where the learning stopped. It stopped at big unknown vocabulary. …”

And her observation reminded me that the same is true of how I view my own performance as a community educator/activist.

Since giving up is not an option, I will instead of giving up (“firing myself”) list some causes for educator failure (based on my own assessment of my own failure), and then adjust accordingly.

Wrong words “Repair the hydrological cycle” didn’t work, “restore the natural water cycle” didn’t work (even with all those beautiful experts’ drawings and YouTube links I shared); “puffy landscaping” somewhat got a few people’s attention

Wrong audience Talking w city commission hasn’t worked; talking w Public Works hasn’t worked; ditto talking w code enforcement. Trying to encourage private individuals to get interested in ecological landscaping has started to work somewhat.

Wrong channel City Commission meetings haven’t worked; board meetings haven’t worked; Lecture series hasn’t worked; radio hasn’t worked; neighborhood meetings so-so. My physical live demo landscaping yard has gotten some people interested; and maybe my upcoming fiction work will get some people more interested.

Also, another channel, comedy club, didn’t work so great. But that particular club is a notoriously tough audience, being mostly comics themselves. Might be worth trying other clubs; or just making humorous videos etc. Also humorous book in the works.

Wrong tone Being too friendly and chummy hasn’t worked; being too salty hasn’t worked; being despondent might work but I’m not really willing to go there; some comedy might work – we’ll see how the book goes

Wrong domain State level no, county level no, city level no, neighborhood level so-so. General grassroots non-locational level, somewhat successful.

Wrong person In many cases, I just might not be the right person for a given message or venue. I am noticing that a number of fellow environmental activists in my region are being much more effective. And our goals are the same, so there’s no need for me to stress out if other people are accomplishing the stuff.

Wrong attitude Having a give-up attitude totally doesn’t work. Allowing myself to get frustrated with people totally doesn’t work. Plus I end up feeling bad for being mean to people. Then again, having a super upbeat attitude hasn’t necessarily been effective either. Or proposing really cool creative ideas.

Note: none of the above tones and attitudes are fake or put on; they’re just different moods and modes that I go through and express. But then I will notice that certain things really don’t work, and some things work even less.

Onward! Giving up is not an option.

Interestingly, it seems to be the more comfortably-off demographics who give up easily and talk about wanting to leave the country etc.

And acting very theatrically distraught, talking like they are going to be in mourning for four years or whatever.

Even though they (we) are a lot more insulated from classist/racist policies and therefore would be much less likely to come to harm than so many other groups of people.

I think what it is, is that they are used to being able to buy their way out of any adversity, so they have not really developed resilience (including community-building skills).

As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another day, and we will always have work to do. Before inauguration, carry water chop wood. After inauguration, carry water chop wood.
<emoticon of lady shrugging shoulders like “meh, let’s get on with it”> #RideOrDie

Also I am copy-pasting from a FB post I made the other day. In which I expressed strong agreement with somebody who said — with regard to the escalating disasters, and the eroding insurance and government protections from same — that they actually decided to start leaning in to the dangers and hazards (not in a wild and reckless way but in a very methodical and carefully thought out way):

THIS. Same. On so many levels.

I go where I am called. Which is a big part of why I am trying to tell my fellow white boomers to stop this escape stuff. “Escaping” to other states or other countries where we will be just a bunch of entitled Karen’s. Be here now!

We are not helping anyone by trying to find the best place to escape to. And besides, there really is no place to escape to. Which you know already, if you have been paying attention to the news or even just the weather channel for the past few years or months.

Be with the people you love! Or the land you have developed an affinity for. And if you have neither, just be where you’re at, and really start cultivating community on the ground right now right here.

Please, fellow white boomers, let’s use our resources to help where we are. Sell that second house, cash out your 401k, whatever you need to do. And let’s put some muscle into this. We are all in this together.

Further exploration:

• How perfect. Desireé B Stephens newsletter in my inbox this morning, she is inviting us to 100 days of community. Here’s the link to the live if you’re not able to access them on sub stack. https://open.substack.com/pub/desireebstephens/p/day-1-of-100-days-of-community?r=2v5h8f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true .

Here is an excerpt from Desireé’s newsletter where she introduces the “100 days of community” program:

“I recognize that many people, particularly white folks, are scared, confused, and waking up to a world that has just become starkly real. Suddenly, you find yourselves the hunted, the marginalized, and are realizing that you cannot save us—Black, Indigenous, and other people of color—because, truthfully, you haven’t yet saved yourselves.

“But that’s okay. Rest assured, you will make it through this. And the answer, as it has always been, lies in community.

“When you see the joy and resilience of Black people or the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, what you’re witnessing is the wisdom that we not only survive but thrive. That is the energy I want to guide you toward.”

— Desireé B Stephens

I have been following Desireé for a while, for anti-racism and decolonization work. Here is the link to her “100 days of community” invitation. https://desireebstephens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&coupon=6a0af51e

This has been in the news a lot lately, people leaving Facebook and Twitter in droves, for the supposedly better, fairer new platforms. The intention seems to be to stop supporting corrupt oligarchs. As well as to escape from the increasing enshittification of the existing platforms.

As for my feelings on this subject, I say we’re in an imperfect world and we have to work with what we have. As long as most of the people we want to reach, and learn from, and support economically, and build community with, are still on the “incumbent” platforms, many of us are finding we want to stay where we are. I am in this camp.

And here’s somebody who summed it up really well:

“Have any of you considered that the changes to Twitter, Meta, etc. are intentional to get you to abandon the communities you have cultivated? Communities that have shown themselves to be powerful and they intentionally make these changes to destroy our communities. They don’t care about losing money — they have enough $$. They don’t care. But WE care and WE need these spaces to stay connected. NONE of them are actually “good”. We been doing the best we can.
Block. Mute. Go”
(Transcribed from a screenshot of what appears to be a Twitter post, by feministajones. I would put a link but I can’t seem to find her account.)

And this, from Black Table Talk on Facebook:

“This app [referring to TikTok] was letting too many Black people find alternate income away from slave wages.”

Yes, it has been quite evident that TikTok has been serving that function for Black people (as well as indigenous people and other people of color), and I 1000% want to stick around for that until it is completely demolished.

This is very important to me because TikTok, for a lot of us, was a huge learning portal (and still is? for the moment, to a degree). I learned how to curate my feed to prioritize content from Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color. Learned more about USA history and society in 2 years of being on there, than in my years of history and social-studies class in school. And later on I started finding fellow like-minded white people – lefty anarchists, decolonizing permaculture ppl, etc. I use TikTok as a booster channel, for dismantling colonizer / supremacy culture.

Update: Ugh. OK, it’s official, it’s real. The TikTok ban is actually a full ban. I had heard that it was just banning app updates. Very sad and angry, and horrified. Not really surprised deep down though, the way things have been trending.

Why is TikTok banned? What’s behind the law that shuttered the app? (CBS News) (And, I really don’t buy that China is a threat in the way they are saying. Our government has always tried to get us to look at China as bad guys. Is it to deflect attention from something else closer to home, one might be tempted to wonder.)

Any platform or post can present an unexpected opportunity to promote natural landscaping. I posted these comments in response to someone’s post on next-door. They were saying they are having to learn how to take care of their own lawn, since they have had bad luck with lawn services.

Instead of suggesting they get rid of their lawn, I simply shared information about elements that people can add to their yards. It helped that I had happened to see a display of gardening books at the public library that morning!

I am hoping that the desire for peace, beauty, and comfort & security may serve as a leverage point for people to allow more nature back into their yards.

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You are part of a trend! A lot of people these days are getting back into doing their own yards. There are a lot of advantages, for example, you can really customize your yard to your own tastes and needs.

One of my favorite things, as a landscaper and a homeowner, is creating pockets of beauty and privacy in my yard.

This is a book I saw on display today at the public library. Landscaping for Privacy, by Marty Wingate. I looked through it and there are some beautiful examples of how to make little outdoor rooms and corridors, conceal tools & trash cans, etc. using plants and trellis materials and so on.

Here are some more great resources for people who are getting back into doing their own yards. This is a display of gardening books that I happen to see at city Island library yesterday. Vegetable gardening, privacy landscaping, etc.

Another book was about miniature gardening, which is basically making little dollhouse-size gardens. Not only does it sound like a fun and charming hobby, but it can also be used to test out ideas and plan your yard! Gardening in Miniature, by Janit Calro.

Added later: Another advantage of miniature gardening is that it can cultivate a refined gentleness and sensitivity. A person just has to be a little bit more gentle-handed to make a garden path that’s 1 inch wide, then to work on our usual human scale. Who knows, perhaps the natural appeal of crafting miniature worlds can even help cure the “permie disease” of compulsively seeking ever-larger acreage, when what we need to be doing is staying put and cultivating ever-deeper layers of fertility and abundance in our own existing urban yards and neighborhoods.

See my screenshots on my Facebook post here.

And regarding another post, about a historic house along the oceanfront highway:

Thanks for the info! I have always enjoyed seeing this unusual house along the A1A, and thought for sure it had to be designed by an architect.

And as a landscaper, and beachside resident myself, I love how the current owners have allowed the dense natural beach vegetation to become a defining note. Here’s the Zillow photo of how it looks nowadays.

Not only is this beautiful and affords privacy, but it’s a protective buffer against wind and water and salt. A friend of mine who grew up on the beachside in the 1950s told me a lot of the beachside yards used to be like this, with just a narrow, intriguing pathway through the scrub Palmetto thicket to get to the front door.

(The following was my response to a comment in one of our local eco forums, from a guy who has made his living in the lawn industry for 50 years. Basically saying he has never had a customer ask for native/natural landscaping, even on the barrier island.)

We are not a vocal or visible segment, as far as the sod-layer and lawn-cutter companies with the big ride-on mowers go. But we’re out here.

We don’t show up as a client base because we’re not asking lawn companies to do our yards — they don’t/can’t offer the services we’re looking for. Or in some cases, people with native plants or fruit trees etc. in their yards have had their carefully cultivated plants damaged by the lawn companies, so they have become leery of hiring them to handle the grassy areas of their yards.

Or in some cases, the grassy areas are so tiny that it wouldn’t even be worth a lawn company’s while, if the ride-on mower could even fit. (My yard doesn’t even have any grassy area at all.)

Also, many of us have yards that would be harmed by leafblowing and other activities of the lawn companies.

A few such homeowners go the route of hiring the local neighborhood guy with the push lawnmower. The local solo guy often offers more flexibility as far as not insisting on excessive frequency. And the small mower is less likely to cause soil compaction etc. And here again, this customer segment probably doesn’t even show up on the big lawn companies’ radar.

And there are only a few native/natural landscaping companies in this region as of yet. It’s very much a boutique service. Most of the ones I know are solo practitioners. Or maybe work with one or two helpers. And have little or no mechanized equipment, and no large equipment except the occasional rental for earth works etc.

So, most of us do our own yards. And actually, I suspect that a lot of us in the emerging “natural yard” and “rewilding” movement simply prefer to do our own yards. 

But I think there’s probably more coming, as far as more native/natural/edible landscaping companies emerging in this region as an option for people who prefer to hire a professional service to do their yards.

In other parts of the USA, and even here in Florida, natural landscaping — Including the category known as “edible landscaping” — is at least a little bit more visible as an industry category.[heart smile emoticon]

The company Cherrylake, and a coalition called Outside Collab that it’s part of (along with 1000 friends of Florida and other organizations), are doing great work in promoting awareness of natural landscaping.

There’s an annual conference known as Outside Collab that’s held virtually and in the Orlando area. Landscapers, builders, and others coming together to learn about & promote landscaping options that help with heat mitigation, flood control, restoration of pollinator populations, and all the other life-threatening issues we are facing. Locally, and nationwide, and worldwide.

As well as offering homeowners (and condo & apartment dwellers too) more options for adding beauty and variety to their little piece of ground. [wildflower and ocean wave emoticons]

Also:

For anyone reading this who is interested in finding out why our yards are such a powerful leverage point for addressing flooding, insect die-off, and other deadly serious issues, check out Doug Tallamy – Homegrown National Park.

The basic premise is that the amount of land covered by lawn in the USA totals 40 million acres! Greater than the total acreage of all the national parks! See https://homegrownnationalpark.org

“In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.” — Doug Tallamy, co-founder, HNP

And:

Also: we need to stop wasting money & fuel on constantly laying sod, And then having to constantly maintain it. Particularly on the barrier island. Dune vegetation is extremely hardy, as well as being beautiful. No irrigation required other than rain and dew. People don’t come to the ocean to see mini lawns in the middle of the street. Photo here shows a sidewalk strip where somebody appreciates the beauty and benefits of our natural dune vegetation.

And:

(I know I’m preaching to the choir here. I’m just writing this for the benefit of anyone reading this who might be able to use some moral support because they are dealing with unreasonable HOAs, mow-yahtzees, persistent social norms flying in the face of fiscal prudence & environmental soundness, etc. etc.)

I doubt that, since it’s on the beachside. There are a lot of people on the beachside who appreciate the natural dune vegetation and are not just doing this to be lazy.

Although, in this case, even if they actually were trying to be lazy, they end up doing the more beneficial thing. 

Here on the barrier island, this is a perfect landscape for curb strips and medians. I would expect they don’t hope the city “cleans” it up, because it looks much nicer in its natural state. There are six or seven different types of dune flowers and other plants in that one little space. Many of them are very loved by native bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.

It’s not only prettier but it is better for the environment. So it’s more in keeping with the purpose of this group. DREAM GREEN VOLUSIA!

The persistent idea that natural landscape equals “dirty,” and buzz cut equals “clean,” is a lot of what’s causing our problems with flooding.

The more dense vegetation absorbs more stormwater and creates a healthier soil climate. Healthy soil is better at absorbing stormwater too.

It’s ironic — constant excessive mowing, which we see a lot of all over this area, is not “clean” but is actually extremely dirty because of all the gasoline that’s burned. And there’s the noise pollution of that too. It’s become so normalized we forget to question how violent our so-called “clean” landscaping mentality is. It’s so flat and sterile, it looks benign. But it’s not.

Shine On, beautiful dune wildflowers!

And:

We also need to make our stormwater ponds look more like this. There needs to be less mowed area and more thick vegetation, constantly sucking up the water and keeping the water table from getting too high. And no chemical spraying.

This is one of my favorite ponds in town, great example on Palmetto right across from the Votran transfer station.

There’s another similar pond somewhere along LPGA, or at least there used to be. That one is good because there is a shaved pond right next to it, so it’s a useful study in contrasts. The natural pons are a lot more beautiful, and nurturing to birds and butterflies and other essential wildlife, in addition to filtering pollutants out of water more effectively and absorbing stormwater more effectively. Let’s join the 21st century — do away with shaved ponds! And other excessively mowed and shaved landscaping practices.

And:

PS. Full disclosure: I’m a landscaper also. My specialties include outdoor rooms / privacy niches; natives & edibles; stormwater sponge; biodiversity.

Now that I’m in my 60s, I prefer sending new gigs to the younger people who are just getting started.

My main work I focus on now is writing, design, & other education. But, that said, I still very much enjoy doing my own yard, and this type of gentle landscaping is possible for a person to do well into their old age.

In the photo is a book I picked up just now at the public library. 🙂 I love her style & examples. (Landscaping for Privacy: Innovative Ways To Turn Your Outdoor Space Into a Peaceful Retreat; by Marty Wingate.)

See the full convo, with photos, here in the Dream Green Volusia group.

Two signs:

STOP HOARDING HOUSING! Live in it, rent it out … or sell it to someone who will!

STOP HOARDING LAND! Open it to public use! ReWild it! Stop mowing empty lots.

My new project. I painted signs on both sides of an old piece of plywood (that I had been using for a block party sign some years back). Now I’m putting the sign temporarily in front of various offending properties in my neighborhood, and taking photos. One of the biggest house hoarders conveniently left a sign-hangable post on their property even after the for sale sign was removed. This place is now bank owned (oh yippee — so we go from a local househoarder to a national or global househoarder). [crying and horror emojis]

I’m just hoping to raise awareness and get more people questioning our concept of what property rights are. Maybe they need to evolve. I’m tired of nobody questioning that all someone has to do is keep the lawn mowed, and pay taxes (If they are even paying their property taxes), and that’s all they owe the community. But let someone try to squat there and everyone will be on it like a sonnet.

PS. These vacant properties actually tend to be excessively mowed. Could be native duneflower meadow or scrub or even trees, but it gets mowed constantly so it doesn’t even serve the basic default natural functions of heat mitigation, stormwater absorption, erosion control, pollinator habitat, biodiversity. I have seen lawn crews literally mowing sand.[Angry emoji with mouth taped shut by cuss words]

And, In response to a fellow citizen who commented that she fully supports my efforts, but pointed out that there are county statutes against putting a sign on someone else’s property. And also that, even absent a statute, lawyers just could have a field day with it:

Thank you. And to be clear, all I do is prop up the sign for 30 seconds on a vacant lot or vacant building, so I can take a picture of it. Then I take away the sign. It’s designed to be portable and reusable.

Also, I totally encourage everyone to make their own physical or electronic versions of these signs! If electronic, it’s easy to paste them onto their favorite images of their own neighborhood vacant properties that are creating “rich blight.” And the photos can be taken from the public sidewalk, and then the image can just be electronically pasted on to the photo. In other words there is no need to even go onto a property at all.

The image with sign pasted on can then be posted on social media, shared with local neighborhood groups and local government etc.

I don’t know if I’m the first one who coined the term “rich blight”, but I did mention it in a 5-minute speech I gave back in 2015 called “filling our empty spaces”. It was for the first Daytona Elevate, a mini TED talk type event.)

Further exploration:

• Theaster Gates, Chicago, Black Cinema (Mr. Gates, an African-American potter and activist, was a great source of inspiration for my talk).

• “Filling our empty spaces,” talk by jenny nazak, 2015 on the Elevate YouTube channel.

• Vacancy taxes are a thing in many cities now. I believe strong towns even has some articles mentioning them.

Googled and found this article this morning, after reading a thread on Deep Adaptation about the LA fires. People are asking, “what now” after this disaster that has left communities in ashes. Some respondents pointed out — by way of illustrating what tends to happen, or not happen, in the wake of disasters — people in western North Carolina are still living in tents, in subfreezing temperatures and snow.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14271267/amp/winter-storm-states-americans-living-tents-hurricane-season.html

Notice (in my Facebook post) the second screenshot, which is taken from the same article regarding WNC, a link to an article about fires raging in California.

My reason for including this is that there is an ecological connection between the torrential floods and raging wildfires. That connection is, a broken water cycle. Capitalist global north human activity has disrupted the water cycle. There are ways to restore the water cycle, and some organizations are actively involved in doing so.

One organization I recommend checking out is called Water Stories. Their entire mission is the restoration of the water cycle. Their various channels (email newsletter, website, YouTube etc) offer an incredible amount of information. They also teach workshops. I have often invited my local government officials to attend their virtual workshops. And I have attended several as well. And I have often screenshot their water-cycle diagrams on my various pages, and in my emails to government officials etc.

I also recommend you follow my friend and colleague Chris Searles – BioIntegrity. His strategic small-scale watering experiments in central Texas and across the western USA are showing some very promising results.

And: Any of us that have a residential yard, or even a common area of an apartment building, or are part of a church congregation or school community — we all have an opportunity to help restore the water cycle via our choices of how we manage our little spots of land that we steward. Please get active in giving input to any organization you belong to that has stewardship over a patch of land, even if it’s only a fraction of an acre. What we do with our land management choices not only has immediate effects on the micro water cycle, but furthermore starts a beneficially-contagious visual norm.