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I’m doing a free webinar tomorrow Wed 9/29/21 at noon EST! How to efficiently share other people’s worthwhile posts on social media, but do it in an easy way so you don’t wear out your brain or your calendar or your keyboard. This will be my first go-round of this webinar.

Let’s face it: Sometimes other people’s posts are a lot of work to share!

Like, when someone sends you an email and they want you to share it on Facebook and Twitter etc. Argh, it’s a hassle! Especially those formatted emails — how are you supposed to share those?

Or non-copy-pasteable stuff … So that in order to share it you’re gonna have to retype it all yourself!

Or how do you deal with incessant direct messages by people wanting YOU to be their free PR agency?

If it’s just a spammer, they are easy to blow off. But a really worthwhile org or event, not so much!!

And unlike some government agency or corporate organizer etc who sent you the request to share their post, YOU won’t get paid for this labor!

And yet, when some really worthwhile event is coming up, we feel remiss not sharing it with fellow eco folk! So we end up working our fingers to the bone for hours sometimes … for free! Volunteering is awesome and all, and most of us do this as a labor of love AND climate reality … but hey, we’ve got our own lives, and bills to pay too, right?

With that very real struggle in mind, tomorrow I’ll be sharing some essential survival tips I’ve gained over my years of being a freelance eco educator which includes huge amounts of “sharing other people’s posts.”

Direct Message me to join me tomorrow for this Zoom call. To allow ample time for Q&A, I’m limiting it to 3 participants (now two, since one person signed up already)!

Don’t worry if this time doesn’t work for you. If lots of people end up being interested in this topic, I’ll offer the workshop many more times!! Also I will be recording it, and if there’s a way to share the recording link publicly, I will!

With a few simple hacks … “Sharing other people’s worthwhile events” can be so easy and so much fun!!!

P.S. Oftentimes people are really terrible at sharing their OWN posts. In other words, many people fail to promote their own very worthwhile endeavors. If you resemble this description, webinar will help you too! It’s no service to the planet to write a book, organize an event, teach a class, start a wonderful business — but then fail to promote it. If you (or your organization) fall down on the job of self-promotion, no one gets to benefit from your hard work — including YOU!

Announcement from my friend and permie activist colleague Chris Searles, whose organization BioIntegrity is working diligently to raise awareness of the importance of rainforests, and support indigenous peoples, the people who are doing the most to protect the planet and mitigate climate change.

“Last week Jeff Bezos said, ‘Nature is our life-support system. I was reminded of this when I went into space. I’d heard that seeing the earth from space changes one’s point of view, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true.’

“He was announcing that the next $1B from his climate fund will go to protecting ecosystems in the tropics and sub-tropics, where Nature is most diverse and productive.

“Together, this community has been promoting this kind of action for years. Thank you!

“Check this article for some details.

“This is the second major announcement, this month, from the world’s wealthiest about the value of Biosphere Earth.”

When I posted Bezos’s announcement in one of my permie groups, it drew a lot of snide responses. People are skeptical and I suppose understandably so.

Myself, I’m always excited when someone experiences an epiphany about the importance of the environment. In my own personal experience, coming to eco consciousness (and social consciousness for that matter) is layers and layers of awakenings, with regret and repentance for my past ignorance and selfishness. Not all of us were born with a social conscience. Personally, I have had to do a lot of deliberate evolving in order to become the type of caring and responsible human being I aspired to be.

That said, I do hope lots of other people experience this kind of awakening without having to go up into space. Video footage and images online, and documentary films etc., can be quite wondrous and are free or cheap to look at not to mention the far-lower carbon footprint.

Someone commented, “He could start by paying taxes!”

A valid point – but in a way, this direct billion given directly to ptotecting ecosystems could be better than taxes, because if he were paying it in taxes a large percentage of the money would be going to pay for wars and prisons, as a big chunk of our taxes do in the USA.

I’m uploading a file of my notes from a few of the best webinars, conferences, and other online eco-related educational events I attended in 2020 and the early months of 2021.

My notes are extremely rough and by no means reflective of the full content of the actual events, but I’m sharing them in case they might be of value.

2020 was more than just the dreadful year of Covid shutdowns. For at least some of us permaculturists and climate activists, it was also the great year that taught us just how feasible it is to hold classes and other gatherings online rather than in person. This is not only easier on the planet, but also a lot easier on our own schedules, our personal energy, and our wallets!

This file of my notes “My Year in Webinars 2020” covers all sorts of content from webinars on native landscaping and green infrastructure, to an outstanding gem of a 45-minute presentation on the Dark Skies movement (tackling light pollution and creating beauty), to the UN climate-change dialogues of December 2020, and more.

Post I just saw in a gardening group:

Any advice for veg garden starting/maintenance for when you’ve got nothing in the tank? When I get done working my shifts I’m exhausted for days it seems.

My take (heavily influenced by permaculture design principles and by my own tendency to be lazy):

Start small. Micro, even! Like, just a tiny bed maybe 4×4. Or even just one pot growing 2-3 greens or lettuces you like.

You can always expand as time & energy permits, and as your successes fuel you to do more.

And, very important for your energy & sanity level (as well as health of the plants) — put the garden pot or bed as close as you possibly can to the main door you use to walk in & out of your house.

Also I really like what a couple of other commenters suggested: Instead of working in the yard, try sitting outdoors and enjoying it first. Put a chair in the garden and sit out there after work. Listen, admire, take deep breaths. If you feel like working in the garden at that point, great; if not, save it for another day.

And: Don’t stress about pulling weeds. Let them be; they’ll eventually die and become fertilizer for your garden.

(Or you can chop-and-drop them for that purpose; chopping and dropping is a much more relaxing and less physically taxing endeavor than pulling out unwanted plants. Anyway, at least some of those wild plants could be beneficial natives that are attracting pollinators who will help your food-garden as well as helping the ecosystem as a whole.)

Here’s a post I made to my neighborhood association about the importance of trees. Feel free to copy-paste and use in your communications with your neighborhood group, local government officials, etc.

Also, to see the graphics I’m referring to, you can go here to view the Facebook post. (Our neighborhood group is set to Public, so you should be able to view the post even if you don’t have a Facebook account. If you can’t see it let me know and I’ll forward the graphics to you.)

Hi all! Here are some graphics to go with the announcement I made at last night’s meeting, about the power of trees and other vegetation.

Trees offer numerous benefits:

• Mitigate heat (look at the temperature difference!)
• Absorb/diffuse stormwater, reducing flooding
• Maintain (or restore) the rainwater cycle, easing drought-flood extremes
• Reduce runoff of toxic substances into waterways
• Provide shade
• Improve public health and safety by making it more comfortable for people to go outdoors
• Provide habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.
• Provide fruit, nuts, or other food for humans.
• Add BEAUTY to the landscape.

To learn more about how we can bring nature into the human-built environment to solve problems and save resources, please follow Permaculture Daytona @permaculturedaytona or contact me anytime.

My house and yard are filled with tests of strength, balance, and endurance. I didn’t plan it that way, but that is how it’s become!

And, I like it this way! I think I’ll keep it.

A lot of people would see my setup and say “Jeez, that’s a lot of work!” Following is a hypothetical FAQ for emissaries from mainstream society who wash up on the shores of my tiny urban pocket o’ green:

Q. There are no sprinklers or hoses so you have to haul water by hand in buckets or jugs or watering cans — are you nuts?

A: No. 1) I like to keep track of exactly how much water I’m using. AND how each individual plant is doing. 2) Also, messing with hoses and sprinklers is a pain! And 3) when hoses and drip-irrigation thingees and such deteriorate they become gross plastic waste, whereas my watering cans when they rust just become yard sculpture. And 4) I get a good arm workout plus some cardio from hauling the cans/buckets of water.

Q. The stepping stones are crooked and uneven.

A. Yeah, I confess I’m just not good at leveling them. Every time I go to fix an unlevel stone, it just seems to go off-level on the other side. But it’s turned into a great way to work on my balance and core strength! As I get older I notice my balance isn’t what it used to be, and I need to work at it. Ditto my core strength. The wobbly stones help keep me on my toes, no pun intended. And who knows, they might help repel zombies or other invaders.

Q. You wash your clothes outdoors in a bucket and then hang them on the line?

A. Yup! Easy-peasy, good workout, no water goes to waste, and the sun and wind is by far the best clothes-dryer. Plus, this method helps me avoid being tempted to have a lot of clothes, or thick towels and such that are a pain to wash. And, I get to be outside while I’m doing laundry, while most people are stuck indoors in a dank “laundry room” that has no natural light.

Q. Your setup’s fine for you. I could maybe do it if it were just me, but I have kids and a husband.

A. Cool! More people means more helping hands! If I had kids or grandkids, they’d be outdoors with me hauling water and doing laundry. Except we’d call it “water fights” and “splashing around in the rainwater pool”. But actually, when kids are quite young, they really want to help and want to be involved with what the grownups are doing. I’d make use of that time-window to get kids in the habit of helping. And if I had a husband, he probably wouldn’t be a huge clothes-horse if he was attracted to someone like me. And maybe he’d enjoy my laundry method! Modern society turns laundry into such a lonely drudge and endless treadmill. Automation, meant to save us time and labor, has actually just enabled us to pile on more work. And since the work tends to be done by one person isolated in their home rather than outdoors, together as a family, in community, it’s lonely. The only time I’ve ever remotely come close to enjoying doing laundry the “regular” way is at a public laundromat, where there were people around to talk to or just listen to the variegated multilingual murmurs of conversation. And preferably a sunny window and a door open to the outdoors.

What if more jobs came with housing? This is a question I have often pondered over the years. And all the more so lately, as many people’s housing struggles and other economic struggles have grown.

Late at night, from way in the wee hours til just before dawn, I hear people talking as they walk by my high-foot-traffic corner. Some of them are obviously just tourists or young folks wandering around after a late night at the bars, but others are equally obviously homeless people who either walk around all night, or just stay in one place a couple hours at a time and then move, to avoid getting busted for sleeping.

The Biden administration has expressed interest in starting a Civilian Climate Corps. Analogous to the Civilian Conservation Corps that was part of FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s, the climate corps would employ young people doing things like planting trees, installing solar panels, maintaining trails. In addition to paying wages it would also provide basic shelter. I can imagine a lot of people I know — and not just young ones! — would find this an appealing gig. Maybe even some people who currently fall into homelessness rather than deal with the seemingly ever-increasing challenges of holding up a “normal” life (security deposits, first and last month’s rent, credit checks, background checks, yadda yadda yadda), would be happy to have this option.

Back in the early 1990s when I lived in Tokyo, a lot of the companies where I taught English provided their employees with dorm housing. It was very basic but more than adequate.

My last apartment in Tokyo, where I lived for the final year of my 5 years there, was in the heart of Harajuku, a supercrowded paradise of pop culture and street fashion. Sprinkled among the high-rise concrete-and-tile buildings were older structures, including small neighborhood Buddhist temples and a pre-WWII wooden house. Also there was some sort of shopfront which appeared to be a headquarters for newspaper delivery boys. (There may have been girls there too but I only saw what appeared to be teen boys.) What was this place where they drank tea and warmed their hands around a space-heater on bitter winter days? Was it communal housing or just the place they went to pick up their papers each morning? I never knew; never asked. I always felt drawn to it though.

Same with the mysterious camp I stumbled on in the middle of a multi-day hike around the island of Izu. On a rocky beach (most beaches I saw in Japan were rocky), people appeared to be sheltering in makeshift structures made of corrugated metal propped against or between rocky outcroppings. I recall having the impression that the people were divers; maybe I spotted some diving equipment or something. They did not look to me like recreational tourists or visitors. Were they diving for pearls? Fish? Was this their housing or just their day-camp? So many things you can only guess at when youre on the outside looking in. (I could have asked, but somehow I felt foolish, not knowing what to ask. “Who are you people? What are you up to? Your vibe is so interesting?” In retrospect, I’d have found a way. My language skills were fine and probably all I needed to do was show polite interest.

I’ve often thought city parks should have caretaker’s huts, where someone could live in return for keeping the trash picked up and trimming the shrubs and cleaning the restrooms and so on.

Lately I’ve been delving into ancestry research. One of our family ancestors, the one who fought in the Revolutionary War, lived to be 91! Quite remarkable for back then. He worked as a carpenter and cabinetmaker and he fathered 13 children — nine by his first wife and four by his second wife. Sounds like a full life. I wonder if he started his carpentry career as a young live-in apprentice somewhere? (His father died at 38.)

What would a writer’s apprentice house look like? Would they have writer’s roundtable chats and serve absinthe?

As a kid, I was obsessed with those giant concrete tubes you see lying around construction sites. A person could take shelter in there, and I often thought I could live in one of those if I had to. Looking back, I wonder if my thoughts were just a child’s fanciful musings, or if I somehow had glimpses of a future time, in my own lifetime, where people I knew personally would face much harder living conditions than what I’d been taught were normal.

I once spent three months on a friend’s farm in Austin, painting signs and helping out with cooking and other tasks. I was welcome to sleep in the house but I mostly slept under an oak tree or on the second floor of the barn, where garlic hung to dry from the rafters overhead and I could look out the open end of the barn and see the city lights twinkling in the distance. I wanted for nothing. It was a sweet carefree period of my life, sandwiched between two very stressful periods when I was feeling adrift and very financially and emotionally insecure.

More thoughts on this topic coming later, no doubt! What are your thoughts on how it would be if more jobs came with housing? Have you ever WWOOFed or done some other gig that came with housing?

Update 9/23/21: Just now I googled “jobs that come with housing,” and found many promising-looking links. If you explore any of them, let us know how it goes for you!

Further Exploration:

• coolworks.com: “Unlike a typical employment situation in a city or town, where you go to work and then go ‘home,’ many of the employers posting jobs on CoolWorks.com are located in resort or remote areas. It would be nearly impossible to have an employee live in the surrounding areas and travel to work every day. Because of this, a large majority of employers you’ll encounter provide employee housing and meals. Housing can range from rustic to brand new, from bunkhouse to private rooms, from dormitories to cabins. Some may even include wall tents or camping out.”

• wanderjobs.com: 20 types of jobs with paid room and board

• According to this page on indeed.com, there are even jobs offering free housing in NYC! And my google search revealed a number of other similar NYC job links too. And if housing-provided jobs exist in NYC, you know they surely must exist in some other urban areas too!

• And then there are the fairly well-known old standbys, workamping and WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities On Organic Farms). I know a number of people who’ve done one or both of these.