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This grassroots action [small table with power-strip set up in front of my house, with extension cord plugged in inside the house] embodies the following principles of permaculture design (here I’m using the Mollison framework; one could also just as well apply the Holmgren framework):

• observation
• relative location
• redundancy
• small-scale solutions
• stacking functions

and the following ETHICs of permaculture design:

• care of the Earth
• care of people and other living things
• limit consumption; share surplus

… and possibly more principles too; this is just what I thought of off top of my head.

References you can check out if you have questions about any of the terms I have used in this post and want to delve more deeply:

• Introduction to Permaculture (book by Bill Mollison)
• Google; there’s lots of websites out there explaining the principles & ethics of permaculture design!
• I also recommend taking a PDC; there are MANY options out there: online and in-person; tuition-based, donation-based, and free 💚

PS. Initially I set up this little charging-station for people who still don’t have power after the hurricane, but I think I’m going to have it be an ongoing thing! Lots of people I see and say hi to each day don’t have places to live, and therefore don’t have reliable access to electricity.

#Solidarity #MutualAid #Grassroots #Revolution

Hi All! Power is back on at our place, so if anyone needs to charge a phone or make a smoothie etc come on by.

I’m happy for everyone that the electricity is back on, but to be honest if it were only me, I’d be pretty happy to have at the streetlights out permanently (or most of them
anyway)! I enjoyed such a gorgeous dark starry walk to the beach in the wee hours. The darkness was luscious and emphasized the moon and stars.

And in other news — while the power was down, the solar oven got quite a workout, using up food from our freezer and fridge! Bacon-wrapped chicken, bacon-wrapped burger; casserole of peas, potatoes, pastrami & onion!

Could this be the year that my fellow Volusians finally listen to me about solar ovens? (And rainwater collection)?

I have used a solar oven as my main cooking oven since 2006. Not just for times of disaster! The even heat makes the food taste extra delicious.

Stay safe everyone!!

Here’s a pic of our sun-cooked feast.

‪CAUTION: POLITICAL POST AHEAD.
If you prefer not to see my posts on politics and social equity issues, please adjust your settings accordingly. Or if you don’t know how to do that, send me a private message and I will set my filters so you don’t see my posts of this kind.

All views are welcome here. That said, emotions can run high when discussing controversial issues. Everyone choosing to participate in discussions on my page must be civil, respectful, not attacking, not condescending etc. If in doubt, please set your filters (or ask me to set my filters for you). Or, you can simply scroll past my political posts and just enjoy the variety of other posts I make.

Love you all!

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I wrote this and added it as a preface to my FB post about immigrants/Vineyardgate, and will probably use it as a standard preface for all “hot issues” posts I make on my personal page. If you like it you are welcome to use it on your own page; adapt as you see fit.

You are also welcome to use/adapt the following, which is compiled from comments I wrote in response to a couple of people who commented in a hostile or condescending manner. This verbiage emerged from my desire to find a more constructive way to handle “unfriendly” comments from “Facebook friends who are strangers.”

Maybe we can find common ground about something other than politics. You might resonate with some of the other posts on my page. And, I checked out your page and have found some great stuff! Will Like and respond as time allows.

And the following is in response to a comment from someone who’s a friend “in real life” (and a very kind person who has gone out of her way to help many many people, and animals too) but we have a lot of very differing views. She commented on my post, “You don’t wanna know what I think.” My reply:

I have a pretty good idea what you think. You and I have always known we have different views on many political, economic, and social issues. If you prefer, I can set a filter so my political posts don’t show up in your feed. <heart emoji> And, thank you for being a friend and a great person. Love you!

‪The governor of FL’s shipping people out of state is not only inhumane but short-sighted. And frankly, RUDE.

This occurred to me: If/when large numbers of Floridians become (for example) climate refugees & try to migrate to other states or countries, are we going to expect the people there to welcome us? ‬With each passing year, with increasing natural disasters and all, people everywhere are only going to become more pressed to migrate in order to adapt; we need to be MORE accommodating & flexible to migration, not less. It seems to me that it behooves us to be welcoming; we might well find ourselves in the same position someday.

“… To protect the people of Florida,” he says.

WHITEwash, more like!

Funny, I a white woman do not feel “protected” by this ghoul. #NotInMyName #UnpackWhiteSupremacy #DecolonizeOurMinds

Seriously our national mowing fetish is SO gross and noisy in addition to wasting resources. And he (because it’s almost always a HE, isn’t it — I love men just fine, but honestly sometimes those of you fellow caucasians who are equipped with Y chromosomes have some really annoying tendencies such as idolatry of large mechanized equipment) — And he hasn’t even started in with the edger and leafblower yet, which are even noisier and produce more fumes.

Oh yay now he just started with the giant outdoor noisemaker/vacuum cleaner, whoops I mean leafblower. Ladies, can you imagine if men were this obsessive and diligent about vacuuming floors or picking up socks?? 😂🥰

This is a HUGE vacant lot. We should be letting empty unused lots revert to meadow or forest! Maybe we even need to be incentivizing it, as heat-island effects from excess paving and deforestation continue to worsen.

#GrassKissers please PLEASE for the love of God/dess find a new hobby!!

Go fishing! Go to church! Or hey here’s an idea: PLANT SOMETHING USEFUL like fruits & veggies.

And while we’re on this subject, a note for those of you men who are pleading HOAs and codes as reasons why The Grass Must Be Mowed Period Always Forever Before Anything Else: We could use for more of you men to help with challenging the HOAs and other power structure, as opposed to continuing to uphold it. The powers-that-be will listen to you guys far more than they will listen to us women.

#LawnResistanceTalkingPoints #SaveTheBees #RespectTheWildflowers #SaveTheEarthDontShaveTheEarth #DEEPGREENlawnmemes

Here is a link to the one-minute vid; you might have to Friend me on Facebook to be able to view it.

Getting comments on the FB post already — interestingly enough, from men who rarely if ever come to my page let alone comment!

Here’s my response to one guy (who happens to be a friend):

Reread my comment. NOT man-bashing. You know me better than that.

And re fines and fees: Part of what I would like men to do, is help us FIX (as in dismantle) the fines and fees that support, nay actually REQUIRE, unfair, ugly, eco-destructive practices. Instead, too many of you keep upholding this nonsense. You make our job harder bc the powers-that-be won’t listen to us women the way they will
listen to you!!

And in response to a comment from another guy, re HOAs etc.: Yes sir I am well aware of that. Part of changing things is working to change THAT. Which I am, diligently, on many fronts. We could use for more men to help with challenging the power structure as opposed to continuing to uphold it.

tagging my eco femme comrades-in-arms Kris Tollefsen-Cunningham Elizabeth Lavette Wendy B. Anderson

and a special THANK YOU to the guys out there who ARE helping us challenge the sodgrass hegemony, and all other loathesome manifestations of colonialism and quiet creeping fascism Dennis Hamilton Mike Hoag William Mantz Alan McGill and others 💚

In response to an eco-minded friend who shared a link to a group about mowing with electric instead of gas-powered: Thanks! But you are right — I’m into manualizing, or having it done by goats sheep & cows (yes we can do that in urban spaces too — people have for centuries) — plus either keeping mowing to a tiny bare minimum or else eliminating it entirely. Batteries/electric are less noisy but bring more problems. And, same as gas-powered lawn-appliances, they perpetuate the legitimization of fussbudget vanity-landscaping that is wrecking communities and the planet. PS. I am getting my antique scythe sharpened this week — finally found someone who can do it!

Nutshell: At a historic museum that has gardens, three youths (who were white) vandalized a beehive. Hive-boxes were destroyed and the queen bee went missing. (The proprietors of the facility eventually recovered the queen. Before that, a generous neighbor offered to donate the $150 to replace the queen.)

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They look to be youths. One good community service, restorative justice action might be to have them make amends by learning about bees and giving a presentation for the community. That would even satisfy their “make a video” impulse — they could make a video about the importance of bees!

They could additionally be asked to do a bit of work on the property (maybe picking up litter?). Lilian Place (as well as bees) might end up getting three new advocates!

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<name of person I was responding to> why are you mentioning race here? It seems irrelevant.

<name of same person I was responding to> The picture i saw here shows three young people, all WHITE.

Added a few days later: Very soon after I posted this comment (like a few minutes), it clicked in my mind that he wasn’t talking about the picture. But by the time I went to delete this comment, several people had responded to it, so I left it up in order to keep the conversation-thread intact. And, to avoid giving the impression that I was retracting my earlier comment.

My earlier comment, questioning the manner in which the commenter chose to describe the kids in the park, still stands. This is a nuanced conversation that I’m happy to have with anyone, but in a respectful manner and face-to-face rather than behind a keyboard.

Additionally added the day after my previous addition:

Context is key. Neighborhood vigilantism and mob mentality are well-documented phenomena. As is racial bias in identifying culprits of crimes. It was in that context that I asked my question.

By the way, at the time I asked my question, I was assuming that —-‘s comment about youth in Lenox Park was somehow connected to the bee incident at Lilian Place. I had to read and reread his comment over and over, before realizing he was talking about a completely unrelated incident that didn’t involve ANY of the same kids mentioned by <the person reporting the bee incident> in the original post!

This kind of linkage, lumping things together, gets people’s emotions and imaginations running amok, and before you know it we have mobs with pitchforks.

We need to be particularly careful when it comes to protecting young people and other vulnerable groups from this.

But wait, there’s more! As I texted my neighbor (and then went ahead and posted publicly): I was so grateful for your posting Gary’s DM to you. For many reasons.

1) How deferential and respectful his tone suddenly became, when responding to a man (you) respectfully challenging him, as opposed to a woman (me) respectfully challenging him. (This is a pattern in society; he just happened to be the one illustrating it today.)

2) It gives evidence that even a grown, white, male, homeowner is leery of encounters with the police. And yet he doesn’t see why anyone would be trying to protect 1) young people and 2) Black people from unnecessary police encounters. VERY telling.

Further Reading:

Google: racial bias; wrongful conviction; cross-racial identification errors. I googled “studies show white people misidentify black people in crimes” and found a lot. Also google vigilantism; mob mentality.

Who the heck needs 30k a month and 160 acres?? This is a hyper-individualistic, colonizer mentality. The whole “off-the-grid dream” is a colonizer mentality.

Added later to my comment on the post: I apologize for any confusion or hurt feelings caused by my comment. Where I’m coming from is as a permaculture educator and ecosocial activist who is concerned about some trends I’m seeing within the permaculture design movement.

In a nutshell, I’m concerned that we (meaning my fellow white people in the USA who are interested in permaculture and “homesteading”) are unintentionally bringing a consumerist mentality into our permaculture efforts, thus undermining our movement’s own goals of land access for all.

I want everyone to be able to do all the good things they aspire to do. I just don’t want us thinking that every one of us needs a hundred acres or even necessarily 10 acres to do it! We won’t have enough land for everyone to have a fair share if that were the case.

Particularly I have in mind our obligation of ensuring equitable land access for Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color. (And on a deeper, longterm level, supporting the Land Back movement.)

I did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings or disparage anyone’s dreams with this comment. And anyone wanting to discuss this further is welcome to friend me and PM me. <green heart emoji>