Category: low-footprint living

The actual comment that came across my feed was: “Buying a new car sucks *ss. Why do you have to sign so many papers?”

And my response:

Having to buy a car sucks, period.

I wish more places had good public transportation and safer ways to get around without having to take on the expense and stress of a owning a car.

(I myself do not own a car, but most of the people I know do, and they are always going through some sort of hassle. Car repairs, insurance, losing their cars to floods or other natural disasters, dealing with gasoline expenses etc.).

In my first post under this title, a few days ago, I posted the original question as well as a link to the group where you can find lots of people’s answers to this topic.

Here’s mine, with a few exclusive additions for you who have found your way to this blog and been so kind as to read this far:

I prefer a neighborhood approach. Some of my neighbors are growing food and sharing seeds and things. Most of my neighbors do not collect rainwater yet, but I’m always promoting it and encouraging people to get started.

Also I educate people about solar cooking and passive solar cooling etc. For me it’s easier to try to create a more connected community in my own urban neighborhood than it would be to buy rural land and try to survive out there.

Plus, building from scratch has a high footprint, not only physical and financial but in terms of social capital as well.

I participate in efforts to protect rural land from development. And I support my local farmers by buying food from them and by helping them publicize their produce.

At my house I have two housemates and occasional guests. So the house itself is sort of a mini village. I provide extremely inexpensive, steady housing, and also have created space for emergency for refugees to stay here. And most recently, I created an extra sleeping spot in my little off-grid garage apartment for interns who want to come learn experientially about permaculture design and low-footprint, off-grid living.

Worthy of note is that even though I run my place as a low-footprint living laboratory, both of my housemates are “civilians” and both of them have continued to express that they are very happy staying here.

I have turned my garage into an off-grid mini “apartment” where I sleep and have my studio. (Not having a car is great because it gives me a whole extra building to use.)

There are a lot of empty houses in the USA. For some of us, it makes more sense to live in an existing house then to go out somewhere onto remote land and try to build everything from scratch.

Furthermore, my house has a public educational function.

As I’ve shared extensively in my Facebook posts, TikTok videos, and here on this blog, my house is on a corner lot and I have designed things to maximize the public education interface of my place.

So for example, we have the solar oven right next to the sidewalk where people can see it and smell food cooking; we have the little micro greens boxes next to the sidewalk where people can see them (and even pick if they like — though I don’t have a green thumb so things are a bit puny most of the time).

We have quite a few different types of native plants, and the site overall is an example of stormwater sponge and heat mitigation. We also have publicly visible rainwater collection, etc.

Furthermore, my place has elements of community in action, via my “porous property” at the corner. Several different types of benches where people can step off the sidewalk to sit in the shade or enjoy the sun. Many many people have expressed their appreciation of this amenity.

I also ran my little free library here for 10 years, although that is on hiatus right now while we are troubleshooting the persistent theft and vandalism that has suddenly become a problem in the past few months. At this point I am attributing it to a decline in foot traffic — either because some of the old steady users have moved away, or because some of those people got cars, etc. It doesn’t take much to make a shift in the chemistry balance of the social environment, for better or for worse.

Also, regarding a question posted by a friend/colleague, “How much land is required to grow all the food a household needs?”:

— Regarding growing all the food a household needs, many of us have decided that a better approach is to support local farmers. By supporting local farmers and growers, we widen our food-shed and weave a more resilient web of beneficial relationships that will stand the test of time. (Even if not every connection persists over time, the web as a whole is still in place. And able to keep growing.)

And, responding to a friend who has a great deal of plant knowledge but has a crushing work schedule, so there is an economic catch-22 at play when it comes to him maybe making a video or offering a workshop. (Even if we pay him.):

— Everything is a lot of work tho. Maybe there’s some other transmission pipeline that would be less work for you. I know you share my wish but this area would become more sustainable in terms of growing more of our own food right here locally.

I feel the same about YouTube videos , I do make them (TikTok also) but A) I have like seven followers; and B ) I don’t have four hands or my own personal videographer like a lot of people who make videos seem to — it’s a process.

Over the past few years of occupying my house, I have made it into a “Low-Footprint Living Laboratory” — kind of one big publicly visible “Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm,” which is “broadcasting” sustainability knowledge 24-7 in meatspace.

I take it as a testimonial to practicality that my two “civilian” housemates have managed to continue to put up with living here. <laugh emojis>

And regarding another person’s question, about why the costs aren’t lower in ecovillages:

— It seems like it should be more affordable, yes. Since people are pooling costs.

But I think because people build new buildings instead of using existing buildings, and also since a lot of people go out in the country they have to build new infrastructure instead of using what’s already existing. So I think that’s one factor that drives up the cost.

There can also be a lot of legal expenses involved when people try to buy one piece of land together.

I live in a small city and I consider my house a micro-village. We have three people living here, plus occasional guests, and we share expenses and help each other.

Also, a lot of neighbors are trying to build more connections in the neighborhood, sharing resources and helping each other. And we work together to try to promote sustainable actions by our local government.
It is not an official ecovillage but that is my intent.

And — My reply to a perennial city-hater who thinks that cities are doomed, no one should live in cities, etc.:

— I share your frustration, but ultimately I do not believe the consumption and paving will continue unabated.

A lot of cities are re-introducing nature, and de-paving large areas, And expanding native plants and food-growing areas, and so on. The Nature of Cities Festival is one organization/annual conference that has been highlighting and amplifying such necessary efforts.

And, that said, not everyone wants to live in a city. And no one has to!

But if all of us city dwellers were to move out to rural areas, the rural areas would become very crowded and resource-burdened, and I’m sure you rural-dwellers would not want that.

Yesterday’s culinary adventure at the off-grid urban garage glamp-partment started with harvesting a big bunch of Okinawa spinach.

This was a big win for me, because I really don’t have a green thumb, and any vegetable plants I manage to grow tend to stay small and spare. (When fellow permies post pics from their lavish vegetable gardens and food forests, I totally feel inferior and question the entire foundation of my existence. (Just kidding… Sort of… <nervous-smile emoji>))

Seeing that the Okinawa spinach plant had gotten so nice and bushy was a very pleasant surprise. It was even blocking one of the rain pots, so cutting off the big clump was necessary for that reason too.

One of my favorite things about Okinawa spinach — besides the fact that it grows perennially, and that it is delicious either raw or cooked — is the beautiful purple color of the backside of the leaves.

With all of that fresh yummy green matter, I decided to make a pesto. Or more precisely, a pesto-like sauce thing. And to make it vegan.

I didn’t have any pinenuts, and didn’t feel like using almonds or other nuts that I had on hand, so the pesto is lacking in a nut ingredient.

Cheese alternative: Instead of Parmesan, I used nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast has been a great addition to my diet. Together with avocados, nutritional yeast has allowed me to make many delicious vegan meals and be satisfied without my beloved cheese.

I’m still very much an omnivore, but have increased my percentage of vegan meals and been able to reduce my intake of cheese to a somewhat more moderate level. <laugh-cry emoji>

Seasonings: I just added some various odds and ends from my cabinet.

And of course a key ingredient in a pesto is garlic, and I used two cloves. And the other key ingredient, olive oil.

All blended together in my little bullet blender. This mini blender is easily powered by my patriot sidekick mini generator, which is the sole source of electricity in my glamp-partment.

I also heated up some split-pea soup in the solar oven yesterday. It was a jar I had frozen before Christmas because I had been eating split pea soup so many days in a row. It was nice to come back from my holiday visit with family, and remember that I had delicious nutritious soup that just needed to be thawed out and reheated.

The object you see to the left of the solar oven is an inflatable lantern called Luci, which I purchased from my local West Marine Sports & Recreation boating and sporting supply place. This little solar-charged lantern has lasted through all types of weather, and she still charges and works great.

And little Luci never gets mad at me and stops working, despite the fact that whenever I get near her, I feel the compulsion to repeat that old famous TV sitcom line — “Luuuuuu-ciiii, you got some SPLAININ’ to do!” (Boomers LOL. You can dress us up but you can’t take us out.)

You can see the photos here, in the post on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.

#PrepperHomeEc #DoomerStyleFiles

Meme on my social feed this morning: (Photo of Taylor Swift with Travis Kelce; photo of a jumbo jet airliner). Text: “Taylor Swift produces 138 tons of CO2 emissions in 3 months to see her ‘soulmate’ Travis Kelce. And here I am drinking out of a soggy straw.”

And my response:

And all of this said, we do each personally need to do whatever we can do. I do not believe in letting ourselves off the hook.

No need to be a martyr, if you really hate that soggy paper straw then get yourself a reusable straw — or do without a straw entirely. I know a straw was just one example, but I’m using it to illustrate how we can be walking our talk without being suffering martyrs. (Although I personally am OK with making some choices that genuinely are a bit of a sacrifice.)

Our wallets may not be a big, but there are millions and millions and millions of us!! We create fads, which go on to become trends, which going to become solidified as cultural norms. What we do matters!! In a good way. We have a lot more power than we think to influence things for the good.

As leaders of the environmental movement, (by which I mean people who follow the science, see the situation in our communities, and really believe there is a crisis), we really really need to walk our talk. Fortunately there are lots of ways to walk our talk without putting up with misery. I live a very abundant life at about 10% of the average US citizen’s footprint. And I have written an easy practical guidebook, and companion blog, to help others who want to do the same.

The best way to shift cultural norms, behavioral norms, is for us to be walking our talk in many many every day practical ways in our daily lives. I call it beneficial contagion.

Back to Taylor Swift. If we the masses weren’t ourselves so willing to get on airplanes, her concerts wouldn’t be selling so many mega millions of tickets. (I personally have nothing against Taylor Swift, except that I hate to see a fellow white woman taking up so much bandwidth in a world where we need to be paying attention to a lot more important things.)

Thank you always Parkrose Permaculture for your excellent and thought-provoking posts. I wish you were my neighbor in real life, but I am glad to have you as my neighbor in cyberspace!

Posted on my Facebook earlier…

Public service announcement: We all trust different sources and accordingly believe different things about masks, the severe implications of Covid, etc. My personal belief, based on the sources I follow and trust, is that masks do help somewhat. So does staying outdoors or at home as much as possible. Or spaces with open doors and windows.

My request, as a person who is in multiple high-risk categories — as well as serving clients who are in multiple high-risk categories — is that you “live and let live” when it comes to seeing me or any other person wearing a hygiene mask.

I don’t harass people who are not wearing masks. Even though when I enter a room full of people not wearing masks, I feel very alarmed. It feels like an unnecessary risk, according to what I believe based on the sources I trust.

Another thing that feels like an unnecessary risk is people/groups not being willing to meet outdoors, in circumstances when meeting outdoors is possible. Yes it can be logistically inconvenient at times, but surely logistical inconvenience pales in comparison with things like long Covid. 

Along the same lines, indoor meetings feel like an unnecessary risk. And you will be seeing a lot less of me in indoor gatherings, especially where nobody else is wearing a mask. If I had my way we would all be meeting outdoors as much as possible. But I do not; that is not up for me to decide. What is up to me to decide is how I choose to mitigate my risk.

Last night I gave into peer pressure and I absolutely am disgusted with myself for taking off my mask at an indoor meeting.

An indoor meeting that I really did not need to be at — I could have listened online, and given my input by email, phone, or text. Or even postal mail! One very steady civic activist I know actually sends paper letters to local government on a regular basis. Yes, as humans, we build trust by seeing each other face-to-face. But there are ways to arrange that in a safe manner. We can get face-time with each other out in the community at outdoor events, and via serendipitous encounters on the street. You would be very very surprised to know how well this can work. If you have not yet experienced it, give it a try.

FINALLY: This is not a post inviting any kind of debate or discussion about the efficacy of masks, social distancing, staying outdoors instead of indoors etc. Any such comments will be deleted. You have a right to your beliefs but this is not the post to debate it.

Further Reading:

• CDC: Categories of people at higher risk for severe Covid symptoms (mayoclinic.org). They actually list mental health conditions such as depression as one risk factor; I had not noticed that before but I had myself come to suspect that such might be the case.

The following post is an example of my ongoing efforts to foster neighborhood cohesiveness. You can see the original post, with photos, here in our public Facebook group BNW News. (BNW stands for Beachside neighborhood watch.) I offer this as example and encouragement to all of you, as you go about your efforts to build community in your place. As I’m fond of saying, it’s the little things that make a difference and add up.

Hanging out with a friend/neighbor, coffee /tea, and her dogs in the sweet little neighborhood park that’s on Oleander just south of Main Street. Huge thank you to Daytona Beach public works who really upgraded this little jewel of a neighborhood park. We should try to have a little neighborhood coffee gathering here again like we did a few years back with the solar oven and the baked goods and such. We all had such a good time that morning.

And regarding the photo of a jar of coffee beans, no that is not what I am drinking lol. It’s just that Gus who roasts and grinds the beans was coming to my house to make to deliver but I was down the street at this park so he very graciously drop them off to me at the park. Isn’t that nice! If you haven’t experienced a jar of Gus’s exquisitely fresh-roasted beans yet and you are a coffee fan, I highly recommend it! 

(Many of you will know Gus from his performances at the sons of the beach fundraisers and other local events. He’s very talented musician and also has a yard that is like a bamboo park! )

All of us neighbors have a lot of different talents and a lot to share. The more we share with each other, the more we can support each other, buy things from each other, build beneficial network, re-weave the social fabric that has become damaged over the years in our city, as it has across the USA. We are the ones who can make it happen!

And all of the above is relevant to my post about this little jewel of a park.

#community

(The following is my response to a fellow participant in this thread — Foundation for Intentional Community, posing the question “So why don’t you live in an ecovillage yet?” It’s really turning into an excellent thread.)

You are highlighting a really important issue. And I suspect the motive of local officials is really not health-related at all, as large families have lived on farms, using septic systems, since time immemorial. Not only the family itself, but typically at least a few workers/helpers have often traditionally resided right there on the farms.

Rather, I suspect it is related to keeping tabs and control on citizens.

PS. Added to my response above – So the question becomes, for people who choose a rural life and are trying to build community on their land: What are some ways we might cultivate more trust with local officials so that people are allowed to live in community in rural areas?

Some of it could be an old-school rural distrust of so-called “hippies” and-or “communes”, a legacy of some stuff that happened in the 1960s (and more recently the Waco tragedy and such) that we do really need to unpack.

This is a widespread phenomenon and I have heard many similar stories to what you recount.

It’s something we really need to troubleshoot. Because a lot of people get a rude awakening when they move out to rural areas expecting to have the freedom to live in a manner that is perfectly wholesome. People rightfully expect to be allowed to build living structures, and live with other people, etc.

The bureaucratic rules in the guise of health and protection are actually impeding people’s efforts to live sustainably; create sustainable community.

PS. Regarding my response above, some additional thoughts:

• So the question becomes, for people who choose a rural life and are trying to build community on their land: What are some ways we might cultivate more trust with local officials so that people are allowed to live in community in rural areas?

• One thought that came to me, in regard to people ending up having trouble with local authorities, is that a lot of the people in our circles who are doing the “back to the land” thing practice a very isolationist policy as far as not really wanting or trying to get to know their neighbors. The people who is land borders theirs. I doubt most of the new BTL folks are joining the agricultural co-op, attending community functions, being regulars whose faces are known at the town gathering spot where local news and information gets exchanged (sometimes these days, it’s just a gas station, but it’s still very real, it’s the spot!), etc. I could be wrong, but the vibe I get is that a lot of rural homesteaders are trying to “escape” from the burden of dealing with other humans, and are not really trying to connect with their neighbors. In fact, they may have an elitist attitude about their neighbors, based on perceptions about politics and such. Now those perceptions may be real. But if you’re going to move out in the country where actual real farmers have been living for many many generations, why would you expect to just live in some kind of cottagecore la-la land and not have to deal with anyone else? And then when the neighbors start wondering who that mysterious new hippie neighbor is, suspicion tends to form. And before long we have the local health authorities doing their thing. Note, I’m not saying that some traditional farmers might not want to hear about Permaculture inspired food growing and land husbandry techniques. (Some are actually adding such techniques to their traditional farming toolkit.) But in order for them to even have any interest in that, one would need to build some kind of relationship of basic trust first. I personally know a permaculture farm that has done just that. They are very much woven into their surrounding rural community, and forming mutually beneficial connections with the nearby town as well.

• I do believe that over time, both cities and rural areas are likely to converge towards more of a village scale, village mode. (And actually, large cities are really not giant towns; they are actually conglomerations of villages if you really look at it. I noticed that first when I was living in Tokyo back in the 90s and it was a really cool realization to have. You can see it in New York City as well.)

• I also think seasonal migration is going to be more of a thing as the years go by. (It’s been a thing for a long time in festival culture etc. For example Kerrville Folk Music Festival volunteers often go straight from Kerrville to Bonnaroo etc.) Cycling between two or three places during the year is one way to build some stability, without having to be glued to one place. In addition to being viable for us elders, it can also be a way for the younger people to gain experience and have the joy of exploring, as well as being able to meet a wider pool of other young people.

• This is really a great discussion, and it’s the kind of sharing that is going to help us all co- build sustainable living environments.