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Someone in one of my permaculture groups posted about a leaky washing machine. (Another problem I’ve been hearing about from many people lately.) All the comments in response were along the lines of testing the leak, calling repair people, etc. Since no one spoke up for the primitive, simple approach, I contributed this comment:

I prefer washing by hand for this reason (I’m not good w machines or plumbing, and don’t like spending money/time on repairing them).
In the past I have used a hand-cranked washer or even a giant (farm-size) salad spinner. Now I just use a small tub and wring out stuff by hand before hanging it on the line. (Might sound laborious but I like keeping fit, and it’s free, unlike the gym.) I always do laundry outdoors so leakage/spillage is a non-issue. And the water (typically just a gallon or two) gets dumped on whatever tree or other plant needs it.

People used to machine-washing clothes might say, “But I’ve got too many clothes to wash by hand.” Actually I have a sneaking suspicion, based on observations of my own patterns (I had a washer and dryer under my own roof throughout my childhood and for a few years of my adult life) as well as other households I’ve observed, that having a washing machine actually prompts people to have more clothes and do more laundry.

Hand-washing is easy-peasy, drama-free! BTW if and when my solar dryer breaks, I will just go get a new length of rope. 😉

On an eco note, washing machines can be fairly eco-friendly, especially if you wash in cold water and forgo machine-drying. Some washing machines these days use only 10-15 gallons of water per load.

Seeking out numbers, I found this article by Herb Kirchhoff at homeguides.sfgate.com which says that according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average 2.1-cubic-foot energy-efficient small washer uses only about 8.35 gallons per load. Even a large (4-cubic-foot) energy-efficient washer uses just 11.75 gallons. Not bad, right? But then I went on to read that the average household does 392 loads of laundry a year. (Whether using a small or a regular-sized washer.) That’s more than a load every single day! OK, that’s just nuts. So households end up using 3-4,000 gallons of water a year, or more, just to wash clothes.

I’m thinking that for people who don’t have a washer under their own roof and have to schlep their clothes to a laundromat, the average number of loads per year might be quite a bit lower.

My point being, sometimes automation (especially if it’s right there under one’s own roof) doesn’t end up accomplishing its goal of reducing work, but instead just ratchets us up to “do more” and consume more resources.

While it may not be for everyone, I’ll stick with my enjoyable outdoor clothes-washing by hand, which uses maybe 8 gallons a week in a heavy week.

Several friends have posted lately about having to deal with water-heater repair or replacement, an expensive proposition. I sometimes forget about the existence of water heaters, especially now, in the dead of summer, when I wouldn’t use one even if I had one.

I went water-heater-free a few years ago and never looked back. For showers I use sun-heated or just plain cold water (which I’m fine with; actually prefer cold showers for most of the year in TX and FL, and can tolerate them even in the cold months if I’ve been jogging, doing manual labor etc).

The easiest and cheapest way to get hot water is by letting a hose full of water sit in the sun. It’s easy to rig up an outdoor shower or dishwashing stand. Myself, I tend to just go with the “Peace Corps” method — filling a pot with rainwater, then scooping out cupfuls and dumping them on myself. For some reason this is delightful to me, especially on a super hot day but even on some cooler days. But if I wanted something a bit fancier I’d use the hose method, with a shower-head hooked up. (Outdoor shower cabanas/stalls are a very common thing here on the Atlantic coast of Florida, as I imagine they are in most warm-weather beach towns. But no reason you couldn’t have one, at least in summer, wherever you live.)

For washing dishes, I mostly just use cold water except if it’s a greasy dish or something, then I boil up some water in a kettle.

I wash my laundry in cold water.

As I type this I think it seems old-fashioned, but then again most people throughout history lived this way. And I love the money savings and love never having to think about a water heater leaking, breaking down, etc.

On a trip through rural Japan in the 1990s, I met and was invited to stay with a family. They had a wood-heated bathtub. (I remember the tub itself being made of wood but my memory is notoriously unreliable and I could be totally making that part up.) Their kitchen just had a tiny on-demand water heater, same as the one in my minuscule Tokyo apartment. Those tankless heaters can be OK for low-volume use and right at the tap; not so great for large volumes or if the water has to travel far.

If you’ve never tried living without a water heater, try it out! You might be surprised. Back before I started my “low-footprint living lab” thing, I used to be terrified of someday not being able to have hot showers, due to the Zombie Apocalypse or some other TEOTWAWKI event. Though I still hope never to encounter the flesh-eating undead, particularly while bathing, at least I’ve lost my terror of living without hot showers. (I used to be really skinny and was terrified of cold weather in general. “Cold weather” being anything below 70 Fahrenheit. I’m not so skinny now, just a normal healthy weight, which helps.)

Whether or not you choose to have a water heater, it’s freeing to know you could live without one if you needed to. “Emergency” appliance repairs (water heaters, dishwashers, etc.) rack up a lot of expense and cause great anxiety, which for me tends to outweigh whatever comfort and convenience I would get from big appliances like a water heater. Plus, well, I’m hardcore into the ultra-low-footprint thing! And a water heater is among the top electricity users in a household.

Further Reading:

Michael Bluejay’s article about how to save money on water heating was written some years back but is still very helpful. As is his whole website, which is my #1 go-to resource on saving electricity.

One of my favorite ideas for enhancing the human-built environment is to have plenty of fruit trees, vines, and vegetable plants growing in the public space: in parks; along sidewalks; as living fences. As they say in real estate: “Location, Location, Location!”

One of our most foolish, and potentially fatal, human experiments is the one where we decided it’d be perfectly fine to not grow food near where people live, and to instead transport it from halfway across the country or around the world to our supermarkets. Bad idea! Let’s go ahead and quit this one before we have to see how it ends.

The other day while googling for lush fat yummy pictures of fruit trees and grapevines growing along city sidewalks, I instead stumbled on this article “5 Reasons Why Planting Fruit Trees Along Sidewalks Is a Terrible Idea.” Fortunately the five points are easy to refute.

1 – Most fruit would go unpicked, falling to the sidewalk and attracting wasps; creating a slip hazard. Ah, the good old “public safety” argument. First of all: The biggest public safety hazard in the United States is disease caused by bad dietary habits. I am pretty sure it exceeds the slip hazard. Anyway, it would be easy to ensure all the fruit gets picked. Publicize it widely so citizens know about it. People would be happy to harvest it for themselves, or to donate to food banks. And have city landscaping crews clean up any excess. You know, the landscaping crews who we now pay gazillions of our tax dollars to buzz-cut turf grass and make sure the ornamental shrubbery is perfectly square? They deserve a more worthwhile occupation, don’t you think? Yes, caring for fruit trees requires labor and special skill. But that translates into jobs and careers!! Imagine a city where the restaurants get to source at least some of their food from the immediate area. And where residents of all ages and educational levels are able to create their own cottage businesses around the public harvest. If my neighbor’s making jam, I’m buying some!

2 – Government won’t support it because of liability and expense. This is where the citizen push comes in. Citizens need to show their passion about this issue to help government see that it’s in our best interest to have a well-nourished population. Fear of litigation is always a concern, but some things are worth braving that for. Cities need to get some teeth in their legal departments. Food deserts are very unpopular these days; it’s a serious equity issue. Now that is a real liability. As for expense … See #1 above. I would love to know how much money a city spends on fussbudget grass-barbering, not to mention all that goes with it, such as application of chemicals.

3 – Pollution from passing cars could cause substandard fruit growth, disease, and so on. In every city I’ve visited, I’ve seen fruit trees growing just fine on private property despite exposure to automotive exhaust. Pollution from cars is a problem everywhere. Even on farms, pollution from mechanized equipment is surely an issue. Some fruit trees might not do well along city sidewalks, but that happens with purely ornamental plants too. At least with fruit trees we have a chance of harvesting something worthwhile. The article also said fruit trees are bad because we might have to spray chemicals to protect them — as if we don’t do that now for our vast expanses of turf grass and other “vanity landscaping.”

4 – Some fruit trees don’t live long, and might have to be replaced before they bear fruit. Yeah, that is a real possibility. Cities need to consult their local ag extension, Master Gardeners, and other experts to find the best varieties to plant. And cities should look into grapevines, kiwi fruit, and other non-tree fruit options as well.

5 – Fruit trees need a lot of sunlight. While there might not be enough sunlight on every street, that’s no reason not to plant at all. In addition, there are greens and other edible plants that do well in part shade; we can intersperse those with the fruit trees as conditions warrant.

Although the writer of this article doesn’t think fruit trees along sidewalks are a good idea, he or she does express a favorable view of community orchards and urban farms. And that’s something I can wholeheartedly agree with!

Recently I had the opportunity to give my “Soil 101” presentation, via Zoom, to my local chapter of Florida Native Plant Society.

Giving this presentation for the first time since the pandemic shutdown, I was reminded of how essential it is to get the word out about soil conservation. So I’m making you a post to highlight some of the main ideas, and share the sources I used.

• Soil consists of sand, clay, and silt in varying proportions, plus a substantial amount of air and water, plus organic matter (decaying leaves, microorganisms, etc.). Sand, clay, and silt are just names for rock particles, pulverized to varying degrees of fineness over time.

• A single teaspoon of healthy soil contains more soil microorganisms than there are people living on earth.

• Plants literally suck heat out of the air! That’s because photosynthesis (the process by which plants make food from sunlight) is an endothermic reaction. So the reason why you feel cooler when you walk past a clump of trees isn’t just because of the shade they create.

• Bare soil is exothermic (releases heat). In one experiment in a field on a 67-degree day (Fahrenheit), the temperature of a leaf surface was 59 (yes, cooler than the air temp); the temperature of a piece of paper was 89, and the temperature of bare soil was 138! Bare soil and pavement both contribute to heat-island effect.

• In addition to emitting heat, bare soil also releases carbon into the atmosphere (from decomposition of organic matter), and loses moisture over time. Allowing soil to remain bare (as opposed to covered by plants, mulch) leads to desertification. Up to 40% of rainfall comes from local evapotranspiration of water by plants (this is known as the “small water cycle”). When we denude the soil, we disrupt rainfall.

• Most of us, when we think about ways to mitigate climate change or extreme weather, the first thing that comes to mind is planting trees. While trees and other vegetation are great carbon sequesterers, the soil is even better at it. The pedosphere (the ground under our feet) sequesters four times as much carbon as the biosphere (vegetation and other living things). The great thing about working on soil is that, unlike planting and maintaining trees, it doesn’t require a green thumb, any money or even necessarily any outdoor space of your own!

• Got crappy soil? Super sandy, or mucky clay? No worries; the “fix” for poor soil is always “Add organic matter.” And the best way to do that is by composting. Which is super simple. See my previous post “Compost Basics.”

My Soil 101 presentation is available by Zoom, Facebook Live, or other channel of your convenience. I tailor it to your group’s goals and circumstances.

Further Exploration

*FREE RESOURCES:

– Betsy Ross presentation handout: “Living Soils: Bringing Dirt To Life. Soil Biology Impact on Soil Health, Pollution Control, and Plant Health.” http://www.bayoupreservation.org/BPASite/media/BPA/Symposium/2019/02-Bringing-Dirt-to-Life-Betsy-Ross.pdf

NRCS: visually appealing 2-page info handout “Soil Health Nuggets” https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1101660.pdf

*PAYMENT REQUIRED:

– “Soil Is the Climate Solution” – Soil Advocate training webinar by Finian Makepeace (sometimes available for free by special offer; I paid the regular rate of $99 which I felt was well worth it. You get permanent access to all course materials including slideshow which you can edit to your needs).  Empowers you with the info & ideas to get out and be an advocate for soil restoration. https://www.onecommune.com/products/soil-is-the-climate-solution-with-finian-makepeace

– Soil-Food Web: Foundation Courses by Elaine Ingham https://www.soilfoodweb.com/foundation-courses-2/(The short course I took last year was free; this one is $5,000! Obviously not the same course. I will keep my eyes open for the link to the short, free course I took with her. But for now, this page gives you a feel for her courses.) 

– Soil-Food Web Consultant Training Program by Elaine Ingham (professional training including period of remotely-supervised hands-on training; price $3,000) (seems like a great potential career path; one would always be in demand and be helping the earth) https://www.soilfoodweb.com/training-program/

Crazy! I could have sworn I had already given you a post by this title, but apparently I had not. Please pardon me for waiting so long to create this post on such an important topic.

You can make composting as simple or as complicated as you want. I prefer simple. If you prefer complicated, Google will be happy to oblige! I specialize in simple. So here you go:

When you think about ways to mitigate climate change and extreme weather, what comes to mind? You probably said “planting trees.” But an even more powerful way is by adding organic matter to the soil. In other words: Compost! By composting your kitchen scraps and yard trimmings instead of sending them to landfill, you become a strong climate ally. 

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about composting. If done properly, compost is not messy or smelly. (In fact, it’s a lot less messy and smelly than putting your food scraps in the trash.) 

And it doesn’t require hard labor. If you’re fit enough to get in a car and drive somewhere, you’re fit enough to manage a compost bin. And you don’t need a yard or garden.  Whether you choose to collect your kitchen scraps in a tidy bin that fits under your kitchen sink, feed them to your worms in an in-house vermicompost box, or carry them out to a bin or pile in your yard, the basic principle is the same. Compost requires just four ingredients: 1) Air; 2) Water; 3) Greens; 4) Browns. 

“Greens” are kitchen scraps (vegetable, meat, cheese, coffee grounds, shrimp tails, etc.), and fresh yard trimmings. “Browns” are dried grass clippings or leaves, paper, cardboard scraps. Greens are rich in nitrogen; browns are rich in carbon. Together with air and water, they break down into a rich material that fertilizes the soil while sequestering carbon. Believe it or not, the pedosphere (soil) can sequester four times as much carbon as the biosphere (trees and other plants). But in order to accomplish this feat, the soil needs organic matter. That’s why composting is so important (besides radically reducing the bulk, weight, and odor of your household trash).

If composting seems like too much trouble to you, it’s probably just because you don’t realize how easy it actually is, or how much good it does the planet. Once you actually try it, you will be amazed at how easy it is. You simply alternate layers of greens and browns in your bin or pile, and nature takes care of the rest. I think of it as making layers of lasagna — microbial lasagna!

The main obstacle to composting is just … starting. Just start. It’s a natural process and you can’t go wrong. The main thing that turns people off, once they get started, is if the pile gets slimy and smelly. You haven’t made some horrible mistake. Don’t let this turn you off of composting. All this means is you need to add more “browns” to your pile. Dried twigs, dead leaves, hay, straw, dry grass clippings are all good.

(And: Contrary to popular belief, you can include meat scraps, cheese, and other animal products in the pile.)

One of the best ways we can show love for our kids and grandkids is by making sure we leave the world in better shape for them than we found it. This is far more important than showering them with expensive gifts. If we love our kids and grandkids enough to travel across the country or around the world to see them (and by the way, ideally we’re all purchasing carbon offsets for that travel — it only adds a few bucks to the ticket price, and it’s the right thing to do), we need to back up that love with strong eco action at the household level.

I have a lot of composting experience, from household to community scale, and am familiar with many different approaches. As part of the free “Deep Green” consultation that comes with your purchase of my book (and now also with your download of the free PDF version), I’m happy to help you research the best compost system for your circumstances, and get it set up.  

Lately I am feeling drawn more and more inward, finding stability and inspiration deep within myself. I’ve stepped down from several activities and committees; I’ve started feeling more zeroed-in on my own inner truth. With all that’s happening in the world — all the work that needs to be done — allowing myself to be drawn inward doesn’t make sense “on paper,” but the more I surrender to the pull, the more I feel in harmony with the universe and with my work. And then somehow it turns out I actually end up getting more writing, speaking, “green domestic science experiments,” and other work done! It’s like having my cake and eating it too. So I’m trusting myself and surrendering to the inward gravitational pull more and more.

It feels like a force of nature I’m surrendering to. Like a whirlpool that leads to my innermost, quietmost core. A space of stillness where no actions are taken unless absolutely necessary.

Over the past few months I’ve been compiling helpful links and snippets related to “surrender.” Hope you find the following reads as supportive and enjoyable as I do. Some of them are old favorites of mine; others reached my inbox more recently.

Quotes:

• “Right now, we are imaginal cells in the cocoon of Covid-19. I believe we emerge from this cocoon as humans who value the earth and each other more than we ever have.” — Cynthia Schaefer, founder of GrowSocial, a new network designed to connect people with resilience resources in their local area; www.growsoc.com is the link

• The Story of Imaginal Cells (from Imaginal Labs): “We all grew up knowing a bit about the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The truly amazing part of this process, however, is in the scientific detail of how it actually happens in nature. After a period of ravenous consumption, a caterpillar finds an appropriate perch and forms a chrysalis – so far so good. The end result, we know, is a butterfly, but the truly astonishing thing is that there is no structural similarity at all between a caterpillar and a butterfly. Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar, unable to move, actually dissolves into organic goop. Cells, which had been dormant in the caterpillar and which biologists have the poetic genius to call ‘imaginal cells,’ begin a process of creating a new form and structure. At first these imaginal cells – the seeds of future potential, which contain the blueprint of a flying creature—operate independently as single-cell organisms. They are regarded as threats and are attacked by the caterpillar’s immune system. But they persist, multiply, and connect with each other. The imaginal cells form clusters and clumps, begin resonating at the same frequency and passing information back and forth until they hit a tipping point. They begin acting not as discrete individual cells but as a multi-cell organism – and a butterfly is born.”

• “Just as with any potent medicine, we have to stay the whole course of treatment to get the full benefits, preferably, without ambivalence. Most importantly, we need to use the power of our minds to optimize this once-in-a-lifetime FGO (f**kin growth opportunity) by focusing on healing what truly ails us. Nearly everyone, to some degree or another, has been affected by the collective soul sickness of humanity for most of our lives, in terms of what truly gives meaning and value to this precious incarnation.” — from the email newsletter of Joan Pancoe, Modern Mystic, JoanPancoe.com

• “There are times when our whole world seems to be falling apart around us, and we are not sure what to hold onto anymore. Sometimes our relationships crumble and sometimes it’s our physical environment. At other times, we can’t put our finger on it, but we feel as if all the walls have fallen down around us and we are standing with nothing to lean on, exposed and vulnerable. These are the times in our lives when we are given an opportunity to see where we have established our sense of identity, safety, and well-being. And while it is perfectly natural and part of our process to locate our sense of self in externals, any time those external factors shift, we have an opportunity to rediscover and move closer to our core, which is the only truly safe place to call home.” — Madisyn Taylor in When Our World Falls Apart, an article from her email newsletter (subscribe at DailyOM.com)

• “Resistance tends to strengthen the energies it attempts to oppose by giving them power and energy to work against. Additionally, resistance keeps us from learning more about what we resist. In order to fully understand something, we must open to it enough to receive its energy; otherwise, we remain ignorant of its lessons.” — Madisyn Taylor in The Wisdom of Surrender.

• “If I could not be peaceful in the midst of danger, then the kind of peace I might have in simpler times is meaningless. If I could not find peace in the midst of difficulty, I knew I would never know real peace.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

• “Despite the common belief that it is the speed and intensity of your efforts, your raw hustle that determines the pace at which you evolve and transform, nature seems to bring a much deeper truth: your transformation is directly related to the value, time, and energy you put into being still, staying connected, and operating from a place of inner solitude, listening, and witnessing… beauty. We face huge challenges regarding natural resources, climate changes, racial inequities, macro-economic shifts, and the entire ecosystem in which it all resides, all of which has been amplified throughout this global pandemic. Imagine what would happen if we stopped running in the lanes of old paradigms and paused the entire machinery of humanity to realize where we are – and recognize that this tipping point in our time is exactly what we have all been waiting for – a reason to pause. What if we stopped long enough to really take in the reality of the devastation we have created, in order to now recognize the opportunity that exists in another direction, one we’ve never, together, seen before – a new path, a chance to transform. It’s accessible now, we just have to be still long enough to find it. Let’s pause for another beat, to embrace the opportunity for a non-linear transformation…” — Dr. Zach Bush

• “When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself, becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. If the cat made up its mind that it didn’t want to fall, it would become tense and rigid and would just be a bag of broken bones upon landing. In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all falling out of a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact, the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we are falling—and there is nothing we can do to stop it. So, instead of living in a state of constant tension and clinging to all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the whole world is impermanent, be like a cat. Don’t resist it.” — Alan Watts

Deities who embolden me to surrender to the massive wave of chaos:

Akhilandeshivari “The Goddess Who Is Never Not Broken.” (Note: Akhilandeshivari is a Hindu goddess; this website presents an interpretation of her by practitioners of a Wiccan path that draws inspiration from gods and goddesses of many different religions.) “She shows us the power and opportunity of being broken into pieces by heartache, disaster, great fortune, and other life changes and traumas. However She takes this to the furthest extreme, purposefully keeping Herself broken wide open, allowing Herself to flow with every current, creating and fragmenting and recreating Herself endlessly.” “It’s normal to fear and resist change, but Akhilandeshvari whispers to us also of freedom — liberation from the past, from habits and wounds, from stifling routines, from everything that once was good but has become a burden or a prison. Liberation, indeed, from all the illusions of the ego.”

Books:

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Pema Chödrön and 2 more)

The Magic of Findhorn (Paul Hawken): Incredible book, must-read! These people were divinely guided to start an RV park food-garden community by the sea in northern Scotland back in the 1970s, after losing their jobs at a hotel. They totally lived by intuition; grew a phenomenally lush garden by intuitively connecting with plant devas. Made sudden life-changes that made no sense “on paper” but were totally right. Really, surrender is a bold spiritual action, and this lovely book is a reminder of that. Findhorn is now a thriving eco-village that attracts people from all over the world.

The Grace in Dying (Kathleen D. Singh): Sterling counsel about surrender. Not just for the dying, but for all of us.

I’m a city girl and do not automatically hate new development. That said …

• I think that when someone wants to build a residential complex outside the core urban area, it either needs to be in walking distance of (at minimum) a grocery store and drugstore, or else the developer needs to include (at minimum) a grocery store and drugstore as part of their site plan. We seriously have to start reducing the need for car trips.

• Also, all of our roads need either wide sidewalks or bike lanes. No more roads that are only safe by automobile.