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Someone in the Journey to Zero-Waste group asked about eco-friendly ways to deal with indoor cats’ poop. (By the way, as of this writing, the J2ZW group now has over 114,000 members, in countries all over the world.)

From other members’ responses, I learned about two options:

1) the LitterKwitter, a potty training system designed for training cats to use a regular toilet. I had previously heard tell of a select few highly advanced felines who used their humans’ toilet, but this was the first time I had heard of an actual potty training device.

2) EnsoPet, an in-ground pet-waste composting box that utilizes bokashi (anaerobic decomposition process).

The EnsoPet can handle dog poop also, as well as other pet poop including rabbit and guinea pig.

I googled and found other in-ground dog-poop composters as well. One is the Doggie Dooley from chewy.com. Enzyme tablets and water are added to the poop to break it down.

Given that people are becoming familiar with compost in the context of Fluffy and Fido’s poo, is it unreasonable to hope that mainstream acceptance of humanure composting will not be far behind?

When I was first getting into permaculture (the design of human environments that provide a net benefit to ecosystems, as opposed to taking more than they give back), I didn’t think much about native plants; I was more focused on growing food for humans.

In recent years, though, I have repeatedly run up against the reality that native plants are incredibly important. Indeed, without them, we wouldn’t be able to feed ourselves. Here is a short list of their benefits:

food and habitat for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators

stormwater absorption

uptake/filtration of nutrients that would otherwise run off into waterways, causing pollution

erosion control

food and habitat for wild animals

Now, plants other than native plants can provide most of these benefits (such as stormwater mitigation and nutrient uptake/filtration) also. The only problem is that if we don’t preserve native plants in each region, we risk depriving pollinators of essential food and habitat. Furthermore, unlike natives, nonnative plants can be invasive, taking over a habitat and crowding out the native species.

If you want to learn more about native plants, and connect with people who value them, I suggest attending a meeting of your local native plant society. The North American Native Plant Society offers a list of native plant societies in the USA and Canada. I have become a regular at my local native-plant group, the Pawpaw Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. I’m learning a lot, and am making connections with people who are working on major essential tasks such as wildlife habitat preservation and watershed protection/rehabilitation.

At one recent meeting, the guest speaker was the founder of Yaupon Brothers American Tea Company, which produces tea from the Yaupon holly, a Florida native plant that is a natural source of caffeine. (I think of yaupon tea as North American yerba mate!) In the course of producing its product, Yaupon Brothers is also providing regenerative livelihoods to local people, caring for nature, and respecting native culture. Everybody wins!

I hope you find a native plant society near you. And if there’s not a group near you, maybe you could start one.

A big part of my yard is now covered with native wildflowers and native grasses. I recently posted to my YouTube channel a “Deep Green Minute” dedicated to the Gaillardia (Blanket Flower), one of my favorite wildflowers native to my region. Along with this striking orange-and-yellow flower, the minute-long video shows other native plants, and a ladybug pupa. Go here to enjoy! (By the way, my channel now has about 40 videos but they don’t all seem to show up on the list; only a very few of them are showing up on the list right now — sorry about that. Not sure what’s up with that! Or maybe you can see them all on your end, I don’t know. If you figure out anything do me a favor and drop me a line; I am not always able to troubleshoot this kind of thing by myself.)

And here’s another YouTube channel you might enjoy: Halifax River Urban Watershed Initiative. On this channel, Dr. J Cho, who I met when she came to speak at our native plant society (on the topic of using native plants for stormwater mitigation), is making videos highlighting various people in our area who are helping to protect our watershed in some way. Examples include a restaurant that is composting its kitchen scraps rather than sending them to landfill; and a local group that extends recognition to local businesses that are voluntarily cutting back on single-use plastics. Check out Dr. Cho’s YouTube channel here.

What’s great is that you too can create a YouTube channel highlighting people and projects in your area that are making a difference. Got a phone? Go out, find something you want to boost, video it. You could even do this as a project with your kids.

And I will end this post with a nice reading tidbit for you, from one of my favorite writers on mindfulness and spirituality: Finding Nature in Your Neighborhood, by Madisyn Taylor at DailyOm.com.

When I walked down the block to fetch some more of the oak logs from curbside where a tree had been chopped down, I saw the most glorious sight: A bunch of young kids riding around on what were obviously brand-new scooters and bicycles. This used to be such a normal sight when I was growing up: kids of assorted ages engaged in unstructured play. A couple of adults were sitting on a nearby porch, but they were engaged in their own conversation while casually keeping an eye on the kids. This sight is not so normal anymore, which is why it struck me.

Strewn on the lawn of the big corner lot were an equal number of other new toys — balls, other scooters and bikes.

What beautiful chaos!

And earlier today on my Facebook feed I ran across this quote: “”One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” (Andy Rooney, American writer, producer, humorist; born 1919, died 2011.)

I’m a big one for clean-as-you-go cooking; desk decluttering; constant easy tidying-up. But some kinds of messy are just beautiful, and worth allowing to sit for a bit while fun is in progress.

Merry Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas. I’m finding more ways to celebrate it, such as slowing down and noticing wonderful stuff I used to take for granted.

Further Reading:

A New Movement Is Working To Get Kids To Play Outside Again (earth.com)

25 Best U.S. Cities for Kids to Play Outside (fatherly.com) – If your place isn’t on this list, maybe the article will give you some tips for creating more of a play-friendly environment in your town or neighborhood.

The size and design of a house or apartment makes a significant different in the cost of maintaining it. Cleaning it, repairing stuff, furnishing it, heating and cooling it. The cost comes not only in terms of money and fossil fuels, but your own precious supply of attention.

Some incredibly clever folks created a 420-square foot apartment that two people can comfortably live in. It furthermore has space for two guests to sleep, and can accommodate a sit-down dinner for 10 to 12 people.

The same people went on to create a 350-square-foot apartment that meets the same criteria.

This is not to say everyone should give up their normal-sized houses or apartments and move to a micro dwelling. (Though I must say, some of my favorite dwellings have been tiny, including a 200-square-foot apartment in Tokyo and a 19-foot trailer in Austin.)

What it is to say is, there’s lots of room to push the envelope of design. Even in an ordinary house, a dining table could fold up into a wall. Bicycles can hang up, out of the way. There’s so much room for guests and additional residents in the average home, if space is used creatively.

Not everyone wants to live with other people (or more people than they already live with). But some would if they could, either to reduce their overhead costs, or to accommodate a friend or family member who can’t afford their own place — or for a social reason, such as to build community and resilience; share skills and ideas under one roof.

My dwelling, which I will grow old in if God’s willing and the sea don’t rise too much, is a 988-square-foot house. I have usually had one housemate; would like a second. During special events such as Bike Week, I have had up to nine friends and relatives staying here.

Officially, my house is a two-bedroom. But I converted the tiny utility room into my own bedroom-studio. And last March, when there were nine people here for Bike Week, I removed the table and chairs from the tiny dining room and put a cot in there. You know what? I never put the dining room table and chairs back in there. The chairs are used all over the house, and the table went to a neighbor who needed one.

So where do people eat? That’s easy. When the weather’s nice and there’s a large gathering, we eat at the patio table. When the weather’s not nice and we have a large gathering, I set up a long folding table in the living room. (The table is lightweight, and is easy to store when not in use.)

When it’s just me, or me and one or two guests, we use the little end-tables in the living room or porch.

Flexibility is what I like. Lightweight movable furniture. Folding beds. A 988-square-foot house can be vast; it’s much too large for me alone.

I have a rule that no furniture comes into this house that I would not be able to carry out the door myself, unassisted. Good rule for a single female, even a stronger-than-average one.

Some folks live in 3,000-square-foot houses where they are actively using every bit of the space. More often, though (in my house-cleaning and decluttering gigs), what I see is lots of opportunity for better use of space. It’s rarely the homeowner’s fault. Mainstream house design, cultural norms, have a certain inertia.

That’s why it’s so helpful and energizing to see examples of radical space design, even if you yourself don’t aspire to live in a micro dwelling.

Design is a major determinant of whether a living space is easily shareable or not. I once heard a home designer say she could break a couple up in two months just by creating a bad home layout (not that she was trying to do that; she was just trying to illustrate the power of design).

Makes you think, huh!

Design of our living space has a major effect on our moods, our energy, our creative capacity, our ability to live harmoniously with others. I greatly enjoyed the descriptions and photos of the LifeEdited micro apartments. And I’m eyeballing more opportunities to optimize space and flexibility in my thousand-square-foot palace!

Further Reading:

Can a Crowdsourced Apartment Design Save the Planet? (mashable.com): “What do you get when you take one 420-square-foot New York apartment, one green living advocate, $70,000 in prizes and a crowdsourced audience of forward-thinking designers? Hopefully an apartment design competition that can help reduce a country’s environmental footprint. The concept, called LifeEdited, aims to design an actual apartment that brainchild and guinea pig Graham Hill will inhabit. The apartment, just 420 square feet, must be able to accommodate a sit-down dinner for 12, comfortable lounging for eight people, space for two guests, a home office, a work area, hideable kitchen and necessities like bed, shower and bike storage (it is a green initiative, after all).”

LifeEdited2 (LifeEdited.com): This one is a 350-square-foot apartment! “Completed in 2016, LE2 is smaller than LE1 but amazingly manages similar functionality. It graciously seats 10 for dinner, hosts two in a guest room, and has a great home office.” I loved reading about the super clever foldaway/transforming furniture and the energy- and water-saving features. By the way, the article says the apartment is for sale. It was written awhile back but who knows? If it grabs you, contact the people!

“About” page of LifeEdited.com: – see more pix of their ultra-cool space-efficient micro-houses (including LifeEdited Maui) and apartments. LifeEdited Maui is a great example of an ultra-space-efficient small home in a wild setting, leaving more room for nature.

Solstice Blessings, everyone! In my hemisphere and time zone, the longest night of the year was last night (Saturday December 21), and the official time of the Winter Solstice was 11:19pm.

This is a very special time of year for me, even beyond just the Solstice itself which I consider very special.

Some years back, when I was living in a cute little trailer in an RV park in south Austin, I started to think of this time of year as “the backside of the year.”

And I meant it in a good way. A time of solitude (most of my neighbors seemed to leave town); a time of unstructured days (most of my clients — I was making my living as a Japanese-to-English translator at the time — tended not to have any work requests for me from late December til early January); a time of long-wave introspection. A fallow time. Doubly so because Facebook was not yet a thing.

It felt like a very RICH fallow time. An incubation phase; a gathering-in of energies to recycle for future use.

For maybe the past couple of years, I have not experienced the “backside of the year” as fully and richly as I have described above. But this year, I’m back to experiencing it again and it is a real treat.

Every time of year is special to me. I’m a particularly great fan of long warm summer nights. And when the days start to noticeably shorten, I go through a brief gear-shift phase where I feel a little hemmed-in and mildly dejected. But that phase passes.

And I really do cherish the “backside of the year.” A time to get small quiet things accomplished; a time to reassess and discard what no longer serves; a time to savor the richness of the dark. It kind of feels to me like I imagine an earthworm in the fertile depths of the compost pile feels.

To be continued shortly …

OK, I’m back! Not unlike many other people, I am prone to the “Facebook Blues,” where I see how much other people are accomplishing (their award-winning films and best-selling books; their eco YouTube channels getting a million hits; their gardens producing insane quantities of fruit; their 6-year-old kid inventing a new molecule, which was just a side activity on his way to a command performance at Carnegie Hall to perform Beethoven’s Umpteenth Symphony in Z minor), and find my own efforts greatly wanting. What am I doing? Why am I doing so little? How can I just spend so much time just sitting around enjoying birds and books and all that kind of thing? Why am I not out there doing more?

The “Backside of the Year,” when Nature herself slows down, when most of the neighborhood seems to be off somewhere at the mall or with their grandkids or in Paris or trekking in the Andes or what have you, and my immediate world seems to get extra quiet, feels like an extra-strong invitation, giving me not only permission but an actual mandate to unhook and slow down and fully be present with whatever I’m doing, without reference to the seemingly much greater things other people are doing.

I remind myself that Facebook is not the world. I use it so much for my work (primarily, spreading the #GrassrootsGreenMobilization by sharing the many shoots of it that are sprouting up all over), that it takes over my entire day if I’m not careful. The Backside of the Year, when nature gets extra dark and quiet, is a precious gift.

Backside of the Year accomplishments for today:

– Listened to the tiny birds that flit around my house; managed to spot one

– Added cover matter to the compost pile

– Installed an old-school pencil sharpener that I inherited from Mom & Dad’s house; it had been sitting around for almost two years, not being very usable because it wasn’t screwed down. Now it is! Hooray! Seriously, this was a big deal, actually getting this done.

– Wrote the first bit of this post as a Facebook post; then decided to write you an expanded version; did that

– Listening to the roar of the ocean! It’s about a 5-min walk from my house to the sea, and I can’t always hear the waves from my house, but at this time of year I often can; maybe it’s to do with some combination of cooler temperature, wind direction, lower humidity

Later plans:

– Go out with my hand-cart and pick up the pieces of an oak tree that someone in my neighborhood chopped down and left at curbside. Their loss is my garden’s gain! Logs are great for landscaping, and for building soil.

– Read book; appreciate the sights and sounds and smells around me

I don’t know if there’s a word for this, but if not, there should be: That feeling you get when you read about how much good someone else is doing, and you start to question not only your own activities and choices, but the very validity of your existence on this planet. It can be a deep dark rabbit-hole.

The thing is, we need all of us. Every person doing what they’re drawn to do according to their best efforts and highest intentions is an essential part of the mix. And, inner accomplishments are an absolutely essential part of that mix, though they don’t look cool in a selfie on Facebook. We live in a physical dimension, but our fundamental journey as humans is a journey of consciousness. An unfolding of awareness; an uncovering of our deepest truest nature, the better to help and serve all of our fellow creatures.

And regarding Facebook, I think that channel has been a boon to environmental movements (and other beneficial movements). Certainly I would not be able to reach nearly as many people without it. Regarding the “Facebook Blues,” I had to ask myself, “Am I just a pill, an envy-riddled sourpuss who can’t take joy in the accomplishments of others?” And the answer is no! But, that said, I think there’s a difference between hearing about someone’s greatness via social media and hearing about it person to person, either face to face or over the phone. On social media, the warmth of a direct social interaction is missing (or at least is way less), and all you get is the glossy postcard of fabulousness. Which probably is just another reminder of what I knew already: that if I’m feeling the Facebook Blues, it’s a sign I should put down the smartphone, walk outside, and go visit someone, or make something good happen.

I also have to say, regarding Facebook, that it has allowed me to connect with geographically distant cousins, and with bits of my extended family’s history that I would otherwise have no way of knowing. Just now I checked in to my feed, and one of my Dad’s cousins had posted pictures of a beautiful church that he and his father and other community members had helped build. St. Michael’s Catholic church in the town of Simpson, Pennsylvania. Both of my parents have passed. But, through the miracle of social media, I can read a post that several different cousins in several different cities chime in on, adding stories that enrich my sense of where I come from. (Growing up in a military family that moved every couple of years, and then, as an adult, taking a career path and personal path that led me to move several times, I always felt very mobile, free, and adaptable, but never had a very strong sense of roots. It’s nice to be able to fill in a few roots.)

Thanks for following along with this meandering post. I hope you found something useful here. And may the Backside of the Year enrich and recharge you!

Further Reading:

Most Accomplishments are Invisible (from David at Raptitude, one of my top favorite spirituality/consciousness blogs)

From a thread on the Journey to Zero-Waste group on Facebook, several reading recommendations:

Can One Person Really Make a Difference? (cbsnews.com)

Children’s book If Everybody Did, by JoAnn Stover. (“A teacher read this to my class 50 years ago; it was life-changing,” said the member who posted this recommendation.)

Can One Person Make a Difference? (80000hours.org)

Decline in plastic bags on seabed suggests measures to tackle plastic waste are working (Independent) “Despite the reduction in carrier bags, the overall amount of deep-sea litter remained roughly constant due to an increase in the number of other plastic items, including bottles and fishing debris” (emphasizing the need to keep moving forward with efforts to reduce all categories of plastic trash).

Watch This Man Walk Around NYC Wearing His Trash (YouTube video). I actually have met this guy, Rob Greenfield. He spoke at our Florida Permaculture Convergence in 2018. Here’s a guy who makes an impact that ripples out far and wide.

By the way, J2ZW is now 113,000+ members strong.

The following is something I wrote a couple of years ago and forgot about. It showed up on my “throwback” Facebook feed and I thought it worth pasting here. Hope you find it helpful!

Unfortunately, most of us at one time or another will have to deal with naysayers and haters. One friend recently had someone say to her, “What have YOU done for the world?” Implying that she hadn’t done much or anything to make a positive difference.

Well, I don’t know who the naysayer was, but I do know for a fact that my friend is a staunch advocate for the wellbeing of Mother Earth and all species, including her fellow humans. And, perhaps even more important, she is a living example of someone willing to be REAL, be herself. In the face of scorn, criticism, and the rough rock-tumbler that daily life can be, a good-hearted person being him/herself is practicing courage and service to a degree that often reaches revolutionary.

We must never, EVER underestimate the beneficial impact of a good-hearted person who’s willing to be his or her own self. This beneficial impact starts in the family or inner friend-circle, and ripples out wide to the planet and the cosmos.

There are many forces against being one’s own self. Thank you for not caving in to them. Thank you (all of you who are reading this) for showing up in the world as YOU, and doing the work you feel is most needed.

(Some very “logical” types might respond, “Well, who else can I be but me?” But most of us know there are lots of other options, including being a half-baked copy of someone we IMAGINE that society, friends, family, or some other admired figure wants us to be.)

#AuthenticityMakesADifference