Sponges

Sponges and paper towels together offer a disposable option in place of rags. But, at Willow house, we do not really dispose of them.
This is Dad's illustrated life cycle of a sponge: You buy it, you use it for dishes, you cut off one corner and use it for counters, you cut off another corner and move it to the bathroom to scrub the floor.

These are our sponges. The green ones are really, really clinging to phase one of the cycle. If that is the piece of steel wool I think it is, we have been using it for more than a year.
I replaced one of the dish sponges, and I just threw away the soft, saggy sponge it was replacing, because the counter and floor sponges were in better shape than it.

Resisting Obsolescence

Note: This is a Caitlan Post. I know it is confusing because I am a contributor to this blog but rarely post

This is going to be a post about my cell phone and obsolescence. (obsolescence is simply things becoming obsolete, that is, useless or unwanted, because they break down over time or are replaced by more desirable products. I suppose it is inevitable for a lot of things, but also it is deliberate (planned obsolescence) on the part of marketers and producers, which is manipulative to consumers, and bad for the environment.

In a way obsolescence is just part of progress, and entropy, but it is taken to a massive extreme for the middle class in the US. I am very taken by the little rhyme "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" but also, incidentally, I am not content owning old boring things. I think this is a clash of my desire to be in charge of my own purchasing decisions and the desire to have new awesome things instilled in me by, idk, society.

So, obsolescence in the case of my cell phone (I have the kind on the right in the image at the top):
The motorola RAZR phone debuted in 2004, 5 years ago. The hot pink version came out in 2006. By 2007, the nicest phone everyone wanted was an iPhone, but at my high school everyone still wanted a pink razr because not that many phones are pink. My friend Dr. Danielle gave me her Dad's pink razr, and I was very excited. Then in 2 years it got a little scuffed, and also everyone has got an iphone and razrs are old now. But I think they are the best cell phone for calls because of the shape when opened (they are a bit slow for texting compared to the ones with keypads).

So basically, it is still a good phone but it is obsolete because
1. function: people like to text more than they call people (I am always vaguely surprised to hear my ringtone, in fact)
2. form/style:
A. It looks very distinctively like the phone people wanted in 2004, and is thus "old" (ok, I would not wear jeans from 'o5...)
B. Also, the color of pink is out of style now- (yes, really. pink phones released recently are either a silvery metallic pale pink, a pale pearly pink, or have tones of coral or something. My phone is bright pink.)

So. I could just carry on liking my phone. But, I didn't.



Nice, right? I think it is hard to throw away (or even want to) a little cyclops even if you have had it for 2 years, can't send photos, and the iphone can navigate with a gps.* So, yeah, this is an example I guess of revamping something/recommitting to it by investing a bit of effort.

*I *love* driving new places when my passenger has an iphone. GPS is so cool. Instead I am making a set of direction cards (like the boxes of recipe cards)to keep in my car. Because a GPS is I think $200, and google maps is free. I am using obsolete card catalog cards and I am going to make them a little box decorated with a map that I use for collages. They are pierced on one side and I am wondering if I could make a tiny stick semi permanently fixed to the dash so I can post them. If my steering wheel were magnetic this would be more straightforward.

Karl Keeps Me in Line

"Blog liar!"

Surprised, I turn away from making salad for a birthday dinner. "Uh?"

"Blog liar!" Karl repeats.

"What the heck are you talking about?" I ask (choruses of Blog liar! B'liar! erupted from the peanut gallery at this point).

"You made it sound like there was a pile of e-waste laying around. You didn't even mention that I took it to the free e-waste day at the school.

"In fact, they were really glad to see me! I think they'd had a much lighter turnout than they'd hoped for. So when I pulled up and asked for a cart, they all said, 'You need a cart!' I filled all three racks on that cart."

Xena jumps in: "He plays pretty loosely with time on his blog. Of course, he's not that anchored in time to begin with, so it's not like he's doing it on purpose."

Karl said, "Well, right, but you've got a responsibility to your readers. I get it that you wanted to make it personal, but you've got to be accurate."

So the facts are that some of our pile of e-waste was nearly three years old, and some of it was less than a year. We were hiding it under camouflage netting behind and between the rain storage barrels. Karl, God bless him, heard my pain about never finding a free e-waste event until it was over and kept his attention on finding one prior to its ending, and he and I loaded up his van and...

he made that pile go away.

Because sometimes there is "away."

Tired of piles of e-waste

Saving the world on a budget is tough. When a CFL burns out, or the cell phone craps out because you dropped just one time too many, what do you do?

We used to store them until we had enough to make it worthwhile to take them "somewhere." IKEA recycles batteries and CFLs. We have a box labeled "Take to IKEA" with batteries and CFLs in it.

"Let's go to IKEA," Xena will say.

"Yes, let's!" I'll say. "We'll endure the parking lot, the shuffling throngs, the maze of furniture and greenwashing and spend more money!" Invariably, as we get out of the car, one of us will turn to the other, "Didn't you bring the box?"

Clearly, storing batteries and CFLs in a box to take to IKEA is not a solution that works for us.

Another option that doesn't work well for us is to store these things and wait for a free e-waste fair. I always see the notice "Free e-waste recycling at Emeryville High School" on the day after the event. So the e-waste simply piles higher and higher at my home. Soon I will be forced to pay for its removal, and that's not sustainable behavior for my wallet!

But now, from the people who brought us the Pony Express, the USPS is piloting a program to help recycle small items such as inkjet cartridges and cell phones. This is super convenient for us! We just pop our dead lump of plastic and silicon into the little recycling envelope and leave it in our own mailbox.

Convenient, at-home e-waste recycling is a solution that works very well for us.

Recycling at the US Post Office

Growing produce and protein in an urban setting

Many people are aware these days of how far their food travels, becoming less fresh and using up petroleum to get to their table. The Suncurve is a demonstration project growing produce and protein in a very small footprint. It could be integrated into the side of a multi-tenant residence in an urban center, providing fresh greens and berries and even legumes year-round in many parts of the United States.

Renewable solar and wind energy powers a pump to circulate water through the 1" thick biomat, bringing fishwastes to the roots of the plants. Some organic matter falls from the vertical bed into the fish pond, feeding the fish. A more robust system could even be imagined, processing human wastes back into food.

The engineer in me thrills at this system of massive intervention and resource allocation. The permaculturist in me recoils at the embodied energy this system represents. The urban permaculturist in me rejoices at how many "green" jobs this sort of infrastructure could create while leveraging our current relative abundance of resources into a system that ensures a steady supply of extremely local food for years and years.

Short Attention Span Day

I started a group on Facebook, "Short Attention Span" day.

Xena and I planned to paint the ceiling in our bedroom. It's an oppressive smoggy pink, a sort of intestinal mucosal membrane color. Short Attention Span to the rescue! Instead, two leather love seats, a handful of ottomans and a few sacks of craft supplies came home. Instead, we drove out to Napa and bought a 22' travel trailer. Instead, I did laundry and vacuumed. Instead, Karl and I caught bees (I got a small sting). Instead, we scheduled to go look at a vegie oil Mercedes. Instead, I babysat our chiropractor's lovely daughter. Instead, we partied with an impromptu bar-b-que. Instead, I foraged urban lemons. Instead, we began moving stuff into the attic.

So what's the progress on painting? We bought paint (yes, it's the enviro-friendly zero VOC kind!), we did some room prep, and Xena scrubbed part of a window's trim with TSP.

Impending Chrysalis

I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook.

I can have my phone uploads pics after I take them. I'm able to notice something and handle sharing it immediately. The sharing is nearly opinion free, too; I can simply place what's "now" into the interwebs.

My blog gets shunted aside a little bit. The role of keeping the outside world up-to-date and connected with a cohousing permaculture project is taken up, somewhat, with short twitter-like posts. In this newest incarnation of our massively multiplexed social structure, what's the blog for?

I don't really know.

Is it for me? So I can look back, easily, and read my thoughts from an earlier time? I certainly use it this way (and boy oh boy, does it wear me out, to re-read the journey so far. What courage I have had. Such Faith. I have changed and grown so much). Is it to provide raw material for someone researching practical application and integration of permaculture to the problems caused by urbanization? Yes, that too. Is it my own little bully pulpit? I sure hope not.

The sustainability project is in a sort of quiet phase. It's as though it's a chrysalis. I've made amazing friends in various spiritual communities, in social justice communities, in relocalization and resource diversion/integration communities... but I strongly feel that I've yet to really find my stride, to stretch my wings and be the strong force for positive change that I feel is within me to be.

Next Thursday my neigbor is hosting a "Take up the street" brainstorm session. The idea is that we've dedicated too much land to the automobile; what if we created something different? Off-street parking, and single lane emergency access thoroughfares? Community gardens and common spaces? Water catchment, goatherding, urban farming, pocket playparks? Do we have to submit to the regimented grid layout, or can we re-shape urban areas inot something more friendly?

A recent article about social surplus really caught my attention. Of the trillions of hours spent watching TV, and feeling a psuedo-connection with the characters on the flickering blue screen, just a small change creates a surplus of time for people to visit with neighbors, to plant a row of corn, to push a child on a swing, to help harvest some honey.

Maybe this blog really is in a small state of abeyance while the next big effort comes along.

Frontlines of Permaculture

This is not the frontline I want to be on.

I do not want to live where gunmen kill, and fleeing authorities, slam through busy intersections killing more people.

I do not want to hear sirens passing, heralding another violent tragedy.

I do not want a helicopter bristling machine guns circling a point just a few blocks from my home, pounding away the peace of twilight with its thwop-thwop-thwop and pushing back the night with its searchlight.

I want to live at the frontline of unmaking the system that has institutionalized classism, ableism, sexism, globalism, and whatever "ism" stands in the way of people treating each other humanely. I want to live at the frontline of spreading seeds of future greatness, of future opportunity, of future abundance. I do not want to live at the frontline of this urban violence.

And yet, I do live here.

People are dying by violence in Pakistan, in Gaza, in Darfur, in Sri Lanka... and in Berkeley and Oakland. Caitlan notes the irony of requiring an illiterate parolee to fill out and mail a postcard to the parole officer who tracks addresses; Betsy notes the lack of choices available to low-wage earning parents with children enrolled in public schools that are failing under the "No Child Left Behind" program; my black neighbor struggles to distance himself from the black thug that sometimes roams our street, to create for himself a future where "black" does not equal "criminal."

In permaculture, there is no away. You cannot throw trash away, because the whole world is your backyard. I submit that in urban permaculture, we are all on the frontline. There is no place you can "escape" to, because the problems are all around us. The problems belong to all of us.

We've made our street safer, through diligence and connecting with neighbors who value working together, through parties and food and sitting in each other's yards. Prejudice is not vanquished, but there is grace and tolerance here. We have yet to take on a larger task, such as ensuring children in the area get access to fresh produce, or that parents in the area have energy left to attend parent's night at school after an emotionally wearying workday. Were I to live in a place removed from violence, would I be safer? Or simply less at risk? What use is my mortal life if I've forsaken the task and destiny of my immortal soul? Am I allowed to risk my children? What choice does a parent in a refugee camp have? What choice do I have? What is my choice?

I'll choose to see that I am at the frontline. Of Oakland violence. Of Sri Lankan violence. There is no away. There is no shirking from choosing to help. This permaculture, intentional community, food justice and opportunity for all demonstration project that I am part of, is what I am doing and will continue to do. It's small. It's slow. But it is change.

Small. Slow.

Change.

In the Flow: Reuniting People and Restoring Landscape

My amazing friend Bonita held a reunion of sorts at Mariposa Grove. Friends, former neighbors and teachers flowed through the community from early afternoon until late at night, celebrating her and the connections we had with her and through her and with each other. I first met her when she lived here and I took the permaculture training class. She left to pursue her own goals more fully a few months after we moved in. She knows the space as it was, when fewer permie principles had manifested in the intentional community. She is... a priestess, an incarnation of the divine, a full and present participant in the dance of life. I grow and become a better person by simply being around her.

She and her partner are planning the water system for their homestead, so she was curious about ours.

"We've directed rain from my roof and the neighbor's into this trough," I said, indicating the french drain we built. "It flows to this catch basin filled with drain rock. The catch basin is about 3 feet deep. When it fills, there's an overflow channel to carry water below ground level to the edge of the property. In the dry season, we have a diverter valve at the laundry so we can drain our gray water into the basin."



"What's the purpose of the catch basin?" She asked.

"We want to recharge the ground water aquifer. The water table is pretty high here, but the bay is very close, too. Salination is probably not a problem, but it might be someday. We've identified that the back of this property used to be a shallow stream. Water flows downhill towards us not only from the immediate neighbor's roof, but the two properties beyond are hardscaped; we get a whole lot of water running over the ground. So by digging this french drain at the edge of our property, and directing the water towards its historic location I feel like I'm helping restore something that was lost. During a recent storm, I calculated that the entire drain system will catch and store at least 500 gallons before it overflows."

"Wow, that sounds like a lot of water!" she said. "What happens to water you don't capture?"

"Ha! This is where what you taught me really comes in: I spent a year watching the land, getting to know it. Come here, look at where the overflow leads." We walked to the other side of the yard. "In the heaviest storms, water bubbles up out of the drain and then under the fence. But see? This neighbor has hardscape too, and their sidewalk is sort of culvert shaped. The water flows down to the street instead of pooling around their foundation."

She said, "This sounds like a really great solution!" She smiled (I love her smile). "What I really appreciate is that you considered what was happening both upstream and downstream."

I preened a little inside. "Well, you all taught me 'There is no away.'"

Filtering Water

Presenting: an opinion free blog entry

I do not filter water.
Right now I feel a little bit sick.
I think the reason might be all of the art supplies I was putting in my mouth today.
I do that while I think what to paint, and sometimes because it is faster than dipping into the water cup.
Mostly, charcoal and titanium white acrylic paint, but also some graphite and conte.
I do this rather often, but today I had an art marathon lasting 7 hours, and my tongue tasted bad when I was done.
I had a bit of a headache.
I tried to drink some water, but my mouth tasted sort of bad, so I resolved to filter my water and keep out toxins.
The toxins in paint are more concentrated than the toxins in tap water.
I dissolved my water resolve and formed an art resolve.
Ashley's dog, Tali, ate something poisonous to her, vomited foam all over the upstairs, and is at the vet overnight.
The house is quiet and has no animal leavings in it tonight.
I am staying up to enjoy it.
I am not enjoying my headache.

Space-Based Solar Power

PG&E has agreed to buy electricity from start-up Solaren. PG&E buys electricity from many sources. What's new here, is that Solaren plans to build their facility in orbit.

When Elon Musk got into solar cells, and electric cars, and low-cost orbital access, I told everyone I knew to watch for the the first commercial space-based solar power project to be announced. It's fun to be right.

Why do we need space-based solar power? You're going to hear many environmentalists and even my friends in the green/relocalization/power down movement get all up in your face and on the airwaves about what a bad project this is. What I hope we all come to realize is that the problem isn't that humans have an insatiable appetite for energy. It's that we use it so poorly, poisoning ourselves and dirtying our nest.

Environmentalists who have traditionally been anti-nuclear power have finally seen that it's a great alternative to fossil fuels. What they will hopefully see is that space-based solar power is an even better option, cleaner, greener, and more full of job opportunities and economic growth with far less risk than nuclear. Space-based solar power is less risky than even coal-fired plants.


This chart shows that, over time, we find more energy-dense sources and drive our standard of living higher. The saddle shape of each energy source (wood, coal, oil) reflects that it starts out expensive, leads to a nice decrease in cost, which then as the resource is used up (or replaced by a superior energy technology) increases again.

The only technology we've got that continues this trend is moving power generation off-planet.

The reason it's important to continue this trend, is there isn't a viable method to "conserve" our way out of the mess we're in. We've exported consumption idealism to the world. We didn't invent consumption; it's a ramped up version of celebrating abundance, which Life itself invented.

We can scale back, but the imperative of Life to grow and change become more complex and grander is unstoppable. As conscious beings, we get to choose how we focus on this imperative. We've done a poor(ish) job so far. We're realizing our choices have far-reaching consequences. So we need to find solutions that reduce the impact on the planet, on people, on the ability of future generations to care for themselves. The best solutions will be enabling technologies, creating the foundation for future abundance.

To reach these goals, our best choice is space-based solar power.

Green From the Ground Up

The new Brower Center just down the road from me is an amazing new development with an astonishing percentage of salvaged and recycled parts. We've been biking and driving past it for a while now. It's exciting that it's about to be open for business! 

(Thank you, Anneli for the tip!)

My new job is... newer.

The folks who come out to your house and install solar panels are called "solar integrators." We design custom systems from modular components, to give rate-payers the best bang for their buck as they secure their energy future. 

Unfortunately for solar integrators, it's a real slim margin industry. It's tough to make ends meet as a small company where a single job's parts costs as much as the next four job's profit. The solution? Integrators are themselves integrating.

Light Energy Systems has just been acquired by publicly traded Lonestar, and combined with another integrator as Acro Energy. We'll be learning each other's strengths, and teaching better practices as we discover each other's weaknesses. The end result will be better pricing and service for our clients.

I'm pretty glad about this, because now there's a learning curve for me again. And that's when I'm happiest.

More Unintended Benefits of Thinning

We sow seeds thickly. We also inter-crop intensively; lettuces, radishes, carrots, mustards and kales, all sown together. Two benefits have already become apparent: pests can't get a very good grip on the crop (mustard seems especially good at keeping slugs away) and as we thin baby plants, we get a harvest much sooner than if we had to wait for full maturation. As long as seeds are cheap, this will be a good strategy.

Two benefits showed up over time: the cats don't poop in the beds (they prefer fluffy dirt, not soil filled with growing things) and now, this. Jori thinned some kale, and made an edible "floral" arrangement with it.

I've been really enjoying wandering through the kitchen and eating a few leaves. As if going down to the garden were any great burden! But here are greens, in the kitchen, succulent and tasty, just waiting to go into my mouth.