How Zen is Your Venn?

"We're captives of a business model that has passed its useful limits. [But] until there's a fundamental change in the underlying rules set, the model will keep yielding the same output." - George Ure

I've been thinking a lot lately of the diagram I saw in The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World by Peter Senge et al. In this book, Senge et al. present a sort of Venn diagram that exemplifies a way of looking at how economy, society, and the environment relate to each other that really resonates with me.

Source: "Visualizing Sustainability" at OppGreen Insights.

In this case, the economy is seen as part of society and not existing without it. Both operate within the natural systems and do not exist separate of the environment. It's a new way of thinking about how we treat our economy.  We tend if anything to see the world with economy and environment switched.

Today I thought of a new way of visualizing this model that really drives home the importance of the environment being the primary, foundational concern of our actions instead of the economy. Imagine the above diagram as stacked cylinders and we are looking down on them. Perhaps they are stacked so the environment, the widest of the cylinders, is at the top, like this:

 To me it seems like a rather precarious situation to prop everything up on the economy like this. One bad jolt can have them all on shaky ground. But if this model is inverted, like this:

This makes more sense to me. It seems like an arrangement like this, not just thinking of the environment as the all-encompassing domain but also as the foundation for all we do, we have a system that is not just more sustainable but also more hardy.

What are your thoughts? How do you visualize the relationship between environment, society, and economy?

Holiday Sustainability

"An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day." - Irv Kupcinet

This holiday season has been a little more tricky as we start living a more sustainable life. While we don't formally celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving for their intended purpose, we do take advantage of the times for family to gather and spend time together. It's rare that we get all or most of either of our families together in the same place at the same time, so we enjoy it however we can find it. Something we did years ago with Christmas was insist that we did not want any gifts. That was a difficult transition to make more for our family than for us, but it has worked out wonderfully.

This Thanksgiving was especially different for me as I'm trying to transition to a plant-based diet. My parents enjoy the traditional Thanksgiving spread, including the family recipe for pork stuffing. I admit I had some turkey and stuffing, though I tried to keep my portions down compared to previous years. In a way I knew I would never convince my family that we could do a vegetarian Thanksgiving, and the turkey and stuffing would have been there whether I ate it or not... yeah, slippery slope and not very committed I admit, but there it is.

100 Thing Challenge Update

"There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more.  The other is to desire less." - G. K. Chesterton

I never did post our rules for 100 Thing Challenge. I'll have to get back to that. In the meantime, we set a goal to reduce to 100 things each by January 1, 2011, and live with no more than 100 things each for a year (at least, we may make it permanent). So how are we doing?

You probably saw our earlier post on getting rid of clothes. We still have more to do there, but for the most part we pared down our wardrobes rather significantly. We also got rid of a lot of dishes, glasses, and silverware. We kept two of each (plate, bowl, fork, butter knife, steak knife) and got rid of the rest. We have several drinking cups but we only kept the handmade clay cups we've saved from Medieval Forum each year. These are locally crafted earthenware pieces that have not only the local nature to them but also a bit of personal history behind them and a story, which makes them far more suitable for our family life than factory-made glasses bought in a department store that have no local ties aside from the local branch of the chain store, which hardly counts to us. I just brought two boxes full of kitchenware to the recycling center today and left them in the reuse area in the hopes others will take what they want or need.

We also finally got rid of the last of our CD and DVD collection. We did save a few DVDs and CDs that will take up space in our one bookcase each library, which means they displace books, which forces us to make choices. We plan to focus on any music purchases being digital files rather than physical media and hopefully independent (local) artists. We can borrow most of what we want to watch from Netflix, and we're definitely into resource sharing options like that, though there is of course a carbon footprint to the shipping involved.We make a lot of use of our instant queue so we can watch online instead of having a DVD shipped as much as possible, though we really don't spend a lot of time watching television and movies.

It finally happened. All of this, save about a dozen DVDs and a couple dozen CDs, is gone. We tore down the media wall.

We're currently going through books. We're down to three bookcases and shrinking (not including Ian's one bookcase for toys and books). Soon we'll be bringing the books to the used bookstore for others to enjoy and reducing clutter, which is a good thing! Since we got rid of so much physical media and so many books, as well as a lot of kitchenware, we've rid ourselves of a few pieces of furniture, too.

Next up: finish going through books and clothes, and then the game collection. The game collection is really going to be a challenge for us. We've pulled out a few things already, but not enough to make a significant dent.

We Have Bicycles!

“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” - H. G. Wells

We've had a bicycle for Kathy for a little while now, but it's needed some work and I was missing some tools to do that work. I was without a bike, however, so our plans to get around on bike were stalled until we could find a way of getting me a bike and getting tools to fix Kathy's. Thankfully my parents have helped us a great deal with this! My father gave me his old bike, which is ready to go. He also gave us the tools we need to fix Kathy's bike. Now we just need to get a couple of racks for the bikes and bike helmets for us all and we can safely get around town and do our shopping and errands on bike. We have the bike trailer for Ian already so we're good to go! Some very exciting life changes are right around the corner...

Becoming a Vegetarian

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.  If beef is your idea of 'real food for real people' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." - Neal Barnard

Ever since reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, I've been uneasy about eating meat. I'm glad I read it, because it started me thinking about buying local or humane raised/slaughtered meat. Sadly that only lasted as long as my wife and I were both earning income. The sad reality is that it's too expensive to know your meat and buy it from trusted, humane sources, and we can't afford to do it anymore. One weekend recently I was volunteering at D Acres recording video and Josh Trought said something that really imprinted upon me: when it comes to beef, the meat industry will feed 100 people worth of grain to each cow to get 10 people worth of beef to eat, so why not just eat the grain ourselves and feed more people?

On top of this, I've noticed lately just how uneasy I am with the flavor, smell, and heavy feeling in my tummy of cooked meat, especially red meat. Just a couple of days ago I cooked some maple bacon we received from the food pantry. It was the typical maple bacon from the grocery store that I would have normally loved before, but the taste, texture, grease, and smell... it was disgusting. I could smell it in our home even still this morning and it was literally making me queasy. I'm not sure how or why this started happening, but I've been far more mindful of it lately and intent on doing something about it.

And so I've been working toward a plant-based diet, although I think I will still eat eggs and dairy, at least for now. I'm not quite ready for vegan. I occasionally eat eggs for breakfast, but most mornings I have taken to eating a delicious chocolate peanut butter oatmeal, the recipe for which I found on the blog (never home)maker, which I highly recommend. I've also been working up to this little by little, starting with Meatless Monday.

I would certainly appreciate any and all advice or suggestions that anyone experienced with a plant-based diet could offer.

On Why I Fast for my Birthday

Since invariably it comes up from year to year, I wanted to resurrect part of a former post I made on another blog and expand upon why I fast for my birthday.

For the past few years on my birthday I have fasted as a spiritual commitment. I believe that we are all related, every living thing, and that we must all have a certain amount of respect for each other and our place on this Earth. I know that what I eat was once living and has sacrificed its life so that I may live. Life feeds on life. To celebrate another year of life I sacrifice that sustenance to give other living things a little more time and to show my respect and gratitude for that sacrifice.

 So what does this have to do with my efforts to live more sustainably? Fasting for one day a year hardly puts a dent in consumerist tendencies. What this spiritual experience does for me, and ultimately for my attempt to live more sustainable, is serve as a reminder to be grateful, but also a reminder that what I consume had to come from somewhere. For this food to come to me, someone else had to sacrifice. What I have eaten is not only no longer available as food for someone else, but is life no longer lived, and overconsumption leads to senseless taking of life when I could get by on far less. While I still struggle with unsustainable eating habits, I feel this reminder is so important to me to keep me grounded in respect for all my relations (not just human or animal, but all life and creation) and focused on how I can reduce what I consume to spread the wealth and only take what I need so others may do the same.

I'd like to share a Lakota prayer that really inspires me and fits this day so appropriately.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin....All my relations. I honor you in this circle of life with me today. I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you in this prayer....
To the Creator, for the ultimate gift of life, I thank you.
To the mineral nation that has built and maintained my bones and all foundations of life experience, I thank you.
To the plant nation that sustains my organs and body and gives me healing herbs for sickness, I thank you.
To the animal nation that feeds me from your own flesh and offers your loyal companionship in this walk of life, I thank you.
To the human nation that shares my path as a soul upon the sacred wheel of Earthly life, I thank you.
To the Spirit nation that guides me invisibly through the ups and downs of life and for carrying the torch of light through the Ages. I thank you.
To the Four Winds of Change and Growth, I thank you.
You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other. One nation evolving from the other and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery.
Thank you for this Life.

I was touched by Bill Moyer's call to include a spiritual perspective in our activism, read from his book Doing Democracy this year on the eve of my birthday and the beginning of my fast. In his book, Moyer says:

"Spirit refers to the strong inner urge for meaning in our lives, an urge that involves a deep, positive connection with each other, the planet, and an evolving universe. Compassion, kindness, love, equality, support, and caring, therefore, are qualities of spirit. They bring us back in touch with our true nature. When we experience these qualities we tend to feel more fulfilled, joyful, energized, and happy. These are also the qualities of the peaceful model that we seek." (p. 198)  

 I hope my spirituality can inform my activism well into the future, and that I will heed the lessons I learn from it in daily life and effecting change.

Small Round Cordwood Home

“There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits” - Robert Southeby

While I've been busy with lots of reading now that graduate classes have started in earnest, we've both been reading Cordwood Building: The State Of The Art, loaned to us by our wonderful neighbors. We've given a lot of consideration to more natural construction styles versus traditional stick-built. We like straw bale, cob, and cordwood construction, but to us it seems cordwood would be most suitable to our northern New England climate.

We've also been considering shape. I really like how Cordwood Building pointed out efficiency of vertical wall square footage versus footprint, with a perfect circle being the most efficient (less vertical wall for the most square footage), with a perfect square being next most efficient and the most efficient rectangular footprint. For us we have spiritual reasons for gravitating toward a round house, as well.

At this point it looks like we're going for a round house, but we might make a quarter of it square, essentially ending up with a teardrop shaped house. We think this has some cool potential for layout options and maximizing square footage and minimizing vertical wall. Our footprint is coming out around 300sf with a loft, giving us space for a small bedroom for our son and a tiny bathroom, plus a combined living/kitchen space and the loft for our sleeping quarters. I would really like to see us build the loft in a way that we can leave some or all of the living area open cathedral-style to give more vertical space and imply a bigger area than it actually is, which really is key to tiny housing.

While we are nowhere near being ready to build anything, it's nice to design and plan now so we can work toward achieving this goal in a few years. If we approach this right, including buying appropriate, buildable land from somewhere like craigslist or eBay real inexpensive, we could potentially have our own very eco-friendly, sustainable home that we own mortgage-free and for a fraction of what traditional homeowners spend on purchasing a home. You can't really get a much better investment than that!

Making a Recycled Notebook

"We may recycle newspapers and glass and take proper satisfaction for doing so, but we remain caught in a web of spiritual assumptions about success and consumption, progress and waste that effectively undermine and trivialize our efforts to escape."  - William H. Becker

In preparation for graduate school, I decided to not only reuse some of my partially filled notebooks from my undergraduate days, but also use some one-sided printed paper to make a recycled notebook. I used a cereal box from my recycling bin to make the cover, three-hole punched everything, and bound it with ribbon. Instead of leaving the cover as the front of the cereal box, I used a bunch of old stickers we had lying around just waiting for a use. The end result is a thick notebook of mostly one-sided sheets of paper that didn't cost me any money beyond stuff I already had as waste from other purposes or as leftover stuff from years ago, and it reduced how much we would be throwing away or recycling by reusing instead. Have I mentioned I love finding ways to use the waste stream as a resource?

The cover in all its cheesy glory. At least it isn't an advertisement for a brand of cereal!

As you can see, the face of each sheet is blank and ready for writing. Why recycle this sheet of paper when there's still more room for words and pictures?

And while I'm at school, I have the added benefit of some pages reminding me of my budget season deadlines so I can get my department budget figured out and submitted on time. Worry not, they gave me two copies.

While I'm at it, I can use some down time to brush up on biology.

Or, if I am caught up on my studies and have some free time and my guitar with me, I could play a jazz standard.

If I'm super bored I can play this little U.S. history trivia challenge on the back of the notebook, which coincidentally enough (well, not really coincidentally) came from the back of the cereal box. I figured it was fitting since some of my course work will involve political strategy.

Have You Got Anything Without Spam?

“It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the guests, which makes the feast” - Edward Hyde

I realized a couple of days ago that I was remiss in not including a link to Meatless Monday in my post of links, so I have corrected this. I also figured now would be a great time to talk about some of our pursuits to cut down on meat.

We like to eat meat. Unfortunately we like to eat too much meat, which is pretty much typical of the average American's diet. This is one area of our unsustainable eating habits that we identified a while back and decided to work on by finding ways to have meatless meals and meatless days. That's not to say we want to go vegetarian or even vegan, but we recognize that meat production has a substantial negative impact on our environment so we want to decrease how much we eat and work toward quality (local farms that practice safe, sanitary, humane, eco-friendly meat production) over quantity (hey, the supermarket has a family pack of factory produced steaks on sale! let's get that for dinner!).

We have a lot of beans in various forms: dry, canned (not by choice, but we get a lot of them from the food pantry and WIC right now during these hard economic times), refried. The thing to be mindful of is whether our source of protein is complete, meaning it contains all of the essential amino acids. Meat by default is complete, but we can also find some plant sources for complete protein (soy, buckwheat, quinoa) or combine foods (beans and rice, beans and grains, beans and corn, beans and nuts, beans and pasta, etc.) to get a complete protein source. Hummus is a great complete protein so we've started experimenting with making our own hummus. We've also been eating casseroles made with beans and rice, and adding beans to pasta dishes.

For lunches we use cheese in place of meats, especially with salads. We have also added nuts to salads or made bean dishes for lunch if we're doing something different for dinner. We've learned through experience not to do everything bean because it burns you out on them real quick. I enjoy eggs, so I eat eggs for breakfast just about every day anyway (usually an omelet with veggies and maybe some cheese). Kathy can't do eggs because they make her sick, so we usually try to find something for her that is meatless and eggless. We don't have as much problem with eggs and cheese because you don't have to raise a bunch of cows or chickens and slaughter them to get these things. You can get by on fewer animals and go back to them again and again to get the food.

The key is to make sure we find a variety of ways to find complete proteins and not overdo one particular food. In addition, we're looking at meat as a "sprinkling" additive with our food instead of the main portion of our meal. This reduces our meat consumption but still keeps us healthy and getting some meat which we enjoy, thus reducing our carbon footprint. We could go vegetarian, and perhaps someday we will, but even finding a balance is much more sustainable than our habitual overconsumption of meat.

Goals and Rules and Needs, Oh My!

“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” - Aristotle

We've done some short and long term goal setting, as well as come up with some rules for our 100 Thing Challenge which are pretty much modified from David Bruno's original rules for himself. We also did some needs/wants listing for our eventual tiny/small house. Here's what we came up with...

Goals: We came up with some short-term and long-term goals for living more sustainable so we have intermediate steps we can take to get us toward the bigger goals. Admittedly some of these are wishy-washy and need to be more definite, especially the goals that say "set this goal."

Short Term Goals

• Develop rules for our 100 Thing Challenge and follow through. Reduce to 100 things each by January 1, 2011 and live with 100 things until January 1, 2012.
• Get bikes with bike trailer(s).
• Reuse as much as possible (use the waste stream as a resource).
• Buy or make a composter.
• Set specific weight loss goals for the winter and determine the dietary and fitness means to accomplish them.
• Pay off the truck.
• Reduce our dishes and cookware to as minimal as possible.

Long Term Goal

• Live in a small house or apartment (250 - 350 square feet).
• Live within bike/walk distance of work, school, food, etc.
• Become locavores: shop locally for locally grown/made food, clothing, shoes, etc.
• Lose weight and get in shape. Goal weight 150-180 pounds.
• Get a very fuel efficient vehicle or have no car at all.

 100 Thing Challenge: We decided for the most part to each follow David Bruno's original 100TC rules with some modifications.

• We would also count one library of books as one item, but we would be specific in deciding on one bookcase to keep and that is the library for books, magazines, photo albums, and physical media of music and movies.
• Memorabilia would count as one item if it could fit into one small bin.
• Certain items for hygiene and/or convenience sake must be grouped into single items. Underwear and bras are one item. Socks and hosiery are one item. I will allow myself to use my travel makeup kit to hold enough makeup for regular use and count it as one item. A set of regularly used personal hygiene items will count as one item (toothbrush, hair brush, nail clippers, etc). I will reduce my tools to the bare essentials and what I can fit into a small or moderate sized tool box is one item.

We decided that handling gifts and new items would work as in David Bruno's original rules.

Tiny Home Wants/Needs: This is still distant thinking, but if we're going to start planning for a long-term goal of living in a tiny/small home, we have to figure out what we want and need from our home. These lists are still in the works, but what we have so far...

Wants

• Composting toilet
• Greywater recycling system
• Solar and/or wind power
• Solar hot water

Needs

• Ian's own private space
• Kitchen
• Bathroom
• Sleeping space
• Common living space

Tiny Houses and Small Houses

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” – E.F. Schumacker

We've been really getting into trying to design a tiny house or small house for our family and determining just how small we can go. While our son's privacy concerns will increase our space needs as he gets older, for now we feel we can get down to a very small size, for example around 172 square feet. We were inspired by the Popomo design at Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.

The Popomo layout, which has a bedroom for two people.

This design is for two people, but what if we got creative with sleeping arrangements? What if we took some inspiration from the Romani vardo as suggested by Kathy, where we combine a bunk with storage space? This led us to view the single bedroom that occupied the space from floor to ceiling as wasted vertical space that could more efficiently sleep three people in a bunk-and-cubbies configuration that also gave us some built-in storage for clothes.

An example of a vardo bunk.

What I came up with for a design isn't quite as ornate or old world, but still very functional and fitting for the modern and right-angled design of the Popomo. The design below incorporates a top bunk that would give Kathy and me essentially a full bed with a window. Ian would have the bottom bunk, which isn't as deep but also gives him a set of shelves and cubbies for his clothes and toys. We're contemplating adding a set of cubbies and shelves along the head of the upper bunk for us since it's much longer than needed for sleeping and would give us storage options, too. This way we economize on the sleeping space and fit three of us comfortably in the space originally designed for two people.

On the left is a view facing the bunks. The right is a top-down view, which has a dotted line showing where the lower cubbies and shelves are in the back of the lower bunk.

When Ian gets older and needs his own space, we're looking at upgrading to a small house design like the Harbinger. I'm also a fan of shipping container houses (check out specifically the Ecopod, the Port-A-Bach, and the All Terrain Cabin), but Kathy is having a harder time getting into them. I see them as having great potential for a greenhouse or living roof stacked on top. The greenhouse gets us a sloped roof essential for New England but also gives us a living roof that we both want to use for extended growing seasons or year-round growing of some foods.

Donating Our Clothes and Sharing Our Thoughts

"Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts." - Henry David Thoreau

Today we donated five more bags of clothing and shoes. This follows on our previous donation of five bags of clothing. It's astounding how when these clothes were in our closet and on our shelves they didn't seem like so much. It's a very stark realization that we donated ten trash bags filled with clothes (and a couple pairs of shoes each) and we still have some more clothes recently given to us to go through and the lot that we kept. Thankfully I can now say I have distilled my clothing down to enough to fit comfortably in my half of our small closet (including t-shirts, but not including underwear) with room to spare. That also includes the three or so outfits of each of two sizes smaller so I'm prepared for the weight I'll be losing over the rest of summer and autumn. Clothing still takes up more than half of my list of 100 things, but I hope to lose enough weight to get rid of at least the current stock, if not also the next size down, by January 1.

Five bags of donated clothes compared to the blue and yellow laundry bags, which contain one week of laundry for our family of three and three blankets and a bathrobe that we've put off washing for a while.

The more we work toward our goal of 100 things each (plus 100 shared family items at most), the more liberating it feels and the less reluctant I am to get rid of stuff. I can already see and feel the difference in our home, and how less cluttered it becomes with each donation. I can't wait until we can have a big yard sale!

Making Our Lists, Checking Them Thrice

We're still working on overall goal setting, but we have a decent set of short and long term goals to start. I'll post those later when I have them handy. In the meantime, we're working on our lists for the 100 Thing Challenge. We're giving ourselves until January 1, 2011, which is roughly six months from our decision to do this, to get down to 100 things each.

So far I've managed to get rid of five trash bags full of clothes and keep those which are best suited for work, school, and down time. This is after I already purged a bunch of clothes. I had been holding on to a lot of clothes in the hopes that they would fit me again, but really in the meantime there are other people who could use those clothes and I can find clothes when I lose weight. This time around I kept a couple outfits of each size lower so I have some backup as I will be losing weight soon, but not much. Even still my list of 100 things is still half full with clothes alone, so I need to lose weight before January 1 enough to get rid of at least the current stuff, possibly the next size down, too.

In other news, we've been talking about just how small we could live, and the possibility of getting the Fencl model (130 sf) and getting creative with use of space, such as when Ian is older and needs privacy giving him the loft and building a compartment to store a roll-out futon mattress in the living area for our sleeping needs. If we build it ourselves and find a suitable cheap lot on Craigslist or similar (making sure we check for no quit claim, legal building lot, zoning permits essentially mobile homes/temporary structures/camps, etc.) we could easily save up the money and own our own home without mortgage in four or five years, and it would be very eco-friendly and, should we need to relocate, we could take our home with us.

We Have A Bicycle Trailer!

My parents bought us a bicycle trailer for Ian's first birthday! Apparently they also have one of my old bikes in the barn, so my Dad is possibly going to fix it up for us and bring it up to us next weekend. With any luck, within a week, we should be on the road bicycling places instead of driving in a car whenever possible. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Wishlist

We could really use the following things to get started in our sustainability efforts. Used in good condition is preferred, but if you really want to buy it for us new we won't complain. Mostly this is if you have it and don't need it, we'll gladly take it! We're also willing to trade if we have something you want/need and we don't want/need it.

• Bike trailer for baby and/or groceries
• Bicycle (hybrid best, road bike second best, mountain bike is okay)
• Bicycle baskets/saddlebags for carrying groceries
• Hiking baby carrier pack
• Composter or scrap parts we can use to make our own tumbling composter:
• Plastic drum between 20-55 gallon capacity
• 48"-long 2"-diameter schedule 80 PVC pipe or 1 1/2"- to 2"-diameter galvanized steel pipe
• Scraps of 2"x4" long enough to build a wooden saw buck

More to come as we think of them. If we can think to post a list of stuff we have available to trade, we will, or you can ask and we'll let you know if we have it.

Some Links of Interest

To start I wanted to share some links to sites or resources we found particularly useful or inspirational. Check them out!

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
Tiny House Design
100 Thing Challenge
Meatless Monday
Radical Simplicity and the Global Living Project
Backwoods Home Magazine
Primitive Ways
Composting 101