Lifegiver - and the power of time

 

I wanted to post on the subject of working as a parent long ago - but something kept me from doing it.  I wanted to post a photo of a totally exhausted looking mom, black under the eyes - but I am glad I have had the full circle of the experience before sharing it.

When I first started working full-time, with two children, then 8 and 10, I first experienced the thrill of first fear of the challenge, then happiness at success when I did well.  At first I had a lot of stored energy and "hunger" (as they say in MMA).  I gave all my time and energy to my work to make sure I succeeded.  I felt great relief after years of looking for a "proper" job that I was fulfilling my potential after years of education and temporary jobs, building up my skills from home.  For the first time I was providing my own financial contribution to the family.  And, I was growing very quickly in the area of my future dreams (illustration).

But as time went on, I experienced some extreme tiredness at times - when you are working 110%  work and also at home to cook dinner (starting at 7pm) and keeping up with housework on the weekend - and then the guilt creeping in...

At first I did do it all, and well, but eventually my family relationships started to take strain as I spent all available time either at work.  My husband, the most independent one came last.  Definitely no time for friends and helping out in the community.  My family's home in time became more and more dingy and dark, with no Lifegiver giving it new spirit.



I discovered what being time-poor and financially better off was really like - not very glamorous.  Like having a great meal before you, but with no time to eat it.  Wasteful.  I bought quicker, more packaging intense foods (before I had spent heaps of time buying lower packaging / locally sourced food as possible  (e.g. bringing my own containers to whole food stores, my own containers to a butcher who can fill and weigh instead of buying meat in polystyrene trays at the grocery store).  Now that there was little time I sailed past the grocery store on the way home,  grabbing a few expensive things in a rush.  In those moments the needs of my family's survival in that time-poor environment broke my resolve to live better for the future.

I learned for the first time why many families don't take the time to think and make choices that preserve the environment.  Even when you are educated and aware, having no time (being in survival mode) wears you out so you just can't.

No energy to swim against the current, to find new paths - as I always had.  Energy to think..energy to fight.

I am so glad I know this now - the most difficult challenge of all - the choice of balance between making money for your family, and raising one.

In the end, in short - I took a vacation to see family, gathered energy and came back resolved to change my situation before I got worn down again.  I negotiated a more family friendly workweek (only had that courage as I was willing to take any job that allowed me to have more and time with family - even if it was a demotion).

To my surprise my work was accommodating.  I was then able to return my family to a healthy and fun balance when I was able to put my energy back into it (and my husband and I both had a newfound respect for the role of a mother in a family - Lifegiver, I call it).

I also realised the importance of time in people's choices of whether to spend their energy on conserving environment - whether they went out of their way to make new patterns, or to become more aware.  In a way a society which keeps people really busy protects itself from change - people don't have time to think - or grow gardens!  Or whatever...

Life works in mysterious ways. Although I will always feel sadness over any missed time sharing my children's magic childhood years - I am glad I have learned a key hurdle to people being able to make choices beyond everyday survival.  That is, to live in a way, which is (I think a very powerful word - which cannot be overused), sustainably...  for people to really fight for change - in their habits, in our choices, for our society to change we must first fight for balance and space to do so.

Two days ago with mischief I brought two little reusable containers to Sam's Butcher in Silverdale, and as the lady weighed the meat in them and I avoided buying two polystyrene (styrofoam) containers - my heart was ever so light.

These various interactions are small, but they are everyone - and everywhere.

I sincerely wish everyone luck in fighting for some of that golden precious time - life giving space.

Feedback to my company about Enviro Day events it holds

Feeling refocused lately on matters such as this - sludgey efforts of many to become more sustainable.  Recently all the employees were asked for ideas about our company holding their Earth Day or Environmental events.  This is what I said:

I like the idea of the quiz.

1.     I think a huge part of eco living is the time we have to devote towards these things.  Especially with terrible traffic congestion problems of Auckland  The more we can have flexible working arrangements, the more we have time to care and put energy and thought in (instead of being too worn out to do so).  Things like going to bulk food stores, recycling properly, all a challenge if working full time.

2.     Improving transport would be an awesome thing for Downer to cooperate with.  Subsidised public transport, building a path out to that train station behind Kerrs Rd, promoting travelling less.

 

Those are obviously ideas for the environment, not for Downer’s events. But how can we promote those ends through the events?  Otherwise it’s just pointless having the events. 

I found the photo competition to be totally irrelevant to the environment, as it was judged upon photographic merit.  It has to be judged for sustainability value – either in documenting actions / or in new awareness about sustainability.

How about rewarding IDEAS on how either employees, or Downer, can become more sustainable?  And publishing the best ones?  Like that box competition but for enviro.

Why not teach about the areas which we are currently unsustainable – carbon pollution: transport of selves, buying local; zero waste: info/trips how to waste less, places to buy cool zero waste equipment like sandwich wrappers, or stainless steel, buying less crap, home gardens – education on why? Like plastic in oceans/

Etc etc

This all has to be fun and cool or it’s a no go.  There are really cool reusable nappies out there – really healthy, better alternatives for everything.  I think a Downer tips email which was done in a fun, loving, nonjudgemental way would be the best idea ever.

 

Nonavee Dale
Graphic Designer - Projects, Downer
New Zealand

The Last Leaf (original story by O. Henry)

When I was young, I saw a short film of O. Henry's story, The Last Leaf.  The film wouldn't have won an Academy Award, but to a child, the obvious characters so roughly drawn out probably told the story better.  Anyways, I got it - it was a great message.  Such that I am really glad I shared it before I die!  (Everything on this blog I'm glad is there in case I get wiped out.)

Just for busy modern people I will summarize the amazing story so you won't miss it.

Two girls are living in a New York apartment building during the turn of the century or so. They are talented artists and have set up a studio together, Sue and Johnsy (nickname for Joanna).  But pneumonia ravages Johnsy.  Johnsy dreams of painting in France.  But she gets so ill and weak, she becomes fixated on a vine outside her window - how the vine struggles on the bricks, but each leaf eventually dies and falls away.  She watches them die, tired of struggling - and becomes convinced that when the last leaf falls away, she too will let loose her grip on the world.

A neighbour lives downstairs, Old Behrman, an old man who is a failed painter, obsessed with one day painting his great masterpiece.   Behrman curses, with his heavy accent, struggles with himself and never completes it.  "He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it." In the film I saw, he is shown as talking to his dead wife, dreaming of the past, grand days.  But now, he drinks too much and is cranky with everyone.  Sue goes to ask him to be a model for her painting of an old hermit miner, telling him also about Johnsy and her morbid fixation.  He curses, and calls Johnsy foolish.  Then she gets upset with him, and tells him what she thinks of him.  He then agrees to come pose for her painting.  Sue shows her the ill girl.  She is now sleeping, but Sue shows him the bare vine, with the last leaf only barely clinging on.  They fear that when Johnsy sees that the leaf is gone, she too will give up the struggle.

The old man poses for Sue, and that night there is a big storm.  When Johnsy awakes, as Sue fears she demands hoarsely to see the ivy vine.  The last leaf is still there.  Repeatedly, Johnsy asks to see it - and eventually when she sees the courage of the last leaf to hang on the vine, she decides she too can make it.

After Johnsy is out of the danger zone a few days later, and is getting better they find out that the old man had just died of pneumonia...

"The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

I remember so vividly this totally realistic beautiful painting of an ivy leaf used in the short film, with apparent shadow and all, despite being painted on brick it looked totally real.  To my child's eyes, it was a miracle.

The message of the story hit home to me (especially hammered in with the Christian take of the film), as it shifted the focus - to show the moral.  The greatest masterpiece is not necessarily some image on a canvas, which is meaningless on its own - it's in the context of life that art has meaning - the decisions of your life, your life is the greatest masterpiece. 

This is what guides me every day I leave some project I am crafting to perfection - to give my time to my children for example.




Courtesy of the online Literacy Network, the original story by O. Henry - The Last Leaf:


In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"

"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.

"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"

"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.

"Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.

Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."

"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."

"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"

"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."

"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down."

"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.

"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."

"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."

"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."

"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet."

"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

And hour later she said:

"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

Water is life - tales from my garden

When you have access to unlimited water, you just don't appreciate water the same way as when you are on tank water, the supply is limited, and you have to bucket greywater to each and every one of your plants that you want to live.

I wheelbarrow a large container of water back and forth, bucketing water from a greywater container onto my plants - much cheaper and also more helpful to my plants than a gym membership.  But it is hard work for the value you will much later harvest, and all the lifting can injure my back.  Since Auckland is experiencing drought conditions of the like of which I have never seen in my 9 years living here (but apparently in 70 years), the only water my garden has gotten in the past month or wo has been hand carried.

(Basically, instead of hosing directly from our water supply onto the garden, we use water in which we have washed our clothes first - since we have to do laundry anyways.)

I have stopped buying new seedlings, as we have the space in my veggie patch - but not enough water (or time and energy to deliver it).

In a documentary I saw, societies can only thrive if they have water - which is obvious - but in this situation of complete water delivery using my own energy along, I can feel exactly how related water is to life.

If a plant has water - it lives.  How much water I can afford, is how much life I can support in my garden.

Water = life

Auckland field

Making bread at home becomes easy - just like everything else

One thing I have found is:  

Everything is hard the first few times you do it.  Then it becomes easy.

It was the same with getting used to using my breadmaker instead of just buying bread.  Although it took only five minutes a day to throw the ingredients in the breadmaker, at first there was a real investment of energy as I got the right measuring cups and ingredients ready, and actually read enough of the manual to figure out how to operate the breadmaker.  But that investment has paid off, since now I can't believe it took discipline to use a breadmaker at first (instead of buying bread).

After I got used to the routine of using a breadmaker, and in fact used it so often (and sometimes forgetting things like THE WATER), it broke after about a year.  But I also at that time visited my family in North America, and my Dad showed me how to make no-knead bread - as they now make all their bread this way.  Once more, it took awhile toget set up with all the things I needed, and to truly understand the process.  Now making no-knead bread is easy.  (And using the breadmaker - I've since gotten it fixed - is just like falling off a log...)

Don't get me wrong - regular bread is easy too - kneading is quite therapeutic.  And I love whipping up pizza dough with my hands, when I am in the mood for it.  But if you have to work too, as we usually too nowadays, and you still want to make bread at home, it's good to have an easy method so that you actually can realistically accomplish it.

Easy bread links on this blog:

How to make crusty white no-knead bread (artisan bread) in five minutes
How to make100% whole wheat no-knead bread (brown bread) in five minutes
How to make buns (bread rolls) easily at home using a breadmaker

Life and Death

I too want to live forever.

I love life.  But that's part of the give and take of life, every day I eat meat, a creature must die.

It would be egotistical to assume that one day, that taking, would not one day require a give.

listening to Nina Simone, a very bright light (that still gives light)

Little drops of change

As I go about my daily life - just such an insignificant person in the midst of a huge world, I do notice that everywhere I go, the topic of the environment always arises - mostly because I don't take plastic bags. Or it comes up when I do something differently at the till grocery shopping, such as put reusable containers of meat through instead of plastic wrapped parcels, or when I am at the meat counter trying to explain why I want my meat put directly into reusable containers.

Although seemingly insignificant, each little interchange is like a drop of water, adding to the whole. And all the little interchanges of every person communicating concern for the environment, each day, in each place they go to - contribute to making the only change possible in the battle to preserve the health of our environment: our collective awareness(and resulting social stigmas for certain destructive behaviours).

A message of hope

Shane and I went out for a date the other day - pushed out by kind houseguests on Valentine's Day. We hung out by the beach at Maori Bay.

The strange but beautiful screeling of gannet birds circling over their nest rock.

The relief of the sea, with no knowledge of humans.

So much of the world seems in peril - about to be lost. How wonderful that such places still exist.

Plum Wine

We have been forging a new path - where we have not gone before!

Making wine!

Who knows if it will work - but we've been doing it more or less alright so far. I researched both the old ways and the new (Aunt Daisy's Preserving in an old book, and the internet), and have come up with my own simplified start to making wine.

But a really great find is a post by Althea on lifestyleblock.co.nz. Althea calls himself a "lazy winemaker". Although I don't entirely agree - he is at least a very natural and great winemaking person. Lazy winemaker's method here.

It appears that in the old days they didn't add yeast, and they certainly didn't add "Campden tablets ". But the little bubbler (see photo) that we added to the top of our fermenter container was very cheap ($6.50 NZ) and easy to install (cut hole in bucket).

The winemaking process involves a few stages, "musting" (about a week), then "fermenting" (time varies, but another while), then storing it for awhile in bottles (months). We've learned that stirring during musting is to prevent mould from forming on top of the crushed plums and water. And installing a tap on our fermenting container would have been easy before we added the strained plum juice! Next year we'll be better...the hardest part is starting.

Here is my thought - modern life is so elaborate that it makes you not want to take anything on. Learning is growing from something small. When I read Aunt Daisy's "Wine Making Hints" and Recipes, they are so basic, and you realize that people were just doing it with what they had - which is far more inspiring of action.

Aunt Daisy's PLUM WINE

Allow 8 to 12 lb. [3.6 – 5.5 kg] very ripe plums to each gallon of water, and 3 1/2 lb. to 4 lb. [1.6 -1.8 kg] sugar, according to sweetness of plums. Use an earthenware or wooden vessel, not tin or any metal. [Nowadays we can use plastic containers.] Do not let the wine get chilled during the fermentation, but keep it in a fairly warm room, and do not move the vessel about. Put plums into vessel, mash well, cover with hot water, and leave 6 to 8 days or while fermentation is active, stirring frequently every day. Then strain the juice through a muslin bag, measure it, add sugar as above. Let this stand to work as long as it will. Skim every day, keeping some juice to add after skimming so as to keep the same quantity. It may work for a month or two. When it has quite ceased working, bung tightly, or bottle and cork well. Should be ready in 3 months, but the longer it is left to mature the better. Wine matures best in a wooden keg. Keep the keg covered with a light cloth during fermentation period as it attracts a lot of insects.

Feel free to use a Campden tablet though! And make the best of both worlds.



February 6 2013 update:

We did eventually produce drinkable wine.  It was alright - it was relaxing to drink - but the stuff we made on our first go was not as good as storebought wine.  We didn't really understand what we were doing - but having tried, we had at least taken the mystique out of it.  Now this year, we are ready to go!  I am brewing wine (strawberry/plum wine this year) for which I carefully and cleanly followed a recipe, and also researched methods on Youtube (and got advice from a cool lady who used to make wine all the time who works at the local library).  The "musting" bin was a food quality ex-jam bucket with a tight lid this year, so more clean than a nasty huge old bucket - and a smaller and more controllable amount until I really know what I am doing.  I utilized "pectolase" a few days after I had mixed the cut up fruit and sugar, then added yeast.  It has really frothed up and smells amazing.  We have also bought a beautiful glass demijohn, so the brewing process will be more sterile (less skanky).

It's just that the first time you start, there are a myriad of methods, and you don't really know which to use (or why).  I know that our process will be clean, sterile, and there is no reason why the wine won't turn out great!  Although our wine was a little more like moonshine last year - with random alcohol level - it was still the most fun and rewarding thing that we did with our plums!  Going down and tasting it, or having a free glass of wine - even though it was imperfect - was really fun.

Burning the Shelter by Louis Owens

This is an excerpt which was I saw posted on Care2.com, passed on from UTNE Reader alternative press. -N

BURNING THE SHELTER
A simple fire reveals the beginnings of our environmental crisis

Excerpted from “Burning the Shelter,” by Louis Owens, from The Colors of Nature, edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming and Lauret Savoy (Milkweed Editions, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Louis Owens. http://www.milkweed.org/






In the center of the Glacier Peak Wilderness in northern Washington a magnificent, fully glaciated white volcano rises over a stunningly beautiful region of the North Cascades. On maps, the mountain is called Glacier Peak. To the Salishan people who have always lived in this part of the Cascades, the mountain is Dakobed, the place of emergence. For the better part of a century, a small, three-sided log shelter stood in a place called White Pass, just below one shoulder of the great mountain, tucked securely into a meadow.

In the early fall of 1976, while I was working as a seasonal ranger for the United States Forest Service, I drew the task of burning the White Pass shelter. It was part of a Forest Service plan to remove all human-made objects from wilderness areas, a plan I heartily approved. So I backpacked 11 miles to the pass to set up camp, and for five days I dismantled the shelter and burned the old logs until nothing remained. I spaded up the earth, beaten hard for nearly a century by boot and hoof, and transplanted plugs of vegetation from hidden spots on the nearby ridge.

At the end of those five days I felt good, very smug in fact, about returning the White Pass meadow to its “original” state. As I packed up my camp, the snowstorm had subsided to a few flurries and a chill that felt bone deep with the promise of winter.

I started the steep hike down, and half a mile from the pass I saw two old women. Almost swallowed up in their thick wool caps, they seemed ancient, each weighted with at least 70 years as well as a small backpack. They paused every few steps to lean on their staffs and look out over the North Fork drainage below, a deep, heavily forested river valley that rose on the far side to the glaciers and saw-toothed black granite on the Monte Cristo range. And they smiled hugely upon seeing me.

We stood and chatted for a moment, and as I did with all backpackers, I reluctantly asked them where they were going. The snow quickened a little, obscuring the view, as they told me they were going to the White Pass.

“Our father built a little house up here,” one of them said, “when he worked for the Forest Service like you. Way back before we was born.”

“We’ve been coming up here since we was little,” the other added. “Except last year when Sarah was not well enough.”

“A long time ago, this was all our land,” the one called Sarah said. “All Ind’n land everywhere you could see. Our people had houses up in the mountains, for gathering berries every year.”

As they took turns speaking, the smiles never leaving their faces, I wanted to excuse myself, to edge around these elders and flee to the trailhead and my car. I wanted to say, “I’m Indian, too. Choctaw from Mississippi; Cherokee from Oklahoma”—as if mixed blood could pardon me for what I had done. Instead, I said, “The shelter is gone.” Cravenly, I added, “It was crushed by snow, so I was sent up to burn it. It’s gone now.”

I expected outrage, anger, sadness, but instead the sisters continued to smile at me, their smiles changing only slightly. They had a plastic tarp and would stay dry, they said, because a person always has to be prepared in the mountains. They would put up their tarp inside the hemlock grove above the meadow, and the scaly hemlock branches would turn back the snow. They forgave me without saying it—my ignorance part of the long pattern of loss they knew so well.

Hiking out those 11 miles, as the snow of the high country became a drumming rain in the forests below, I had long hours to ponder my encounter with the sisters. Gradually, almost painfully, I began to understand that what I called “wilderness” was an absurdity. Before the European invasion, there was no wilderness in North America; there was only the fertile continent, where people lived in a hard-learned balance with the natural world. In embracing a philosophy that saw the White Pass shelter—and all traces of humanity—as a shameful stain upon the “pure” wilderness, I had succumbed to a 500-year-old pattern of deadly thinking that separates us from the natural world.

This is not to say that what we call wilderness today does not need careful safeguarding. I believe that White Pass really is better off now that the shelter does not serve as a magnet to backpackers and horsepackers who compact the soil, disturb and kill the wildlife, cut down centuries-old trees for firewood, and leave their litter strewn about. And I believe that the man who built the shelter would agree.

But despite this unfortunate reality, the global environmental crisis that sends species into extinction daily and threatens to destroy all life surely has its roots in the Western pattern of thought that sees humanity and “wilderness” as mutually exclusive.

In old-growth forests in the North Cascades, I have come upon faint traces of log shelters built by Suiattle and Upper Skagit people for berry harvesting a century ago—just as the sisters said. Those human-made structures were as natural a part of the Cascade ecosystem as the burrows of marmots in the steep scree slopes. Our native ancestors all over this continent lived within a complex web of relations with the natural world, and in doing so they assumed a responsibility for their world that contemporary Americans cannot even imagine.

Unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such relationship entails—unless they can learn what the indigenous peoples of the Americas knew and often still know—a few square miles of something called wilderness will become the sign of failure everywhere.

Thinking about Google

I just watched a documentary about Google (BBC money program), about how it works and it's implications - the commercialization of the internet. The concept of "free" email or searching, how we are actually paying by our interests (search terms) being recorded, and people advertising to us based on that information.

The show covered the various ways that commercial interests are wresting power through the ads that appear everywhere, the concept of something being "free", and sneakier devices appearing such as recommendation functions. They were concerned that instead of the web being passively available, people are finding ways to offer you, only that which they think you want...so the freedom is being tailored.

I do think that the attempt of commercial interests to reharness control is scary, but there still is so much positive that can happen, where people can connect in new ways where they weren't able to before.

By the way, one of the way the Google-monster (search engine algorithm) works, is the more a website is linked (referenced) elsewhere, the higher it will appear on the results. SO...it's like a popularity engine, working almost socially, with some sites snowballing the hits.

Going Bananas

When I posted the entire article from Good Magazine about fair trade bananas, I was still processing the information. I immediately realized its significance of knowledge, but bombarded my connections with the entire article I had learned it from. Now if I was going to process it and communicate it to others, I would probably say:

Did you know that...common bananas are produced using a pesticide which causes sterility and birth defects for the banana workers that have to work with it.

Also that there is an alternative, fair trade banana you can buy, "All Good Bananas", distributed by the same guy that sells Phoenix Organics (the ads have cartoon illustrations showing all the nasties you aren't buying in the drink).

But with my husband, I first explained that the farming techniques people use now to mass-produce one species (monoculture) also leave it vulnerable to disease. (There aren't many varieties with various resistances to disease, if one area gets it they can all get it.) In fact the kind of banana everyone eats now is a different cultivated variety as the last one became plagued by a disease.



There is a pesticide that works very well to deliver us perfectly disease-free bananas to our supermarkets, it just sterilizes the people that apply it to the banana root (people who live in poorer countries who can't fight back) and sometimes causes their wives, to give birth to children with extreme birth defects. The company that created the pesticide knows this, the big banana companies like Dole, know it, but they choose to use it. Isn't that disgusting? I wish I had always known. I never would have supported that decision. Never.

What am I going to do about it? Not much, but as much as a little wife in New Zealand with an education from Canada can do - write a few letters and boycott "regular" bananas. Tell my friends about it. The letters would be to my local supermarket, and to Dole (why not). Now we know!

This is the book (see image) that has made the story about bananas known, which was represented in Good magazine's recent issue (Issue 17). It is called Fighting the Banana Wars and Other Fairtrade Battles, by Harriet Lamb. (She ran into a lady who had given birth to a child effected by the poison her husband used at work and it started her entire venture. BTW her child was too ill to live for long.)

Here is the website for All Good Bananas, the section for finding a store near you! (But Pak 'n Save does have them.)

http://allgoodbananas.co.nz/find-a-banana/



PS I did it! Emailed Dole to express my views, emailed Pak 'n Save to say thanks, and emailed my local fruit & veg shop to ask them to supply fairtrade bananas. Feels good.

Dr. Cynthia Kenyon and the science of aging

Do you trust that people will be able to handle the responsibility of the great power of aging, and dying? I happened to come across a talk by Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, in video below (but different talk).



Basically, Dr. Cynthia Kenyon (Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco) has experimented scientifically with simpler life forms, one species worms in particular, and has isolated two genes which control aging. The worms she used have under 1000 cells in total, their lifespan is 2 weeks, and they are transparent (C. elegans, a very small roundworm about the size of a comma). The genes present in the worms are also present in us (and in fruit-flies she also uses, and in mice).

My summary:
DAF-2 causes aging by inhibiting the good work done by DAF-16. DAF-16's role is to repair, etc, accessing genetic material in the nucleus of cells. DAF-2 represses DAF-16 which causes aging. Damaging DAF-2, she has discovered the fountain of youth by discovering the gene which inhibits the repairing "youth" gene, DAF-16. The worms she experimented on not only lived six times longer when DAF-2 was damaged, they also resisted great injury, and illness. The common illnesses of "old age", that a weakened organism will get, cancer, alzheimer's, heart disease were also not experienced. The implications were that we may be able to control the DAF-2 gene in humans (which is called something else, will look it up, possibly transcribe the entire talk), and then the DAF-16 gene already present in us would be able to do its good work and keep us youthful and strong alot longer. If old age were no longer present, we would go on fit and healthy until we expired, due to DNA mutations over time. Or we could get hit by a bus.

One man (with asmart jacket apparently, according to the host) had a smart question as well, about why nature hadn't already created a life-form which used this power to keep organisms young and healthy for longer. Now that was a good question. Dr. Kenyon's answer was that for one, the parent, once they had had their offspring, would be better gone as they competed with the children for resources (very relevant to humans). The other is that, perhaps a stronger worm was not necessary, as it was usually to be killed by a predator after a certain length of time.

My thoughts:
When she initially spoke, I noticed that she spoke with passion for the science of what she was doing-- passion for what she was discovering in life. At the same time, I noticed the classic disconnection of this scientific age of the intuitive awareness of the impact of her actions on the world.

Of course the discussion did come around to that. I was listening to a talk by Dr. Cynthia Kenyon on the radio the first time; I could hear awareness in the British professor host, concern for the implications of the research in his tone. He asked about the "social implications" of her work (meaning the impact on people). She first said that she was a scientist, stating the usual disclaimer of her field-- implying that the responsibility for her work was held by someone else specialized to make ethical choices. I ran into this separation all the time in university, by science in particular, my biology textbook stated in the very beginning that it answered only scientific questions, and other questions were reserved for a philosophy class. But when you are talking about deep things such as death, life, and so on, how can these be separated?

Her first personal response was to acknowledge that the Earth's resources were already suffering due to the pressures of overpopulation. Then she followed by saying that in China, where there are also thinking and feeling humans, they manage to use the 1 child policy. The host mentioned that it hadn't been such a great success before turning to questions from the students. I know that in China, there are many problems such as having to kill nearly term babies, or even that there are less girls, because they need a boy to carry on the family name-- so many girl babies are aborted. And the Chinese are sad about only ever being able to have one child.

Shane summed it up succinctly, as always (my husband), when he said that she was just going to carry on her work, and leave it to others to tell people to only have 1 child.

The hose suggested that it could be a solution to choose to not develop this science. Dr. Cynthia Kenyon was thrilled about the implications of her work, and said that although some countries would ban it, there would always be others who would be interested. (So it was going to go forward.)

Dr. Kenyon's thrill about discovering nature was not wrong in itself, but it is the lack of using the whole mind, and conscience, in particular the neglected intuitive mind, that creates a monstrous imbalance. If were were a society which appropriately managed our greater powers, distributing wealth and resources, and also could manage our impact on the environment, this new power could be considered. But are not managing ourselves at all-- that would require intuitive powers of balance. How can we pull the strings of nature even more without listening to her lessons also of balance? We learn what we wish to, and use it how we wish. It is really frightening.


A few days later:

You can't just think in a bubble - like Dr. Cyntha Kenyon with her anti-aging discoveries. Yes, nature is a marvel, but are you adding to the problem, or the solution in our world? Dr. Cynthia has essentially discovered a way to make overpopulation worse on our planet- there was a reason nature had struck that balance. Akinori Ito has used his life and abilities to help the world in which he has found himself.

PS - about anti-aging science and the whole science love affair in general, who wants to have power and control over everything? Then it no longer manages itself, it is just taking on more that we have to now manage and maintain ourselves. Our heart and many body functions currently operated autonomously. Taking over something that is currently managed by Nature is similar to saying No, I want to manage the beating of my heart consciously from now on.

Who wants that worry? (And responsibility.)

I am awesome doesn't work

One thing I notice, besides the "don't excite your emotions" too much thing is that it's only when you humble yourself that you really are able to do good work. The moment you say to yourself, "I am so awesome", it all goes out the window.

If you are blind with ego and imagine yourself to be powerful, then you are not able to align your true weak human abilities to the powers of nature. Once you connect with the task as yourself, a faltering human, I think, then you are able to listen for some of those ways nature uses, and in using them as well, find strength.

detail of landscape in larger artist impression I am working on

Tips on drawing swirlies in Illustrator

There is a great tutorial on how draw basic "swirls" or spiral shapes (the golden ratio pattern) by Bittbox called How to make custom swooshes, swirls and curls, where I first learned, which basically takes a tapering brush stroke to a spiral made with the Spiral Tool. You then Expand Appearance (no longer a line in the centre, but outlining the edges). Then you can cut out and add to your pattern using the Pathfinder tool. I am going to gather together here a few basic techniques in Illustrator that I use in illustration, if you don't know about them already. You can use the Spiral tool, as in the tutorial above, or, I often enjoy create spirals to my liking by drawing them manually with the pen tool, roughly at first then adjusting the nodes with the white selection arrow.

ADDING OR CUTTING USING A CIRCLE: After having created a few tapering swirlies, you can cut using simple circle shape and the Pathfinder tool. Or you can add the ball, which does the same but to your negative space. Know what I mean?




I can also just create a regular stroked line (not stroked with a tapered brush shape), expand that [Object then Expand or Expand Appearance], and just manually adjust the width of the shape's edges. Here I used the spiral tool.


Below, I created a shape to fill the space between the two swirls. Then I selected the shape, chose the eraser tool, set the size of the eraser brush to a small size and stroked the shape evenly with the eraser. (How cool is it that you can erase vector shapes? Another cool way to draw.)


My biggest advice for vector drawing anything in Illustrator or other such programs is to keep the shape loose in the beginning. Don't draw it perfectly as you go, you will just waste energy! As you get used to the pen tool, you can roughly make points for how many you need to make the curves you need, and how many you will need. Although your shape starts out wonky, you will control them in a moment using the Direct Selection (white arrow) tool.

Lately I've been "committing" to a shape. Instead of having many separate shapes, but which look like one (in case you want to change or go back) I've been truly merging shapes so it's one as-simple-as-possible vector, which is a beautiful thing. (Also great for printing T-shirts.)

Just an observation

Just making banana cake today, and a stick blender, I was thinking about how much skill has travelled. We used to have to be very skilled users of simpler tools, and now the skill has shifted towards the makers of the tools. It's the same with movies, every area of our society-- watching a movie is very easy, and requires less imagination and participation from the watcher, but so much creativity and effort from the makers. I feel it all the time, driving around, watching my body weaken, and the bodies of others that are unhealthy at various degrees. We need exercise, and to feel proud of ourselves. People always dream of what they aren't getting enough of, wish for something different than they are experiencing. Island people want long for city life, English people want to experience tribal life. At this point in my modern, intensive-resource wasteful life, I wish for more effort and skill and pride.

A Farm Through Time

I have wanted to blog about A farm through time for some time, illustrated by Eric Thomas, written by Angela Wilkes. I finally found this treasure again and scanned it in.

All the images are small "details", as I can't show the wide pages of the book here.

800
The book is meant to be about farming and how it has changed over time, but it has a very strong gleam of meaning about sustainable living. The book shows the same spot over the centuries, so you can see at a moment what took ages to experience. Some things are clearer at that speed as well. The first stage is "Clearing the land", 800 (England). We clear away forest to grow crops, and the forest provides building materials, fuel and many other things. We grow food on a farm surrounded by woodland. People rent land from a lord, who owns everything.

1000
In the next stage, "Two hundred years later, the country looks much the same, but there are fewer trees." You can see stands of trees everywhere, and cleared areas. The lord cuts down trees at will to use. It's really interesting how they make their clothes from flax (linen) and sheep's wool and cook on a fire in the house. Lots of skilled work to do and everyone is working together.


"The farmer's wife spins the wool into coarse thread on a spindle, then weaves the thread into fabric on a big loom. The woollen fabric will make warm clothes and blankets. The girl is winding flax onto a distaff, ready to spin into fine linen thread. Underclothes are often made of linen as it is less scratchy than wool.

"Inside the house, a fire burns brightly on the stone hearth. The farmer's wife bakes flat loaves of bread for the family on the hot hearthstones. Meat and thick, filling soups are boiled in the pot hanging over the fire."



1200
A few hundred years later, the men repair hawthorn hedges that line the fields, they've been there for hundreds of years but need to be reworked and repaired.

"The men are warm despite the bitter cold. Their homespun tunics and leggings are made from coarsely woven wool, held together with leather thongs. They wear stout leather boots and felt hats to keep their heads warm, and around their waists they carry leather flasks of ale for refreshment."

1300A new house is being built by the farmer, but unfortunately, "In the countryside beyond, most of the woodland has been cut down, but a few mature trees still grow in the hedgerows." So, what was once woodland remains in the cracks and grooves of the land.

Just that. A little gleam, the farmer becomes quite prosperous, the pages follow with illustrations of dairy farming, making cheese (in a press) and so on. Later with a soul-less flutter there is the tractor sitting there on the lonely farm and no more people. No community drinking ale and fixing the hedgerows!

Well, this is the way of life that our current way life is based upon. Just notice the trees.

Craft Advice

1. Relaxing music is best. Not as you would think, intense music. I listen to classical music, folk music most of the time. ANYTHING CALM. Let your spirit be calm, not excited.

2. Believe in yourself. Not too much, and not too little. The craftsman's edge is the humbleness, and critical eye, but also you have to believe in magic. Always be aware of how you are feeling-- know your nature-- curb yourself if necessary, urge yourself if necessary! Make a leap.

3. Good enough. Don't be perfectionist, you won't be able to move on. Just do "good enough". You'll get in the flow then, and when you are in a higher flow, will go back and fix easily what you now can, naturally.

4. Listen, listen, all the time. Otherwise, what is the point? I often find myself knowing I should do one thing, and ignoring it for a minute-- but a minute later I change it, as I know I should listen.

5. All the time, you can work on your discipline and patience. If you are about to work, but have to do the dishes first, but feel impatient-- do the dishes! After all, that is how you will work.

It's worth it. After all, what could be better than being the universe's pencil?

Double Irony

There is definitely a revolution going on out there, of people finding their instincts and seeking healthier lives. Many of us live lives so much more disconnected from nature than that of our parents and grandparents-- away from skilled resourcefulness, towards a greater use of technology and energy resources instead of using our own energy. Ironically, we still need exercise and to feel skilled, and proud of what we do, etc, so we do funny things like drive to work then go to a gym (which also requires power equipment), and various hobbies. Wouldn't it be better to work less, and dig up the backyard into a garden, cycle to work, and quit the gym?

Photo, left:
Good magazine, Issue4, pg20, NZ

"USA
"Human-powered gym
"Pound the road to nowhere at your gym for long enough and you’ll start to wonder: where do all those watts go? And why can’t they go somewhere useful, like powering this damn treadmill? One gym in Portland, Oregon has decided its members are up to the challenge.

"The Green MicroGym runs on people power, with a bit of solar to keep things going when the human hamsters run out of steam. With ‘team dynamo’ classes and spin bikes, the gym can generate up to 41 percent of its own power. Workouts fuel the gym’s ultra-energy-efficient ceiling fans, TVs, lights and ‘EcoPower’ treadmills.

"The downside: there are no showers at the gym, to keep water and power usage low. Still, we can’t think of better motivation to pedal fast than to keep the fans turning."

Boiling the fish heads

My husband I and just had a conversation while he was cleaning fish, which was of a subject that my thoughts run across all the time. His father always boiled the fish heads to feed to their cat, he never threw them away. Every time Shane cleans fish he feels very guilty about throwing away so much of the fish, and just eating part of it. He just caught some beautiful very big snapper, with their magical blue spots. We are going to boil the heads this time, and not waste the fish. His father hadn't "slipped down" to that level of wasteful behaviour, and if we don't as well, we are not slipping down -- the skills of his generation won't be lost by us.

I was talking to him about the native American people (First Nations, "Indians"). When our culture first had contact with them, there was a real contrast of our culture with theirs, the modern path we had taken, and the way we all used to live. The native women, I still have this impression burned into my mind from when I learned how the native women would use all the parts of the buffalo, they wouldn't waste anything. In contrast, we have become very wasteful. I just have a really beautiful image of that-- the women being so careful and resourceful.



Painting by Charles Shaw, found at this link: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/kids/hunting/mass.html

[Shane slices away the strip in the fillet containing the bones and throws it into the pot, already very full.] "See? Now that would have been wasted." It just feels wrong to waste the life of that beautiful fish.



P.S. One thing I am proud of is that I have continued to keep my one good knife sharp. When Shane needs to clean a fish, I sharpen it. It's that one step forward and I hold onto it....