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)

Reading "Little House in the Big Woods" to my kids (after the B.F.G.)

We just read the BFG - that's "Big Friendly Giant" (by Road Dahl).  It's a must for little kids - mine are 5 (Luke) and 7 (Troy).

Kids and other real people will find it hilarious.  It's great for the imagination - he walks the streets at night, blowing dreams into the windows of little children with this great trumpet.  Not to mention whizzpopping (farting).  The soda he drinks in giant-land - let's just say the bubbles travel down...

My kids confided to me that they believed that he was real, and I didn't dare contradict them.

We read a chapter or two every night (unless I was too tired, then too bad), and they were hooked.

This has honed their little attention spans for a set of books I have been wanting to read to them for awhile - the "Little House on the Prairie" series.  If you only remember the TV show, try to forget. 

Laura Ingalls was a real little girl, and you can read all about her life, and how she lived, with lovely simple drawings for the imagination.  (She lived when people were settling in the West, born in 1867.)  We have started reading the first one, "Little House in the Big Woods".  It's written for the child's mind - for how they need to hear it to imagine it perfectly. 

Everything is described - how they smoke meat in a hollow log turned on one end, with a little roof on the top, and how after they prepare the pig's meat to last them over the winter, they blow up the pig's bladder for the girls to play with (little Laura, 5 or so, has a bigger sister Mary).  Lukie really wants to try churning butter in the ceramic jug they used to use with the stick (dash), with a lid with a hole in it.  I would like to try to find an antique one and try it!  (Think I'll pass on trying the pig's bladder idea, though!)

Laura, sitting on a pumpkin in the attic with her sister Mary.  Mary has a wooden doll, and Laura has a little wrapped up corncob for a doll.  I was fascinated with this little girl's life when I was also little.

How to churn butter.  Mary having a turn while Mother rests.  The little girls helped with the work to the best of their ability.

Vertical Forest in Milan

Artist impression, link here.

Real photo, link here.



Bosco Verticale, or Vertical Forest, being constructed in the heart of Milan by Stefano Boeri architects, is to have 900 trees. Better than a treeless apartment, but still very controlled. And what if some trees grow really really big? Or would they in that environment? What do you think of this as our future?

Feeling the stillness in Stillwater

There is something special about touching another living creature.

Usually I feel too rushed doing the next chore, or working on a work project, to take a moment to feed the birds by hand as I encouraged my children to do.

Recently, feeling a little bit of depressed one day - I took a moment to do this.  I felt a thrill as eight of the wild dove touched down on my hand, and felt his dry little scratchy feet.  It was like touching another part of yourself, another part of God in another creature.  Another part of the Greater Spirit.  I felt uplifted.

Taking that moment to feel our world, is probably a source of unhappiness for we often unhappy people of the world.

"Forest and Bird rejects Joyce call, stands firm on appeals" National Business Review article

Found at http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/forest-and-bird-rejects-joyce-call-stands-firm-appeals-wb-129471 on September 26, 2012, by The National Business Review

BUSINESSDESK: The Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society will press ahead with appeals against resource consents for Bathurst Resources' proposed open cast coal mine on conservation land in the Denniston Plateau region, above Greymouth.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce called on Forest & Bird and a West Coast environmental action network to drop appeals against consents granted last August, citing the need for West Coast mining jobs after state-owned Solid Energy announced the mothballing of its Spring Creek mine.

Some 220 of the 440 job losses at Solid Energy will be at Spring Creek. Bathurst says it would employ around 400 people at the Escarpment mine, the first of several Bathurst plans in the area.

However, Forest & Bird says Mr Joyce "is being opportunistic in deflecting the blame for the mismanagement of the Spring Creek mine".

"I feel for the people who are losing their jobs, obviously," Forest & Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell told BusinessDesk.

"That's a real issue. But mining is a boom-and-bust industry with a long history of it on the West Coast. It's one of the reasons their economy has never been as strong as they would like.

"The long-term future is having industries that are much more sustainable."

He questioned also whether Mr Joyce's intervention in favour of Bathurst's proposals could put the minister foul of the legal process playing out through resource consent appeals, and the statutory process that would follow if Bathurst succeeded and sought ministerial position for an access agreement to Department of Conservation land.

"There would be a serious question, given his public advocacy, about whether such a decision has been influenced by government policy," Mr Hackwell says.

Bathurst chief executive Hamish Bohannan has reported frustrations among shareholders over delays to the Bathurst consent process, saying the company has spent $15 million so far on consenting issues.

Using reusable containers for buying meat (to avoid plastic waste)

The one thing I do to prevent plastic waste, that actually works well - both for environment and for my family - is simply to bring reusable hard plastic containers to a butcher or supermarket meat counter.  They can tare the scale to zero, then put in whatever I am buying.  The plastic disposable bag is then unnecessary - the repetitive waste is out of the loop.

Then you can put the containers in the freezer as they are. Ha ha.


(I do sometimes get complaints if I use the meat container to pack a lunch or something.  Best to keep these ones as meat containers only I guess.)

Recently though - the grocery store they built which was closer to our home was made without a meat counter, and the butchery I went to closed (likely put out of business by the grocery store, which did have alot of meat - just all on polystyrene/styrofoam trays).  So I was SOL.  And driving for a half hour to go to a grocery with a meat counter would not get me anywhere as I would, too ironically, create more greenhouse gas pollution.  But I am proud of the fact that I went and explored and found a new place to go and do this, a pretty close drive away in our 2nd nearest shopping area.  The Butcher Lady in Orewa, NZers.  She'll even let me text her to  make sure she has what I need unpackaged.

So just explore - I am sure you'll find a place near you that will let you do this.

RCN e-waste - electronic recycling in Albany

There are many companies recycling e-waste now.  I just had the coolest experience a month or so ago.

I ruined our computer monitor by spraying too much water on it when I was cleaning it, and we also had an old computer to recycle, and a broken heater.  I looked up a local e-waste recycler that had been doing some advertising at my kids' school - RCN e-cycle.  There were others, but I chose a larger more mainstream one that was actually close to us, to add my little activity to the larger stream, if that makes sense, to support this future way of doing things to the best of my ability.  

They took the computer and computer monitor for free, and charged a minimal charge for the heater - and after taking them apart, will recycle every last bit they can down to the wires (or reuse).  Right on.  The relief I felt at getting rid of that stuff properly was palpable, lending to a spring in my step (oh yes).

Wherever you are, look it up - I sure you'll find an electronic waste recycler near you.