PING!

Just finished reading a newsletter from Vision Ministries Canada. No, not for any noble purpose, but only out of self-interest - to see the small article I'd written for them in print...that does give me a warm inner glow. Along with the glow came that little "ping" when two seemingly disparate ideas collide in what goes for my brain. What better thing to do with a ping than write about it in my blog (both are four letter words after all, like love and luck and lose, among others).

Colliding idea # 1: Last night I was hanging out with some people I know - they were sharing encouragement and stories about this and that. One involved a couple who were trying to sell their house. A potential buyer's Realtor was trying to get them to lower their price by citing the poor economy to which the husband replied, "I do not belong to this economy! I belong to God's economy and that doesn't change!" The result was that the buyer accepted their price! Hmm, very interesting I thought to myself and filed it in my "back burner" folder - you know the one with all those intriguing tidbits you don't really know how to categorize and haven't really made up your mind about.

Fast forward to me reading VMC's newsletter: First the glow - ummm, nice, yes, thank you...Then, idle curiosity prompts a quick scan of the other articles (http://www.vision-ministries.org/media/NEWSLETTER_DEC.08.pdf). Oh, one challenging people to give a portion of their Christmas spending towards solving the world's clean water issue. Hmm...PING!

When the writer used the word, "opulence", I was reminded of Old Testament prophets who warned about the consequences of letting the orphans starve and disenfranchising the widows. Consequences that included loss of property, enslavement, and forced emigration. This judgment was meted out to a nation by a God who tired of the greed and injustice of those who should have known better because they had clear instructions about how to treat each other and the weak. Western civilization, based on Judeo-Christian principles, knows better. Yet most of the world's peoples barely eke out a living, often under the threat of war and the oppression of multinational corporations, while the kings of western civilization, live in relative opulence, 20% of the world's population using 80% of the world's resources. Based on the tenet, "might makes right", we even feel entitled to rape and pillage our "mother" earth in the process. How long can this inequity last without judgment? Or, if you are a materialist, how long can the earth's natural systems endure this imbalance.

If this is indeed the case, then we Westerners need to do more than think about selling our stocks and bonds or pulling back on our spending, we need to think about doing things in an entirely different way. We need to repent. To change direction. To spend our time, money and intelligence, not on the idle pleasures of the wealthy, but on finding ways to redistribute the wealth, to share the opulence, to live more modestly and generously upon the breast of the mother God created to nurture and keep us.

As I complete this blog, I realize that Margaret Atwood in "Payback" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/02/payback-margaret-atwood)
has said much the same thing, and in a far more erudite way, as I am sure, have others.

Paper - Use and Reuse

Paper has invaded my thinking today. From starting the fire with newspaper to reading a blog on which books ended up in the discount bin (Everything Must Go) there was some kernel of meaning in it all. The transitory nature of material things? Multiple uses of newspaper?

"Not worth the paper it's printed on!" How many times have I read that comment? Now that we are facing a global environmental crisis, we might need to take that paradigm a little more to heart. Trees may well become a rarer commodity than wise or clever sayings and we will be admonished to save our valuable paper for only the noblest, best written, most important ideas, information and stories. All other words to be disseminated by the internet.

Until this takes place, we will still be innundated with paper - newspaper and its inserts - what to do with it once it has been read? Nothing is older than yesterday's news, or sales, for that matter. Once read, can we afford to just toss it out? Of course it is being recycled in increasing amounts by many communities, for the rest of us, here are some other uses for it:

• Gardening: newspaper makes great mulch. My neighbour who sports a magnificent garden uses it to kill grass, reclaiming lawn space for more engaging plant life than grass. Several layers (10?) of newsprint placed over your lawn will effectively kill the grass beneath.
• Composting: If you vermicompost, as I do, the worms need a constant supply of bedding materials, that they also digest. Shredded newspaper (black inks, preferably vegetable, are better for them, the coloured inks have more poisonous chemicals) is well tolerated by the voracious red wigglers that eat my garbage.
• Starting fires: I have discovered an effective fire starter using bunched up newspaper and paper bags. Ever since I started insisting that all my packaging be paper, rather than plastic, I have accumulated LOTS of paper bags. I use them (after removing the glued strip) to drain bacon on, to spread butter in pans for cooking and for wrapping packages to send through the mail. To start a fire, I put several bunched up pieces of newspaper into the bag and then put kindling on top of one or two bags. The bag keeps the paper close enough together to generate a focused heat and ignites the kindling quite nicely.

I know, I know, I probably shouldn't be burning wood. Although it is a sustainable resource, if logged appropriately. I do buy my wood from a "green" logger. Still there is the environmental cost with the carbon dioxide that gets thrown into the atmosphere when I burn it. My carbon footprint is not zero, but I am trying to do what I can to reduce unneeded waste. Not perfect yet, by any means, but working at improving.

Green Christmas Caroling

As Christmas approaches and the dread spirit begins to haunt my steps, I look around for ways to bless my family, enjoy my friends and honour the humble, meek and lowly Jesus without damaging the environment or my diminishing income.

"Those who bless the poor will themselves find blessing" (Good King Winceslas): Organizations like World Vision and Heifer International offer ways to purchase gifts for third world families such as a flock of chickens or an agricultural package including tools and seed. Donations to local food banks or the Salvation Army will help support those who have less in your area.

"Let earth receive her king" (Joy to the World): Bless the earth by buying a living Christmas tree that you could plant after a couple of years. Or an artificial tree. I'm trying something new this year - I bought an upside down cone about three feet high which I plan to decorate with cedar and pine boughs that I will harvest from the trees in my yard.

Towards Sustainable Future, circa 1972

Tired of doom and gloom? Well, who isn't. Want an outline of what can be done? Of course you do. Thirty-six years ago A Blueprint for Survival was published 1972 in "The Ecologist", then later in book form by Penguin. Written by Edward Goldsmith, editor of "The Ecologist" and Robert Allen, it paints a predicament, not unlike the one we face now, and, more importantly, proposes a strategy to deal with it. I loved it when I first read it, so I did what I always do with great books - insist that my friends read them, hence, my library suffers - Thank God for the internet! For I have now rediscovered this marvelous little text, conveniently archived!

To give you a flavour of the book itself, and perhaps tempt you to read it for yourselves here is the first paragraph from the introduction:

The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable. Its termination within the lifetime of someone born today is inevitable-unless it continues to be sustained for a while longer by an entrenched minority at the cost of imposing great suffering on the rest of mankind. We can be certain, however, that sooner or later it will end (only the precise time and circumstances are in doubt), and that it will do so in one of two ways: either against our will, in a succession of famines, epidemics, social crises and wars; or because we want it to-because we wish to create a society which will not impose hardship and cruelty upon our children-in a succession of thoughtful, humane and measured changes. We believe that a growing number of people are aware of this choice, and are more interested in our proposals for creating a sustainable society than in yet another recitation of the reasons why this should be done. We will therefore consider these reasons only briefly, reserving a fuller analysis for the four appendices which follow the Blueprint proper.

This book, written over thirty years ago, raised an alarm that has largely been ignored. Within its first pages is a likely reason why - the demand for environmental resources grows exponentially but, by the time it is actually noticed, it may be too late to change. They quote a Professor Forrestor who says,

"Exponential growth is treacherous and misleading. A system variable can continue through many doubling intervals without seeming to reach significant size. But then in one or two more doubling periods, still following the same law of exponential growth, it suddenly seems to become overwhelming."

Let's hope that it isn't too late for us to turn the tide, and perhaps this little book will provide some answers as to how it can be done.

Crazy Idea #5 - Housing in Hard Times

I woke up this morning with another Crazy Idea. It had to do with my house. As small as it is, the mortgage may prove too much for me and I have been worrying about whether or not to sell it.

Rousing out of sleep, my paradigm shifted to an older one I once held. My mother grew up during the Great Depression. She garnered this piece of wisdom from those hard times: "if you are in financial trouble, don't go to the rich, the poor will always help you, because they know what it feels like." Later, when I became a Christian, I heard echoes of her statement in Jesus' own words "It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of the needle."

The point? "By your love for each other the world will know you are mine" John quotes Jesus as saying. In his letter, James elaborates by asserting that love goes beyond praying for people at church, it requires sharing material wealth where needed - a nuts and bolts involvement in each others' lives that our life styles make almost impossible. Our North American cultural obsession with material independence creates walls between people made up of a lack of time and energy. These walls, though not ill intended, are as difficult to penetrate as any castle fortification.

Well, the economy that allows us the luxury of material independence is wavering; those walls may be crumbling. Is that such a bad thing? Take my house for example. What if, instead of selling it and moving into a condo so that I can maintain my own material independence, I open it up and invite others, without homes, to live with me?

Such a radical move requires a level of faith, hope and love, I do not currently have. I fear losing my independence, my freedom, and yes, even my property. On the other hand, look at what I might gain - a more intimate relationship with others, a sense of community and belonging, shared responsibilities, and support for myself in times of need, not to mention the increased dependency on Jesus for His moment by moment grace.

Bottom line, do I want this? No, but, I am willing to be made willing. And Jesus has changed my heart before. What about you?

More "dirt" on Earthworms

In an article posted by the Weed Science Society of America, “Underground Gardening” by Earthworms, night crawlers are credited with purposefully collecting and planting that nemesis of allergy sufferes, giant ragweed, throughout the American midwest. Below you will see an earthworm "planting" a ragweed seed by dragging it into its burrow (photo - thanks to Denyse O'Leary):

Although I actively promote using earthworms to compost organic waste indoors as a way to keep it out of the garbage stream and reduce the accumulation of the plastic bags that collect the waste, I do not advocate releasing them into the wild, especially in Canada, where they have been blamed for some degradation of northern forests.

Crazy Idea #4 - Subsidized Local Problem Solvers

What if the government paid citizens to take an hour a week to meet in neighbourhood groups to identify and solve local problems? Things like creating and maintaining parks, dealing with garbage and recycling, setting up urban farming, getting youth involved in community activities, addressing the use of drugs and teen pregnancy, measures to reduce the high school drop out rate, working on subsidized housing, unemployment, transitioning to more sustainable energy sources...to name but a few community projects.

Crazy Idea #3 - Alternatives to High School

What if the energy and idealism of teens who aren't engaged at school could be directed constructively? Starting at age 14 teens must demonstrate sustained effort in their studies to stay in school. Without it, they will be given other options, such as military training, technical apprenticeships, tree planting, child care, work in a food bank, community service or ??. There would be no option to just hang around. Free public high school education would be available for all youth until age 30, with the stipulation that they maintain sustained effort in their studies.

Crazy Idea #1 - Job Trading for Commuters

What if you could trade jobs with someone who lives where you work, and works where you live? I imagine a website / service for commuters who wanted to find a job within public transit / biking / walking distance of their homes. Sort of cross between e-Harmony and Craig's List that finds that perfect match between people, jobs and locations.

Sustainable Fruit Fly Trap

Are you looking for a way to reduce the fruit flies hovering around all that great summer fruit sitting in your kitchen without having to use pesticides????

Well, after several years of trial and error research, I have a solution for you that actually works! Plus, you can make it at home with on-hand materials:

• An empty jar
• An elastic band
• Two squares of aluminum foil sized to cover the top of your jar
• A poking instrument, e.g., skewer
• One inch of an old banana with the peel

To assemble your SFFT:

1. Place the banana in the jar
2. Mold both squares of aluminum over the top of the jar so that when you remove them you have a rough cup shape.
3. Poke holes with the skewer in the bottom of each aluminum "cup", leaving 1/2 of the area without holes.
4. Use one of the "cups" to cover the jar - position so that the bottom of the "cup" is below the lip of the jar





5. Position the second "cup" upside down over the first "cup" so that the holes overlap the first "cup's" unholed area. There should be a space between the two pieces of foil, making a small antechamber to the jar.
6. Secure the two pieces of foil by wrapping an elastic band around the outside of the jar's lip.
7. Place trap near fruit

The holes will allow the scent of the banana to attract the fruitflies into the jar. If a fruit fly wanders back out of the jar, it will find itself in the small chamber at the top of the jar. While in the chamber, the fly will be drawn back into the jar by the banana scent. The only way it can escape is by choosing to walk or fly across the luscious rotting banana smells to the holes that exit to the outside world. Think about it - if you were a fruit fly, what would you do?

I usually leave the trap for 3 - 5 days - once it is satisfyingly full, I kill the fruit flies by running water through the holes in the top until it is full, then, in case some are clever enough to try to escape (and some always are), I upend the jar in a plastic container filled with water. Let the whole thing sit for a few hours, then dissassemble and flush the banana, water and tiny fly carcasses down the toilet or pour them over your compost pile outside and start again.

Were earthworms on the ark?

Here I thought I was doing a good thing, getting involved in vermiculture, recycling my organic wastes, keeping plastics out of landfill...BUT, and here's the rub, my red wigglers may be an INVASIVE SPECIES! The word at the Farmers' Martket is that earthworms along with all other topsoil were scraped off the face of North America clear on down to the southern states at the last great ice age AND that since they only travel very short distances, they were missing from the species list when the first European settlers came to Canada. Consequently, or so my informant claims, all current species in Canada are European invaders!!! Including my little Eisenia feotida - maybe. The impact of these surface, manure worms could be potentially damaging to our northern forests which depend on at least three deep layers of old leaves to help keep the moisture in the soil. Having not had the opportunity to adapt to the worms, the trees could be in peril. So - I must pursue these alarming possibilities...

http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/462/2/
http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/200/2/ - yes Eisenia feotida IS an invader, along with 17 other species, only two are actually native to Ontario. Introduced through commercial cultivation, E. feotida is now found in the wild and was brought in by European settlers a century or two ago. Localized for the most part around human settlements.
http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/129/2/ E. feotida are indigenous to Australia
http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/398/2/ A history of the great worm invasions: "The invasion in the investigated aspen forest by mineral soil dwelling earthworm species presumably is slow due to the climatic restrictions on growth, reproduction and activity of these species. However, this study indicates that earthworm invasions can have dramatic impacts on vegetation, soil microarthropods, microorganisms and soil chemistry"
What about worms in compost piles?
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html Lists damage done to forested areas by invasive worm species in Minnesota - "If you are concerned about spreading non-native worms with your compost, you can kill worms and their eggs by freezing the compost for at least 1 week."
http://www.nrri.umn.edu/worms/ Minnesota Worm Watch site
http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/ Canadian Worm Watch