I'm feeling inspired today. I washed diapers, planted lots of seeds with my Mom (she is my #1 gardening partner) and Mio, made a really great lunch with Midori (ma-bo tofu, spinach with sesame sauce, miso soup, daikon pickles, and brown rice). And I've been reading my friend Nick's awesome blog about climate change, which in turn got me started reading Gandhi.
Climate change is scary, isn't it? It gives me the same feeling that I used to get when I was a kid thinking about the end of the world. (For some reason this was my biggest fear when I was 5 years old-- I had the notion that the Earth would simply stop one day for whatever reason and we would all die. Maybe I was on to something. And my other biggest fear was dying and then going to heaven and having to spend eternity there... forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and... I would start feeling dizzy and sick. Thankfully I don't believe in heaven anymore.)
Most of the news about climate change tends to be about how we're all going to hell in a handbasket or about what world leaders aren't doing to fix the problem. Depressing. What I like about Nick's blog and about what Gandhi says is that the first changes we have to make are in our own daily lives, those little drops in the bucket that everyone uses as an excuse to do nothing. But if everyone puts a drop in the bucket, every day, then pretty soon it's raining. You never know what affect your seemingly little action will have. So starting now I want to make a small sacrifice every day in the name of reducing my carbon footprint. Tomorrow I'll ride my bike into town instead of drive-- what will you do?
Yes, I'm practicing at lowering my carbon footprint here on Anna's farm, to make up for my huge footprint due to flights to Japan. Anna and Gen would not let me buy them plastic hoops to make low plastic tunnels for cold weather planting things like spinach, tender green mustard, mizuna, baby bok choy, purple orach (my favorite). So, I've gotten pretty adept at splitting bamboo into hoops which work great. Over here in Japan I also wash ziplock baggies to reuse and ate some pickled daikon radish tops which looked like they were rotten. Yum. Anna gets you to walk the walk just by modeling how. Imagine pumping out bathwater to use for laundry. That's what she's all about, but apparently lots of Japanese do this. They do have lusciously deep bath tubs full of piping hot water that never gets cold. So, when I get home (boo,hoo, sob, I'll miss my girls), I'll try and get myself to wash ziplocks and consolidate my errand running.
ReplyDeleteOoh what a good post! I'm trying to buy as much as I can from local farms (they just started a winter farmers market in my neighborhood, and i love it), but I know there are much more effective ways I can support them than just buying massachusetts veggies. since i already live in a city, ride my bike most of the time and take the train when i don't, and don't buy a whole lot of stuff in general, maybe to make more of a difference i should try harder to get the word out about local small farms and businesses that have recently been popping up that could use the support of people that might just not know about them yet. For example, there really hasn't been much grain at all farmed around here, but I heard that someone took it upon themselves to get that going again - I think there is actually a stone mill somewhere nearby that they use. See - I need to research this so I can tell other people about it! Thanks Anna!
ReplyDeleteAnna! I somehow missed this post earlier. I'm glad you like and especially glad that you agree about the need for personal action.
ReplyDelete"The honorable choice I see is to power-down: stop taking airplane jaunts, repair old things, get out the clothespins, grow food, walk. And face the truth, that I am a party to something so enormously destructive I can hardly know its edges.88909 The conquering of any addiction begins with these words: I am the guilty party."
-Barbary Kingsolver, of all people.
You're one of the few people I know who really holds her feet to the fire, and I'm so grateful that you do. Give me a little hope.
Nick
Make sure no food is wasted. No part of any plant or animal. It's not only disrespect to the creature that died, but environmentally sound too. On that note, I think I will melt some lard.
ReplyDelete