Right Under Our Noses

Last Saturday, my family had the pleasure of enjoying a 5-year-old's birthday party. The really great thing about this party is that it was hosted by Restoration Farms, a surprisingly close haven for organic living and animal rescue. The owner sells organic produce out of her garage, raises chickens, and lives with rescued dogs, cats, and horses. We had a bountiful organic lunch of soup, salads, fresh bread, fruits, and veggies. We met the chickens, and the kids were given pony rides. I'm amazed more and more at how many organic operations there are right here in this busy, sprawling, corporate-driven town. Right under our noses we're given glimpses of sustainable living, given the opportunity to help support it, and given the inspiration to live such lives ourselves.

Slow is Radical

"They paved paradise to put up a parking lot." --Joni Mitchell

Our class spent some time reading a book by Richard Register called Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature. It was an interesting and radical read, despite its ability to put some people off with its angry tone and seemingly impossible ideas of drastically altering the way we live, work, and move within cities.

Given Loki's death last week and the message of Register's book, I've been thinking about how attached to and dependent upon cars most of our cities are and how cars encourage our desire for speed and distance. Register attests that 15 mph is a speed at which it's almost impossible to hurt oneself or others, and I think about this in relation to our neighborhood speed limit of 30 mph (which is regularly broken by people driving down our street). A car at 15 mph would likely have had time to stop before hitting my cat.

All in all, slowing down seems to be a concept foreign to most of our culture, but the recent resurgence of popularity in "slow arts" such as knitting, baking, gardening, and cooking from scratch attests to the fact that many of us desire to slow down and fully take in the moments and contexts of our lives. These slow arts compete with mass produced clothing, fast food restaurants, and pre-packaged processed foods because we are used to convenience and to living at the speed of a TV commercial.

What would it take for us to slow down a bit? Likely, we would need to change our habit of packing in as many activities and errands as we can into the shortest possible time span. We would need to refrain from multi-tasking in many areas of our lives. Maybe we would need to do less in a day, make fewer demands of ourselves. We would probably need to watch less TV, freeing up time to cook a meal or take a walk. We would need to practice mindful awareness of our day-to-day doings. We would need to take a moment to breathe. We would have the time to follow the speed limit.

In doing this, we might find ourselves less stressed, less rushed, and even with more time to dedicate to the things that matter to us. We might begin to recognize how constant motion can work against contentment and begin to see the paradise beyond the pavement.

Sitting with Sadness

This photo was taken last week when V. and I were in the backyard, picking radishes and enjoying the sunshine. Loki, aptly named after the Norse god of mischief, was a constant companion, though he had limited amounts of patience with V. since she's still so young. L. and I always knew he was a dog in a cat's body (the best of both worlds for us, really, since L. is a dog lover and I love cats). He was fiercely loyal and protective. He would growl from inside the house when someone he didn't know or trust came onto our front porch. He would defend his territory against dogs, raccoons, and possums. Once, he even chased our Doberman around the house when Turkish ran to the door to greet me; Loki thought the dog was attacking me. Loki found us, six months after L. and I were married, and estimates of his age placed his birth sometime around our wedding. He was certainly a gift to us.

Loki was run over by a car on Monday afternoon. Now he is buried in our backyard, close as he always was.

In the Garden

Thankfully, we've had some pretty cold weather this winter in sunny FLA, which is helping winter crops thrive. Yesterday, V. and I pulled these radishes from the garden, and I noticed that the broccoli rabe (which I love!) is beginning to bud. I have a recipe for broccoli rabe with gemelli and red potatoes that's a winter favorite and, knowing how hard it can be to find the vegetable, I decided to try my hand at planting it this winter.

I must say that the photos look lovely, but the garden itself is another story. L. tells me that I don't have a green thumb; although I immediately feel defensive when he says this, the implication being that our plants usually shrivel and die, practically speaking he's right. Except for a few young spinach plants, the rest of the garden is a desert wasteland. I still contend that this has less to do with my lacking a green thumb and more to do with my busy schedule and, I should admit, some forgetfulness. Plus, the garden wasn't helped any by our two-week trip to Virginia over the holidays. (Yes, the cats had a sitter, but the garden didn't.)

Now that we're back and I'm seeing the garden's lack of productivity, I realize a few things. First, I haven't done all that badly with the watering (and of course I've been aided by some lovely rainy days). Second, I really need to be willing to start seeds indoors or in a make-shift greenhouse, rather than being "lazy" and simply planting straight to the garden. This works for some vegetables (obviously the radishes, rabe, and spinach), but it didn't work this time around for the six or so other vegetables I planted.

What this means, of course, is that we should get busy constructing a greenhouse of sorts so that I can start some plantings for spring. I opt for the greenhouse over the indoor option given the fact that V., almost two years-old, is an active toddler (one of our family's favorite games is to tick a big bouncy ball around the house. L. or I will hold V. and then we'll try to kick the ball past each other, soccer-style. Fun, yes. Potentially dangerous to fragile seedlings--and the occasional lamp--of course).

This also means that my students are right: living more sustainably can feel like a good deal of work, which deters many from trying. As I reiterate to them, what matters is that we each find the areas of our lives where we are willing to do the work. We can start small with what aligns with our own values, passions, and energies. Then, we can see what sprouts from there.