Greenthings

Environmental Diary

2005-01-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

January 4 +'s
1. Dried apples which help heat house as it is chilling off again - cloudy day
2. Fed apple peel to rabbits
3. Planted sprouted garlic
4. Put pulled weeds on compost or fed to rabbits
5. Planted sprouted mirlitons in recycled cottage cheese containers
6. Planted sweet potato sprouts in recycled yogurt containers

-'s
1. Drove S to and from work because I needed to talk with her instead of just letting her have the car.

Environmental Diary

2005-01-05T09:11:00.002-08:00

January 3 +'s
1. Pulled vinca and monkeygrass
2. Bought apples to dry & discount fruit for rabbits
3. Recycled
4. Recycled

-'s
1. Drove to grocery for eggs and fruit
2. Drove to Mary's for lunch and to see her gallery-in-progress
3. Cooked quiche for dinner even though it was warm enough the house didn't need it

Environmental Diary

2005-01-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

I figure that in view of the pillaging and general environmental rape that is ongoing in the world right now, I needed to do something. Well, begin at home, I thought. If you want to change the world, you have to begin in your own backyard.
+'s for January 2
1. Heat down to 70
2. Sewed button on old shirt instead of buying new
3. Pulled up invasive monkey grass and vinca
4. Planned out car errands so drove in circle
5. Put car in neutral at stops
6. Reused plastic bag I got at Penny's 3 times
7. Cooked up turkey carcass, picked meat off bones and made soup.

-'s for January 2
1. Made coffee
2. Bought new bras
3. Drove car

The Enormous Party

2004-12-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

by Dr. Lewis Thomas
from 20th Century Decorating, Architecture and Gardens

The more Nature reveals to us, the more it has the look of an immense gathering with presents all around, and, despite the wild differences in form, a family affair as well. Giving things away is an ingrained habit among the living things of our planet; it is ordained, genetically determined. You could call it trading, I suppose, since everyone gets something in return, but there is such freedom and exuberance in the giving as to seem more like celebration than hard business.

Every kind of creature is dependent for his life on the life of other creatures nearby, and this meshwork of interdependency is spread over the surface of the whole planet. The most lavish of the presents, there for the asking, is the air itself. Oxygen is pumped into the atmosphere by green microoorganisms, some free-floating in the sea, others living as permanent lodgers inside the cells of other organisms; the plants are green because of these creatures. Carbon dioxide on which the plants depend for their use of solar energy, is pumped in by other microorganisms, the ones that use the oxygen; most of these also live as residents, called mitochondria, inside the cells of other animals. Were it not for these two great classes of microbe, dominating in benignity of the whole planet, none of the rest of us would be here.

Happy New Year!

2004-12-22T06:39:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For the Future

2004-12-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

Today when my daughter left for work, (she needs it warm) I turned the heat way down and shut off the rooms upstairs that would not be needed for the day. This makes sense from a global perspective, but it makes me sad that no one else I know bothers to conserve our increasingly scarce resources. And where does all this denial come from?

2004-12-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

The Yule log comes to us from England before the Christian era, and burning it was originally a pagan rite. At the end of every year (based on the year's shortest day) it was thought that the sun stood still for twelve days. An enormous log was cut, large enough to burn throughout this period and burn away the evil of the past year. Since the pagan Yule and our Christmas so nearly coincide in time, gradually the burning of the Yule log was adopted by Christians...
From The Complete Christmas Book 1961

The way it used to be

2004-12-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

...plantation in Virginia--thirteen hundred acres of red soil, and red gullies, and woodlands, varied with countless streams and springs....There were black walnut trees, chinquapin bushes, hazelnuts, hickory nuts. Occasionally, she found an Indian arrowhead in a furrow or under a sassafrass bush...

Lady of the Lake

2004-12-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

by Scott
Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
on the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring,
and down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
till envious ivy did around thee cling,
muffling with verdant ringlet every string,--
O Minstrel Harp, sill must thine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep
nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

The stag at eve had drunk his fill
where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
and deep his midnight lair had made
in lone Glenartney's hazel shade...

"Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire,
Some spirit of the air has waked thy string!
Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,
Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
Receding now, the dying numbers ring
Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell
And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
a wandering witch-note of the distant spell--
and now, tis silent all!--Enchantress, fare thee well.

Parsley

2004-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

From The Physicians of Myddfal, 13th century

The parsley is a good herb of a warm hot nature. It is useful in all foods. It will remove obstructions of the veins and arteries in a body, so that the humours may circulate properly as they should. It will stimulate the spirits greatly, and strengthen the stomach.

Herbs

2004-12-10T06:03:00.000-08:00

From A Medieval Herbal

A 13th century price of South Wales had a physician, assisted by his three sons, at Myddfai, on Carmarthenshire. The family compiled a collection of medical recipes, including a list of one hundred and seventy-five plants and herbal preparations, in a document known as The Physicains of Myddfai.

Herbs were the only drubs available in the Middle Ages. They were often dried--the name 'drug' possibly derives from the Anglo-Saxon dregen, meaning 'to dry'. Single herbs were known as 'simples'. Knowledge of plants and recipes for their use were passed on from generation to generation.

From De Proprietarius Rebum, 1240

Woods be wide places wast and desolate y many trees growe in w'oute fruyte and also few hauying fruyte. In thyse wodes ben ofte wylde beestes and foulis. Therein growyth herbes, grasse, lees and pasture and namely medycynall herbes in wodes foude. In somer wodes ben bewtyed wyth bowes and braunches, w' herbes and grasse.

Thomas Jefferson and the American Right

2004-12-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

Jefferson once said that the price of freedom is eternal viligance. I guess that makes me a Jeffersonian then.
This is an excerpt from edutopia, an article entitled, The muddle machine confessions of a textbook editor by Tamim Ansary.

"Every time a friend with kids in school tells me textbooks are too generic, I think back...In fact, most of these books fall far short of their important role in the educational scheme of things...Many layers of editors scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of all ages...

Bon appetite
With so much at stake, how did we get into this turgid mess? In the 80's and 90's, a feeding frenzy broke out among publishing houses as they all fought to swallow their competitors...This concentration of money and power caused dramatic changes....

The Cruelest Month
In textbook publishing, April is the cruelest month. That's when certain states announce which textbooks they're adopting. When it comes to setting the agenda for textbooks publishing, only the 22 states that have a formal adoption process count...Among the adoption states, Texas, California and Florida have unrivaled clout. Yet size does matter...Obviously, publishers create products specifically for the adoptions in those three key states...

Don't Mess with Texas
The big three adoption states are not equal, however, In that elite trio, Texas rules...Texas has particular power when it comes to high school textbooks...If you're creating a new textbook, therefore, you start by scrutinizing Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). This document is drawn up by a group of curriculum experts, teachers and political insiders appointed by the 15 members of the Texas Board of Education, currently 5 Democrats and 10 Republicans, about half of whom have a background in education. TEKS describes that Texas wants and what the entire nation will therefore get.
Texas is truly the tail that wags the dog. There is, however, a tail that wags this mighty tail. Every adoption state allows private citizens to review textbooks and raise objections. Publishers must respond to these objections at open hearings.
In the late 60's a Texas couple, Mel and Norma Gabler, figured out how to use their state's adoption hearings to put pressure on textbook publishers. The Gablers had no academic credentials or teaching gackgournd, but they knew what they wanted taught--phonics, sexual abstinence, free enterprise, creationism, and the primacy of Judeo-Christian values--and considered themselves in a battle against a "politically correct degradation of academics." Expert organizers, the Gablers possessed a flair for constructing arguments out of the language of official curriculum guidelines. The Longview, Texas-based nonprofit corporation they founded 43 years ago, Educational Research Analysis, continues to review textbooks and lobby against liberal content in textbooks.
The Gablers no longer appear in person at adoption hearings, but through workshops, books and how-to manuals, they trained a whole generation of conservative Christian activists to carry on their work...
I remember, an aditorial group was discussing literary selctions to include in a reading anthology. We were about to agree on one selection when someone mentioned that the author of this piece had drawn a protest at a Texas adoption because he had allegedly belonged to an organization called One World Council, remored to be a "Communist front."...
Without further converstation, we...moved on. Only in retrospect did I realize we had censored the first story based on rumors of allegations. Our unspoken thinking seemed to be, If even the most unlikely taint existed, the Gablers would find it, so why take a chance?
Self-censorship like this goes unreported because we the censors hardly notice outselves doing it. In that room, none of us said no to any story. We just converged around a different story. The dangerous author, incidentally, was celebrated best-selling science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov.

WWJD

2004-12-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

Would Jesus approve of our agression in Iraq?
Would he approve of the torture and the killing of chilren?
I can't imagine that he is happy with America right now.

Wouldn't it be better to spend our resources in research, in developing alternative energy sources than trying to expoit Iraq?
If we used our capitol to invest in "green" ideas, to learn to conserve, reuse, reinvent energy, we could be ahead of the curve, instead of borrowing money we don't have to finance a venture that already has the world hating us and that will ultimately destroy us.

Read what Jesus really has to say. Spend time with his words, meditate on them. Don't let rich people in power convince you of what Jesus said. He will speak to your heart if you let him.

Every church should be preaching a doctrine of healing, of reconstruction of salvation instead they are buying into the same old mismia of agrandizement, domination and colonization that the church has traditionally been used as an excuse for.

That is not what Jesus died for. That is not why he came to live with us. He came to show us a different path, a way of living with each other instead of killing and hating each other.

Those who live by the sword, will die by the sword. Beat your swords into plowshares and help feed the hungry, the impoverished around our world.

Consider the Lilies of the Field

2004-12-02T08:24:00.000-08:00

"...possibly not a true lily at all was chosen to illustrate the truth, which those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and we, equally anxious, foolishly overburdened folk of to-day so little comprehend." Wild Flowers by Neltje Blanchan

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

"Opinions differ as to the lily of Scripture. Eastern people used the same word interchangeable for the tulip, anemone, ranunculus, iris, the water lilies, and those of the field....but whoever has seen the large anemones there carpeting every plain and luxuriantly pervading the land is included to believe that Jesus, who always chose the most familiar objects in the daily life of his simple listeners to illustrate His techings, rested His eyes on the slopes about Him glowing with anemonies in all their matchless loveliness." Wild Flowers

I think Jesus would be appalled and saddened to see his lovely flowers covered up with parking lots for Walmart and the like so people could buy more, own more, consume more. That was not what he was about at all. Jesus would decry the vicious insidious consumerism of our time.
He would want us to stop crying More, More, More and instead say, How can I do without, how can I do my part to stop this madness?
Is that what we are doing in Iraq? Is this why we are killing people and sending them to be killed?
I think Jesus cannot help but be deeply hurt by the crimes that are being committed by this country in his name.

A Christmas Temptation

2004-12-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

Matthew Chapter 4
Verses 1-11

"Then was Jesus let up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward and hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command and these stones will be " drilled and crushed and turned one upon the other and mountains will be stripped and moved and you will have petroleum and coal, to make fertilizer to grow crops, and heat homes and power vehicles so you never have to be hungry or cold or walk long distances again. But only the rich can afford this. Only certain countries will have this gift.
And Jesus looked into the future and saw great inequality, toxic chemicals poisoning habitats and people sickening with painful diseases, chemical spills destroying wide swaths of lands and poisoning rivers "and he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
"...Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee..."
Again Jesus looked into his heart and saw that he could command armies, and destroy the cities of those who were not of his religion. He saw that the administrators he would appoint would be indifferent to the protests of the people and to global warming and the extinction of whole families of animals and plants. He saw thousands of people dying because of coastal flooding, trying to find food and evacuate to higher ground where others were already living, fighting for increasingly scarce resources. He saw an increase in hurricanes and typhoons destroying lives and property and saw women forced to bear children they didn't want and couldn't love or take care of properly and he saw those children growing up in pain and causing pain to others, he saw them being sent to fight wars they didn't understand, he saw himself ordering people tortured and killed. He saw industrious men and women working 2 and 3 jobs and still not being able to afford health care or medicine for their little children, saw abuse and cruely and rape, and saw that the world would groan as if in great travail.
"Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan..." I will not do this, power destroys whatever it touches. It is not the Way.

Evolving

2004-12-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

Today I am drying apples and making turkey soup.
Yes, I feel better, all my herbal remedies and the rest helped.
I would be even better had I not stayed up until near 2 am.
First my daughter called. She is down. Not surprising, the state the country/world is in. She is not one to deny reality. More than that, she says the world is changing and won't be the same one she knew in the 90's. Everything is so insecure for her right now, that just adds to her trouble. I wish I could help. I haven't been able to tell her how ill Jane is because she likes her.
I buy bruised apples at the grocery to both feed to the rabbits and to dehydrate. S. says they taste better than candy.
Makes me think that perhaps we have a taste for candy because we used to eat dried fruits. It is a natural slide from one to the other. The body is not fine enough tuned to realize the differences between the sugars and tastes. Perhaps one day we will be.
Perhaps we are evolving already and those of us who are eating organic, vegetarian, vegan; are doing it because our bodies are sensitive enough to detect the difference between natural and processed chemical.

death

2004-11-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

I just cannot get myself around the fact that J will die soon. It seems almost everything short of fatal crashes have a better prognosis than multiple myloma.

J. Nigra

2004-11-30T09:13:00.000-08:00

My neighbor planted Black Walnuts in the back of his yard. Young trees show up on our property sometimes, no doubt planted by squirrels. Usually they must be moved, are too close to the house, in the vegetable garden, etc. I also can confuse them with the Very undesirable Altissima. However, the Altissima smells, stinks really. But Black Walnuts have a pleasant odor of their own.

"The black walnut is the second species east of the Rocky Mountains, and the tree that was, to a large extent, chiefly depended upon, during the 19th Century by the makers of furniture....Walnut trees one hundred and fifty feed high were not uncommon...in the basin of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers. (I wish I could have seen that) These giants held up their majestic heads far over the tops of oaks and maples in the woods. They were slaughtered, rolled together, and burned by the pioneers, clearing the land for agriculture. These men had a special grudge against walnut trees...How unfortunate it is that our ancestors had...(not) let these trees stand."
From the Nature Library Trees by Julia Ellen Rogers, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. 1926.

From the looks of all the ripping out and toppling over of trees around here for more large stores with mega parking lots, when there are already large stores with mega paving standing empty and unused; we shall have no trees soon. Perhaps we will put them in botanical parks and everyone will be amazed, and stare and look on Sundays. Look Johnny, see the wild walnut. It is endangered, there are only X left in the world.

Global warming. Is this a goal we desire?

Rosa

2004-11-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

This is from Wild Flowers a book first published in 1917 by Doubleday, Doran & Company. Neltje Blanchan wrote the text.
"Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature...curved, sharp prickles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appliances which peel off with the bark...to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip.
"In literature, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, no flower figures so conspicuously as the rose. To the Romans it was most significant when placed over the door of a public or private banquet hall. Each who passed beneath it bound himself thereby not to disclose anything said or done within; hence the expression sub rosa, common to this day. " (It seems to me that a lot of American governing is being done sub rosa these days.)
"In spite of its American Indian name, the lovely white Cherokee Rose that runs wild in the South...did indeed come from China." (This plant has become a nuisance, an invasive, crowding out and eliminating a host of American native species.)
On day I fear we shall have nothing but kudzu and cockroaches.

Flu/cold helps

2004-11-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

Well, today is the end of old November.
I wouldn't say it has been a good month, what with the defeat of rational thinking and all.
And last night a friend told me she is terminal.
Fortunately I am too insulated by this virus to feel the fear and loss.
Yeesss, I have a cold/flu/virus.
I'm not sure exactly except that I spent the last two days cold and wrapped in blankets. Today I'm better, although still not exactly well.
I spent a lot of time yesterday looking for natural/herbal helps for myself and for J.
Today I'll tell you some of the things that helped me.
1. Rose hips. I picked and dried them earlier knowing this was going to be a bad season. Add them to soups, casserole or one pot dishes, or make a tea by boiling for 10 minutes. Rose hips are the fleshy red balls surrounding rose seeds. My daughter says she sees them in the hedges of Kansas City. Mine grows in my front yard. Just wash them if they are growing near a source of pollution.
2. Lemon tea. This comes from my Chinese herbal and works well. Ordinarily I would not use sugar as sweeting, but it is recommended for its drying effects on a runny nose. Heat a mug of water, squeeze 1/2 fresh lemon, add 1/2 tsp sugar and drink hot. Try it, it really helps.
3. Avoid sugar and processed meats. This is more for long term overall health than the temporary virus.
I will add more suggestions later, but for now please pray for J. to whatever God/spirit/energy appeals to you from the path you are on.