Transition « Robin Hill Gardens

What a rush. Wayland’s 2013 Earth Day Weekend, organized by Transition Wayland and the Wayland Green Team (both of which I am an active member), is over. It was a two-day community extravaganza of open houses all over town: people showing their retrofitted or super insulated houses, gardens, solar PV and Hot Water systems, heat pumps, geothermal systems, compost, chickens, bees, rain water catchment and much more.

I ran from one house to the next, trying to go to all of them, which was impossible, of course. But as the organizer I felt (1) that it was only right to shake each host’s hand and wish them good luck and (2) that I should get the maximum of enjoyment out of this event. Last year, when we put up a big fair on the Town Building grounds (400 visitors), all I did was help set up booths, put out fires, and worry that the tents would fly off on us. In any case, I was gone from 9 am till 10:30 pm on Saturday and from 10 am to 6 om on Sunday. But I had a blast and was very heartened.

First of all, we managed to do what Transition is supposed to do and what, having done it, is the right thing: we “gave it away”. Hosts prepared and ran their own events. All we did was come up with the concept and the promotion: a flier, a website, lawn signs. Giving it away was very powerful, both for our initiating group, for the hosts, and for the visitors. Everyone I spoke with loved the formula.

And there were plenty of visitors. At a first guess (we’re still counting), the open houses attracted about 500 visits (not visitors, as it’s impossible to tell who visited which houses). One of the houses, our town’s famous LEED Gold Toaster House, got over 150 (they were open for 12 hours, 9-9). The screening of the documentary Chasing Ice on Friday evening, got over 50 viewers.

Our own open house – the first time we show off Robin Hill Gardens – attracted about 30 people. Amie had a lemonade stand and though the lemons cost $11.50 and she made $4.50 we were all psyched, she most of all, because each cup was, in the end, only a quarter. She was so happy to finally be part of Earth Day after having missed Mama for the whole weekend. DH shared much of the work: I showed the garden, compost, rain water catchment, bees and chickens, he showed the solar PV and Hot Water systems. It was nerve wrecking and fun to do and I felt good about it. Only…

Only, the ultimate goal had been to attract the neighbors. ”If only your five immediate neighbors come, it’s a success!’ is what we had said. Only one set of neighbors came to mine. True, I had a difficult slot, it was the second-last event. But they had seen my sign, got the brochures in their kids’ backpacks, and I had talked to them about it. Even my next door neighbors, who were home and biking around and whom I had invited by personal email, didn’t come. I’m not whining or accusing, just wondering why? Was it timing, messaging? Were there barriers that neighbors felt they couldn’t cross while total strangers could?

Here’s another thought. On Friday we showed Chasing Ice at the High School, and on Saturday one of the hosts, also an active member of Transition Wayland, showed Green Fire, about Aldo Leopold, in her living room. Both movies elicited fantastic conversations. The first (about 30 stayed for the conversation), more intellectual, abstract and contentious (in a good way). The second (7 of us) so much more personal, with childhood stories and emotions gently surfacing. I realized I like the second approach better and am thinking of taking both movies “on the road” in Wayland, showing it in living rooms and talk, talk, talk, get to know each other. For instance, a friend of mine who came to Green Fire was a different person than I usually see (mom of kids who are friends with my kid – those are our usual roles). I loved hearing that intelligent, articulate woman share her amazing experiences so confidently. We need that culture in our town: conversations, not presentations; friendships, not memberships. We must get to know each other, get strong together, before we get to know the facts and start to act.

Lots to think about as we take Transition Wayland to the next stage (giving all of it away), trying to discern and influence the complex fabric of a community. Today I am writing a Letter of Thanks for our local media, watering my garden, and reading Aldo Leopold:

All ethics evolved so far rest upon a single premise:

that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts

The work is always only just begun.

I see it only now, at the end of the day, how much was accomplished: cleaned out the chicken coop, collected four eggs (we’re back to four!), inspected the beehives, painted the last of the signage for our town’s Earth Day, and racked the wine.

Four.

Amie paints her own sign in the new basement Project Room. The Earth Day lawn signs behind her are reused.

The A-Frames from the previous year got a new lick of paint and are awaiting the last lettering on the porch (along with the seedlings, hardening off).

DH racks the Merlot and the Cabernet

Sediment, with some wood chips.

We tasted both, the Merlot, pictured here, was further along than the Cabernet. Back in their cubby they went for the next stage.

DSCF0310

This, dear friends, is a massive apothecary! The beginnings of it. Some of these envelopes hold just 5 seeds. Many hold seeds that need scraping with sandpaper and intricate regimes of warm-moist and/or cold-dry conditions. Some will take years (years!) to germinate. Suffice it to say, these aren’t your average lettuce seeds. Each one is special. Each one is demanding. But if I do right by them, each one will repay me and my community a thousandfold.

As for my silence here, I’ve been clearing my desk just so I can devote the necessary time to these seeds. Today was the day it all came together. I sent off an application to teach a course on collapse (yes, you heard that right!) at Tufts Experimental College. I finished the Solar Wayland Report (a rather technical policy-oriented report which you can read here). I also submitted a grant application for Transition Wayland. What a relief to have all those done! Added up they amount to a hundred dense pages of text, and they have been months in the making.

Earth Day has been a non-stop promotional effort (we have articles in the local media every week, all the way up to the weekend itself: check them our here/here, the write-up of our house here/here, and here/here). I only wrote the one about about our house, we have a great team volunteering for this! The group is also investigating making Transition Wayland into a co-op. And then there are the plans to promote solar hot water. Oh, and on Monday a friend and I are taking a 14-foot truck to pick up no less than eight IBC totes plus some barrels we’re planning to convert into compost barrels…

I’d better be off to my basement now to sow those seeds, before I get sidetracked!

Amie reads Calvin and Hobbes during Hurricane Sandy (13h) power outage, 29 October 2012

So we weathered yet another storm. Or rather, we didn’t. Sandy went around us. We got some of her peripheral gusts of wind and some rain, but none of it very severe. Half of my town was out of power. School was closed Monday and again today due to power outages and blocked roads.

So we got lucky. Or did we?

Our power went out at the very beginning, before Sandy had even made landfall 300 miles south of us. So just the smallest of what Sandy could throw at us instantly toppled our infrastructure. Why? Because all she had to do was continue what Irene and previous storms had already wrought: trees and branches weakened by those storms had to come down.

The lesson here is that we don’t go from crisis to crisis, resetting each time. Instead we now accumulate risks and dangers. The next storm, however small, might be a major tipping point. The next big one might be utter disaster. Lacking the money or will to repair our infrastructure to pristine condition or to replace it with more resilient systems – systems that can take a hit - we “maintain” it in good enough condition for “normal” conditions. The downed wires will be restrung, but we won’t be putting them underground.

We’re merely treading water.

***

Reading during (40-h) power outage Nor-Easter of October 30, 2011

Here’s another example of our lack of resilience. When the grid went down, our grid-tied solar array went down with it. Batteries are still too expensive, environmentally problematic and short-lived, so my household was without power too. With Solarize Massachusetts we managed to get about 130 solar small residential and business arrays up here in Wayland and in our neighboring towns of Lincoln and Sudbury. We pat ourselves on the back for our success, yet in times of crisis it turns out that it means nothing.

The majority is not bothered, of course. “Those couple of days in the year when you’re without power don’t matter,” they scoff. To them it’s all about the 362 (give or take) good days of energy efficiency and environmental impacts. These are all good and necessary qualities, of course, but we should also be looking at resilience. Climate change and other predicaments will impact us more and more, faster and faster. “Normal” will shrink and “Frankenstorms” will become the norm. All our efficiency won’t matter if there’s no resilience underlying it.

If you’re thinking that that’s rushing to ring the alarm bell, may I point out that only a few years ago people laughed at the possibility that whole swaths of the country might be without power for more than a couple of hours. “This is not a developing country!” Nowadays we easily skip worrying about the power, taking it for granted that it will be lost, and move on to worrying about the water supply. In a few years time, even loss of water supply will be expected. What’s next?

And so we go happily down the rabbit hole, adjusting our expectations with each step so that we don’t have to do something about it that may – sweet Gee! - demand sacrifices to our wallets or our idea of ourselves as on top of the world!

***

For me this isn’t just a social – local or international – issue. I’m pointing the finger at myself too.

Yes, we’re prepared. We have bug-out bags at the ready and food, water, flashlights, batteries and sleeping bags (*) in a hurricane room in the basement. But let’s not kid myself! Yesterday, as DH was charging our brand-new NOAA emergency radio, the hand crank broke off. I was furious: what if we had really needed it? Though I am still fuming, I am grateful for the wake up call. There could have been no more powerful sign of how fragile we are, and only fractionally less fragile even with all our preparations.

That I believed that my radio would work also betrayed that I had not really given up a key assumption: that we are rebuilding this ship in dry dock rather than plugging her leaks in the middle of a choppy ocean. I thought I had: it’s my favorite image of our world in peril, along with “we’re treading water,” which complements it. But obviously I had assumed that this radio was built in dry dock, that is, under the very best of circumstances and conditions. I know now that it was not, that it was made cheaply, its parts sourced and assembled by the cheapest bidder, its testing foregone because the buyer would buy it anyway and because, perhaps, most buyers wouldn’t need it, anyway.

Well, may we all shed our assumptions, and soon. Treading water is hazardous enough without live wires coming down!

—-

(*) Some accuse us of being hoarders, but we bought our emergency supplies in times of plenty, when our purchases didn’t impact supplies – which is not something you can say of those who raid the supermarket shelves the day before the storm.

(I’m thinking of this third post today as a Transitiony kind of post…)

When I show people around the place, I finally (after five years) feel like it’s all coming together, and that’s because I have started thinking in terms of elements.

Breaking the enormous task of creating a “sustainable place” up into elements allows me to do several things:

to accept that it will only happen one element at a time,
thus to take a more realistic longer-term view,
and while digging the compost I can now enjoy digging the compost, while not also, at the same time, in my head, digging the pond, pulling the weeds, cleaning out the coop, identify the mushrooms, building the earth oven…
and I can take pride in the accomplishments, in what has already been done,
thus also feeling confidence that we will succeed in making it even better.

Yes, this is all about feeling good! I’ve realized that, for me, only good feelings will (1) allow me and (2) even get me to act. I am finally taking seriously the title of my blog: Wendell Berry’s

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts

I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep track of the big picture, the reasons behind our actions, etc. I’m saying that too much talk (or thought), too much worry makes for a very frustrated activist.

Case in point: DH and friends were sitting around the patio table discussing ngo’s and having to make a living and what the world really, truly needs. They had snacks and drinks, and the umbrella was shading them from the Summer sun. Meanwhile, some 30 feet away, I was building a chicken run entirely out of materials scavenged from the property. My run took as long to build as their conversation took to resolve into agreeing-to-disagree. As all of us wrapped up, one of them quipped

“While we were discussing saving the world, you were saving the world”

However much it was a joke, it was revealing. Saving the world? I should never think if that as my job. Or yours, or any one’s. Putting systems, elements in place that may just contribute to a better world? Yes. That I can do, joyfully, efficiently, proudly.

We figured we need to overproduce (produce more than we consume) about 100 solar KwH by August 13th, which will be a year from when our solar system was connected to the grid and we started producing. If we make it, we’ll have broken even. It will be a challenge, since as of next week our household will double in size. There will be six of us: DH’s parents and sister will be with us for the summer. But they’appreciate the challenge, I’m sure.

I’m working on a plug-in for the blog that will track the race.

Speaking of Solar Surplus and Countdown…

Here in Wayland we are running the Solarize Massachusetts program. This is a state-sponsored program developed by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MA CEC) and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (MA DOER) to encourage residential solar photovoltaic electricity (PV) installations. It provides a framework for municipalities, homeowners and solar installers to work collaboratively to maximize cost-savings and energy efficiency benefits. It

Was only available to designated Green Communities (31 of 86 towns applied)
Was piloted in four communities in 2010, and is now extended to 17 towns
Provides marketing, outreach, procurement, and contracting support
Creates a group purchasing opportunity. The price drops as more people sign up.
Ends on Sept 30. 2012

Wayland teamed up with neighboring towns Lincoln and Sudbury, adding up to about 13000 households. Each town assigned a solar coach (I’m the coach for Wayland) to lead the grassroots outreach. The MassCEC put out the Request for Proposals to solar installers and vetted the bids, then sent them our way. Together with specialists in the field, we chose an installer for the program.

What an opportunity! When I signed on for this, I knew this would be well worth my time. And I was appreciative of the MassCEC for engaging the grassroots in this. Just them, just a solar installer, or a combination of those two, would never have the impact of the grassroots that are already in place.

Putting systems in place for (and before) when they’re needed is one of the goals of Transition work. Cleanly, distributively and locally produced energy is one of those systems. The goal is to enrich Wayland with 100 solar arrays, 100 households that feel the empowerment of being of producers instead of consumers, 100 households that will model a different energy culture.

Beyond that we are also looking into a Solar Community Garden, for those in our towns whose sites are not conducive for solar due to shading, orientation and other issues. The community building potential of this one is immense.

And beyond that, imagine a local mini-grid… We are laying some of the foundations here for one more element in our town’s resilience.

In the first year of its existence, Transition Wayland has primarily been doing a lot of little things: conversations, small manifestations, some skill building, lots of talking, getting to know our people. Lately we’ve stepped it up, with Earth Day (which attracted 400 visitors), and now with the Solarize program. It feels good to have a larger impact, to make a big change. Big changes in small places, they’ll add up.

There were Segway rides

After our “sermons” on Sunday morning, April 29, we ran across the street to the Town Building (I just loved that, that we could just cross the street and be there). Behind the building lies the grassy “courtyard”, intersected by paths. It was already bustling with people, exhibitors setting up their tables, food stalls setting up shop. There was an organ, the Diamond Jubilee, pumping out great music, and past that, the Red Cross Donation Bus, already busy taking donations of blood. Teenagers were running around looking for the face paint, grownups were untangling power cords for the PA system. The MC was oiling his voice and guitar.

It was the quiet before the storm, before the official opening of Earth Day is Our Day, organized by the Wayland Schools Green Team and Transition Wayland. It was a great success, beyond our wildest dreams, really. There were over 50 exhibitors, and an estimated 400 visitors!

Not that I ever got a good idea of all that, since during the next four hours I was run off my feet keeping everyone happy and organized and the tents from flying off. Next year, someone remind me to schedule a relaxing holiday right after! But I had fun in a different way, seeing all those happy faces, kids’ and adults’ alike, and just seeing so many people there because we had made it happen.

The tables for Transition Wayland and the BEElieve Beekeepers group were well-manned and especially the latter – all decked out with bee equipment and bee products – was very popular. Our State Rep, Tom Conroy, who lives in Wayland, signed up! It was very sunny and I had forgotten my cap, so grabbed one of the props. After that I was a magnet for bee questions.

(Photo by Peg Mallett)

Check this page to see many more pictures of the events, and check back there often because we’ll soon be adding press coverage. Happy Earth Day, everyone. And now I need a nap!

Sunday April 29 was a big day for me!

In the morning, I and my Transition Wayland colleagues Andrea Case and Wen Stephenson spoke before the First Parish congregation. First Parish, as my fellow speaker Wen Stephenson said, is like the nerve center of Wayland. I call it home because I have been going to services there and teaching Sunday school for almost a year now. The congregation has a Green Sanctuary committee that takes care of one Service a year. This year, it was Transition-themed. How cool is that! You can read my remarks, as well as those of my colleagues, here. I’ve copied mine below. Enjoy.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

That is my hero, Wendell Berry, who never hesitates to say what is difficult. And to say it so beautifully.

I was asked to explain what Transition is. Now how shall I do that?

I could talk about climate change and its implications, like a 4 meter sea-level rise, a 6 degree centigrade temperature rise, increased droughts and floods and corn that won’t grow. I could also stress that the need for mitigation of climate change is now equaled by the need for adaptation to what is already locked in. Or I could propose solutions, like improving efficiency, sustainability and resilience by relocalizing, as much as we can, our food and energy production and the skills that we’ve outsourced. Let me add, also, that the only way to make that happen is by building community, embracing interdependence and working together, face-to-face.

But I don’t just want to explain what Transition does. I want to do Transition. And if what I am doing here, right now, is Transition, then I need to call you to action. Transition, you see, is not just a group of people, or eventually an entire town. It is not just a tool box, not just an idea or even, a dream. Transition, you see, is not a noun. It is a verb, and an imperative at that.

Consider the word change. As a noun it is coming, whether you want it or not. As a verb, it is either something that happens to you – when something changes you – or something that you do yourself: you do the changing. Transition is all about the latter. It is you and me making the change.

The question then becomes: how do you do that?

In a moment, Andrea will talk about small-scale changes in the household. And Wen will take us to the global level where we need to act upon our government. Those are the actions that most people think of when they think change. You have probably changed your light bulbs, some of you have even hung a clothesline. You have probably written to your Senator or signed a petition, even walked in a rally.

Those are all necessary. The problems are enormous and we must put into action all the solutions we can think of. But sometimes it might feel like individual changes are not enough. And sometimes it might feel like your voice doesn’t reach the upper echelons. Then hopelessness and cynicism tend to take root.

Then may I suggest Transition? Transition does what my hero Berry recommends. He writes: “Our understandable wish to preserve the planet must somehow be reduced to the scale of our competence.” He writes that the question, then, is not how to care for the planet or humanity, but how to care for each of our millions of human and natural neighborhoods.

The neighborhood, the town, is the middle ground between the shorter shower and national politics. It is the place where what you do gets multiplied a hundred- then a thousandfold, and where you can continue to see the effects of your actions.

Transition invites you to return often to the scale of your competence, even if only to find in it the battleground where you can come into your power and slay your cynicism. To find in it, also, the fair ground where you can share your dreams and celebrate.

A call to action, then. If something is wrong, then you have the right to be upset about it, and the responsibility of hope that you can do something about it, and the duty to do it. You all have ideas about what should be done but isn’t being done. Well, be like those Transcendentalists, whom we hold so dear here, of whom someone once wrote that in this brave new world a thinker was “called on to justify himself on the spot by building an engine, and setting something in motion.”

That’s what Transition is: it is that engine!

It is no small thing that I — no, that the times — ask of you. To become an activist, to move yourself, to be the one you have been waiting for. It is no small thing but you don’t have go first anymore, and you don’t have to go it alone. The engine is already running, chugging along on the scale of our competence in the middle ground, which is already bustling with people. I hope that you will come to be among all those people, at noon at the Town Building, that you will come to work on the engine at later Transition events.

Because Transition is only that: it is what you do when you find your power.

The Transition Wayland BEElieve group met yesterday in my apiary, aka the “bee yard”, that is, in the close vicinity of my one hive (soon to be three!), for the first hive opening of the year. This is a cross post with the one I posted on the Transition Wayland blog, called “Wayland Voices“.

“See how sweet they are?”

The balmy weather on Wednesday, March 8, allowed me to open my hive for six of the folks in the BEElieve group who are thinking of getting started with bees themselves. A close up sneak peek of a colony is always a good way to get the feel for what you’re looking at. (All photos by Margie Lee)

This was the first time I opened the hive since November last year, and usually the bees are a bit defensive at this point, because they’re also old bees. In Summer a worker’s lifespan is between 15 and 38 days. Because there is no brood-rearing in Winter (bees don’t hibernate, but they do cluster, which takes all their energy and makes them immobile), so because there is no quick turn-around of generations, the workers that go into Winter with their queen live to be around 140 days. Isn’t that amazing! These bees are stressed, to say the least, due to their age, the difficult time during which they’ve kept alive, because they may be low on honey stores, and because the life of the colony depends on them. Brood rearing has started (if all went well) around the Winter Solstice, and it will be up to these veterans to bring that first new generation into the world.

But this Winter was not of course, your average Winter, and when I opened the box I found a large population (10.000 – 15.000 bees?), all healthy-looking, and they were all quite docile. Also, no sign of deformed wings or mites – a very different scenario from last year!

I was itching to break out some more frames, even to break off the top box to see how many bees were really in there, where the nest is located and especially to check whether the queen is laying well. My queen is now going into her third year and it might be time to replace her. But no… I kept it short and simple because the temperature was just around their comfort level (57 F). Best not to chill these bees! (Or freak out the beginning beekeepers!)

everyone came dressed in white. It was only the beekeeper who didn’t follow the rule book!

I opened the hive, pulled out one frame on the side to show everyone the comb, and gave the bees the sugar fondant with Honey-Bee-Healthy in it to tidy them over in case they need it.

I think everyone got some sense of the bees, and I thank the bees for being so tolerant of us. We meet again this evening to discuss the bees, equipment, costs and suppliers for Getting Started.

One of my most favorite projects with Transition Wayland is the BEElieve group. We sent out calls for beekeepers and bee enthusiasts in Wayland at the beginning of the year on our website and in the local media. Within two months, we had twenty people on the email list. We held our first meeting last month and twelve people showed up. The event made the front page of the Wayland Town Crier and of the Wayland Patch – I do love local media: they know what really constitutes front page news(*)!

In our next meeting, next week, we’ll cover Getting Started with Bees. Just in time too, because packages of bees are in ever higher demand and the local suppliers (who get them from Georgia, usually) run out earlier and earlier each year, so orders need to be placed very soon or you miss the boat.

I’ll bet that this Spring, Wayland will host at least ten more hives!

One of the way we beekeepers will support the beginners, especially those who are intimidated or have not made their minds up yet, is by inviting them to a hive opening. In anticipation of warm weather, I made some sugar fondant with some Honey Bee Healthy, and I’ll be opening the hive to assess and feed the colony either on Wednesday, when it’s supposed to go up to 55F, or on Thursday, when 60F is forecast.

Let’s hope the bees are not too defensive – not everyone has their bee suit yet!

I also like this insect hotel (thanks Root Simple!) and want to build one myself in Spring:

This was the winner of the Beyond the Hive competition in 2010 in London: Arup Associates’ Insect Hotel

click on the link for more ideas.

(The bee and flower on the logo was drawn by Amie. She got that proboscis just right!)

(*) And I say that without sarcasm!

Robin Hill Gardens

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts

Category Archives: Transition

Thoughts on Earth Day 2013

Other Goings On: Racking the Wine, Painting Earth Day Signs

Medicine Garden

Disaster Preparedness, Resilience, Treading Water and Dangerous Assumptions

On (Not) Saving the World, One Element at a Time

Solar Surplus Countdown!

Earth Day is Our Day, First Edition, 2012

Transition Wayland speaks at First Parish, Wayland, for Earth Day

Hive Opening for the BEElieve Folks

BEElieve Beekeepers Group and Feeding the Bees

Solar Production