Transition Initiatives: the Giving of Gifts

I discovered Rob Hopkins’ book, The Transition Handbook, about two years ago and it immediately struck me as the right approach to our problems – climate change, peak oil and economic crisis (all bound up together, of course) – and to our solutions (grassroots, positive, pro-active, hopeful, inclusive).

It still took me a long time to try to act upon my enthusiasm. I tried to set up a meeting in my town to see who would be interested (and no one showed up, which I ascribe entirely to my awful advertising skills). This debacle did result in making a friend in a nearby town, and he urged me to take the Transition Training. I signed up and attended a training in Boston, led by Tina Clarke, about three weeks ago.

That’s the background. Now where do I start?

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I’ll start with a conversation I had today with a mom at Amie’s school. It was the first time we talked and we sparked. As the kids played we spoke very passionately and openly about what moves us. From issues at school and global social justice we bounced into… peak oil, climate change, the end of the world as we know it. Only, I didn’t phrase it like that. I called it “this terribly exhilarating and terribly frightful time when we must all be heroes and activists and rise to the occasion of saving the world. Just here, in X [name of our town].”

What was that all about? Where was my usual hopelessness, helplessness? It’s still there (ha, I should be so lucky), but I am rising above it by stepping outside myself into a local community. There I can make a difference: “think globally, act locally”. So I explained:

See, these are the facts, and I laid them all out (my attitude changed, not my brain): oil is in everything and it has peaked, but not in time to stop the burning of it from frying the planet, our health, our spirits, and this economy is just going to get worse. This part took about 1 minute. What took longer was the “this is what I am doing about it” part.

I started with myself: I am taking back my food and my health, by gardening, by buying local, by keeping chickens (soon), by beekeeping (soon), by Independence Days, and I am lowering my consumption, by Rioting for Austerity, by Freezing My Buns, etc.

But that’s not enough: now I want to re-localize my life to within my community, by promoting community gardening and orcharding, or by organizing workshops on how to build with local materials, or by relearning to have fun and make art together, or by helping to retrofit and weatherstrip houses, or by setting up emergency supplies, or by giving frugality and sewing workshops, or by starting a bulk food co-op, or a local currency, etc.

I put it so that, even if my friend didn’t “believe in” peak oil or climate change (terms I had mentioned just that once), she could still find one or two items on my list that would appeal to her (thus the “or”s). She could still see how our town, the place she invested in and where she is raising her kids, would be better for it.

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That’s what finally dawned on me at the Training. That’s what I think Transition is really about:

  • all-inclusive: whoever shows up is the right person
  • non-prescriptive, non-directive: give people access to good information and trust them to make the right decisions
  • Let it go where it wants to go, which is where the community takes it

As our wonderful trainer said:

Transition happens when someone says: I have a gift (any gift) to give to the community. And the reply is: Be welcome! And thank you! And here is what I can give to you!

As such Transition is a “movement” only in the most basic sense of a change. It is not a “group” but, simply, community. Those who start it and guide it somewhat aren’t “leaders” but facilitators. It is not a “label” in the pejorative sense but only very basically a name, because it is facilitated by an organization that shares its experiences and its tools – free of charge,  run with ’em and let us know where they are taking you so we can learn from you.

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This realization was important for me. I abhor conflict. I was scared to be a Transition initiator and facilitator in my town because I foresaw people confronting me on “Peak Oil” and “Climate Change”. “Prove it!” they’d say. How could I? [shudder]. But now I realize it’s not about peak oil or climate change, it’s about Community.

So, you deny climate change? That’s fine, but can you show me how to sew this quilt? Or what are your ideas on a local currency? Or do you know what’s wrong with my lettuce? Or… [trails off having too many things to do to stand around arguing, already!]

Another Composty Day – and Our Garden

I set up the kindling dryer – very simply the old soil screen under the shed roof. Amie and I hauled some more kindling, because I figured once it starts snowing it won’t be visible and for the picking anymore.

I also finished the putting to bed of the beds. As I was looking around when I was done, I thought I would share some pictures and show you parts of our property that I rarely show. Click on the thumbnails to see the image larger.

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This is the view North (from the Front”, see below):

  • three large beds under straw, two smaller beds to the right, which will be mainly berries and herbs. We hope the grass corridor in between will withstand the runoff erosion (the grass didn’t take too well) until we fix the problem next Spring (see below).
  • There is a very large bed in front of the house (16 x 4 feet) for herbs.
  • The veg garden (hoop house still without plastic) lies to the West of  the house.
  • Behind the house is a large backyard, which is just trees, forest floor (no grass to speak of), and a playhouse. It is entirely enclosed by a chain link fence, and that’s where I hope to keep the chickens.
  • Around that fence runs a strip of “wild”  area, home to squirrels, chipmunks, birds, snakes, foxes and deer, and behind that runs a lane 0f conservation land that forms a great wildlife corridor.

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Above is a 180 degree view, from East (driveway) to West (veg garden) – so curl the image around your field of vision.  I labeled it so click on the image for a better view. From East to West:

  • loam under blue tarp on parking lot
  • the driveway runs from behind it down to the street
  • a “wild” thicket  which in Summer provides a lot of privacy, the mosses there are beautiful and we’re leaving it as it is: maybe a narrow path with a small moss-covered stone bench hidden in the thicket.
  • I drew in the proposed ditch which will carry runoff and rainwater to a small wetland below
  • the two terraced beds you see to the left in the picture above
  • grass pathway that leads down to
  • the “Front”: septic leach field, bad subsoil, choked with weeds and mostly shaded: our greatest design challenge
  • three beds you see to the right in the picture above
  • more “wild” thicket where we could grow mushrooms
  • two tree stumps that we’ll make into a bench
  • more wild area behind that, where the horse path runs all the way to the back of the property
  • vegetable garden

Riot for Austerity – Month 13

Riot for Austerity fist with Thermometer

We entered the second year of the Riot. I’ll keep last year’s averages (calculated here) visible as a baseline. In case you’re wondering, I use this calculator.

Gasoline. I added DH’s miles on public transportation (shuttle), which I neglected to do last year. This was an exceptional month, as we made a round-way car trip to NYC and one to Hanover, NH, as well as a couple unavoidable ones into town.

19.44 gallons pp in own cars +  45.33 miles pp on public transport

=  48 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)

Electricity. Aargh, we left our coffee machine on for an entire weekend while we were away! We’re also occasionally using our small electric heater to warm up the bathroom for a bath or shower. Either way, all that didn’t make much of a difference in our wind-powered electricity consumption:

363 KWH (all wind) = 10% of the US National Average

(Last year’s early average: 18.2%)

Heating Oil and Warm Water. Most was for hot water. On those days when the day-time thermostat dipped below 58 F, we were on top of it with the wood stove. November has been so warm, in the 40’s during the day and at night around (mostly above) the freezing point. At night it’s been below 55 F inside only once, necessitating the furnace. For wood we’ve only used up one ring so far, which we calculated at 1/8 of a cord. But I won’t count it yet until we’ve reached that cord.

14.45 gallons = 23% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)

Trash. Our weigh-in of our trash for the 3 of us for 1 month was very low, thanks to watching the packaging of what we buy, not buying anything at all, and reusing anything that can be put into an arts and crafts project:

3 lbs = 3% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)

Water. We’ve put the rain barrels out of commission in anticipation of the freeze (that hasn’t come yet), and are flushing (selectively) with tap water again. Winter with its many and bulky layers also makes for more loads of laundry (though we’re careful: I do about three loads a week, at most). How to bring this down even more?! Any rain water flushing systems will have to wait till Spring…

444 gallons of water pp = 15% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)

Consumer Goods. This was an exceptionally expensive month. Several things needed replacing. The dryer that came with the house is about 20 years old and very slow and energy-consuming. I don’t worry about it in Summer because I line dry, but In Winter and Spring we can’t hang our laundry outside because of 1) rain and 2) wood smoke from our neighbor’s when the wind is wrong. I am line drying in our basement again, but we need the dryer for smaller garments, for quick drying, and for when we have a big load. So we bit that bullet and got an energy efficient but not too expensive new one. The old one we’re keeping – could we use that motor for a pottery wheel? – and we’ll be reusing the box for sheet mulch. We also bought a new winter jacket for DH, winter boots for Amie and Mama, and hats and socks. All that makes more or less for:

$600= 73% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 27.2%)

Food. Our food consumption is steadily shifting to bulk, and I’m succeeding more and more in buying the “wet” foods like dairy and vegetables in the local category. It hurts to have to buy the staples we had counted on from the garden, like potatoes and onions, but there you have it. We’re hardly eating meat anymore, and we eat more (local) eggs. Our Winter Harvest is coming along well, thanks to the clement weather.

A Composty Day

{UPDATED} below

Bright and not too cold out. Amie back to preschool after more than a week’s hiatus. I’ve got two hours to spend in the garden!

  1. get horse manure from neighbor
  2. spread manure/compost mix on empty beds, cover with straw and cardboard
  3. make compost tea for beds in operation
  4. set up “kindling dryer”
  5. rearrange some firewood, if there’s time
  6. harvest chard

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{UPDATE}

The horse lady was not at home, and just 2. took all of the daylight, and still isn’t finished. So I can’t cross anything off my list as yet

It does feel like I got a lot done, though. Four veg beds have been cleared of leaves, branches and acorns, hoed, covered with about 10 inches of homemade compost, then a good half foot of fluffy fresh straw (which is now $9 a bale at the feed store!). The five large front beds have been cleared and hoed, but only two of them have been given compost, and none are covered with straw. Tomorrow, if the weather permits again. I will have to break open a bag of MooDoo, because I’m out of finished compost. I’m thinking I’ll put the cardboard on once the straw has settled a bit.

When digging up my three compost bins I saw a noticeable difference between them. The one made of chicken wire, which held mostly veg garden scraps, was the least decomposed. The compost in the Earth Machine that’s also in the veg garden was nice and crumbly, but I spotted not a one worm. The Earth Machine that receives all our kitchen scraps was loaded with earth worms, thousands of them, with hundreds curled up together in balls, but a lot of the stuff in it wasn’t finished yet – it gets replenished every day. One lesson: I need to turn my heaps more often; there were several anaerobic patches. Another lesson: I’ll need more compost bins, and sturdier ones than the one made of chicken wire.

Quiet

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I know, it’s quiet here. First of all, we’ve been ill – Amie is much better now; we’re now even doubting whether it was the flu at all. Secondly I took the Training for Transition last weekend and I am still exhausted and exhilarated – too much so that I can’t yet write about it.

Today we are going to Thanksgiving with friends. It’s the first time in our 11 years in the States that we’ve been invited to have Thanksgiving with Americans. (Not that I was waiting for that; the coincidence just occurred to me.) I think we’ll add something to the party: our friendship and gratitude, of course, as well as an Indian (DH) and a European (myself) and the peaceful combination of those two (Amie).

I’ll be back soon, I promise. Happy Thanksgiving!

Amie’s First Journal Entry

Amie has often expressed an interest in my journal – in the book itself (the journalist Moleskine) and in the process. I haven’t been writing in my journal regularly, but over this weekend revived my resolution to do so. This morning I pulled it and she asked if she could have a journal too, just like mine.

So…

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Several hours later:

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I told her what I write in my journal: what my day was like, what I wished my day had been like, what I plan to do, TO DO and other lists, all kinds of information, drawings and photographs, etc. And I showed her the baby journal I kept for her all too briefly.

I proposed she write it herself but if she gets tired of that, she can dictate and I will write it down (literally) for her. When she does choose to write it herself, I help her with the spelling whenever she asks, and if she proposes her own (phonological) spelling, I don’t argue.

I hope she will get as much joy out of journaling as I have over the years.

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Over the weekend I attended a two-day Training for Transition – during which she was constantly on my mind. I learned so much, and am still exhausted, it was so intense. Will report on that soon (oh, add it to the list).

100-Books-a-Month-Challenge Update and Flu

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Here is our list so far – click for larger but not necessarily for more legible.

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We just got a batch of Roald Dahl in, and more Cynthia Rylant books. Amie also loves Lauren Child’s books, for the stories (e.g., Charlie and Lola) as well as the illustrations. So I was excited to see she has illustrated Pippi Longstockin, but once I leafed through the book I doubted Amie would be charmed. Can anyone recommend a well-illustrated Pippi for me?

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And in other news Amie caught the flu – probably H1N1 because it is the only flu in town at the moment. She was doing so well since we started her on daily raw milk, elderberry syrup, and an elevated dose (800 IU) of vitamin D. She came off the puffer (asthma medication) almost immediately – the month before we started, she needed 2 puffs every night. When she caught a cold 2 weeks ago, she had only the runny nose and some coughing, and no wheezing, so no puffer – a first!

Still, yesterday the first symptoms started and now she has a mild fever, a sometimes persistent cough, and mild trouble breathing. She’s mostly sleeping, but when she’s not, we’re reading books.

And in the meantime we’re 20 November and it’s 65F out.