quote Life

Posted by a FBF:
"we are rowing down a river of burning garbage with snipers on both shores. Many of us know we’re not crewing a ship, but a tea cup with sails made of memories of the
worst and the best of what we’ve lived. And, there under one of the small rowing benches,... is the Life Force protected under a worn tarp, still glowing. Our work: to ...carry that forward unharmed."
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

quote life

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
- Nelson Henderson

quote

"We didn't inherit the earth from our parents. We're borrowing it from our children." - Chief Seattle (1788-1866) Suquamish/Duwamish Chief

patting self on back, breaking arm

This web log been getting some notice lately, completely undeserved, but happily accepted! Unfortunately, lately I haven't been posting regularly - life has been getting in the way of art, so to speak. If you're here for the first time, forgive the mess, and please, look to the labels in the sidebar... there might be something worth your visit, there.
What prompted this mea culpa? I ran across a compliment on another website today - Ym-health's Herb Garden was listed by the writer as one of the 50 best blogs to read to learn about herbalism.
 50 best blogs to learn about herbalism


During the last few years I've been asked to advertise a couple of garden products, and to write for a well known herb magazine ... but purely as a volunteer proposition, without any real monetary payment other than getting my "name" out there into the big world, and, wooo! a link back to my blog.
Ahem, I don't need to advertise my blog. I have all the Attagirls I'll ever need from paid staff who know the precise value of volunteers* for their own program's bottom lines. I've volunteered for non-profits thousands of hours, literally. I've made memories and  friends, and have earned the opportunity to contribute to my community, but no points on my Social Security account, nor gas money for a' that. Brownie points, not redeemable for cash. My mother raised me wrong.

*over 20 dollars an hour in 2010, what I call "padding".

quote

"Sell the country? Why no sell the air, the clouds, the great sea?"

- Chief Tecumseh

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"The more help a person has in his garden, the less it belongs to him."

- william H. Davis

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"Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers
Is faded all - a hope that blossomed free
And hath been once no more shall ever be."
John Clare, from The Mores

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"the highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it."

- John Howard

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"... and no man but feels more of a man in the world if he can have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep, and that is a very handsome property. There is great pleasure in working the soil apart of ownership of it. The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world. He belongs to the producers."

- Charles Dudley Warner

program quotes

"A little garden,
all one's own,
is a real Eden.
Earth posesses no greater charm."

Freeing up some time

Let's just call it that. No, I won't be at the Michigan Herb Associates annual spring conference at MSU next week, nor at my favorite herbalist's herb walks, nor at the Master Gardener conference, nor participating in the organic CSA we supported for three years, nor taking that painting class. My budget is squeaking.

Getting rid of the junk, responsibly

We recently had an old, heavy, big computer monitor die. Those are the ones with all that lead shielding, as well as the other poisonous heavy metals and plastics that were used in those gi-normous monitors. I read somewhere years ago that a monitor like that would have approximately eight pounds of lead in it. Instead of putting out to the trash collection where it could end up in the landfill, we took it to CBC recycling in Flint on Saginaw Street. They charge $5.00 but if you can wait until the spring county-wide recycling day it would be free. I understand Goodwill will also recycle these things, responsibly.

Speaking of recycling heavy old appliances, if you are a Consumers Energy customer in Michigan, and you have an old refrigerator or freezer to dispose of, call Consumers (or go online) and they will pick up the said appliance for responsible recycling ... and they will give you a $30.00 incentive! It's a program from the EPA called RAD (Responsible Appliance Disposal).
Cool!

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"The ordinary world is already enchanted. The enchanted world is not a fantasy or a hope for the future; it is real, and it is now. What keeps us from seeing the enchanted world - really, now - is the Dead World story we tell ourselves and each other. We soak up this story unconsciously as we grow up. It comes from a narrow, poverty-stricken vision that our world is made only of lifeless matter. This story was invented over the past few centuries in the name of science."

- Jeremy W. Hayward, from Letters to Vanessa

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"Technology is, of course, a two-edged sword; it can be the means of understanding the wholeness of man and nature or of destroying it."

- Eugene Odum, from Fundamentals of Ecology

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"Nature cannot be ordered about, except by obeying her."

- Sir Francis Bacon

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"The sun, with all of those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it,can still ripen bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."

- Galileo

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"Progress is simply the price we have to pay if we are determined to continue losing our sanity."

- Ben Maudlin

ordinary perception needs some polishing now and then

This quote is for an acquaintance of the ignorant sort who commented that I must be a Buddhist (after a conversation about a disturbing forwarded email concerning Mr. Obama and reforming the health insurance system that I debunked with Snopes), because I talk about loving the earth, and being (OMG! shockingly!) green. Like when I taught that class on green cleaning. (Sheeeeesh) I didn't know whether to be insulted or flattered. I sometimes am completely flummoxed by the way Right Wing Christians treat other mortals. I can't imagine a Buddhist presuming in such a manner.

"In the Buddhist tradition, mandalas are objects of meditation with a specific purpose: to transform our ordinary perception of the world into a pure perception of the buddha nature which permeates all phenomena."
- from Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment

I was once "attached" to the cement Buddha in that photo above. I'd found him on a rare outing to some nursery in the middle of nowhere - he was sitting in an old yard full of abandoned cement yard ornaments, half hidden in long grass and weeds and the place just happened to be open as we were driving past. Something made me ask to stop, and Herb actually did, for once. It was karma, or kismet, whatever they call that, when you find something you should have.
My middle son, who never wants anything, and is the very hardest person to find a gift for, actually pointed it out on a visit home, and I gave it to him when he graduated. I don't even know if he bothered to take it to Massachusetts with him. And he sent me a cute "Cat Buddha" one Christmas, but that is an indoor prop.
I now have a cement Foo Dog that guards my door, but the attachment is missing. Was that the point?

my FB work-around

Did you ever read something really good, say from the Organic Consumer's Association website, and hit the "Share on FB" button, then wait forever for FB to tell you there was a problem? That never happens with the middle of the road corporate sites, does it. Just askin'.
For example, here is a nice explanation of why several years ago I quit answering questions for the Master Gardener hotline and help desk. After a lot of wrangling with my conscience I simply could not go on ethically recommending products that I feel may be injurious to the "seventh generation".
But this morning, when I tried to "share" this Monsatan bashing OGA link on FB... ::crickets::

So, from the same list serve I wrote about previously, here is the very link (note how old this research is!) that FB couldn't or wouldn't "share":
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/roundup080805.cfm
More discussion from the list-serve:
"Here is documented biological hazard:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCropsFacingMeltdown.php
this link has numerous reference links. Health Hazards abound:
http://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/NSTLQK_NSTL_QK9046959.aspx
For a combo look check out
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Roundup-Glyphosate-Factsheet-Cox.htm
The USDA is considering a proposal to de regulate Glyphospate (Roundup)Tolerant Alfalfa.
The public comment period ends today.

(And FB isn't the social networking site that is owned by Rupert "FAUX News" Murdoch! I'd expect censorship over there!)

occasional wisdom

As if you or I need to be adding list-serves to our daily load of FB, RSS and bookmarks, there is one list-serve I occasionally check in on that is written by community gardeners who feel the need to network for resources and ideas. Occasionally someone posts a link I follow or a post worth savoring.

During a recent discussion on the merits of using weed block landscaping fabric, someone posted the following nugget, in agreement with most of those who complained about the lack of performance, and downright nuisance of using landscape fabric:

"Amen! Bill is 100% right.
And... non-biodegradable plastic landscape "fabric" will come back to haunt you, as it shreds and keeps re-emerging in ugly clumps. I speak from experience - never again!

We all need to make sustainable thinking automatic. Does your community garden _really_ need to purchase that petroleum-based (or GMO soy based) product? If not, don't buy it! Every dollar you don't spend is another dollar for your garden's budget. Think of creative frugality (especially with a green consciousness) as your own "sustainability grant". with no strings attached. Cool, huh?

It also helps bridge people working for social justice with those working for environmental sustainability. We need both. Without justice, sustainability isn't sustainable.

(I have withheld the writer's name)
Charlotte, NC
www.urbanministrycenter.org