A Day in the Life

Intersection repair. Community building event with Portland, OR City Repair

I''m going to walk you very briefly through a recent day in my life, in order to illustrate some very hopeful things that I see happening in my community and which I believe are starting to happen in many communities across America. Well it's really more like 28 hours, but I know you will forgive the artistic license in favor of a more catchy title. "28 Hours in the Life" just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

On Wednesday evening I attended a meeting of approximately 16 local artists. At this meeting many things were discussed including: coordinating with the local farmers' market to offer an art show in conjunction with the market, as we have been doing for the past couple of months, the opening of a new gallery and function space in a neighboring community which many of our artists are getting involved with and will be showing at, the establishment of an artists collaborative at the home and studio of one of our members which will help her to maintain and utilize the space and will give several artists space to work and to show their art, and.... It was a very productive and energetic event and it was great to see the network of relationships that is building between the folks in this group and how they are building a community within a community that helps and supports each other. Rather than competing for resources and customers, they help each other and generate buzz in the community which will attract enough customers for all.

Directly after the meeting, which was held in the public library, I spoke with the librarian and booked my second Lexicon of Sustainability popup art show! It will be at the Berwick Public Library during their 2014 Earth Day celebration. The event day has not been determined. It will either be on Earth Day (April 22) or it will be the Saturday before Earth Day. Stay tuned here for more details. I will also be giving my second introduction to permaculture presentation at that same event. 

On Thursday evening (we are now into hours 26-28) I attended a meeting of the Berwick Sustainability Committee. We had a guest speaker who came to talk with us about water protection. The meeting was very productive and we left with more knowledge about the need to protect our ground water and with a plan for how to go about starting. We are looking into resource protection ordinances of course, but we are also looking into community outreach, education and information. We plan to engage local businesses to begin rainwater collection and control projects which will set an example for the town and all residents and we already have our first test site chosen and the approval of the business owner. We will be installing a rainwater collection system and small permaculture herb garden for a local business which we can use as an example when we approach other local businesses. I'll keep you posted in the spring and share photos of the projects as they progress. Oh yes and we'll be involving those wonderful B.A.A artists in this project as well to help us design creative rain chains and other rain directing features and sculpture. So the community network grows and branches and a vibrant and active community begins to fruit and flourish. 

It is a good day ...28 hours.. to be alive and living in Berwick, Maine. I hope you see signs of a new sense of community where you live as well. 

Revolution Day 10 and Major Website Overhaul

My latest adventure in local living was signing up for a CSA Share. My first. I signed up with Wolf Pine Farm in Alfred, Maine. I chose this CSA because they consolidate products with several other Maine farms to produce a share with a great variety of veggies and other farm produce. If you aren't ready to start growing your own veg, or if you don't have the time, space or skill set yet to produce all the veg you need, consider taking part in a CSA. This helps to support local farms and puts fresh healthy food on your table. 

The chickens got into the neighbor's yard and I spent a cold half hour rounding them up and getting them corralled in the back yard away from the property line. Hubby spent most of the day installing new insulated garage doors. Once we add insulation to the ceiling over the top floor and take care of a few cosmetic issues we'll be ready to but those great recycled banquet tables in and get down to a real king sized potluck with friends and neighbors. That's one great way to do local entertainment!

Other than that not a lot to report today saving a major overhaul on the website Sustainable Me. I added many new links and gave the site a new fresher look and flow. Check out Places We Shop and Today's New Links. You'll find new links to permaculture principles and more. 

I hope you like the new updates. Keep coming back as I have a lot of new content ready to post in the next few days. And stay tuned here for more adventures in local living. 

Local Arts and Entertainment

When we ask ourselves that age old question, what shall we do tonight, how many of us answer with the predictable "dinner at -insert your favorite chain restaurant here- and a movie at the nearest megaplex cinema"?  It's not that these restaurants are bad, it's just that as it is a chain or franchise you know that a large portion of the profits from your meal are being shipped directly out of your community to corporate share holders. You don't know where the ingredients in your meal came from or what their environmental impact is.  When you eat at a local mom-and-pop type restaurant your dollars stay in the community and continue to circulate in the community making it more vibrant and economically stable. You can also get a pretty good idea of if the owners support local farmers and if they select natural wholesome ingredients. 

The same goes for that movie at the megaplex. Once again your dollars are being shipped out of your community, but you probably haven't stopped to think about the impact you could have if you supported the arts locally by attending a local art show, local stage production or took in a second run movie at the refurbished theater in the next town. These businesses need our support if they are to survive and thrive. Unfortunately, so many of them have already gone by the way-side. Every time we loose one of these local businesses we loose a bit of our freedom of choice.  

One of the driving concepts behind One Earth Revolution is to get us all thinking and once we've started thinking to remind us that we have choices. We have choices in everything we do, in every purchase that we make and every service that we pay for. These choices, once made, have far reaching impacts on our lives, the lives of our children, our communities and our planet.  We don't all have to follow the same set of guidelines but we should all be thinking about what are the guidelines that direct our decisions, and we should stop and refer to them before making blind purchases without stopping to think about their overall impact. 

Since I've started this experiment, I stop to think about every purchase I make and after I've made my purchase, if I decide to purchase, I am very satisfied with the result. I can honestly say, that already, in just four days, I've seen an overall improvement in my general happiness level. So that I can answer the question posed by this great piece I picked up at a local art show. I know the direction I'm going and I'm certain it's a good one!

Lucky in Where I Live

When it comes to living locally, it doesn't get much better than this little corner of southern Maine. I've been impressed by just how lucky I am since I woke this morning. We have local goat's milk soap and even a factory that makes all-natural toiletries less then 30 miles from our home. We have one of the greatest little breakfast restaurants that serves the freshest gourmet breakfast at prices comparable to the big franchised places and we have great neighbors. Today just for crossing the street and asking we were blessed with the opportunity to pick our own apples for free. They are some of the sweetest most delicious apples I have ever tasted and they are completely organic. 

Here is my darling husband picking apples.

Here are those beautiful apples

And  here they are being prepared for a tasty pie that will be served at our fabulous banquet table. Actually there are two. The first obtained from the local Habitat for Humanity store (proceeds from sales go to support the work of HFH), the second came from the free-cycle shop at our local transfer station. They are a matched set! 

Yes we are truly fortunate in where we live. The great thing is that we can all be this lucky. It takes some effort and some time, but the rewards are more than worth the work and the sacrifice. The steps you take will vary depending on where you live, but the end result will be the same. You will never feel more fulfilled than when you are able to provide for the needs of yourself  and your family right in your own back yard and your community without spending a great deal of money and while meeting interesting new people, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, and learning new skills. 

This has honestly been one of the most wonderful and blessed weekends I have spent in a long time. I'm looking forward to the new discoveries this coming week holds in store. 

Revolution Day 2: Bit of a Ramble

It is a beautiful day and I am happy to be alive and living local. Last evening we had some wonderful friends and neighbors over for dinner and enjoyed just sharing food and conversation. There are some big plans afoot in our town, things you don't read about in the newspapers, if there are still any newspapers in your area. It was good to learn about the things that we should be concerned about as a community and about opportunities to get involved and help our community evolve. Some interesting topics that came up that I will explore further in another post: How do you define what's Local? What criteria do you use when evaluating products to determine if they align with your principals? What resources  do we have as a group that we can mobilize to benefit our entire community. It was a great evening and the food was fabulous. I think I'm becoming one of those people...You know who I mean. Because I just can't resist....

sharing this picture of the glorious roasted squash and vegetables that one of our guests brought to share. It was fabulous! And today has been just as amazing. We started out by dropping by the popup art show put together by the Berwick Art Association and picked up a wonderful piece of art by local artist Erin Duquette. It was then on to Spruce Creek Farm in Eliot to pick up our locally farm raised turkey for our Thanksgiving feast. A stop at King Tut's Apple Cider Mill on the way home netted us some fresh cider and Macoun apples for the mince pie. 

A tasty lunch of leftovers from last-night's feast rounded off the afternoon and now it's out to the garden to finish putting it to bed for the winter. Then I plan to settle down for the evening, put on my toasty warm alpaca slippers crochet with wool from the friendly alpaca down the road and do something creative or just finish that pair of socks I started last week. 

Tomorrow I think there will be apple picking and turning the rest of those beautiful left-over veggies and rabbit into a pot-pie for dinner. Life truly doesn't get any better than this. 

Nobody Plays Croquet Anymore!

One Earth Revolution: Day 1 - This was NOT the subject I intended to write about today, but the thought suddenly popped into my head as I was on my third read of Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. Yes, I really am that passionate about this stuff. The subject of social isolation has been much on my mind of late. I've been thinking about how little time folks spend with their family and neighbors these days.  I have known some of my neighbors for most of my life and others are family, yet I generally only see them in passing. We don't drop in on each other and share coffee or tea and cookies. That wasn't so rare when I was a child and was even more common in my parent's day.  As a society we have become, as McKibben terms it, hyper-individualists.

There are several causes of this hyper-individualism, one of them is the break down of the extended family which began with the industrial revolution and seems to have  reached its peak at the turn of the 21st century. This break down has been inspired by a society that treats people as cogs in the industrial machine and teaches that it is most efficient to be mobile and follow the jobs. Add to that commuting to those jobs! On top of this we have television and other personal entertainment devices. In his book Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam attributes 25% of the breakdown in American civic life to technologies that have "privatized entertainment." I personally think the percentage might be higher. 

So what does all this individualism get us? According to researchers we are more likely to become sick and depressed. That doesn't seem like a great trade off to me. Trade the companionship of family and friends and the stability of a strong local community for a head cold, heart disease, dementia and depression. 

What's the solution? Build strong social networks. Get involved in your community. Volunteer. Shop locally. Studies show that we engage in many more conversations and interactions when we shop at farmer's markets than when we shop at big box grocery stores. And well... play croquet. It is a great game that allows for plenty of social interaction. 

Everyone's situation is different, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you are one of the millions of Americans who just isn't finding life very fulfilling, you might want to have a look at where you are living it. Are you spending a lot of time at work or commuting to work and then spending most of the rest of your time feeling drained and falling back on the habit of sitting in front of the TV until it's time to go to bed before waking up to do it all over again? Perhaps you want to move your living into the space between those two. Move the job a little closer to home. Save some energy for other pursuits. Unplug the TV and get out in the yard, into your neighborhood, into your community. You will find your sense of well-being and your wellness improves. I'm preaching to myself here as much as to anyone. I can be a bit of a hermit and I've spent more than my share of time in front of TV or computer, seen my social networks dwindle and my waistline increase. I'm hoping that this intensive experiment in localization is going to help me turn that around.

I hope you will stay with me on this journey and that we will all make many new discoveries about our selves, our friends, our communities and our world.

A Year of Living Seasonally and Locally in York County, Maine

The movement toward local sustainable living is catching on with concerned individuals across the globe. As climate change continues to threaten our future, more of us need to be asking ourselves the question, “what can I do NOW to avert the looming environmental, economic and social devastation that is inevitable if we don’t make a change?” In response to this question, I have decided to embark on the adventure of local living. I will make every attempt to source all of my personal and household needs from within my local area (80% of food, goods, and services to be produced and purchased from within 50 Miles, with the remaining 20% produced and purchased from within New England.) I believe that if I cannot locate what I need or the materials with which to make it from within that area, then I don’t really NEED it, and I can live without it. (We'll see.... And you'll read about it here. Anyone know a toilet paper manufacturer in New England?)

Living in the North East. I’ve picked a challenging time of year to embark on my experiment of living locally and seasonally. The equinox has just passed. Days are getting shorter and the bulk of the season’s harvest has already been brought in. Perhaps I should have timed this better, perhaps more planning now and starting in the spring would make things go more smoothly, but I’m eager to get started. The situation is desperate for our world. There is no time to wait. And, the harvest IS coming in. There are long cool evenings just perfectly suited to puttering in the kitchen, canning and storing up summer’s bounty. The Alpaca down the road have warm coats and I’m looking forward to getting myself a cuddly sweater and some yarn for knitting myself a nice toasty pair of socks or bedroom slippers.

Is your life filled with things purchased from big box stores, shopping malls and the internet, things that have not made your life richer or more satisfying? As I embark on this adventure in search of a life richer in experience and wealth of spirit, I invite you to join me. Together we can start a revolution that will set this world back on the right path. Stay tuned to this blog and to my website www.sustainableme.me to follow my journey and get valuable tips, information, inspiration and resources for helping you on yours.   I believe that as you travel this road, you will experience a greater sense of gratitude and connection with your environment. You will begin to have a greater appreciation for the simple pleasures of life; a warm sweater, hearty roasted root vegetables, a fresh salad, sun kissed strawberries, all in their own season.

As I step out onto the road, I look forward to meeting you just around the bend or over the next rise. I am filled with anticipation for the new discoveries we’ll make, the adventures we’ll have, the truths we’ll find, and the friends we’ll meet along the way.

Please share this post with the planet. The “One Earth Revolution” begins November 1, 2013. Visit http://www.sustainableme.me/one-earth-revolution.html for more information.