Exploring Environmental Solutions

City Repair

ruthiemarx — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:00:19 +0000

There is a group in Portland called City Repair who have many projects going on around town it seems to make the city more community oriented and help implement changes to the city to be more nature-centric. Today they have an event all day to discuss what they have going on and hear other people’s ideas. It seems like a brainstorming type thing but I won’t know for sure until I go there.

They also have pot-lucks every Sunday evening. I went to my first one last weekend and it was great. Everyone is so passionate and kind. The food was very good as well, which is always a welcome characteristic of a pot-luck. It seemed that everything was vegan and one thing in particular that I found quite delicious was some vegan patties. I am not sure what they were made of but I think I heard corn meal and veggies. They were small yellow patties and had just the right amount of crunch and squish. I loved them and I hope to find out how to recreate them today.

The event today also has a pot-luck and I am taking some roasted squash and beats. I have never made it before so I hope it turns out well. I will update with more information after I have it.

Sepp Holzer Permaculture

ruthiemarx — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:32:56 +0000

Sepp Holzer is an Austrian kind of farmer who practices Permaculture even though he hadn’t heard that term until he had been doing his magic for many years. Permaculture is a mixture of the words permanent and agriculture or permanent and culture. It is a style of growing food in a way that is more like nature than monoculture which is what most of the developed world does to grow food. You know that style where there are rows upon rows of corn/wheat/soy beans/rice etc. That style is not very sustainable because those exact same plant after exact same plant suck those particular nutrients out of the soil and then the soil becomes bankrupt and can’t continue growing that same crop year after year. In order to help with this monoculture farmers tend to rotate the crops year after year with a couple different things (at least this is what I have understood since I have no personal experience in farming). In the US these couple different things tend to be corn and soy and maybe some wheat and whatever else that I am not aware of. In the US we love corn and soy so much that our government subsidises farmers who grow these thing so much that it is only worth growing these couple things on a massive scale that they need to genetically modify them in order to get more per the amount of land it takes to grow. Anyway I am kind of rambling now. I talk about these things but I really just learning about them myself so I am no expert.

This blog is me exploring different problems and solutions so back to the permaculture. It is a way of growing food crops that is more like the way that nature grows things. All different plants are growing near each other and complimenting each other. This one uses this nutrient and this other one provides that nutrient so we plant them next to each other and they help each other and make everything stronger and yummier or deter pests or nourish the soil…you get the idea (I hope). So this dude Sepp Holzer is awesome and has a natural ability to figure out what plants and systems work well together. He started figuring this stuff out when he was a wee tot. I went and hear him speak last Friday and even though he was speaking German and I couldn’t understand what he was saying and I had to hear an interpreter speak for him, he was awesome. He lives up the Alps in Austria on the side of a MOUNTAIN and he has Mediterranean fruits growing up where it is very cold for nine months a year. He has terraced the side of the mountain like the rice paddies in China and created lots of little micro climates. He does this by creating little dirt walls on the edge of the terraces and then putting little ponds in (that also grow fish to eat). The ponds are situated in such a way that they reflect the sunlight and store pockets of heat which feed the lovely plants. He has cherries and pumpkins and all kinds of crazy stuff that wouldn’t normally grow up there and it is all doing very well. He uses pigs to till the soil for him and earth worms to loosen it up. It seems like a lovely system and I would love to go live there for a while.

It was an inspiring experience to see him. He is doing some workshops here but I don’t currently own any land so it doesn’t really seem like it would make sense for me to attend when I wouldn’t be able to apply it soon and would probably forget a lot before I have a chance to use it. So yeah, right now I am kind of obsessed with permaculture but my obsessions change. Last year and several years before that I was obsessed with recycling. The Master Recyclers keep not including me in their training here and even though a year ago I didn’t even know they existed, I feel a little put off by it all and food seems more interesting.

First

ruthiemarx — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:52:28 +0000

I am constantly thinking about different environmental issues and what I can do to live more sustainably and have as little impact as possible. I make a lot of changes on a regluar basis. Small changes as they may be they are still changes. I look at my life today and compare it even a year ago and so much has changed. The most major change of course was moving from Austin, Texas to Portland, Oregon last May. Oregon has changed my life in permanent ways and I am grateful for that.

This is the first time I have lived outside of Texas in my 32 years. There really is a whole other world out there.

I have always been interested in the Environment but it has taken this long to get where I am now.