Below is an excerpt from "Food Not Lawns". I need to read this book.

"French aristocrats popularized the idea of the green grassy lawn in the eighteenth century, when they planted the agricultural fields around their estates to grass, to send the message that they had more land than they needed and could therefore afford to waste some. Meanwhile, French peasants starved for lack of available ground, and the resulting frustration might have had something to do with the French Revolution in 1789.
Today, 58 million Americans spend approximately $30 billion every year to maintain over 23 million acres of lawn. That’s an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each. The same size plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation, plus produce all of the vegetables needed to feed a family of six. The lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week—enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long."

I live in the Now but remember the when...

It was raining today so... I popped in The Fellowship of the Ring. I love that movie so much. My favorite scenes are (in the extended versions) the narrative by Bilbo, describing Hobbiton and "Concerning Hobbits". The second scene, when Aragorn takes the Fellowship to Lady Galadriel and the elves in Lothlorein. Both of these civilizations live close to nature, with nature, as part of nature.

I need to work tomorrow. I shall pretend I am serving in the Houses of Healing, in the white city of Gondor, after the battle for Middle Earth. Pity, this is the only way I can make it through a day... pretending to be someone I want to be- someone I should be.

I have lived many past lives. I have been in Ireland. I have lived in a hut or perhaps a very small, primative cabin. I remember earthen floors and hanging herbs... open fires. I do remember this, in my soul.

Food Not Lawns

It has been a goal to reduce the amount of lawn I have on my one acre lot. When we bought this place, it was all grass. Just grass and randomly planted trees. The trees I will happily keep and add to. The grass? Less and less each year.

I read on Food Not Lawns website that lawns became popular when rich french royality had "land to spare" and planted grass as a status symbol. Meanwhile, peasants were starving to death with no land of their own to plant wheat for bread. Hmmm...

So, today I added a pumpkin patch that I can gaze upon as I hand wash my dishes.

Blessed Be

My blog. My bitch.

Okay... so I am watching The Discovery Channel and that awesome show "Planet Earth". It is the episode about the Poles, called "Ice Worlds". Very matter-of-factly, the narrator (Ms. Sigourney Weaver, fyi) states that most scientist agree that we have less than ten years to change our lifestyles in order to avoid more evironmental damage and to slow our planets warming. This wasn't said with bravado or judgement; just a fact.

Enter Patti.

Ten years? Ten years ago, I had a one year old and my oldest wasn't even in middle school. She is now a college student. Ten years ago, I had a new used truck and I was just 31 years old. I am not (uh-hum) 31 any longer and my truck is rusty but trusty and paid for. The point I am trying to make is... ten years goes really really fast.

Hybrid cars are being talked about and evaluated. Everyone is hoping that our cars will run on french fry oil and each of us will have windmills in our back yards. Yes, that would be really cool. Will all of this happen fast enough?

I am just thinking (I do that) if it is going to take awhile to get all of the new technologies not only viable but accessible to the masses, what are we going to do until then?

Isn't this sort of urgent? Shouldn't we be taking drastic measures until the new technologies are available?

Like Nascar. Isn't that a whole lot of fossil fuel being burned for nothing? And air shows. I heard on NPR an entire "green family" canceled out their energy saving efforts with one family flight to Europe. Apparently, flying is very hard on the atmosphere. So, if flying is hard on the atmosphere, should we be entertaining ourselves with planes flying in patterns? For no reason other than amusement? Without passengers? It doesn't seem very necessary to me.

I don't want to be a kill joy; really, I don't. But shouldn't we be a little more than worried? This seems to be a big deal and here we are, just kind of hoping that corn cars and windmills bail us out. This should be considered a global emergency and we need to be aggressive with the solutions.

Park the race cars. Fly less, a lot less. People need to vacation and travel but it can be done responsibly. Donald Trump and Gwen Stefany can plane-pool. No more private jets, for crying out loud. No air shows. Those damn things are dangerous anyway. Turn off the bright lights of Vegas, or at least switch to the weird but awesome twirly little light bulb thingies.

Urgent times call for drastic measures.

But that's just my itty bitty opinion.