No Chocolate for the Localvore?
As I was writing my last post about my favorite chocolate bar, something was eating at me. I wasn’t mentioning a priceless consideration we can make in our buying choices–locally made products! The omission bothered me, as I am both diligent and inconsistent about promoting this idea.
I vend at festivals and fairs in my region, promoting fair trade crafts, which I buy from fair trade wholesalers and charities, such as Ten Thousand Villages, Northern Sun, Gypsy Rose and ethical American companies and non-profits such as Karuna Arts, Native Scents and Aurora Glass. Choosing winning products from their catalogs and websites is quite easy, compared to choosing from the river of local artists, hobbyists and craftspeople who ask me to turn their tinkerings into gold. Locals following a creative outlet haven’t always checked the marketplace to decide what they should make. There are lucky guesses–Duct tape wallets are wildly popular!
But nothing is simple. I make jewelry, so to see me at a festival and buy from me would seem “local.” But my gemstones, findings, etc., come from all over the world, under all conditions imaginable. And I’ll bet the kid who makes the duct tape wallets isn’t holding out for duct tape made locally, from local materials. I imagine my Amish neighbors who do a fine business with outdoor sheds choose the cheapest wood, not the most local.
Like my favorite localvore and online mascot the wiselittleraccoon, my partner Iuval is looking for land to found a new intentional community, one in which members participate in a much more local economy, getting by with very little and making most of their basic needs. In this new/old model, most people would participate directly in growing nearly all of their food, including grains.
I know truckloads of gardeners and farmers. Some grow 5-10% of their food. Others grow nearly all the fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts they need. Grain seems to be another story, a final frontier.
With farmers’ markets, backyard and community gardens, CSA’s, etc, buying food locally seems to be comparatively easy, if not cheap. Government subsidies and other factors make commercial foods much cheaper than local organics. I love being right each time I repeat, “You get what you pay for…”
But as filmmaker Annie Leonard points out in The Story of Stuff, the trinkets and plastic crap we seem to think we need leave wakes of environmental and social distruction (slavery, child labor, unsafe working conditions). In my life, learning to live without “stuff” is the first step. This has been easy since I pared down from a four bedroom Victorian to a ten-by-twelve foot stone springhouse and commune life. In that process, I got clear that “stuff” doesn’t make me happy; It doesn’t fill that spiritual empty box. People do; Nature does. A dog is just the greatest. Stuff, not so much.
Now if I decide something is a need, not a want, I have mental flow charts to navigate. Can I get it made of anything except plastic? Made locally, of local materials? Union shop or crafter? Organic? Minimal packaging? Locally owned retailer? Will online shopping save or add to fuel consumption?
As of this writing, chocolate is still listed as a “need,” although I have friends who never partake because cacao can’t be grown in their area. We’re all hiking in different places along the green trail. My backpack still contains chocolate. And a car. And my own detatched cabin I share with only my family. And a cellphone, my mac mini, and the Firefly boxed set…
Shiny!
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Hiding Place #641: A 7 X 7 Coleman Tent
For our new readers, a repost from HCD’s “Greatest Hits”:
Spring, 2006
Sometimes the bogeyman is a flashback of some rapist or the echo of that ever negative parent. It could be that childhood biting dog or one’s inner voice. Or it could be a succession of 5-foot black rat snakes coming in through windows and walls. Okay, on a day in early May of last year, it was black rat snakes.
My dogs were already barking. This was an experience they’d clearly
had before. A huge snake was outside on the window ledge, tracing a
familiar path to a missing window pane covered loosely by plastic. The
plastic was stapled in a couple of places, there to keep the rain out.
This would be a good time to mention that I have an understandable,
justifiable childhood trauma around snakes. Okay, they’re sacred and
symbolize earthiness and fertility and feminine power because we’re all
past that myth in Genesis. But this means nothing to the six-year-old
me that went crawdad huntin’ in Jack’s Creek on our farm in Kentucky.
You may be thinking I mean crayfish hunting, but since I’ll have no
dignity by the end of this story, I might as well confess now that my
sister and I were crawdad huntin’.
Granny had driven us in her Olds 98 and outfitted us with her brand
new kitchen bucket. Beth and I walked the creek, turning over rocks,
jumping back when the bigger crawdads would torpedo out. We rounded a
couple of bends, well out of sight of Granny, engrossed.
This would be a good time to mention the Paul Bunyanesque stories my
grandfather would tell about cottonmouth water moccasins. Pap claimed
that they ate his dairy cows. And with each telling of how he’d gone
out into the field and ended the behemoth with a shotgun, the snake got
bigger and bigger. On our farm, snake stories were as fishing stories
in this fashion.
So when the cartoonlike meeting of engrossed girls and startled
cottonmouth took place, there was only one way it could play
out–epically. The snake reared up and met us face to face to face. It
opened to showcase the cottony room of its mouth. We screamed in chorus
with its scream and waved our hands in the air, sending the new kitchen
bucket flying. We ran atop the surface of the water all the way back to
Granny and the Olds 98, so as not to leave any footprints in the muddy
creekbed for the snake to follow.
We told Granny about the snake and the face to face to face and the
cottony room from the safety of the car. Now I loved my grandmother and
she told me on many occasions that she loved me, too. But this was not
her shining moment. I swear to you that her only response was, “You
girls go back and get my bucket!!!”
I note for the record that she herself did not retrieve it, either.
So as the black rat snake poked at the plastic, I was amused to find
myself considering covering the pane with my own kitchen bucket.
Instead I grabbed the staple gun and began stitching a solid seem all
the way around, just barely ahead of the snake’s nose. I won that race
and darted outside only to watch the snake retreat into an opening
under my house where my tub’s drainpipe protrudes. The snake got in
anyway.
I had lived in Hina Hanta, left, the Heathcote shack formerly known as the
Hillhouse, for four years. And about two or three times a year I would
come upon a small black snake inside. Now, I hate snakes for
understandable, justifiable reasons and I would evacuate with the dogs,
wait a few hours and return with another Heathcoter to conduct an “all
clear.” This worked for me, barely, because I knew the snakes were
catching mice and their bigger cousins. And for that reason I was glad
of each one I encountered outdoors. But the snake in my window had no
fear. This was new and unsettling.
I was unnerved enough to leave the light on when I went to bed. I
don’t know why I thought that would make a difference but I found it a
comfort. One of my phobias around snakes and my life deep in the woods
is that they’ll end up in bed with me. Fertility be damned, I ain’t
having that!
But two nights later the choice was not mine. I jolted up to the
crazed barks of Echo, my brave protector of the two shelties. She was
ranting and racing from the bed to the stairway of my loft room. The
sight was simply a shocker: undulating across my floor, blocking my
exit, were two five-foot long black snakes, mating, and I mean
passionately. They showed no signs of being phased by our waking.
Evacuation being my policy I stood on my bed, holding both shelties
by the collar with one hand and pulling clothes off a chair and onto
myself with the other, all the while watching the snakes go on and on
and on. I would have been struck awed and mystified by the beauty of
their fluid movements if I were another person, without my
understandable, justifiable fear of snakes. Instead I was all about
escape.
But when they finally untied themselves, the snakes were still flush
with whatever hormones were giving them boldness and drive. One started
to the right, finding the wall and turning toward my dresser, my bed
and me. The other went left to the wall and started in my direction,
using the dogs’ indoor agility tunnel to make its way toward the bed. I
yanked the tunnel away and that snake was discouraged enough to retreat
to the stairs where it disappeared into a hole in the wall. When I
looked for the right hand snake, it had lifted its head to the top of
the dresser. We split. We booked. We ran on the top of the water so as
not to leave any footprints in the muddy creekbed for the snakes to
follow.
The next day, I brought Bob, a Heathcoter, up to the house, not for
an all-clear, but to consult on plugging my many holes. As he stood in
my bedroom hearing the story a black snake emerged from a seam where
wall meets floor. It sat coiled, as if it were part of our discussion.
These snakes without fear, this was so strange and new.
Bob became my champion at community meetings–”Wren shouldn’t have to
live like this. She’s got snakes having sex on her floor!!! We’ve got
to do something!!!” That was all well and good, but now huge snakes
were slinking about at every turn I made. Kitchen, bathroom, upstairs
and down, I came to estimate that I had between 8 and 10 five-foot long
black rat snakes in my home and I was not in charge.
My friend Charles is fond of saying that the wheels of community
grind slowly. The Heathcoters were not going to disappear this
infestation in a day or even a week. In the meantime I needed a place
to sleep, alone with my dogs, alone, without snakes, alone.
Now, I had observed that black snakes don’t tend to chew holes or
dig them. They avail themselves of ones created by the critters they’re
hunting. This logic is what inspired me to set up my seven by seven
Coleman tent in place of my bed. I believed that if I kept crumbs and
such out that mice and their larger cousins would leave the fabric
intact, thus creating all the barrier I needed to get a good night’s
sleep. For the record, this is not a belief I need clarified in any
way. it works for me. If you are of the impression or experience that a
black rat snake might in fact chew through tent fabric, there is
nothing to be gained by sharing. Do not email me.
The tent became my bedroom within a bedroom. I set up a power strip
inside and plugged in my alarm clock and lamp. I inflated my aero bed
and each night I called the dogs inside and zipped us within our hiding
place.
Enter Mr. Hacker, the snake wrangler.
Although I admit to hating snakes as bogeymen I am an animal rights
activist. In lucid moments I know that they’re just returning to their
hatching site to breed, being good snake citizens. Even so, I can
confess to having a few fantasies involving Pap’s shotgun because I
know that I ultimately stuck to my beliefs, even when they were
inconvenient. Mr. Hacker of White Hall was probably the tenth humane
pest control person I called. The others had said that snakes couldn’t
be trapped and that repellents didn’t work. Mr. Hacker had invented a
successful trap from pvc pipe and a used eel trap. Bring it on.
He installed the trap and decided to wait a while since I was so
dripping with the things. For over and hour I listened to Mr. Hacker
tell me stories of catching snakes. He would take the captured ones
many miles away. “Sometimes I just slow down and pour ‘em out the
window…” I didn’t need such details. He rambled on about family, the
cousin who actually hacked up his wife’s lover in some bar, and wasn’t
the family name ironic, I really didn’t need such details. Eventually a
snake appeared on my stairs and he picked it up with his hands. “Wow,
that’s a big one!” That’ll be thirty dollars. Here was hoping he slowed
down enough for that one.
As Hacker’s trap caught one after another and sometimes two at a
time, I got busy trimming every room and covering every possible entry,
on the shack’s interior and exterior and winning my own eel traps on
ebay. After a time the snakes stuck to the outdoors and the porch and
became shy again.
Homeschooling students attending the World Religions class on my
porch helped me name the snakes and when we were not evacuating we were
amused and amazed. And my students found my unusual bed amusing as well.
It is winter now. Whether in my walls, some woodpile or rocky
outcropping, I know the snakes are asleep. I know my holes are plugged.
These nights I just climb in, I don’t zip the door closed. But life is
a spiral of seasons, not a straight, evolutionary trajectory. I have
grown through this but I, like the snakes, know that spring happens. I
might have call to zip up yet.
–Wren Tuatha
present moment, 4 feet on planet, life good
Earth Hour: Things for Hippies to Do in the Dark
“…it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from.” —Earth Hour website
Join Earth Hour, the annual movement to raise awareness by turning off your lights this Saturday, starting at 8:30 pm, local time wherever you are.
Now, some of you harried activists and eco-geeks who don’t spend a lot of time sitting under trees pondering what bug just crawled into your skirts might be wondering what you’re going to do for an hour in the dark.
If for some reason you need to eliminate sex as the answer (sports injury, recovery program, Mom visiting, whatever) here’s a list of ideas:
- Play Marco Polo with the mice in your veggie bus.
- Order Chinese delivery or pizza by sending owl calls down the block.
- Invent moon tea.
- Tell the history of the Rainbow Coalition in a puppet show using glow-in-the-dark condoms.
- Go caroling up and down your street, singing Holly Near and Shekhinah Mountainwater.
- Liberate race horses into suburban neighborhoods to replace gas-powered riding mowers.
- Have an egg hunt in your yard using those rotten ones you haven’t brought yourself to compost yet.
- Let the cat out and follow her. Back off if she becomes paranoid.
- Sneak into the Wal-Mart parking lot and paste every car with the bumper sticker, “Mall-Wart, Your Source for Cheap, Plastic Crap!”
- Find the most manicured lawn in your neighborhood and plant it in milkweed for making paper and fabric.
- Throw a series of glow-in-the-dark frisbees off a school building and see if anyone calls in a UFO sighting.
- Clean out the fridge by playing truth or dare with leftovers.
- Practice riding your exercise bike for when you figure out how to power the hot tub with it.
- Box up random items from each others’ rooms and take them to Goodwill, to work on unattachment.
- Perfect your impression of Leonard Cohen doing show tunes.
- Let the dog out and follow her. Be sure you have pruning shears, your picture ID and a change of socks with you. Twine is optional.
- Host a naked drum circle, massage party or sing along in your front yard and when the neighbors show up with the police, tell them you left your permit in your other pants.
- Figure out Morse Code using the light of your cell phone. Then use it to debate your neighbor across the road over the physics of What the Bleep…
Whatever activity or inactivity you choose, this is a wonderful chance to create community by unplugging. Or, if what you need from the hour is stillness, then here is a gift for you and the Earth! I’d love to hear your experiences afterwards!
It Must Be Love
In the short months that Iuval and I have been living and traveling together, our dedication and devotion to each other has felt natural and flowy. We’ve swished a strong stream of NRE (new relationship energy) everywhere we’ve been, enough to sicken and annoy even the most hopeless romantic among our friends and families. But NRE can form between lots of people. It appears; It disappears. What about devotion that stays? You know you’re looking at that when your mate cleans up your dog’s vomit. Repeatedly.
We are polyamorous so, over time, I’ve had a few lovers, women and men, for overnights and they’re always friendly, civil and accommodating to my two shelties. They tolerate the dogs’ shrill barking at the door, begging to be petted, demanding that my guests throw an endless succession of tennis balls, shredded plush toys and sticks. They pretend not to mind when the pets climb on the couch and into their laps. The occasional visitor is even a true dog person and appreciates mine for their sportspersonship and vitality. Iuval bursts into giggles and baby talk. “They’re sooo cuuute!!!” This, after he mentions casually that domestic animals, especially pets, are a symptom of our broken society, how we spend endless resources on beings that aren’t even human, all because we no longer know how to make deep human connections. Here come more giggles and he’s on the floor playing tug of war.
“Have the dogs been for a walk? They need a walk. I’m taking the goats and dogs with me to the barn…”
“Aww, the dogs want to go with us. Can we take them to dinner with us? They don’t want us to leave them! Oh, I feel so bad, leaving them!”
“Have you fed the dogs yet? Why not? You’re so mean. Look at them; They’re hungry! I’ll do it!”
“Move over on the couch. Tuatha wants on. He wants to cuddle. There. Move a little more…”
“I feel so bad, kicking them out of bed. They just want to cuddle and be with us. I know it was my idea but maybe they can just snuggle under the covers for a little while…”
“Look, Echo doesn’t seem to feel good. Maybe it was that deer bone. Oh, she threw up. I got it. No, don’t bother, I’ll get it. Does she need some medicine? Ohh, you feel baad…You soo cuute!”
__________
There’s “love me, love my dog.” Then there’s “love me, love my students.” When my Open Classroom students came for our Inauguration Day party, they brought a play they wanted to act out. They wanted me to play the mom but I resisted on grounds of typecasting. I insisted that Iuval play the mom. I even had a costume dress that I knew would fit him. Let’s not get into how I knew that. Not only did Iuval accept the part and play it with gusto and nuance, but he kept the dress on for the rest of the party!
There’s something about his ability to enter all aspects of my life as if he’s always been there and is shocked by nothing, loving what I love, that makes this feel just like home. Today, for my birthday, he’s making me a chocolate/chili cake, inspired by the Mayans.
World of Pets Expo, Timonium, Maryland 2009
Fair trade has arrived at the World of Pets Expo. This is Heathcote Earthings’ first year at the Expo, in its eighth year. and I’m glad we took the plunge! This is a huge, hoppin’ event! What fun to serve customers walking all manner of dogs. I’ve been offering a “sheltie discount” in honor of my own, but no shelties have taken me up on it yet!
I’m in a huge room of mostly pet related vendors, many of whom are giving away free samples. A neighbor gave me vegetarian dog treats, which Tuatha, Echo and Chance enjoyed so much that I can’t currently find the package, to tell you the brand! Besides vendors, the organizers have set up agility shows, comedy shows and interesting workshops.
There’s even a food vendor here with lots of vegetarian and vegan choices. I recognize them from the Spoutwood Fairie Festival!
I’ve moved many of our animal themed crafts to the front of the booth. I’m featuring our popular clay cat trio, pictured here. And I’m discounting some purses and ornaments and other crafts left over from the holiday season.
So come on out to the Timonium Fairgrounds and look for our tent hoops over the crowd, decorated with batik flags of dragons, fairies, etc. See you there!
Cute Things Falling Asleep….dot org???
Okay, it’s clear I won’t run away with any prizes for marketable website design in the face of competition like this: comedian Nick Malis has established cutethingsfallingalseep.org, a website of kittens, puppies, bears, babies and a few more exotic things nodding off, rolling off and snoring off to sleep. Shameless! I at least pretend to talk about sustainability or vegetarianism while subjecting the world to endless disproportionate nose shots of my dogs and goats.
For example, here’s a still shot of Tuatha falling asleep in a stuffed chair. I’ve surrendered and covered the chair with a throw because he and Echo keep the seat covered in dog hair and unsitable for humans. This practice is more sustainable than say, using the paper covers one finds at the doctor’s office. My sister in Minnesota gave me this blanket. It has fish, moose and hunting cabins on it. Ironic, since I’m vegan. See how I effortlessly fold this stuff in?
Here I go again with more snugly sustainability: When I had to move my compost pile for the new dog pen, I uncovered a nest of hatching baby black rat snakes. They were sleepy…some of them were very sleepy, sad to say, because they were cut in half by my shovel before I knew they were there. I took some pictures with my cameraphone but they came out blurry. I moved the eggs and babies and the cut-in-two snakes with the compost pile. The cut ones became the compost they were born in. Some intact ones were plucked from the pile or wriggled off lethargically to be food for my wild neighbors. How cuddly and cute is the circle of life?
This post is going downhill fast. Fine. It doesn’t have to be a competition because I know that after you enjoy watching babies slump over on couches and puppies plop into their water dishes, you’ll think, “Hey, not all babies and puppies have loving homes like these. I am inspired to become a foster parent and volunteer at my local no-kill animal shelter.” And after you watch the polar bear cub swimming in her sleep and the sloth baby, well, being slovenly, then you’ll think, “You know, I could work from home and turn down my thermostadt…” You won’t be like me and think, “Okay, corn chip time.”
Hey, this Cute Things guy has t-shirts! I want t-shirts! He doesn’t even put any graphics on his t-shirts, or the dot org part of his name! I could have better t-shirts; He knows nothing about marketing. Yes! Yes!
Can I just go home with the prize for missing my own point while trying too hard to have one?
Brushstrokes of Autumn
I feel like Frederick the mouse, sitting with all the experiences I’ve had this winter, and going back to the colors of warmer seasons. I’ve just settled back home after a month in Kentucky with my new partner, both of us helping my mom after her car accident, and attending Berea College’s Christmas Country Dance School. As I download photos and sort through the shapes, shades, rhythms and rhymes of my December travels, I can’t help sharing these sometimes impressionist images of the children and pets this past fall. It was a fall to be outdoors, with warm days and air that was kind as a lover to the skin.
My Marsupial Neighbors–Sugar Gliders?!?
Hippie Hoo. I’m my usual strange mix of indignant and enamoured. One of the vendors near me at this year’s Festival of Trees is a double booth of young guys selling tiny marsupials from Australia called sugar gliders. These little critters seem friendly and easily bonded to humans, very appealing as “pocket pets,” which happens to be the name of the business. Hmm.
I held one in my hands and let it climb on me. They undulate and leap around and they’re charming. But when I got home tonight I went online to get the scoop. I don’t think these guys are telling people that these are social animals who NEED their own kind. If you buy just one (and one costs $400+, including specialized equipment and a year’s supply of food) it will become depressed, no matter how much human companionship you give it.
I have to smile at myself because I immediately want one and am outraged that they would sell tiny sensitive critters in a loud, crowed festival. I don’t know what to think about a $400 flying hamster! Should living beings be impulse items offered at a holiday festival?
Update: On the second day of the show, I visited the sugar gliders late in the day. The “ambassador” pets which the salespeople used were exhausted, asleep in their handler’s grasp, while the sellers continued their pitch. It was difficult to watch. I have to say I don’t think Pocket Pets, Inc. operates with the best interest of their animals in mind.
I did, however, find potential ethical breeders online last night. One listing stated that the breeder was declining last minute orders for Christmas, to avoid impulse decisions from buyers. That is an excellent sign.
Also online, it appears that Pocket Pets Inc. is countering websites offering warnings to people who might want to own this pet. Apparently they have odor issues, bathroom issues, etc., which the countering site calls “myths.” The language on the countering site is identical to the talking points on the Pocket Pets site and their sales pitch. So please read a variety of sites and meet breeders in person to make your own assessment if you’re considering one of these pets!
An Aging Dog or Cushing’s Disease, The Subtle Signs
My yin-yang shelties are eight years old. I adopted Tuatha when he was eight weeks old; Echo at eight months. He, Tuatha, is the extroverted, demonstrative one who will bring poor guests endless sticks, balls and plush toys to throw. She, Echo, is reserved, waiting for the quiet moment to greet a guest with her “still waters run deep” energy.
The yin-yang comparisons continue. He, the jock, eats to live. She, the former kennel dog, lives to eat. He runs to Mama at every fright. She is my brave protector. He campaigns for, and gets, lots of my attention. And until recently, I believed my slower, calmer dog was content by herself in the corner.
Now I am checking her feelings under those still waters, and valuing every moment we share, because we may have less time than I thought.
She has always taken her food and water as if she were still competing with her kennel mates. But recently she began drinking so much water so quickly that, minutes later, she would throw some up. And, data in, data out, she needed to pee constantly. I had thought she just craved oral gratification. But the vomiting put me over. I wondered if the drinking meant diabetes.
The vet quickly ruled out diabetes, and agreed with me that her symptoms were subtle. Dogs often throw up. It’s a dog thing. But Echo’s kidneys weren’t functioning well. The vet suspected Addison’s disease, but now it appears she has the opposite of Addison’s: Cushing’s disease.
In Addison’s, the body produces too little glucocorticoid, in Cushing’s, it produces too much. Having visited a few sites on Cushing’s, I now suspect that Echo has been dealing with this imbalance for most of her life. I recall noticing certain symptoms, which I assumed were simple variations in body type or behavior:
- A barrel shaped gut, which I pondered each time I bathed them. Tuatha has a more hourglass, slender waist and Echo has always been thick there. But then again, she likes food…
- Over eating/food stealing. Echo has competed for her food, even though she no longer has to. Since I know shelties can be prone to obesity, I’ve watched her portions like a hawk and police the food stealing…
- A thinning of the face. I noticed this a while back and dismissed it. Now it is not noticeable. But it is listed as a sign of Cushings.
Lethargy. Echo has always been slower, less athletic than Tuatha. Again, it has been easy to excuse this as individual variations between dogs. People have assumed she was his mother, or at least a much older dog. I’ve just answered that she’s an old soul.- Hair loss. Echo’s hair is not to the point of the characteristic balding around the abdomen associated with Cushing’s, but it has thinned generally. Now I watch it more closely.
- Urinary tract infection. Another issue with Cushing’s, Echo did a round of antibiotics that failed to clear out her current infection. The vet’s having another look at her urine to better target the next meds for her specific infection of the moment.
Now I appreciate that Echo probably has been suffering in silence for a long time. Although I want to blame myself for not visiting the vet years ago, the truth is, most people do miss these signs, which are subtle and typically associated with aging.
It looks like we should be able to control the imbalance with medication eventually. And I’ll also look for alternative treatments. I hope that it doesn’t have to mean discomfort or a shortened life for my brave protector.
What are your experiences with Addison’s and Cushing’s? These are people diseases, too! I’d like to hear your stories!
