Hey there EcoHouse!
Today in the crisp November air nine of us had a foot"ball"! Aaron, Dillon, Cameron, Emilie, Susie, Joe, Mike, Josh, and myself went out and had a really good time. We had a representative from all but two of the Ecohouse apartments so, way to go guys! We gathered and started playing good-old-fashioned two-hand-touch football around 3:30 and kept at it until the sun was setting at about 5. We divided into 4 on 4 teams of Mike, Emilie, Josh, and myself vs. Aaron, Cameron, Susie, and Joe. Dillon played permanent QB for much of the game and was amazing, executing excellent plays and accurate passes to everybody. Josh and Joe dominated the scoring with their skillful speed and ability to catch and retain possession of long passes. Aaron had some awesome down completions including one very impressive two footed slide on the grass after which he managed to stay upright. Mike took over QB, and was a clutch blocker, and scored a touchdown. Cameron was also a down completing master, relief QB, and touchdown maker. Emilie was by far the most skilled female and the organizer of this fun social activity so PROPS! She had the unenviable position of covering Joe and was the only female to make a touchdown. Susie was a great sport at learning the rules as she went along. Her tight coverage of me also meant that when I managed to catch the ball (about 75% of the time) I barely got any separation. We had a really fun time, got some good exercise, and had a chance to hang out in the fresh air! After all what is November if there are not at least a few pick up games of touch football? We definitely want to do this again and hope that even more people come. I feel really bad because I cannot remember what the final score was, but we were pretty even throughout and were 5-5 or 5-6 (counting each touchdown as one point) near the end of the game. It just goes to show that it really doesn't matter if you win or loose, just that you have fun!
11/24/08
11/18/08
Plenty's Ask blog
Hey! Have you ever had a question about living sustainably that has stumped everybody you've asked? I know I have. Frequently asked questions pages and Top Ten Ways lists are great for beginners, but what about those of us who are hardcore?
Plenty Magazine has a blog just for folks like us. The questions are smart and the answers are thorough. Go forth, environerd, and become wiser.
Plenty Magazine has a blog just for folks like us. The questions are smart and the answers are thorough. Go forth, environerd, and become wiser.
11/4/08
10/31/08
Trick or treat!
Hey! Are you really an eco-friendly consumer, or is that just a costume?
I bring you the second of Josh's three articles: 7 Bad Habits of Eco-Design Driven Consumers
Mind you, these are only seven of 'em. There are others. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
And since I couldn't help but notice what day it is, here is a list of Eco-friendly ideas for celebrating Halloween from the Nature Moms blog. It may be kind of late to prepare for this year's trick-or-treating, but let's face it, we eat candy all year round.
I bring you the second of Josh's three articles: 7 Bad Habits of Eco-Design Driven Consumers
Mind you, these are only seven of 'em. There are others. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
And since I couldn't help but notice what day it is, here is a list of Eco-friendly ideas for celebrating Halloween from the Nature Moms blog. It may be kind of late to prepare for this year's trick-or-treating, but let's face it, we eat candy all year round.
10/29/08
Over my dead body?
Over the next few days, I'll be posting Josh's eco-tips, sent out in the form of articles this time around. They're quite interesting!
This first one is very relevant to the holiday season. No, I don't mean Christmas, New Year, or even Thanksgiving. I mean All Hallows' Eve, Día de los Muertes, Samhain, and so on. Whatever you celebrate, this is the time of year to think about death.
Well, if that's the sort of thing that floats your boat. For some people, it's more of a time to hand out candy to throngs of adorable children. Others dress as their favorite pun or pop culture figure and go out to impress partygoers with their cleverness. Yet others dress down and face the frigid October evening as some permutation of a seductive (insert profession here). "Sexy Environmental Consultant," for instance.
Still, let's pretend that we're all thinking about death.
Thinking about it? Good. Now, here's an interesting thing you could do with your mortal coil once you've shuffled it off:
I can do what now?
That is pretty awesome: a full ecosystem approach to the old idea of planting a tree or letting a barrow grow over your buried body. Of course, if I got one of these, I might advise my loved ones to save boat fuel and not visit my grave site. I could circumvent this issue by ensuring that all of my loved ones are fish, but then who would pay for my grave? Hopefully, I'll have several decades to figure it out.
Nothing lasts. Things will grow over our grave sites, many things in succession, and I'm pretty cool with that. This article simply gives you the option of having marine things grow over you instead of terrestrial things, at least until the boundaries of the oceans and continents change. By then your body will be broken down all over the place, and think of all the ways it will contribute to earth systems! You won't have an ecological footprint; you'll be the ecosystem that people tread upon.
Conservationists always talk about future generations. Well, if you think about it, we're walking on, breathing, eating, drinking, and even polluting the past ones. Nature's so great at recycling that we don't usually think of it like that.
Anyway, the zombies haven't gotten to me yet, so I still have my brains intact, philosophical ramblings notwithstanding. I'm going to move on from thinking about that stuff and think instead about what I'm going to do tomorrow.
This first one is very relevant to the holiday season. No, I don't mean Christmas, New Year, or even Thanksgiving. I mean All Hallows' Eve, Día de los Muertes, Samhain, and so on. Whatever you celebrate, this is the time of year to think about death.
Well, if that's the sort of thing that floats your boat. For some people, it's more of a time to hand out candy to throngs of adorable children. Others dress as their favorite pun or pop culture figure and go out to impress partygoers with their cleverness. Yet others dress down and face the frigid October evening as some permutation of a seductive (insert profession here). "Sexy Environmental Consultant," for instance.
Still, let's pretend that we're all thinking about death.
 |
| "I'll wait." |
Thinking about it? Good. Now, here's an interesting thing you could do with your mortal coil once you've shuffled it off:
 |
| Coil to coral |
I can do what now?
That is pretty awesome: a full ecosystem approach to the old idea of planting a tree or letting a barrow grow over your buried body. Of course, if I got one of these, I might advise my loved ones to save boat fuel and not visit my grave site. I could circumvent this issue by ensuring that all of my loved ones are fish, but then who would pay for my grave? Hopefully, I'll have several decades to figure it out.
Nothing lasts. Things will grow over our grave sites, many things in succession, and I'm pretty cool with that. This article simply gives you the option of having marine things grow over you instead of terrestrial things, at least until the boundaries of the oceans and continents change. By then your body will be broken down all over the place, and think of all the ways it will contribute to earth systems! You won't have an ecological footprint; you'll be the ecosystem that people tread upon.
 |
| "'Scuse me? I'll be the what?" |
Conservationists always talk about future generations. Well, if you think about it, we're walking on, breathing, eating, drinking, and even polluting the past ones. Nature's so great at recycling that we don't usually think of it like that.
Anyway, the zombies haven't gotten to me yet, so I still have my brains intact, philosophical ramblings notwithstanding. I'm going to move on from thinking about that stuff and think instead about what I'm going to do tomorrow.
10/25/08
My PLE
In the Ecohouse program, one of the ways to earn course credit is to have a "Personal Learning Experience."
I had mine today: NEVER bite into a raw green chili pepper. Seriously. Not even a tiny, baby ant-sized bite. I barely took half a nibble off the tip of it, in a strange burst of frat boy-like experimental curiosity. At first it tasted like a green bell pepper. Then my salivary glands started working overtime and I ran to the sink just in time for a tidal wave of spit to come out. I then poured myself a glass of water from the fridge, and had trouble taking a first sip because I was hiccupping uncontrollably. But desperation lent me the will to gulp some water, then pour another glass, then put a few breath mints in my mouth because it was still burning, then pour another glass of water, which I am slowly sipping now while chewing more breath mints.
I really am a bright person. I won't suffer any sinus congestion for the next year, at least. It kind of reminds me of the sort of hijinks my 10-year-old cousin would get into, except he would do it to be funny and me, I just end up being funny.
I got the offending pepper at the local farmer's market, where Natalie, Elena, Phil, and I found good deals on vegetables, fruits, and baked goods. Elena found her beloved Lima beans and I replenished my sweet potato supply, among other things. Yes Mom, I am eating my vegetables here at school. I also relieved some of the lavender bushes outside the apartments of a few sprigs. The flowers are hanging in the living room now, drying so that I can use them for tea. Meanwhile the clover and rye we planted are starting to grow, helped along by the rain:
In Elena & Co.'s apartment, they've carved jack o' lanterns, which I've pictured next to the bicycles to give it some Ecohouse flavor:
Before going to the farmer's market, we watched a guy dig up this tree stump. A perk of living at Ecohouse is you can stop and touch the types of soil, analyzing the content, and you're not considered weird. Or at least you're not alone.
I had mine today: NEVER bite into a raw green chili pepper. Seriously. Not even a tiny, baby ant-sized bite. I barely took half a nibble off the tip of it, in a strange burst of frat boy-like experimental curiosity. At first it tasted like a green bell pepper. Then my salivary glands started working overtime and I ran to the sink just in time for a tidal wave of spit to come out. I then poured myself a glass of water from the fridge, and had trouble taking a first sip because I was hiccupping uncontrollably. But desperation lent me the will to gulp some water, then pour another glass, then put a few breath mints in my mouth because it was still burning, then pour another glass of water, which I am slowly sipping now while chewing more breath mints.
I really am a bright person. I won't suffer any sinus congestion for the next year, at least. It kind of reminds me of the sort of hijinks my 10-year-old cousin would get into, except he would do it to be funny and me, I just end up being funny.
I got the offending pepper at the local farmer's market, where Natalie, Elena, Phil, and I found good deals on vegetables, fruits, and baked goods. Elena found her beloved Lima beans and I replenished my sweet potato supply, among other things. Yes Mom, I am eating my vegetables here at school. I also relieved some of the lavender bushes outside the apartments of a few sprigs. The flowers are hanging in the living room now, drying so that I can use them for tea. Meanwhile the clover and rye we planted are starting to grow, helped along by the rain:
In Elena & Co.'s apartment, they've carved jack o' lanterns, which I've pictured next to the bicycles to give it some Ecohouse flavor:
Before going to the farmer's market, we watched a guy dig up this tree stump. A perk of living at Ecohouse is you can stop and touch the types of soil, analyzing the content, and you're not considered weird. Or at least you're not alone.
10/11/08
First day in the garden
Or, as they say where I'm from, gaahdin. Am I right, Elena?
We pulled several months' worth of weeds, tilled the soil, and spread seeds for winter rye and crimson clover. They're cover crops that will:
1. Prevent soil erosion
2. Prevent weed growth
3. Fix nitrogen in the soil - more nutrients for spring seeds!
4. Maybe even attract some biodiversity.
Then we watered them. To build our arm strength, we filled a watering can in our apartment and then carried it out to the garden plot four times. (We don't have a hose or rain catchment system or nothin' hooked up yet - they're working on it.)
Grow, seeds, grow!
More on that later, when more stuff happens.
We pulled several months' worth of weeds, tilled the soil, and spread seeds for winter rye and crimson clover. They're cover crops that will:
1. Prevent soil erosion
2. Prevent weed growth
3. Fix nitrogen in the soil - more nutrients for spring seeds!
4. Maybe even attract some biodiversity.
Then we watered them. To build our arm strength, we filled a watering can in our apartment and then carried it out to the garden plot four times. (We don't have a hose or rain catchment system or nothin' hooked up yet - they're working on it.)
Grow, seeds, grow!
More on that later, when more stuff happens.
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