The Demo Site

The Santa Fe City Council will vote June 9 on a proposed telecommu-nications law. If it passes, the ordinance will authorize hundreds of antennae towers to be built all over town. The problem is that if your house happens to be near a new cell tower, the signal will be so strong that your health could be negatively impacted. These would not be the kind of low-grade signals that emanate from your typical Wi-Fi. The waves associated with the system will have to travel to your distant neighbor’s home at the other end of your street many blocks away. Do Santa Feans really want to risk the health of our entire community in a Guinea-pig style test? If you question the antenna-tower approach in the same way that you wonder if we trust our technology too much (in light of, say, the Gulf oil disaster), please attend this hearing.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 7 PM
CITY HALL, 200 LINCOLN AVE.

Please also call your city councilors before the hearing, and let your concerns be made known. I will make my calls but will be unable to attend the hearing. For more information contact:

Arthur Firstenberg
PO Box 6216]
Santa Fe, NM 87502
(505) 471-0129

bearstar@fastmail.fm

Stepping out of our back door, the first thing you might see is a huge patch of sorrel, the leafy green that most people have no idea what to do with. On line, you’ll find lots of recipes for sorrel soup and sorrel punch (a favorite Caribbean rum drink), but its too strong to put large quantities into a salad. Steamed-green dishes featuring sorrel can be incredibly tasty, but in too-large doses its simply overwhelming. A great substitute for both salt and vinegar, sorrel has a lemony taste that quickly makes your mouth pucker if you eat too much of it.

One of the best uses of sorrel is as the tortilla part of a burrito (or for all ya’all on the other side of the Mississippi, the wrap part of a wrap). This week, I been making scrambled egg burritos, pinto bean burritos, and farmers-market-beef-mushroom-garlic-red-chile burritos. They’ve all been wheat free, full of minerals, perfectly flavorful, and wrapped in a delicious dark-green package from just outside the kitchen door.

Almost anyone who has had me as a landscape consultant knows that I have a tendency to pretend to be a future tree, bush, rock, pathway, or any number of physical objects.  Picture a much-too-talkative pantomime. I do this to help people visualize what they will get when we are “done” with the project. (Picasso said, “to say a work of art is ‘done’ is to kill it,” and I say this is even more true outdoors than in a studio.)

But there I was yesterday, minding my new clients’ business. Dogs were barking behind a tall iron fence. The clients were calmly telling them to be quiet. I’d seen it before. Having been introduced to Apollo and Max, lovingly I said, “Hello,” to them, but then quickly ignored the two pooches and started consulting about the desperate need for shade trees in the area. The thought of being able to use their kitchen patio in the daytime—not just morning and night—made my clients’ eyes light up, so I soon transitioned into how a vine against the fence would help make the dogs more comfortable, too.

Turning quickly, as I often do in talking-pantomime mode, I wagged my ass just a little to show how a trumpet vine (with flowers as big as my branched-out hands) might wiggle up a post. Suddenly Apollo, the German Sheppard bit my right butt-cheek, dead center. Although no blood excreted from my fatty flesh, and even though I was able to finish the consultation and bike back from my clients’ home not far from Lone Butte, my cheek is still swore as I write this the next morning.

My clients apologized profusely and said they were surprised because he’d never done that before. When they later said they almost never entertain people in their backyard and certainly not near the dog fence, I started to take the offense less personally. But still one has to ask? Was the universe trying to send me some message? Is is wrong to make a living as a talking pantomime?

Since I often bike my kids to school, Little Earth, where Keenan goes, asked me to speak to the student body about “Bike Safety for Kids.” As one would in a “Bike Safety for Adults” class, we went over the critical themes: be aware, be visible, be equipped, be careful. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the big difference is that people 9 and under are typically safer on the sidewalk, while people 10 and up should ride on the street. This, of course, depends on the child, the neighborhood, and sometimes even the time of day, but it’s very true that almost every cyclist should take to the streets. As driveways pop out behind bushes and concrete slabs get lifted up by tree roots, sidewalks translate into danger. The biggest problem is that no one is expecting fast-moving humans on the sidewalk. If you wear bright colors, out on the street everyone can see you, instantly judge your speed, and be sure to stay away. For more information on kids safety and the sidewalk/street debate, here’s a good place to get started:

http://bit.ly/bTY6bI

I wrapped up my talk by asking the kids, “Why is it a good idea to ride a bicycle?” Three answers quickly came from the raised hands in the crowd: It’s fun, great exercise, and it helps save the world. That about sums it up, but it also provides kids with a sense of independence that is very important given their now-sheltered lives that are too often scheduled to the minute by grown ups.

On a recent ride down Don Gaspar Avenue, Keenan screamed from the tag-along bike that he sits on (firmly attached to mine), “We’re Ocean Savers, Dad!” I liked that very much…By riding our bikes this kid—not knowing at all how far away the ocean is or how essential it will prove to be in his lifetime—knew that for at least a little while we were doing our part to protect the ocean from all of that nastiness he’s heard about in the Gulf. For him, the act of biking became even more than mere independence. It became a kind of moral empowerment that makes an eco-freak daddy like me proud.

It couldn’t have happened to anybody, but it happened to my friend Diego Mulligan at a new-urbanist village called “Oshara.” One minute he’s on a backhoe excavating a two-foot-deep footer for his solar dream home. The next minute he’s digging a nine-foot-deep hole for the ceremonial kiva that he’s always wanted.

So what if such a diversion wasn’t on the plans?

A kiva is a cylindrical hole in the ground with a roof on it. Used by Pueblo Indians of the Southwest for centuries, you typically enter and exit a kiva via a ladder.  Embedded within the Earth, a good kiva will exude healing powers while providing spiritual strength to those who enter.

Getting final approval for the addendum to his plans cost Diego countless hours of sweat equity, but in the end he and his wife Jen were able to have their kiva for a mere $10 per square foot. I had a wonderful experience touring their unfinished house and kiva the other day. Down in the hole, you feel a profound vibe. The acoustics are remarkably soothing, gentle and powerful at the same time. Then, in the quiet, calm protection of the place, my soul suddenly felt grounded and clear in a way that’s mostly unfamiliar to me.

The couple named their future home The Synergy House because it is designed so that every component serves multiple functions. From the solarium and the root cellar to the composting toilet and the cistern, this affordable home may be one of the most ecological structures I’ve ever seen (and as an ecological landscape designer, I see lots of structures). Perhaps more importantly, it looks as if the house might become one of the most comfortable structures that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

When their home is complete, Diego and Jen will broadcast their popular afternoon drive-time radio show from a circular studio located directly over the kiva. “The Journey Home” can be found at www.ksfr.org or from 5:00pm to 6:00pm on the FM dial (at 101.1 anywhere between Taos and Albuquerque). I’m sure it will be a challenging journey for both of them as their building site evolves into a famous eco-home, but now that their kiva is complete, their personal journey home will have a reasonably dependable fountainhead of inspiration—thanks to a bolt of creative confidence and the strength to follow through.

I had an inspiring chat with a national guardswoman this morning at the farmers’ market. Specialist Kennedy was taking a permaculture class at Camino de Paz School and Farm (CPSF), and she would soon be deployed to Afghanistan for 11 or 12 months. Unlike the unfunny joke about the soldier who meets interesting people in far-out places and kills them, Kennedy was planning to do the opposite.

Today, she was helping out behind CPSF’s booth at the market. Tomorrow, she’ll be feeding chickens, weeding crops, spinning wool, making soap out of goat’s milk, and doing whatever it is women in dry, mountainous places do in order to survive. The plan is to send in Kennedy and her team of 14 agricultural specialists to rebuild communities that have been in a state of war for the better part of three decades.

I was no fan of President Obama’s decision to increase troop sizes in such a challenging theater, but our commander in chief’s choice of Kennedy and her team seems like the best one he could have made given the historic failures of foreign invaders in the area. It could have even been the first-ever example of military intelligence but for one small detail: We ought to be doing the same thing here in the United States, and we are nowhere near doing so.

Compared to the average Afghani, very few people in our modern culture have a clue as to how to grow our own food and produce our own energy. Fortunately, we are slowly pulling our heads out of the sand on the issue, but our situation is as precarious as they come, and most people are decades away from fully getting it.

The good news is that those of us doing sustainability-based work in the “civilized” world do not need an additional 50 people in our team to serve as security forces for our socioecological missions. On average, Kennedy said, her agricultural colleagues and she get four bodyguards a piece to keep the peace on the farm/battlefield.

I didn’t ask Kennedy her age, but my guess is that she is easily 20 years younger than I. I didn’t ask her weight, but she was easily 60 pounds lighter than I. She must be strong because including body armor, she’ll often be carrying about 70 pounds of gear. Me? Tomorrow when I hop into the garden to finish a drip irrigation project, I’ll be burdened by about five to seven pounds of tools, materials, and clothes (depending on if I choose shoes or work boots).

When the sun gets hot tomorrow around mid morning, and I think I’ve had enough time out in the backyard, I hope the thought of Kennedy—her worthy mission, her dangerous surroundings, and her 70 pounds of stuff—comes to mind. Maybe then I’ll be motivated to push even harder toward a more digestible backyard.

My former neighbor Mari Hahn just sent me this helpful question coupled with a gradual-greening update from lovely, wet, and green Indiana:

Hi Nate,

Is this where I write my 10 minutes of green stuff?

Today I hauled all my neglected houseplants outside to repot and trim and fertilize and water. They will spend the summer out on the deck, literally greening our space out there.

Hope you’re well!

Mari

Dear Mari:

Glad you found the “Share Here” button! I know it’s odd to be happily bouncing around a colorful blog only to realize that to “Share Here” means to send a decidedly unglamorous email. Sorry!

 

YES! Yours is probably the most fundamental of all gradual-greening activities, namely, drawing people out into their backyards, side yards, or front yards. We must start by simply enjoying the world as it is, without the protection of shelter and climate control and without the meaningless distractions we get from television, YouTube, facebook, and most corners of the blogosphere.

Especially during this growing season, I hope you, Doug, and the kids get to enjoy many magical moments out on your deck and that you bring your friends and neighbors into the abundance of your life outside the four walls of your home. I remember your veggie garden when you braved the challenging soils of Santa Fe. Are you planning to harvest some edibles this year?

Thanks for sharing!

Nate