Cleaning Up- 3. It's Not Easy Being Green

 

Today (4/2/2025) we held a family meeting with our 6 year old Young Cultivator (Fallon) to discuss what going green means and some things we could do.  

Since today is also trash pick-up day, we immediately got to work picking up trash and glass litter along our sidewalk.  We have a landscaping crew tidy up every fortnight but a lot accumulated in the week since their last visit.  Fallon tackled the "less gross" items like fly away candy wrappers.  Mom got to test out her new casabella "buy it for life" dish gloves picking up a cache of rusty razorblades dumped in the grass along the sidewalk.  We are across the street from an elementary school!  Fallon offered to pay mom $1/dog(?) turd from her piggy bank.  This was the going rate we offer when she is inclined to clean up the small family dog's deposits in the yard.  Mom was not convinced deposits of this size could have originated from a dog, and declined the offer, muttering something about the need to save for college and that biowaste was organic enough to break down on its own eventually.  Alas, our sidewalk is therefore not immaculate, but in much better shape than it was.  Once upon a snarkier time, Mom maintained a "trash faeries" instagram account documenting the crazy things that seemed to materialize overnight on the verge along the sidewalk.  No mattresses, milk crates of used motor oil, or Christmas trees today, but here is the 2 gallon bucket haul we collected just from our corner of the block.  

There had been some discussion of sharing seeds.  As it is spring and few things have viable seeds to share at this point, we had to improvise.  Fallon collected and packaged pine needles, dandelion greens, and materials for making humming bird nests.  Mommy transplanted some extra tomato seedlings into warp pipes, corralled several houseplant housewarming gifts that did not spark joy, and combined leftover trick or treat fun sized playdough giveaways with small seed packs of cilantro.  Everything was priced at "free" except for the Big Stick which Fallon insisted was worth $1.  To Mom's surprise, it was the first item to go; with a nice lady who was looking for ginger plants but could use it as a clothes line.  Mom thought it might also be helpful for scaring away whatever unchaperoned direwolves are frequenting the barrio overnight.  

Fallon and mom got in a debate about what types of foods have the highest water footprint.  Fallon felt almonds were problematic, perhaps she has been watching Pom Wonderful Central Valley agricultural vs urban water rights exposes.  Mom felt meat and animal products needed more water because they were higher up the food chain and consumed the plants and their water footprint before being harvested.  In our evening family debriefing, we asked ChatGPT to weigh in and on how much water per 100 calories of food produced for common whole food grocery items.  Mom thinks she won this meat vs nuts debate, but was chagrined to learn 100 calories of coffee tops the charts at 8,000 liters of water...  Let's think of that as a spice, no one is drinking coffee for gains, right?  How do you reckon corn takes 625 L, wheat 471 L, but a product made from those inputs, tortillas takes only 400?  What is going on with apples and lettuce needing more than cheese?  Is it supply chain spoilage?  Something fishy with ChatGPT?  We've been watching The Martian in installments and it looks like if one were to pull a Mark Watney and subsist for a year on just potatoes, they would need 719,000 gallons of water to do it.  That's like draining the backyard swimming pool 22 times for one person!

Sol 1 of this merit badge down, 20 more days to go!  

Sol 3 (4/4) - we read The Lorax, discussed and made a list of ways inspired by the story to live greener.  Mom rates it 5/5 stars.  Fallon rates it 4.5/5 stars because she feels the author took too many poetic liberties-- BIGGERING is not a real word.  

Sol 5 (4/7) - we read The Good Garden (Katie Smith Milway) to learn more about Honduras, where we are traveling in 2 days.  Mom was moved by this because she is also reading Open Veins of Latin America and most of the "technology" the peripatetic teacher introduced to the town like milpas and terracing was invented by Mayans and Incans in this region but seem to have been wiped out over several centuries of epidemics, resource extraction and sugar/coffee monoculture to fuel triangle trade.  Like the protagonist, Maria Luz, Fallon retired to the garden to plant her "cash crop" of radishes, for her next plant market driveway sale.  She couldn't resist also putting in a row of purple carrots which we may remember to look for despite their long germination time as they are planted along the faster germinating radishes.  Disappointed we didn't have any chitted potatoes to replicate Matt Damon's experiment in the Martian, she improvised with a purple sweet potato.  Mom has never seen anyone propagate  potatoes in quite this fashion and has doubts about top-dressing the mounds with pill bugs, but she remains open-minded and relieved Fallon did not hew so closely to Damon's method as to top dress with humanure.  

Sol 19 (4/21) - We have returned from a spring break trip to Roatan, Honduras.  At Kids Sea Camp, we learned how to snorkel/remembered how to dive and explored the second largest reef in the world.  We attended a presentation about coral bleaching and efforts to restore elk and staghorn coral by propagating it in nurseries and epoxying specimen back onto the reef in key areas to repopulate bleached or damaged areas.  Many things can cause coral to bleach including chemical sunscreens (we had packed a reef safe zinc-based mineral one), warmer sea water from climate change, and even bacteria which cause cholera/diarrhea and can run off mainland with rudimentary sewage disposal systems.  At the closing ceremony of Kids Sea Camp, the organizers encouraged families to keep diving because it is such a compelling way to appreciate what is happening to our planet.  

When we got home, mom found an organization which helps educate about carbon footprints and the actions we can take to offset them.  Mom paid to offset the family airfare and plans to do the same for trips planned to Portland, OR; Minneapolis, MN; and Barcelona, Spain.  

Sol 20 (4/22) Earth Day.  We read aloud What is Climate Change?  We learned that Earth Day is 55 years old today, having been started by President Nixon's legislation about clean air in 1970.  

Sol 21 (4/23)  We used our repaid Kiva loans to make a new microloan to Juan Ramon, a Honduran coffee farmer/bodega owner to buy urea fertilizer, foliate sprays, and insecticides.  This was inspired by learning about the extortionary coyotes mentioned in the Good Garden (sol 5) and Mom's admiration for the quality of the coffee available on vacation in Roatan--  even in the giant buffet carafe.  

Sol 23 (4/25) While waiting on the pool deck for a swim lesson, we read the graphic novel pages of World Without Fish and compared our experiences on the reef to the little girl (turned adult marine biologist) in the story.  

Sol 24 (4/26) A pre-owned copy of Made You Look: How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know (by Shari Graydon) arrived.  We are reading a chapter or so a day of this graphic novel to be more aware of when and how we are being persuaded by advertisers.  Mom relishes the irony of now "promoting" this book product on our blog, but we have not been paid to do so and think that if you read this book, it might actually save you money.  It doesn't directly address "cleaning up," we think it will be a force multiplier for avoiding buying things we don't need and will be disappointed with which would then go into a landfill.  For instance, we talked about how the "toys" in McDonald's Happy Meals are often just promotional materials to encourage us to see new movies, play new video games, or collect Pokemon cards.  

Sol 26 (4/28) We bike/ran to the playground, practicing stopping at intersections and sharing the sidewalk.  On the way back, we used our city's app to report 2 graffitied walls.  We talked a bit about why people tag, gangs, how fighting can be dangerous (two kids have been shot in front of our house because of gang disputes and it is so sad to see how the survivors keep candle shrines going in remembrance).   

Sol 27 (4/29) The end of driveway Plant Market was again in business.  We greeted a lot of neighbors, but didn't move merchandise today.  Mom eyed the many racks of bananas that have set and thinks we might need to do this again, or something similarly inspired (i.e. "take what you need" farm stand).  Between customers, we noticed our potato propagation (Sol 5) was not growing and in fact was getting eaten by the rolly pollies.