The Art of Resilience: Compost lasagna is delicious…

Compost, about to be sifted.

…if you’re one of the worms or billions of microbes that have been getting cozy in our compost system, that is. Over the past few weeks, we’ve gotten our system underway, and I wanted to give you an update. There was unsifted compost left over from the piles that sat untended next to our fence for a year, so we started by sifting all of the larger pieces out.

Compost, sifted and ready to go.

As you can see, the resulting compost looks great! It felt (like a moist sponge) and smelled (like fresh earth) great, too. We mixed some of it into a raised bed in the garden, and we’re saving the rest for when we start planting soon. (Saving compost is fine, but try to keep it a little damp if you can.) The larger pieces that we had sifted out went back into the first – now empty – compost bin, and built up a compost pile from scratch, using these guidelines. Weeks later, here’s the result:

Compost lasagna!

It’s not exactly lasagna…but I thought Joy (one of our FLAT interns this semester) had come up with a good analogy. We alternated layers of food scraps with manure, straw, and pieces of compost material that didn’t get through the sifter, sprinkling with water to keep the whole pile slightly damp. It smelled, but like decomposition, not like rotting garbage.

Dave turning compost into the middle bin.

And as Dave turned the lasagna into the middle bin to continue composting, we saw worms and some other awesome creepy crawlies that make for a healthy compost pile. Turning the compost helps to redistribute the microbes and worms crucial to decomposition, as well as mix in oxygen necessary to the process.

Freshly turned compost in the middle bin.

The middle bin is now full of mixed, partly decomposed compost materials. It’ll continue to decompose, and we’ll stir it every couple of weeks to mix the microbes up and infuse it with more oxygen. At the same time, we’ll be building a new lasagna pile in the empty bin. Once it’s full, we’ll turn the middle bin into the finishing bin to be sifted, and turn the lasagna into the middle bin…and the cycle continues.

Stop by our Earth Week Kick-Off BBQ this Friday to see our compost system in action! And until then, make it a resilient week.

The Art of Resilience: Don’t forget about stayin’ alive.

Ahh, ahh, ahh, yeah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…John Travolta and the Bee Gees had a real thing going back in the golden days of disco, and we can learn something from it today. In the quest for environmental resilience, we are often so eager to create the kind of world we want to live in that we forget about the key to it all: personal resilience.

I know, I know, none of us environmental do-gooders really want to think about it: “Taking care of myself? But there’s so much work to be done! I have to turn the compost, and feed the chickens, and chop some wood, and ride my bike, and call my senator, and volunteer doing stream restoration, and make more money so I can afford to buy organic food and clothing! There’s no time to rest when you’re saving the world!” Trying to live lightly on the earth can so easily turn into a lifestyle that includes a lot of wear and tear on our bodies and minds.

UM is in the throes of spring semester, with papers due and finals coming up all too soon. Spring break just ended, and people are starting to look a little wild-eyed from less sleep and more caffeine. The temptation to abandon personal sustainability in favor of accomplishing goals – even goals that contribute to environmental sustainability – can be overwhelming. I’ve started subconsciously bargaining with myself: if I sleep less and exercise less now, I promise I’ll make up for it this summer…

That’s why I always cling to wisdom – and science – like these tips, that remind us of the importance of caring for ourselves even as we strive to care for the world around us:

- Not convinced that sleep really makes a difference? Turns out that getting one additional hour of sleep each night would make you happier than earning $60,000 more a year.

- Exercising at least a little bit every day decreases depression in everyone. I know you’ve heard it before…but really, folks, it works.

- The average person spends nearly 47 percent of their waking hours with their mind wandering…living in the present moment and engaging with what you are doing right now keeps you more sane. And alive.

- Trusting yourself actually reduces the odds of having a whole slew of psychological issues like anxiety, depression, and lower self-esteem.

There are so many more words of wisdom out there, urging you to remember that you can’t change anything unless you are first a whole and healthy person. I’ll leave you with some encouragement from the great civil rights activist Audre Lorde:

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

Make your week resilient. Give yourself that extra hour of sleep, or a really delicious meal, or a walk outside in the late afternoon sun. The environment will thank you.

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The Art of Resilience: Baking soda and vinegar aren’t just for volcanoes.

If you had asked ten-year-old me what baking soda and vinegar are good for, I would have peered into my mother’s kitchen cabinets, scrunched my face in confusion, and hazarded these guesses: “Baking soda goes in waffles to make them fluffy. Vinegar, who knows? It just smells bad.” And thus I lived most of my life in darkness, never realizing the true power of these two lackluster kitchen staples.

One look at the list of ingredients on any household cleaning product or even your own bottle of shampoo, and your head will start to spin. (Unless you’re a chemistry nerd, in which case, you might actually understand what you’re reading.) You can also bet your bottom dollar that you can save your bottom dollar by making your own cleaning products and even shampoo for a fraction of the cost of your usual products. (Your body and the environment will thank you.) The secret ingredients? Yup, baking soda and vinegar – they form the foundation for most of these recipes, with a few other household products playing supporting roles:

 

All-Purpose Cleaner

Use in place of Windex, 409, Mr. Clean, Lysol, or any other spray cleaner

- a spray bottle

- 2 cups water

- 2 cups white distilled vinegar

- 3 teaspoons liquid castile soap (like Dr. Bronner’s)

- 1 teaspoon of tea tree oil

Pour all ingredients into a spray bottle and shake well. If your spray bottle holds less than four cups of liquid, just cut the recipe in half. The castile soap and tea tree oil are optional, but they add cleaning and disinfecting properties.

 

Surface Scrub

Use in place of Comet, Scrubbing Bubbles, Soft Scrub, or any other abrasive cleaner

- a clean glass jar with a lid that seals tightly

- 2 cups baking soda

- ½ to 2/3 cup liquid castile soap

- 5 drops essential oil such as lavender, tea tree, rosemary or any scent you prefer

Mix ingredients together in the jar and store in a cool, dark place. Slap some of it on a sponge whenever you need to tackle some tough grime. The essential oil is optional, but will add antibacterial qualities. * Cheater version: add just enough water to 2 cups of baking soda to form a wet paste and store in the jar.

 

Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Use in place of Clorox, Lysol, Scrubbing Bubbles, or any other toilet cleaner

- 3 tablespoons to ¼ cup baking soda

- ¼ cup white distilled vinegar

Sprinkle the toilet bowl with baking soda and drizzle the vinegar on top. Let it soak for about a half an hour – go for a run, do some reading, get lost on Pinterest – and then scrub with a toilet brush.

 

Drain Opener

Use in place of Drano, Liquid-Plumbr, or any other drain de-clogger

- ½ cup baking soda

- ½ cup white distilled vinegar

- 2 cups boiling water

 Pour baking soda down the drain, then vinegar. Cover with a small plate or jar lid and let sit for 10 minutes to a half an hour, and then pour boiling water down the drain. Don’t worry if your drain seems to “belch up” air bubbles; that’s totally normal.

 

Shampoo and Conditioner

Use baking soda solution instead of shampoo and vinegar solution instead of conditioner…it sounds weird, but trust me, it’s worth a try. Baking soda strips your hair of all of the grease and gunk, while vinegar detangles, seals your follicles, and makes your tresses shine.

- 2 clean plastic squeeze bottles (reuse empty shampoo and conditioner bottles!)

- baking soda

- apple cider vinegar (not white distilled vinegar this time)

Into one bottle, mix 1 tablespoon baking soda for every 1 cup of water. Pour 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar for every 1 cup of water into the second bottle. Make sure to shake each bottle before squeezing some of the solution onto your hair. Start with the baking soda solution: squirt some onto your hair, massage, and rinse. Use the same technique for the vinegar conditioner. (The intense vinegar smell goes away by the time your hair is dry, I promise. If you’re still nervous, add a drop of essential oil or vanilla essence to counteract the smell.) * Note: the ratio of baking soda to vinegar can vary between hair types. If your hair is too dry after using this ratio, try using less baking soda in your shampoo.

Recipes adapted mostly from Women’s Voices for the Earth and here and here on Grist.org. If this gets you on a DIY cleaning and personal care kick, the possibilities are endless! This primer on DIY household cleaners and this list of homemade self-care products are great places to start.

The Art of Resilience: Guess who beat Michael Pollan to making “food rules”?

Michael Pollan, famous for The Omnivore’s Dilemma among many other books, wrote Food Rules to provide a primer for people who want to eat in a way that is more sustainable – personally, environmentally, socially, and even economically. But believe it or not, the United States government had beat him to it nearly a century earlier!

The Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917 was a wartime emergency measure that President Wilson pushed for in the midst of World War I. It intended to conserve resources at home so that more supplies could be sent to troops in Europe. Along with cultivating home “victory gardens,” the nation’s citizens were encouraged to practice “meatless Tuesdays,” “sweetless Saturdays,” and “wheatless” Mondays and Wednesdays. The act was repealed in 1921.

It’s interesting, though, and a little eerie that what the government was proposing in 1917 should so closely echo what many parts of the environmental movement strive for today: buying local. Reducing consumption of meat, wheat, and processed sugars. Wasting less and making use of what you have. Even though it was only an emergency wartime act, it’s worth remembering that at one point, our government had its head on straight when it came to food.

Try out these century-old “food rules” this week for some WWI-era resilience!

The Art of Resilience: The pitfalls of being a sustainable packrat.

Every children’s song about recycling that I learned always included a phrase like “Reduce, reuse, recycle!” often accompanied by hand motions that look pretty adorable when performed by a group of five-year-olds. The same hand motions, I’ve noticed, look a little more dorky when performed by anyone older than five. But back to the song: reduce comes before reuse and recycle, and I’d like to argue that this is for good reason.

The FLAT has been looking a little different lately, and Dave Wise is the culprit. You see, in our never-ending adventure to be as practically sustainable as possible – and on a small budget – FLAT residents have become skilled scavengers, harvesting unused and unwanted materials from around Missoula for projects. We’re great at reusing: a variety of fixtures, from our compost system and chicken coop to kitchen shelves and furniture, are built from materials no one wanted anymore. This is a wonderful thing, because whenever one of us wanted to start a new project, we could probably find what we needed sitting in a neat pile of lumber or odds and ends in the yard or garage. The not-so-wonderful side effect is, well, that we had lots of piles of odds and ends around. And a lot of it wasn’t getting reused. It was just sitting there.

So Dave got busy last week and took all of the odds and ends that weren’t getting used – mostly lumber – to Eko Compost to be recycled.

Now, if you’re anything like me, part of you yelps, “But wait! What if we could have used that for something!” The idea of reusing has been so ingrained in our culture of sustainability that the thought of getting rid of anything starts to feel almost unethical.  ”But what if we can use that for something” becomes an excuse to be a pack rat, to hoard extra whatever-it-is just in case it comes in handy…you know, sometime in the future. And this isn’t just construction materials – we do it with clothes, food, books, you name it. All in honor of sustainability, of not letting anything go to waste.

I have to admit, one of my initial reactions to Dave’s cleaning campaign was one of irritation. The things he brought to Eko Compost really could have come in handy…you know, sometime. They did get recycled; but reuse comes before recycle in the song, so shouldn’t we prioritize reusing? Dave’s actions remind me that while reusing is important, reducing comes first. Having everything you might ever need to live sustainably, lying around the nooks and crannies of your house, doesn’t exactly fall in line with the idea of reducing the amount of stuff you have. What if resilience means remembering to have less first, and reuse only when you need to?

The yard and garage are refreshing to be in now: clean open spaces, no clutter in sight. Resiliency can be relaxing, after all.

What do you tend to be a pack rat about? How could you recycle it and start anew? Spring cleaning is just around the corner…make this week resilient and try reducing some of your stuff!

The Art of Resilience: Get yer sprouts on!

Did you know that Daylight Savings is right around the corner? Maybe it’s just me, but the short, dark days of my first winter in Montana felt like they were never going to end. But after a gorgeous bluebird sky like we had in Missoula today, I can feel my inner hibernating bear begin to blink her sleepy eyes and think about going for a ramble in the hills. It might take a little longer for the plants and seeds outside to wake up, but don’t let that keep you from getting a head start on your garden this year!

We FLATmates love our eggs, which means we end up with a lot of egg cartons. They’re recyclable, but somehow we end up hanging on to them, in case we come up with a great way to repurpose them. (Reuse comes before recycle, after all!) I decided to turn a couple of egg carton bottoms into propagation trays for an indoor herb garden I’m going to install in the back house at the FLAT. Here’s how you can, too!

Cut the lid off of an egg carton (or two, or three…) and get your hands on some potting soil. Compost will work fabulously too, if you have any of that rich loamy stuff around. You’ll need seeds of whatever sort of plant you’d like to grow – I fished through our collection of seed packets and chose a variety of herbs that should grow well inside, with a moderate amount of light.

Fill the egg carton bottom with soil or compost so that it is full to the edge of the carton. Plant a few seeds in each egg space according to their needs – some seeds, especially the smaller ones, should be planted close to the surface of the soil, while larger ones can often be planted up to 1/4″ deep. It’s good to plant more than one seed per egg space in case some of them don’t end up sprouting. I labeled the sides of the carton center peaks with the type of seed I put in that egg space, so I don’t lose track of what’s planted where.

Water your planted seeds carefully, so that the soil is damp but not sopping. I’ve been using a teaspoon to douse each egg space with as much water as it needs. Make sure to water periodically to keep the seeds from drying out. I’ve been watering them two or three times a day.

Find a warm spot in your house that gets plenty of light for your egg carton propagation trays. My housemate Ellie happens to have a bright light that works well: she hung it from the bottom of a table, and I can turn it on during the day and off during the night. It’s important that the seeds get exposed to alternating light and darkness, since it’s the cycle of day and night that often triggers them to sprout.

The black mat underneath the cartons is a germination mat, specifically made to keep seeds and seedlings warm enough to grow steadily. You can find these mats online if you really want to get into germinating seeds. Otherwise, keeping your cartons in a warm, light space in your house should be fine.

It’s only been two and a half weeks since I planted these seeds, and I’ve already got sorrel, oregano, tulsi (holy basil), and cilantro sprouts! In another few weeks, I’ll transplant them into the hanging indoor herb garden I’m going to build…stay tuned. Until then, keep life resilient!