Category Archives: Awake to Earth

Compost!

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One of the first things I brought over to the new house is a composter.  We had two, one that was active, and one that was quietly “cooking.” This one we emptied for use at our old yard, and then cleaned up to bring over.  We are currently using the other one, and will likely need to leave it at our old house, because it will be full of un”cooked” compost.  I figured I better set this one up before the snow came, but that is taking a lot longer than usual to arrive this year. Still, by the time we actually move, I imagine there will be snow–and we will be ready to compost.

Little Beautiful Changes

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The new windows!

The carpenters are busy at our new house, creating some beautiful changes.  One has been to create a double large window in the back bedroom, where there was only one small window before.

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Before

It is a balancing act for green housing, because any hole in the envelope is a hole in the envelope–but these are on the south side of the house, and will let it a lot of light, and connection to the yard.

It made an immediate difference!  This will be my room where I also hope to put a small desk for writing.  My files will be in the basement, but I wanted to write where there was a lot of sunshine. Today I was looking for a sunny spot in our current home, to read a little for my sermon this week, but a sunny spot was hard to find… I am imagining how nice it will be to sit in the sunshine of these new windows.

I am so glad that in our search for greener housing, I learned how important it was to me that there be beauty in my home. Perhaps otherwise it would have felt too extravagant to include these windows in our plans for making the house our own.

Here is how it looks on the outside, before and after.
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Contradictions

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Maple on BirchwoodIn our search for greener housing, we’ve come upon a paradoxical sad choice. There is a large tree next to our new house, whose branches stretch dangerously over the roof.  If the branches get covered in too much snow, they might break and fall on the roof.  Also, they will block morning sun to our future solar array which is so important for our ability to stop using fossil fuels.

It turns out that this tree–we believe it is a maple–is on Portland Water District land.   At first we thought we could just prune the branches that were over the roof, but this would be quite a severe pruning.  I did some research online and learned that mature trees do not handle severe pruning well: pruning it as needed would likely cause the tree to deteriorate and eventually die. I never knew that before. The PWD doesn’t like the idea of pruning because it would cost as much as cutting it down, and then they’d have to come back later and deal with it at some point in the future.  I had a chat with the PWD right-of-way person today, and we’ve decided reluctantly to let them cut the tree down.

I am someone who listens to trees, and earlier, when I asked the tree about what to do, the tree expressed a willingness to sacrifice itself for the purpose of our moving into greater harmony with the earth.  It seemed so easy and gentle about it all.  But I feel so sad about it all. I love old trees. I love that this tree has multiple trunks and I can squeeze in the middle of them–though I also learned that multiple trunks are not as healthy for a tree.

I am not asking for advice here–just expressing the contradictory feelings that come up for me as we try to navigate our way forward into greener living. We plan to plant many trees on this land–most likely fruit trees and nut trees.  So we will give back when the season arrives.  We may be able to keep the mulch that is created by the process, to use in future gardens. But today, I just want to honor this grandmother tree, and her kindness and serenity and openness to the sincere and contradictory journeys of human travelers.

Prayer to Mother Earth

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Earth_high_def_1024Mother Earth, we human beings have destroyed so much. You would be justified in wiping us off your body. But still–we can sing, and write poems to celebrate your beauty. We are your children, we are so intricately made. There are those among us who are heroes of love and compassion. How creative are the artists, and the stories we humans tell! Let us find a way to live into the future. Help us to grow into our maturity as a species, and not to destroy ourselves and so many others of your children.

Still, if you are on a deeper unfolding journey, of which we know nothing, I yield to this flow of your own maturing. I give thanks to you for being able to witness your beauty and your mystery. You, lovely ocean world, you, blue and green and gold and white sphere full of life.  And always–life and death and more life again. I stand in awe to be included in such a world.

Papers & Promises

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Our new home

Today we signed the papers that say we are now the owners of this house and land in Portland. But we think of it more like a promise in a marriage–we have entered into a relationship with this land to care for it as it cares for us, to get to know it as it gets to know us, to build a partnership of mutual respect and love, as we seek to grow into deeper harmony with the Earth and all beings who share this planet with us.

I feel so thankful that our search for greener housing has come this far. And looking forward to the next steps in making this home a greener home, to live more simply, to walk with smaller footprints. It seems fitting that this part of our journey was completed as the world leaders are convening in Paris asking those hard questions. How can we shift our world away from carbon emissions? How can we live more gently on our planet? How can we ensure a future for the world’s children?  Each of us can do our part, but we all need to join together for this great hope.

Twelve Days of Climate Prayer

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Today the climate talks begin in Paris, and I am joining with many others to pray, to meditate, to pay attention, to lend our individual energies to this most important project of humankind. Can we act together to shift our way of life from planet destruction to planet healing?

On each of the twelve days of the talks, I intend to pray at sunrise, to ask for help from all of our siblings on this planet–the animals, the trees, the birds, the plants, the winds, the moon.  Help us to learn to live in mutually beneficial ways with all life on Earth!

I don’t put my hope in the goals or plans of the participants in the climate talks.  I have heard that the goals are so modest, they won’t create enough change to save us from devastating global warming.  But I do feel inspired by the ordinary people around the world who have more ambitious goals. We want a planet that is full of life for human beings and all other beings!

I am hopeful because there are so many others who are praying, meditating, paying attention, protesting, changing our own habits, changing our investments, changing what we buy, changing what we grow, changing how we think and how we live.

What do you love about this Earth? Please join in a twelve-day global focus on transformation! If you pray, pray for this. If you don’t pray, take some other action each day on behalf of the Earth. Find hope in the energies of hundreds, thousands, millions, billions who love the Earth, and love life, who are joining in this powerful intention.

A Greener Housing Walk Through

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A couple days ago we had a walk through at our soon-to-be new house with an energy efficiency company representative.  What fun to finally be getting closer to this aspect of our search for greener housing!

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Old attic insulation

We started in the attic, which desperately needs new insulation, and which he said will be easy to insulate.  The sellers had reported using 500 gallons of oil last winter–which seemed like a lot to us.  In our current house, which is twice the size, we had used 600 gallons.  But we did attic insulation several years ago.

They can take out the plywood floors, take out the old fiberglass insulation, add extensions to raise the height of the wooden floor joists, and then blow in cellulose insulation of several inches to achieve a high R-factor. Put back plywood floors so we can use that area for storage.  Create an insulated cover for the pull down ladder, and voila, lower heat bills immediately.

Moving down to the main floor, we learn that our windows aren’t too bad–double pane glass, which we were happy to find out.  But he did mention that French doors (which we want to install in the kitchen) can be problematic for air leakage.  So I’ve been researching options that might be more environmentally sound. Wow, lots of research is involved in this process!  I also called the Maine Green Performance Building Supply to get their opinion–the French doors they recommend can take six weeks to arrive by order.  More to think about.

On to the basement, he recommended sealing and insulation at the rim joists, which is the very bottom of the wood frame of the house above the foundation, for those who haven’t been exploring the bones of your own homes. There is already some insulation between the wall board and basement walls that should be okay.

We also talked about air-source heat pumps, and where they might be placed and how many we might use.  One unit in the living room, one in the basement, and maybe one small unit in each bedroom to have more control of the temperature–all these units attached to one outdoor unit.  Once installed, this would be our primary source of heating and cooling, with oil furnace or wood stove as back up in the coldest days of winter.

He’ll be sending us a full report with pricing estimates next week, and then we can see how we stand.  We are also doing a walk through with another energy efficiency company next week, so we’ll have two estimates to compare. It was really satisfying to hear him say that this house is a very good one for making greener.

Projections from the Shadow Side of History

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Turkeys DSC02379Thanksgiving is a holiday that always fills me with mixed feelings. Gratitude is wonderful, and getting together with family and friends can be a blessing. But I know that the stories we celebrate are white-washed versions of a history that has brought devastation to so many. I always remember that many Indigenous people call this the Day of Mourning.

The only time that foreign immigrants actually brought disease and destruction to this continent was when the English, Spanish, and French came to settle on its shores. Millions of Indigenous peoples died from diseases to which they had no resistance, or were killed in ongoing campaigns by the newcomers to destroy them and their way of life.

So while I give many thanks for my life, it feels sacrilegious to give thanks for prosperity that was built on the suffering and death of so many others. But it does illuminate for me, in a social psychological way, the possible roots of our American fear and hatred of foreign immigrants. I wonder if perhaps these feelings are a form of projection from this unacknowledged shadow side of American history. People imagine that new immigrants will bring destruction because the first settlers were the immigrants who did bring destruction.

This fear of the foreigner never proved realistic with later immigrants—with the Irish, the Italian, the Chinese, the German, the Jewish, the Puerto Rican, and so many others. Despite being hated and derided, they eventually became a part of the fabric of American life. Perhaps there is a link between facing more honestly our own shadowed and genocidal history, and letting go of our fear of the other.

Hard thoughts for a quiet holiday at home. But so many are cold and hungry and desperately seeking a safe harbor. And the tide of xenophobia and racism in our country seems to be rising out of control. Let’s help our friends and neighbors to keep their heads about them. I believe that when we are lucky enough to have shelter and food and clothing and safety, we are responsible for sharing what we can with those who are in need. To me, that is what thanksgiving should be all about.

The Adventure Continues

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Back Door & Window DSC02518Despite the setbacks we’ve experienced, we are still feeling good about this small house with the lovely yard we’ve found in Portland. Today we did something fun–we talked to a carpenter about some renovations we want to do.  We need to convert a one-car garage into a two-car garage–and it turns out it’s fairly easy.  The garage is wide enough, we just need to add a wider door.  We want to put in a French Door from the kitchen to the backyard, in place of the door and window in the picture.  With such a great backyard, we want to have a better connection between the interior and the exterior.  Plus, a French Door will make the entrance wide enough for wheelchair access when we need it.

We also talked about widening the bathroom door for the same access reasons, and putting in French Doors to the office across from the bathroom–to create a wider turning radius in the hallway, and make that room accessible in case of future needs. It will also bring in more light into the hallway.  One more project is to add a window in the back bedroom to bring in more light and connection to the yard. The carpenter said all of these were very straightforward projects, and he’ll send an estimate in a couple days.

After the last weeks, we had to step back and re-decide if we could love the property, even with the Water District taking up part of it.  We learned that the water main is of a kind that may never need replacement or maintenance–the old cast iron pipes before World War II were better made than those following. And the undeveloped land off the back is owned by several abutting neighbors, which makes it less likely to be the site of a big future development. Now we have another land survey issue that we’ve asked the sellers to work out.  So many complications. But all in all, we feel so lucky to have found a good home with a big yard in the city, and so we’ve decided to go forward, and hope that all the complications can be sorted out. Send us good luck and prayers!

 

Bittersweet

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Some hard realities are emerging in our pursuit of the house with the beautiful back yard. It has been a whirlwind of activity for acting on due diligence for the purchase and sale. We’ve had a home inspection, and a solar evaluation. We’ve discovered a few moderate-sized challenges–we’ll have to replace the roof before we can install solar panels.  We’ll have to prune a large tree whose branches hang over the roof.

But perhaps the worst came yesterday, when our realtor called to say that in looking closer at the deed and the page on which it was registered, it appeared that not all the land that seemed to belong to this property actually belongs to it.  There is a Portland Water District parcel that runs next to the land, and it takes up part of the space that was being occupied by the current owners.

We feel angry and betrayed that the sellers never disclosed this information.  In the listing photos and in the placement of some children’s playground equipment, we were led to believe that this property went up to the neighbor’s fence.  But in reality the larger part of the side yard belongs to the PWD.  I remembered that there had been the remnants of a little fence from the front corner of the house over to the neighbor’s fence that had been removed except for the posts.  We are guessing that the realtor suggested they take down the fence because it wasn’t legal, but who knows?

We went to the property today to do some of our own measurements, to see where the boundaries really are, and to try to decide if, with this new information, we still want to choose this property.  We really don’t like the underhanded aspects of real estate–the attempts get the best deal you can, even if you play dirty.  Our own values say, be honest, let it be fair to all involved. We are so glad our realtor shares those values, and also that he is so conscientious and went the extra mile to discover these discrepancies.

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Our red boundary flag

When we did the rough measurements we discovered that the actual front boundary of the property stops about even with the side of the house, and then slants back to the left, away from the house, directly through the play equipment. The big tree, and the neighbors fence too, by the way, are all on PWD land.  We spent a long time in the yard, trying to sort out our feelings about it all.  We still need some more information from the water district. It seems that all the neighborhood properties are currently encroaching on their land.  There is a 20-inch, 101-year-old water main that runs on their land, fortunately toward the other side of it. But will they be tearing it all up to replace or repair in the next twenty or thirty years?

What we’ve learned in this process is that the privacy of this back yard is vulnerable. Along with this water district land, there is a paper road that is undeveloped at the back of the land, that may never be developed, or will it?  On the plus side, all of it expands the sense of space that one feels there.  But on the other hand, will there be future changes over which we have no control? We’ll try to get more information on Monday. We have until Tuesday to withdraw.  But for now, we are still feeling a connection to the land, even tender toward its neglected needs.  In the undeveloped areas off the back edges, there are invasive vines and bittersweet.  One of the values of permaculture is to bring healing to the land. We feel good about that. Please send us prayers for clarity, and the revealing of important truths.

All this is PWD owned land.

All this is PWD owned land.  Photos by Margy Dowzer.