Barnwood Desk and Cradenza

I possess a few family antiques, the cedar chest that my grandfather made for my grandmother and various other pieces handed down. What I did not possess was a headboard and frame for my bed, a desk arrangement that would fit a very specific space and need, something to put my collection of DVDs into, dressers for my clothes, and bookcases (lots of bookcases!).

Now up until this point my decorating style could best be described as early geek meets treehugger. As long as my laptop was not going to fall on the floor I was pretty good with that. As long as the chair or couch was comfortable enough for me and the dog to stay ensconced for extended sessions of gaming that was fine. But starting out on a totally new life after a divorce makes one reconsider odd things. In my case, furniture.

I decided I wanted my new furniture to match the few good antique pieces I had, but I couldn’t afford more antiques. I decided I wanted pieces that were consistent with my goal of living a 3Rs lifestyle, but the pieces needed to fit in precise spaces in my new home. So how do you find furniture that looks old, adheres to the renew/reuse/recycle lifestyle and fits in specific spaces and stays within a modest budget? My solution was to have custom furniture made using recycled barnwood. Now the thought of custom made furniture usually means you are going to part with large sums of money, but I found a place where you can custom design your furniture for size, look and function AND it was less or the same price as the particleboard/laminate stuff at the local furniture stores. Additionally, each piece is solid wood that is hundreds of years old. New antiques.

This amazing place is called Cherry Acres Furniture in Lititz, PA. I happened to be visiting friends who live in Lititz when we went into the Cherry Acres store on Main Street. At first I just thought it was cool that all their beautiful furniture was made from recycled wood. Then I started asking a lot of questions and soon I was placing an order. Besides their store, they also have a website you can google, but the website doesn’t do justice to the furniture in their store or the magic they can work if you have an idea about what you want.

I didn’t even have to pay to have the furniture shipped. I picked up my furniture when the owners were attending a furniture show here in Massachusetts! If you are trying to lead a green lifestyle and are considering new furniture you ought to check them out. I really loved it when the guys I hired to unload the furniture said, “We will be really careful with these, they are obviously antiques.” If I need more furniture in the future I will definitely go to these guys.

Barnwood Stackable Book Boxes

Reporduction Barnwood Headboard

Barnwood Stackable Book Boxes

Technorati Tags: Recycle/Renew/Reuse

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, Conservation, High Tech, sustainability

Doyle Center

Wesley Ward, Vice President of Land Conservation for The Trustees was heading up the meeting which was focused on presenting preliminary ideas for how The Trustees envision making better use of the property and to garner ideas and feedback from the community members who were present. As with all meetings, there were naysayers, rules quoters, and the sort of people who you have to listen too, BUT there was a good number of people who saw the vision of what was trying to be acheived. That was very exciting!

Of course yours truly couldn’t let this occasion go by without getting on my soapbox and stumping for more places for people to learn the skills to “Go Green” in cost effective, economical ways. After all, let’s get real, if we wait around till the government, our educational systems, corporations, etc. get around to embracing sustainability, I mean really embracing it, we are in real trouble. This has to be a grass roots, neighborhood, community based level movement and I’m excited that places like the Doyle Community Park & Center exist. They deserve a lot more attention than they are getting. Check out Doyle Community Park & Center, as well as the great work of The Trustees of Reservations in Massachusetts.

Have a fabulous 4th of July!

Technorati Tags: Conservation, environmentalism, sustainability, The Trustees of Reservations

http://bit.ly/9F9U5E

CBS Video

Technorati Tags: environmentalism, Gulf Oil Spill, Saving the Planet

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Here is an interview with a toxicologist on site in the Gulf of Mexico who says that no safety precautions are being taken to safeguard the health of volunteers or workers cleaning up the oil spill there. Like people who have helped in past disasters (Exxon Valdez, 9/11, etc.) they run significant risk of long term health injury or death because of their willingness to help out and do the right thing.

Breaking News: Gulf Air \”Unsafe\”

Technorati Tags: environmentalism, Gulf Oil Spill, Heath risks

www.foreignpolicy.com/files/oil_1.jpg

Louisiana Oil SpillLouisiana Oil SpillLouisiana Oil SpillGulf Coast Oil SpillWhen I was in high school I had a math teacher who always said, “We learn best those things that cost us blood.” Under ordinary circumstances I would agree with that, but human beings as a species seem to have developed some sort of odd learning disability. We seem incapable of learning from the past these days. Some sort of selective memory disorder that set in around the Industrial Age, perhaps?

www.foreignpolicy.com/files/oil_1.jpg

When I was in high school I had a math teacher who always said, “We learn best those things that cost us blood.” Under ordinary circumstances I would agree with that, but human beings as a species seem to have developed some sort of odd learning disability. We seem incapable of learning from the past these days; some sort of selective memory disorder that set in around the Industrial Age, perhaps?

I have watched in horror and dismay over the past week and a half as the story of the Louisiana oil spill goes from bad to worse to disastrous. To make matters worse this ecological meltdown is occurring in my personal childhood backyard.  Five generations of my family have lived in the South along the Gulf Coast or nearby. Members of my family have worked on oil rigs, fished off the shores of Gulf and have engaged in any other sort of work to be found in the area stretching from Texas to Florida. They typically support anything that bring more jobs into the area and puts food on the family table, so they would definitily fall into the Drill, Baby, Drill camp. I on the other hand, tend to take a longer view of the decisions being made regarding the care our global ecosystem and I  have a deep and abiding love of the wild aspects of the South where I grew up. If I had to chose between alligators and strip malls, I’ll vote for the alligators and the birds and the sea turtles, all of who were already endangered or under environmental threat before BP’s Deepwater Horizon blew up and spewed, what is now thought to be, approximately 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

We seem to have forgotten our environmental history in the United States. The very first Earth Day was a reaction to a blowout of an oil platform off of Santa Barbara, CA in 1969. That same disaster gave rise to President Nixon’s National Environmental Policy Act and led to a moratorium on new drilling off both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Twenty years later, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurs and though Exxon was ordered to pay $5 billion in compensation to the fishermen whose livelihoods were destroyed, only $507.5 million in damages was every paid out. Populations of killer whales, herring and various species of birds never recovered. Fishing villages disappeared completely in Alaska. Not surprising, since it turns out studies demonstrated that the oil spill was several hundred times more toxic than was originally predicted. Now in 2010, another environmental catastrophe occurs two days before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and we are  faced with an ecological disaster that threatens to dwarf all previous oil spill mishaps. Obviously we are not learning from our mistakes or our history. Maybe we should not be allowed to play in this sandbox till we learn how to do so responsibly.

While we can blame big oil companies like Exxon and BP for these disasters — especially for the preventable aspects of them — we need to acknowledge that the root cause of the problem is our addiction to all thing petroleum based. We can play the finger pointing game with big corporations, the federal government and all the usual suspects, but in the end we all have to educate ourselves and become active in saving the world’s oceans and start cutting petroleum from our lives. It shows up in the most unlikely places — your allergy medication, for instance. We have developed the tunnel vision of addicts, all we (as a nation) can focus on is oil when we really need to be looking for other solutions to our energy problems. Oil is just black liquid crack and we need to kick the habit. What would you be willing to do to get clean and free of this addiction?

Video:Louisiana Oil Spill

Technorati Tags: Gulf Oil Spill, Louisiana Oil Spill

from Treehugger.com

Technorati Tags: Biodiversity, Climate Change, environmentalism, Farmers Markets, green, Heirloom Plants & Seeds, Let's Move, Nature, Saving the Planet, sustainability

Monticello Vegetable Garden

I spent part of this last weekend roaming around Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. It is an amazing place and while I love taking the tour of the house that he designed, it is the grounds that I love best. Specifically the gardens. There is an area off of Mulberry Row, which was the main throughfare of the estate, where Jefferson had the vegetable garden for the plantation. Jefferson’s household vegetable garden was over 1000 feet long and covered 2 square acres. It overlooks an 8 acre orchard and a separate vineyard. I should be so lucky to have such a garden plot. Forget the 5000 acres of woodlands that go with it.

Monticello Vegetable Garden

I recently spent a weekend roaming around Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. It is an amazing place and while I love taking the tour of the house that he designed, it is the grounds that I love best. Specifically the gardens. There is an area off of Mulberry Row, which was the main throughfare of the estate, where Jefferson had the vegetable garden for the plantation. Jefferson’s household vegetable garden was over 1000 feet long and covered 2 square acres. It overlooks an 8 acre orchard and a separate vineyard. I should be so lucky to have such a garden plot. Forget the 5000 acres of woodlands that go with it.

My gardening is limited to container gardening in my postage stamp sized backyard of my townhouse in Massachusetts these days. However, I have managed to bring home a small part of Monticello that I hope to enjoy as the growing season begins in New England. One of the things I love about Monticello is that they have the Thomas Jefferson Centre for Historic Plants. The Center collects, preserves, and distributes historic plant varieties and strives to promote greater appreciation for the origins and evolution of garden plants.  One of the things that the Center does is sell Heirloom seeds to the public. What are Heirloom seeds you might ask and how are they different from any other seeds you might purchase and plant this Spring. I’m glad you asked…

Typically there are 3 types of seeds familar to most gardners. The first kind is called First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids). These seeds are hand-pollinated, and are patented and often sterile. These seeds are genetically identical within specific food types and are sold exclusively by multinational seed companies. Since they are usually sterile you get to buy new seeds every year to grow your beans, tomatoes, flowers, whatever. Hence, you are a permanent repeat customer for the seed companies.

A second type of seeds are genetically engineered. Bioengineered seeds are rapidly contaminating the global seed supply and threatening the genetic integrity of seeds everywhere. The DNA of the plant has been changed permanently when it is artifically modified. A common trick is to splice DNA from a fish that survives in extreme cold water into strawberries so they become frost resistant. Not a bad idea on the surface, but the biological implications are quite frightening.

A third kind of seeds are called heirloom or open-pollinated. Typically, heirlooms have adapted over time to whatever climate and soil they have been grown in. Due to their genetics, they are often resistant to local pests, diseases and extremes of weather.With heirloom seeds there are thousands or 10,000s varieties of a type of fruit or vegetable, compared to the very few F1 hybrid types of the same fruit or vegetable. This is good. If a disease attacks and destroys a particular variety of tomato there are still a few thousand varieties around that may resist that disease.

The loss of genetic seed diversity facing us today may lead to a catastrophe far beyond our imagining. The Irish potato famine, which led to the death or displacement of two and a half million people in the 1840s, is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as crop cornerstones.

We can help save heirloom seeds by learning how to buy and save these genetically diverse jewels ourselves. There are a number of sources of information regarding heirloom plants and seeds as well as a variety of suppliers where heirlooms can be purchased. A few are listed below. As Spring gets kicked off consider supporting biodiversity by planting heirloom seeds and plants. Besides they taste fantastic!

Seeds of Change

Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants

Seed Saver Exchange

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Technorati Tags: Biodiversity, environmentalism, Farmers Markets, Heirloom Plants & Seeds, Nature, Saving the Planet, sustainability

I usually avoid TV by and large. I am an admitted book snob, but tonight I will be watching the 82nd Oscars and rooting for Avatar to win, if for no other reason that the message of changing our relationship with the planet becomes so mainstream that it become absurdly obvious what we must do.

Technorati Tags: arts, Avatar, environmental policy, environmentalism, ethics, film, Global Green, human rights, James Cameron, movies, Navi, Oscars, science fiction

Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

At this time of year in New England I tend to go through fresh fruit and vegetable withdrawal. I know I can go to the local grocery store and buy produce shipped in from hundreds or thousands of miles away and, if all else fails, I will probably do that. But I prefer local produce from the surrounding area where I live. It is part of the way I try to keep my personal carbon footprint small. Right now in the dead of winter, when I check the Locavore app on my iTouch it says, ” Nothing currently in season here [Massachusetts].” and to add insult to injury, it also says, “No new food coming into season soon.” As if lack of sunlight, snow and bitter cold weren’t enough. But I do know that eventually there will be beautiful fresh vegetables and gorgeous fruit on display at any number of farmers markets in the area.

Not everybody is so lucky though. In what are being described as “food deserts” there is a complete lack of healthy, fresh produce year round. These food deserts are commonly found in poor urban areas. There maybe any number of convenience stores and fast food restaurants in these areas, but no place that has the healthy, tempting fresh produce I see most Saturdays at my local farmers market. Interestingly enough the First Lady, as part of her Let’s Move campaign, has targeted eliminating these food deserts in the next seven years. Here is a link to an article in the Huffington Post about her plans. Check it out. There is even some pretty cool video.

Technorati Tags: Farmers Markets, food deserts, Let's Move, sustainability