The Perma Life

I am writing today with a heavy heart and a sense of dread and shame. It has been 8 days now since the tragedy of the explosion of the Deep Horizon oil rig. My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones but as the days pass and oil continues to flow unabated by the thousands of gallons from the sea floor, my sorrow is being replaced by rage and shame.

In the days to come, there will be the inevitable finger pointing, there will be the endless rounds of “expert panel” discussions on the news networks who will ask whether this could have been prevented, who is to blame.

The truth is we are all to blame. We all drive, we all consume oil like there is an endless, safe supply of it. Most shamefully, most of us cannot exist without it as we have not forced our politicians to pursue renewable resources. If anything comes out of this tragedy I hope that it is a real discussion on ending our dependence on fossil fuels.

But for now I need to lay these philosophical discussions aside and face the most important issue at hand- that oil slick is going to hit the Gulf Coast. Whether it will simply be a disaster or a true calamity is up to the wind, the current, and the ability of BP and the response team to staunch the flow.

For now, my job is not to place blame, it is not to use this time as an “educational opportunity” for all of the people I see with “Drill, Baby, Drill” bumper stickers on their cars. My job is simply to start collecting the names and information from volunteers who will be standing by to clean up our beaches and our wildlife. I love my job protecting the Gulf Coast, but I would do anything to not have to do this, to not have to watch my beaches turn tacky with tar. I’m afraid it will be the toughest task we will face here for a long time to come.

Have you ever heard the expression, “why say something in 10 words if you can say it in 1000″? This always makes me laugh somewhat sheepishly because when it comes to expressing myself, brevity is not always a virtue I possess.

There are many many exciting, permaculture/gardening/local-food-revolution-starting things going on in my life at the moment. Life is picking up pace and I am excited about both the speed and direction.

For now, I will exercise brevity and whet your appetite with the following:

Highpoint Community Garden

Fraises des Bois hidden under a pot

1/2 ton of gravel for my new garden path

Edwin Marty

Jones Valley Urban Farm

Sun warmed strawberries

Peas everywhere!

Rain…finally!

There are a few people that I am totally and completely enthralled by. When I was a little girl it was Panch from the TV show “Chips”. Then of course, I had my musical idols like Joey from NKOTB (embarrassingly enough, but hey, I was 8!) and then more recently Jimmy Page, Carl Lewis,  Abra Moore, Jack White, then Nabokov, Tom Robbins, Michael Pollen….as I grew older I began to admire the people who create great music, art, etc. It wasn’t about how good-looking they were, or how cool- it was about the sheer appreciation of their talent and abilities, qualities that I wanted to be close to (perhaps in the hopes that some of it will rub off on me??).

One of my most enduring idols is E.O. Wilson. Can scientists have groupies? If so, then I am a bonafide E.O. Wilson groupie. The man is brilliant, self-deprecating and sincere in a way that few people are. He also happens to be from South Alabama which is amazing to me for 2 very different reasons: 1. If he is from here, and I live here, my chances of actually meeting the man go way up, and

2. There aren’t many folks who rise to his level of unique scientific thought, much less those from the backwoods swamps of the Deep South, which makes his career trajectory all the more amazing.

And, last week, I finally got to meet him and shake his hand! He was in town promoting his first fiction novel, Anthill. He did a short reading from a new novel he just finished writing and then signed books. Our exchange was quick and nonsubstantive, but I have been buzzing ever since. And in my line of work, I will take inspiration wherever I can get it.

It is so wonderful when your heroes live up to your expectations!

PS If you have never read EO Wilson, please do so immediately!

I never used to like primary colors all that much. I’ve always thought they were, well, too obviously cheery, too forced. I typically prefer muted and earth tones for just about everything…my clothes, my decor, etc. etc. But over the last year or so I have become enamored with bright blues and reds. I don’t really know why…

This weekend I was stricken with red and blue fever and I decided that my garden area needed some cosmetic enhancement. So I took several of my old drab pots that I use for growing tomatoes and peppers and painted them blue and red. I also started to paint my tomato cages blue but after finishing 2 of them I decided that was too much of a pain in the keister, and silver is beautiful too.

I took a couple of pics after I finished my handiwork and something struck me: my garden is REALLY cluttered. I mean, I pretty much have to climb over plants, walk the border of my raised beds and otherwise contort myself into strange positions just to reach everything. I don’t think anyone who has practiced yoga for less than 2 years would even be able to maneuver in my garden. I have to hang over the fence to harvest my squash and squat over the butterfly weed to get to the peas! I am going to assign partial blame for this sad situation on my husband, who is still cleaving to his green suburban dreams of lush lawns and so only allots a certain portion of yard for my eco-endeavors (although with each successive year I claim more space!) but mostly the fault is mine. If I had the entire yard to myself it would probably be just as cluttered with a zillion plants, watering cans, “found” yard art, weeds (gasp!) and other sundry items. Although sometimes I wish that I had one of those magazine cover-ready gardens filled with immaculately maintained beds and wrought-iron trellises, the truth is that isn’t who I am. I am a bean-tepee-constructed-from-bamboo-I filched-from-a-stand-on-the-side-of-the-road kind of gardener. And that’s ok by me. Apparently I am a bright blue and red kind of gardener now, too!

In honor of Edith Hope’s wonderful post on hats, here is a self-portrait of my trusty, floppy garden hat. Can’t say enough good things about this hat!

Moby the dog, in particular, loves my hat!

This week was a humdinger of a week for me–the environmental nonprofit I work for had its largest fundraiser of the year on Thursday evening…and the Monday prior an unfortunate article in the newspaper cast our event’s title sponsor in a very unflattering (though completely deserved, in my humble opinion) environmental light. Needless to say I was livid, I was on fire, I was ready to kick someone’s violating ass…I was so upset all day Monday that I was actually dizzy with anger. I didn’t have a clue how I was going to make it through the week and my event without blowing my top and/or knocking someone’s block off.

But then…

I got home on Monday afternoon, went to the garden with a rather large glass of red wine and the anger swirling around inside me came to a halt. “Peace be with you,” said my Sugar Snaps. “Let us calm down for a moment and take a moment to relax,” chirped my Butter Crunch. “Forget your troubles and relish the sunset,” coaxed my A&C Pickling cukes.

I love knowing that I can always seek refuge in my garden and rely on my plants to to provide  sage advice. Oh, and the event was a decent success too!

Happy Easter! Today is one of those days when the world is just right. I woke up at the decadently late hour of 8am, fed the chickens, whose efforts of the previous day supplied me with the most important constituents of a breakfast of fresh fried eggs, toast, coffee (with just a smidge of Irish Cream) and orange juice.

It is overcast and cool outside, and the breeze is rustling the curtains in my room as I sit and type. This morning I have been reading blogs from all around the world from kindred spirits who write and garden…Blotanical has been such a wonderful surprise. In addition to the great writing and gardening ideas I have been exposed to, the real value of the site for me lies in the fact that it has given me the reassurance that I am not the only “crazy plant loving hippie” out there. It can sometimes feel that way way down here in the Deep South. But there are a lot of us out there! I can’t wait to find them all!