Joys of worm bins

Who wouldn’t like a worm bin?  Here are our top five reasons...

1.       Utilizes food scraps that your backyard animals can’t eat or if you don’t have backyard animals yet.  Hint, hint…yet.

2.       Keeps it out of the waste stream (even if you still believe all yard waste becomes compost).

3.       You can feed them all those shredded bills that the city can’t “recycle”.

4.       Makes a dark rich compost byproduct that adds nutrients to the soil without chemicals.

5.       Come on…its worms.  Educational for your kids; hands on and just plain fun to play with.

6.       Who wouldn’t like a worm bin…are you dead inside?

Red Wiggler

A little bunny TLC to bring back to optimum health

Bunny in a bucket.  A little bunny triage to keep it healthy.

Nothing like a warm bath.

Warm towel completes the day at the spa.

Not for the lazy soul

I have to admit that I still struggle with the title of this posting.  I don’t know how to convey what I am trying to without offending people.  I am not proposing that we are better than anyone else.  We came up with this title while looking only at ourselves and it doesn’t reflect or imply anything about anyone else.  As we have stated before, we are personalizing our sustainable living goals.  What I am trying to say is that I cannot cling to my past practices, the results of being lazy on the inside.  We had to counter that drive.  Those that know us may see things differently, but the hard reality was that we didn’t choose more sustainable patterns in our lives because deep down I was lazy.  Don’t confuse motivation or drive with laziness—I have to continuously remind myself that we do nothing small and everything is possible with God.  We cannot be afraid of what might happen because we don’t want to address issues as they arrive. 

Two verses that we come back to are: Proverbs 21:25- “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” and Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men”.  The latter verse was written specifically about slavery.  But taking that context and applying it to our own lives just makes sense…we are slaves.  One important fact that we have come to realize is that the work is never done.  You can make list after list, cross out item after item, but the work is never done.  As we said earlier, relying on God is hard. You are going to have to work.

In addition to the hard work, you will get burned, accept it and move on.  This is an underlying characteristic and a frequent teaching moment that we share with our kids.  One of my favorite and frequently used saying is “Our actions are not defined by the actions of others”.  Of course I usually follow up with our actions WILL not be defined by the actions of others.  One example that we use to put this into practice is the person standing on the corners of the off-ramps panhandling.  We may have strong feelings with what the people are doing with the money, but what if it is Jesus asking for money on the corner?  We also don’t want to make that call, I would rather help and get burned than not help and find out later that I judged the person incorrectly…as if I am qualified to judge that person’s intentions in the first place.  Our actions will not be defined by the actions of others.

It is hard work.  During one of my wife’s and my brainstorm sessions, I was feeling pretty drained and started questioning if we could maintain what we were proposing.  My wife reminded me of what we call the Summer Camp paradigm.  Both of us have worked in summer camps (that is actually where we met) and both found it profoundly exhausting, but inspiring and life changing.  During our work at the camp, we had no exposure to commercialism, little to no carbon footprint. We managed to be fed, had clean clothes, dressed simply, worked 12-16 hours 6 days a week.  We also had clean air, chapel daily, and ample opportunities to work hard.  We didn’t feel tired, we felt fulfilled.

Why do we bother with sustainable living?

When my wife and I started to really get serious about changing our lives to live more sustainably, one thought seemed to consistently creep into my head:  If I can ignore the sustainable living patterns we identified; changes that will alter our lifestyle, change how we look at our livelihoods and impact our entire family for better or worse… that would be acceptable.  Not only acceptable, but definitely reasonable for me to handle and maybe the only “sustainable thing” we can control. So I asked my wife: “Why should we bother with sustainable living?”  I am not sure if she gave me an answer, or at least I do not remember the answer, but I decided the easiest thing for me to do, was start small.  Family time.  We decided to start reading in bed every night after the kids were in bed—for me a major step forward as I can remember only 3 books I actually ever finished in my lifetime.   The book I picked was Decision Points by former President George W Bush.  I had heard an interview that the former president had with I believe James Dobson.  I was intrigued by his resolve to make decisions that would have a positive impact on his life as a whole, affecting all aspects of his life.  One thing he talked about was reading through the Bible.  It wasn’t the first time, but he said he matured and wanted to see if his perspective had changed since he was more mature.  Since I was so obviously more mature since I last read through the Bible, I thought that was a great idea.  So I started out again, at the beginning, to read the Bible. This time though I would keep in mind all the discussions I had regarding sustainable living.  I quickly was reminded of how little control I actually had.

We are called to be stewards.

In Genesis 1, God talks of us ruling over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures - God has made us rulers over the rest of His creation.  Since we were created in the image of the diving King, it was delegated authority that was bestowed on us.  We were told to go forth under this divine benediction- flourishing…exercising dominion over the other earthly creatures.  We bear the image of the Creator and sharing, as God’s servant, in God’s kingly rule.  As God’s representative in the earthly realm, we are stewards of God’s creation.  We are not to exploit, waste, or despoil them, but to care for them and use them in the service of God and man.  

In Genesis 2, The Lord put us to work to take care of His creation. We were now charged to govern the earth responsibly under God’s authority.

In Psalms 8, it is reaffirmed that God has made us ruler of the works of our hands and everything under our feet, all the creatures.  Our rule over nature is real, but not absolute or independent.  It is participation, as a subordinate, in God’s rule; a gift, not a right.

(References: Gen 1:26, 28-29, Gen 2:15, Ps 8:6-8)

So what is Stewardship?

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines stewardship as the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care <stewardship of natural resources>.

Stewardship fits neatly into a sustainable living cycle.  As stewards we are responsible to care for things, something that requires intentional actions and decisions. Part of caring for what God gives us is also making sure you continue to have the resources available to care for, with what you are charged with.  Non-depletion of resources or taking care of our natural resources and making sure they are renewed becomes a focus.  For us personally, we make sure that in our garden, some plants are allowed to go to seed; creating a cycle that continues so that we will have a crop for next year.  God gives us stuff to take care of, not necessarily use it all up.

Being a good Steward is NOT becoming Self Reliant.

(Self-reliance is defined as the reliance on one's own efforts and abilities—Synonyms: independence, self-dependence, self-reliance, self-subsistence, and self-support)

One thing that comes up frequently in my conversations about Sustainable Living is the question of self-reliance or self-sufficiency.   This generally is questioned amongst our fellow church goers, where it seems there is a perceived conflict between the philosophy of total reliance on God in our life and sustainable living.  One thing I want to do is share my understanding of what the Bible tells us and how I believe it doesn’t contradict sustainable living, but actually supports it.  In short you cannot lead a sustainable life without relying on God to provide everything you need.  We had to set ourselves up to benefit from God’s work in our life.  We processed compost in our worm bins, amended the garden soil, planted seeds that we harvested, tended and watered the plants, but we cannot make the plants grow or produce fruit.  In short, without God; you get nothing.  Once you begin to rely on God, you have to rely on God because you can’t bail yourself out. This led us to a better understanding of God’s grace, something we are consciously relying on as we continue down the path toward sustainable living.

How we got started

Baby steps

 Necessity.  Learning about needs versus wants for us started with our first house.  We purchased a small run down house during the peak of the real estate boom in Seattle.  We were barely making ends meet and the needed house repairs compounded our problems and put great strain on our lives.  Not to be a victim, we decided to not only fix the house, but restore the house to a market value and get out of our unsustainable mortgage.  At first our goal was selfish- we wanted a nice house that people would judge our success on, but it quickly became apparent to us that we were perpetuating an unsustainable cycle.  To accomplish our goal I started collecting reclaimed and recycled materials.  I looked at salvage companies, befriended contractors and worked with King County to secure used and leftover building materials.  We removed all the original hand split cedar shakes on the house, trimmed the edges and reattached backwards, exposing the original old growth clear cedar.  We had our trees felled on the property, split the wood (while my wife was 9 months pregnant), and sold the firewood to pay for the cost of the trees dropped and the new materials we couldn’t source.  Sounds ambitious, but we worked on it gradually over 3 years- every night, day and weekend.  We solicited our parents, neighbors, friends, colleagues and even the passing Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon elder.  It worked and we were able to sell and start fresh, even though at that point we didn’t understand the destructive consumerism cycle that drove us to want more than what we had.

Breaking Point

I cannot pinpoint an exact point that can be defined as a breaking point, but I was working 12-14 hours a day, traveling out of town on business for at least a week per month (sometimes for 3-4 weeks at a time), and my 3 year old daughter didn’t acknowledge me as a parent (she finally did about 10 months ago).  I remember I was in San Jose for a weeklong business trip that was just extended an additional 3 weeks.  I called my wife and she agreed.  I quit my job 15 minutes after I hung up the phone with my wife.  For us, this was the beginning- us breaking the unsustainable cycle of our life.

Creating Pain

After uncontrollable fits of fear and feelings of regret, I accepted our decision and started a game plan of changing our behavior- a radical shift of thinking for our family.  We decided that we needed a shock and awe strategy to refocus us and force us to think, breathe and live a sustainable life.  Everyone needed to purge our stuff.  We started with our car.  We had two cars, one was mine that I no longer commuted in and the other was an expensive family car that we drove daily to the park and ride and back-  2 miles or so a day.  Ironically you had to pass the bus stop within walking distance of our house on the way to the park and ride.  Next we attacked pet projects.  If we hadn’t used or worked on it in 6 months, it had to go.  Everyone in the family had to contribute and it couldn’t be easy stuff.  Old clothes or damaged items didn’t count.  We looked at specialty books, collector’s books, autographed books, out of print, first editions- collector toys…stuff.  We sold everything we could and reduced our debit.  By creating pain, we were also working on becoming financially sustainable as well.

Deeper look at our definition of Sustainable living

In an earlier posting I wrote; “Sustainable living is a series of lifestyle decisions that attempts to alter our day to day activities to be better stewards of God's gifts – both natural resources and our own individual resources.”   We have attempted to go deeper into what it means to us to live a sustainable life.  Sustainable living is not buying into a consumerism cycle with marketing labels; it is breaking the cycle of wants instead of needs. Large corporations make money on people’s perceptions of sustainable living while driving the destructive consumer mentality of wants versus needs.  Our economy is based on supply and demand, but we look at ways to create a balance of supply and demand without creating unending demand.  Attempting to strike a balance and encourage a sustainable demand we use the following guidelines:

1.       We encourage a full return to quality.  What you buy needs to last longer or serve its purpose for the entire lifecycle of the product.  We cannot continue down a path that encourages or requires items to be purchased and viewed as temporary.

2.       Be happy with what God gives you.  Good stewardship of what you have is only half of the equation.  Satisfaction with the resources that God gives you and relying on Him to provide is the other half.

3.       It is only stuff.  When we look at our needs versus wants and focus on intentional purchasing, we stop collecting stuff. 

4.       Skunk Test.  Look at what you own now.  Look at what you are trying to achieve- financial sustainability and a sustainable lifestyle.  Now ask yourself this question about what you own- “If I had an opportunity to buy this item again, right now, would I do it?”  If you answer no, it stinks and must be dealt with.

5.       Beware of “Green marketing”.  We looked suspiciously at everything we purchased.  Was it truly sustainable? 

1.       Green

2.       Bio

3.       Eco-friendly

4.       Sustainable

5.       Environmentally friendly

6.       Organic

7.       Natural

8.       Free range

9.       Cage free

10.   Free trade

11.   Shade Grown

Sustainable living is a series of lifestyle decisions that attempts to alter our day to day activities to be stewards of God's gifts – both natural resources and our own individual resources.  We attempt to reduce our carbon footprint, energy consumption and simplifying our food choices to be as local as possible.  We aim to conduct our lives in manners that are consistent with our religious convictions and sustainability, in balance and respectful of humanity's symbiotic relationship with the Earth's natural ecology and cycles without assigning deity status along the way.  We attempt to reduce our financial obligations to enable us freedom from borrowed money, becoming financially sustainable as well.

Sustainable living is not a political statement, nor do we blindly make decisions that benefit the environment while disregarding human needs.  As Christians we are to be good stewards of God’s creation, not exploit or overindulge in what God provides- animals or vegetation.    With that said, we strive to utilize 100% of what we harvest in one way or another.  America holds a consumer mentality and as a result a thoughtless wasteful environment.  We are working to counter that mentality.

What advice would your Grandparents give you, if they could, about running a household and providing for your family?  Who is your inspiration or role model of ideal living?

Why did we decide to practice Sustainable Living in all aspects of our lives?

My wife and I have been sharing our views of Sustainable Living with a small group for the last three Sundays.  Looking back over our notes, we realized that we have not shared the reasons behind our decision to live in a more sustainable manner.  As we discussed how we personalized the path we took, we also realized that we never have written down on paper our personal reasons or train of thought behind living a sustainable life.   I want to share now some of the main ideas or drives we used to decide how we wanted to get started.

The first step in our journey was less of a step and more of an awakening.  I can’t pin point one time, but both of us realized that we were not living in a fashion that would allow us to continue down the path we were on.  We were not living in a sustainable manner and what we were doing would not allow us to focus on what was important to us.  Short term goals or milestones were always pushed into the long term plans; it was not sustainable.  We were waiting for something to happen to us to break the cycle; there was seemingly no end in sight.  We weren’t panicking; we just couldn’t see an end in sight.  We decided to make a conscious and intentional decision to stop the cycle.    We also came to the realization that there was no easy answer or magic pill to help get us on track of living in a sustainable manner; we had to figure it out. 

I supposed if my wife and I realized what we were committing ourselves to there may have been some apprehension.  Being as stubborn as I am, I convinced my whole family that is was time to start living sustainably.  Being as stubborn as my wife is, she held me to that responsibility.  If you want to lose weight, you don’t eat so much and you exercise more.  People ask us for a simple answer…the simple abbreviated answer is hard work. 

We first started by identifying what was important to us, as a family and as individuals- our core values.  Looking specifically at what our core values were helped us decide what deserved our time and attention.  Throwing aside what we were currently focusing on, we asked what we should be focusing on.  We took what was important to us and developed specific targeted areas in our life.  These areas became our targets for change.

This was how we started.

What was important to us?

Our core values:

·         Realizing where our food came from, how it was made and appreciating what God provides.

o   As a chef, the people I cooked food for, were offered better food than what I offered my family due to time constraints, money and resources.

·         Family Time with our kids without having negative affect on their health and wellness.

o   Refused to short change our kids sleep so we could spend time with them and fit them into our schedules.

·         Paying off debt- living in a financially sustainable manner.

o   Just wanted to be in the black all the time.

o   Didn’t want to be 1 gallon of milk away from overdraft at the end of the month.

·         Have our kids share in our fond memories of when food was in season and tasted good- was only available in season.  I wanted our kids to have that, not settle on mediocrity just so that all food can be available year around.

·         Appreciating God’s incredible creation

o   Appreciate animals and how they live, provide food for us, and survive.

o   Appreciate how things grow

·         Not Modifying God’s creation for our convenience was important to me.

o   Hydrogenation of fats

§  Margarine

o   Homogenization of milk

o   Genetically modified crops

o   Growth Hormones

o   Blanket antibiotics

o   Blanket pesticides and herbicides

o   HFCS

o   Artificial Sweeteners

§  Aspartame

§  Splenda

§  Saccharine

·         Diet Soda

o   Artificial Colors

§  “Blue” is official referred to as a flavor.

Identifying what was important to us was the easy part.  The hard part was how we were going to make a dramatic change and target areas in our life that will allow and force us into sustainable living.  We used these targets as global areas in our life in which we wanted to effect change.  We than listed individual ways under each target that we could alter into a sustainable cycle; keeping in mind that everyone and everything is intertwined together.

What are we going to focus on?

Our targets for change:

·          Stewardship

o   Responsibly taking care of what is given and entrusted to us.

·         Financial obligations and needs / Occupations

o   Needs versus Wants

o   Breaking the Demand cycle in Supply and Demand

o   Purchasing

§  Product Sourcing

o   Transportation         

·         Family Life / Marriage

o   Schedule

o   Meals

o   Extra-Curricular Activities

o   Shopping

o   Family Time

·         School and Education

o   Homework

o   Tutoring

o   Speech Therapy

·         Faith

o   Church Life

o   Pioneer Club

·         Health and Wellness

I hope to touch on all of our targets for change in the weeks to come; to help share how we got started, first by looking at the why and then focusing on the how.  Every decision we made, was made specific to our family.  What worked for us, may not work for others.  At times it may seem that we contradict ourselves in our decisions, but we try to make decisions not based on only one target for change or core value, but we look at how the decision may affect the entire sustainable living cycle we are working on.  I encourage you to ask yourself the same questions we did and see where it takes you.