Going Solar

Today I applied to the Homeowners Association (HOA) to approve installing solar panels on our home. The process to choose installing solar has been much more challenging, although less expensive, than buying a PHEV car last year as I previously described in this blog. While I’ve bought many automobiles in the past, this is the first time choosing a solar company to purchase and install panels. With the new Inflation Reduction Act allowing for 30% tax rebates and declining costs of solar panels, the time for homeowners to install solar could never be better!

We purchased our home in February 2022. About a dozen neighbors out of a couple of hundred homes have installed solar panels so far. However, the HOA just took over the 5-year old community after the builder completed the development. Our next door neighbor, who needed to signoff on our request, was able to install panels on their rear south facing roof and some homes were “grandfathered” allowing them with panels facing the front of the house. The new HOA requirements do not allow panels to be visible from the front of the house which eliminates many homeowners from installing solar if the front of their home faces the south.

So we may be the first to test the new architectural review committee (ARC) process, which just this month added solar to the guidelines: “Solar Panels are allowed and should be installed by a licensed professional with the proper architectural application approval. Panels should be installed on the sides or back of the roof and not front street facing to appeal more to the overall look of the home.”

We are requesting the ARC to approve our plan for installing 18 panels on the west facing rear roof and 4 panels on the south facing roof. Our neighbor in charge of the ARC informally suggested we get the most efficient and install the fewest number of panels we can.

I spoke with several neighbors who’ve installed solar panels in our neighborhood by knocking on doors or checking the Facebook group learning they used at least four different companies. Before contacting companies I wanted to get better informed on the options so I found this book to be very helpful as an introduction:

How to Solar Power Your Home by Martha Maeda, 2015 Atlantic Publishing Group

The author describes motivations for going solar, active and passive systems, evaluating if solar is right for you depending on where you live, energy efficiency, designs and selecting components, rebates, and maintenance.

After reading the book and reviewing some helpful websites including energysage.com, solarreviews.com, solarpowertalk.com, and nuwattenergy.com, I compiled lists of solar providers, ratings, reviews, manufacturer technology, and costs. I then contacted companies on the top list and got estimates over the phone after providing our monthly electric usage.

I compared bids from six companies that proposed to install panels from several companies including AlphaPure, QCell, REC, Solaria, and SunPower. So it’s important to learn about the actual panel technology in addition to selecting the company to install the panels. Some of the installers were locally owned companies and some were national. I spoke with sales people from several other states and only one person wanted to meet in person. I looked at solar panel specs including efficiency, duration (panels lose power over time), cost per watt, and warrantees. Many of the installation companies were willing to share how they could beat the competition.

The process to select a solar company took me several weeks, it will take several more months to get the panels installed, and we probably won’t know for many years or perhaps decades if we made the right decisions so far. But we can feel good today that we are trying to make a difference in going green!

Fed Climate Actions

Today there were two historic actions by the U.S. Federal Government responding to the climate crisis: President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Department of Interior imposed new water restrictions on the Colorado River.

The IRA law according to the White House makes the largest investment in clean energy by:

Lowering Energy Costs

• Families that take advantage of clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits will save more than $1,000 per year.

• $14,000 in direct consumer rebates for families to buy heat pumps or other energy efficient home appliances, saving families at least $350 per year.

• 7.5 million more families will be able install solar on their roofs with a 30% tax credit, saving families $9,000 over the life of the system or at least $300 per year.

• Up to $7,500 in tax credits for new electric vehicles and $4,000 for used electric vehicles, helping families save $950 per year.

• Putting America on track to meet President Biden’s climate goals, which will save every family an average of $500 per year on their energy costs.

Building a Clean Energy Economy

• Power homes, businesses, and communities with much more clean energy by 2030, including:

  • 950 million solar panels

  • 120,000 wind turbines

  • 2,300 grid-scale battery plants

• Advance cost-saving clean energy projects at rural electric cooperatives serving 42 million people.

• Strengthen climate resilience and protect nearly 2 million acres of national forests.

• Creating millions of good-paying jobs making clean energy in America.

Reducing Harmful Pollution

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 gigaton in 2030, or a billion metric tons – 10 times more climate impact than any other single piece of legislation ever enacted.

• Deploy clean energy and reduce particle pollution from fossil fuels to avoid up to 3,900 premature deaths and up to 100,000 asthma attacks annually by 2030.

Federal water restrictions on the Colorado River are being imposed on seven Western states and Mexico. The crisis did not begin with current droughts and result largely from the original 1920’s compact that overestimated available water supplies.

Be Prepared!

David Pogue’s book How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos compiles key resources for climate impacts and important steps we all need to take. With the help of 50 experts the book contains great advice on topics including where to live and invest, how to build and insure, and preparing for all kinds of increasingly frequent disasters. Many of these topics provide links to government resources or other well documented historical events as a guide to future predictions.

Despite the myriad of concerns we face with a changing climate, the book does offer hopeful solutions to reducing our carbon footprint that we can do at home, as we shop, as well as encouraging our elected officials.

Drinking-Water Awareness

Being aware of what’s in our water is essential to our health and survival. With that awareness there are many things we can do to improve the water we consume. But what if individuals or large groups of people are not aware that they are consuming contaminated drinking water? Environmental laws are usually enacted to stop some adverse pollution but that does not make it all go away overnight. Some chemicals never go away and are labeled ‘forever chemicals’ or lack scientific data and are classified as ‘emerging contaminants.’

People must take action to help themselves, their family, community, to gain awareness. Cleanliness is next to godliness and fortunately by the grace of God there are people in the world willing to fight for safe water. The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit organization spreading awareness of what’s in our food and water for almost 30 years. To find out what’s in your drinking water and what types of filtration systems can be used to treat the water check out EWG Tapwater.

They also provide an interactive map in the U.S. on hexavalent chromium (Cr +6) contamination popularly known as the ‘Erin Brockovich’ chemical listed as tainting the tap water of 251 million Americans.

You may recall the movie staring Julia Roberts portraying Erin Brockovich in her quest for helping a small California town become aware of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) contaminating people’s drinking water.

It’s an amazing true story and I have some related personal experiences to share. For about one year I worked as an environmental scientist contractor to PG&E which was about five years after the movie was released. Because of the largest civil lawsuit in history costing PG&E $333 million as well as tremendous damage to their reputation and harm caused to many people, I observed they became very proactive in cleaning up remaining contaminated sites. I did not work on Cr +6 issues related to gas compressor stations but focused on electrical substations and transmission systems in the San Francisco Bay area. I led a team to remove underground pipelines containing transformer cooling oil that potentially contained PCBs. We removed contaminated soil containing arsenic that was used as an insecticide in the mid 1950’s. Power transmission lines built on landfills were subsiding needed urgent repairs. I monitored air quality at a substation construction site next to a school to make sure semi-volatile compounds disposed many decades ago in the soil did not spread.

Check out the recent Brockovich book (which I did at the local library) and found it very informative and relatable on why water supplies get contaminated, how they are affecting peoples health, and what we can do to take action. Here’s an interesting NPR review of the book.

Timber

For the past four months, I frequently drove by this old structure noticing the contrast between the old wood building and new multi-million dollar homes. I wondered about its history: who built it, when it was built, who lived there, and how much longer would it remain standing? One morning I took a walk around the site before construction workers arrived and noticed the large amount of lumber being used for these new homes. But the contrast of the old structure in front of the new homes caught my eye and lens the most. How do we preserve our history while the world is changing so fast? As a newcomer the the area I’m not attached to the history like people who grew up here but am curious about the stories - if only the buildings could speak!

The next day after taking photographs I drove by and was shocked by seeing a bulldozer knocking down the old wood house! Maybe some saw this place as an “eyesore” which might devalue the expensive mansions. Perhaps it would have been a safety hazard. But before it vanished I would have liked to have known more about the history of the area.

One of my previous jobs was to prepare Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessments for commercial property. Banks would hire my employer to research, inspect, and complete the report within one week. We needed to review the history of the property and surrounding one-mile radius going back to the first development or at least back to 1940 using air photos, telephone directories, and other documents. We were mostly focused on environmental hazards such as gasoline stations with leaking underground tanks and dry cleaners using PCE chemicals. Most farms had diesel tanks that might cause some local contamination. These hazards could pose a liability for the real estate owners and if we found anything of concern we would recommend collecting samples in a Phase 2 investigation.

Third Year of Community Garden

In July 2019, I posted a blog about a new community garden located in Grand Junction. How have they been able to support the community over three summers impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic? Ann and Walt Trout, who are the directors and primary gardeners of the non-profit known as Two Fishes Farm, have incredible experiences over the past three years and likely have kept many people alive by donating food to the Grand Junction Community Food Bank!

The first year of getting the organic garden started focused on improving the silty soil by adding nutrients and compost as well as developing the irrigation system. Very few people volunteered to help at first due to the new location. Despite the light turnout, the Trout’s persistence demonstrated the potential and provided a decent harvest which prepared the community for the unforeseen pandemic.

Last year with Covid-19 raging, people wanted to get outdoors and the community garden saw a great influx of volunteers. That allowed for more planting, weeding, and harvesting to support many more people. However, increasing seed prices incentivized creating heirloom tomatoes. Instead of buying tomato plants, the farmers save unpatented seeds from the prior year and new plants are grown and pollinated naturally. Other challenges involved finding better solutions for crop irrigation.

Instead of using traditional drip irrigation with a emitter at every plant, the garden adopted a new method this year for irrigation. Flexible fabric hoses connected to main water lines are placed along rows. The fabric hoses have holes at regular intervals of one to four feet allowing for planting at each hole. That eliminates the need for emitters and is buried in the roots but clogging can occur if the water is turbid. Therefore, the main water supply is treated with a sand filter and other chemicals may be needed to remove dissolved solids.

This year the community garden is struggling for volunteers as people are getting out of town. Ann and Walt show up most every day to keep up with the many needs but feel their inspired service making a huge difference to many people. Small grants of about $1,200 have been provided by Western Colorado Community Foundation to support purchasing seeds and weed control fabric.

Just this year so far over 200 pounds of vegetables and eggs have been grown and more than half donated to the food bank! If you would like to support the community garden with your time, labor, or donations please contact Ann Trout at atrout@twofishesfarm.org.

Update August 9, 2021

Ann Trout provided totals of donated vegetables for the three years:

Year 1, 3,400 pounds

Year 2, 6,400 pounds

Year 3, 500 pounds so far this year with an estimate of about 6,000 pounds of vegetables to be donated.

So the total estimate for the three years is 15,800 pounds of vegetables. It is recommended we eat 3 cups of vegetables per day. One pound equals about 1.9 cups so 15,800 pounds equals over 30,000 cups which translates to 10,000 daily servings of vegetables!

Coder Dojo

I met the CoderDojo team at the Earth Day celebration in Apex, NC. According to their website:

“CoderDojoApex NC is a volunteer-led digital making and coding club with a mission to inspire children to learn, make and express with technology. We meet every Saturday from 10:30a-12:30pm ET(regular session). We welcome children from ages 7-17 years old and all levels of coding experience from beginner to advanced. Attending a session is free of charge, however signup is necessary. Register on the CoderDojo website to reserve your tickets and become a member of this community.”

Initially my wife and I got excited to learn about the CoderDojoApex group for our son to improve his computer programming skills as well as my sharing the opportunity with kids I meet as a substitute teacher at the public schools. When I heard they are currently creating projects on environmental sustainability I got even more thrilled and they asked me to judge the presentations held last Saturday! Our son is still on a baseball team so we hope he will get involved later this summer.

Group presentations of sustainability projects were judged based on factors created by the organizers for Coolness, Complexity, Presentation, Design and Usability.

Six groups of three or four children presented their projects that they had worked on for over a month. Some groups presented posters, PowerPoint slides, and many wrote Scratch programs. Topics included finding ways to improve growing food at home, sharing information to reduce fossil fuel consumption, protecting wildlife, conserving water, reducing plastic pollution, and preventing forest fires. The winning team programmed soil moisture sensors to water plants using Arduino and they came up with a great title and presentation: “SPLP Sustainable Planting for Lazy People!”

I also liked many of the Scratch games that the students created. The group from Kenya created a game to promote awareness for saving White Rhinos from illegal ivory poaching.

When I see the enthusiasm, concern, creativity, and willingness to sincerely address world problems and create positive outcomes gives me great hope for the future of humanity. For more on the #CoolestProjects Jam event and future events check them out on Facebook!

Watch Out!

Isn’t there a joke about why did the geese (or chicken) cross the road? As I drove the car through a Cary, NC shopping center, our son noticed and photographed this family of Canadian Geese crossing the road. We can assume the chicks were too young to fly strutted in between the parents. Drivers sped by the busy road as the geese tried to find a gap to cross searching for a nearby pond.

This photo reveals the danger that nature faces everyday surviving in the expanding human environment. It also shows how we humans need to be vigilant of nature surrounding us to avoid collisions.

Most parents will do everything they can to protect their children. Even Middle East peace is possible as President Carter negotiated with the leaders of Israel and Egypt by showing photos of their grandchildren while asking what kind of world did they want for their progeny.

So what kind of world do we want for current and future generations? Flourishing in a healthy world abundant with natural resources that sustains all life in balance is the goal of sustainability. The laws of nature strive to continue this balance and people can either realign by becoming defensive drivers in the world environment taking responsibility or acting selfishly wreaking havoc by exploiting nature like road rage maniacs.

Watch Out! With every purchase we make we can ask if this product is sustainably benefiting us and nature. We must reduce our demand on resources like oil, gas, water, food, clothes and more. Conserve and use the minimum necessary or become more efficient in using resources - make it a fun game with your family to get by with just enough. It’s like buying car insurance - we all need it to drive - and the lower risk drivers pay less for their insurance. Prosper — the result of needing and using less, minimizing expenses, and maximizing profits!

Sustainable Fishing

The Wake County (North Carolina) Public School System’s sixth grade science classes are reading World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky. Published in 2011, the author states that on the current trend most fish we know of could be gone in 50 years! Even worse, since all life is interconnected, including on land and in oceans, loss of fish populations will affect other wildlife like birds as well as threaten the food web and human existence.

Environmental stresses such as climate change and pollution and fishing fleets using drag nets to meet consumer demand are leading causes for species depletions and extinctions. Biodiversity is the key to success for all life which would be threatened if fish species decline. For example, overfishing bluefin tuna would harm dolphins and cause other species like jellyfish to expand. Seabirds that eat fish would also die out causing problems on land. Reptiles would not have food that is discarded by sea birds.

It’s interesting to read how many scientists in the late 1800’s thought fish populations could not diminish due to abundant egg production and fisherman would never intentionally impact fish populations. They misused Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” by not considering new inventions like the steam engine and monofilament plastic nets that allowed for deeper bottom fishing. People mistakenly thought fish in the deep oceans were as abundant as along coastal waters.

Humpback whales and herring eat krill - shrimp-like creatures which eat microscopic phytoplankton. White meat fish include cod, haddock, flounder, and halibut can swim near the bottom of the ocean and swim to the surface to eat smaller fish and shell fish. These fish are prized in commercial markets. Middle ocean depth fish include sardines, anchovies, herring, mackerel, and tuna have darker flesh and contain oily fluids.

Mr. Kurlansky aptly points out the sad story of the Orange Roughy that only 50 years ago became too popular and within a decade diminished by 90% in Australia due to a lack of scientific understanding. These red fish are found at depths of 5000 feet and turn orange when they die. They can live for 150 years but do not begin reproducing until age 20 so catching juvenile fish harmed the entire population.

Fish farms may not be the answer for sustainable fishing due to related problems. Ships the size of factories net and grind up fish for feeding farmed fish. The book shares that four pounds of fish meal are needed for one pound of farmed salmon. Farmed fish confined to small overcrowded areas develop weaker muscle tissue as well as increase water pollution.

The best solutions for sustainable fishing are for consumers to buy fish labeled as “certified sustainable seafood.” Higher prices to fisherman are going for line-caught fish like white albacore tuna and we can avoid buying other fish higher on the food chain such as bluefin tuna and shark. Lower food chain fish are more abundant and sustainable including sardines, anchovies, and herring. Other suggested actions include becoming active in environmental groups and promoting international relations to change consumer demand.

Sustainable Blogging

Today’s the last day of February 2022. I last posted a blog just after the New Year. Since starting the Conserve-Prosper website in May of 2015, I’ve consistently posted at least one blog every month for 80 months. So now I have just a few hours left today to add a blog for this month.

During the month of June 2019, I challenged myself to post a blog every day of the month. Typically writing a blog and finding the relevant photograph could take up to four hours to complete.

It’s been a great privilege to express my First Amendment freedom of speech, particularly in the last few years after retiring from the federal government. We see dictatorships that prevent free speech but does your employer (teacher, spouse, parent or child) block you’re expressing diverse points of view? Perhaps it’s ironic that I am borrowing the “Blogging” photo from a .gov website!

With the crisis in Ukraine, I feel shock, dismay, helplessness and confusion. It brings back memories from 43 years ago as a college student spending a semester in Germany when we visited East and West Berlin before the fall of the Soviet Union. After a week in West Berlin, we passed through the Wall at CheckPoint Charlie and spent three days in the communist country. There were many Russian tourists that we could not meet but our tour guide shared his misery living in East Germany and he desperately wanted to escape to America. The dictatorship government claimed they wanted to prevent western ideas from contaminating the minds of their people. I heard during this time Putin was stationed with KGB nearby in Dresden.

The most amazing memory was on a Saturday evening at 9 pm we walked out near the Wall and could see West Berlin from the Eastern side. The nightclubs blasted disco music and neon lights lit up the sky. In stark contrast, the East Berlin side was dark and quiet with a curfew at 10 pm. It seemed to me that East and West Berlin were at two extreme ends of the spectrum before the Wall came crashing down ten years later.

The fight in Ukraine between a democratic system and crazy Putin’s dictatorship is all about freedom of individual rights such as free speech!

So pray there is a peaceful resolution to this and many other crises. Everyone needs to find a way to express themselves and force free speech around the world. I consider each blog like a message in a bottle hoping some will be read and make a difference in the world. Writing these blogs has made a difference in my life so thanks to everyone who takes the time to check it out and feel free to post a comment.

Asphalt Garden

My sister-in-law Val at her home is planting grass on top of asphalt, small trees by punching holes drilling through the surface and painted cinderblocks to plant vegetables!

Driving Across the USA in our PHEV

This year we purchased and enjoyed driving across the United States, from Los Angeles to North Carolina, in our plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Our experiences are teaching us about making the energy-efficient transition from gas to electric motors and this blog is not a plug for any particular brand.

Almost six years ago I described our positive experience purchasing a 2016 Toyota Rav4 hybrid. We sold that car after five years to travel to Thailand one year ago. Over there we attended the 42nd Bangkok International Motor Show entitled “Shaping the Next Chapter” to compare several PHEVs. All the major brands were represented including new models by Audi, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, MG, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Volvo allowing us to sit inside many cars all in one location. We also watched many videos of people test driving the new vehicles. In the end, we chose our most familiar brand hoping to make the sixth purchase of a Toyota vehicle. The challenge was being able to find the new Rav4 Prime with only about 3,600 vehicles projected to be made during the pandemic due to supply-chain battery and chip shortages. In July 2021, we found several dealers in Los Angeles had one or two Primes available per week with more customers than cars. Our dealer in Grand Junction, Western Slope Toyota, said they only had one Prime for the entire year and sold it quickly! We found out later that it was a friend of ours who bought that vehicle.

We ruminated over taking the risk to fly to LA and look to buy our dream car compared to going home to Colorado first. We took the gamble and within a few days in LA found that Carson Toyota provided the best deal in LA. Our credit union website facilitated our search and selection by making online offers for vehicles in advance of arriving at the dealer. However, the dealers charged an extra premium for the low inventory and for the first time we paid above the manufacturers suggested retail price MSRP.

Another decision we needed to make was choosing between two trim levels: SE and XSE. We chose the better package mostly for the SofTex® instead of fabric seating. According to Toyota, “SofTex® is a synthetic leather seat material designed for wear, easy cleaning and resisting spills. Soft to the touch, SofTex weighs about half as much as genuine leather. The way it's made generates around 85% fewer CO2 emissions and 99% fewer Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) than conventional synthetic leather.”

The Toyota Rav4 Prime mid-sized SUV features a 2.5 liter, 4 cylinder gasoline engine rated at 40 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway. The better fuel efficiency around town is a function of the hybrid battery capturing energy from the braking system. The 2021 hybrid improves efficiency over the 2016 Rav4 Hybrid which got 34 mpg city and 31 mpg on the highway.

Front and rear electric traction motors are linked to the powertrain hybrid system providing 42 miles of range from its 18.1-kwh lithium ion battery pack. The electric fuel efficiency is rated at 94 MPGe which is quantified by EPA in kilowatt-hours (kWH) per 100 miles. This is unit of volume per unit of distance, which is exactly the opposite of MPG. Basically, with kWh/100mi, lower numbers are better; with MPG, higher numbers are better. According to the EPA, burning one gallon of gas produces 115,000 BTUs (British thermal units). To generate the same amount of heat by way of electricity, it takes 33.7 kWh. Kilowatt-hours is the standard energy unit for electricity. In simplified terms, if an electric vehicle can travel 100 miles on 33.7 kWh of electricity, the EPA rates it at 100 MPGe. As you can see, this would be a very efficient vehicle, because a gas car would have to travel 100 miles per gallon to be equivalent.

Driving our new Prime off the lot in Carson, CA we caught the interstate and noticed the electric charge running out quickly in EV mode so we switched to HV gas mode. The EV is more efficient to use in town and the HV mode on the highway. Our trip along I10 to I15 took us from a morning of coastal rain into the rain shadow Mohave Desert with July temperatures rapidly increasing from 60 degrees at the coast to over 100 degrees F by the time we reached Barstow. We spent overnight at Lake Las Vegas meeting my brother and his wife for an enjoyable dinner. However, we did not find a charging station at the hotel and continued the next day running mostly on gasoline.

Employing the full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control (DRCC) became the biggest surprise of the trip. Before setting the cruise control I noticed a slight grab by the steering wheel to stay in my lane and when changing lanes only by using my turn signal would the steering wheel release the tension. When setting the cruise control on the interstate, the steering wheel takes over using the radar system to by guided by the traffic lines. This worked okay on straight roads but I did not trust the car to let go of the steering wheel and it seemed to weave left and right as if I was intoxicated. I also noticed cross winds made going straight more challenging. The DRCC slows the car down when getting close to a vehicle in front and I needed to anticipate sooner then normal to go around slower vehicles. Guess I still like to feel in control of the driving and using technology to supplement but not automate my driving experience.

We stayed in Grand Junction from July until November running primarily on EV mode. We could plug-in to the 110v outlet in our garage and full recharge took about 12 hours. We ran the gas engine once per week to keep the fluids moving and after four months only consumed about a half a tank or 5.5 gallons of gasoline. It seemed amazing that we could drive all around town and very rarely need to go more than 42 miles on one change. Luckily, the battery range improved over time and we noticed an improvement up to about 50 miles on one charge.

We got our first free service check at four months. We only put on about 2,500 miles and service is recommended before 4,000 miles or at four months. I asked about gasoline degrading after time and they suggested a BP fuel additive to clean the engine every 10,000 miles. I asked about the ability to recharge the electric battery using the gas engine but the mechanic was not aware of this feature.

Driving on our move from Grand Junction to the east coast, my wife discovered that by holding down the EV/HV button for five seconds allows the gas engine to recharge the electric battery up to about 80% or 32 miles. Using the extra energy stored in the battery helped when getting off the freeways and avoid idling at traffic lights. We still averaged 36 mpg for our trip so perhaps recharging the battery with the gasoline engine does not improve fuel efficiency overall. I still have more to learn and in the next blog will share our experience now that we are staying in an apartment with commercial plug-in charging stations.

In preparing this blog, I learned that Toyota in the second half of this year greatly accelerated supply for the Rav4 Prime and delivered about 20,000 vehicles to the marketplace overall this year. That should help reduce costs at the dealer and offer consumers more choices.

Garden of Gratitude

For the past several days I have been working as a substitute teacher at Caprock Academy teaching fifth grade science and high school geometry. I am very grateful to many people — especially Mrs. Ellen Robinson who teaches biology classes including Botany. I shared with her this website so she turned me on to a wonderful book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer who published the first edition in 2013. I had some time between classes, study hall, and on the weekend so I immersed myself in the book discovering a treasure chest of profound wisdom.

According to her bio, the author is a “mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.”

I loved reading the opening origin story about Skywoman Falling and rereading it several times including to my family. The author wrote an article last year where she said:

“The mythic story of Skywoman Falling is the heartbeat of Braiding Sweetgrass, both an opening and a closing, enfolding the stories between. The version shared in the first edition is the most widely told account of the epic, but it is not the only one. There is always the deep diving Muskrat and the earth on Turtle’s back. The rescue by the Geese and the gifts of the animals are a constant, as are the seeds Skywoman brings, initiating the covenant of reciprocity between newcomer humans and our ancient relatives. The detail that varies from one telling to another is just how Skywoman finds herself falling from one world to the next. The common version is that she slips, the earth giving way at the edge of the hole in the sky where the great Tree of Life had fallen. It is an accident, with mythic consequences—and so it begins.”

Later in the article she describes other versions of how Skywoman descended to Earth, that this was no accident; her duty to safeguard life.

“In this time of transformation, when creation and destruction wrestle like Skywoman’s mythic grandsons, gambling with the future of the earth, what would it take for us to follow Skywoman? To jump to the new world, to co-create it? Do we jump because we look over our shoulders at the implacable suffering marching toward us and jump from fear and portent? Or perhaps we look down, drawn toward the glittering green, hear the birdsong, smell the Sweetgrass and yearn to be part of a different story. The story we long for, the story that we are beginning to remember, the story that remembers us.”

I am grateful for the wisdom the author shares which is rarely documented in oral traditions of indigenous culture especially by a person with incredible diverse credentials. The book is so rich with examples of our dependency on the natural world and that there is so much more to learn.

How pecan trees communicate across large regions yielding bumper crops one year then go several years without producing nuts and how wildlife responds to the cycle.

The importance and “genius of indigenous agriculture” for sustaining the land and healthy diets known as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash.

The best way to connect with the land and nature showing our gratitude and giving gifts is to grow a garden.

To grow diverse plants, such as many varieties of corn, to fit the land rather than fitting the land to monoculture crops as is common practice with modern agriculture.

Her efforts to make a spring-fed, algae-rich pond swimmable by seeking a balance of what to put in and what to take out.

To harvest no more that half of the potential yield of natural resources to prevent overconsumption and ensure sustainability. The unharvested fruit, vegetables, fish, water (etc.) will benefit other wildlife and provide seeds or species for future growth.

Please share your comments and ideas in the comment section or send an email to info@conserve-prosper.com!

Uranium Exhibit Closing

The uranium exhibit on display at the Museum of the West is moving at the end of the year. We stopped in on Friday and learned that space is in demand for other exhibits to go on display. The exhibit “Prospecting in the Nuclear Age” opened in 2015 under the direction of a famous Atomic Energy Commission uranium geologist Bill Chenoweth who passed away in 2018. Here is an interesting virtual timeline provided by the museum and I highly recommend visiting this year if you are in Grand Junction!

Read this Song of Hiawatha!

Working for the past couple of weeks as an eight grade educational assistant at Caprock Academy gave me the wonderful opportunity to read The Song of Hiawatha and other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The full poem provides an amazing intimate glimpse into the natural world for a Native American man. Longfellow captures the oral history tradition of the interdependence of humans and Nature by recounting the Legend of Hiawatha.

Here is the introduction from the Maine Historical Society website:

The Song of Hiawatha

Should you ask me, whence these stories? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
With the odors of the forest 
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?
  I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."
  Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!
  "All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
In the melancholy marshes;
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"
  If still further you should ask me,
Saying, "Who was Nawadaha?
Tell us of this Nawadaha,"
I should answer your inquiries
Straightway in such words as follow.
  "In the vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley,
By the pleasant water-courses,
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
Round about the Indian village
Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,
And beyond them stood the forest,
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,
Green in Summer, white in Winter,
Ever sighing, ever singing.
  "And the pleasant water-courses,
You could trace them through the valley,
By the rushing in the Spring-time,
By the alders in the Summer,
By the white fog in the Autumn,
By the black line in the Winter;
And beside them dwelt the singer,
In the vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley.
  "There he sang of Hiawatha,
Sang the Song of Hiawatha,
Sang his wondrous birth and being,
How he prayed and how be fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!"
  Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries;--
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye who love a nation's legends,
Love the ballads of a people,
That like voices from afar off
Call to us to pause and listen,
Speak in tones so plain and childlike,
Scarcely can the ear distinguish
Whether they are sung or spoken;--
Listen to this Indian Legend,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened;--
Listen to this simple story,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles
Through the green lanes of the country,
Where the tangled barberry-bushes
Hang their tufts of crimson berries
Over stone walls gray with mosses,
Pause by some neglected graveyard,
For a while to muse, and ponder
On a half-effaced inscription,
Written with little skill of song-craft,
Homely phrases, but each letter
Full of hope and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the tender pathos
Of the Here and the Hereafter;--
Stay and read this rude inscription,
Read this Song of Hiawatha! 

Balance

We returned to America about one month ago after spending the past eight months in Thailand. During this time, I learned much more about the balance of nature and imbalance being caused by our humanity.

When we first arrived to Bangkok in November 2020, the most obvious environmental issue was air pollution caused by burning agricultural fields in several countries to the north. The most beautiful season of the year for moderate temperatures and dry weather has now been replaced by choking smog across much of Asia.

At that time, Thailand was doing a great job to control the Covid-19 pandemic; but by the springtime, all the preventative measures when out with the Thai New Year celebrations and lack of vaccines causing uncontrolled spread of disease..

As the air quality improved in early 2021, I took daily walks in our area of Bangkok taking photographs - many pics are shown on the gallery. So many beautiful flowering trees, diverse sounds of birds chirping, and low hanging fruit. My connection with nature increased during these daily walks and I began to feel a love and longing to be outdoors in the early mornings at sunrise and evening sunsets.

We got a dog for our son - a Pomeranian who shows us unconditional love! He is a great companion for the entire family and luckily does not choose favorites and is very calm for a small dog. His presence brings us more into balance.

Monsoon rains arrived during late spring and early summer in Thailand and much of Asia. The warming of the ocean water created conditions for intense rainfall that usually lasted about an hour every afternoon. We welcomed the rain that cooled and cleaned the air and restores nature’s balance.

As I think of more examples I will continue to add to this blog post.

Today's Longest Or Shortest Daylight?

Growing up about 38.8 degrees north of the equator, in northern Virginia, we always referred the first day of summer as the Summer Solstice- the longest day of sunlight in the year - which occurs today on June 21st. With roughly 85% of the land mass and 90% of the world’s population in the Northern Hemisphere, it is understandable we might forget about the people living south of the equator. Sorry folks living Down Under including in Australia and New Zealand. They are experiencing their shortest day of the year known as the Winter Solstice.

According to NOAA SciJinks, “You may have noticed two special lines of latitude on a globe of the world: One in the Northern Hemisphere called the Tropic of Cancer at +23.5° latitude and one in the Southern Hemisphere called the Tropic of Capricorn at − 23.5° latitude. These are the latitudes where the Sun is directly overhead at noon once a year. In the Northern hemisphere, on the Tropic of Cancer, that is the Summer Solstice, usually June 21. In the Southern Hemisphere, on the Tropic of Capricorn, that is the Winter Solstice, usually December 21. These solstice days are the days with the most (for Summer) or fewest (for Winter) hours of sunlight during the whole year.”

So if June 21st is the longest day of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere why isn’t it usually the hottest day of the year? Well it takes some time for the oceans to absorb the heat and release it back into the atmosphere. The heat wave exceeding 100 degrees F. in many areas including the Western Untied States occurred during the spring so we cannot expect this summer to get any cooler.

Nature Walks

I met Jim Hood when we attended Guilford College, located in Greensboro, North Carolina as students in the late 1970’s. Jim was one year ahead of me so he became an important guide and mentor. Guilford was founded by the Quakers, Society of Friends, and Jim majored in Religious Studies. We did not share classes together as I recall but we both shared a love for nature. Seems I ran into Jim a lot outside. We both treasured the beautiful campus including the Guilford woods. Sometimes we’d also see each other at the Quaker meetings - traditional unprogrammed meetings where people would feel compelled to speak up in the congregation as well as programmed meetings led by a minister.

I recall coming back to campus after a week with friends camping in the Smoky Mountains when I went to an umprogrammed meeting and after some period of silence I began shaking, like an earthquake (hence the name Quakers), feeling so compelled to speak about my experience in the woods one day. I shared my experience of a full day of hiking and siting in the beautiful mountain woods with friends and by myself where I had long nap (like Rip Van Winkle, but I had not been drinking alcohol or doing any drugs) where I had a vision of a future world like in Tokyo where the air pollution got so thick that people had to walk outside with gas masks. I felt so connected to nature, grateful for the North Carolina woods and determined to work hard to protect nature. Jim gave me positive affirmations after the meeting.

After Jim graduated from Guilford, he continued his studies at Yale and UNC Chapel Hill majoring in English. He returned to Guilford to become an English Professor in 1999 where he took on several related assignments including directing the Studies Abroad international program. My taking a semester in Munich, Germany was a life changing experience that will be the subject of a future blog. Now Jim is the Interim President of Guilford College. The school is facing difficult times financially with declining student enrollment during the pandemic. I trust Jim and many others with strong faith are doing everything they can to survive this crisis.

Another important fact about the Guilford woods is that about two hundred years ago the Quakers actively helped to free slaves by hiding them in the woods to move them out of North Carolina up to New York as part of the Underground Railroad. So nature is always giving and healing and saving lives.

Here is a beautiful video that Jim recorded one year ago at the start of the pandemic to share his meditative connection with nature and going for a walk in the woods!

Eco Videos

We’ve been making and posting fun, educational photos and videos of animals, nature, wildlife, a ghost town, people, travel and water topics for over 15 years. Here is a list of some of my videos available on YouTube:

Rocky Mountain National Park in July, 2007 at sunrise with birds, geology, a water fall and beaver dam

Home on the Range in July 2007, Wyoming

Silverton, Colorado in July, 2007 Ghost Town

Elephant Encounters in December, 2014 in Hua Hin, Thailand

Jumping on trampoline getting wet in July, 2015 in Grand Junction, Colorado

Wasting Water in July, 2015 at Grand Junction, Colorado mortuary

Jenny Lake in Yellowstone National Park in September, 2019

Colorado National Monument waterfall and pool feeds groundwater recharge in May, 2019

Grand Mesa, Colorado Spring Snowmelt in March, 2020

My trip to IAEA in Vienna, Austria in March, 2020

Wakeboarding in July, 2020 in Grand Junction, Colorado

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