A Little Self Care...

Breath hangs in the air,

and Life hangs in the balance.

Choose your adventure!

This is a post that I have been reluctant to write...for many reasons.

I don't remember deciding to be this reserved and stressed out, overweight and under adventured person I have become...

It isn't easy being vulnerable.
Stories and appearances can be more interesting than the truth.
I don't like to make decisions and fail - especially with such an important decision.
Most days I let life happen to me and go along with things - forgetting my goals and choices.

So here it is. I know now that I am gluten intolerant and can only have minimal amounts of dairy. The pain that both of them cause isn't worth it. It truly isn't. However, balancing this new way of eating - I have found that it's still super easy to eat crappy food that isn't good for me. Also - ridiculous amounts of stress just make stress eating worse.

Potato chips. Enough said. Enough eaten.

My decision - beginning October 1st - is to care for myself first. Before family, friends or work, I am going to start taking care of me. I know what to do, I've been reading and studying some of this for months (even years).

It's a very simple plan. If it isn't good for me, I'm done with it.

I'm starting simple with just adding in 1/2 hour of walking every day that I can, a time of sitting still every day in meditation, cutting out anything that is packaged or processed, and cutting back on that afternoon coffee. Simple, right?  Eat less and move more sounds easy, but there are so many factors involved with retraining our minds and habits.

A pretty miraculous thing happened with this gluten-free living - the pain of the Fibromyalgia has been much less, I can think clearly and the pain in my legs and feet (that kept me out of work last year and in physical therapy) is almost gone. A small amount of self care has taken care of a huge roadblock of the past. I'm interested in seeing what other roadblocks can be eliminated...

So I will try to sleep a little more (and probably better with less caffeine), and the weight loss that has started with eating gluten-free has given me encouragement to continue on. Now it is time to move more and continue strengthening!

Yesterday, I walked at least 5 (long) miles in a walk to raise money for cancer research and it was so much fun!  I would love to do more things like this. Let's just be honest - there was no "speed" in the walking I did yesterday. However, it was awesome!  It pushed me beyond what I thought I could do and to this decision to make changes.

My sister Kim, Me, my sister Amber, and niece Lilly <3

The reason I took the Permaculture course and got my certificate was because of how many people around me are food insecure and the need for sustainable food.

1 in 3 children in Worcester don't know where their next meal will come from.
A humbling realization when I think about how much extra I have consumed personally.

I would like to live in a way that honors the knowledge that I have about nutrition and living well.
I would like to live in a way that I consume only what is necessary. Food or otherwise.
I would like to create a sustainable life where I am. Food, energy, clothing, etc.
I would like to be less stressed out - and able to spend more quality time with the people I love.
I would like to be strong enough to contribute more to meet the needs I see around me.
I would like to have the energy and focus to show the gratitude I feel for the friends and family who make my life so inspirational and special.

And as far as my part in this living - I would like to live a very long time and have many more adventures!

I do not want to be a contributing factor to limiting length of my life...

Vacationing at Home: Day 4

Day 4 - Thursday

It was a rainy and quiet morning, so we slept in. Rob went to see his Dad and I worked on cleaning up the house. This paring down of excess takes awhile. The nature of what we are trying to do with our garden, and becoming as sustainable as possible, requires some pretty specialized equipment for canning and food storage. I have no problem keeping the tools and equipment we need - what I still am figuring out is the massive amount of paperwork, mail, magazines, etc. that four adults generate. If I am honest about it - quite a bit of it is mine. I'm letting all but one of the magazines expire. I really enjoy Countryside, and have read it for years, and reread them - so those I'm keeping.

I spent some time hanging out with my daughter when she got home from work, which is always enjoyable, and then I worked for hours on the Powerpoint and drawings for my Permaculture final project. Working on this project for a design to make our property sustainable reveals some things to me personally. I feel overcrowded with many of the things around me. Clothing, books, paperwork, etc. I have been spending time thinking about my habits, hobbies, and day to day living and the effect it has on the world around me - and if my personal lifestyle is sustainable. Where I buy my clothes from, where our food comes from, all of the the other things we buy or throw away and how it effects the environment. We have found a place to buy local meat, cheese, eggs, etc. through Mass Local Food and next I want to find a way to buy clothing local. I'm just starting the research on this.

When Rob got home - he suggested we go to Rosalina's for dinner. It's so great to have such an amazing place to eat that we can walk a couple of blocks to. Dinner was delicious and I have almost 1/2 of my steak left - so tomorrow it's going to become a topping when I make my first gluten free (rice crust) pizza!

It was a slower paced day - but I find that I get more done when I can work on a project, then take a break and walk around or sit in the yard - and then get back to the project. Smaller bursts of work have a longer lasting effect on the progress I make.

One project was to clear off, organize (and get rid of) a bunch of useless things on the counter downstairs in our basement kitchen. So, I cleaned everything up to make a nice area for baking (and storing baking supplies) as well as a bigger space for canning and processing veggies from the garden. The cabinets are for food storage - for what doesn't fit in the couple of cabinets we have upstairs. Most of the baking supplies need to stay in a cooler place, so this is perfect. Also - with the space ready to use like this - I will be more likely to whip up some delicious meal or treat.  During the summer, when we don't use the wood stove for heating - we do our cooking downstairs in the gas stove.

Extra! Extra! Up for Sale

The day they installed the T&G Sign

Extra! Extra!

Google it. The New York Times is selling the New England Media Group: The Boston Globe and Telegram & Gazette.

I work for the Telegram. So last week of work and the next several months are unsure. 

There are things I am sure of, however.

The quality of the company I work for, and the quality of the job I do, are excellent. Whoever makes the purchase of the Telegram will be making a smart decision. 

Most people do not know my first exposure to the Telegram & Gazette.  When I was 10, my uncle Phillipe Boisclair was an editor and graphic artist for the Telegram. I went downtown to 20 Franklin St. when the presses were still there and got a tour of the whole building and of the newsroom. It was life changing for me as a kid.

I remember the bustling around that was just like in the movies. I wanted to work for the Telegram and be a writer. I was ten, and life had different things in mind for me. When I started working in Advertising in 2002, I was impressed with the company and the integrity of the people I worked with.

Everyone I talk to knows someone that works for, used to deliver papers for, or has/had a family member that works for the Telegram. It is an anchor and an icon for Central Massachusetts, and even though the building, the printing, the way we advertise has changed, the quality has not been compromised.

I have learned so much in the last 11 years of working in Classifieds and then in Inside Sales, and now in Multi-Media Advertising. Times are changing so quickly, and our website, www.telegram.com is an excellent website, advertising is changing to more and more digital and now something else is changing. 

I will happily work as long as I am needed. It could be stressful to not know the future, but when do we really know for sure about tomorrow?  We have today, and nothing else is guaranteed. So, even if my job were to end tomorrow, I would still be proud of the work I have done, the company I have worked for and grateful for all I have learned. I enjoy the people I work with, and the people I work for.

Times are changing.  Hold on for the ride! 

For the past couple of years we have spent so much time paying down debt, planting our garden, putting in new windows, cutting our expenses, deciding to go car-free, etc.  If at the end of this, I do not have employment, it will be okay. Really. That's a side effect of living a simpler and sustainable lifestyle. There isn't a lot of maintenance that needs to be done, and there aren't a lot of requirements. 

What can you change today that will lessen the stress for you in life tomorrow? It could be as simple as bringing lunches or coffee from home rather than spending out, taking the bus or carpooling instead of paying for gas, car maintenance or parking.

When you are ready for anything - it's all an adventure! 

Living Sustainably in the City: Our Story

I was super encouraged when I opened the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Countryside Magazine and found that the story I wrote about our first year striving to live sustainably in the city had been published. If you are interested in any of these topics, this is a great magazine that I have been reading for years. You can read the current issue online, but not the submitted stories, so here is what I wrote. I am so looking forward to the Spring and the new year and new adventures!

_______________

Dear Countryside,

I have been reading Countryside for many years. Long before I married, or owned a house, or even understood what sustainability is. I learned many, many tings about off-grid living, canning, homesteading, housekeeping, etc. before I ever did any project of my own. The information has been invaluable and I return to those back issues now, more than ever as our life gets more involved in gardening and sustainability. It has been in my heart and mind the whole time, and as November approaches, I will take out the November/December magazines from the past and read all of the ideas for this time of year. Starting with the newest, which I read cover to cover, I then scan through past issues to mark stories that I would like to read again.  

When I first started reading Countryside, what I remember is the feeling in my gut, that instinctive knowing that I was supposed to be working in a garden somehow and that the sustainable lifestyle was something I wanted to live. Growing food, digging in the ground, chopping kindling, whatever it meant, I knew I would one day have a way to garden. I had the desire to move toward a simpler life, but I still had the impression that I would have to move to Vermont or somewhere similar to have the space to do many of the things that homesteading and off-grid living requires.

We decided to live sustainably in the city instead of moving. We started by asking ourselves what was attractive about living in a place like Vermont? It is a slower paced life - we can do that here by making better choices with our time. I want to be able to heat and cook with a wood stove - so we installed the Elmira wood stove. I want to grow our fruits and vegetables - we can do that in the city also, with a little creativity and patience. We want our commute and work day to be as simple as possible, so we bought a house near our jobs and can walk if needed, but currently take public buses and carpool to commute. My ideal would be to stay home and put my full day of effort into working in the garden, cooking, writing, and crafting and I am working toward that by paying off personal debt and saving.

I once thought that we would need a lot of space, but that simply is not true. We live in Worcester, Massachusetts - one of the biggest cities in New England and the lot we live on is only 100x50. Many people, when seeing our home, had the first response of "what a great starter home". However, the first time we walked through, I knew it was a perfect, workable size for a family of four and there was a big enough space to spend time in the yard, and have a garden one day. When we moved in, there was extra space, and as we lived, we accumulated more and more stuff, to the point of needing a dumpster every year to cear out enough to use the house again. It isn't dirty or verge on hoarding, but a small space filled up quickly with two growing teens at the time, and with a creative family. We simply had too much, but didn't understand that we were participating in a consumer-based lifestyle at that time.

We started our journey of learning to be sustainable by taking care of structural and foundational work: first we replaced the roof, then we fenced in the yard. We added garden beds, fruit and nut trees last year, along with rain barrels. We also installed an Elmira Cooktop Stove, so we could heat and cook with wood. I learned about the stove in Countryside and we found a local stove place to do the ordering and installation. We stopped using the air conditioners and had the extra appliances taken away. We bought a new, energy efficient and smaller refrigerator and a new washer that is energy efficient and easier on our clothes.

It sounds like so much in a list like this, but really, we did one project at a time and then paid it off. This year we took a big leap and got energy efficient windows. Last night was only 40 degrees outside and it was still 65 inside. I am looking forward to the Winter with the new windows and the wood heat. If the house holds heat like it seems to right now. we will not use all of the wood we have stacked in the yard.

Our garden this year was an experiment in planting as many different things as we could to see what would grow best here. We were able to can potatoes, corn and carrots. We had a small amount of sweet potatoes. We also grew amaranth, peas, cucumbers, pumpkins, butternut squash, sunchokes, sunflower seeds, peppers, beans for drying and several herbs. Oh, and lots of cherry tomatoes, a few each day that we enjoyed with dinner. We learned a lot from our experiments! We will plant fewer things next year and only what we will definitely eat, with a goal of having extra to share with family and friends.

We also planted 5 different apple trees, 3 pear trees, an almond, 2 hazelnut, grapevines, kiwi vines, and several different berry bushes. They all grew quite a bit this year, but we have to be patient to see what they will do next year or the year after.

I am sharing this because I believe that we can all do something to be a little more sustainable and contribute. Rather than taking and using resources, how great it would be if we each could do just a little bit for ourselves! With each of the changes we have made, our energy usage has dropped and although it has created more work for us physically to copy wood, gather kindling, and care for the garden, the work is so rewarding.

Our city is currently working toward allowing chickens in the backyard here again REC Worcester is working for getting the approval in place. At the same time the Mass local food movement is growing. There are so many amazing pieces of conservation land that offer hiking, etc. One small place is near our home, so we became volunteer Rangers and help out that way by preserving the habitats near us. This gives us that experience of the open spaces of Vermont, while we tay right in our own neighborhood and city.

I don't believe that my backyard garden will change very much on any big scale of food growing or consumption, but I know what it has done for my mental well-being and the encouragement of our family. It is so exciting to see wild life in our yard (toads, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, possums, many different birds, butterflies, bats, etc.) It has changed our world to be able to walk into the back yard and pick a tomato that we planted. If everyone could do just one little thing like that, I do believe that individual lives would be greatly changed. And if enough individuals are changed, then who knows what the outcome and effect could be in the world?

I am very interested in the Tiny House movement (imagine the smile on my face when I realized that I already live in a small home). I am also reading a lot about Minimalism and Simplifying my life, and at the ocre of it, for me, is the necessity to need less and have fewer requirements. I still have and use the technology that I enjoy and am currently donating extra clothing, household items, etc. to three different organizations that will get it to families that are really in need.

For me, I see that less things to care for gives me more time to spend with family and friends, more time to meet neighbors and be involved in the community and more time to garden.

I would love to talk with anyone who is interested in urban farming, sustainability, living simply and returning to the simpler way of life. Our story is here adventureonplanetearth.blogspot.com

and I am here: 

Michele Couture

34 Pilgrim Ave.

Worcester, MA  01604

Thank you!

Mental Sustainability

I spent four hours Sunday stripping leaves off branches and cutting branches into kindling.

Why? Because I could!

After spending week after week sitting still and not able to do anything in the yard or garden, I worked slowly, at a task that would not hurt me, at an enjoyable pace, and I discovered something about myself: this is what I could do every day.  Gardening, yard work, housekeeping, cooking, canning, all of it.  Every day.

In the past, when I thought of being sustainable – I would think of the basics: food, clothing, shelter, water, safety, etc.  When I sat for a while – I discovered that there is another aspect to sustainability that I didn’t fully understand:  Mental sustainability. There are things that are individual to each of us that we require to have a mental wellness.  For me:  the relationships around me of family, friends, neighbors, gardening and nature, contributing to a community, cultivating beauty and creativity, writing, music, seeing a value in the day to day work that I do and playing games and having fun.

For example, there is a happiness that occurs when I complete a task I enjoy:  huge stick pile + empty bucket + stripping the leaves and cutting up sticks = full bucket. Full bucket of kindling + Winter weather = fire starter for cooking and heat. The value of the small amounts of work equal a greater value in the end and result in comfort, heat and food for family and friends and a warm shelter during the storms, as well as a mental comfort and warmth that recharges me and helps me deal with the harshness that sometimes occurs in the world. There is something magical that happens around a hearth.

Another realization came to me this week.  Although there are some projects that need to be done around the house and garden, I need nothing. I was surprised to find that the mental wish list of random things has disappeared. I have enough.  I am not excluding the dream of one day owning more land and being able to have animals and a much larger garden. That is a family dream. For me, personally, I’m done. I have everything I need and, in fact, actually need less than I have.  The few things I do plan to buy in the next year are related to living with less and being sustainable. (bike, hiking shoes, some plants and gardening supplies, and books. Books to read and learn and pass on.)  In the past, when October hit, I would start the frenzy of holiday wish lists and shopping. I really love to give gifts and encourage people, but a lot of the time it seems to just add to a pile of things they already don’t have the time to use. I really enjoy giving and receiving gifts of consumable such as candles, wine, a meal, traveling together, something handmade. Something to create a memory and show another person they are remembered and loved. I am looking forward to being creative with these new ideas for the holidays this year. If we could only change our minds and habits, and instead give of ourselves and our time.

As I rode the bus to work today, I overheard a conversation between an older man and a younger mom with her child. Their discussion was about where they would be sleeping tonight. He would be behind a dumpster downtown, in a friend’s hallway, maybe a shelter, and the woman had a hotel room that she and her child were staying in for a little while to keep them off the streets.  Neither knew what they would be doing for the winter.

This conversation brought what matters most into very clear focus. The chaos of 8-5, which really means 7:15 -5:45 some days with the bus commute, traffic screaming around school buses, around corners and everything screaming around me, the pushing around of papers for 8 hours and the same chaotic trip home. Time passes quickly, without much meaning in a failing economy and goals that can’t be met.  I like my job and most of the people I work with, but at the end of the day – where is the full bucket? I am grateful to have work, when so many people don’t, but where is the cultivation of beauty and creativity?  The money I make is useful for providing for our family and things we need…but what if we just didn’t need all those things anymore? In the evenings I walk or sit in the garden and wish for a day of hard work that contributes to the world to make it better. We’re all in this together and we need each other and in the evenings I am often too tired to spend time the way I would choose. I do my best to make the experience of my job useful to the accounts I deal with and I believe that I get paid to contribute something of value to the company every day. I do this for myself, so I can look at myself in a mirror and be satisfied that – even if I am not living what I dream  – I am giving my best to this day and what I am doing now. I know now that this way is not mentally or physically sustainable for me.

However, the wind is changing, the fog is lifting, and my mind is clearer than it has ever been.

There is something in motion here that will take me to a new place. It already has begun to change me. I don’t know the exact path or where it will lead, but the direction I am facing now looks very different and it feels like home...

and home is a great place to be...

A Small Harvest

Permaculture and our Hugelkultur Beds

Last Summer I was on vacation and came across a video of Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison speaking about Permaculture and for the next 7 days (and many days since) I have watched, read, and absorbed everything I could about this topic. What is this Permaculture? It's a fairly complex idea that can be stated as simply creating the perfect situation for permanent agriculture, permanent culture. I have heard and read so many things now, but what it boils down to, in my understanding, is

Care of the planet...Care of people...Distribution of abundance.

I don't have a soapbox. I have a 50x100 ft lot in the middle of one of the biggest cities in New England, and I believe that we can supply at the very least all of the vegetables, fruits and nuts that our family needs. If they allowed chickens and goats...we would have all the protein and milk too.  I do think it is crucial that each of us thinks about where our food, clothing, etc. comes from and what it is costing other people, nature and our resources for us to have these things. I don't think it means giving up anything, but just being aware and grateful for the many gifts that this world gives us.

Two things that are always in the forefront of my mind: Plants want to grow. It's what they do! And all they need is the perfect environment to do so...and Nothing we do is failure, it's all a learning experiment and we just try until we find what works.

Our experiment this week:  Hugelkultur Beds. Sepp Holzer is one of the leaders in practicing this method. He has a few great books and some videos on-line.

It has been such a mild February that we were able to dig and prepare one of the beds this past weekend. We have a bunch of stumps from various removals of trees on our property....stumps and sticks not useful for the wood stove and that have already started to decompose. So we decided to use this resource to raise a few smaller beds.

The first step is to dig the up the sod and put it aside.

Our less than marvelous "lawn" becomes useful!

Once the sod was up, we replaced the bed frame.

The frame isn't necessary, it is just part of the design we have chosen.

After digging out some soil, we placed the rotting logs in the hole. 

Then we filled in and left the sides of the bed free from logs.

Next we turned the sod upside down over the logs.

This, along with the logs will retain the moisture during the hot months.

The goal of Hugelkultur is to not have to water these beds.

We soaked the entire bed with water.

Then we replaced the soil that we dug out of the hole.

Covered the bed with a thick layer of bark and mulch.

Watered it all down again and left it to do it's magic.

The purpose of the Hugelkultur bed, in my understanding is to hold the moisture in the logs and sod and help restore the soil to a natural state. It also takes many years to break down and gives these seemingly useless pieces of rotting wood and "yard waste" a purpose.

The plan is to plant shallow rooting plants - such as lettuce and beans in this and the other two beds - so  there is a food also grown here and the soil and mulch will be held in place as well as aiding in the growth and watering of the plants.

This is all an experiment, but the very next day I saw birds  in this bed picking out bugs and the mulch is holding the soil in place. It is creating/restoring an ecosystem.  It is restoring a natural process that we have changed by clearing out our land of what we consider waste, but what is actually the necessary ingredients for the next year of growth.

There are two more beds to be dug, and with the way this "Winter" is going - at least one should be finished this weekend.  

Plants want to grow - all we need to do is provide the environment for growth! Observing nature around us - I see that all that is needed is right before me.  

In my mind I see these ideas and imagine that all the world was once a garden of Eden. There was food everywhere and nothing was lacking. I believe if we all do just a little, we can reverse this culture of consumption and have a better quality and more sustainable choice of food, clothing and life. Just on a small scale, where we are, we can all make a difference for our own lives...even just a small change in a new direction.

Life, after all is all an experiment! Try something new :)