Uncategorized – Page 14 – State of Wilderness

CITO: The Plastic Bag Conundrum

This weekend, our family participated in a CITO event, which is basically a “clean up the Earth” party, or a “trash bash”. We also plan to attend a few more of these in the upcoming weeks, and also are planning one for the Cub Scout Den we are working with. This was my ninth time to participate in a CITO event (short for “Cache In-Trash Out), but this is the first time I really got to thinking about how “earth friendly” it really is.

To get the “smiley” for the event, we show up and get our trash bag. We put on some gloves and carry around a trash bag and put trash in it, and then throw it away in the dumpster and feel all good about ourselves afterwards. At the last CITO we were at, and probably quite a few of the ones previous, people were walking around with mostly empty trash bags and then disposing of them within a short time period without filling them up. It seems a little ironic.

What happens after that? The trash gets taken to a landfill, and then it takes the plastic bag the trash is in about 400 to 1000 years to break down into the environment, if it ever actually does at all. We also need to think about what we are adding to our landfills. Even though more is being recycled than ever before, our waste has been tripling due to packaging used for the goods we buy.

I propose that at future CITOs, we use paper bags or biodegradable bags. This will better serve our intentions of being good to the Earth by removing some of the junk on it, without adding to the problem.

Environmental Ethos

It’s been a beautiful spring, and I have been cooped up indoors recuperating. One would think this would give me time to write some stories, but I had found so many other projects to occupy my time that I haven’t had it to spare writing on here. Mostly, spare moments have been spent brushing up on math skills to re-take the GRE. Physical therapy and getting back into the world of work, chores, gym and kids was suddenly eating up my time.

I also developed some weird obsessions, like solitaire and cruising sites like Etsy and Pininterest. Lastly, I felt like there was nothing new to bring up – I was played out. But I haven’t forgotten about this place, where I go to write about the parts of the natural world that fascinate me. Lately, I have been thinking more about my growing environmental ethos, and where it might lead me.

I wasn’t that interested in environment for most of my life, shamefully. I was really too absorbed in animals and my life, I guess, to really think about it. Maybe I started spending more time thinking about it when I became a mother, as I considered what kind of legacy we are leaving to our children. Perhaps this strengthened interest in the environment grew deeper as I became more invested in geocaching and rediscovered the love I had for the forest, only to notice that it was full of human debris. Or it grew wings from listening at birds of prey demonstrations, when animal ambassadors are used to tell examples of how humans have both destroyed habitat for, and provided protection for, species in danger of extinction. Maybe I have changed as the world has changed – even though culture has been burning through energy in exponential leaps, we have also been considering the impact as an energy-consuming society.

The main thrust of the environmental movement in America may have started in the seventies, but its message is still pressingly relevant today. We have changed some of our ways, but not all, and it is now, in this generation, that the very real effects of global warming are starting to be noticed. Maybe it all does come back to animals for me; when I read stories about the poor polar bears marooned on suddenly adrift islands, or swimming 9 km in one day just to get from one land mass to another – land masses that used to be connected – I feel very bad to be a human. We are asking the polar bear to adapt quicker than it is biologically capable – how many other species are we doing this to?

It’s not enough. This thinking and learning about environmental issues without taking action, it’s not enough. Whatever we do to try to reverse the tide of consumerism, it won’t be enough to reduce our impact. What can we do locally and proactively to help save this world for future generations, protect the forests and the animals, and try to set right the damage we have caused to the atmosphere and ecosystems of this planet?

Here are some local paths to action to consider:

Learn about upcoming legislation related to the environment and let your representative know how you feel on these issues. Vote on them when they come up:

http://www.cechouston.org/2013/03/26/83rd-texas-legislature-regular-session-march-26-2013/

http://www.c2es.org/federal/congress

Making eco- friendly decisions: buying recycled paper, buying a more fuel efficient car, building a greener home, investing responsibly, purchasing organic foods free of pesticides, or starting a compost pile in your home garden, support your local organic food supplier, etc. Leave me a comment if you want to add to that list.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average U.S. household is responsible for the emission of almost 60 tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) annually.
Of this CO₂ footprint, approximately 32 percent (or about 20 tons of CO₂) is controllable:
- about 9.8 tons through electric choices
- about 8.9 tons through transportation choices
- about 2 tons through recycling, reducing and reusing

Educate and involve yourself in the dialogue https://www.facebook.com/cecHouston/info

Pardon The Interruption: What I Have Learned From My Time in the Chair

So it has been about ten weeks since my accident that resulted my injury, and cessation of normal life for a while. It might be a few more weeks until I am walking again. The past month or so, I have been working on my physical rehabilitation with the goal of walking by mid-March. The weather has been so nice that it has been driving me crazy to be stuck inside and not able to go hiking. I have been spending some time outside a little in the wheelchair, watching the kids or brushing the dogs, just enjoying the outdoors. (I even tried to take it around the block for a spin, but that proved much more difficult than I anticipated).
I’ve also spent quite a bit of time reflecting on what happened, why, and what I can take away from this. These are the ways I have grown and the things I have learned from this experience the past couple of months:

) The world has much more good in it than bad: sometimes it is easy to dwell on the scary stories we see in the news, and we lose sight of the fact that human nature is inherently good. You might start to believe that all human beings operate in their own self-interest without consideration for what is fair or right. However, if you actually interact with people while you are on crutches or in a wheelchair or otherwise injured, you will see, through the actions of others, that humans are overwhelmingly good. I have been amazed at how many people go out of their way to open doors, carry things, help me get situated. Complete strangers show compassion in unexpected places. My friends have made extraordinary gestures. If the 80/20 rule applies in this situation, I would say that 80% of people go out of their way to help another person in need, and that is truly touching to see.

2) Compassion for the ill and wounded: I am hoping that if nothing else, this experience has taught me how to better care for other people, maybe someone in this same situation or a situation with similar conditions. Maybe this is the primary lesson – maybe I would need this empathy to help a loved one later on in life through a debilitating illness or injury.

For about five weeks, I could hardly get around besides moving from the bed to the couch to the bathroom and back again. I was bored out of my mind. I truly appreciated just having someone spend some time with me. There were simple pleasures, like sweet treats brought or sent to me by friends and family, a particular lotion or comfortable outfit, some new movies to watch. The fact that my little family unit here at the house suddenly had to cook for me, to bring me food and drink, to help me with pillows and blankets was something I appreciated. What if I didn’t have these people? J was amazing as my nurse and aid – helping me get cleaned using a shower chair, making sure I had what I needed at hand, helping me get dressed, cleaning my wounds and changing my bandages – I really had to rely on him and maybe someday he will rely on me in the same way, and I hope I can be as calm and patient of a caregiver as he was.

3) Understanding of what it is like to be handicapped: I think I am going to look at the world in a different way now. It is so easy to kind of look past people with handicaps without really dwelling on how hard their life can be, in terms of dealing with just even the day to day challenges of getting cleaned, dressed, toiletry and bathing, cooking and eating – the basic aspects of life as a human. Getting around, participating in the same activities of life as other people presents even greater challenges. While I was out of work, they built a handicapped ramp to get into my building, and installing rails in my bathroom there. Thank God, that would have been impossible to navigate without. Dealing with bathrooms in restaurants, getting in and out of other buildings, enjoying the outdoors in the same ways I used to have all presented their own challenges.

4) Virtues of online shopping: this last one is one Jason probably wishes I didn’t figure out. He probably didn’t mind that I did all the Christmas shopping this way, and he hardly had to get out to the stores to get anything. There were additional temptations, though. I realized through this process that if I wanted something, it was only a click of a button away, and it made it so much easier for me to spend money on it. Also, because this door had been opened (the “Christmas Gift Gateway?”), online ads were suddenly more compelling to me. On the other hand, though, I learned the dark side of online ordering, which actually probably worked in our financial favor. I learned that it is probably better to try on clothes at the store than buy them online, that having a product in hand is probably better than having it delayed or get lost in shipment, and that you can’t judge the quality of a product from its picture online. Three dresses, three books, and three delayed gifts is all it took to teach me these lessons, which now act as a sort of vaccine against making more online purchases. However, I did get exposure to some awfully interesting sites, like Amazon and Etsy, that I have gotten a little obsessed with.

5) Take the time while you have it: because you never know what might happen. In some ways I thought I had been being good about this, but as I lay in my bed weeping about the things I wanted to do with my children that I couldn’t now, I realized I wasn’t soaking it all in. I think I am better than some at making plans about what I want to do, and carrying them out, but there is a lot of room for improvement in there, too.

6) Appreciate the little things: like being able to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom without a big production, like being able to make your own meal, or go out to eat to celebrate a birthday, like laying on your left side to snuggle with your honey at night. There were a lot of little things I was taking for granted, but I will be savoring every one of them from now on!

That’s probably not all; I am sure I will think of more later. I am also making another kind of list – the list of things I want to do when I get better again, the things I am looking forward to when I am finally cleared to head back to my normal life. I am looking forward to sharing those adventures as they unfold in the near future.

Mono Lake MonoMyth, Episode 1

Departure

After a couple of hours at my former in-laws – visiting, packing up things the kids had forgotten, and repairing the small dent we put in the front bumper of the rental SUV, we were ready to leave for our next adventure.

The Call to Adventure

This one had us traveling south on US-395, all day long. We were in high desert country now. We were also chasing daylight to our next camping spot, so we couldn’t stop at every geocache along the way in the interest of time. We couldn’t resist this one, though (above picture), that almost turned out to be more than we bargained for. The SUV was not four wheel drive and the road weaved up a small mountain before we were forced to stop driving – so the youngest one and I made the hike the rest of the way in the hot high desert sun to find an ammo can on the top of a ridge overlooking the valley – it was actually pretty awesome. We limited ourselves to only five caches in about five hours, though, before we made it to the area we planned to spend the night.

Mono Vista

Refusal of the Call

So, we finally made it down into the Mono Valley and we need to find a place to bed down for the night. I had kept this night free of reservations, partially because I wasn’t sure how far down the road we would make it that night.

Oh…wait…back up…see, this is why I write this stuff down in here- because I forget the details and sometimes, the details ARE important. No, we didn’t actually make it to Mono Valley that night. Camping plans were derailed in favor of a Best Western in Susanville, California. We were too tired to make it all the way – and to tell you the truth, it was really nice to spread our things out and reorganize, to order pizza and watch TV and relax, to take the boys down to the little pool which was a little too chilly still on this mid-summer night for comfortable swimming, but it was fun to shiver together, to play water games, catch up on their stories of the past week, and whisper about the teenage girls on the other side of the pool from us.

And this is the thing about Susanville: I never went there with my ex-husband, even though it was close to where we used to live, and a place we drove through sometimes AND where he spent a year going to college. He only ever pointed out the women’s penitentiary to me. But I kind of liked this town, and I really want to go back now, after spending some time there in the hotel room reading about what Lassen National Park has to offer. Guided horseback rides that offer opportunities for viewing wild horses was most intriguing activity I saw advertised. Maybe someday when I am healed and back to riding horses we can look into that.

Anyways so we finally got out of town the next morning and were NOW headed to Mono County, with a few stops along the way (like an irritating search for DVD player chargers in Reno, Nevada, and a random sampling of meatball panini sandwiches at a pizza place somewhere north of Carson City). So after all that, and not much geocaching, it took us almost to the end of day before we were fiddling around trying to decide on a campsite for the night.

(tune in for Episode 2 later, after we try out our new Blu-Ray system and get some sleep)