Alia Long

So, this may sound weird, and I didn't set out for it to happen this way, but yesterday I had this moment while picking up after the dogs in the morning.  The day before I finally got myself to the ecostation to fill a couple of containers of compost (25%biowaste, 25%horsemanure, 50%greenwaste)  because since we moved here, my dogs have been in battle with the gophers and created canyons in our dusty, weedy lot.  I came up with the plan to try and fix this by filling in a hole each day with a mixture of the dog waste (maybe to discourage gophers?, but at least it reduced waste for someone else to deal with) some paper shreds, some food scraps (maybe this is the opposite of discouraging gophers, but I've found the worms to be better at composting than the composter I attempted to use for a couple of years), some leaves, and top it off with compost and any loose dirt around the hole.  Water it with yesterday's dog water and put a brick on it  to keep the dogs from digging in that spot for a bit.  So yesterday was my first exercise in this battle to restore my yard and I found myself just happy to be outside, trying to understand my little piece of the earth and figure out how to come to resolution with it.  My garden has never been about what I produce from it, but rather an education for me in the needs of the earth and her critters, and if I manage to produce something it feels like a gift.  

I did the footprint calculator sent out from the first week and found it so discouraging that all my motivation to continue went out the window, especially in the face of a difficult work week and the inability to make it to class.  (though my daughter was super cute in her class play)  Luckily, I have a good friend in the class too who made me feel missed and encouraged again.  I really didn't like this footprint calculator because it was very high level and broad sweeping.  I felt judged by metrics that I don't have much control over and don't seem to apply to my life.  For instance, my home.  I do live in a larger home than I need, but what I need is also not available in Los Alamos as housing is limited.  It is an old and inefficient home, which I am slowly improving upon, but I think creating the ideal footprint for us would use way more resources than using what is available.  This tool seems to have been created for city living, where there may be more options available.  I did the water footprint this morning and found it was more useful with data and actions that I have some control over and make sense for me, many of which overlapped the other footprint calculator..  

I completed my challenges for the week.  I did some reading about the chromium plume in the aquifer in Mortandad Canyon.  For most on my life I have lived in a desert where water is especially precious.  In Texas I formed good water use habits, but it has been 1 1/2 years since I moved to LA and need to put these processes in place again.  I started shopping for rain barrels for my summer garden and made a to do list in my journal.

This afternoon my daughter showed me a trail she did with her girl scout troop.  I know she took a similar hike with her class to look for signs of erosion so I asked her to show me some of these.  I took a video to show the class of her explaining different kinds of erosion.  She pointed out evidence of water, wind, and human erosion as well as how plant roots help prevent erosion.  We had a lovely time, but it was cold so we went to Starbucks for hot chocolate.  

I wasn't going to do this, but I was thinking of so many things after our meeting and from my reading that I needed to write them down.  I used one of my son's school science notebooks from a couple of years ago.  You know, the composition books that are included with the required school supplies list and gets used for only 10 pages and sent home at the end of the year.  It seemed apropos.