What would you change?

This is a little different post than usual, but that's why it's my rant:) So I know we are all supposed love ourselves just the way we are, but admit it, most of us have something we probably wouldn't mind being a little different. While I was sad that I stopped growing at 5' 7" (whatever formula they use to estimate height calculated I would be 5' 11" and I was very excited about that), the real thing I'd love is different hair. I would love myself some gorgeous, Pantene Pro-V looking hair, the straight shiny look that would not need any styling. In reality my hair is a super frizzy nightmare during the summer, but at other times still thick, frizzy, and slightly wavy. Taming it takes about 20 minutes of ironing each time, which really adds up. So I do and always have lusted for time-saving hair. During my teen years I was sure if I just found the right magical hair care line that my troubles would be solved. I never found that magical line (though some things do help).

I have heard of a few things that interest me lately on the hair front. The no-poo concept sounds very interesting to me. Basically it suggests that we are stripping our hair by washing it with shampoo. This makes a lot of sense to me because my hair usually looks better (less frizzy/poofy) the day after it's been washed. It also makes sense because most animals don't go around shampooing themselves everyday.According to people that have done this, your scalp will adjust and stop compensating for the continuous loss of natural oils caused by washing, so that you do not end up with greasy hair once your scalp adjusts.However, it seems like the barrier for most people is waiting to adjust, which can take months and during which time you are supposed to use baking soda and vinegar to keep your hair from getting gross. I am still considering trying this though, basically because it's a lot cheaper than the natural brands for shampoo and conditioners (a lot of the non-natural brands have chemicals in them that are estrogen-mimics, yuck...).

The other tidbit of interest is the Brazilian Blowout, which is basically a permanent straightening, but it is supposed to be good for your hair because it uses keratin instead of other chemicals. Then it gets ironed like crazy and it stays. And most people are in love with the results. It sounds like the amazing, too good to be true solution. And it is. Because now most brands of this keratin-based product are found to have formaldehyde. Which makes me think that the keratin probably wasn't doing much in the first place, since it's formaldehyde that they use in wrinkle-free pants. Sigh. Still looking for my hair miracle.

Garden Update

Well for the past month or so are garden has been growing, some things better than others.

 

 See this? This is our larger raised bed. When we planted it, it was the only part of the backyard that got reliable sunlight. Now, the sun has become more angled through the fall and the front half of this bed never gets direct sunlight. Oops! Despite this, the carrots grow (at a snail's pace?). The broccoli and potatoes actually seem quite happy, I think their foliage got large enough that they still catch sunlight despite being in the front of the garden. Shallots and garlic also happy. Green beans and lettuce not so much. The peas are doing awesome and have grown past the top of the trellises. We started harvesting a few snow peas and the sugar snap have started flowering.

 The sugar snap peas also have the prettiest flowers! I would probably grow them even if they didn't produce food (ok not really because I haven't planted anything for just being pretty).

This is the smaller garden, which now gets the bulk of the sunlight. We harvested our first arugula salad a few weeks ago, realized that we do not like the taste of arugula and pulled it out. We replaced it with some swiss chard. The spinach, romaine, and mesclum are growing nicely. I just wish the worms didn't think the romaine (and broccoli) was so tasty! I sprayed a pepper solution on them hoping they will stop eating it. I have tried to plant more spinach but it doesn't seem to being sprouting. Maybe something is eating the seeds? Next I will try to start some indoors.

So far we've been lucky and have only had mild frosts so we've been able to spare our more vulnerable plants. I am hoping to give the potatoes as much time as possible to grow since I don't think they're going to reach their full potential size. Small potatoes. Oh well, we have decided this is an experiment anyway.

My poor neglected blog

I have been neglecting this blog for the last month or so. Charlie and I have both added another year to the clock. In between our birthdays we went on a great vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii (Charlie has posted some pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/foodiddy/Hawaii#). Here are a few highlights:


The glowing lava pit in Halema'uma'u



At the beach






a lookout point along Chain of Craters road



The floor of the Waipi'o valley, with waterfalls in the background




Us on the summit of Mauna Kea (completely backlit)



A sea turtle sleeping on Punalu'u beach


Right after the trip I went to Ohio to do some work, then shortly after it was Thanksgiving! We actually had a fairly laid back holiday, and cooked dinner just the two of us in Austin.

Food Part #2 Solar Oven

I have been planning on building a solar oven for quite awhile and last week finally got around to doing it! It was pretty cheap to do and not too hard either. Of course I had all the same sized boxes and the outer box is larger, so I had to adjust the plan and put two boxes together (hence the hexagonal shape). 

You probably cannot see the oven thermometer I put inside, but it's reading about 200 degrees. The temperature swung between 175 and 200 for most of the day. It was not a very hot day, low 80s, so I was happy with that. At least the oven got to the slow cooker temperature range. The biggest problem I had using the oven was that I had to move it because our lawn gets a lot of shade. I also did not do a good job stabilizing the lid so the flap fell a few times and decreased the temperature.

When I was done making the solar oven, I wanted to use it but hadn't thought of any recipes so I threw in some apples and sprinkled on cinnamon and sugar.

They cooked! I have no idea how long it actually took them to cook, but they were in the oven for about 5 hours. I think I will need to perfect my solar oven skills. I envision slow cooked baked potatoes. Solar ovens are not supposed to save much energy, since cooking only accounts for 4% of energy use. But I would loooove it if I could avoid heating up the house on warm days, which just happens to be the best days for solar cooking. If I really get into solar cooking I will probably upgrade to a better model and use wood instead of cardboard, nails instead of tape and staples. But for now this model seems to be sufficient for slow cooker speeds. 


This is the design that I modified for solar cooking: http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/solarbox.htm
There are lots of  other designs out there. This design is probably the simplest but also the most limiting: http://solarcooking.org/plans/newpanel.htm . Parabolic designs are supposed to get as hot as conventional ovens but also can result in burns and eye injuries. And of course, there's lots of companies willing to sell them to you if you don't want to build the solar oven.

Food Food Food!

I am doing several posts over the next several days on my food obsession hobby: #1 garden, #2 solar oven, and #3 cooking. Maybe I'm a little obsessed, but food is one of those things that you can't live without, so you might as well enjoy it! Charlie and I have been working on the garden, so here are a few pictures.

This is a partial view of the raised beds. The large plants in front are green beans, there are also peas and cucumbers a little further back on the trellis. Charlie and I made the trellises with wood and bamboo from Lowes ("we" made them is being generous, we shopped for supplies together and I scored marks for where to put the bamboo, Charlie did the rest). Much cheaper them buying them premade. The pots are peppers.

Close up of the peppers. We have green and red bell, and jalepenos (which are flowering now). The right pot is a squash. We might transplant it to the garden, we did not think there would be room before.

Baby bell pepper!

Green onions and carrots (the carrots are too small to see well). We bought green onions for baking, and they came with roots so we replanted them. They grow pretty fast.

Shallots and carrots. On the right corner you can also see one of the garlic.

Lettuce, which is not looking very good right now. Apparently lettuce does not do well when it's above 80. Oops. We'll try again later probably.

For the kitties, cat grass, which was looking great but now has been decimated from noms.

That's it for now! Happy Tuesday!

Miscellaneous update

I have been too lazy to do good posts for the moment. There really needs to be more hours in a day. So here is a miscellaneous piece of my world right now.

-Gardening. How does our garden grow? Great! Unfortunately at this moment I am too lazy to put up pictures, but everything we planted is growing! We even have a bell pepper the size of a pea right now. We planted romaine, arugula, peas, green beans, squash, bell peppers, jalepenos, broccoli, cauliflower, green onions, shallots, garlic, potatoes, carrots. I also just planted some leeks and herbs this weekend (dill, parsley, oregano and chives). A big thanks to Charlie's cousin who gave us most of the seeds to plant. Charlie made raised beds out of cedar, and we made trellises last weekend because the peas and beans are already getting pretty tall. This is our first gardening adventure so hopefully everything makes it to harvest, but so far so good!

-Writing. Sigh. It is good that I am spending this much time writing my dissertation (I plan on defending in spring), because I dislike writing just as much as ever. And, I am still quite slow at it, that is if I'm writing well, and I still change what I'm going to say a million times. And did I mention that I don't really like it? Actually one of the reasons I started this blog was to like spending time writing, but really this does not translate at all into dissertation writing. Blog=fun, dissertation=fun part is over. double sigh.

-Job searching. I am also spending some time working on job searching skills, as at 28 years old I haven't really had jobs that have required that...Mainly I want to find a part-time job so that I have something to do besides write. Plus, right now while I am technically a student, at 28 I'd like bring home some veggie bacon at least! And if it lead to a full time job after I graduated, that would be excellent. Anyone hiring out there?

-Cats.Not really an update, though I think spending all day with the cats is making me a little nutty. We are trying with limited success to toilet train them, I still have dreams of not having to clean the litter box. The training process is pretty intense though.

-High school. My high school reunion was this weekend. I didn't actually go to it, but I can't believe it's been 10 years since high school! It is pretty crazy that I have been in school almost that entire time. Because I am lazy, I am posting this picture that was on my computer. It was the band seniors from 2000, the year I graduated. I spent lots of my time back then with the band and guard, although very few of the color guard were actually seniors when I was.

-Fun stuff! My birthday is in 2 weeks. Eek! Almost 29. In 3 1/2 weeks, we head to Hawaii. Aloha!

What will you do this year?

It seems to be the New Year's resolution, except it doesn't seem to matter when you start it. The first time of heard of such a thing was with the movie Julie and Julia-which I love.


But I've been hearing these type of pledges much more now-maybe a spin off of ideas from the movie.
For example, people pledging not to buy new clothes for a year-which is great, simplistic, environmental and budget friendly to go secondhand for sure. Taking it one step further is this blog New Dress a Day. She is buying used dresses from garage sales, flea markets, vintage stores and such, giving herself a budget of $365 and as much for materials for a year (btw where is she shopping? Even Goodwill still sells things for $5-10). She is getting  a "hideous" dress each day and turning it into something amazing! She is taking her commitment and wearing it! Good quality work here.

Then today I read on NYTimes about a composer who is writing a new piece of music every day for a year. From the article, it sounds like he is able to do this in a couple hours each day. I haven't listened to the music but is anyone else skeptical? Maybe it's not that crazy, people do improve music, although I will admit listening to the same person for awhile it sounds pretty repetitive to me.

Summary of all this-setting personal goals good, giving yourself time limits to achieve those goals, also important. But, completing a project every day for a year? Overkill? What about underkill? I think for some of these projects, it works really well. But did Julie in the movie Julie & Julia do a great job cooking the some 500 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking? My guess is no. Probably in slamming through the recipes, there was very little perfecting of the recipes going on. Something that I would argue, is pretty important to being a good cook. It took me baking oatmeal cookies about 10 times for them not to be too dry or too sweet, but the first time I made a lemon meringue pie it was a success. Sometimes it's weird what comes naturally and what doesn't. Anyway, my take home message here is I think this world would benefit by more people setting goals to improve something, not just finish something.

My goal for the moment? Starting an organic vegetable garden, and hopefully saving on groceries in the process (organics are expensive!). The garden will even take a little work each day. But the vegetables, they will take months to be "finished." And I like it that way.

Texas, it's time to give up your grass

Two weeks ago, I went to a free class at the Natural Gardener on maintaining a lawn naturally. I was hoping to find out great information on what I thought was pretty difficult issue in central Texas. It turns out there is nothing natural about trying to maintain a lawn in Texas. Sure, you can put on the nifty organic all natural products that they were selling and what not, but the manpower and resources involved are crazy. Lawns do not want to exist in central Texas, nor should they given what a waste of resources it is. The recommendation that really caught my eye was the recommendation of watering your yard twice weekly, and watering a full inch each time! I also got the impression that if you were outside the city limits and did not have water restrictions, they would recommend a third watering.

Thinking this must be a crazy amount of water, I did some searching to see what this would calculate to if you had even a modest sized yard. For example, if you had a 1/5 acre plot, you might have 30' x 40' in each the front, back of the house, plus a little extra on the sides. This would amount to 3600 square feet that needs watering twice each week. So I found out that 624 gallons equals 1 inch of water for 1,000 square feet (a 31 x 32 plot), so your 3600 square foot lawn would need 2,246 gallons every time you water! This is an average of 20,214 gallons a month. This would be about  160,000 gallons annually!!! (accounting for ~4 months of not water for dormant grassand rainfall). I mean, what is grass good for? Not much! The average household in Austin uses 8500 gallons of water each month, although this is more during the hot months. But my guess is if everyone followed the guidelines above, the usage would be much higher.

I guess the big question is what exactly is sustainable water usage? Some people have yards, others live in apartment complexes and can't harvest rainwater etc.,  although there are also rivers running through Austin. My opinion is that for landscaping, sustainable usage would be what rains down. So get a good rain harvesting system. Austin gets an annual rainfall of about 33 inches, although that is hardly evenly distributed through the year. Calculating that out for 1/5 acre that could yield a potential 179,000 gallons each year, provided you were able to harvest every drop of water that fell on your land. A more reasonable estimate might be a good cistern to collect water from the roof, this might harvest for 1600 square feet, or 32,900 gallons a year.  By this estimation maintaining a yard is absolutely not sustainable, since it would require 130,000 more gallons than you could provide. But maybe a small garden is possible. Or maybe native grasses like buffalo grass. Sigh.  I wish native plants were cheaper. I don't understand why they had to tear them out and put grass in instead.

See also:
http://www.examiner.com/green-living-in-austin/new-report-says-current-water-usage-not-sustainable
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/17/0817water.html

I'm a Texan!

I've arrive in Austin! Ok, I really arrived nearly 2 weeks ago, but I've been busy, hence the lack of blogging. I've been settling in, unpacking, and working on making the move legal (car inspection, registration, voter registration check!). And still so many things left to do. I feel like I haven't been getting that much free time with all the other things I need to do.

First off, I can't believe how much stuff I (we) have. This is the first time that Charlie and I have had all our stuff in the same location, and there are so many duplicates. The good-we now have the most awesome kitchen setup! The ok-we'll try to have a garage sale to get rid of it and reclaim a little $ on our former possessions. The ugly-in spite of having so much stuff, there are still several things we can think of that we'd like for the house. Isn't that the way it always is? We are trying to be creative as much as possible though.

Second, I am loving the weather! That may sound funny given that nearly every day the high has been upper 90s-100s, but it's only that warm in the mid afternoon - early evening. Each morning has been 70s-80s with low humidity, meaning it feels much nicer than Ohio. I've been running outside without any problem (that is when I run in the morning). I am digging spending time outside in the mornings, as do the cats, and apparently so do the mosquitos, since they love me. Our backyard has the greatest trees at least part of it is always shaded. Also, it hasn't rained a single day-I know we can use it but I do love the sunny weather.

Third, I love not being in an apartment. True, I still hear the neighbor dogs, but the space, the yard, the being able to put a nail in the wall and not worry about the landlords billing you are all yays.

Fourth, I am digging the lack of distractions. I feel like I've been working more efficiently, perhaps because I've been working less. But at the end of last week thought I had accomplished quite a bit.

Fifth, Austin is great. Of course.

Sixth, living with Charlie is great. Duh.

Update

I feel like I've been super busy and I can't think of anything in particular that I want to spend time writing about. So here is an update of life the past couple weeks...

The last week in July I went to the Animal Behavior Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. I spent the week prior to that largely getting ready for the conference and going out of town. I had a good time and also got to spend some time at the beach. I finally have the slightest tan so I am not ghost white anymore. I didn't do too much tourist activities in Williamsburg, though I went on this cheesy ghost tour that went through the historic area. I also go to visit my alma matter, the University of Richmond. It is every bit as beautiful as I remember it. Since it was the weekend when I visited it was a little eerie, as the campus was pretty deserted. The whole state of Virginia was pretty gorgeous, which made for a pretty drive through the mountains to the conference.

This week has been pretty crazy. Charlie arrived in Ohio on Monday evening and we have been spending alternate evenings packing the house. We've done pretty well but since there's still about a week left here we can't pack everything yet. I am not a fan of living out of boxes and I anxious to be done with it already. I am pretty sure the cats know something is up. In the meanwhile I am finding it difficult to focus on working during the day but am still managing it. Yesterday we took a break from it all and had a nice biking/rollerblading afternoon along the bike path, then went to a movie. The day overall felt nice and normal, not like we are about to leave. Except I still knew it and didn't want the day to end. Today was back to packing and I also cooked some stuff in an effort to use what we have left.

Also side note, I got the Iphone4. In theory this is exciting but I don't feel like I'm getting much time to play or customize it yet. It's a little annoying that right now I have this new phone that I'm still not great at using and which doesn't have my contacts stored yet or bluetooth connected to or apps or music added to. I am still carrying around my old phone as a phone book. It was also anticlimatic that it took so long to arrive, then when it arrived I had to wait for 1 1/2 hours for it to be activated, then *drum roll,* AT&T accidently inactivated the sim card so I had to go back the next day. Well until I customize it, at least it looks cute! I heart the plaid case I picked...

Goodbye Athens, Ohio

Have you ever noticed the longer you are somewhere, the fewer pictures you take? For being in Athens for four years, I have surprisingly few pictures from here. This was taken at Strouds Run State Park near Athens.At the end of next week I will end my time in Athens OH and head for balmy Austin (though Athens is feeling pretty balmy right now). I am very excited to go to Austin, but I will miss some things in this town. But mostly I think I have a dual personality about Athens.

I will miss being able to drive everywhere in town in 10 minutes and walking/biking many places. I won't miss having to drive 45 minutes to get to a mall or Petsmart, or 1 1/2 hours to get to the airport and other mainstays of modern life.

I will miss the mild long summer days, but cannot imaging missing the cold winters.

I will miss some of the great restaurants, but will not miss that all the great restaurants close by 9 (and are often closed several evenings a week).

I will miss being in a small city, but will not miss the spotty cell phone and wi-fi covewrage.

I will miss how much it rains, but I won't miss how many cloudy days there are (sounds odd but there are many cloudy days that don't involve rain).

I will miss the tall eastern trees and forests. I won't miss how barren the land looks when nothing has leaves for six months of the year.

I will miss the people from my lab, but I will be glad to no longer be in a college town.

I will miss being in a Democratic state, but I am glad to go back to the south.

Toilet Train Your Cat

One of the benefits of having cats (over dogs) is that they basically are come litter trained. No worrying about coming hope fast after work to avoid cleaning up a mess. But I admit I can't stand cleaning the litterbox, or the fact that it seems to end up EVERYWHERE. Plus, it seems really wasteful. So, I dream of this...

citikitty.com

I really want to try toilet training the kitties. Actually I tried before but with only one bathroom in the apartment, it was hard to share with them during the training so I got impatient. Come Texas, I am totally trying again!

Ready for Change

Obama promised it to the country, now I promise for myself. In less than a month I will be a Texan! Ok legally the government considers me a Texas right now, and my heart is there, but the rest of me has been in Ohio. For my personal life, I couldn't be happier. After four years of seriously long distance relationship, Charlie and I will be in the same zip code permanently, a change that is long overdue. Professionally, I'm a little freaked about leaving my lab and being somewhat on my own while writing my dissertation, but I'm glad to see the projects that I have invested my blood, sweat and tears winding down. More scary so is deciding what to do after I graduate, and that is a far less certain step. I am hoping the down time while writing my dissertation will give me time to contemplate those next steps.

Food Win!

Check out my loot from the farmer's market! Best of all, everything was chemical free! Though not everything was certified organic. The blueberries are so delicious. I made a salad the way my mom taught me. And nothing beats fresh cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, I don't know why the grocery store even tries.

The trick my mom taught me for salad is cut up the cucumbers and slide the onions really thin (can you even see them in the picture?). Then add salt, and let set for an hour or so. The salt causes the juice to come out of the veggies and also mellows the onion, and it makes for a great dressing. Later I ended up adding oil, vinegar, and herbs, but it's great on its own too.

Finally, I'm trying to clean out my cupboard before I move, and found that a lemon-lime meringue pie was using everything I already had. My first meringue pie! Hope it tastes as good as it looks, it is setting in the fridge right now. I think whipped egg whites are just the coolest thing. Yep I'm a dork.

What is your carbon footprint?

So, I've been thinking about my monstrous carbon footprint and decided I need to calculate it. On average, Americans emit 27 tons of carbon just for their food and energy use. That doesn't even include other extras, such as pets, energy use away from home (e.g. movies), or buying clothes/furniture/electronics. Europeans emit about half the amount we do, and the average world citizen emits 5.5 tons. The only country that emits more carbon dioxide than the U.S. is China, and our population is much lower. Our emissions account for about 20% of the world emissions, while our population is only 4.5%. If everyone in the world used as many resources as Americans, we'd need nine worlds to keep up (clearly carbon dioxide isn't the only thing going into this estimate). While the European Union may have already decreased their emissions by 11% since signing the Kyoto protocol, emissions in the U.S. have increased by 15%.

So for the American wanting to reduce their carbon footprint, the best thing to do is following the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Of course, carbon is not the only pollutant out there. For example, electricity from coal plants also emits sulfur and mercury into the air, and nuclear plants generate nuclear waste. So while it is possible to buy carbon offsets, it is better to reduce overall pollution and work down to needing just one earth for our demands.

I have found a few carbon calculators. None of them seem to have everything and some of the numbers vary, but here are a few numbers:

The minimalist: You live in a two bedroom apartment with another person, and eat vegetarian organic food. You take measures to conserve energy in the apartment. No pets, and you walk or bike everywhere. Sometimes you go out to eat or to movies. Your impact is 13 1/2 tons of carbon dioxide each year, half the American average.

If this doesn't describe you, add the following:

If you live by yourself in a 1 bedroom apartment, add 4 tons

If you live by yourself in a 2 bedroom apartment, add 9 tons

If you live in an energy efficient 2 bedroom house with someone, add 6 tons

If you live in an energy efficient 2 bedroom house by yourself, add 24 tons

If you don’t use conservation settings for heating/cooling, add 3 tons

If you don’t use energy saver bulbs, add 1 ton

If you don’t use energy efficient appliances, add 2 tons

If you don’t use a water heater blanket and don’t use a low flow shower, add 2 tons

If you are not vegetarian, add 3 tons

If you do not eat organic, add 2 tons

If you do not recycle, add ½ ton

If you drive 12000 miles, add 5 tons for a hybrid, 7 for compact, 9 for sedan, and 10 SUV

If you fly, add 1 ton for every 1200 miles

If you have a cat, add 4 tons

If you have a dog, add 5 tons for a medium dog (e.g. collie), 10 tons for a large dog (e.g. German shepherd) and increase/decrease based on the amount of food comparatively

If you enjoy having the latest in fashion, add ½ ton

If you enjoy having new furniture and electronics, add 1 ton

If you own a car, add 1 ton

If you commute by train, add 1 ton for every 10,000 miles

If you commute by bus, add 1 ton for every 6000 miles

If you commute by subway, add 1 ton for every 8000 miles

To figure out your carbon footprint, try these calculators:

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

My carbon footprint is 39 tons this year, half of which is from flying...I estimate next years will be average (for an American that is). To offset your carbon footprint, you can go to terrapass.com and buy carbon offsets at $11/ton.

Michigan Beach Vacation

Over July 4th, Charlie and I went to South Haven, Michigan. When we planned this trip, I thought I had not been to Michigan but my mom later told me otherwise. We had a great time, checking out the sand dunes, going to the beach, walking around the town, doing too much shopping, and some cherry picking to boot! As Charlie pointed out, the great thing about going to the Great Lakes is that it feels like the ocean, real sand and all, except for when you jump in it isn't saltwater. It's large enough that there are tides and waves (not just those caused by motor boats). I accidentally kept calling it the ocean. Yay sand dunes! Where we stayed, The Last Resort B&B in South Haven Hiding from the sun, I gotta keep my vampire look going. The last bits of sunset on July 3. Sunset in Michigan btw, is around 10 pm in July. Awesome!

Is local food always better?

Local food has become a new trend, and probably not a bad one. But unlike all the positive press for it, I assume it isn't always better. So I started looking to see if I could find more details about when local food is better and when it isn't. I did find this article by The Sunday Times. Except for this article and a few tidbits here and there, could not find much beyond the same mantra we hear over and over again that local food benefits local economies and uses less energy in transportation. And if all else is equal, then local food should be better. Actually, supporting local businesses of all sorts, not just food, should help the local economy. But I guess I am more interested in whether local food is greener.

Reasons local food should be greener:
-Less energy transporting food from growers to people
-If you have a backyard and are using rainwater (or are watering your garden instead of grass), then most of the energy is your own sweat and there aren't transportation costs beyond the initial supplies
-Possibly less packaging when bought at the farmers market

Reasons local food may not be greener:
-Foods grown may not be adapted to local climate and take more resources to be produced locally (e.g. shorter growing seasons may require more fertilizers, greenhouses)
-Where you live may be environmentally sensitive, so growing certain foods could take away precious resources (e.g. water)
-If local growers are smaller scale, they may actually be less energy efficient at producing and transporting food (and eliminate any potential energy benefit of growing locally)
-The details of meat: if it's local, are they transporting the feed for the animals? This might be more energy than just transporting the animals (though from what I understand most meat is not produced where the feed is, so maybe free range grazing animals are best, and better than worrying about the meat being produced locally, or of course, being vegetarian)
-If you are choosing conventionally produced local foods over other organic foods, then the food uses more energy because of the energy costs from producing the fertilizer and pesticides
-You need to factor in the energy associated with getting smaller amounts of food to the farmers market, and getting yourself to the farmer's market (I am assuming it is an extra trip since I know I still have to go to the grocery store)

One reason I was interested in this topic is that local food has been catching on in Austin, and I wonder with Austin being drought-prone and already strapped for resources, what the local food movement is going to do. I would like to see the city require water harvesting systems so that they aren't taking water from the aquifers. I would like this required for everyone watering their lawns too. It's not that the area couldn't sustain any local food, there has always been local, but the population of the Austin area is probably already unsustainable for the amount of resources we consume. From what I understand (although I couldn't find a link for this) the water laws in Texas were written based on years of above average rainfall, which means municipalities use unrealistic numbers when calculating what kind of water pressures the city can sustain.

To sum up my opinion on this, I think the local food trend overall is good. I think there are a lot of other things we also have to consider, and if we want to eat locally we need to be willing to change the way we eat to fit the foods that grow in that region as opposed to trying to grow everything everywhere. I also think that choosing to support a local economy that is a local green economy will lead to a local economy that is more sustainable-both in the economic and ecologic sense.

Last June

One ago year today, I was in Pirenopolis, Brazil giving a talk at the Animal Behavior Conference. Brazil was an amazing experience, it was one of the places I had always wanted to go since I am so interested biodiversity. Since I went for the conference, the plane ticket was paid for! And bonus! The plenary speaker at the conference was Richard Dawkins. One of the ultimate experiences for a green graduate student like myself. I got to meet him and he was very nice.

After the meeting, I went with my former labmate from Texas State, Kristen, to a jungle lodge in the Amazon. Here are a few choice pictures from the jungle lodge.

 On a ferry crossing the Amazon River from Manaus.

 Canoeing through the flooded jungle.

We got to feed the river dolphins.

An "authenic" village. Interesting to see, but they definitely had some powertools there.

Traveling to Brazil was such a great experience, but it was also the most planning I ever did for a trip. Three vaccinations and a visa had to be obtained in advance, for a total of about $600 of additional expenses, as well as figuring out what exactly to do and doing it while not speaking any Portuguese! Brazil is one of the largest countries and it has tons to offer, more than you can possibly see in one trip. We decided to go to the Amazon, but there other natural places that are great to go, including the Pantanal (great for seeing wildlife), Iguacu Falls, and the Atlantic Forest. And of course for the beach bums and city goers you probably can't beat Rio de Janeiro.

Biosphere 2

 

I suddenly remembered the biosphere 2 experiment this weekend. It was an experiment in the 1990s to try and sustain suitable living conditions in a completely sealed, self-sufficient environment. There were a few reasons it was important to do this, namely, to see if we could be self-sustaining. This would be useful if we were to ever colonize another planet for example. But the more important contribution in my opinion was learning more about our own planet. They had to do a lot of research just to get to the point of living in the dome, about what they would need to live. In terms of some goals of the experiments, it was a failure. The first time, the oxygen decreased and they had to pump more into the enclosure (on another world, or our world you could not get this rescue move). It turns out the concrete was partly responsible for the decline in oxygen, and this was fixed for the second experiment. In addition, the carbon dioxide levels fluctuated a lot and all of the insects that pollinate plants died. Huh, kind of sounds like now...The second experiment was more successful but ended early due to change in management and financial disputes. Now it is under control of the University of Arizona. In spite of not being an outright success, a lot of information was gained by the project. I hope we manage the world better, we won't be able to call in for extra oxygen anytime soon.

When I first looked up the biosphere 2, I had the name wrong and googled biodome! I guess the movie by Pauly Shore may be more memorable because I got the name wrong!  If you recall the Pauly Shore movie, the experiment of being self sufficient and enclosed for a year, is a success!

The Travel Bug

I've got it. The travel bug. Too many places to go, too little money and time. I've got big goals when it comes to travel too. Would absolutely love go to Madagascar. Italy, Australia, and Costa Rica are also on the wish list, as is seeing all 50 states (still 19 to go).

My last trip was to San Francisco to see some of my high school friends. The top picture is from a vineyard in Napa Valley, and the second picture is us by a secoya tree in Muir Woods. My friends and I moved away from Tennessee so we rarely get to see each other. We had been talking about a trip for years, and this year finally pulled it together! San Francisco was a blast and reminded me how much there is to see of this great country.

Of course, the second I got back to Ohio I was bummed the trip was over and wanted another trip to look forward to. So I started dreaming about the next trip, and dreaming turned into searching. Needless to say, steals were found, Charlie and I discussed it, and we have another trip planned for October. We are going where you say hello and goodbye the same. Have you guessed where?

Yay! Ok, it's kind of far away but I am so looking forward to the trip, and we will also be able to celebrate living in the same zip code again. I have been before on a family vacation in middle school, but it's not like you can get tired of Hawaii!

The travel in the closer future (besides moving back to Texas) is going to the Animal Behavior Conference in Williamsburg, VA at the end of July. I am excited since I went to college in Virginia and haven't been back since 2004. I am also hoping to go to Michigan before I leave Ohio. Four years here and I've never been. Summer in Michigan is supposed to be great, and it would get me down to 18 states to see.

Happiness

This post is partly to counter my bad day post so I think about all the great things!


The big things that make me happy:

 1) My hubby, Charlie.

2) Family and friends

 

3) The cats (Mac above and Cookie below)-bringing countless hours of sweetness and entertainment.

4) The great outdoors.

5) Warm weather, preferably near water.


6)Trying new things



It's also the little things:

1) Morning coffee

2) Dessert

3) Biking to school

4) Eating berries/tomatoes off the vine

5) Good music

6) Cooking
This picture is from our 1st anniversary in March. Charlie got the aprons as part of his gift (he will admit he shamelessly took the idea from my cousins Julie and Sean) and we subsequently went on to make the Italian Cream Cake since it was the flavor of our wedding cake.


7) Backyard

8) Having a great boss! And a flexible work schedule.

9) Fragrant flowers-because half the fun of flowers is smelling them!

10) Holidays-specifically, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and July 4

10) Travel

11) Yoga and running