Many Miles to a New Year’s Resolution

(Originally published in the Juneau Empire, January 2010)

Ahhhhh. My little family flew to Alamos, Mexico for the holidays… spending a month with snow bird parents who’ve crafted a lovely winter life there. They’re a rare breed of bird nowadays – the popular American view of Mexico is a country overrun with drug lords and kidnappers. Until affordable medical or dental work is needed, then South of the Border many Americans go. Having worked with elders whose health care needs have surpassed Medicare capabilities, and are destitute without the assistance of family, I know I am muy fortuna to be the child of a Tier One parent. Many excellent years of service to the State of Alaska were rewarded with high quality health care coverage throughout retirement. So, in an ironic twist, my parents migrate backwards – traveling North of the Border to see the doctor.

Muchas gracias a los State of Alaska! It may sound selfish, luxurious, or greedy to others, but truly it’s not: both generations are fully grateful not to have the specter of parental dependence hanging over us, and my parents live pretty simply in Mexico. Because, in another ironic twist, their Tier One retirement income is not enough to afford life in Alaska full-time. Their money stretches much farther in Mexico which allows them to age with dignity, independence, and nice winter weather, leaving my little family free to plan our own future… and a South of the Border vacation every few years.

(Of course, I could now wax liberal about the forward-thinking State of Alaska, successfully keeping a valuable professional serving the public for 20 years instead of a private company… and how, as a member of the Tier Three club myself, I feel significant loyalty to an employer that used to offer a better future than the private-industry-modeled “Cliff” Four retirement plan over which public employees – and their children and grandchildren, don’t forget – are now being thrown. But, whew, I’m reminded that this is not my topic today!)

So off we went to spend a month in a marginally safe country (don’t misinterpret that! Tort-free living makes for crazy traffic, four-foot-high curbs, no guardrails, and tummy bugs galore – not drug lords, for goodness’ sake! The only crazy shooting during our vacation was in Tucson.). Mexicans are determinedly climbing into the current millennium, though, and I have to offer an ole! to lovely Sonora. The Sonoran desert offers less swimming with Dolphins and more cacti than most Alaskans choose, but 75 degrees and blue skies in January are worth the thousands of miles we flew to get there.

Imagine that… with air travel we can get from water-locked Juneau, Alaska to land-locked Alamos, Sonora in about two days. Not long ago, within my parents’ lifetimes even, this would have been impossible for anyone of moderate or lower income. Unfortunately, if Alaska Airlines ever eliminates their mileage programs (God forbid!), it will be again. In my Juneau-centric opinion it wasn’t ships, cars, the printing press, or modern communications that truly made this One World – it was affordable air travel. The ability to spread ideas, knowledge, and cultural understanding (not to mention progressive technology and health care) quickly and widely is something for which I thank the Wright brothers, every aeronautic engineer since, and decades of cheap oil.

I’ve started to think back on all of the cheap oil I’ve used for far lesser purposes than global understanding. The greenhouse gasses I’ve spewed into the atmosphere for no benefit, when weighed against world-wide connection. Innumerable car trips of less than a mile; uncountable goods and groceries (traveling thousands of miles to reach me) that I neither needed nor enjoyed, and could have found locally or made myself; legions of plastic bits thrown away after one use… how many of these would I have traded to keep air travel easy and inexpensive for everyone.

I’m rarely given to guilt, but I can’t deny the connection between my unthinking use of oil and the current state of air travel. How many of us in Juneau, if given the opportunity some decades ago, would have traded all of those quick car trips to Food Land (for Ben & Jerry’s) and the Nugget Mall (for a 10^th pair of shoes) for this: getting to the airport 30 minutes before flight time, staying clothed through security, carrying reading material and a soda on board (not your whole travel wardrobe), having a decent, hot, in-flight meal (included), and stepping off the plane to the glowing face of an awaiting loved one, not into a mall-full of strangers, fast food and Crocs stores that make you feel vaguely lost and lonely. And I’m not even going to comment on the ability of the airlines to offer their services in the world of dwindling oil, or the everyday person’s ability to afford it.

I would even put up with the oddity of the old Alaska Airlines pre-meal prayer card if it meant that the constant sound of flip-flops could have stayed a perk of traveling to Hawaii. Ah, to wear shoelaces again when flying. But it’s too late, I’m afraid. We’ve made our reclining seat and have to sit six inches behind one, too.

But still… I can’t give up. As usual, I need a scheme, a plan, a new paradigm! So, what if we did make this trade – starting to ration oil as we should have done decades ago? In a standard year, I put 3-4,000 miles on my car, for example – even though I live within walking distance of every amenity I need and could easily reduce my driving to 30 miles a week (1500 mi/year). And in an average year I travel out of Juneau at least twice – say an annual average of 4000 miles. That’s 5,500 miles total by car and air each year.

So I think I’ll try this: each person in my family will start the year with a 5,000 mile travel credit. Every mile traveled by car or airplane will use 1 credit. Every mile traveled by foot, bike, scooter, carpool, city or school bus, sailboat, or ferry is “free.” Every mile traveled over 5,000 (and as many under 5,000 as we can afford) must be cancelled out by participation in a carbon offset program.

Oh dear. Did I just come up with my New Year’s Resolution? I’m wincing, because this one will be really hard to live up to. My poor, indulgent husband. And Dios mio! To save 2,500 miles each, maybe we should have remained in Alamos this year! No… I’ll happily make this trade-off, and many more, to keep living in beautiful Juneau, and to keep working towards my Tier Three health care benefits!

Sarah Lewis is a local architect and social worker who now feels foolish for all those years of high school French… especially when the ever kind Mexicans put up with her constant no hablar-ing and lo siento-ing. Muchas Gracias Alamos!

My Main Street Homestead

(Originally written for the Juneau Empire on 4/21/10)

I want to be a farmer. An up with the sun, collect the eggs, milk the cows, harvest the crops, mend the fences farmer. As a Juneau girl, raised and now living on a downtown lot that’s way more house than land – in a climate where fungi and Douglas Fir are more natural crop choices – I don’t know how it happened. But here I am, pitchfork in hand with no hay to pitch.

But they say you’ve got to bloom where you’re planted, and I suppose there’s some truth in that, despite the two-leg, opposable thumb thing humans have going. And I do love where I’ve planted myself in downtown Juneau, it’s just really hard for a budding farmer to bloom on

Main Street

. It takes a lot more brain than leg work, and I’m forever thumbing through books to find solutions to my conundrum. Slowly, but surely, I’m finding them.

For example, I’ve found a peck of other wanna-be-farmers. Google “urban homesteading” and there are blogs, books, and “institutes” dedicated to folks planted in cities, but tilling the soil around them. And, as through history, there are many reasons people want to homestead: independence, simplicity, environmentalism, conservatism, religion. “Opting out” and “taking part” are both typical. My mom says that everyone builds castles in the sky, but only the crazy move in… maybe it’s different if it’s a farmhouse?

My own motivation is a need to become home-focused and deliberate with my days. My great grandmother Mabel Pierce Reed was a Goldrush pioneer. Today she’d be the first to exclaim the virtues of a modern dishwasher, but appalled that I can’t bake my own bread and cover it with homemade blueberry jam. That, instead, I buy bread that’s so pumped up it won’t mold, and I’m unsure where to pick berries.

So, inspired partly by memories of Grandma Reed, I quit my day job. It was a great job and I liked it, but it left me little time to farm with my kids, bake bread, or pick berries. So this summer I’m on my way to becoming a stay-at-homesteader.

And in my preparations I’ve learned that, no matter what brings a person to start urban homesteading, if you have shelter there are two main things that consume you: money and food; how to get them, how to use them well, and how to preserve them for the future.

For money there are some pretty well agreed upon steps to take, all of which have their own library of how-to books, but to get started:

• Eliminate credit card debt. It’s evil. We’re all suckers for it. Never stop trying to get rid of it.
• Carry cash. It’s harder to hand over than a piece of plastic.
• Make “egg and butter” money. Find activities that bring in a little cash. Possibly real eggs and butter, but more likely making scarves or selling books online. Or maybe start writing for the paper.
• Find a cash cow. A working spouse with a job is the best, especially with health insurance. Alternatively, rent out a room or apartment in your house or offer to manage a friend’s apartment as a vacation rental. Come up with a million dollar idea and sell it online. You’re smart, you’ll find something.
• Conserve. All resources, from diesel and hydropower to cotton and wheat, cost money. Only buy what you need, and do the conservation measures you hear about everywhere. They help.
• Save your money. Investments, savings accounts, the mattress... whatever you’re comfortable with. Emergencies are worse when you’re broke.
• Make an alternative commerce system. Freecycle, JuneauParents.com, Craig’s List, Alaska Dames & Gents, Mommy and Me, garage sales… these should be stores in your mall.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle, really.

Food is a bit more complex. There’s an amount of belief required: that kitchen scraps will turn into soil, that seeds will germinate, that you can keep other species alive. Just take it at a comfortable pace. Once again, there are many resources available, start with the Cooperative Extension Service at the University.

• Compost. Start a pile or repurpose a garbage can. Alternate “green” (vegetable-based scraps from kitchen and garden) and “brown” layers (dried leaves or grass, wood chips, sawdust, newspaper) to keep things from getting stinky. Add water if dry, drainage if soggy. Never add meats or strong smelling foods (onions, for example) that might attract bears. Add worms if you want, and presto!
• Farm. I started with 40 square feet of soil in pots. The next year I added my 50 square feet of land that gets sun. I grow salad greens, chard, kale, peas and zucchini… and even put some by for the winter. And I am not a green thumb by any stretch. Next year: chickens.
• Study home economics. For $10 I can make six loaves of bread. That would be about $24at A&P. That’s worth it for me. Balance time and money.
• Harvest from nature. This is where urban homesteading in Juneau gets really good. Blueberries and salmonberries, nettles and twisted stalk, sockeye and deer. And don’t rule out seaweed. I did, for almost 40 years, and was embarrassed to discover it’s darn good.

And finally, in the dark winter months, read. By the light of your farm house oil lamp, of course.

The Integral Urban House, 1979, The Farallones Institute

The Edible City Resource Manual, 1981, Britz

Square Foot Gardening, 1981, Bartholemew

Permaculture, 1990, Mollison

The Urban Homestead, 2008, Coyne and Knudsen

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, 2008, Kellogg and Pettigrew

Food Security for the Faint of Heart, 2008, Wheeler

Back to Basics, 2008, Gehring

Homesteading, 2009, Gehring

And, of course, Mother Earth News.