Rethinking Eating

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This weekend I watched Food Inc. I'd already read Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation, so what I saw wasn't new to me. But it reinvigorated me to work on how I buy and grow food. Everyone should see this movie, as it talks about the way food gets to our supermarkets and what we are actually eating.

For 2010, I plan to eat more locally, reduce my intake of processed foods, and grow more of my own food. I've already found local sources of free range chicken and pork, which come to the Charleston Farmer's Market. I also just found a great website: http://www.localharvest.org/, where anyone can look up local farms and handmade items near their homes.

I'm looking forward to planning and planting the garden this year. Last year, we were successful with tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, basil, and cilantro, but our yard has the potential for so much more with a side garden and container gardening.

Saying Goodbye to Shampoo?

For Christmas, my sister got me this awesome shampoo from her hairdresser in New York (http://www.amazonbeautysecret.com/), with oil from the Rahua nut from the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon. I had visited her earlier that year, when she told me why she went to her hairdresser. He has worked with the people in this part of the Amazon to develop a sustainable, cottage industry in harvesting the Rahua nut at a fair wage for his product line. And cuts hair in New York. Amazing!

She told me how her hair was greasy for the first 2 or 3 weeks, but after that it stopped being greasy. Given that I have to wash my hair every day because it is so greasy, I was definitely interested. I read the label and saw that it did not have sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or other types of surfactants. I knew that these were the reason for my needing to wash my hair every day, as they strip your hair of its natural oil, and causing it (some say) to need to produce more. However, in the past, when I've used Dr. Bronner's or other natural shampoos, the oil in my hair has built up to where I feel like I have a helmet on my head.

I've been using this shampoo for 2 weeks at this point, and I definitely feel like my hair looks better on the day that I have washed it. The second day, it is still greasy, but not so bad. I am looking forward to getting through this beginning period.

However, maybe I don't even need to shampoo at all. I saw an article on the Huffington Post about giving up shampoo entirely (here). It is one of those things that we have invented for modern life that maybe we never needed. Some people mentioned in the article and linked articles haven't washed their hair in 10 years - and it looks just like my hair. Interesting, but I think I'll most likely be in the "less" rather than "no" shampoo camp.

Changing Seasons and Tides

Part of what I would like this blog to be is a record of the changes in seasons and of our home and how we live.

I am happy to be in residence here at the marsh's edge. So far, I have lived in the house for 12 months with Mark, watching the seasons change over the marsh and in our yard. The tide comes in and out of our yard at various heights. Right now it is low tide, so I can't see the water. At the edge between the salt marsh's smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and our yard, we have sea oxeye daisy, groundsel, and other salt-tolerant plants. Our suburban grasses won't grow where the tides enter the yard, as it is too salty.

In our yard, there is a wild persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana), two live oaks (Quercus virginiana), a sabal palm (Sabal palmetto), and a southern hackberry (Celtis laevigata), which we have watched lose and gain leaves and bear fruits. Mark has been trying to harvest the persimmon fruits to make his aunt's persimmon pudding, but has yet to master the timing. It's too late this year, so we will have to wait until next.

Pet Introductions

Here are our animals: Katy, the black and white dog; Sam, the brown dog; and Moxie, the little black cat with big eyes. All are rescues of some sort and all seem pretty happy to be in residence here along the marsh's edge. Katy and Sam love to run around the yard, ever alert for squirrels and outdoor cats. Moxie has managed to become the queen of the indoor lair, with Katy tolerating her friendly attacks and Sam avoiding her claws on his paws.

Living the Good Life

I regularly "borrow" books from my dad's library, often ones I have bought him as presents. At Thanksgiving, I borrowed Making the Good Life Last, Four Keys to Sustainable Living, by Michael Schuler, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Madison, Wisconsin. My dad has been interested in Stoicism and living the good life for a while, so this book seemed a good choice for him. Having read similar books from my dad's library, I also had to read this one.

Making the Good Life Last focuses on four premises:

• pay attention,
• stay put,
• exercise patience, and
• practice prudence.

Schuler delves into each of these premises for sustainable living, providing context and examples. Pay attention involves such things as meditation and being in the present moment, along with just noticing your life and your community. Staying put argues for staying in one place instead of being as mobile as modern Americans are now. Exercising patience and practicing prudence each apply to so many parts of our lives. They involve such things as being patient with our careers, families, levels of satisfaction with life, material wants and needs, etc. While reading the book, I found that over the years I have learned similar lessons and am in agreement with him.

In the coming weeks, I plan to post on each of the four premises separately. Stay tuned...