I’ve had a long history with the Facebook Fan Page. Taos, New Mexico Green Homes was born to promote this blog, green building and my real estate practice. No longer in real estate, I closed it in the beginning of the year.

For months, I have vacillated about starting one specifically for desert verde, always thinking I will stop blogging. I guess we all ponder closing up our blogs now and then. I have decided to stick with it for a variety of reasons, too lengthy and irrelevant to bore you with here.

There are two fan pages now:

> desert verde for green building, green living, gardening, farming, climate change, the environment, ecology and so on. I’ll also post other pertinent info you might want to read and share.

> Journal Inspirations for journaling prompts, writing exercises, discussion and support. I had a journaling website for about ten years. I closed it and started desert verde. In the journaling section of this blog, I am recreating the website. The FB page will be an extension of it with more quotes and exercises.

You can like one or both on the right side of the page. Please join me! Thanks!

God made the country, and man made the town. William Cowper

I was raised in a suburb that people don’t normally think of as a suburb. Everyone had an acre of land that was carved out of the woods. Trees were not leveled to build these post-war neighborhoods. The woods were mostly intact when I was growing up, and that’s where I spent my time. I’d climb rocks, follow the brook, smell the skunk cabbage and, almost annually, get a bad case of poison ivy. That was the price to pay for living with nature, I suppose.

I have always been drawn to rural places to live, but I respect and cherish what cities have to offer. I spent a few years in my early 20s living close to and hanging around in New York City. I loved it! The city was electric! Never dull! I was inspired and stimulated simply walking down the street, and that was the perfect counterbalance to living on 200 acres an hour north. (photo: flickr Vikram Vetrivel)

My other experience with city life was spending ten winters in Tucson, Arizona. I loved being able to walk to the co-op for groceries and to the library with my kids. Just like New York, I got stimulated by walking down the street and observing people.

Summers were spent here in Taos, and I loved the balance between the two. By the time I got tired of the city, I’d come back to Taos. When rural life was getting to me, it was time to go to Tucson in the fall. It was an ideal situation. Now I’m in Taos year-round, and it’s my preference. I like rural living. It offers:

> Peace and quiet – There is nothing like waking up to birds chirping or looking out the window in winter to see snow gracing naked tree branches. When I go out on my back porch to have coffee in summer before the sun comes up, I feel like I’m camping. It’s cool, damp and quiet, meadowlarks and hummingbirds being the only noise. My house guests have even commented on the camp feel of early morning. People go camping to get away, but I enjoy it at home!

> Open space – I can stretch, literally and figuratively, in this wide open space. I can see mountains 60 miles away, and that feels expansive. I have enough room to grow food and have small livestock.

> Privacy – I have neighbors, and we respect each others privacy. We keep to ourselves, but if we need each other, we are there for support.

> Clean air and water – I have never lived in a place with clean air like Taos. The mountain views are always crystal clear, even on cloudy days. There is no smog between me and that mountain range 60 miles away. My well water is delicious, not treated with chlorine and fluoride.

> Outdoor activities – I am 15 minutes from the National Forest and BLM land for hiking, canoeing and biking. I walk a couple of miles every day over an old dirt road in our neighborhood. The night skies are clear for watching meteor showers.

> Cheaper cost of living – Generally, housing, food and gas are less expensive in rural areas. Property taxes are also cheaper. This could be good or bad. When schools depend on property taxes, their quality is diminished. Taos is like that. Our taxes are very low, but our services, roads and schools show it. Almost every town I’ve researched that has good schools has a healthy tax base.

> A sense of community – One thing I love about Taos and other small towns I have lived in is that people know who you are. I see people I know everywhere I go. I love that. The postmaster and supermarket cashiers call you by name, too. Public events feel like small parties. I like feeling connected.

So here I am in Taos with no plans to go anywhere. A couple years ago, I considered moving to a warmer climate, and all the towns I looked at were small and rural. Rural living has me in its clutches.

The letter started with ‘My Dear Friend’. I love getting mail from my friends, especially when they call me ‘dear’, but this was no friend. It wasn’t even an acquaintance. I dare say it is a non-profit I abhor. I don’t like hypocrites, cowards and liars, and The Nature Conservancy is all of that and more.

My Dear Friend,

I would like to invite you to join The Nature Conservancy…

I stopped right there and rifled through the rest of the envelope, where I found my new membership card, an offer for a canvas shopping bag, and a stamped, self-addressed envelope in which to return my money. I couldn’t resist. I grabbed an old red Sharpie pen started writing on the piece you send back to them.

Too bad I ran out of room. I am sending that to the ‘Membership Processing Center’, and I’m sure some underpaid employee with no benefits will open it and look for a check. I hope they will read the red writing and learn something. If I can affect one person, I’ll consider myself a success.

I have to say I did donate to The Nature Conservancy about 25 years ago. I got the canvas shopping bag with a cute baby heron on it. This is the same design they are still offering. Timeless? I don’t know, but I don’t use my bag. I’m ashamed to. It hangs in my kitchen stuffed full of plastic produce bags that get washed and reused.

I was so angry when I got a donation request in the mail that I finally did something I’ve been wanting to do ever since I found out The Nature Conservancy takes millions in donations from the MOST anti-nature corporations in the world.

If you get this offensive piece of mail, please let The Nature Conservancy know you will not give them any money until they stop being liars, hypocrites and cowards. Maybe as an activist, you can change ONE perspective, ONE life, and who knows how far that will reach.

The check is not in the mail, and I don’t love you.

UPDATE 6.8.11 – Here is a shot of my stats page this morning. So Big Brother-ish. What do you suppose they are saying? Will they sabotage my plane? Oh, right, I don’t fly. Click the image for the larger version.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. Henry Thoreau.

My friend, Michael, put a post on Facebook last week that read:

You’re offered a winning lottery ticket for 136 million dollars. You are told, and know it to be true, that no matter what you do with the money, you will be miserable for the rest of your life. Would you take it? I think most would, regardless of what they say.

My response was:

You’d have to define ‘miserable’, but no, money is not worth anything. Money is just energy that flows in and out, up and down, like other energies and emotions, but somehow (definitely has to do with the Industrial Revolution), we ended up placing a lot of importance on it. Now it’s so holy, we kill each other over it. We base our self-esteem on it, we compare ourselves to others over it, and we hoard it. We’ve become mentally ill over money, forgetting that we are not money, and neither are how we make it, how much we have and how we spend it. We are so much more, but our perspective has changed now that we are not self-sufficient anymore.

You can work yourself out of misery, unless you are self-destructive. Happiness is your choice.

This issue of the value of money comes up over and over in our modern world, but Thoreau had it right over 100 years ago. I’m sure you’ve seen this question: ‘Do you live to work or work to live?’ How would you answer that? If you are working 80 hours a week, are you happy? Do you have time to visit with yourself? Who are you? Do you know? Do you have a family? Do they know you? Are you making a great salary? Is that why you work so much? What are you going to do with all that money? What if you died tomorrow? What good would that money do you today?

When I was young, my aunt said to me that my dad, a dentist, went to med school and worked hard so he could have a comfortable retirement. I thought, ‘How silly! Why not live before you are 65?!’

Watching my dad trudge to work every day for decades, I decided I was not going to be that drone. I’ve been self-employed for almost 30 years as a landscaper, purveyor of beads, seamstress and writer. When I got actual jobs, they had to have flexible hours and were usually temporary. My friends and I say I have always been semi-retired. I am not rich, and I have no retirement package, but I have had time to visit with myself, enjoy the scenery, and actually live all these years!

I do not have a pretty picture of who I might have become if I’d been working full time, year round with two weeks off a year for the last 30 years. I’d have suffocated long ago. I am much more content to have the flexible life I lead with enough money to pay my bills. If I had 136 million dollars, I’d pay off my house and my little credit card debt, then give the rest away. Money will never make me happy, so it is worthless.

Do I really need to say it again?! These holidays are created for businesses to make money, not for you to make someone else happy. I don’t know when Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s Day became such big reasons to shop, but it is senseless. I didn’t realize how much money is spent on holidays until I had children who watched tv commercials. My life was very simple until I had kids.

Roses, cards and chocolates will be thoughtlessly purchased over the next few days. Don’t get caught up in it! Celebrate love for friends and family in a meaningful and non-materialistic way.

> Break bread together. A shared meal says a lot. It means you like someone’s company. Genuine thought and emotion go into planning a meal, buying ingredients and cooking, especially if you cook together. (photo flickr Wonderlane)

> Send a digital card. This seems small, but when I get these from friends, I realize they are thinking of me. I have a friend in Austin who sends me an e-card for every holiday and sometimes just to say ‘Hello, I thought about you today.’

> Smile. Kindness should be a given, but it’s not. It’s a great day to exercise kindness to your loved ones and to strangers. Better than a smile, make someone laugh. (photo flickr dahlstroms)

> Make a phone call. With Facebook, Twitter and texting, we have forgotten how to use the phone. It warms me to see my friends’ names come up on my phone, but even more, I love to hear their voices. Personal communication can’t be beat.

> Offer to do some chores or run some errands. I’d love for someone to bring in a load of wood, sweep my floors or shovel some snow. Very simple, but it would mean a lot.

> Go for a walk. Spend some special one-on-one time together. Connect. (photo Wikimedia)

See? It doesn’t take much to show someone you care about them, whether it is a partner, family or friends. Instead of going overboard at the candy store, florist, dollar store or fanciest-restaurant-in-town, take this romantic holiday to give to all your loved ones in a small way. It will have big results.

Got more ideas? Put them in the comments section!

It’s that time of year again to buy a Christmas tree. My daughter and I have been eyeballing the tree lots as we do things in town. I have noticed that most of them are full of big, beautiful trees. Usually, by this time of year, the lots are pretty empty, and we end up buying the dregs. We always find a nice tree, but it’s always one of the last ones.

I see these full lots as a sign of the bad economy. People can’t afford to buy trees this year? Most of the tree sellers don’t take credit cards, and I think a lot of America is living on credit cards these days.

Last year, I vowed to buy the Charlie Brown Christmas tree from now on – definitely the one no one wants, the raggy one, the uneven one, the littlest one, the ugly one. That’s how we got our dog at the shelter. We looked at the ones that had been there a long time, the ones no one wanted. Mr Big had been there the longest, and no one had taken him home in 150 days, so we did. He is awesome, by the way!

So… back to trees……..

This year, we have tossed around the idea of getting a fake tree to spare ourselves the annual shopping, guessing if a tree will fit, lopping off the bottom, remembering to water, then dragging it out to the brush pile in January, needles dropping all the way. A tree you put back in the box and into the storage room sounds so easy and appealing.

But it is our dire need for convenience that has driven us from nature to unsustainable living!

The New York Times says a fake tree would have to be used for 20 years to offset it’s unsustainable manufacture and disposal. ‘The annual carbon emissions associated with using a real tree every year were just one-third of those created by an artificial tree over a typical six-year lifespan. Most fake trees also contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which produces carcinogens during manufacturing and disposal.’

So, cross fake tree of my list of things to buy this week. I could go to the thrift store, though………

What are other options?

> Buy a cut tree. Here in New Mexico, locals go to the mountains and cut them. They get a permit to cut a certain number, so it’s not a big free-for-all. In other places, trees are grown on a farm and transported. Some of the lots here are full of those kinds of trees. I think people have the idea that the trucks of trees are cut from forests, national or otherwise. They aren’t. They are grown for the purpose of selling this time of year. The forests remain intact. If you do buy a cut tree, take it out back for wildlife to live and nest in. If you have neighbors, collect theirs, too. If you don’t have a yard, find a way to dispose of it so it will be recycled – become part of a brush pile or be chipped into mulch. Some towns will collect them for that very purpose.

> Buy a live tree. This takes a little planning. You should plant the tree as soon as you are done with it, so you need to dig a hole for it beforehand, read: before the ground freezes. The soil needs to be saved indoors so it’s not frozen. Mix it with some compost, and plant the tree after Christmas. You also should not leave a live tree indoors for more than a week. It is dormant, and the warm temperatures inside will prompt it into growing. Purchase your tree, bring it inside just before Christmas, leave it for a week, then take it out and plant it. You can also leave it in its pot in a shady spot until spring, and water it once a week, but this has never worked for me. Depending on where you get your tree, it may not have been balled and burlapped properly, which will kill the tree. If you get your tree from a reputable nursery, you should be ok. I think it’s better to just plant it when you are done with it.

> Rent a tree. In Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, there are companies that will rent you a live tree, bringing it to your house and picking it up when you are done. The trees then get planted. This is a very eco-friendly option, a little pricey (up to $125 for a tree), but a great option for those in places where you can’t plant a live tree. Check your area for this service. It would be a great business to start! I have my thinking cap on already….

> Get creative! Here’s what I have done in the past in places or economic times when a tree wasn’t possible.

> When I was 20, I lived in a teeny tiny apartment in New York. I went outside and cut a few small branches from an evergreen, placed them in a wine carafe and tied a red ribbon around the neck. I sat it on the cold part of the radiator.
> A few years later, in cramped quarters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I cut a small (18″) scrawny evergreen from the woods and brought it in. We cut the lower branches and put it in a vase of water for a week.
> I once made a tree wall-hanging out of fabric scraps. We put gifts on the floor at the bottom.
> We lived a block from a thrift store in Tucson one year, and there we found a tabletop tree with little ornaments already on it. My older (and only, at the time) daughter was 2 1/2, and hadn’t yet been bombarded with the commercialism and the need for the biggest and best. We put that tree on the dining room table and scattered gifts around it and on the floor beneath it. The look on her face when she came in the room was priceless – complete surprise and awe at the magic. That was one of my favorite Christmases.

I still haven’t made up my mind about what we are going to do this year. If it’s earth-shattering, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, do what’s right for you and the environment, and have a lovely holiday.

With a human population of, say, one-half billion people, some minor changes in technology and some major changes in the rate of use and equity of distribution of the world’s resources, there would clearly be no environmental crisis. Dr Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1968

Today’s world population is 6,876,268,580, just a tad over Dr Ehrlich’s 42 year old recommendation.

The overpopulation discussion came up again yesterday when my friend, David, tweeted this:

I’m starting to think the only thing that will save humanity is a good old fashioned plague.

Someone asked if he meant that as a solution to over-population. He said:

Population and planetary destruction resulting from it, yea. Not sure we can fix it with science anymore.

My response was that, in 1985, An Atlas of Planet Management stated that if the population was 2% of what it was at the time, the world’s ecosystems would be in balance.

The earth was overpopulated by 98%.

Twenty five years ago.

And it has gotten worse.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about a walk I took with my 83 year old neighbor. She said her recycling is for naught, because it won’t correct the base problem of overpopulation. No matter what she does to be an eco-friendly citizen, it does no good when there are too many people using too few resources.

So how do you get rid of a majority of the people? That sounds cruel, but what else could be the solution?

David’s point of the plague wiping out the population does not only have to do with science, overpopulation and the depletion of natural resources, but also how people do not believe the sad state of our environment.

When I mentioned this to another friend yesterday, he said, ‘I just read in a NY Times story this morning that only “48 percent of people in the Midwest agree with the statement that there is ‘solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer.’” (Pew poll) Is it that people willfully refuse to believe anything they don’t want to believe, or is it that the American system of education is so terrible?’ People can google climate change and find all sorts of facts about it, but why don’t they? Are their heads deliberately in the sand, or are we not disseminating the information broadly enough?

There is much educating to be done about climate change. If people are living here and are obviously part of the problem, then they must take responsibility and tend to the earth and her systems.

Take your pick: Do your part, or succumb to the plague with the other 98%.

Do your part:

> Shop for eco-friendly products from environmentally conscious companies (or not shop at all).
> Recycle.
> Conserve energy at home.
> Buy organic and/or local food, or grow your own.
> Call out and stop supporting corporations and non-profits for greenwashing and hypocrisy.
> Stop flying.
> Have fewer or no children.
> Be kind and help others.

While you are googling facts about climate change, google tips for living an eco-friendly and environmentally lifestyle. Or start by reading my Eco-living Tips.

I went for a walk the other night with my 83 year old neighbor, who out-walks me, by the way. She is very outspoken and does not mince words. We got on the topic of climate change, natural resources, conservation and the ‘green movement’ (for lack of a better term).

She does not feel hopeful.

She feels there are too many people on the planet to offset her recycling, and water and electricity conservation. She wonders why she bothers doing those things, when our population is too great for our resources. Her point is: What’s the point?

In 1985, in Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, I read that our resources could maintain 2% of the then current population. That meant 98% of the 4.85 billion people inhabiting the Earth had to die off for the planet to be in balance. Over-population.

Today we sport almost 7 billion people on the planet, and naturally, we have fewer resources than 25 years ago. As long as too many people are sucking up too few resources, the earth’s massive ecosystem will not be in balance.

So do our small, personal recycling and conservation efforts offset the imbalance between resources and the number of people on the earth? My neighbor thinks not. She feels her efforts are a waste of time. She does them, but wonders why.

A colleague of mine feels his efforts to educate people through his progressive website are for naught. When he digs up information such as Monsanto and BP donating money to The Nature Conservancy and Halliburton being named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in the Global Oil Services sector, he wants to give up.

He does not feel hopeful, obviously.

It’s frustrating to be working towards reducing CO2 emissions, cutting back on consumption, educating everyone around you, and feeling you’re making progress in restoring and maintaining the health of the Earth, only to find out that some big corporation has more sway than you do. Much more sway!

So do our efforts make a difference?

If several million individuals:

> recycle
> close lights in unused rooms
> drive less, carpool or cycle
> build or remodel energy efficient homes
> not fly
> bring reusable bags to the store
> turn down the thermostat
> buy local and organic food
> etc,

will their actions offset one dirty, underhanded, non-transparent, anti-environment corporation greasing the palm of a non-profit that is supposed to be protecting and conserving nature?

What are your thoughts?

Once again, the discussion about house size has come up – what constitutes a green home?

A friend sent me an opinion piece about a 5,000 square foot home that was declared eco-friendly, because it was built with green methods and had a monthly electric bill of only $50. The point of the article was to say an ‘eco-mansion’ is not green, because it unnecessarily uses extra materials.

My friend didn’t agree. She said there is nothing wrong with a large space. She thought the green movement was going overboard to declare large homes not green.

This is a really good friend of mine, so an interesting conversation ensued and inspired me to bring up this topic again.

A green home is a smaller home. Compact is more eco-friendly.

> There are fewer materials are used to build it, which conserves energy and water.
> There is less waste at the construction site, saving landfill space.
> The footprint is smaller, taking up less precious and finite land space.
> Energy use is lower resulting in lower utility bills, stretching the lifespan of our natural resources.

These are actually things taken into consideration and rewarded in the various rating systems, such as LEED. A smaller, compact home will gain more points than a larger home, garnering a higher certification level.

My friend said she and her partner need a bigger space than their 1000 sq ft home. They are both work-at-home artists, and we determined they need more studio space, not so much living space. She thought 3,000 sq ft might suit their needs, instead of separate out-buildings for studios.

There is nothing wrong with a large space as long as it’s getting used! A lot of these 5000 sq ft homes have extra living and dining areas, bedrooms that never get used, large rooms all the way around, probably useless hallways, and so on. Do you need a breakfast nook, a dining area and a formal dining room? No. Do you need a den, a media room and two living rooms? No. The waste of space and therefore materials is maddening. And not eco friendly, no matter how cheap the utility bills are.

So I add that point to the idea that small homes are green homes. Extravagance is unnecessary, but if you need that much space and will actually use it, then it’s not extravagant at all. Building big for the sake of building big, though, does not a green home make.

As most of you know, I’ve gone back to school for Residential Planning, because I want to design and consult. I love to talk to people about the building projects I’ve done or dreamed about. People frequently call me to ask how to remodel their homes and incorporate solar and energy efficiency. I may as well put my experience and love of talking to use!

In class last week, we were drafting HVAC plans (Heating, Ventilation, Cooling). In the discussions, the question came up:

What sort of heating is used in your area in new construction?

Here was my answer:

All new construction here now has radiant floor heat. The ground is graded, insulation is laid, then tubing is laid about 6″ apart. Separate rooms or zones are on separate loops that begin at a boiler. Sometimes solar is used to heat the water, but I don’t see this very often, sadly.

The loops are then embedded in concrete, which is the floor. Hot water circulates through the loops, which in turn heats the concrete, an excellent heat sink. Once it gets warm, it stays warm. You don’t adjust the heat several times a day.

The main problem I have seen with radiant floor heat is that you can’t control it. When you turn it on, it takes a couple of days to warm up the concrete slab. So if you have a chilly morning in fall, you can’t just turn it on for the day or night. I also see people with their windows open in winter, because the system may be sized too large for the house, or maybe they have the thermostat on too high. You can’t turn it down with immediate results.

Similarly in spring, when the days warm up a little, you can’t turn it down.

Friends say it is incredibly expensive to operate, too. Installers will tell you it’s the most efficient, but personal stories tell me otherwise. I know people who have bought wood stoves and space heaters, and turned off the radiant floor heat. I think solar would be really efficient and cost effective in this situation.

I have seen small stand-alone condos with electric radiant floor heat. Electric cable is embedded in the concrete, instead of water, and it is timed to go on during off-peak hours. The builder told me that one unit stood empty for a winter, and he could actually see the cost of operating it. For a small place (900 sq ft maybe), the electric bill was about $120/month. Not bad for electric heat!

If homeowners could get educated about radiant floor heat:

> maybe they would use it more effectively
> they would not have to open the windows in winter, which uses more energy
> they would install it with solar hot water
> they would demand something else
> they would start building more airtight, passive solar homes, with less need for a huge, expensive heating system (think Passivhaus!)

Me? I am happy with my cast iron wood and gas heaters, which radiate heat in their own way. Wool slippers keep my feet cozy.