Moving out

I'm moving out of my casita November 1st. Sad sad. But it looks like I have a great chance of getting into the Marpa House in Boulder. I've always wanted to live in a meditation center, so as sad as I am about moving out, it will be a good opportunity for me to follow my Buddhist path more closely and with a supportive community. I'm not sure if I'll be getting in November yet. I find out tomorrow. If not, the managers of the place think I can get in January 1st. They said I'd be a perfect candidate.

I don't have to actually sell my house, which is nice. I just need to rent it for a year or two while I work on finding a full-time job and getting my life more organized.

Canadians have a great sense of humor!

confusion

How is it that there can be billions of people who are illiterate without enough food to eat, but at the same time there can exist super models/actors/politicians/athletes/reality show stars with millions and millions of dollars?

How is it that people such as myself, who are just trying to make a positive difference in the world... how is it that I can't stay in my house because I can't afford the mortgage?

What is a matter with this paradigm? Shouldn't we all be trying to help others? Why are so many people just trying to make money, to be beautiful, to have nice cars? Who cares? What matters here? What matters are people, relationships, and love. What is the matter with the world? I don't get it. How can so many people be so blind?

We are living in a dark age.

My composting endeavor

Here are some photos Jonathan Dowdell took last week of "composting in action at the Lyons Farmette."

Pray the Devil Back to Hell screening at CU

Girls Education International sponsored a wonderful, intimate showing of Pray the Devil Back to Hell last night at the CU Boulder Old Main Chapel theater. The film was incredible. I highly recommend it. It is uplifting and powerful.

Hi

Yay for climbing. I had to take three weeks off, but am back climbing again. Yesterday we went to Carter Lake for a few lovely hours in the evening. I love the climbing there. Moderate, fun, highball goodness, with a peaceful lake and always silvery sunset in the distance.

In other news, my curbside recycling/compost business continues to grow slowly. The mayor of Lyons wants to do compost with me. Cool! I am increasingly more excited about doing the compost because I can keep it almost totally local, with a few exceptions when I have to bring meat/bones/dairy compost into Boulder. For the most part, however, I'll be able to turn my customers' compost directly into soil that will enrich the gardens of other residents. I think that's neat.

Yesterday's Tour de Coup, organized by Betsy Burton of the Lyons Farmette, seemed to be quite successful. Lots of people showed up from all over the Front Range. I met people (and lots of kids) from as far away as Denver and Fort Collins. The weather held, though it threatened a bit.

The Duck Race was also fun on Saturday, and we hit the farmer's market downtown for a bit, tried out the delicious crepes and looked at a bit of fun jewelry. We also saw some friends. There are all kinds of interesting things to do in Lyons when I stick around for the weekend. I don't know if I won anything, but I'll check in a few minutes. Happy week!

Lyons' first community compost bin and other news

I am doing so much these days, as always, but now my focus is on building my nonprofit and building my new business in Lyons. I'm not traveling for a while, except for the Southwest. I really want to build trust in my communities--both the nonprofit world and the local community in which I live. I'm excited about sticking around, perhaps for the first time in my life.
Here is a photo of the first Farmette Community Compost bin that I built today. I will build a few more--another similar one to this and one out of pallets for leaves. Apparently it is not always good to compost leaves in a regular bin because they mat up and prevent air flow. Thus, it's better to keep them in a separate bin to encourage leaf mold and/or to work them into your soil, which I plan on doing in my ever-hardening garden. I may leave it fallow for the year, and/or just grow alfalfa. OK off to a meeting in Boulder!

I've got the first straw bale bin built (cost about $100), and will be filling it in with some layers of compost starting tomorrow. How exciting! Now I need some folks in town to start composting with me.

Community Composting at the Lyons Farmette, step #1

This week, potentially this weekend, I'm going to start building the compost "bin" at the Farmette (depending on whether or not Mike and Betsy will let me start!) My idea is to build straw bale compost bins. These require quite a bit of space, of which there is plenty at the Farmette. I like this idea because according to this neat book I'm reading, "Four-Season Harvest," by Eliot Coleman, straw is an important component to any compost bin and the straw bales actually serve as part of the composting process.

I'll start by clearing, flattening, digging, and weeding the space allotted for the compost bin. Then I'll build straw bale block walls for a bin in a brickwork mosaic. I'm considering building two "bins" right off the bat, but I'm going to see how much straw bales cost first.

Then, over the course of the next six months to a year, I'll layer in various types of material--regular dirt, green matter (food waste from the community), brown matter (yard waste, grass clippings, etc), and various other things (perhaps sawdust, maybe some horse poop, and I may even try some compostable cups and plates and such). I'll slowly fill the bin with these things, mixing and watering when needed. Eventually, the straw bales will break down, and I'll cut and remove the bailing twine and then mix the composted bales in with the compost.

At this point, there are a few different things that can be done with the compost. It can be spread on the garden as heavily composted mulch, or it can be left for another few months to compost some more. I also may be able to use the straw bales for another round.

I plan on taking photos of this whole process. What a fun adventure this will be!

Lame-o college students

A few days ago Madaleine and I debated whether or not we liked college students. She currently lives not far from the Hill at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is surrounded by college students. I argued that not all college students were that bad, despite the loud nights and constant beer pong playing. She left it at, "I hate college students."

"Gosh, that's so close minded of you," I said. "You should be more open. There are lots of great college students."

Then, this morning while doing some emails before I got on the bus to head back to Lyons, I was trying to sign in to her household's wireless network. Instead of the one I was looking for, I found one entitled, "fuckbitchesmakemoney." Some moronic jerk of a college student, clearly male, titled his network with that offensive, disgusting name. My hackles rose, and I immediately (and in a non-Buddhist fashion) began scheming ways I could get back at these idiots. I, of course, did not do anything, except encourage Madaleine to get better curtains, but as I rode down through campus to downtown, every time I saw a young, male college student I had the immediate desire to plow into him with my bicycle.

Glacier Gorge

I spent the weekend camping and climbing at Glacier Gorge. Because of a lack of sleep on Friday night and rain, Marc and I ended up just doing three pitches on Arrowhead. But at least we topped out via one route, the name of which I can't remember, but which was a wonderful couple pitches of 5.9 with a fun 11a TR variation that Marc kindly allowed me to do. 

Sunday, after a night of much sleep and not quite enough food, my friend Ryan joined me around 7 for an ascent of Sykes Sickel on Spearhead, which we did before noon, with the fear of lightening and storms quickening our pace. 

Lovely weekend!