Loco for Locavore!

A few years ago, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp (her husband) and Camille Kingsolver (her older daughter). For anyone who is not familiar with the book, Kingsolver describes on the book’s website: ”Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Harper Collins, 2007) is the story of a year in which our family deliberately fed ourselves on products grown close to home, and what we learned from the experience.” I was inspired by the book. Earlier that year, I’d read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and I was already going a little bit nuts about the whole Locavore thing. I’d had a Community-Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) share for several summers in a row, and that particular summer (2007), a friend and I were growing a fairly decent sized garden of our own on her property.

A beautiful, exhausting labor of love

After I read Kingsolver and co.’s book, my locavore fanaticism hit a new high. I poured over every freaking label in the grocery store searching for the most local box of cereal/can of beans/carton of milk possible. When I’d come home with one over-priced sack of groceries. My partner at the time would stare at me in amazement and horror when I’d arrive home over an hour later with just one bag of groceries, particularly after he saw the receipt. His expression seemed to be asking, “How is it possible you spent all that time in the grocery store and bought almost nothing to eat for so much money?” I’d ignore his bewildered gaze and calmly unload my local cheeses and apples and hazelnuts.

Organic Broccoli--$4 a pound.  Yikes!

Low Gas Wrap

Cherry blossom avenue: so, so pretty!

I’m a little amazed at how rapidly April flew by.  For Low Gas Consumption Month, I’d meant to write a commentary about Earth Day and the environment, but time got away from me, and here we are on, the first of May. 

Ahh, spring, you sure took your sweet time arriving this year!

I drove up to Shoreline to volunteer three times this month.  Other than that, I didn't get in my car--driving approximately 40 miles for the whole month.  When I was driving to Shoreline last Saturday morning, I felt like I was dreaming because it felt so foreign to me after a two-week break.  Then I realized I better snap out of it, because driving in that kind of mental state is dangerous! 

If only I-5 were always so unoccupied.

I confess, I do enjoy driving.  But I also enjoy walking and biking (especially when it isn’t raining!), and I find the practice of riding the bus to be beneficial.  (The loss of control over when you leave and when you arrive offers good practice in patience and adaptation for much more serious loss-of-control situations.  And, for a writer, there is always someone of intrigue on the bus.) 

Anyway, now that my low gasoline consumption is winding down, I intend to continue using alternate forms of transportation more than I did before.  The price in gas hasn’t exactly dropped; CO2 emissions still aren’t good for the environment; and the weather is still continuing to improve (fingers crossed).  I’m setting a loose goal for myself here and now: I am going to try to consume no more than one tank of gas a month.  Of course, things do come up (multiple airport runs, vacations), and I won’t punish myself for that.  But I would like to incline my mind to consider other options before driving.

Goal: more biking around Greenlake this summer.

Not that you need any more pushing than the price at the pump, but I really want to encourage you all to try driving less.  We all have excuses of why we need to drive.  It does take some mental and logistical rearranging to bike or carpool or bus, and there are times in life when that kind of thought is in much shorter demand than cash for gas.  For those of you with young children, I know it is often impractical to impossible to ditch the car.  But there are also the undeniable benefits of biking and walking with kids: it doesn’t just promote physical activity, but the world outside our homes offers an endless learning lab. 

Walk learning opportunity #23: is it a feral cat or not?

For those of you in Seattle, Friday, May 20 is the official 2011 Bike to Work Day.  If you’ve got yourself a pair of wheels, give a bike commute a try on this one day.

Anyway, Operation Consumption Liberation now moves onto my second month of curbing my frivolous spending, the Goods and Services edition.

It's a good time to be less reliant on my car.

 

The State at the Pump: U-District.

I mean, really, did I time my Low Gas Consumption month perfectly, or what? 

Gas prices aside, I should also note that the weather in Seattle has improved since the first week of April.  Not a wild improvement, but I did hear the weatherman say that La Nina is WEAKENING, and to expect a "weather-neutral summer."  I can get behind that. 

Because the sky was more sunny than cloudy today, I decided to make the most of my leisure Sunday morning and walk to the yoga studio where I've been doing an immersion all weekend.  Which is located on Capitol Hill.  Five miles from my place.  Apparently, I don't need to drive to the mountains to get in a nice little hike.

And it was a really nice walk. As I walked, I recalled a college assignment from a Renaissance and Reformation history class I took at the University of Idaho.  We had to walk from Moscow, ID to Troy, ID--an 11-mile distance--and then write a three-page paper about our experience.  I think the assignment was part of a unit on The Return of Martin Guerre; the professor wanted us to have a sense of how peasants traveled in the 16th century, or something. Honestly, it was a somewhat useless assignment, but I remember it was a really lovely day when I did the walk.  I remember being a little scared of getting hit by a car when walking along Highway 8 (I think there is actually a bike trail now), but all and all, it was a nice way to pass the morning.  But not something you do everyday.

I'm not going to write a three-page paper about my walk today, because I think that I'd say about the same thing: nice way to pass my morning, but not something I can do everyday.  So, instead of writing three-pages, here's a little photo essay of my walk today! 

Spring has sprung: local color on my street

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Union view from the University Bridge

Le Fournil Bakery on Eastlake. Those are giant cubes of butter.  Butter!

The I-5/WA-520 Junction--never so quiet as on a Sunday AM!

Bruce Lee's last resting place, Lakeview Cemetery

Louisa Boren Lookout. Thar be Lake Washington and Bellevue, mateys!

The tower at Volunteer Park.  Would have been a great day to climb it!

Eager brunchers waiting outside Coastal Kitchen

Space Needle and the Sound!

View of downtown, and a sky full of bus wires--Pine & 15th Ave E

And that's all, folks!  Hope your weekend was as lovely as mine!

ACK! Welcome to Low Gas Consumption Month!

Hello there.

I've just spent the last several hours pouring through boxes of old photos, looking for a picture of me on a bike.  And I didn't find a single one.  Apparently, those are in one of my parents' custody, because I know they're out there.  I also was looking for some pictures of me in a doing a high ropes course to prove to CW that my arse looks enormous in a harness, thus I don't want to go rock climbing with him.  Couldn't find those either.  I did however find a picture of my brother on a bike, several pictures of friends as awkward children to scan and post on Facebook, and one photo of a staged Barbie orgy.  What can I say, I was a messed-up little kid.

Needless to say, as this is a more public platform than even Facebook, I won't be posting any of those here.  So here is a photo of my bike, and my ex-boyfriend's bike.  Mine is the one on the left, the one that's mostly not in the picture, versus the blue one that is mostly in the picture.

I got new tires shortly after this photo was taken.  My bike subsequently lost four pounds.

So this bike... Well, can I just tell you that I've had it since the late 80s?  I've had it since I was 12-1/2 years old.  Seriously, I have been pedaling the same cycle for TWENTY-TWO years.  And yeah, sometimes I think, "maybe biking would be easier if I had a newer flashier bike."  But hey, it's still working.  It has 18 speeds or gears or whatever you call them.  It has a bike rack.  And as of tonight, it now has a red flashing back light and a fancy-pants spot headlight.  Nevermind the fact that I've had my bike lock for about... TWENTY-TWO years, or that I bought my helmet at Fred Meyer for $20.  The bike is pimped out and I'm ready to dive into April, my month of low gasoline consumption for Operation Consumption Liberation!

I will also not be driving any Gators this month.  FYI.

I discussed my biking fears and the current economics of gasoline last time, so without further adieu, here are the guidelines I'll be adhering to this month:

1. No driving the car except (A.)for when I'm volunteering as an ElderFriend--I got to be able to visit and transport my friend who lives in Shoreline; and (B.) for emergencies.  That's it.

Acceptable mode of transportation #1: kayaking.

2.  I  will not be going on a road trip or flying in an airplane this month.  Who can afford that anyway?

Acceptable mode of transportation #2: riding a horse.

3.  I will accept rides with friends to carpool to outings IF IT MAKES SENSE.  In other words, if I'm going out to eat with my friend ES, it is totally cool to ride together because she lives less than two miles away.  But if I'm going out to eat with my friend SW, the only way she's driving from White Center-abouts to pick me up is if we're going out to eat in my hood, or North of here, and I'm not going to suggest that.  Better I bike or take the bus to meet her somewhere halfway.

Acceptable mode of transportation #3: swimming.

Acceptable mode of transportation #4: ride a flamingo.

4.  Speaking of the bus, I will be limiting my bus use.  Sure, the bus consumes less gas and pollutes less than all of its passengers in their own cars, but the bus is also EXPENSIVE.  SO here's how I'll be limiting my bus use: (1.) I'll be putting approximately the current cost of one tank of gas in my car onto my Orca card.  (2.)  When I run out of bus money, that's it for the month.

Photo by Andy Nystrom

So, for the record, here's the bus money math: The price of regular unleaded in Seattle is $3.795 right now.  My gas tank probably holds more than 12 gallons, but for this purpose, that's what it holds.  So a tank would cost me $45.54, so I've put $45 on my Orca card for April.  If I ride the bus only during Peak hours (1-zone peak fare=$2.50 w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 18 rides for the month.  If I ride the bus only during Non-Peak hours (1-zone non-peak fare=$2.25  w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 20 rides total for the month.

 Mind you, this last month, I burned through four bus fares in one day easy ($9.50 worth)--all I did was go to the office, come home to change, whereupon I went out with friends for dinner and a movie, and then came home.  I think I'm going to want to be careful about how I use those bus fares, because I'm going to want to meet up with friends and there will be late nights when I will want to get home and I won't feel safe or energetic enough to bike.  Not to mention really RAINY days.  This is Seattle after all.

Which means (5.) I will be riding my bike or walking as much as possible all month long.  Or running.  And I'm not opposed to rollerskates--I had a dream I was wearing these hella cool skates the other night--they were funky brown leather knee high boots on wheels, totally awesome.  If you know where I can get skates that rad, let me know.

Oh yes, I need to add something to my life to compensate for my removal of car and gas.  Something BESIDES more biking, which is grand, but is also work.  Hmmm, I'm open to suggestions.  Though I'm leaning towards dark chocolate, or flowers....

Chocolate doesn't get realer than this.

Poppies, Poppies, everywhere!

Almost Pedal Time... (!)

http://atom.smasher.org/gas-station/

My challenge for the month of April is a biggie.  In fact, while I’ve been a little intimidated by all of my previous challenges, I have to confess, I’m nervous as hell about this next one.  Because April is the month I’ve chosen to cut back my consumption of gasoline.

Now, anyone who drives a car or pays any attention to the news knows that, recently, the price of gasoline has been increasing faster than you can say Exxon.  GasBuddy.com has this feature where you can chart out the historical gas retail price averages for many North American markets over different time periods, ranging from one month to six years.  According to the chart I pulled up for Seattle, average gas prices for regular unleaded have gone up 60 cents per gallon since Christmas Day, and half of that price increase has been in the last month.  That's a 1-cent increase per day.  As I’m writing this, the average price of gas per gallon in Seattle is $3.748, $0.206 cents higher than the national average. 

So my upcoming month of limited gasoline consumption is certainly timely from a budget perspective.  Of course, when I decided to embark on my Operation Consumption Liberation in late December, back in the days when the Seattle average gas price was $3.18 (and I thought that was high!), the current wave of political unrest in the Middle East had just begun to heat up.  I had no idea how much of a good idea an April gas vacay would be.  Instead, I chose April for the following reasons:

1. Earth Day is in April, so I wanted to do something good for the environment.
2. April is a 30-day month, not a 31-day month, like May.
3. The weather is warmer in April than in, say, super-short February, which is important given that I’ll be walking more, biking more, and waiting for buses more.  (I’ll be going into all of this in my next post.)
4. Seattle is amazingly beautiful in the springtime—last year, I was training heavily for a half marathon during April and May, and I really enjoyed running around so much and seeing all the different flowers blooming.
5. In fact, I heart Seattle so much in the spring that I don’t want to miss a moment of it, so I don’t really want to leave town.  A low-gas consumption month kind of requires no trips on the airplane, right?

Spring=pretty flowering dogwoods on my street

 Of course, while April is warmer than February, it isn’t typically a warm month.  And April isn’t the driest month of the year in Seattle either.  Here’s a little chart to illustrate Seattle’s average monthly high and low temperatures and average monthly precipitation from www.usclimatedata.com:
 

Source: U.S. Climate Data

 Actually, that ~2-inch average April rainfall looks pretty sweet compared to the soggy >5-inch fall and winter months.  Still, those 2 inches of rain are behind most of my anxiety about going car-free this coming month. I'm not keen on biking in the rain.  It isn't just the inconvenience of getting soaked between home and the office; I am afraid.  I'm scared I will wipe out while riding downhill on a wet road, breaking my collarbone and totaling my bike.  For the record, other bicycle-riding worries include: getting hit by a car, going too slow for an impatient driver and getting yelled at, and getting laughed at and passed by other bicyclists while I have to walk my bike up another one of Seattle's big-arse hills.

A little hill--I can bike up this one.  Barely.

Thus, it isn't surprising that I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can avoid biking during low-gas month.  For example: I can take the bus!  However, given my desire to cut both my overall gas consumption (buses run on gas, yo.) and my spending ($2.25 non-peak/$2.50 peak bus fare with 2-hour transfer), I've decided to limit my bus usage for the month too.

"Well," thinks bike-fearing Jess, "if I can't bus all the time, I can walk!"  Sure, I can walk to the grocery store and the pharmacy and the library, but walking takes time.  On Tuesday, I decided to find out just how long it takes to walk home from my writing office.  +45 minutes.  One way.  It was a lovely day for a walk, but I can't spend 90 minutes walking to the office every day.  Maybe one way, once a week.

"Then perhaps I won't go to the office very much all month..."  Umm, speaking of wasting money...  I pay rent, I better use it.  Carpool?  Don't know anyone else in the building, everyone has their own weird hours, no.  There's just no way around it.  If I'm going to dump the car and limit the bus, I'm going to need to get on the bike.

Look, I live near an official bike route!

 So, yesterday, a gorgeous sunny day, I pulled my bike out of storage, dusted it off, and put air in the tires.  I put on my helmet, and consulted Google Maps on my smartphone for bike route advice to the office.  Then I biked it.  And yes, I got a smarmy look from one or two drivers who had to drive around my slow self, and yes, there were some painful hills, including one where I had it got steep so quick that I had to hop off and push my bike up the hill.  But I made it there and back.  And it only took 20 minutes each way. Of course, yesterday was fair weather biking.  Sooner or later, I'm going to have to face my fear of wet road conditions. 

Anyway, I just wanted to write about my pre-April planning and some of my concerns.  Also, do you have any great rainy-biking advise for me? Please, send it my way, along with any good luck wishes, prayers if you prefer....  I'll be laying out my rules for low-gas April early next week.

(Oh, yeah, I'm doing fine with no alcohol March.  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm doing a spring-cleaning week of no sweets to get my sugar consumption under control again--four days in and feeling sane still!)