Suggestions on avoiding boredom in a time of plague

I’m going stir crazy, and I presume damn near everyone else is too — and after only two weeks.

After thinking about how much you dislike this mild form of isolation, please think about all of the prisoners subjected to total isolation for months or years on end — think about how they feel, what it does to them. And then think about how the government you support subjects people to such psychological torture.

Whatever. Here are a few things that might help you pass the time in your mild form of lockdown:

• Archive.org  has a very large library of classic films, including a very nice collection of films noir. All are free.
• Kanopy features the Criterion collection of films and many others, and is free on many public library sites. The film I’ve seen most recently that I’d recommend is Harrod Blank’s (son of legendary countercultural director Mel Blank) Wild Wheels, a wonderful documentary about art cars and their creators. If nothing else will do it, this will leave with a kinder view of humanity, its creativity, and a smile on your face.
• Learn the night sky. The best free tool to help you do this is Stellarium (free download). Probably the best planetarium program, regardless of cost. Even if you just have your naked eyes, you can learn the constellations and follow the planets. If you have even cheap, small binoculars, Stellarium will open a whole new world of deep sky objects to you; and if you have even a cheap kid’s 60 mm telescope, wow are you in for some fun — especially as both air pollution and light pollution abate with the coronavirus tragedy. (Always look on the bright side of life.)
• Learn to sing or play an instrument. Even if you just have your voice, there are a lot of vocal lessons available on Youtube. Singing is also a great shame-attacking exercise. If you have even a cheap instrument available, there are likewise a hell of a lot of useful instructional videos. One Youtube channel that I’ve found particularly useful is GuitarPilgrim, though to take full advantage of the videos you need to be at least an intermediate-level player. Whatever, the guy is an incredibly good guitarist and also incredibly good at explaining how to do things. I can’t recommend this more highly — it’s head-and-shoulders above all of the other instructional guitar videos I’ve seen.
• Write. If you’re reading this, you have the means to do it. Nowadays, there are an incredible number of aids available, both in your word processing program and online. My favorite tool is probably the self-explanatory thesaurus.com. And buck up — today, you have it good: take advantage of all the tools. For both nonfiction and fiction, it’s a great idea to write a highly detailed outline before you start writing. You won’t follow it, but it’s a great jumping-off point.
• Garden. As long as the water stays on, you’re good. Even if you’ve never done it before, it should be pretty easy. I live in one of the most hostile environments in the U.S. for gardening (alkaline, nutrient-deficient soil, low rainfall, brutal sun), and I still get good yields. If I can do it here, you can do it anywhere. A lot of public libraries have seed catalogs which will help to get you started. Helpful hints: start small — if you’ve never gardened before, start with a garden of under 100 s.f.; buy seeds or get them free from a seed catalog — do not buy individual plants for $3 or $4 apiece from a big-box store. They’re an incredible rip. Six-packs for $3 or so aren’t a bad way to go (far from great, but not terrible), but spending three bucks or more for a start is obscene. And then start saving seeds and saving money next year. (Sorry to sound so mercenary, but cost is a consideration, even with treating Mother Earth well. And I hate ripoffs.)

Much more on all this later.

For now, please meditate on how the government tortures your fellow human beings with solitary confinement.

(repost) How to make yourself welcome in friends’ vegetable gardens

(It’s time to start preparing for your summer garden. There are plenty of blogs and sites that tell you how to do this, but not many that provide information to nongardeners on making themselves welcome in their friends’ gardens. Hence this slightly revised repost from a few years ago.)

If you know people who garden — and you don’t do it yourself — here are a few tips about making yourself welcome.

Don’t walk in vegetable beds unless they tell you it’s okay to do so. The soil in beds is usually (at least it should be) loose, which is good for the spread of vegetable roots and for water absorption. Walking on soil compacts it, which isn’t good for those roots or for absorption.

This should go without saying, but don’t pick anything unless they invite you to do so.

Don’t be pushy. If you can see they only have a small amount of something, don’t ask for it. If you do, they might give it to you, but they’ll probably resent doing so and quite possibly won’t invite you back.

It’s okay to ask if they have anything extra, but unless you can see they have a lot of what you want, don’t specifically ask for it.

If they invite you to help yourself, they’re probably assuming that you can do the gardening equivalent of walking while chewing gum. Well, unless you’re a gardener, you probably can’t. If you don’t ask for guidance you’ll quite possibly do something destructive that will induce face-palm time in your host. If you’ve never, for instance, harvested lettuce or other greens, ask how to do it.

Help out. Even small gardens require a lot of work, and gardeners appreciate those who lend a hand. They’ll appreciate even five minutes of weeding. (Unless you’re familiar with local weeds, ask what to pull and what to leave alone.)

Do all of these things, and your gardener friends will likely be generous with their produce and will very likely ask you back — especially if you help even a little.

Solstice Greetings from the Inferno

Howdy from Tucson, where the final day of Spring came in at (depending  on which forecast you believe) somewhere between 112 and 114 degrees F (45 degrees C for you furriners). (Update: it was actually 115 F.)

It’s supposed to be even warmer tomorrow (make that in a few hours). (Update: It was warmer: 116 (47 C) ; in Phoenix it was 119. As I write, the high today was a mere 115, and we’re in for a major cooling spell this weekend, where the highs won’t get much above 110.)

About three weeks ago, after our first string of 100+ degree days, one of the local weathermen (Kevin Jeanes on KOLD — and sorry for the political incorrectness, that should be “weatherperson” or “person of weather”) with, shall we say a dry sense of humor, commented that the temperature was “all the way down to 99, and it’ll be even cooler tomorrow at 97.” (Again, for those of you who use a rational temperature scale, that translates to 37 C and 36 C.)

For those who haven’t been paying attention to U.S. climate models, they predict that this region, the desert Southwest, will be the hardest hit of the “lower 48.” And indeed it has been. We’ve been in a prolonged drought for nearly 20 years (broken last year by “normal” rainfall), and two of the last three years, 2014 and 2016, were the hottest on record. We just experienced the second warmest Spring ever, with the hottest March (high and mid 90s temperatures starting around March 1).

So, yeah, global warming is a “hoax.” We need to burn more coal. Donald Trump is an intelligent, honest, compassionate human being. And the unfettered greed inherent in capitalism isn’t a death sentence for the planet.

Things seem bleak, but we’re not totally screwed. There are things we can do individually and collectively to adapt and to counter global warming.

One thing damn near everyone can do is to plant trees. If done on a mass scale, this can reverse desertification. Even on an individual scale, it’s one of the best things we can do.

Gardening is another individual approach that makes sense. It involves far less expense than transporting food for thousands of miles, and involves far less waste. It also yields health benefits via relaxation, if nothing else.

Another individual approach, in arid regions, is to use xeriscaping, using native plants and a carpeting of rocks in place of lawns and non-native plants. This saves water — a lot of it, and it looks better than lawns.

Then there’s water harvesting — again, something damn near everyone (at least every property owner) can do at reasonable cost that will be amortized in a relatively few years. Even if you’re just channeling rain water from your roof and patio into wells for your fruit trees (as I am), it helps.

And then there’s passive solar heating (just think big picture windows facing south with an overhang that cuts off the sun in the summer months) and solar hot water heating (ultra easy — I built a solar hot water heater out of two old hot water heaters painted flat black [stripped of their external metal jacket and insulation], plumbing fittings, an old window, and scrap plywood and 2X4s about 20 years ago — a friend is still using it).

Then there’s ultra-insulation. Think straw bale and rammed earth construction. These energy-saving approaches can be used almost anywhere, and will often result in extremely energy-efficient dwellings.

To go even further on the individual scale, basements make a hell of a lot of sense in desert areas. Temperatures in them are a good 25 degrees F below surface temperatures, and there aren’t even seepage problems in deserts. The only reason they haven’t been adopted on a mass scale in the sprawlopalises  of the Southwest is that land, historically, has been so damn cheap that builders have foregone them in place of slab construction, which yields better short-term profits. If you’re having a place built in this area, think about adding a basement.

As for societal approaches, they’re so obvious that I’ll mention them only in passing. First and foremost, a direct tax on carbon emissions — screw carbon “offsets”: they’re a recipe for fraud; massive public investment in clean energy; energy-efficient transport and appliances; mass investment in public transit, including bicycle projects; tree planting on a mass scale; and subsidies for individual clean energy projects, passive-solar retrofits, water harvesting,  and energy-efficient construction.

Why do I think all of this is important? There are a couple of reasons.

One is that if adopted widely all of this would help save the planet (or at least make the lives of our children and their children better). The other is that it would keep people involved, and at least marginally hopeful. People without hope are easy to control and manipulate. Real, positive change is possible only when people have hope.

If you haven’t already done so — even on the smallest individual scale — please join those of us trying to create real change, please join those of us creating hope.

 

 

 

Make Yourself Popular with Friends who Garden

If you have friends who garden — and you don’t do it yourself — here are a few tips about making yourself welcome in their gardens.

Don’t walk in vegetable beds unless they tell you it’s okay to do so. The soil in beds is usually (at least it should be) loose, which is good for the spread of vegetable roots and for water absorption. Walking on soil compacts it, which isn’t good for those roots or for absorption.

This should go without saying, but don’t pick anything unless they invite you to do so.

Don’t be pushy. If you can see they only have a small amount of something, don’t ask for it. If you do, they might give it to you, but they’ll probably resent doing so and quite possibly won’t invite you back.

It’s okay to ask if they have anything extra, but unless you can see they have a lot of what you want, don’t specifically ask for it.

If they invite you to help yourself, they’re probably assuming that you can do the gardening equivalent of walking while chewing gum. Well, unless you’re a gardener, you probably can’t. If you don’t ask for guidance you’ll quite possibly do something destructive that will induce face-palm time in your host. If you’ve never, for instance, harvested greens, ask how to do it.

Help out. Even small gardens require a lot of work. Gardeners appreciate those who help. They’ll appreciate even five minutes of weeding. (Unless you’re familiar with local weeds, ask what to weed and what to leave alone.)

Do all of these things, and your gardener friends will likely be generous with their produce and will very likely ask you back — especially if you help even a little.

Related articles

• Fall & Winter Gardening: What You Should Be Doing NOW (offthegridnews.com)