ECOSF SUMMER 2008 NEWSLETTER

Hola los amigos de ECOSF,

You may be wondering where we’ve been for the last few months, but there’s no need to worry; ECOSF is thriving like a young tree, bearing bountiful summer fruit after drinking up the energy stores of winter and setting vibrant new buds in the spring.  We’ve been working all around town (naturally) building two unique cob benches with students in the Sunset and West Portal, making an outdoor cob classroom with parents and kids in the Excelsior, learning the true meaning of sustainable living while workin’ the land in schools, backyards and street corners and just being thankful for our year-round growing season. Of course we’ve also been meeting with many new friends and members and collaborating on innovative ecological designs, activities and events. With our hands steadily building and balancing the load we have not sent out our monthly updates as usual, but instead, here is our summer update to spread the word about what ECOSF is doing, what’s going on in the city and how you can stay connected.  We have a lot to say in this update but be sure to check out our UPCOMING EVENTS like the Cob Building Garden Party at Monroe Elementary School this Saturday the 13th of September. Be sure to click on any links you see below for further information, photos, and resources.

LOCAL ECOLOGY

Late summer and into early fall, in the Bay Area, can be the warmest, driest and sometimes most exciting time of the year.  The Himalayan Blackberries are ripening, the birds are chirping, and the mild weather gives us a good reason to get outside and enjoy some of our local ecology.  Hazelnuts, Huckleberries and Elderberries are a few of the tasty wild foods that can be found on the trail this time of year, and of course a garden can provide all the favorites like Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, Peppers (If you’re lucky), Corn, Garlic, and all the juicy fruits like Apples, Plums, Peaches, Figs and Berries.  If you don’t have access to a small plot of arable land (a garden) then this is the best time of the year to visit your local Farmer’s Market to see the great diversity of food grown in California, including some less common fruits and veggies like Prickly Pear (Nopales) and Chayote both of which grow well in our climate and are easily propagated. One of our favorite things to do in the summer is make preserves of wild fruit like Blackberries, but also less commonly known fruits like Chilean Guavas, Wild Currants, and our abundant Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) fruits found on many San Francisco streets.

September 15th is this month’s full moon, which rises at sunset and an hour later each subsequent night afterward, and is known as the ‘Harvest Moon’ because it provides usable light well after nightfall, allowing farmers to keep working in their fields.  Other traditional names for this moon include Cool Moon from the Cheyenne, Salmon Spawning Moon from the Haida, and the Moon Without a Name from the Paiute.  The new moon arrives on September 29th.  If yer fixin’ on plantin’ a plot, this is the time to start your Brassicas like Kale, Mustard Greens, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Collards and other greens like Chard, Lettuce and Spinach, and you should direct sow Carrots, Beets, Radish, Parsnips and Peas since they don’t transplant well. A true ecological garden would not be complete without some beneficial color from plants like Bee Balm, Calendula, Hollyhock, and Rudebeckia, which all have edible flowers and also attract pollinating and predatory insects for the garden. Shingiku, also known as Edible Chrysanthemum, is an especially useful garden plant that provides edible flowers as well as prolific greens for salads.

Now is also the time to start thinking about natives to plant as the rainy season approaches and the quiet of winter sets, but for now enjoy the year’s last burst of fiery sunlight that makes our Indian Summer such a beautiful time. The magic draws us nearer to the Autumnal Equinox, which occurs on September 22nd, the moment in time when the Sun can be observed to be directly over the equator. It is also a key phenomenon that contributes to passive solar building design.

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Earlier this year, when the gardens were sleeping, we began several Natural Building projects in local schools to show the many virtues of building with locally sourced, usually recycled, and always non-toxic materials.  We started out at Jefferson Elementary, constructing a cob bench with a 4th and 5th grade class that had been learning about adobe and other tried and true Indigenous building techniques, and wanted to work on a class project that would leave something behind for future classes.  ECOSF found clay rich subsoil at the Sava Pool excavation site on 19th Ave., brought in sand and straw (purchased unfortunately, in some cases even this can be free), and facilitated building sessions with the class each week.

At first some students were hesitant to get dirty but after a while nobody could resist joining the group and playing in the mud.  After just two days one of the young girls was already saying she wanted to be a Cob Builder when she grows up, a testament to cob’s accessibility to all ages, and abilities.  Before long our bench had taken shape into a Whale/Fish creature that was then studded with colorful, rounded glass purchased from Building Resources, a non-profit, recycled building materials yard, off of 3rd Street and Cargo Way.  The project was a lot of fun but also turned out to be a lot of work, although we loved it, and despite falling behind on some of our administrative tasks we agreed to help design and build another, larger cob bench at nearby West Portal Elementary.

With a good feel for the mixing process, and more to discuss about why Natural Building is so different from modern day concrete, steel, and wood construction, we easily led several of the 5th grade classes from West Portal in work sessions during school, and kicked off the bench with a massive community effort on a weekend school gathering. People were amazed that clay, sand, and straw (basically mud with some fiber) could be combined and shaped to make a unique hand-built bench/playstructure/sculpture right there in the schoolyard.  When a teacher asked if we could shape the bench into a Panther, the school mascot, we told them that the beauty of cob is that it can be easily shaped into almost any form you like.  We were even able to color the clay with natural pigments - in this case, Iron Oxide - to make our panther black.  As the sleek body of the panther took shape - thanks to the great work of the 5th graders - and the beautifully sculpted face was adorned with beads and mosaics, we were also able to design and start building an art garden that would provide plant based dyes and other implements for future classes to use.  You didn’t think we could stay out of the garden for long did you?

Some of the species that can be found in West Portal’s dye garden are Pomegranate, Elderberry, Mulberry, Holly Leaf Cherry, Silver Bush Lupine, Goldenrod, Alkanet, Calendula, and St. John’s Wort.  Plants like Hazelnut, Willow, and Manzanita were planted both for the colors they lend and their use for making tools and implements.  Oca, a Peruvian root crop that provides oxalic acid, and Crab apples were planted as natural mordants.  If you would like a full species list, or more information about this project, please let us know.

Our most recent - and biggest - natural building project is an outdoor classroom made of cob at Monroe Elementary School. We broke ground in April by digging a drainage trench for the foundation of the 16 ft diameter circular bench that will provide an ecological, educational space for students and a community meeting space for the school.  During monthly garden workdays with the help of parents, children and volunteers we moved literally tons of aggregate and urbanite to complete the foundation and build up the inner core of the bench.  At times it felt like building a pyramid but the many helping hands made light labor of this heavy work by using cooperative techniques like forming zipper lines to move things from one place to another.

Last month’s workday was especially productive since we were joined by the Urban Permaculture Guild’s ‘Permaculture Design Class’ and we co-led a hands-on workshop about building with cob with Marisha Farnsworth of The Natural Builders.  This fall we will be holding workshops with students during the school day to continue building up the outdoor classroom and sharing with them the millennia old earthen building tradition. The project is progressing nicely and there are still plenty of opportunities for anyone who wants to learn, share and converge with us to add the next layer to the bench on Saturday the 13th of September. This is a great chance to play in the mud and participate in a community-building project.  We’ll see ya there!

We also had the opportunity to take a Natural Building Intensive workshop at Emerald Earth Sanctuary in Mendocino County to expand our awareness and ability to apply natural building techniques and principles to our work. Michael G. Smith, one of the instructors, co-founded the Cob Cottage Company back in 1992 and was instrumental in the cob building revival in the United States. He has since been teaching Natural Building workshops from his home at Emerald Earth for the last nine years and their site showcases one of the best examples and varieties of homes and buildings made entirely (or mostly) of natural materials, most of which were obtained from the land and earth around them. While cob, an excellent thermal mass and high compression strength material, can be used for a wide variety of applications, it can be quite laborious and not the most suitable for walls that need more insulation or sites that don’t need 2-3 foot thick walls, like interior walls. We learned about and built Slip-Straw (also called Light Straw Clay) and Clay-Wattle walls that are perfect for interior wall home improvements that can benefit from the added insulation and ease and quickness of putting them together. Both incorporate a high amount of straw, less clay, and no sand or aggregate so they are much more insulating and provide a great base for an earthen finish plaster.

We also learned about and applied earthen plasters and Alis clay paints and encourage anyone who is doing an interior remodeling to consider using an earthen plaster either over existing sheetrock, lath, or a Slip-Straw or Clay-Wattle addition. The beauty of an earthen plaster comes from the textured finish, and warm and inviting earth tones that can be added with natural pigments. Vibrant colors can be obtained from some pigments and lime plasters can be added for durability and waterproofing for bathroom walls. Once you getting started learning and working with earthen materials, the possibilities and creative expressions are endless. If you are interested in learning more about these techniques and materials, or would like to utilize them in your home, please let us know.

On another note, if you haven’t checked out our website recently, definitely check out our post ‘Can You Live With Less?‘ Since February, Davin has been living outside and off the grid, so to speak. Certainly there is some use of electricity to work on our website, correspond with others and other computer related tasks but he has pledged to use less than 10 gallons of water a day, and no indoor energy except to charge his cell phone and laptop. He has taken less than 10 showers indoors and only done his laundry with a washing machine a couple of times. That’s not to say he doesn’t like being clean, he just prefers heating water for an outdoor shower in a solar collector, and attempting (though that soon got rather tiring) to wash his clothes by hand.

90% of the food he has been eating has been cooked on a rocket stove, a solar oven, or occasionally a backpacking stove when time does not permit for other options (and yes, he has eaten out with friends an average of once a week and succumbed to the occasional bakery treat here and there). His diet consists of oatmeal for breakfast, and rice and beans (grown in the Central Valley) for lunch and dinner. He adds vegetables from the garden, plus some leftovers from Other Avenues Health Food Store. Of course he has eaten some extras here and there, but he has kept all the trash from any packaged foods he has purchased and the ball of landfill trash is about the size of a basketball (after 6 months). His new bathroom facility is a compost toilet, and his sink is a bucket with a spigot that collects in a greywater system to water the garden. Why would someone do something like this? Well, he says its because he’s always encouraging people to live with less, and do their best to consume less, but how easy is it really? He decided to find out.

Originally, it was only going to last a month, maybe a few, but he seems to have fallen in love with the sounds of the ocean waves lulling him to sleep and the chirping and chatting of songbirds waking him up in the morning; and has remained outside since. But there is another side to the story. We are asking you to consider how you could live with less. Whether it is drive less, use less water (and certainly recycle and reuse any that you do use), less electricity, less natural gas, less consumer goods, less foreign or high transportation necessary goods, and less of anything that you can honestly live without. Maybe it’s less bananas than you might normally eat, or less coffee. Maybe you carpool more often or take public transportation sometimes if you don’t already. Maybe if it’s yellow, you let it mellow, and if you do your dishes by hand, maybe you can do them in a tub that can then be emptied into the garden. Maybe you decide to not buy anything new for a month, or more. Maybe you try to eat a diet of food that comes from less than 300 miles for a month. It may require moving a little left of your typical comfort zone, but what if you tried it, and it wasn’t so bad? What if you liked it? What if you preferred it? What if it felt natural? What ever it may be, try it, and tell us about it. Tell us what you did, or what you’re doing if you’re already making changes in your life.

There are some that would say personal change doesn’t equal social change, and we would be the first to point out that multinational corporations are probably the biggest consumers and wasters of our precious natural resources, animals and people. But we all are responsible for a lifestyle of consumption, whether it is a lot of a little, and to strive to be in balance with what our planet offers, is to strive to see how you can thrive with just what you need and work towards providing a surplus for nature and others. We would also like you to consider making a pledge to help fund a micro lending program in Africa as part of a fundraiser for the low-consumption lifestyle Davin has been living for the past 6 months. Village Hope Core, a small Kenyan based and Sonoma County connected non-profit organization provides life giving and community enriching loans along with education and assistance to help a group of families create successful, sustainable small businesses in their village. Complete details of why Davin decided to do this, as well as photos and details of his experience can be viewed here. Please make a pledge and send a link to others who would like to help as well.

UPCOMING EVENTS

ECOSF has many projects currently going on and you can get involved in a number of ways. Learn about cob bench building, salad bar gardening, cob oven building, or help us with our vegetable, medicinal, native, and perennial plant nursery and City Orchards project development. We would like to increase the availability of locally grown vegetable starts and native and perennial plants for schools and residences as well as ramp up community food production by working with city agencies and landowners to increase the edible landscape of the city. We are looking for a couple of volunteers who would like to help with outreach, maintenance, and harvesting so if you’re interesting in learning more about growing your own food and providing for local food security for others, please contact us. We also have several mini-projects going on throughout the city that need weekly or monthly volunteer help either working with students in a school, checking on existing gardens, helping establish new gardens, propagating and seeding starts, and doing research.

Here is a list of the events ECOSF has scheduled for the next couple of months. For complete descriptions of each event, please check out our UPCOMING EVENTS page on our website.

Sept. 13th - Saturday - 11am-4pm : Monroe Elementary School Garden Work Day -
- Cob Bench building : Learn how to make a good earthen building mix from clay, sand, and straw, plus apply to our existing bench helping the parents, teachers, and students at Monroe complete their outdoor classroom.
- Salad bar gardening : We’ll be preparing beds and planting a salad bar garden to enhance the salad bar program already at Monroe with organic veggies from their garden. Learn about crop rotation, succession, and fertilizing for maximum yields and quality.
- Native plants for wildlife habitat, wild forage, and ecological support in the garden : Find out what plants do best for a variety of needs and benefits and how they can create a more ecologically minded space in your garden.

Sept. 20th - Saturday - 12pm-5pm : Double Rock Community Garden Herb Maze -
- Finishing up an herb spiral that grew into an herb maze we started several months ago.
- We’ll be stacking urbanite for garden bed borders and make for future no-tilling beds
- Plant native (as well as some non-native) medicinal and culinary herbs for the Alice Griffith community to use.

Sept. 21st - Sunday - 2pm-4pm : Other Avenues Workshop : Off-the-Grid Living -
- Davin will explain the use and history of appropriate technologies like rocket stoves, solar ovens, and sawdust composting toilets
- Learn about how you can build and use these in your home or anywhere to maximize use of local materials and be less reliant on imported fuels, precious resources, and the economic, social, and ecological costs associated with them
- We’ll build a rocket stove and a solar oven from recycled materials and we’ll be baking cookies in the solar oven (provided it is a sunny day) and cooking rice and beans in the rocket stove.
`   - Contact Other Avenues to reserve a space.

Oct. 18th - Saturday - 11am-5pm : Baker’s Alley : Cob Oven Workshop -
- An inaugural workshop for Baker’s Alley, Tori’s community space that is in the making and soon will be a place for ECOSF to sell nursery stock, conduct workshops, and provide a community bread oven to build stronger relationships in the neighborhood
- We’ll be constructing a cob oven and having a garden party and potluck to meet new and old members and rekindle the fire that glows in our community.
- Learn about how to site and gather materials for building a cob oven designed to bake breads, pizzas, and more in your backyard, or community space.

Other notable events in San Francisco this month and next:

Sept. 13th - Saturday - All Day : San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Plant Sale
- Native plants and succulents from the amazing Botanical Garden’s collection
- Click here for more information

Sept. 13th - Saturday - 2pm : Conscious Consumption Workshop
- As part of their annual film series, the Chinese Cultural Center Cinema (C4) is holding a workshop about the issues facing seafood resources and their relevance to us as individuals and as a community.
- There will be a panel discussion, tips on conscious consumption choices, and a screening of the film Farming the Seas (2004, 55mins) a documentary about the aquaculture industry.
- Chinese Cultural Center - 750 Kearny Street, 3rd floor
- Click here for more information

Sept. 15th - Monday - 6:30pm-8:30pm : Toward a Sustainable Forest Products Industry
    - Pacific Energy Center’s Evening Lecture Series will be hosting Jason Grant who will provide a whirlwind tour through humankind’s historical relationship to forests, discuss what the relationship might look like if we are able to make a transition to sustainability, and
suggest paths to get us from where we are today, to where we need to be.
- The PEC offers many informative (both simple and technical) free to the public on a wide range of topics including Renewable Energy, Residential Energy Efficiency, Building Performance, HVAC Systems, Lighting Technologies and Title 24. There are many classes on solar
basics for home owners but they fill up fast, so go to their website to see the calendar of listings.
- Pacific Energy Center is located at 851 Howard St in San Francisco, click here for more information.

Sept. 20th - Saturday - Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Day
    - Take part in the largest volunteer event of it’s kind!
- Last year, 378,000 volunteers from 76 countries and 45 states cleared 6 million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways and recorded every piece of trash collected.
- For more information on how you can get involved, click here.

Sept. 27th - Saturday - 8:30am-9pm : Grand Opening of the new California Academy of Sciences
    - Experience life on top of the largest Platinum LEEDcertified public institution in the world via there 2.5 acre living roof, home to over 30 different native plant species that will provide superior insulation, reducing energy inputs for heating and cooling, absorb 98%
of the rainwater that falls upon it, preventing 3.6 million gallons of storm water from carrying pollutants in the ecosystem each year, and be an important source of food for native wildlife, including the endangered San Bruno Elfin and Bay Checkerspot Butterflies.
- So much can be said about this place, you’ll have to see if for yourself, and the opening day is free. There are many events and activities going on all day so be sure to check it out.
- For more information, click here.

Sept. 27th - Saturday - 10am-4pm : 14th Annual Sunset Community Festival
- In keeping with the explosive interest in “Going Green,” this year’s Sunset Community Fest theme is, rather appropriately, “Greening the Sunset”
- The hope to share many new products (not that you should buy products to be green) and practices that promote environmental stewardship. We’ll be there doing our thing, showing how to set up a simple drip irrigation system, plant natives for ecological benefit, and more.
- Sunset Playground - 28th and Lawton in the Sunset district.

Sept. 27th - Saturday - 9am-4pm : 2nd Annual Breaking Ground : Urban Gardening Youth Conference
    - Wow, Sept 27th is quite a day huh? This is a special event open to all Bay Area high-school students interested in getting involved in local gardening projects, habitat restoration, and action towards sustainability.
- Hosted by StreetParks (a project of the San Francisco Parks Trust) this event is free, but space is limited.
- Potrero Del Sol Park - Click here for more info.

Oct. 10th-11th - Friday 5:30pm-8:30pm & Saturday 8:30am-4:30pm - Growing Greener School Grounds Conference
- Put on by San Francisco’s Green School Yard Alliance, this event will bring together over 300 teachers and community members from around the Bay Area to learn more about creating, using, and sustaining, ecological schoolyards.
- Workshop sites at Sherman, Sanchez, and Alvarado school, and St. Mary’s Cathedral Conference Center
- Prices vary, click here for complete details.

Well, so it was more than just an update. We always have a lot to say, but we don’t always get a chance to sit down for long enough to say it. If you would like to help us with future newsletters or community outreach either as a contributor, editor, or more, please let us know. We appreciate the support and patience from our members and our community. We are still an all-volunteer organization that is supported by our community, and that means you! If you haven’t become a member, please consider supporting us at this time, and perhaps you’d like to renew your membership. You can be sure that your support makes the community development and ecological education projects we provide possible and allows those who are less fortunate and unable to pay expensive contractors an opportunity to create a community building experience that shares the values of all involved and nurtures a formidable future of sustainable stewardship and meaningful relationships. Until next time, always be sowing seeds for food, for nature, and for community!

-Davin, Sam, & Tori

Ecology Center of San Francisco