Hello Urbanites,

With another year sealed in history and a new year upon us, January is always a unique time for reflection on the seasons past and preparation for the seasons to come. Some of us do so with open arms, some with hope for change, and some with uncertainty of the path ahead. Recent political shifts may lift our spirits while escalating geo-political conflicts may deflate them, one thing remains constant – change that is real, that you can see, feel, and breath, starts at home, and generally comes from within. The word ecology, coined by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1873 as ‘okologie’, comes from the Greek word ‘oikos’ which translates to mean “house, dwelling place, habitation”. Economics, likewise is derived from oikos and while it has come to be defined by Webster’s as ‘a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services’, perhaps it is better understood and acted upon as it was defined in c. 1530 as ‘household management’.

Household management may be considered by some the organization and execution of chores, household inventory, family activities and the like, traditionally relegated to the domain of the ‘homemaker’ but another perspective might be to consider economics, or household management, to mean the ‘managing’ of ideas and actions that create a stable, nurturing, and sustainable household. If we widen our perspective to consider our community, and our goal is to have a sustainable community then it would have to be made up of sustainable households. Further widening our perspective, if we wanted to have a sustainable global community, it would have to be made up of sustainable communities. Which eventually brings us back home. How can we create a sustainable household?

While there are countless cultural paths and perspectives to consider, the American roots of a sustainable household are most epitomized and perhaps easily lifted from that of the ‘homesteader’. Who or what is a homesteader you may ask? Well, by Webster’s definition, a homesteader is someone who acquires a tract of land from the United States by filing a record and living on and cultivating that tract.  Unfortunately that option is not in the cards for most of us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a ‘citysteader’, a term we heard from our friends Sorrel and Yeast, creators of Source – a quarterly zine for the Bay Area – and the subject of their 3^rd issue. That issue is filled with details on how city dwellers like ourselves can save money, reduce waste, and reclaim beautiful, gratifying skills by making their own yogurt, butter, cheese, bread, sauerkraut, kombucha, mead, jams and by raising chickens, ducks, and bees. For more information check out their website bayareasource.googlepages.com. Certainly ‘citysteading’ goes beyond food and their 4^th issue will be addressing greywater reuse, rainwater harvesting, solar ovens, and bike powered machines – all components of a sustainable household.

So what changes are we looking for in this new year? What changes and sacrifices are we willing to make for that to happen? Maybe some of us will pack up and run to the country because we’re convinced the city can’t be sustainable, while others will dig their heels in and explore every facet of making their existence in an urban center as sustainable as possible. Maybe some of us think sustainable is not enough and that we need a culture change that will bring us to a new level of thinking about our place in the ecosystem we rely on for our needs now and in the future. Whichever river you follow, it will lead to a sea of opportunities. You may consider raising your own chickens because of the healthier eggs, incredible fertilizer, pest control, and deeper connection to nature, but if that’s too much right now, perhaps you can make a commitment simply to not buy eggs from places that cage hens, cut off their beaks, and don’t leave them any room or place to enjoy a natural life. We recently added to our pair of ducks, Emma and Mr. Dottie, three chickens, Frida, Nina, and Joni, because we wanted to experience what it was like to raise chickens in the city, so that we could more accurately advocate for others to do the same. After watching them act out their natural behaviors and desires like hoping and flying around, scratching, and most incredibly – taking a dust bath (which entails lying on their side, stretching their legs out, and throwing soil all over themselves), we feel like we can’t eat eggs from any store (or diner for that matter) that doesn’t offer the hens a natural, peaceful existence.

When you consider that most places we shop for eggs: Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Costco, convenience stores, even Whole Foods, only offer eggs from hens that have their beaks clipped to prevent cannibalism (a hen phenomena found only in confined chicken raising), it becomes clear that while businesses can package their products with words like “organic, free range, cage free,” and the like, you ultimately decide whether that is good enough for you to purchase their product, or boycott their practices. For more information on local eggs, click here. We hope this doesn’t come across as a rant against the evils of our corpratocracy, but rather an example of the necessity for each of us to consider what harm, if any, we are willing to do to our earth’s cultures and creatures, and what steps we will take in our own lives and to encourage those around us to take towards a more livable future. While many of us are taking steps by making ‘New Years Resolutions’, here are some to consider:

1.     Go Local! Buy only food grown and raised in an ecological manner within 150 miles from your mouth. If that is a bit daunting, try it for just a week, then a month, then a year. If that is too challenging, try foods from just California, or at least no produce from outside the country. Email us for suggestions!

2.     Go vegetarian, or vegan, and if not, eat much less meat and fish – here’s why.

3.     Send nothing to the landfill – reduce, reuse, recycle, and REFUSE anything that comes in a package that can’t be recycled or composted, and if you’re already there, only acquire things that can be reused or composted as recycling is still energy intensive and serves mainly to create new products to consume. Buy in bulk, or from the farmer’s market, and if you must buy something wrapped in landfill waste, at least buy it from a local producer or from a mom and pop shop when possible.

4.     Grow yer own! Ramp up your household and community garden food production. If you’re a novice, maybe you want to collectively cultivate a patch of lettuce or kale with a friend who’s learning as well. If you’re an accomplished urban gardener, go out and teach others, share your skills, your seeds, and the fruits of your labor so that others may see the benefits.

5.     Start a ‘citysteading’ activity and keep it up throughout the year. Making your own yogurt is as simple as mixing milk heated to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit with a little existing yogurt and keeping it at that temperature for at least 8 hours. There are many creative ways of doing so and you’re just a step away from making cheese. In that way, you can reuse glass jars, and provide yourself or your family with healthy, fresh, and active probiotics.

You may not see the world change as quickly as you would like, but taking some of these steps and making ethical convictions of your, own not only brings about the obvious health, nutritional, ecological, and economical benefits but also manifests the intentions of cooperative living in a Western cultural worldview that looks at life and nature as resources to be produced, logged, extracted, manipulated, dammed, bottled, synthesized, genetically altered, confined, slaughtered, packaged, shipped, marketed, sold, and eventually dumped. The moral decisions you make and the actions you take towards a more green, organic, sustainable, ecological, or whatever you want to call it, way of life are not going to come from mass media, politicians, or influential speakers. They are going to come from the same place humans have learned to live sustainably on this planet for the last 200,000 years – enthusiastic and practical observation of nature. Nearly every culture or society that continues to exist today without a dominator paradigm does so without destroying the ecosystem that supports it. They have been able to do so by observing their place as a facilitator and conditional element of their ecosystem, not as a manager or separate entity. There is abundance available to those who seek it. Tom Brown Jr., the naturalist, tracker, and survivalist, says a world beyond your imagination can be viewed in the cracks in the sidewalk; all you have to do is look. Another great reference for ‘citysteading’ is the book The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.

WHATS NEW WITH ECOSF

As you may have concluded, we have been exploring the many virtues and lessons learned from urban homesteading over the last several months. Our three chickens, Frida (Kahlo) a Plymouth Barred Rock, Nina (Simone) a Silver-Laced Wyandotte, and Joni (Mitchell) an Ameraucana, are housed in a mostly slip-straw chicken coop made almost entirely with reused materials costing less than $100 to build. Like ducks, chickens provide so many benefits and very few drawbacks as well as life long lessons for children and adults alike to be around wild nature, domesticated as they are. In San Francisco, you are allowed to keep up to 4 birds, provided you follow these rules.

If you would like to learn more about raising ducks or hens in the city, and schedule a visit to check out our urban flock, please email or call us.

In keeping with our mission to empower citizens to create cooperative communities, one of our latest projects, Baker’s Alley, seeks to do just that. With the help of the community, we built an earth oven of clay, sand, straw, with an urbanite (sidewalk concrete) base to fire up once a month as a community oven to bring people together for workshops, gatherings, skill sharing, and potluck. This will be a place for us to outreach to the community, open our lending library to the public, and offer our seedlings and other homemade goods and crafts. The first event was to build the oven, the second was a workshop taught by professional baker Tracy Wolfe, and our upcoming event on January 17^th, will be a workshop on handmade pottery made with local clay and fired in a sawdust kiln with professional potter and teacher, Bea Bloom. As always, the oven will be filled with breads, cookies, muffins, scones, and more made by the community for the community. We hope to see you there! Check out this article about Baker’s Alley. If you have any ideas for events at Baker’s Alley or have any comments or feedback, please let us know.

A recent workshop on food preservation taught by Davin and Tori at Other Avenues sent participants home with kimchi, strawberry jam, and a kombucha mother. We want to share these skills in hopes of demystifying them and spreading a culture of culturing for the nutritional and health benefits, to preserve and prolong your harvest, and to provide an outlet for expression of local flavors made with local yeasts and local people. Did you know there is a species of lactic acid, the power behind sourdough bread, scientifically known as Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis? If you would like to learn more about fermentation or would like to host a workshop on fermented and cultured foods, please let us know.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Jan. 10th - Saturday - 11am-4pm : Monroe Elementary School Garden Work Day -
- Cob Bench building : You should see it now! Cob building in inclement weather is a blast and all the better with friends and family and the goal of completing the student’s outdoor classroom. If you haven’t made it out to a cob event, perhaps this one is the one!
- Enjoy a potluck of local, homegrown, and homemade foods, including solar oven baking if the sun is out! Bring something to share!
- Salad bar gardening : We’ll be adding to our salad bar bed we have been planting over t he last several months. Learn about crop rotation, succession, and fertilizing for maximum yields and quality.

- Location : 260 Madrid St between Excelsior and Avalon in the Excelsior district.

Jan. 17th - Saturday - 10am-4pm : Baker’s Alley Handmade Pottery Workshop -
- Hand made pottery : With guest potter and teacher Bea Bloom, learn how to make simple, practical, and beautiful pottery from local clays.

- Saw dust kiln firing : Once you have bisque ware you’re ready for firing and if you don’t have money for a big expensive kiln, a simple sawdust kiln for one time, or multiple firings can do the trick for low fired pottery.

- Community baking : As always, the oven is fired and available for all your baking needs. Bring something to bake and share, or just a potluck dish and a smile.
- Location : 1390 31^st Ave between Judah and Irving in the Sunset district.

Other notable events this month:

Jan. 7^th – Wednesday – 6:30pm-10pm : SF Permaculture Guild Meeting

- The Guild - Bringing together professionals, educators, designers, consultants, and activists around the common thread of Permaculture for a village renaissance in the urban pulse of the city of San Francisco

- The Meeting Place - Gazebo at the California Pacific Medical Center’s (CPMC) Davies campus. The driveway entrance is in the middle of Castro Street between 14th and Duboce Streets.

- For more information, click here.

Jan. 17^th – Saturday – 12pm-3pm : CRFG Golden Gate Chapter Scion Exchange

- California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) 2009 Scion Exchange

- The event includes grafting wood and cuttings for rooting, a grafting demonstration at 1 pm, and low-cost pamphlets about growing uncommon fruits and vegetables. $3 donation requested to help defray costs; most plant materials are free.

- For directions and more information, click here.

Jan. 21^st-24^th – Multiple Days and Hours : 29th Annual Eco-Farm Conference

- Put on by the Ecological Farming Association, an organization dedicated to the development of ecological farming practices domestically and around the world.

- This event brings together some of the best minds and practices to bring about a food system we can all sink our teeth into.

- For more information, click here.

SPECIES OF THE MONTH:

Winter Fruit: Queens of the Forest

In many places winter is a time for rest and rumination; the myriad living things of the world hibernate and gather energy for the upcoming rebirth in spring.  Although this cycle of change is indeed unfolding in our own environment there is also an unmistakable bursting of life brought on by the saturation of winter rains that pour down upon our hillsides this time of year.  The sprouting grasses blanket those precious few unpaved surfaces and in the urban forests, along the coast and in the parks, there are beautiful fruits emerging and ripening like peaches in the middle of July. Fruits, in January?

These magnificent and mysterious winter fruits we speak of are… mushrooms of course! What we call mushrooms are really the fruiting bodies of Fungi that can come in

many diverse forms such as Gilled Mushrooms (our familiar friends), Boletes, Puffballs, Earth Stars, Stinkhorns, Bird’s Nest Fungi, Jelly Fungi, Bracket or Shelf Fungi, Rusts and Smuts.  Each of these groups of Fungi have bizarre and beautiful growth forms to match their interesting names.  The mushrooms we know and love are mostly the Gilled Mushrooms and Boletes and while there are only 14 species cultivated for food, and just 6 varieties of mushrooms cultivated on an industrial scale (Enoki, Shitake, Padi Straw, Oyster, and two types of our little tasteless favorites, the standard “Button”), there are many varieties of wild mushrooms that are considered culinary delicacies worldwide, and some of them are springing up right here under our noses.

One of the highly treasured local culinary caps is Boletus edulis, commonly referred to as the King Bolete or Queen Bolete, Cepes in French and Porcini (meaning piglet) in Italian.  All Boletes are easily distinguished from Gilled Mushrooms (whose spores are arranged along the gills) due to the presence of vertically arranged tubes that house the spores underneath the cap.  The ability to remove the entire layer of tubes from the soft, quickly decaying, putrescent fruiting body is also a way to distinguish the Boletes from the Polypore (Shelf Fungi), which also have vertical tube structures using spores.  Our local B. edulis varieties are usually white with the cap browning, or reddening, with age but Boletes can range from black to brown to red, yellow, and white.  Most species of Bolete are edible but there are some poisonous varieties, so careful and complete identification is always necessary when foraging for wild mushrooms (a wise Fungi philosopher once said, “All mushrooms are edible at least once”). Some key features for I.D. are body color, spore color, arrangement of pores, cap surface features, and color when bruised; remember, a good field guide for wild mushrooms is essential.

Picture this. A heavy rainstorm cruised through last week and the sun has been shining a little bit and you find yourself hanging out with nothing in particular to do.  You remember the fine fruits of winter that are poking up all around the city and you get geared up, grab a basket and a field guide and off you go to say… Lands End. But where do you start looking for the queens of the forest floor?

If you’re up on your ecological relationships you know that most of the Boletes, and definitely Porcinis, are ectomycorrhizal (EM), which means they form a type of mutualistic relationship with trees and plants. There are over 2000 EM species in North America and nearly all agricultural, horticultural, and ornamental plants are associated with endomycorrhizal mycelium (also called VAM).  The difference between the two types (EM and VAM) is basically that EM mycelium form a mat around the root tip and grow in the intercellular spaces between the root cells and VAM mycelium do not form an outer mat but instead make vesicular arbuscular nodules (get it, VAM), penetrate the root tips and actually grow inside the root cells.  In both mycorrhizal associations the fungus uses its vast network of mycelium to absorb, and share, water and nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous with the plant.  In return the plant gives the fungus carbohydrates, amino acids and vitamins created during photosynthesis.  Some studies have even shown one fungus connected to several trees and through careful experimentation photosynthates from one tree were shown to have been shared with the other tree via the mycelium. These complex ecological connections between fungi and plants, which have recently been illuminated, are creating a whole new paradigm of ecosystem relationships that places fungi in a foundational role as the vital network of water, nutrient, and mineral distribution that supports an entire forest.

Now back to our story.  You’re out in the field, on a foray as they say in the trade, and you know the lovely little piglets are associated with certain plants, specifically Pines, Oaks, Beech, Aspen and Firs.  That narrows it down a little since out of those few trees there are only Monterey Pines (Pinus radiata) at Lands End, and now you can really get down and dirty.  You may only see a little lump pushing up the pine duff or you may find a twenty pound porker, and they may not be right under a tree since the mycelial networks can stretch great distances underground, but if you go with an open mind and open eyeballs you have a decent chance of finding the makings of a gourmet meal right on the trail.  Even if you don’t find Boletus edulis your first time out you’re guaranteed to find a whole new world of fungus amongus and that can be just as good. If you do find a Bolete check out this website on how to prepare it at home.

There’s tons of information out there about Boletes, mushrooms and fungus in general and here in the Bay Area we are lucky to have a very active mycological community facilitated by the Mycological Society of San Francisco.  The Society leads regular forays with local mushroom experts and puts on many other great community events all about fungus.  A respected field guide on the Boletes is California Mushrooms: a Field Guide to the Boletes written by Harry D. Thiers who taught Mycology at San Francisco State for many years, and for whom the herbarium at the university is named. To study the standard university text with a complete treatment of all the fungi from Cellular Slime Molds to Yeasts to Gilled Mushrooms check out Introductory Mycology 4^th edition by Alexopoulos et al.  Finally, for the serious mushroom maniac a must read is Paul Stamets’ Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Save The world, which covers the historic and spiritual importance of fungi, ecological roles of fungi, myco-forestry, myco-remediation, myco-restoration, mushroom cultivation and lots of other fascinating info.  Another useful reference Mushrooms of San Francisco: A Walk on Land’s End was written by Roger Bland with illustrations by Sally Bland; members of ECOSF and their hard to find but fascinating and very informative book is available in our lending library.  As always, the best way to learn is to get out there and connect with the natural world.  See ya on the trail!

ECO MEDIA

If you think biodiversity die-off is a problem only affecting plants and animals, consider that we’re animals too, and indigenous cultural survival is just as important. Hundreds of cultural traditions disappear each year because they don’t fit the role the regional governments that occupy their lands want them to be and with them the sacred, profound, and sustainable practices of their people. Wade Davis, an anthropologist, ethnobotanist, and explorer-in-residence with the National Geographic has been one of the strongest advocates for indigenous cultural awareness and survival for several decades. Click here to watch or listen to a talk he gave at the recent TED conference.

Still unclear about the debate over a carbon tax vs. cap and trade, or the pros and cons of a nuclear energy future? Earthbeat Radio, a syndicated Pacifica Network program that features leading environmental activists and thinkers – the politics and people behind the efforts to defend the planet, offers answers to these questions and more in their past two shows which you can download from their website here.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz and published by Chelsea Green Publishing has been a real inspiration for us in so many ways. It’s a cookbook for probiotics and nutrition, a history of fermentation culture and tradition from around the world, and a call to action for all of us to stop accepting mass produced and mass marketed foods that represent a global cultural homogenization wiping out languages, oral traditions, beliefs, and practices associated with local fermented foods, and replacing them with uniformity the likes of Kraft, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds around the world. Katz brings together a decade of experience, study, and teaching the art, science, and magic of fermenting foods at home ranging from Japanese Nuka Bran Pickles (one of our favorites), Tempeh, Lebanese Kishk, Tibetan Tara-Buckwheat Pancakes (also known as Drawoe Kura), Sourdough bread, Ethiopian Injera, Cherokee Sour Corn Gv-No-He-Nv, as well as your more familiar yogurts, cheeses, and honey wines. I short read packed with big ideas and lots of encouragement. It’s easy! Here is an excerpt on Vegetable Ferments:

KIMCHI

Kimchi is a spicy Korean pickle, made in an impressive variety of styles. It is prepared by fermenting Chinese cabbage, radishes or turnips, scallions, other vegetables, and often seafood, with ginger, hot red chili pepper, garlic, and often fish sauce.

Kimchi is a national passion in South and North Korea. The Korean Food Research Institute estimates that the average adult Korean consumes more than a quarter pound (125 grams) of kimchi every day. Day after day, that adds up to a lot of kimchi. Though factory-manufactured kimchi is gaining in popularity and making it at home is on the decline, according to the same source, three-quarters of all kimchi consumed in South Korea is still made in the home. It is customary practice for employers to give their employers an annual “kimchi bonus” in the autumn so they can purchase the ingredients to make their annual supply.

I recently served kimchi to my friend MaxZine’s father, Leon Weinstein. Leon served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. The smell of the kimchi reminded him of that time. Smells are powerfully evocative, and the kimchi’s assertive essence brought him right back to the front lines fifty years ago.

A recent international trade dispute between Korea and Japan focused on kimchi authenticity. It seems that many people in Japan have developed a taste for the Korean-style pickle. Japan has become Korea’s biggest export market for kimchi. But Japanese manufacturers developed a kimchi-like product that replaces the fermentation process with flavor additives such as citric acid. The Japanese pseudo-kimchi is cheaper than kimchi, since the element of time is removed from manufacturing. It also appears to have somewhat broader appeal because of its less sharp flavor.

South Korea appealed to the Codex Alimentarius, an international food standards commission, to establish a definition of kimchi as a fermented food. “What the Japanese are selling is nothing more than cabbage sprinkled with seasonings and artificial flavorings,” said Robert Kim, of Doosan Corporation, which operates the world’s largest kimchi factory in Korea. Japan counters that its product is simply an innovate variation on traditional kimchi, arguing that Korea has no more of an exclusive claim to kimchi than India to curries or Mexico to tacos. After more than five years of deliberation and diplomacy, the Codex process rendered a decision, established the fermented Korean version as the international standard for kimchi.

In certain respects, making kimchi is like making sauerkraut. One difference is that kimchi recipes generally call for soaking the cabbage and other vegetables in very salty brine for several hours to soften them quickly, then rinsing them and fermenting them with less salt. Kimchi is also distinguished by the generous use of ginger, garlic, scallions, and hot chili peppers. Kimchi generally ferments faster than sauerkraut. You can certainly make it in crock like sauerkraut but these recipes are for smaller quantities using quart size (liter) jars.

Baeuchu (Cabbage)

Kimchi

This is a basic kimchi.

TIMEFRAME: 1 week (or longer)

INGREDIENTS (for 1 quart/1 liter):

Sea salt

1 pound/500 grams Chinese cabbage (napa or bok choi)

1 daikon radish or a few red radishes

1 to 2 carrots

1 to 2 onions and/or leeks and/or a few scallions and/or shallots (or more!)

3 to 4 cloves of garlic (or more!)

3 to 4 hot red chilis (or more!), depending on how hot-peppery you like food, or any form of hot pepper, fresh, dried, or in a sauce (without chemical preservatives!)

3 tablespoons/45 milliliters (or more!) fresh grated gingerroot

PROCESS:

1. Mix a brine of about 4 cups (1 liter) or water and 4 tablespoons (60 milliliters) of salt. Stir well to thoroughly dissolve salt. The brine should taste good and salty.
2. Coarsely chop the cabbage, slice the radish and carrots, let the vegetables soak in the brine, covered by a plate or other weight to keep the vegetables submerged, until soft, a few hours, or overnight. Add other vegetables to the brine, snow peas, seaweeds, Jerusalem artichokes, anything you like.
3. Prepare spices: Grate the ginger; chop the garlic and onion; remove seeds from the chilies; and chop or crush, or throw them in whole. Kimchi can absorb a lot of spice. Experiment with quantities and don’t worry too much about them. Mix spices into a paste. (If you wish, you can add fish sauce to the spice paste. Just check the label to be sure it has no chemical preservatives, which function to inhibit microorganisms.)
4. Drain brine off vegetables, reserving brine. Taste vegetables for saltiness. You want them to taste decidedly salty, but not unpleasantly so. If they are too salty, rinse them. If you cannon taste salt, sprinkle with a couple teaspoons (10 milliliters) salt, and mix.
5. Mix the vegetables with the ginger-chili-onion-garlic paste. Mix everything together thoroughly and stuff it into a clean quart-size (liter) jar. Pack it tightly into the jar, pressing down until the brine rises. If necessary, add a little of the reserved vegetable-soaking brine to the submerged vegetables. Weight the vegetables down with a smaller jar, or a zip-lock bag filled with brine. Or if you think you can remember to check the kimchi every day, you can just use your (clean!) fingers to push the vegetables back under the brine. I myself like the tactile involvement of this method, and I especially enjoy tasting the kimchi by licking my fingers after I do this. Either way, cover the jar to keep out dust and flies.
6. Ferment in your kitchen or other warm place. Taste the kimchi every day. After about a week of fermentation, when it tastes ripe, move it to the refrigerator. An alternative and more traditional method is to ferment kimchi more slowly and with more salt in a cool spot, such as a hole in the ground, or a cellar, or other cool place.

IN THE GARDEN THIS MONTH

This is the time of the year to finish up your planning for the coming seasons. Go over seed catalogs or meet with seasoned gardeners to find out which varieties do best for what you’d like to grow and your particular microclimate and situation. This is also the time of year to do your transplanting of bare root fruit trees and pruning and grafting. Be sure to check out the Scion Exchange going on here in San Francisco and other places around the Bay Area at the California Rare Fruit Growers website. It’s also a good idea to load up on mulch or moisture holding material so a lot of nutrients remain in the soil as the rains wash through and organic matter can build up for spring planting.

With best intentions and action for the new year!

Davin, Sam, Tori

Here is the flyer for our upcoming Bakers Alley in September. We’ll be back in the Bayview districts, Double Rock Community Garden.

Bakers Alley came into being from a feeling, from a memory, a place. A place where you wanted to be, a place that made you feel welcomed, at ease and that you belonged. A place to cook and bake together. A place to eat together. A place filled with conversation and dialogue.  A place of storytelling, and sharing of your memories of how your grandma or grandfather used to do things, a place to catch up with someone, spend time with someone. A place where you bring your gift of music, song and instrument. A place to share your skills with the community. A place to learn how to grow plants that can sustain us, feed us, and heal our bodies. A place to sit in a knitting circle, a space to learn fermentation, cheese making and canning. A place to learn pruning and grafting fruit trees, growing your compost, planting a vegetable garden. A place to learn about raising chickens and ducks. A place to learn soap making, weaving, looming, pattern and clothes making. A place to learn about water systems, herbalism, carpentry, bicycle mending.  A place to plug into the needs of the community and find ways to meet those needs.

Bakers Alley is about reacquainting ourselves with the need for ‘relationships’. A relationship with one another, a relationship to all the living creatures and a relationship to this precious earth on which we all live upon. We are all related by the common desire to express ourselves, our common need to feel love and compassion, our common need for shelter, clean water and air, and a place to grow nutritious food, and a place where the community freely shares it’s gifts of wisdom, knowledge, experience and skills with one another. Relationships embrace the understanding that each of our lives and actions affect one another. If you are in need then our community is in need, if you are in pain then our community is in pain, if you need support then the community needs to be there to support you. Relationships within our communities go beyond the boundaries of blood or a marriage license.

Bakers Alley is not only a real place to come and participate it is also a symbol of what in the past used to be called “the commons” meaning “equally with or by all”. The commons well before the European history and meaning of the Commons (a tract of land belonging to or used by the community or the name of a political class of people the commoners) was the understanding that no one owns the land, no one owns the air or water, no one owns the seeds that we use to grow our food. No one has the right to take, dispossess or hoard the bounty that is within our communities. It is for no one individual to take. Rather it is for the whole of the community to decide how to wisely and compassionately share the burden and the bounty of our resources and efforts (our skills, our labor)

Dr. Martin Luther King began to explore a new kind of revolution, one that would challenge the systems, values and institutions of our society. He combined the struggle against racism with a struggle against poverty, militarism, and materialism.   Dr. King understood and knew in his heart what “a beloved community” really was. Dr. King believed in the power of the community and the power of the individual but in the context that the individual has the responsibility to represent the needs of the whole community.

Bakers Alley is for our community to come and engage in relationship building. Everyone is welcome. Bakers Alley is open once a month either on a Saturday or a Sunday from 10 am-5 pm. The earth oven is stoked all morning and is ready for community baking by noonish~~~~  *we encourage people to bring their baking for the oven and or to bring  “pot luck”.  Bring a favorite food of yours and share your recipe. We usually have at least 2-3 skill sharing workshops going on throughout the day (usually free), we encourage musicians to come and start a jam! We encourage everyone to sign up to teach a skill share at Bakers Alley. We encourage you to bring your whole family. There are always meaningful and fun things to do for the children. Please get on the Bakers Alley mail list so you will know the date of the next gathering. We hope to soon have a schedule that extends 2-6 months in advance.

* We do encourage bringing food but we never want any one to feel that they cannot attend if they do not have food. Please always know that you are welcome~ just bring your smile 

Here are some photos from our first Bread Baking Workshop with Tracy Wolfe.

(L) The earth oven made of a brick hearth floor over an urbanite and mortar base, a brick and mortar archway, a 4 inch thick thermal mass inner layer made of clay and sand, a 4 inch insulating outer layer made of clay and straw, and a rough earthen plaster cover. (R) Professional baker, Tracy Wolfe, shows how to pre-cut bread to allow it to expand while rising.

(L) Loading the freshly formed dough balls into the heat soaked oven. (R) Mmm, fresh baked bread loaves and rolls.

(L) Scones and loaves, together again. (R) Homemade pizzas sizzling up on the hearth floor.

(L) Baker’s Alley is a place for people to come together and meet their neighbors, share skills and experiences, talk about challenges and solutions facing our lives and planet and enjoy the cultural tradition of sharing food and place together. (R) Cracking acorns from a Valley Oak that graciously offered some of its seed for our food.

January 2009 - Hand Build Pottery Workshop with Bea Bloom

(L) The wedge, demonstrated by Renee, is compressing all the air bubbles out of your fresh clay so you can work it with less chance of cracking. (R) Bea Bloom teaching how to get familiar with clay between your fingers, and the specifics of the pinch, coil, and slab hand build pottery methods.

(L) Here Bea is showing how to give texture to a piece by wrapping small cord around a piece of wood used to tap gently against the piece before the clay dries out too much. (R) Davin’s mom came by to work on a nice mug with clay art relief.

(L) Annie brought some of her fine, hand made wool hats and scarves to offer, (R) Music was provided by the political folk group, the Peaceniks.

(L) Some of the finished pieces at the end of the day (R) What’s a community baking day without pizza?

Here is the flyer and photos from our most recent Bakers Alley in April. It was a fermentation festival of sorts with fresh baked vegan delights like scones, cornbread, and taught to us by Chef Alyssa Cox, Home-brewing  by Brennan and Max, and pickled sustenance such as sauerkraut, and kimchi with Erin from Bay Area Source. We were also graced with the music of Easy Leaves and local author Alex Hatch stopped by to talk about and sign her new book Cracks in the Asphalt. Annie Katz wowed more folks with her hats and knitting skills but as always, shared them with anyone who needed a break in the living room. Hope to see you next time at the oven!

Autumn has officially arrived, and with it the relenting of summer fog (depending on your proximity to the ocean) and often the longest stretch of warm, sunny days before the wet chill of winter sets in. There is still lots of fruit ripening and summer veggies to pick and enough sun late into the day to establish some winter crops if you haven’t had a chance to do so already. Garlic and artichokes are best planted this time of year. Softneck varieties (of garlic) like ‘California Early’ and ‘Silverskin’ do best in our climate and you can braid them for a beautiful kitchen ornament next summer. It is also a great time to plan and plant a native garden, sow native wildflowers or a cover crop like Fava beans, if you have any space not currently under cultivation. Larner Seeds in Bolinas is a great source for local, native seeds of all types and varieties. As always, you can sow or transplant hardy Brassicas, lettuce, and beet family favorites like chard, spinach, and beets, as well as many herbs like dill, cilantro, and chives. You can also begin thinking about varieties and placement of fruit trees to be planted bareroot in January and February. It’s good to start a cover crop right in the spot you plan on having a tree so the soil is rich and fertile when you do. If you’re looking to transition from cultivation to preparation, this is a good time to gather gather all your spent veggies and flowers to start a fall compost pile, or better yet, build a “bomb-proof” lasagna garden bed a la Toby Hemenway. Here is his recommended steps to building soil from the ground up while suppressing weeds and making the best use of garden scraps or lawn clippings:

1. Flatten down and grass or weeds - don’t remove anything - everything will decompose into rich soil nutrients. Thoroughly soak the area to begin the decomposition process.
2. You can aerate the soil with a fork if necessary, and add some dolomite lime, or oyster shell, or any other amendment you have and would like to use.
3. Lay down a weed barrier, ideally cardboard 3 sheets thick. You can always find free cardboard from grocery stores or appliance retailers if you don’t have any laying around, but be sure to only use brown cardboard and remove any staples and tape.
4. Pour on a thick layer of mulch at least 6-8 inches high.
5. Now make the lasagna by added a few inches of compost, or better yet some fresh or aged manures, then a few inches of mulch, then compost, then mulch until you’re up to 24 inches or more. You can also use chicken scraps or any garden refuse.
6. Keep moist until the rains begin and then it’s best to wait until spring to plant in when it should be completely decomposed and full of rich, fertile, organic matter. Your plants (and the earthworms and other soil microorganisms) will love you for it!

If you want to try something really amazing, consider mulching in some Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius) mycelium available through Fungi Perfecti. A perfect over-wintering garden mushroom that has been found to more than double the yields of brassica’s like Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts when companion planted. For detailed information, check out Mycelium Running, the ground breaking (and perhaps revolutionary) book by Fungi Perfect’s founder, Paul Stamets. For those of you who are members, this book is available in our lending library and is one of the most amazing texts on fungus to grow at home, in the garden, restore ecosystems, clean up oil spills, and possibly save the world!

LOCAL ECOLOGY

If you’re crossing the Bay this time of year, you’ll probably notice Pickleweed (Salicornia virginica) brightening the salt flats with their red hue and along riparian corridors, the fall colors of Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum), Willow (Salix spp.), and Red Alder (Alnus rubra). Febale Coyote Brush (Baccharis  pilularis) displays its fuzzy flowers and while Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) bears cones that provide a major food supply for squirrels and birds, Coast Live Oaks (Quercus agrifolia) and many other Oaks bear acorns that once sustained native populations for thousands of years. You might catch male California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) congregating on coastal rocks, and young Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris) gathering onshore (but don’t disturb them if you happen to find then on the beach). Sadly, what you probably won’t see much of are the Chinook, also known as King (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Coho (O. kisutch), and Steelhead (O. mykiss) Salmon that once numbered in the tens of millions and have now declined to the tens of thousands per year due to over fishing, human population expansion and development, logging, and many of the 1,494 dams found throughout the state of California. These magnificent victims of civilization, much like the indigenous tribes that relied on them for food while protecting their population numbers,  leave the open ocean where they have spent several years maturing and absorbing vital ocean nutrients before heading up the (formerly) fast-flowing rivers of Northern California to spawn in the few remaining sediment-free riverbanks. They played a vital role for forest ecosystems as their non human predators, the now extinct California Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos), a formidable “ecosystem engineer”, would feast on the salmon - after they had a chance to spawn - and spread their rich ocean nutrients throughout California’s diverse conifer forests. This tragedy is not getting any better with the lowest numbers in 15 years for Central Valley Chinook runs. For more information on their predicament and what can be done about it, check out these articles from Save Our Wild Salmon or get involved and take action locally with groups like Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN), The Monterery Bay Salmon and Trout Project, and the Alameda Creek Alliance. They need your help! To read about Salmon Decline in North America from its historical context, read this.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Oct. 4th - Saturday - 11am-4pm : Monroe Elementary School Garden Work Day -
- Cob Bench building : The fun never stops! Cob building in the sun doesn’t get much better, especially with friends and family and the goal of completing the student’s outdoor classroom. It’s coming along very nicely, but we want to get it done before the rains begin so we could really use your hands and feet!
- Enjoy a potluck of local, homegrown, and homemade foods, including solar oven baking! Bring something to share!
- Salad bar gardening : We’ll be adding to our salad bar bed we planted last month - the lettuce and spinach look great, and the carrots and radishes are taking very nicely. Learn about crop rotation, succession, and fertilizing for maximum yields and quality.
- Lasagna Sheet Mulching: We’ll be preparing a massive lasagna bed of garden debris and manure for the spring - come learn how to do it!

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 exciting events in San Francisco this month:

Oct. 3rd-6th - All Day : Radical Women Conference
- This 41st Anniversary Conference held at the Women’s Building in San Francisco will focus on multi-racial organizing; the dynamic leadership of youth and queers; women of color and immigrant women spark a labor revival; declaring independence from the twin parties of war.
- Yes, this is an integral part of a healthy urban ecosystem and will have workshops offering skills building for women organizers; political theory; movement strategy and much, much more.
- Some of the speakers include civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart and activists and scholars from Central America, China, Australia and the U.S. For more information, or to register, click here.

Oct. 4th -  Saturday - 10am-6pm : Wildlife Conservation Expo 2008
- An event by the Wildlife Conservation Network, this year’s Expo brings together twenty of the world’s leading conservationists from all corners of the globe to convene for the weekend and share their stories from the frontlines of wildlife conservation.
- Held at the Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675 Owens St. in San Francisco
- For complete details, click here.

Oct, 4th-5th - Sat. & Sun. - 10am-6pm : World Veg Festival Weekend
- Put on by the San Francisco Vegetarian Society and In Defense of Animals, this festival will feature outstanding speakers, healthy food demos, international vegan cuisine, live entertainment, pet adoption, and so much more!
- Located in the San Francisco County Fair Building at 9th Ave. and Lincoln in Golden Gate Park - we’ll be there at the Other Avenues Health Food Co-op booth.
- $6 suggested donation, but kids, students, and seniors with ID are free, as well as anyone who arrives before 10:30am - for more information, click here.

Oct. 10th-11th - Fri. 5:30pm-8:30pm & Sat. 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.

Oct. 12th - Sunday - 11am-1pm : San Francisco Walk for Farm Animals
- Organized by Farm Sanctuary, one of the nation’s leading farm animal protection organizations, this walk is one of many going on around the country in October.
- Walk and carry signs encouraging people to take action to end farm animal abuse by voting YES! on Prop 2 the ballot initiative that would put an end to the intensive confinement of egg laying hens in battery cages, breeding pigs in gestation crates and calves in veal crates - affect 20 million animals in California.
- Beginning at 1 Ferry Building in San Francisco, click here for more information and a printable flyer to share with others and post around town.

Oct. 21st - Tuesday - 6:15-9:15pm : Brower Youth Awards
- Join the Earth Island Institute for a festive evening celebrating the achievements of six exceptional young environmental leaders.
- Held at Herbst Theater, in the Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue at McAllister in San Francisco.
- For tickets to support this special event, please click here.

We hope you can come to one of our events this month, and encourage you to go to some of the other happenings throughout San Francisco as October is packed with informative, ecological, and exciting events. If you would like more information, have us list your like-minded event, or would like to plan an event or community building project with our help, please let us know. If you’re doing any trick or treating this month, offer this treat to those you come in contact with: Make a list of 5 things that you recently learned or would like to share about your local ecosystem, community events and opportunities, or global ecological crises. Gather some compelling and concise facts, names and contact info on organizations taking action, and references for more information and make a 1/2 - 1 page sheet to hand out. That’s how you can take action to spread the word, make new friends, and strengthen your interdependent relationships in your community. If you’d like some ideas, or help, please contact us.

Thank you for your support and words of inspiration, appreciation, and suggestions. Happy Hot Days of Autumn!

-Davin, Sam, & Tori

Ecology Center of San Francisco

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

Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy - http://www.parksconservancy.org/

Center for Biological Diversity - http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

The Nature Conservancy - http://www.nature.org/

San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission - http://www.bcdc.ca.gov/

Natural Resources Conservation Service - http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/

Energy

EPA Energy Conservation Action Plan - http://www.epa.gov/greenkit/q5_energ.htm

EPA Energy Conservation Information - http://www.epa.gov/reg5rcra/wptdiv/p2pages/energy.pdf

US Dept. of Energy Energy Savers page - http://www1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/tips/

PG&E Energy Conservation page - http://www.pge.com/myhome/saveenergymoney/

Alliance to Save Energy - http://www.ase.org/

ASE Home Energy Check up and Audit - http://www.ase.org/section/_audience/consumers/homecheckup

Fuel
Center for Sustainable Development’s Fuel Conservation page - http://www.energycenter.org/ContentPage.asp?ContentID=318&SectionID=314&SectionTarget=316

Pump em’ Up - http://www.pumpemup.org/

Land

CA Dept. of Conservation Land Resources page - http://www.conservation.ca.gov/dlrp/Pages/Index.aspx

Northern California Land Trust - http://www.nclt.org/

CA Council of Land Trusts Regional Land Trust Directory - http://www.calandtrusts.org/trustregions.cfm

Water

SF Public Utilities Commission Water Conservation page - http://sfwater.org/mc_main.cfm/MC_ID/16
CA Dept. of Water Resources Landscape Water Conservation page - http://www.owue.water.ca.gov/landscape/conserv/conserv.cfm

NRCS Water Conservation page - http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/backyard/watercon.html

Greywater Guerrillas - http://www.greywaterguerrillas.com/