Spring cleanup this weekend

Per the ad I've been sporting in the sidebar for several weeks, the second annual Hands-On Jamestown community cleanup will be taking place this Saturday. Organized by the Downtown Jamestown Development Corp. with sponsorship from local businesses and organizations, the event will draw volunteers to participate in keeping the streets, sidewalks, and parks clean and inviting places for residents and visitors alike.

Check in begins at 7:45 am in Tracy Plaza, where a continental breakfast will be served and volunteers will pick up their assignments. Garbage bags will be furnished, but it is suggested that volunteers bring their own gloves, rakes, brooms, weedeaters, etc.  After the work is finished, volunteers can return to Tracy Plaza for free hot dogs and drinks. Pre-registered volunteers will receive t-shirts.

Any individuals, groups, families, businesses, or organizations interested in volunteering are asked to contact DJDC at 664-2477.  Registration forms are also available online at www.discoverjamestown.com.  All volunteers will be assigned specific areas in the downtown to clean-up.

 DJDC also encourages home owners and businesses to clean-up around their own properties and establishments, citywide. Tom and I are planning to pick up cans and bottles in our neighborhood, which is actually outside the city limits. We have a few vacant wooded areas where kids toss out the evidence of their weekend drinking activities.

Tom has also organized another clean-up event this year with the Chautauqua Hiking Club (coincidentally on the same day, and fortunately Saturday's weather forecast looks good for outdoor activities). They are asking for volunteers to join them at 10 am at the Taylor Rd. access area for a cleanup (picking up trash) of the Chautauqua Gorge.

Wherever you'll be this Saturday, please leave the area better than you found it.

Apparently I spoke too soon

I knew the rain would be back. It is. I can almost hear the grass growing.

We had a nice time over the weekend, though. (Despite the rain.) One of the neighborhood "kids" that I  got to see growing up over those 22 years in Cleveland had a Big Fat Greek Wedding.  It was a joyful celebration with good friends, food, and drink. Those are the things most difficult to drag yourself away from when you decide to relocate.  But...

I'm amusing myself this morning by listening to rain songs on You Tube. I've added some of them to the Hypster playlist on this page. I'm amazed by the number of songs with the word "rain" in the title. Some of them are really good, too.

I'm also reading Farewell My Suburu, and my thoughts so far go something like this: Boy, this guy has a way with words. He is one engaging and witty writer. Also, it must be nice to launch your experiment in sustainable living with his kind of budget. And omg, he's raising goats! I'm jealous!  I'm not zoned for goats here. And even if I could have them, where would I get a goat sitter when we went to visit the grandkid?

I'll get back to you when I have some deeper thoughts.

The Merry Month of May

I have officially ended hibernation. The rain has stopped, the weather's been great, and my focus has shifted outdoors.  I just need to get the rabbit-proof fence in place and it will be safe to plant my veggie garden. (The wascally wabbits have been milling about in the yard, ready to queue up at the garden gate.) Tom is planning to construct a ground level deck from which we can view the action.

Okay, maybe we'll wait a couple of weeks just in case there's another frost. You never know at this time of year. There's obviously more rain on the way and a return to cooler temps.  I haven't started  Farewell My Suburu yet, but next week looks like a good one for reading.  And contemplation of questions like:

Can we count on well-stocked "big box" stores as supply chains become more expensive? Will truckers be able to afford to fuel their rigs? Can people adjust to planning menus around seasonal availability when we can no longer afford to fly in winter produce from South America?

How will all the people who become unemployed as a result of these changes meet their expenses?

Can schools that are already suffering financially continue busing students? Will trucks still offer curbside pickup and hauling of our garbage?  Where are we going to get replacement parts for our appliances and vehicles?

How do we keep large numbers of people from freezing to death when they can't afford to keep the heat on?

How secure is your water supply?

You know--just light mental gymnastics.

Switching over to more fun stuff. for those who won't be jetting off to the Caribbean for snorkeling or the Big Apple for the latest hit on Broadway-- local entertainment options abound this weekend.  (Yes, we can keep ourselves happily entertained without the rest of the world. And without television. It can be done.)  There's Annie and I Do! I Do!, the Buffalo Gay Mens Chorus, a music salon at the Unitarian Church, the Jordan World Circus at JSB arena, an antique auction at the Lake Chautauqua Auction Center, and the Spring Farm to Table Dinner at the Athenaeum Hotel, to name a handful of choices.

I check a lot of the local websites to find this information and I just want to make one suggestion: local businesses need to keep their websites updated with current information, or it kind of defeats the purpose of having the website.

The morning after Cinco de Mayo

The weather forecast is finally looking more auspicious, at least at the moment!  Yesterday was mostly sunny. The yard is still rather squishy, but Tom managed to get about three quarters of the lawn mowed, while I did some weeding and tidying up in the flower gardens.

It's good to see life sprouting up from the ground again. The roses, except for the William Baffin,  needed a good deal of pruning after the harsh winter, but are all showing healthy new growth.  My mother  grew a variety of roses, and she seemed to do it so effortlessly, while I definitely haven't inherited the knack.  I'm finding that I have more success if I make careful selections based on cold weather hardiness and disease resistance. The Baffin rose is a beast in that regard!

The ridiculously cold and wet spring has not only kept the leaves shy about coming out this year, but has created a cavelike environment inside our little house. It's built on a slab, no basement,  and it's damp, probably a combination of condensation and seepage. We need to start addressing the drainage and insulation issues, and we've decided to start with a new floor in the bedroom--Pergo on top of a moisture barrier. Not the greenest choice, but at this point I'm afraid of waking up some morning to stalagmites. So I guess this is going to be our little weekend project.

After moving almost everything except the bed and dresser out of the room yesterday, we went downtown to celebrate Cinco de Mayo at the Taco Hut, a local fixture since 1972.  (One of the things I am really coming to appreciate about living here is the variety of homegrown restaurants, not chains, that have been around forever.) Seems like half the town had the same idea--good thing we went early and found a table. By the time we left, the line was out the door.  It was a good time, watching people at the bar taking pictures of each other in their sombreros, while we ate our burritos and fajitas.

Of course, one Corona and I'm ready for a nap.  We plugged in "Inside Job" last night and I fell asleep, so I will have to watch it again to see what I missed. It is actually a very well done (and very scary) documentary about the corruption that caused the financial crisis of 2008.  If you have any doubts about who is really in charge (and need another reason why we must look after ourselves, locally), watch this film. If you still think the conventional beliefs about our government and politics are in play--or that Democrats vs. Republicans  is even relevant--you are barking up the wrong tree entirely.I am pessimistic about the future of the country, but much more hopeful about our chances if we accept that politicians can't fix things for us and accept the responsibility for ourselves.

I'm about to start reading a book called Farewell, My Suburu: An Epic Adventure in local Living, and I'm hoping to gain some new insights into what accepting that responsibility means.

But now, I'm going to have Cinco de Mayo leftovers for breakfast and then get to work with Tom on that flooring project!

Is it really spring now?

We spent the week out of state--had to celebrate the grandson's third birthday with him!

Yeah, we went all last century and drove like it was 1970 and gas was 35 cents a gallon.  Living local is complicated when your kids live on opposite coasts. We'll have to work on that.

We came back to find the grass in need of mowing (if the rain ever stops) and the leaves popping out on the trees.

That's why I am asking--are we there yet? Really? It's been such a long time coming this year. But now, it's almost time to begin sowing those first seeds in the new vegetable bed, and I'm all psyched about that.

Some of this week's local happenings:

First Friday Lunch Bunch at the Audubon Nature Center
Friday, May 6 at 11AM
This month's speaker is Jennifer Schlick on Wildflowers of the Forest Floor. Bring your own lunch, coffee and tea are provided.

Excellence on Ice at JSB Ice Arena
Saturday, May 7 shows at 3 PM and 7 PM

Performances by members of the Jamestown Skating Club, tickets available online.

Mothers Day Brunch at Chautauqua's Athenaeum Hotel
Sunday, May 8, 11 AM - 2 PM
For Reservations please call (800) 821-1881, more info here


Chautauqua Regional Youth Symphony Spring Concert
Sunday, May 8,   4 PM at Reg Lenna Civic Center

Over the next two weeks, the BPU will be holding the annual Spring Clean-up in Jamestown. Residents have the opportunity each spring and fall to clean house and put out the extra trash (above and beyond their usual weekly garbage pickup) as long as items are landfill disposable and less than 40 lbs.--old clothes, housewares, small pieces of furniture, garden hoses, lawn chairs, carpet cut into small pieces, and so on.

The obvious challenge is to NOT do it, if you seriously want to be kinder to the planet. Things that are unwanted but salvageable  should be sold or given away via Craigslist or Freecycle, or donated to charity.Many items can be repurposed with just a little creativity, wherein a vintage suitcase becomes a cat bed, rolled magazine pages become stylish picture frames, old clothing becomes pillow covers, quilts, cloth shopping bags, or entirely redesigned pieces of clothing, keys and buttons become art or jewelry, and so on and so forth. Think about it. Google it.  Our throwaway habits are all kinds of expensive. We don't have to be that way.

We love our Earth

It's Earth Week--which will become irrelevant only when people understand that EVERY day is an Earth Day, and we must protect the habitat which supports OUR life.

Locally, the colleges are hosting awareness events (see events list --->), while in the nation's capital, Bill McKibben is leading a rally in front of the US Chamber of Commerce to protest the money pollution that’s corrupting our democracy and wrecking our planet.

It's cold and wet here, while wildfires and tornadoes are ravaging the South.  Globally, flood events are increasing.  Earth has a fever and is not a happy camper.

What can a person do?  No, don't stop breathing. Not yet anyway.

First, stop using plastic as much as possible. This stuff is deadly. You can get inexpensive reusable shopping bags almost everywhere these days (you can even make your own), and you only need to train yourself to take them into the store with you. Keep them in a handy place, by the door, in the car (or bike basket!), to remind yourself. I'm getting rather good at this--though it has taken some time, because old habits are hard to break and you have to be persistent--if I can do it, anyone can.

Now, just how bad is plastic? From Sharon at Casaubon's Book:

We all knew that plastic never breaks down entirely, but I don't think everyone realized that what happens is that plastic fragments and mixes in with your water, your soil, your food, and the food and water of plants and animals, and then it makes its way into our bodies. How is a really troubling and scary story.

Now this is stuff never, ever meant to be ingested - full of endocrine disrupters (messes with your hormones), carcinogens (warm plastic mixed with liquid creates dioxin among other things), traces benzene (liver cancer) and all sorts of things that no one ever meant for us to eat, breathe and bathe in.

Now this plastic warms the planet a couple of times - when it is manufactured from oil, when it is recycled (if it is, most isn't - more on this in a minute), and when it goes into a landfill and helps mix with organic garbage to produce methane. And since cancer treatment isn't exactly low input, you could argue that it warms the planet again - when we have our surgeries and other treatments from the illnesses caused by becoming a plastic world.

The plastics industry has spent a long time convincing us that plastics are recyclable - they have those nice arrows, so they must be ok, right? But in fact only a few varieties of plastic are recyclable, plastic recycling is quite energy intensive, and after you recycle that plastic container into a bumper or recycled plastic lumber, that's it - next stop is the landfill or your water table.

So, if we could all just stop using so much plastic, that would be a  HUGE improvement.

We can talk more later about planting trees, buying local food, and reducing the amount of waste we place at the curb to be trucked away and dumped in a landfill.

Giving up fossil fuel energy is going to be more difficult, given the extent of the problem. But I was encouraged to hear that nationally, retailer Costco (which we don't have here in WNY, but nonetheless)  is going to start selling and installing solar panels. That's pretty mainstream. Yay!

I am always looking for new ways to develop this site into a helpful resource for people who find the idea of a vibrant and sustainable community appealing (we need to work together to make this happen), and I have added some new links to the local and regional category, including:


Allegheny Defense Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the natural heritage of the Alleghenies and Pennsylvania’s only national forest, the Allegheny National Forest. They have been engaged in monitoring and research, education, participation in the public decision making process, litigation, and promoting responsible outdoor recreation since 1994, and are currently involved in defending our area against the ravages of the oil and gas drilling industry.  Cathy Pedler represented the group at last week's forum on fracking at JCC,  and she is very knowledgeable and formidable.

Renew Chautauqua County is a new "green" site developed at no cost to the county through a partnership with Blue Springs Energy, and it provides connections to rebates and incentives, educational resources, tips to manage energy consumption, finding local contractors, and helpful interactive tools.

Prendergast Library --I don't have to explain why this is a valuable resource.

If you find my blog and all its various links useful, please share it with your friends so that they too can make use of the information here.

Tonight at JCC -- GASLAND

This is just a quick reminder about the free showing of Gasland tonight, beginning at 6:30, at the Student Union on JCC's Jamestown Campus.

File this under protecting and preserving our way of life.

Co-sponsors of the event are JCC’s Sustainability Committee and Earth Awareness Club, UB Green, the Niagara-Buffalo League of Women Voters, and the League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County.  The film, Winner of the 2010 Sundance Special Jury Prize,  will be followed by a panel discussion featuring representatives from Protecting Our Water Rights, Frack Action Buffalo, Allegheny Defense Project, Universal Well Services, and the Independent Oil and Gas Association, moderated by Dr. Minda Rae Amiran from the League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County.

If you are unable to attend, but would like to view this film,  you can watch it online for free at this link.