In the 1970s and '80s, British brothers Lorne and Lawrence Blair chronicled their journeys in Borneo and the Spice Islands in the dazzling and memorable documentary, "Ring of Fire." The…
Remember the New Alchemy Institute? Perhaps you heard of it. It was a thinktank/do-tank on Cape Cod where baby boomer idealists gathered to model the green future, with experiments in…
I know many envision me answering customer questions via cell phone while lying in a hammock (produced by local women's cooperatives) hanging from palm trees (in a sustainably managed grove)…
Ciarrai Walsh passed on this Time Magazine article about Bill Gates seeing the light of improving sanitation as one of the most effective ways to save lives in the world:…
I returned to Hilde and Earle's house around midnight. They were still up. Hilde noted the peeping coming from the vast greenhouse attached to their house, the last remnant of…
A mallard duck and her six chicks appeared Thursday in our cellar stairwell. Here’s a link to photos.
They were darling. Mother duck and two of the chicks were able to hop up the stairs to a tray of water and bowls of oats and spinach seed heads I left at the head of the stairs. Our neighbors threw pieces of bread to them, although this isn’t recommended due to the chicks’ delicate digestion. Worried about raccoons preying on them, I called the Humane Society’s wildlife agent, who told me it was best for the ducks to find their own way out and over to the creek. I placed a wood plank over the steps, hoping they’d use it as a ramp. But it was too slippery: I watched from the balcony as one duckling hopped up 2 steps then onto the ramp, only to slide to the ground.
This would have been amusing if I didn’t go down later and see that 2 of (more…)
Ah, the glamorous life of an eco-entrepreneur. Today, I argued with my shipper, DSV Air & Sea via email about a $200 storage fee I incurred because they claim they…