Leave the Leaves

 

Retirement has been a bigger adjustment that I thought. It's amazing when you have less to do, you get disorganized.

I think I am fairly well sorted out now and can get back to writing this blog and my other.

I came home today to see that our neighbor had blown all the leaves in his yard into ours. Why, thank you, neighbor!

He doesn't like leaves. He doesn't like mess. In fact, last year he tore out all his shrubbery and a month ago, he took down his two mature trees--an elm and a live oak--because they were messy.

Therefore, I know his actions were his passive/aggressive way to send me a message that he wants me to rake my leaves. You would think after living next to us for 12 years he would know the likelihood of that happening is about zero.

I do need to get out and pick up the leaves in the street in order to get them on the garden before the city street sweeper comes by to take them all away. I am not sure when that is going to happen since this weekend is busy, busy.

Personally, I don't rake at all, so we have a layer of leaves (read, "mulch") on our yard. I do sweep the leaves off the drive, sidewalks, and curbs to put on the garden to compost over the winter and to protect some of the herbs I overwinter (oregano and sage for examples). In the past, I have taken bags of leaves from our neighbors, but am a little more reticent now since most of our neighbors have taken to having a lawn treatment company spray their yards. Their yards have fewer weeds, but ours is greener (except in August, maybe).

Why leave the leaves? First, because it is good mulch. They provide good protection for plant roots and plants you want to keep alive over the winter. Secondly, by spring the leaves will have broken down quite a bit, fertilizing the soil. And lastly, they provide shelter for insects and their eggs/larvae/pupae. You can't have butterflies and moths if you through them away with your leaves.

If you truly can't stand to have leaves all over the yard, at least move them into places where they can do the most good. Flowerbeds to fertilize/protect bulbs and a back corner of your yard the neighbors can't see and complain about.

If you are looking for ways to improve your yard for pollinators and other wildlife, download this handout from the Xerces Society.

Volunteer for the Sikes Lake Cleanup

A previous year's haul

Each year, the Rolling Plains Chapter Texas Master Naturalist collaborates with Midwestern State University to clean up Sikes Lake. The public is welcome to take part. MSU provides trash bags, grabbers, and plastic gloves. Of course, if you have grabbers of your own, please bring them because we never have enough. If you do bring your own, you should mark it in some way in case you set it down, so you get it back.

The clean up is scheduled for Saturday, September 7, starting at 9 AM. We are usually done no later than 11:00.

Hope to see you there!

Book Review: We Are the ARK

Finally retired. Yeah! Months overdue, but we made it.

I'm not a shopper for the most part. The big exception is book stores. I buy a lot of books.

I had some spare time between appointments a few weeks ago and stopped into a local bookstore to browse. I always check out the sale area--I never know when I might find a deal. I came across We Are the ARK by Mary Reynolds. I wouldn't have paid the $28.98 on the sticker (let alone the $38 listed on the book cover itself), but I think it was on sale for $4.99. I'll go that far on a whim. You can get the Kindle version for $14.99.

Overall, it's a good book. ARK stands for Acts of Regenerative Kindness. The author advocates that all of us return 50% of our yards to nature and use the other portion to grow some of our own food. This is a very similar call to arms made by Douglas Tallamy and E.O. Wilson. Ms. Reynold's book is less science than ethics/philosophy, unlike reading Tallamy and Wilson. Therefore, the book would be a good introduction for those who may feel a little intimidated by a more science-based approach. Not that there isn't some ecology principles discussed in the book, because there are. She highlights three laws:

• Law of diversity
• Law of interdependence
• Law of finite resources

From this she builds a framework for her acts of regenerative kindness, with some practical and specific steps to take, regardless of the space we have to work with. These are probably the highlight of the book. She does live in Ireland, so some of her examples differ from our hot, dry climate, but the principles are the same.

The book contains many cute illustrations by Ruth Evans. 

She does have a website and nonprofit around the book. Very similar to the Homegrown National Park effort by Tallamy.

Upcoming Events

We (the Texas Master Naturalist chapter and a couple of other interested people) got that mess cleaned up on Rathgeber Rd, and the city did us a solid and picked up the bagged trash. We cleaned up about 35 - 40 lawn bags of trash in that short stretch. I need to go by to take a picture for a before and after.

This weekend is the semiannual compost giveaway by the city. Here are the details from their news release:

" Residents who participate in the Choose to Reuse Program can pick up a free load of compost at the Wichita Falls Organics Facility.   The City of Wichita Falls offers a variety of alternatives to diverting reusable waste from the city’s landfill, including organic collections. The organics collections are offered to both residential and commercial customers and can accept yard waste (grass, leaves, and branches), paper (newspaper, office papers, shredded paper, magazines, phone books, tissue paper, and paper bags), cardboard, chipboard, wood, and food waste. Organics recycling saves money, is environmentally friendly, and creates nutrient-rich compost that can be used to enhance soil for lawns and gardens.   The compost giveaway will take place Saturday, March 2, 2024, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm at the Wichita Falls Landfill on Wiley Road.  The compost will be loaded by city employees for residents. There is a limit of one pickup truck or 4x8 trailer load per person.   To pick up the compost, residents must provide a City of Wichita Falls water bill showing the $3.00 recycling program charge. By State Law, all loads must be covered to ensure no blowing debris on roadways. City employees are required to see the participants cover material before loading the compost. No dump trucks, commercial vehicles, or oversized trailers will be loaded.  Commercial operation compost purchases can contact the Wichita Falls Landfill at 940-631-8274.   Landfill Address: 10984 Wiley Road Wichita Falls, Texas 76307   Directions to the landfill:  • Take Seymour Highway Southwest toward Seymour on Highway 258.  • At the Kamay “Y,” proceed West on Highway 258 toward Kamay.  • Travel approximately one mile to Wiley Road and turn right (North). • Remain on Wiley Road for two miles. The entrance to the landfill is located on the left. For questions or more information, please contact the Sanitation Department at 761-7977.  "

In addition, the annual plant swap, organized by the Wichita Falls Backyard Gardeners is coming up on April 6, 10 AM - noon. It will be at the Park Place Christian Church. Bring cuttings, seedlings, plants you have too many off, or other gardening items to swap. All of the guidelines are on the group's Facebook page. If you need a table, you need to let them know in advance.

Some Days I Hate People

This is W. Rathgeber Road, as you turn off Kemp Blvd. It always looks like this. 99% of this is glass bottles that could be put in the city glass recycling (although it is recycled into sand, but that works). I was birding, so only stopped for a photo. I wonder if I clean this up, how long it will last? 

If anyone would like to lend a hand, email green.wichitafalls@gmail.com (put TRASH in the subject, so I don't delete) in the next day or two. I plan to tackle this project.

They Multiply in the Dark

I swear that plastic grocery bags breed. I do my darndest not to get plastic shopping bags, but they keep showing up in the house. Of course, I try to use them again at least once--as trash can liners and for carrying litter I pick up on walks. In spite of that, I still have bags.

I use the plastic bag recycling container at United Marketstreet and wondered if bags placed in there were really recycled. So I called on my friend, Google, and apparently, yes, they can be. We don't have a city plastic recycling that takes plastic bags, so you need to use the grocery store bins specifically for these bags.

Less than 10% of the plastic bags in the US are recycled. Some plastic bags and other plastic film are recycled into composite lumber. Most is shipped to other countries, although much of that is burned for not-so-clean fuel. A small amount is recycled into other plastic products.

However, the best thing we can do is to try to avoid getting the bags to start with, although my own experience is that it is hard to avoid them altogether. Producing 1,500 plastic bags consumes 33 lbs. of fossil fuels and 55 gallons of fresh water, and produces 15 lbs. of solid waste and 0.04 tons of CO2.

Keep your reusable fabric bags in your car and remember to use them. If you are buying just one or two items, refuse a bag and carry your purchases out in your hands. Reuse the bags you do get at least one more time, and remember to take bags back to the grocery and place them in the recycling bin by the front door. 

I truly wish the city would ban plastic shopping bags as some other cities do, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Much of the litter I pick up on walks is discarded shopping bags. As much as I don't see an outright ban happening here in Wichita Falls, it won't hurt to bring it up now and again with your City Council representatives. I am not aware of anyone currently on the City Council who would be a champion of such as issue, but one never knows. 

What Do You Know About Eggs?

Photo by Kelly Neil on Unsplash

I eat a lot of eggs, and I am picky about which eggs I buy. And, the ones I buy are more expensive than those I do not. Why pay more? Because it makes a difference to the hen, and it does make a difference in the egg.

I'm an omnivore. I recognize that eating lower on the food pyramid is generally better for modern humans and for the environment. But I also recognize that there are tens of thousands of years of evolution in which people ate all kinds of food, and morally, I don't have a problem with eating meat. That being said, I prefer eating meat from animals that have been treated humanely before they end up on my plate.

This brings me to eggs. What do all of the various labels mean and what difference does it make?

If you see the term "natural" on the label, it means nothing. All eggs are natural. Eggs are not processed to be ready for you to eat.

If eggs do not have "cage-free", "free-range", or "pasture-raised" on the carton, you can rest assured, the eggs come from a battery cage system. The vast majority of the eggs sold in the US come from battery caged hens. They are the least expensive eggs, but birds held in these cages have a horrible life. They have about 67 square inches of space (think an 8 x 11 piece of paper of floor space). There is no ability to do things that chickens do. The chickens are very limited in their ability to move and suffer high stress and also more commonly develop osteoporosis.

The next level up is cage-free eggs. Hens in this environment have more space and can move around, flap their wings and engage in normal chicken behavior. They still don't have a lot of space and they are not outside.

Free-range eggs are from hens that do have access to being outdoors, although they don't have to have a lot of outdoor space.

Pasture-raised eggs hens have the best commercial environment with more access to the outdoors. Since they can forage, they can eat bugs and other green plants they would not have access to indoors.

What about organic eggs? This just means their feed is organic (no chemical pesticides). 

What about vegetarian eggs? I am not a fan. This means the chickens are fed only plant food. Chickens are also omnivores and love insects and grubs.

We can easily see how the method of egg production can affect a hen's quality of life, but does it make a difference in the nutritional value of the egg? Well, yes it does. Personally, I think there is a big difference in the taste of a caged egg versus a pasture-raised egg, but taste is one of those things that you can argue is subjective. Nutrition, not so much.

Studies have shown that "the average free-range egg in comparison to caged eggs show a quarter to a third less cholesterol, a quarter less saturated fat, two-thirds more vitamin A, three times more vitamin E, seven times more beta-carotene and twice the amount of omega-3 fatty acids (Gaia). Other tests performed have found that free-range eggs have nearly six times the amount of vitamin D and significantly more B vitamins in comparison to store brand eggs." Source

Given options, I prefer buying eggs from local small farms or homes that allow their chickens outside to be chickens. If I am buying them in the store, then I go with pasture-raised eggs if they have them. Cage-free is the minimum I will go.

Pasture-raised eggs are expensive. One place you can find them a little cheaper is at Natural Grocers. If you are a member of their Npower rewards, you can buy them even more cheaply. Always check the sale area of in cooler case where the dairy products are. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you can find some eggs beyond their sale date for super cheap. They are still perfectly good to use.

Our everyday purchase choices matter. I know some people just don't have the income to be picky, but most of us can help raise the bar a little bit on eggs.