Green Gal

Self care is essential. It makes life more enjoyable; equips us to face life's challenges; provides an opportunity to connect more deeply with ourselves; and it allows us to bring our best selves to our many roles--as parents, partners, friends, children, colleagues, etc. The concept of "self care" can seem like something you have to find extra time for or prepare for in some special way. While it can look like that sometimes, it can also be so much more simple and woven into your everyday life through things you already do. And it's powerful. Prioritizing yourself and your needs (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) allows you to be more present and grateful and joyful, both for your own personal experience of your life and in how you show up for the work you do in the world.  As parents, the work of raising children is to not only keep our little ones safe and happy but to also teach them ways to be and relate in the world--which includes modeling for them how to...

Happy New Year! My goodness, it's been awhile since I posted to this blog. Since my last post in March 2019, a lot has happened both in the world and in my life. One thing I love about this blog is that it has been a place to share life updates as I've grown up and taken on new identities--from high school environmentalist , to eco-groovy college student , to young adult sustainability professional , to organic farmer/gardener , and now to green mama committed to raising my child to advocate for equity, justice, and respect for all beings and nature.  I love that this blog continues to offer me a place to reflect on my life, share insights and ideas, set intentions, and revisit the thoughts of my younger self. It's entirely possible this will be the only post I share here in 2021, as life with a baby-going-on-toddler gets more and more fun and busy! But at least this post can be a snapshot in time that I can look back on in the future, as well as share with my little one wh...

Nine months ago, I harvested my first vegetables from Green Gal's Garden. That initial harvest on May 20 consisted of nine heads of bok choy. Although the harvest that day was small and too early for my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, it was a momentous occasion. Planting the bok choy transplants  Momentous because, with a little bit of my help, some living beings had rooted themselves in the garden soil and gathered sunlight and nutrients and grown from tiny seeds in my small greenhouse to edible vegetables. The miracle of seeds growing into plants has been happening for a really long time on this planet, but observing and supporting this process continues to be magical and profound. The process of photosynthesis is intimately tied to the lives of every human on earth. Bok choy seedlings in the greenhouse Nine months later, I look back on all of the vegetables and herbs that I harvested in the garden from May 20 until November 8, 2018, and ...

Colorful chickens, roosters, and two curious goats make up the welcome party that greets visitors to River School Farm in Reno, Nevada. I had the pleasure of meeting these farm animals, as well as Farmer Tom, during a first Friday farm tour on February 1, 2019. It was my first behind-the-scenes introduction to Reno farming, and it left me feeling hopeful and inspired to get involved with the local food system and begin growing my own food here in the high desert. The River School Farm is nestled between the Truckee River and a business park west of downtown. It was established in 1992 and features an event space with a firepit and stage, outdoor kitchen, a nursery in spring/summer, greenhouses, spaces for workshops and classes, compost piles, chicken coops, and more. It's a community gathering place, home to a cohousing project, and an educational space. Learn more about all of the offerings and services River School Farm provides on their website here . During the to...

I'm filled to the brim with inspiration this afternoon after a delightful chat over coffee with my friend Cain at a cool little coffee shop in downtown San Jose called Social Policy (part of the Bellano "family of coffee lovers" ). (If you live in SJ, you may have seen Cain cranking down the street on his red cargo bike hauling huge boxes of awesome stuff for Cowgirl Bike Courier !) We discussed an upcoming bike/art event he is planning, a bike-to-farms ride that I'm planning, San Jose bicycle news and issues, Viva Calle SJ promotion, and more. Last evening, I also connected with friends at my house to plan our bike-to-farms ride. We had a potluck feast of homemade, vegetarian yumminess, and then we identified next steps for turning our vision into a reality. And the night before last, I attended a bike coalition meeting where I saw plans for putting bidirectional contraflow lanes around the SJSU campus and heard the good news that the Willow Glen Road Diet has overa...

National Novel Writing Month is officially half-way through, which means I should be at 25,000 words... Sadly, I'm not, but I am doing pretty well at 18,354 words! It's definitely more words of fiction than I've written in the last two years combined! So now you might be able to guess why I've been absent from the blog since November began, and likely between now and December 1, I'll be spending all of my non-work typing time trying to crank out enough words to reach 50,000 before the month ends. You can learn more about NaNoWriMo here and read my author page on the site here . Despite knowing that I should be typing words on my novel right now, I wanted to share a quick story about how I've been able to go more than a week without turning on the tap specifically for watering the garden. I also want to share some photos of the garden. It rained last Sunday, giving my plants a happy dose of water straight from the natural source. It's only rained a few ...

"For 25 years, the National Bioneers Conference has connected thousands of people with practical, visionary solutions for humanity's most pressing environmental and social challenges." This year was my first time attending the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA, and it was one of the most incredible experiences I've had in the realm of sustainability work. To capture why it was so incredible, I will start with a metaphor that continued to make its way into workshops and conversations throughout the weekend: Bioneers, for me, brought the many threads of "sustainability" - environment, people, ecology, biodiversity, diversity, justice, equity, celebration of difference, purpose, conversation, art, climate, water, community, etc. - into a beautifully, vibrantly, amazingly woven cloth that held all of us in its embrace for a weekend, bringing us in contact with new ideas and new people, encouraging us to smile and relax and sink into the realities...