Usually when jeans come out of the dryer, you have to wriggle in a little bit as you wait for them to loosen. My first clue that living green was still helping me drop weight: Dryer-hot jeans were still a little loose. That means I’ve dropped two sizes now, just by changing what I eat.

It’s not hard to figure out what happened. While I wasn’t eating poorly before — I stopped eating much junk food years ago — I was eating a lot of meals out and to go. And that means large portions, and often, meals eaten on the run and without much enjoyment.

When I started eating at home, making most meals from only a few simple ingredients, I had to think about what I was doing. Prep the ingredients — chop, measure, weigh — cook and wait. Since I had taken some trouble, it made sense to set the table and pour a little wine. By the time I got around to eating, I ate more slowly and more consciously. And I certainly ate less.

Because I don’t really enjoy cooking — and especially don’t enjoy cleaning the kitchen — I’m happy to save food for another day. That’s one meal I don’t have to clean up after, so if I’m not hungry, into the refrigerator it goes.

I’m not a zealot. A month ago I was stressed out and run ragged, and grabbed a service-station dog. It wasn’t bad, but I’d still rather have one at the River Cats. Some situations just scream for something crappy to eat, but green eating is the way for me now.

And I still don’t know where I’ll end when I’m done losing weight. Don’t much care, either. I’m feeling good for my health, and good for my contributions. The weight loss — whatever it is, and I can’t tell you by the scale because I don’t own one — is just a bonus.

Another bonus: Eating this way is cheaper, too. No more restaurants on the charge card, and cash stays in my wallet a lot longer, too. In these times, that’s probably the best bonus of all.

My neighbor John doesn’t need to make a special project out of living greenly, for a year or any period you choose. Since his days in the Peace Corps — he served in Africa — he has lived quietly, simply and thriftily. More so than many of us would imagine could be possible.

His choices haven’t seemed to have diminished his quality of life. And they certainly haven’t hurt his health.  He’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 60, lean and fit, and his life is full of friends, good work and quiet reflection. He’s the best neighbor on the block, looking out for everyone and keeping an eye out for trouble while walking his sweet-natured gray beast of a dog.

John’s an organic gardener, and has been for decades. He collects leaves from the neighbors to increase his compost yield, and occasionally picks up a load of horse manure from a nearby stable in his ’60s VW truck with drop-down sides. His is an unusual property, with more than half — the space between his home and mine — just left fallow, a creek running through it and some blackberry bushes offering the only produce on what most would consider wasted land … as in undeveloped.

Which brings me to the scythe.

In addition to John’s undeveloped land, each of the neighbors behind me have creekside property adjacent to his. One neighbor uses it to play with his dirtbike; others of us occasionally run our dogs with the neighbors’ consent.  But by late spring, it’s a bit of a jungle back there.

In the spring, the land sprouts green. In especially wet years the grasses will grow so quickly and so tall that they need to be cut down twice before the sizzling heat of summer wilts them down to the ground.

John clears the land by hand — all of it, not just his own — with a scythe. Before I bought the home six years ago, I’d never even seen a scythe outside of a history center. But John has one. It’s worn but well-cared-for, and kept very sharp to make the work as easy as possible. Which is not to say it’s easy at all.

The total land that needs to be cleared — sometimes twice a spring, depending on the rain — totals maybe two acres. It take John up to a month to clear it, swinging the scythe again and again and leaving the cut grass to decompose in place. Sometimes because of heat or maybe because he’s not as young as he used to be, John clears very little land in a day. Sometimes, though, he gets in a rythmn, swinging the scythe again and again, leaving neat lines of damp in his wake.

Swing. Pause. Draw back. Swing. Pause. Just watching fills me with astonishment … and exhaustion.

But as examples go, John’s setting a good one. Instead of reaching for an herbicide or powerized tool, I’ve found myself quietly clearly little patches of weeds. Wriggle, pull, toss.  It’s quiet, and I can think, with the cats warming themselves alongside in the sun as I wor and the chickens clucking quietly in their pen. It’s not as easy as Roundup, not as noisy as a string-trimmer. And it’s not as quick as either. But it’s good work, healthy for me and for the land.

Acreage I will never clear, and even in my youth a scythe would have been more than I could handle. But John’s simple example is inspiring, and so I sit, pulling weeds with my own evergy as he swings the scythe, blade winking in the sun on the other side of the creek from me.

His land is almost clear. Mine … has a way to go. But I’m working on it, slowly and quietly.

A month ago today I was getting ready for a litter of puppies to be born at my home. This is an endeavor that takes an amazing amount of equipment, and I was determined to borrow most or buy used when I could.

I borrowed a whelping box that had been homemade from scrap lumber. I begged my friends and co-workers for old towels to line the box with. But my favorite find of all: Recycled hospital linens.

Previously I would have just gone to Costo and bought a couple of massive bags of new shop towels. But I nosed around and asked around, and found an outfit in Wisconsin that give jobs to people with disabilities re-purposing used hospital linens.

They’re inexpensive, got to my house in a jiff and are of very high quality. I love knowing that I’m helping people have jobs and finding a use for something that might otherwise end up in a landfill.

Check out the offerings from the Opportunity Development Centers.  You don’t need to be expecting puppies to make use of this high-quality pet pads. They make comfortable beds for any kind of pet, and they clean up beautifully after a run through the washer and some time on the line.

I’ve never been to a demonstration as a participant. I’ve been sent to cover them, but the very idea of standing on the steps of the Capitol, chanting and waving a sign has never held much appeal for me. Nor, I suspect, does it do much good. Especially in Sacramento, where seeing people waving signs downtown is just another ho-hum event for jaded Legislative folks and state workers.

And have you ever seen what the streets look like after the demonstrators go home? Wouldn’t you think that people involved in protesting for a cleaning Earth would pick up their trash? I also wonder how many drove to a protest of increased carbon outputs.

Plus … I get nervous in crowds.

I was in the sixth grade when the first Earth Day was celebrated. Not long after, I joined a student group that worked to get people to recycle and pick up trash.  Since recycling programs weren’t yet in existence, we didn’t do much of the former, but I still remember picking up lots of trash. Mostly because of all the interesting trash you can find in public parks, everything from broken beer bottles to the butt-ends of marijuana cigarettes to condoms. I remember being somewhat relieved to be able to collect something less than squicky, like an empty soda cup.

In the 39 years since the first Earth Day, my interest in the subject has grown and dwindled. I started dividing out the recyclables when the municipal programs came along, but if I were in a real hurry I didn’t much worry about tossing a can in the trash.  I drove a bigger car than I needed to, and moved from a home within walking distance of work to one just a little farther away — an easy bus ride, or a good bike ride. But of course I drove.

A couple years ago I started thinking seriously about my impact on the world again. It was a lot of things: The mounting evidence for climate change, my worries about our country’s dependence of foreign oil, the problems with imported food and more.

How had I gone from a kid who spent weekends cleaning up parks to an adult too busy to care?

I didn’t like it, that’s for sure. But hitting the brakes on my fast-track, high-carbon life wasn’t easy.  Like a person with a new health-club membership and a New Year’s Resolution, I overdid it and quickly burned out. If I couldn’t be “perfect” I wouldn’t be anything. See? There, I get to drive my minivan to work.

But over time I started looking at things a little differently. Just as I once has to re-learn how to eat (and in so doing lost an entire other person), I had to relearn how to live a greener life by steps, and by accepting backsliding and mistakes. If you keep trying, you’ll get there, and you’ll certain do better than if you try nothing at all.

I have a high school friend who quit smoking three times a year for 20 years or more. She didn’t like the health risk, didn’t like the cost, didn’t like the smell. But there would be triggers — stress, another smoker and so on — that would have her lighting up again within weeks or even days. She was frustrated, but she figured those short breaks were good for something. And so she kept trying.

One day more than a decade ago she stopped smoking and hasn’t smoked since. The difference? She doesn’t know. It just happened.

And that’s how I feel now about trying to live a more planet friendly life. I try. I fail. I try. I succeed. Little bits, all adding up.

I’m still not a demonstration person, so I skipped the Earth Day events. But I’m there in spirit … this afternoon when I get home from work I have a load of laundry to hang on the line. The dryer works fine, but in this weather, it’l not much more work to let the sun do the task.

If only we hadn’t taken all the time given us by every new “convenience” and filled our calendars with more and more committments that are hard to escape. Like commuting. Like organized activities for the kids, and hobbies for us. It seems in the end we spend more time on the road, and with more stuff that we need to spend more time maintaining.

I suppose that’s why in my second year of trying to convert to a more earth-friendly life, I sometimes feel as if I’m working twice as hard to make my life more simple.

And when I think about it, I realize it’s because I am working awfully hard at making my life more simple.

There are days when I get so exhausted at the thought of all the material baggage I’m maintaining that I think of opening the garage door and giving it all away, because the thought of organizing that great garage sale is too much.

Days when I think of living on frozen pizza, because the thought of turning another spade of dirt is too much.

That umbrella-style clothes dryer? Biking to the library? Carrying my own re-usable shopping bag? Planning a big canning extravaganza?

Who am I kidding? There are nights when it’s all I can do to crawl into bed. When remembering to take the bags with me taxes a mind too crammed with useless pop culture to fit in one more thing. And isn’t it enough that my dryer is an ENERGY STAR model?

Any project, any big change starts with a lot of enthusiasm. This “greener life” project has been no different.

But now the trick is not to throw in the towel when you can’t be “perfect.” To realize that small change in increments can really add up to big changes over time. If you keep up with them, and not use the feeling of failure to overwhelm your best intentions.

This year, 10 little pots of veggies died on my back porch because I couldn’t get them in the ground quickly enough. A total waste of time, of money and little consolation that the pots can be re-used and the contents were added to the compost pile.

Part of me wanted to throw in the garden towel this year. I still have last year’s chickens, this year’s new chicks and a lot of family drama after my father’s death.

My plan had been to double the size of the garden, but I think just treading water will be a victory this year.  To that end, I got out back over the weekend, cleared away the last of the debris from the beds I made up fresh for last year’s plants and readied them for a more modest planting this year.

Instead of giving up and going back to take-out food and cardboard tomatoes, I’m just doing what I can. Still cooking at home — a habit that’s apparently set for good — still eating lower on the food chain,  more veggie-based meals from regional sources. Still putting a load of linens on the clothesline now that the days are warmer. Still taking the bike to the library.

But I can’t do without my car, or grow all I need for a year’s food.

Not yet, anyway.

A little better is sometimes enough.  And it will surely do while I continue to work my way out of the convenience of my conveniences.

The earth is ready now … it’s time to get more veggies and this time, get them planted.  Just enough to help out a little.

My dad died last month, leaving my mom a 75-year-old widow with a garage full of “guy stuff” she’ll never use.  She asked my brothers if they wanted his tools, and when they admitted they had enough tools already, she was thinking about what other man might like them.

What about me? The thought never occurred to her that her 51-year-old single, home-owning, newly homesteading daughter might love a wrench set, a skill saw, a mitre box and heaven knows what else.

It didn’t occur to her in part because I was her daughter, not one of her sons. But also because I’ve been the kind of person to call for a handyman or repairman for anything much more complicated than changing a lightbulb.

No more.

In short bursts of effort — often followed by cool drinks and long naps — I am trying to do things on my own, using materials scavenged from other projects. I’ve been watching two houses on my block get gutted and rehabbed, and I’ve been astonished at the scraps hauled to the dump.  With permission, less of it went into the landfill and more of it is hidden in the secret “junk space” between the front fence of my back yard and the edge of a the dog yard, 20 feet back. There’s lumber, concret blocks, a few decorative stones and bricks, some wire and chain-link fencing — odd lots all, a little from the construction, a lot from other giveaways from friends and neighbors.

With some thought, some creativity, some reading and some trial-and-error (more error than trial, truth be told), I’m using dad’s tools to convert the junk into garden beds and fencing. That’s a start, but I think I can do even more.

With help, that is. Because honestly all the good intentions in the world won’t turn a two-person job into something an out-of-shape, middle-aged woman can do.  In this respect, previous generations of pioneers had it right: Many hands make for light work. Volunteer to help, and you’ll get back more than a thank-you.

And now, I can bring my own tools to the party.

This year, I’m doubling my garden space. In theory, anyway.

I’ve ambitiously put stakes in where the fence posts should be. (I have dogs and chickens, so the garden must be protected.) I’ve ambitiously drawn plans for raised bed, tidy enclaves of nutritious food and lovely flowers with neat, weed-free pathways between them. Heck, even my compost pile, planned for an suitably out-of-sight location, is meant to be the very model of a modern bio-digester, turning everything the chickens can’t or won’t eat into dark, rich loam that would be the envy of all.

But there, so far, it ends. I’ve year to put roots down in the new garden area, much less fence it off, much less prepare the soil, much less do anything more.  The old garden area is nearly ready, picked over and fortified by a winter’s worth of chicken roaming.

As April nears, I think I am the fool for thinking I could get such an ambitious project done in a few week’s time, all by myself.

Of course, accepting failure doesn’t sit well with me. I haven’t the spare cash to bring in people to do it for me, nor the time to use recycled and reclaimed materials for the beds. 

Maybe I need to scale back the project to a multi-year plan. A few extra plants this year, a few more the next. Actually, there’s no maybe about it: This just isn’t going to get done on the scale I’d planned.

Given all that, I was delighted to read about Felder Rushing, who spends his spring days not digging himself into a sweat but sitting down and enjoying the view. Unlike Slow Food, the practice of which involved a great deal more effort than slamming through a drive-throw, Slow Gardening takes far less effort. And that’s Rushing’s message:

A busy lecturer on the horticulture society circuit and a born proselytizer, Mr. Rushing, 56, has long advocated a reliance on perennials and an acceptance of a little disorder, and expressed a rebellious affection for lawn ornaments that might in some circles be called trashy (pink flamingoes, for example).

Lately, he’s been preaching slow gardening.

Simply put, the doctrine calls for gardeners to relax, take their time and follow seasonal rhythms, instead of doing everything at once — an urge that’s especially prevalent in early spring, when people are tempted to run outdoors and plant to affirm that winter is over, taking with it the naked expanse that passes for a backyard.

“People tend to bite off more than they can chew,” Mr. Rushing said. “Somebody will plant 24 tomato plants they can barely take care of.”

Rather, he said, he believes in starting modestly, with a pot or two: “Build up to your level of comfort as your expertise grows. Don’t start out with a big area and a tiller like a farmer.”

Oh thank heavens. I’m telling you, my boundless ambition in the yard — planting, harvesting, preserving and living as much as possible off my quarter-acre lot — was starting to feel like that plan to run a half-marathon, never eat another item with high-fructose corn syrup or use the exercise cycle six days as week (for something more than a drying rack for clothes, that is).

In other words, I’m going to relax a little. And in so doing, maybe find time to take the bus to work a day or two a week.

Every little bit counts.

I picked up chicks on Saturday. Since that was at a feed store in Auburn, I had to drive, but that was about the only time the car left the driveway. The rest … walking or biking.

It’s easy to be green in the spring.

By chicks, of course, I mean chickens. In all, 27 of them, babies which I’m raising to the young adult stage for friends, with a handful staying here to join my friendly flock.  The chicks are adorable, but raising them is a bit of a hassle. They’re fragile at this fuzzy stage, and need to be kept warm and checked constantly to make sure they’re eating and drinking, that they’re not clogging up on the back end and that the bigger chicks aren’t bullying the smaller ones.

I’ve had pet chickens for a year now, and love the experience. You get entertaining, friendly pets, beautiful fresh eggs, natural pest control (chickens live to munch larvae, slugs and snails) and a super-charged ingredient for the compost pile.

Can you have them, too? Sacramento County says sure, with a quarter-acre single-family lot and a coop 50 feet from a residential structure. City says no, but isn’t exactly enforcing the ban — $100 fine if you’re caught and you keep the chickens. I would expect with a little pressure the city would join other progressive cities like POrtland and OK a handful of quiet hens for most yards. Other municipalities? You can usually check code online, or just call animal control and ask.

Most of the chicks will leave here in a month, but the garden will be really taking root by then. Instead of focusing on “boutique” veggies such a heirloom tomatoes, this year I’m really putting more effort into a variety of foods that are highly nutritious, relatively cheap to grow and can be preserved after the season ends, either through drying, freezing or canning.  (My grandmother would be delighted that I’m learning to can!)

Latest read: “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times,” by Steve Solomon.  The days of imagining “outdoor kitchens” with weather-proof TVs and waterfalls are not now for most of us, especially those who were hoping to tap disappeared home equity for such improvements.

No matter! You can get in a garden with little money and save by not paying for the health club because your exercise will be with a shovel in your hand. Geese are great a pulling weeds, I’m told, but honestly, kids can do the job, too. I remember pulling weeds for a neighbor on 47th Street when I was a school-girl. She paid 25 cents an hour. I wonder what the rate would be now?

Solomon’s take on gardening is food for thought, so to speak, but I don’t want my yard to be strictly utilitarian. We must have food for the eyes, the nose and the heart as well. Which is why, amongst all those practical veggies I’m planting flowers as well.

I hope the Obamas are doing so as well, although I couldn’t be happier that Michelle Obama has chosen fresh, local food for her first lady “cause” — and is promoting it with a new “Victory Garden” at the White House.

Another update: I’m down to one car. And so now, my other car will soon be the bus, at least a couple days a week. And what timing! My office is being moved to a building right next to the bus stop. Eighth of a mile to the pick-up and not even that much from drop-off to cubicle. Guess I won’t have to buy that scooter after all.

Finally … with warm weather back, I’m using the dryer less and the clothesline more.

Springing forward into a greener tomorrow …

My gardening friends in other parts of the country have an excuse for doing nothing outside for months: It’s cold, and there’s snow on the ground.

My excuse? Harder to come by, since the fog has lifted nearly every day I have been off over the holiday season, and I haven’t ventured out into the back yard for longer than it takes to feed and water the chickens, and collect eggs.

Oh sure, I could have hustled up some T-posts and hauled out the simple wire fencing I’m planning for the garden expansion. And yes, I could have hauled out the post-hole digger and put in the recycled posts and chain-link gate I have set aside for the opening to the entire new garden-and-chicken area. It would have been good for me to get outside in the winter sun, put up the simple fencing and start planning for the raised beds.

Instead, I looked at seed catalogs online.

The garden I’m planning will be double the size, but only half the space will be in “production” at once. The other half will be for the chickens to roam, so they can produce nice loamy soil with their dropping and digging, along with the eventually breakdown of the hay and stray I put in their area for them to pick through. I’ve got a chicken gate planned, that will keep them in one space or the other, so they won’t pick the growing space clean of the greens they love. (I’ll be planting lots of greens — mustard, kale, collard, dandelion, etc. — for us all, but I would like for the plants to advance beyond the seedling phase, which they won’t with the chickens pecking at them.

As mentioned before, my garden used to be about tomatoes, and that was about it. I hate — hate — store-bought tomatoes, and although farmer’s market heirlooms aren’t bad, getting your own tomatoes fresh from your own garden is so wonderful that it actually might be illegal in some places.

But this year’s garden is my first that’s not just about what’s good but also about what’s good for me, and for the environment. It’s a three-season garden — maybe more, once I get the hang of it — that I hope will produce a great deal of what I eat from late spring on, and contribute to the diets of the pets, as well. (My dogs love steamed kale and sweet potatoes, which with organic local cottage cheese is usually their Sunday meal.)

I have no doubt that laziness is part of what’s keeping me inside, but then again, I am conscious that planning and research is a very important part of what I need to do, since I’ve never done it before. Growing the unglam veggies and planning for storage — freezing and drying, primarily — is all new. If I do it right, I’ll save money and fossil fuel. If I blow it, I’ll be driving to the grocery store.

So I’m plotting. And in this I’m not alone. I had to wait for some reserved books to become available at the library, and a book on susistence gardening I ordered was No. 624 on the Amazon ranking — a virtual best-seller.

I’ll get to the hard part soon enough. That post-hole digger can stay in the garage a while longer, I figure.

In the winter the gardener’s thoughts turn to seeds. Now, I’m pretty new to any kind of significant gardening — really, a few tomato plants has been about it for me in years past — this year I’m planning some major changes.

Starting with planting not just for flavor — I hate store-bought tomatoes — but for sustenance and sustainability. I’m doubling the size of my garden and planning to plant enough variety of fruits and vegetables that I can harvest entire meals from the plot. And preserve enough food — through freezing and drying, primarilly — that I can keep eating local all year around.

Heck, I might even try my hand at some simple canning.

But I’m also feeding more than the human family and friends. I’ll also be planting enough greens — of all varieties — to help feed the chickens, and to become part of the home-prepared meals I feed my dogs. (No, I won’t be home-growing the meat they get, not on a quarter-acre suburban lot any time soon!)

When the current run of storm passes us by, I’ll be fencing off the extra space (to keep the dogs out) and letting the chickens in to help de-weed, de-bug and fertilize the area. In keeping with the idea of re-using instead of buying new, I’ll be using a chain-link gate and posts I saved from some earlier yard changes, and then using simple T-posts and field fencing for the rest of the project. Again, the materials are being re-used from two years ago, when they were purchased as temporary fencing for a blown-down fence after a storm, and again used to fill a gap when more fence came down after the January 2008 storm.

For the raised beds I’m planning to re-use some old material as well. And to make it all look not-so-bad I’m planning lots of flowers. I’m hoping the look will be more eclectic than trashy, but either way I’m good with it.

While the rain keeps me from working outside, I’ve been working inside, planning the layout and thinking of the seeds I’ll be starting inside for later transplanting. (Another new endeavor, since I’ve always just bought plants from Talini’s.) I’ve been checking out open-source seeds from such sites as Seed Savers, and plan for much of what I grow to be of the heirloom variety.

It’s another big change from the way I’ve been doing things, but growing my own — and enough to save and to share — will help me eat in a way that’s better for me and for the environment.

No food miles when you’re talking about walking into your backyard to harvest.