- Amor.org builds homes for formerly homeless families in Mexico. At their campsite for volunteer builders, they have installed sustainable solar power and a graywater system. I'm assisting them with a community garden and encouraging families of new homes to have a small garden to help feed their family. I have exchanged seeds with the caretakers of the Amor Campsite near Puerto Penasco, Sonora. Lupita gave me moringa seeds. I brought dwarf jade (elephant food) plants which are a nutritious green similar to verdalagos, and other "weed" and garden seeds.
- Would you like to help teach gardening, how to plant native trees, and wildcrafting in Mexico?
- I was afraid to go to Mexico when Mike first invited me, because of drug wars, lack of medical facilities . . . I found out the #1 problem for volunteers in Mexico is DEhydration! You've got to drink extra water for a week ahead of time, according to Gayla Congdon, co-founder of Amor.
- Here's the complete article I wrote
Bargains and Beans June 1, 2017
There are never many garage sales on a Memorial Day weekend because so many people leave town. So I was very happy to find Carole Willson's garage sale tucked into a beautiful Foothills neighborhood filled with lavender-flowered ironwood trees. She had all her items inside the garage to keep her buyers out of the hot sun. I saw household items, furniture, glassware, books, and bedding. I found a book entitled, Cartoonist's Workshop a 300-page book with easy directions on creating cartoons of people, animals, and objects. Something to help improve my doodles.
"How long have you lived in this neighborhood?" I asked Carole. "Over twenty years, and I love it," she said. "I've been a member of Ahwatukee Foothills Friends and Neighbors Women's Group for over ten years. I was the Social Chairperson and I'm still on the Social Committee."
"I think you'd be an interesting speaker for the group, since I see the passion you have for harvesting the desert trees." She said this after I'd remarked on the many Foothills Palo Verde and Ironwood trees growing across the street from her house on the edge of South Mountain Park. I tasted some green palo verde beans after splitting their pod open. Perfect, like a fresh pea. I looked at the smoky lavender/white ironwood blossoms on the tree growing next to it, and they were turning into green pods, fatter than the palo verde pods. They're sour until the pods turn to beige or tan. I spotted two beige pods and popped the beans out. They tasted so sweet. No wonder the native peoples were so healthy before adding wheat flour and canned food into their diet. The beans are full of omega 3's, protein, fiber and nutrients. Carole came to the trees and looked at the beans too. "My granddaughter is coming by Monday who is a very healthy eater. She'll be so interested in these beans!"
"She can steam them whole like edamame or shell and stir fry," I suggested.
She told me more about the AFFAN women's club. I've seen notices for their meetings in the newspaper but have never taken the time to attend.
"We have sub-groups for many groups such as gardening and photography that you'd fit right into," she said.
Other interest groups include quilting, going out to movies, dining out, wine tasting, yoga, team trivia, bridge, mah jongg, bunco, bowling, canasta, and six different book clubs. Their next group activity is a happy hour at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant on Ray Road on June 26th. They have a $25 annual membership. Later I looked at their site at http://www.affanwomensclub.com and their Facebook group and saw that several of my friends are members.
A customer came by looking for vintage toys. "My man cave is filled with vintage toys. You name it, I've got it." Carole didn't have any toys so Javier Garcia of Tempe picked out a couple of wooden TV tables for $1 and was happy with that. He comes to Ahwatukee because of the high quality garage sales he finds here.
Ausha Schactler popped in next, looking for a duvet cover. She attends garage sales about twice a month. She has found art prints, cute tops, dog toys, bedding, and glassware. She buys for herself, not to resell. She's lived in the Foothills Club West for sixteen years.
Next a three-generation group stopped by. Rose Marie, her ten-year-old son, and her mother got out of a big white truck stacked with furniture and speakers. "You've made some good finds," I commented. "Yes, and it's all from the curbside," she said with a smile, referring to the quarterly bulk trash piles dotting the neighborhoods. I told her in Spanish where I'd noticed a patio table and four chairs in excellent condition. She thanked me and drove off on the hunt.
I have grown used to the SUV-sized piles people put out on the curb as bulk trash. At least half of it is in good enough shape to be used, sold, or donated to charity. Maybe people are too busy to call for a donation truck? At http://DonationTown.org you can enter your zip code to see which charities make home pick-ups in your area. Some choices are The Arc of Tempe at 480-967-0303, Vietnam Vets, 480-655-8387, or Goodwill at 1-800-584-7996. Lumber, old cabinets, towels, clothing, furniture, books, lamps--just about anything but mattresses, old TV's, or hazardous materials are needed by others. A couple of things I've found curbside recently are a tactical vest (new) I sold for $150 and a four-story cat tree (used, but I vacuumed it) that sold for $80. This week I found a heater on four wheels in someone's pile. I plugged it in at home and it blasted the heat out perfectly. I'll sell it for around $100, E-bay's asking price for this model. I sell most large-ticket items for "trade dollars" with Value Card Alliance, a barter group with 3,000 members in the Phoenix area. More details in a future article! Take a look at http://valuecardalliance.org or call them at 602-308-0385 if you're interested.
There is a ten-day window every quarter in which we may place bulk trash in our front yard near the sidewalk. The next window will be in August, with placement beginning on August 19 and pick-up starting on August 28. For those Tukees living north of Ray Road, the window is August 26-September 4. More info at https://www.phoenix.gov/publicworks/garbage/bulktrash.
I heard from Carole today. Her granddaughter cooked up some palo verde tree beans and everyone loved them. She was excited to try a new healthy food that's not only tasty, but free!
Contact [email protected] with news of upcoming garage sales or other sustainable events.
"How long have you lived in this neighborhood?" I asked Carole. "Over twenty years, and I love it," she said. "I've been a member of Ahwatukee Foothills Friends and Neighbors Women's Group for over ten years. I was the Social Chairperson and I'm still on the Social Committee."
"I think you'd be an interesting speaker for the group, since I see the passion you have for harvesting the desert trees." She said this after I'd remarked on the many Foothills Palo Verde and Ironwood trees growing across the street from her house on the edge of South Mountain Park. I tasted some green palo verde beans after splitting their pod open. Perfect, like a fresh pea. I looked at the smoky lavender/white ironwood blossoms on the tree growing next to it, and they were turning into green pods, fatter than the palo verde pods. They're sour until the pods turn to beige or tan. I spotted two beige pods and popped the beans out. They tasted so sweet. No wonder the native peoples were so healthy before adding wheat flour and canned food into their diet. The beans are full of omega 3's, protein, fiber and nutrients. Carole came to the trees and looked at the beans too. "My granddaughter is coming by Monday who is a very healthy eater. She'll be so interested in these beans!"
"She can steam them whole like edamame or shell and stir fry," I suggested.
She told me more about the AFFAN women's club. I've seen notices for their meetings in the newspaper but have never taken the time to attend.
"We have sub-groups for many groups such as gardening and photography that you'd fit right into," she said.
Other interest groups include quilting, going out to movies, dining out, wine tasting, yoga, team trivia, bridge, mah jongg, bunco, bowling, canasta, and six different book clubs. Their next group activity is a happy hour at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant on Ray Road on June 26th. They have a $25 annual membership. Later I looked at their site at http://www.affanwomensclub.com and their Facebook group and saw that several of my friends are members.
A customer came by looking for vintage toys. "My man cave is filled with vintage toys. You name it, I've got it." Carole didn't have any toys so Javier Garcia of Tempe picked out a couple of wooden TV tables for $1 and was happy with that. He comes to Ahwatukee because of the high quality garage sales he finds here.
Ausha Schactler popped in next, looking for a duvet cover. She attends garage sales about twice a month. She has found art prints, cute tops, dog toys, bedding, and glassware. She buys for herself, not to resell. She's lived in the Foothills Club West for sixteen years.
Next a three-generation group stopped by. Rose Marie, her ten-year-old son, and her mother got out of a big white truck stacked with furniture and speakers. "You've made some good finds," I commented. "Yes, and it's all from the curbside," she said with a smile, referring to the quarterly bulk trash piles dotting the neighborhoods. I told her in Spanish where I'd noticed a patio table and four chairs in excellent condition. She thanked me and drove off on the hunt.
I have grown used to the SUV-sized piles people put out on the curb as bulk trash. At least half of it is in good enough shape to be used, sold, or donated to charity. Maybe people are too busy to call for a donation truck? At http://DonationTown.org you can enter your zip code to see which charities make home pick-ups in your area. Some choices are The Arc of Tempe at 480-967-0303, Vietnam Vets, 480-655-8387, or Goodwill at 1-800-584-7996. Lumber, old cabinets, towels, clothing, furniture, books, lamps--just about anything but mattresses, old TV's, or hazardous materials are needed by others. A couple of things I've found curbside recently are a tactical vest (new) I sold for $150 and a four-story cat tree (used, but I vacuumed it) that sold for $80. This week I found a heater on four wheels in someone's pile. I plugged it in at home and it blasted the heat out perfectly. I'll sell it for around $100, E-bay's asking price for this model. I sell most large-ticket items for "trade dollars" with Value Card Alliance, a barter group with 3,000 members in the Phoenix area. More details in a future article! Take a look at http://valuecardalliance.org or call them at 602-308-0385 if you're interested.
There is a ten-day window every quarter in which we may place bulk trash in our front yard near the sidewalk. The next window will be in August, with placement beginning on August 19 and pick-up starting on August 28. For those Tukees living north of Ray Road, the window is August 26-September 4. More info at https://www.phoenix.gov/publicworks/garbage/bulktrash.
I heard from Carole today. Her granddaughter cooked up some palo verde tree beans and everyone loved them. She was excited to try a new healthy food that's not only tasty, but free!
Contact [email protected] with news of upcoming garage sales or other sustainable events.
Wardrobes and Water
On a recent Saturday morning I followed neon pink signs to a garage sale in a Mountain Park neighborhood. I started chatting with the friendly young man hosting the sale. He was earning money to go back to ASU and finish his sociology degree. "I'm getting my degree in sociology because I want to help young people stay away from drugs," said Jared Hancock, a graduate of Desert Vista High School.
I started a pile of things I wanted: two cat toys, a self-help book, green sunglasses, an iPod speaker, batman action figures, four shirts, three pairs of shorts, and a gray hoodie with an phone/iPod cord hidden in the pocket and ear buds in the hood.
Jared opened up to me about his struggle and victory over drug addiction. "I've been clean for almost a year. During this experience, I needed to take time off for rehab from working at Nello's Pizza. The owners, Danny and Barbara Mei, told me to take all the time I needed. They treat me like family."
Jared wanted to share the hope with others that with a lot of effort, addiction can be overcome. I congratulated him, admiring his openness and determination to use his experience to help others.
He neatly folded up the clothes, bagged them and brought them to my car without me even asking him. My total: $12, including $1 for each clothing item. Just one pair of shorts would've cost me more than $12 at a store!
Speaking of shopping, did you know that women spend more than eight years of their lives shopping? Shopping malls outnumber high schools. And 93% of teenage girls say shopping is their favorite thing to do.
Where does all our clothing come from, anyway? Ninety-seven percent of our clothing manufacturing is outsourced to foreign countries, mostly to Asia. The clothing factory workers earn from $2 to $20 per day, working in deplorable conditions for twelve hours a day. Many are forced to retire at age forty from malnutrition and old age.
How many blue jeans do we really need to own? It takes 1,850 gallons of water to process one pair of blue jeans. The rivers run blue in denim season. In spring the water is pink, in fall it is brown. The textile industry is the second largest polluter of clean water after agriculture. The workers living in tin shacks near the factory cannot safely drink the water or grow their own food.
All this human effort and depleting of virgin resources to make inexpensive clothes for Americans—and we only wear 20% of the clothes we own. On top of that each American throws approximately 80 pounds of clothing into the trash each year. If we quit throwing clothes out, which release methane as they stew in the landfill, it would be the same effect to the air as taking over a million cars off the road.
Did you know that Goodwill will take any used clothing, even if it is ripped, buttons missing, and stained? They want all clothes except wet, moldy ones or those saturated with hazardous materials. Only 20% of our donated clothes are resold in the US. There are simply way too many clothes to sell. So Goodwill and other large donation centers sort the clothes for use as rags, stuffing, and insulation, and make the rest into 1,200 pound bales. They sell the bales to resellers who ship them to South America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe where they are worn or used to make new products.
Some people have told me they don't want to wear used clothing. They are aghast at wearing clothes that others have worn because of fear of germs, contamination, or feeling sensitive to others' vibrations. However, any washing machine with detergent and a few drops of tea tree oil or grapefruit seed extract will sterilize your pre-owned clothes. I'd rather get hand me downs from a neighbor than new clothes from unscrupulous factories.
Our shopping choices are extremely powerful. Each and every one of us can make a big difference in the world by buying second hand clothes, or buying from fair trade organizations that produce clothing without abusing people or the earth.
Let's build a winning wardrobe while putting people and the planet above getting new products at cheap prices. The day we win is the day we know we're all one. Wishing you happy, mindful shopping!