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On Sunday June 25, I rented a car to drive 1.5 hours from New Orleans to Isle de Jean Charles, the first US town to be fully relocated due to the climate change.

98% of their land has been lost to rising seas and eroding shores over the past 50 years. The successes and failures of entirely relocating a town of now 50 people will indicate how the US and other countries are able to relocate 1 Billion people (aka climate refugees) by 2100.

Picture above: Island Rd. down to one lane due to a storm surge, which produced nothing more than a heavy rain. This is the lone road to Isle de Jean Charles. 

More reflections, pictures, and a timelapse video to come in a future post.

12. Visit a place that will disappear as a result of climate change 

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I first heard about Wendell Berry a decade ago in a sustainable agriculture course, which meant I was surprised to later hear that he was most known for his writing. 

In 2012, I was lucky enough to be living in DC when Wendell Berry gave the Jefferson Lecture, the highest federal honor bestowed to those in the arts and humanities. His lecture, titled “It All Turns On Affection” and can be watched here, left me moved and curious. 

He defines affection as “such love for a place and its life that they want to preserve it and remain in it.” Then digs into a culture and economy of indifference. A culture that is impersonal despite being globally connected. An economy that disregards human and natural limits while giving corporations a share of everybody’s income with no local commitment. He argues that we are complicit in maintaining that culture and economy because the majority of us no longer have a connection to the land and raw materials at the source. His personal experience in central Kentucky is true to my experience growing up in a city:

In my region and within my memory, for example, human life has become less creaturely and more engineered, less familiar and more remote from local places, pleasures, and associations. Our knowledge, in short, has become increasingly statistical.

In addition to his stories and experiences, his questions moved me and still make me think:

Can we—and, if we can, how can we—make actual in our minds the sometimes urgent things we say we know?

What technology can replace personal privacy or the coherence of a family or a community?

Why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage ���to strengthen the economy”?

His lecture nearly ends with this summary:

Without this informed, practical, and practiced affection, the nation and its economy will conquer and destroy the country.

His 2012 lecture started with a reading from his book Leavings. I started my search for a poem by picking up that book for my #30for30 challenge. I chose this poem to memorize: 

A SPEECH TO THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA by

Wendell Berry

Thank you. I’m glad to know we’re friends, of course;

There are so many outcomes that are worse.

But I must add I’m sorry for getting here

By a sustained explosion through the air,

Burning the world in fact to rise much higher

Than we should go. The world may end in fire

As prophesied—our world! We speak of it

As “fuel” while we burn it in our fit

Of temporary progress, digging up

An antique dark-held luster to corrupt

The present light with smokes and smudges, poison

To outlast time and shatter comprehension.

Burning the world to live in it is wrong,

As wrong as to make war to get along

And be at peace, to falsify the land

By sciences of greed, or by demand

For food that’s fast or cheap to falsify

The body’s health and pleasure—don’t ask why.

But why not play it cool? Why not survive

By Nature’s laws that still keep us alive?

Let us enlighten, then, our earthly burdens

By going back to school, this time in gardens

That burn no hotter than the summer day.

By birth and growth, ripeness, death and decay,

By goods that bind us to all living things,

Life of our life, the garden lives and sings.

The Wheel of Life, delight, the fact of wonder,

Contemporary light, work, sweat, and hunger

Bring food to table, food to cellar shelves.

A creature of the surface, like ourselves,

The garden lives by the immortal Wheel

That turns in place, year after year, to heal

It whole. Unlike our economic pyre

That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,

An anti-life of radiance and fume

That burns as power and remains as doom,

The garden delves no deeper than its roots

And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.

17. Find a poem that means something to you and memorize it 

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On Sunday May 28, I found myself at the Indy 500 with 300,000+ people. Two of those people were my parents. We’re not an IndyCar family. We’re not a Nascar family. I happened to say “yes” to something I would never do. 

My parents visited in early May for my graduation. Weeks passed in the post-graduation recovery and adjustment. Some friends planned to go to the Indy 500. When invited, I said “no” including on the Tuesday of Indy 500 week when my Dad called. 

On my own accord, I would never go to the Indy 500 or other car races. A weekend of tailgating amid a sea of bumper-to-bumper traffic and massive crowds celebrating internal combustion engines circling a track 200 times is not my idea of fun. No judgement to those who do. 

My Dad told me going to the Indy 500 had been on his bucket list since he was 15 years old. One of his first heroes was an IndyCar driver. When he asked if I wanted to go to the Indy 500, I said “yes” because I knew how much this meant to him. It may not be one of my dreams but it helped him actualize one of his. 

The weekend was an opportunity to spend quality time with my parents. The race was, in part, an opportunity push myself out of my own comfort zone, which I should do more often. The same people (largely white, upper-middle class) who call my homeland “fly over country” and were surprised by election 2016 results also cackle at the idea of events like these. A reason: they live in a bubble (like this quiz or this sketch). I cringed throwing away my recycling in the trash (there was no designated recycling despite the flow of plastic cups and aluminum cans) but I enjoyed talking to people around me. I didn’t cheer for Mike Pence circling the track but I did cheer with 300,000 fellow Hoosiers during many parts of the race, including a shared relief when Scott Dixon survived a horrific crash.  

What would our world look like if we went after our dreams? 

How would your life change if you went after your dream? 

How could you support or witness others achieve their dreams?

Start your engine. Invite your crew. Actualize your dreams. 

19. Do something that you would never do. And no, it can’t be a challenge that you were already slightly open to. It has to be something that, when asked, your knee-jerk reaction is “never! that’s not me!”

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If you read my post-India post, then you probably remembered some unique screenshots. I finally got around to turning those stills into timelapse videos of my travels around India. 

The rickshaw ride above is one of five in a playlist that spans bike, bus, and car. 

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What does this hermit crab have to do with my 30 for 30?

It all started in March when I went to India, where I heavily relied on plastic bottles and other disposable plastics. I recycled those plastics where I could but that wasn’t always an option. Disposable plastics are the by-product of a throw-away society. A function of quantity over quality. 

For the month of April 2017, I took on the plastic free challenge. Here is how I prepared: 

1. I kept using a refillable water bottle but switched to an aluminum water bottle that I had at home. 

2. I don’t go out to eat often but planned to ask (even more) questions or comment about the service when I did. Such as “can I get that in a glass?” or “I don’t need straw”.

3. Purchase no products that contain plastic. 

4. For leftovers and packed meals, I used a tiffin box (a great deal at R310, or $4.70) that I picked up in India instead of plastic tupperware. Tiffins are common in India as a container to hold home cooked meals delivered by Dabbawallas, whose delivery system is so efficient that they have a lower error (one in 6 million) rate than Fedex. 

I didn’t make it “plastic free” but I fared well. Here is the disposable plastic I used over those 30 days: 

A breakdown of the picture:

1. Plastic spoon and fork. I brought my lunch one day but forgot to pack utensils. I had to grab these plastic ones or bike home. The latter wasn’t an option. Tip: keep a fork and spoon in your backpack so you always have something you can eat with and stay away from disposables.   

2. Granola bar wrapper. I was hungry and craving a quick snack. My sweet tooth and a taste for convenience got the best of me. Tip: keep a bowl of fruit and other unpackaged “grab and go” foods (e.g. homemade granola bars, nuts) around your house.

3. Straws (2). They were slipped into my drink without even asking. It was the default of those two restaurants. Tip: tell your wait staff that you don’t need a straw. 

These were all the disposable plastics from a month of consumption. Other items were out of my control. For example, our house purchases bulk items that are stored in large plastic containers and sometimes are shipped in plastic bags. We reduce our disposables use by purchasing in bulk but we don’t have control over how it arrives to us. 

Don’t get me wrong. Plastics do make some things possible where alternatives may not exist or be burdensome. However, disposable plastics are unnecessary. Cities across the world are banning plastic bags and other disposable plastics given their high rates of water pollution (impacting animals like that hermit crab) and all the way up our food chain as plastics deteriorate over time into smaller and smaller bits. Even Delhi passed a disposable plastics ban, which gave way to innovative and sustainable alternatives. 

Whether or not your city instituted a ban, we should all get back to the root of the 3 R’s:

Reduce what you consume

Reuse what you can

Recycle as a last resort

26.Take the plastic free challenge for one month!

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I’m building on my newfound skills and passion for brewing with another batch of mead. Out of grad school and searching for a job, I’m on a tight budget so paying the variable costs to make mead seem superfluous. In a financial jam, I turned to the economic model used when mead was first made: barter.

The honey from my first batch of mead came from Hunter’s Honey Farm, a local staple in Southern Indiana. I thought they may be into a trade knowing their appreciation for value-added products. I also felt confident in giving them my mead after plenty of celebratory tastes this past month. 

They agreed to the barter: 6 bottles of B Wiley Mead for 12 pounds of wildflower honey. 

I packed up those bottles and we traded at the farmer’s market on Saturday. 

Yesterday, I turned that honey, filtered water, yeast nutrient + energizer, and yeast (a mere $2.05, and my only additional cost for this batch) into another 5 gallons of wildflower mead. The PAC measure of 10% was slightly inaccurate because all the sugars (honey) didn’t fall into solution so I’m guessing this batch may actually range between 10%-13% abv. 

As of now, the yeast are eating it up with a CO2 release count that resembles an eager kid (or adult) in a game of hide and seek. 

In two months, the second batch should be ready to fill 25, 750ml bottles. Six of those may be destined to my bartering partner. 

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Completed: 25. Volunteer with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe 

work at the nexus despite politic vex us solidarity

In the lead up to my final semester of graduate school, the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict was in full tilt. President Obama signed an Executive Order in late November 2016 to re-route the pipeline while many of us knew that Order was likely to change under President Trump. 

I had the opportunity to join a capstone with 17 other graduate school peers with the goal to turn sustainability community designs for Mni Wiconi into an actionable plan. We worked with the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy and other partners to focus our planning at the nexus of sustainability with housing, food, energy, sewage, water, waste, and finance. 

The continued conflict around fossil fuel infrastructure threatens the sovereignty and stability of Standing Rock and other tribes. Sustainable development for Mni Wiconi will hopefully be a model for native and non-native communities across the country.

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Completed: 2. Become a Master of Public Affairs

for the greater good #MayTheFourthBeWithYou now Master J̶e̶d̶i̶  graduate

30 for 30 family friends mentors and me supporting me

Wiley’s (+ Alex and Grandma) toasting with a glass of B Wiley Mead

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Homemade Mead in 5 Steps

Click on each link for insights into each step of the process.

1. Research and purchase equipment

2. Purchase ingredients and initial ferment

3. Rack and rest

4. Bottle (noun)

5. Bottle (verb)

Optional

6. Label 

7. Full(ish) Cost Accounting (pushes up glasses)

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Last Day of Class: Full(ish) Cost Accounting of Making Mead

Classes are over. One final remains. I’m sipping a glass of mead wrapping up a personal assignment: a full cost accounting of making my own mead. It’s not truly full costing because it doesn’t include environmental or social costs. This is more inspired by outdated neoclassical economic modeling. 

As my grad program wraps up, I figured to use some of those skills into a new favorite hobby of mine. The mead was bottled two weeks ago and labeled last week. Most of the bottles will be resting on their side until Thanksgiving 2017, when it’s expected they start peaking in flavor and aroma. Like those bottles, I will soon be resting

tl;dr Making your own mead, including the cost of your time, is affordable compared to buying a similar product at the store. 

*Schramm’s and Oliver prices include some percentage of profit while my homemade mead does not. Conversely, B Wiley Mead does not include overhead costs like utilities and physical space.

The inputs to obtain the final price comparison starts with the volume of production. 

After figuring out how much I could brew, I needed the appropriate equipment, which are mostly fixed costs. Glassware would have come to the most single expensive item. For example, a 5-gallon glass carboy is around $35. I shared carboys with a friend who also brews and reused glass bottles. 

Reduce > Reuse > Recycle

Future bottling will not be labeled unless it’s for a gift. Interestingly, cutting out all optional equipment costs, including labels, brought down the baseline price of a B Wiley Mead bottle by 10%. Some of the items listed as optional could add costs and frustrations if eliminated. For example, a bottle washer is to bottle grime as a fire hose is to a fire. Even small amounts of bacteria can sour a fermentation. And I’m not talking about Brettanomyces lambicus. 

(pushes up glasses)

The cost for ingredients is mostly related to honey, the sugary feast for the yeast to thrive and multiply on. I made a smaller batch using the more unique and expensive wildflower honey for experimenting around flavor, aroma, and clarity. Additional ingredients for mead brewing are critical but their costs are meager in comparison. 

Labor costs had the largest impact on the pricing of a bottle. I’m not costing out my own time though. I learn new skills or work on existing ones because they bring me joy. Slowing down and savoring the simple things in life. 

This is simply a calculation of how labor costs could be figured into a craft mead operation for an initial batch and future batches, which would have lower costs due to increased efficiency and understanding of the process.

#FightFor15

The full(ish) cost accounting was an exercise for me to budget my next batch and see the impact of scale in production. Scale matters, even for craft operations. Quality also matters in terms of pricing so don’t skimp on steps or inputs.

Until next time. Sip responsibly. 

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B Wiley Mead by the Numbers

1st Batch

2 types: raw clover & wildflower

3 variations: no additions, sweetened, & cinnamon

13% abv (at least)

24 bottles

100% labeled

Ready for tasting with a peak uncorking as early as Thanksgiving 2017.

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This is what 5.5 gallons of mead looks like bottled, which I did last night over an exciting and laborsome 3 hours from concept to clean-up. More pictures and updates to come as the finishing touches are put on. 

EDIT: April 29. More of those pictures that capture the nuance of the process.

1. Bottle cleaning. Baking soda + hot water does wonders on removing some labels but not enough on others. The pesky labels required steel wool and lots of elbow grease. This step was 4 hours in addition to bottling.

2. Bottle and equipment sanitizing (not pictured)

3. Cork steaming. This softens and lubricates the corks so they go in easy.

3. Bottle filling. This step was a slow step during my first batch and will be one of the fastest steps in future batches. 

First, the plastic tubing width was the same size as the bottle filler so I had to get creative by steaming the plastic tubing so they would fit together with the aid of electrical tape. Next time: tubing connector piece. 

The tubing apparatus is set up and the auto-siphon needs to be pressurized for auto-filling. 

Pressurizing the auto-siphon...

The bottle filler, when pushed down, releases a valve on and allows the flow of mead through the siphon with a steady flow.

The bottle is filled up to the brim. At that point, removing the bottle filler creates the right amount of air in the bottle for storage.

4. Corking. The manual corker was $19 compared to $80-120 for a standing corker. The manual one worked just fine after calibrating for cork depth.

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Taj in Sunglasses. 

15. Visit a country where you don't speak the language. Read more here about why and where I was in India.

The Taj Mahal, which is actually a mausoleum and not a palace as it’s made to seem in the US.

Team CRM in Sidbhari, HQ for CORD, the non-profit we worked with in the months leading up to our two week visit. The Himalayas have the most wondrous profile I have ever seen in a mountain range. A climb will be needed next time.

A traditional North Indian dinner: seasoned rice + bread (chipati) + sauce (raita with chickpea fritters) + lentil or chickpea dish (dal) + paneer (mattar paneer)

The Golden Temple, mecca for Sikhs.

There are a lot of cows in India and they do stop traffic in their wild roam.

Rickshaw in Old Delhi.

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30 Day Plastic Free Challenge Starts Tomorrow

I crushed it in India. Water bottles it is. I never really bought into the craze back in the States. I grew up on tap water. I swim in lakes and rivers over pools any day. In 2009, I was wholly convinced to never drink bottled water again- even though I only did sporadically prior to- when I saw this documentary:

Bottled water is about more than the plastics. It’s about the privatization of a common resource. It’s about the disinvestment in public water systems that lead to atrocities like lead in the water of Flint Michigan.

Plastics runs deeper. I was reminded of this after an article on plastics seemingly went viral as I was considering cutting my own habits. I don’t consume a lot of new plastics but I do use quite a bit, from my lunch tupperware to my reusable water bottle

Plastics do make things possible. Some things are good, like medical devices and airplane windows. Some things are bad, like physical pollution, fossil fuel dependency, and toxic leaching. You only need a first look at these birds to see (most) consumer plastics are a problem.

For the next month, I will not be a consumer of any new plastics- from direct purchases (e.g. products made of plastic) to indirect use (e.g. restaurant straws) to direct use (e.g. lunch tupperware). 

No one is perfect, including me, so I will carry those plastics with me until April 30 if I fall off the horse to make myself more aware and conscious. 

p.s. See second picture below. Why is it bottled water would need to be packaged in plastic bag? It’s baffling. 

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In 30 days, I made it to 21 yoga classes. I strived for five classes a week as they say at Ekah Yoga, a co-operative studio where I grounded myself almost daily for a month. Any more would have felt like overkill. Sometimes even five a week felt like too much. 

I got some sage advice from some yoga friends. This proved to be the most reoccurring:

“I would encourage you to let yourself have more days off. Sustainability and quality over quantity... it is possible to overdo it. Sometimes stretching more really isn't the answer - it's about becoming more mindful of how we move, and hopefully learning to notice our bodies and what they tell us.”

At times, my 30 for 30 has taken extremes that are well meaning and are designed to build habits but could easily lead to burnout. Michael Pollan’s three food rules is a heuristic worth applying to yoga:

Do yoga. Not too much. Mostly mindful.

Don’t get me wrong. I have felt the benefits of yoga through increased physical strength (recovering achilles tear; pliability) and mental resiliency. Tom Brady (yes, that one) and The Alzheimer’s Foundation see the benefits too. A mix of practices in a given week would do me well. 

4. Yoga, start with the 30-day challenge then incorporate it into a weekly practice

The weekly practice is ongoing of course.

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It’s been 5 months since the my first batch of mead started. The carboys have been resting for the past four months like a bear: filled with fermenting honey in stable tempered darkness. 

A tasting this past weekend confirmed that it’s time to bottle. 

The majority of the bottles shown are re-used wine bottles from a local restaurant who would otherwise have recycled them. The long stem and smaller bottles have been collected over the past year. 

Over the next two weeks, I’ll be bottling and labeling 19 liters of mead. Some for celebrations. Some for gifts. Some for long-term tasting experiments (e.g back sweetening vs. no residuals). Cheers!

EDIT April 4: Threaded bottles that once held pop or crew caps are not advised to be used for corking since their necks are made with thinner glass and thus more likely to break if corked. I recycled most of the bottles pictures above and turned to asking friends to donate their empty and formerly corked bottles.

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Nothing to be said that I didn’t say on stage except that I’m looking forward to writing more comedy, working on my delivery, and feeling that flutter of being nervous in the best way possible. 

Maybe the ukulele will make my next set. 

Thanks to everyone who came out bigly! It was tremendous. I felt the love and I’m still riding that wave. 

You gotta do WNL before you can do SNL.