It's a play on Grandpa, and green, as in environmentally aware, and Pa, as in ... Pa. An actual grandpa twice, and a Pa three times.
68, kids from two marriages, currently with a 12 year old zooming around the house. The house is as advertised, a very small log cabin in the woods. Tiny. It's like living on a yacht; no closet space, which is maybe half of why #1 went away.
I've been living "ultra" green for 40 years. Off the grid always, business too. Electricity from solar; and a little gas backup in winter. Composting toilet, heat with wood. Not vegetarians; hunter/gatherer/gardener. Not opposed to people living in cities.
Good health; bad health. Good times, bad times. Poverty, intentional and not. Great friends. Unfriends.
The good news: STILL living Ultragreen. It can be done. I'll talk about how here; including towns and cities.
Education: MS and an "ABD" (all but dissertation of a PhD), in Biology. Focus: evolutionary ecology, botany, genetics, parasitology, mammalogy, behavior, ethology, psychology, language,... marketing...metallurgy... No, really, and I left some out, because you won't believe me anyway.
1) Off the grid. 38 years. Solar electricity 2) Limited power- house electricity has 4 golf cart batteries. 3) Composting toilet. Outside. (eew, you do that indoors!?) 4) No road to house. You gotta walk. 5) No running water in house. Water pumped by wind. 6) Showers solar heated; outdoors. 7) Heat with wood. One stove in house-.. 8) Cook with wood 8 months, propane in summer 9) Most of our fuelwood now is from trees we planted 10) No refrigerator. 40 years, now. You don't need one either. 11) Big garden. 12) Eat locally when possible, not obsessive about it. 13) No pesticide use ever, gardens or crops; not even organic (ok, except a little in the outhouse and the greenhouse...) 14) Earth sheltered solar greenhouse (aren't they all solar??) 15) Shut up about it. Nobody likes preaching. 16. These are our choices- yours are yours.
1) I do not have time to dig out all the references for you- if you doubt something I say here, google it immediately- and don't bug me if I'm off by a couple of degrees. 2)"Eat compost and die" type comments will cheerfully be deleted. They won't even tick me off, I just feel pity. Really. So if I were you, I wouldn't bother. (Note to other bloggers- this requirement for basic politeness works- total # of mean comments deleted by me so far ~ 5; spammers deleted ~ 10) 3) Long comments on posts are quite welcome; don't worry about it. 4) I WILL try to answer questions, but it may take me a while to get to them.
5) I don't do memes. Sorry- fun, I know, but I really don't have the time.
6) I can't do email, either; I'm already drowning in the stuff from my other life; and I can't get into giving personal advice. If you want to contact me, just make a comment with your email address in it; I'll get back to you if I can.
7 comments:
OK. Me too. Yup, fer sure.
We've all always known you were just a total slut for celebrity, Greenpa.
Who next? Lindsay Lohan?
Fame whore.
See, I knew he had a secret fascination with facial hair!
:)
And me too - long distance of course :)
viv in nz
Ummmm...nope....not me....whoa now...I feel excluded from the Club here...
ceridwen
Ahha so that's where you've been spending your nights....
Send him a letter saying he owes you an apology -- through the Enquirer! Follow the money!
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