Restorying the Earth

Day 5: Answering the Call

I spent today working from home, some days its the only way I can actually get work done. But the opportunity to give came calling despite my geography. I was home when the Scottish SPCA phoned this afternoon asking for an increase in my monthly giving. I took the opportunity and increased my donation by £1 a month. I enjoyed talking to the man who phoned, who told me in his Scottish brogue all that the Scottish SPCA has achieved in the past year, and I can afford an extra £1. It felt good to be reminded of what my bank account does every month.

About an hour later, there was another phonecall. I picked up the receiver and said hello. All I could hear was chitchat in an echoing room. I said hello again, still no answer, so I hung up: the two sides of telephone giving within an hour. The personal and the impersonal. It gave me pause.

My chat with the man with the Scottish brogue not withstanding, there is something unsatisfying about giving money on a monthly basis automatically through the bank. It’s just so impersonal and so out-of-mind. This type of giving enables charities to keep doing things that desperately need doing, but as all that is required is the shifting of bits of digital data from one computer to another, the giver doesn’t even have to pay attention…well, it doesn’t do much to connect us, even when there are membership mailings and magazines. I couldn’t even tell you off the top of my head what I give to which charities anymore. It seems to me that for giving to work the changes it can bring about, we need to know we’re doing it.

I will continue to donate on a monthly basis, but I’m going to have a think about how I can do this more consciously.

Day 4: For the Ants who have Everything

Today’s gift-giving went cross-species. I’ve got this high-tech hot composter in my back garden. When you maintain it properly it will reach temperatures high to kill plant pests and weed seeds. However, we let it cool down over the winter, by failing to feed it regularly, and a city of ants moved in. I really should dig out the composter and start it over again, the back garden is desperate for quality organic matter, but everytime I lift the lid and see what the ants have accomplished I just can’t bring myself to destroy their civilization.

The most phenomenal accomplishment I watched them perform was to coat a dried up kale stalk with about a half centimeter of finished compost from the bottom of the bin. I’m not sure if they are farming it, but they spent days walking around on the surface doing something too minute for my human eyes.

There are many other creatures living in the bin, including worms, slugs and snails. One of my friends from the green book group confided that since reading Elisabeth Tova Bailey‘s book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, she’s been unwilling to kill garden snails. Instead, she’s been moving them into her compost bin in the hopes that regular supplies of kitchen scraps and newly pulled weeds will convince them to stay put and leave her vegetables alone.

This evening, after dinner I took a week’s worth of kitchen waste and gave it to the compost colony. Despite the drizzly, windy weather we’ve been having, the compost bin read a cosy 25C. I’m not sure what the outcome of this cross-species gift-giving will be, but who knows maybe generosity will triumph over the traditional confilct between gardener and gastropods.

(Note, the photo is of a gift I received today. A beautiful bouquet of locally grown, organic tulips from Peter of Oxenfoord Organics, whom we buy our vegetables from at Sunday’s Stockbridge Market)

Day 3: Sharing through Giving with the Edinburgh Tool Library

Day three, I gave away a brick bolster. Yeah, I didn’t know what one of those was either. I’m working on de-paving part of my back-yard with the ultimate goal of creating a forest garden where now there is only concrete. Last weekend, Mike and I set up a small pond in the garden and we needed some pieces of stone to cover the edges of the pond liner. Not having a car means that when we need something like stones, we look around for what we’ve got at home instead of driving off to the garden centre.

We’ve got plenty of patio slabs, but at 2 feet square, they just wouldn’t work as edging for a pond that’s only 2 feet across. The internet seemed to tell us that with a hammer and brick bolster, a person could easily carve patio stones into smaller pieces. I have trouble being patient, especially when I’ve got a project on the go, so rather than trying out other ways of breaking concrete, I rushed out and bought the bolster, we have a tool shop 5 minutes walk away.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to believe everything on the internet. While the bolster probably works well with bricks, it barely dented the concrete slabs. Mike ended up dropping the patio stones from a few feet up, which created random smaller pieces, which we managed to jigsaw into a passable edging. However, we were left with another useless tool taking up room in our tiny toolbox. So today I gave away the brick bolster to the Edinburgh Tool Library, which opened up just two months ago. Now the brick bolster can be used for free by the many members of ETL and by donating a tool to the library I’ve become a member myself, with free access to an inventory of over 130 tools. All part of moving the story from one of consuming to one of sharing.