Enjoying native plants during the holidays

The bike tour is over, the crew has said their goodbyes, and we're all headed our separate ways for the winter season. However, we still have great pictures and ideas to share from beyond the road...

Bike Tour 2014 Crew

Eating Local

The holidays are synonymous with the beginning of winter here in the northern hemisphere. Regardless of whether you enjoy this season in the warm southern sun or under a white layer of snow, there are sure to be holiday feasts featuring dishes of crops that have origins here in the Americas. The following winter crops are not only easier to find at farmers markets this time of year, but also were cultivated and domesticated from their wild cousins thousands of years ago in North and South America.

Potatoes

No matter how you enjoy them--mashed, fried, baked--these deliciously filling and versatile tubers are a popular side on many plates. 

Potatoes got their start as a domestic crop in the highlands of the Andes. The diversity, high amount of starch, and durability of this crop made it a staple in people's diet there centuries before potatoes were brought to Ireland. Today, thousands of varieties exist throughout the world, though it is believed the highest diversity is still in the terraced farms of the Andes. However, potato biodiversity is plummeting worldwide as monoculture production of just a few species becomes the norm: look for unique heirloom varieties when you shop!
Our final meal at Travis's house in Highland Park featured potatoes in a root vegetable medley that was seasoned to perfection, all donated to us by New Frontiers Market in San Luis Obispo.

http://grist.org/food/gmo-potatoes-is-the-biodiversity-shortcut-worth-it/

Squash

Starting around Halloween and well into winter, squashes -- pumpkin, acorn, butternut, you name it-- take pride of place in many homes. Each kind offers a unique range of colors and flavors, and can be turned into anything from delicious pie to savory soup contained within the gourd itself. Their current range is testament to the large geographical footprint where squashes were domesticated. Some, such as pumpkins, were originally cultivated in northern Mexico and the southern United States, while others like the fig leaf gourd began their relationship with humans as far south as Argentina. Try a new recipe this holiday season with one that's local to your area!

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/squash-recipes/butternut-squash-salad

Maize/Corn

This is perhaps one of the most famous American domestics, and is featured prominently in many stories and historical accounts of interactions between Native Americans and European settlers. While in many places the harvest for this crop is earlier in the year, its ability to be stored whole or in flour or meal form has made this crop what it is today. The ancestor to this crop, according to archeologists, was located in Central Mexico and from there was traded across North and South America. Now we use everything from sweetcorn, corn meal, feed corn, and corn syrup in our diets.

So however you spend your holidays, take some time to enjoy these native food crops by finding a local provider near you and supporting local farmers and agriculture:

http://www.localharvest.org/

Source of information about crop domestication:
1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas.
Charles C. Mann

--Ann

El Nino Strikes!

We're safe and sound in rainy Los Angeles, ending the bike tour as it began: wet. Our last school visit at Crane Country Day was amazing as our hosts fed and housed us in the cozy library on their beautiful campus in Montecito.

Ceed crashes after 65 miles of cycling

The team celebrates Josh's birthday on the Santa Barbara beach

The warm welcome was followed by a couple of hours Monday morning working in the school garden and presenting at their morning assembly. Thanks to the Crane librarian, Traci Cope, for providing us such a lovely dinner, breakfast and hot showers.

Working with the 6th grade class who came to CELP in their garden at Crane

We built another stone pathway, which became our specialty this bike tour

Keeping spirits high during the last project

We rode as far as Ventura before realizing that a landslide along Highway 1 was going to deter our final stretch of riding.

Final bike tour lunch in Ventura, before the rains

We schlepped all the gear to LA in various vehicles and the faithful bus, just in time to enjoy some heavy downpours on the streets of southern California. With all the drought-ridden towns we've visited on the tour, it's nice to finally see some precipitation. A few inches of rain certainly won't bring the southwest out of the crisis, but two inches is better than nothing.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-rain-drought-monitor-20141204-story.html

Ending the ride in Ventura, here is the route that we cycled this year, totaling 425 miles--and not all of it was paved.

The final route

Pacific Coast Plants!

 We've ridden over 300 miles of our coastal tour! The terrain covered has been vast and varied, from the cool mountains of coastal redwoods to the warm and exposed slopes of coastal sage scrublands.. Every ecosystem, town and landscape that we pass is full of important and unique plant communities.

We parked the bus near a family circle of redwoods.
One older tree falls and a group of younger trunks sprout up.

A hidden beach along Highway One.
Each slope is a new color of plant communities.

 After riding out of our farm stay at the beautiful Avila Family Barn, we stayed with Noey and Glen at the "Garden of...", located deeper inland in the rolling valleys of Los Olivos. We were entering an intentional world of cultivated plants. We worked with them to amend an apple tree orchard with compost and remove a few rows of water thirsty grapes to replace them with native plants like milkweed and white sage.

We rode through seas of grape vines

Fields of strawberries and greens

Ranches with sheep and cattle

And enjoyed the beauty of permaculture.

Converting rows of grapes into a border for native plants.

The greenhouse is full of different stages of plants.

This large bush mallow is an important host for beneficial insects inside the greenhouse.

Noey keeps some plants in different life stages to simulate natural systems and promote growth.

 The farm was incorporating aspects of nature at every turn, plants for pollinators, companion planting, composting and cover crops. It was beautiful to see these guided natural processes and help while we were there. A huge thanks to Noey and Glen! Now we're on our way toward Santa Barbara to visit students of Crane school.

-Turtle

Nature Moments

Here are some highlights from the last week of riding...

Bike route into Monterey

Hanging out in Garrapatas

Crossing Bixby Bridge in Big Sur

Looking for condors. Woodpeckers and vultures are everywhere

Wildlife! Elephant seals fighting for dominance at Piedras Blancas

Our friend, Peepers the Eurasian Eagle Owl, at Camp Ocean Pines

Multigenerational Household? Try Multigenerational Bike Tour!

My wonderful mother, Terri Moore, is the first mom to join us on The Sustainable Living Bike Tour!  Not only is she an avid biker and adventurer, she is also a sustainable living enthusiast. That enthusiasm has inspired my whole family: we share a common dream of living together in what we have dubbed the ‘eco village.’ It is a place where we will live communally, raising chickens and vegetables and having a lot of fun. (I am hoping to add a rollerskating rink/dance floor party pavillion to the mix). 

Terri also invented her own sustainable living goal to use 10% less. She has dubbed it the ‘ten percent less program,’--using ten percent less of everything: soap, gas, clothes, electricity. You name it, she is trying to use ten percent less. While this may appear a small goal, it has great potential to make environmentally positive decisions.  When you take the extra time to think to yourself, “Do I really need this? Is this going to put me in the ten percent less mark?” you end up making better choices for yourself and for the world. 

If everyone replaced just 10% more of their commute with riding their bicycle, then America would save 37 million gallons of gasoline every single day. That’s more than 3 times the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Lets go right to the interview:

What are some of the biggest changes you have made yourself in your 10% less program?

The part I have enjoyed the most is riding my commuter bike 10% further for business appointments, errands and entertainment. I go slower on that bike, I look around from its upright handlebars, people enjoy my chartreuse skirt guard and flowery helmet. And when I go to the coat check and hang up my rain pants it usually starts up a conversation.

What are some of the biggest challenges?

Now that I have been doing this a few years, to build on what I have already done is getting harder. Last year it was getting rid of tea bags, this year I am going to try to make my own condiments.

What surprised you most?

That more people don't do it, that our government doesn't ask us to do it. I don't talk about it much, but honestly people are not that interested - there are generally not that many follow up questions when it comes up in conversation.

If you were to give the twenty-something population some advice for living sustainably, what would you tell them?

Just to think about it and not to get discouraged.

So you want to create the eco village, do you think that multigenerational living is going to be a common occurrence in the near future?

It's like the fountain of youth living with younger people. It makes you feel younger and more hopeful-- you remember who you were. Once the baby boom generation figures that out, there will be a stampede for the nearest eco village.

What do you think the benefits of this lifestyle are?

Someone to lift the heavy things.

--Claire Grizzle

Go Local

Traveling like a circus during the bike tour definitely builds our small community of cyclists. But being here in coastal California and visiting all these little pockets like Pescadero and Cambria have given us a lot of perspective on what it means to be a community.

The tour avoids busy freeways by taking mountain bike paths: "Cyclo-cross" from Pacifica

These places have small businesses, unique people, and a strong sense of pride. It's important as environmentalists to help these local communities stay vibrant. 

Charming Capitola

There has been a push towards supporting local businesses in recent years, notably Small Business Saturday, which is the day after Black Friday. It is a campaign started by American Express to help consumers choose local establishments over businesses with larger supply chains. Supporting mom-and-pop shops helps money stay within a community and also strengthens the ties within it. Some people are calling this push the "localution" movement, and it's doing great things for our economy and the environment.

During our bike tour, we buy local and small-scale supplies whenever possible, connecting and collaborating with awesome businesses such as The Sports Basement in San Francisco and The Mucky Duck in Monterey, as well as farmers markets and the farms where we stay and work. We learn more about each community and get to know the people where our products and services come from.

Avila Valley Barn, a farm near San Luis Obispo where we camped and bought local produce, goodies and gifts for the holidays

Tonight we are staying at the luxurious Camp Ocean Pines in Cambria and tomorrow we head for Avila Valley Barn near Pismo. Our legs are tired, our minds are exhausted, and our hearts yearn for more sights and adventure. See you soon!

--Julia

Visit to MBARI

During yesterday's forty mile ride to Monterey, we took a detour to deepen our knowledge of the ocean at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Our friend Brian was gracious enough to give us a full tour of MBARI at Moss Landing. We explored the spectacular facility and spoke with scientists and engineers who shared their work with us. We met with biologists, engineers, electricians, and chemists about their research and expeditions into the deep ocean. We covered topics like what types of invertebrates feed on whale carcasses that drift to the deep, how increasing CO2 levels in the ocean and atmosphere are changing the biology of marine organisms, the research and tracking of algal blooms, the relationship between benthic and pelagic organisms and all of the awesome technology they use to conduct this research.

Western Flyer, a research vessel we toured that was full of fun instruments and vehicles

An ROV vehicle used to study the ocean floor

AOV used to study the sea floor

Lunch stop outside MBARI

We are grateful to have had this opportunity to talk to the scientists who are at the cutting edge of ocean research and even brainstormed how we can study plankton back home at Howlands Landing. Thanks to all the lovely folks at MBARI for this unique experience!

Garden Work Day

Before leaving the Bay Area, we put in a solid afternoon of garden work at Sunset Elementary in San Francisco. Travis's sister, Kyla, is the Outdoor Science teacher there and has done amazing things in their garden space. We had a blast getting our hands dirty and hearing all the passing children shout "Miss Kyla!!" at the top of their lungs. 

Projects included:

Dead plant removal: before 

and after

Planting salad greens in a vacant garden bed: before

During

After

Pruning and adding a rock border: before

After

Inspirational greenhouse that we'd love in our garden...

Turtle preparing to build a new brick trail

Venisha and Turtle placing the bricks

After

Grayson smoothing the trail

Garden maintenance with Kyla

Grayson planting a native Elderberry

Becky Birthday weeding!

Paige weeding some beds