A Simple Way to Keep Cats out of the Garden

I planted my very first flower bed on Friday. My tiny masterpiece features a fledgling ghost fern, a lamium purple dragon, and georgia peach coral bells. I painstakingly mixed the existing dirt with rich, organic planting soil. I carefully de-potted the plants and shook out the roots before tucking them into their new home. Then, I spread mulch around and stood back to admire my work. I should have taken a picture, because the garden would not be so pristine for long.

Friday night, one of the neighborhood cats decided my flower bed would make a great litter box and nearly dug up my fern. I consider myself a cat person, but I am not going to tolerate poop in my plants.

Even after living with cats for 11 years, I still had no idea how to deter them from digging in the dirt. I discovered from a couple of different sources that cats are repulsed by the smell of citrus - specifically, orange peels. A natural skeptic, I did not really believe such a simple solution would work, but I thought I'd give it a try. After all, the other suggestions were either toxic (mothballs, which are considered a carcinogen) or ridiculous (sitting in wait with a garden hose).

On Sunday, I cut up one orange's worth of peel into tiny pieces so as to spread it as far as possible. (I am not a fan of oranges, so I didn't want to eat a whole bunch of them.) I sprinkled the peel all around my garden, which is probably 1' x 5'. It is now Wednesday, and I am happy to report that the neighborhood strays have not ventured back into my flowers! Sometimes the simplest - and least toxic - option really does do the best job.

Birds and Bees and Mosquitos and Fleas

I am a mosquito magnet. I joke with my friends that if they want to avoid mosquito bites, then they should stand near me - all the bugs will flock to me instead of them. You might think that I should be concerned about West Nile Virus, but I'm actually much more concerned about the measures my county plans to take to control the mosquito population.

Up here on the East Coast, the local media treat WNV as if it were akin to the plague. The truth is that "Most individuals infected with West Nile virus will not have any symptoms or signs of illness. People who do develop illness may experience mild symptoms such as fever, headache, and body aches; occasionally a skin rash and swollen lymph glands may be noticed.... Less than 1% of persons infected with the virus may develop more severe disease with symptoms such as high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, paralysis, and, rarely, death. People > 50 years of age have the highest risk of developing severe illness." (This is from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's West Nile Virus fact sheet.)

Compare the symptoms of WNV to the possible side effects of permethrin, which is the chemical my county uses in residential spraying. You may have seen permethrin before - it's used in indoor flea control products, head lice shampoo, and termiticides. Pretty disturbing, considering that "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified permethrin as a carcinogen because it causes lung tumors in female mice and liver tumors in mice of both sexes. Permethrin inhibits the activity of the immune system in laboratory tests, and also binds to the receptors for a male sex hormone. It causes chromosome aberrations in human and hamster cells." (This is from the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.)

Additionally, the Coalition reports that "Permethrin is toxic to honey bees and other beneficial insects, fish, aquatic insects, crayfish, and shrimp. For many species, concentrations of less than one part per billion are lethal." Personally, I'd rather weather some aches and pains than risk killing off even more bees and adding harmful chemicals to the Chesapeake Bay.

I plan to write the Maryland Department of Agriculture to request that my area not be sprayed. I won't be satisfied, however, if they still spray all around me. My goal over the next couple of weeks is to talk to my neighbors and see if I can't get them to write the Department as well. I'll let you guys know what happens. (If you want to find out what your county is doing to control pests this summer, call your state's department of health or agriculture; you can also search online for your state's government web page and navigate to one of those departments.)

In the meantime, I plan to use mosquito repellent to protect myself from the pesky critters. When my daughter was born, I sought an effective repellent that would be safe for her to use as well. I settled on Bite Away by Southeast Beauty Inc, which you can order from Gaiam.com. It's basically soybean oil mixed with a little safflower, coconut, lemon, grapefruit, and lime. Because it is oil-based, it is a bit greasy, but it seems to be pretty effective in my experience. If it works for me, it'll probably work for anybody!

Happy Memorial Day!
Jenny

My Calling

I went to church on Sunday. I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but I should clarify that it was a Unitarian Universalist church. The topic of the service was finding your calling: discovering your passion, your skills, and then figuring out how the combination of the two can fulfill a need in society. This message came on the heels of a conversation I had with Mom that morning, about how life in America is at a turning point. We can no longer afford to live the way we've been living. If we continue to drive our SUVs all over and eat processed foods that have been shipped from far away, we will not only bankrupt our finances, but our environment and our own health as well.

Over the past several years, I have pursued sustainable living practices. This is an ongoing journey, and one that I enjoy sharing with others. It is my passion. And writing is my skill. So I thought, why not combine the two and create a blog where I can share what I've learned - and continue to learn - with my friends and family all over the world?

Here's my disclaimer: I am not an expert in environmental science. The last "real" science course I took was my freshman biology class. In high school. Earning an English major in college did teach me how to conduct research. I spend a great deal of time reading about organic food standards, pesticides and other chemicals, harmful ingredients in everyday beauty products, and carcinogens in household cleaners. I'd like to share with you, whom I hope will become my faithful readers, what I learn.

This blog, then, is about my getting down to earth. Realizing that we have to change in order to survive. Facing reality. Eating real food. Buying locally. Driving less. Slowly changing for the better. I hope that you'll stay in touch with me by following my journey, and by sharing yours.

I'll leave you with some words from a book that changed my worldview in college: New Woman, New Earth by Rosemary Radford Ruether.

"We seem to be awaiting a planetary rebirth which can come about only when massive catastrophe decisively discredits the present systems of power. We scarcely know whether either the physical or the spiritual resources exist to make such a creative leap beyond disaster. So it is with fear and trembling that we even try to dream of new things.... Perhaps this...demands a letting go of that self-infinitizing view of the self that culminates in the wish for personal immortality. One accepts the fact that it is the whole, not the individual, which is that 'infinite' out of whose womb we arise at birth and into whose womb we are content to return at death, using the human capacity for consciousness, not to alienate ourselves from nature, but rather, to nurture, perfect, and renew her natural harmonies so that earth might be fair, not only for us and our children, but for all generations of living things still to come."

Namaste (I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me),
Jenny

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