Sylvia Patience, Author

Blogs

Happy Spring to you all, and whatever holiday you celebrate at this time. The grandchildren have left, after completing three egg hunts in one day and eating way too much chocolate.

If you’ve been looking at this site from time to time, you may have noticed some pages coming and going or morphing. I’m gradually learning how to put it together the way I envision it. So take a look at the kid’s page. The Anne Boleyn song is there now. I will be adding activities for kids on this page.

I had hoped to take the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I am a member, while they were here. But the visit was too short. Next time. In Wandering Time, Zoe’s Granny Rae used to work there as a marine biologist. Zoe enjoys spending time volunteering with her there on her summer visits.
The aquarium has a new exhibit called Hot Pink Flamingos. I can’t wait to see it. The emphasis is on discovering “how climate change is affecting ocean life”.

March 24, 2010

I’m still learning how to operate this blogging process, so if you sometimes see strange things happening to my pages, it’s just me trying to figure it all out. Fortunately, Nada Miljkovic of Awake Media has offered to follow up on her presentation on blogging with brief individual consultations to answer questions. I need it! Mine will be on Friday, and after that, I hope to be a better blogger.

I plan to add some fun and interactive things on the kids page.

I’m adding a page for midwives and other birth workers (doulas, students). I’ll post related news there, including my work with Aviva Institute and the Dominican Hospital Centering Pregnancy program. All you birth people can stay posted there.

March 20, 2010

Happy Equinox. It feels like Spring. I’m excited to be planning to attend the Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Workshop for Fantasy in Pennsylvania in May as one of eight participants. This is a week long retreat with two authors in which I hope to finish polishing Wandering Time and have it ready to submit to a publisher. Wish me luck.

Meanwhile, Runaway in Time is getting positive feedback from family and members of my critique group who have read it so far. It’s a first draft, but I’ve grown a lot as a writer since I began Wandering Time, so this one will not require as many revisions.

March 16, 2010

Last night I attended a showing of a new video, A Sea Change. It is a beautifully filmed eye-opener about an effect of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is less discussed than global warming. Visit the website, watch the trailer, and order the film at http://www.aseachange.net/.

Billions of tons of CO2 have been absorbed into the ocean and the result is that the oceans are becoming more acid. We need to turn around our CO2 pollution before the ocean food chain is destroyed. The film follows a grandfather, Sven Huseby, as he learns about ocean acidification and tries to find ways to talk about it with his five-year-old grandson.

Sven is fascinated by the beautiful, small pteropods, creatures which form part of the plankton, the base of the ocean food chain. He learns their fragile shells are rapidly destroyed by acidity in the ocean. See pteropods at: http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/~jomce/acidification/Clio_pyramidata_images.html

Sven talks to experts and learns that by investing only 1-2% of our GNP we could cope with the problem of CO2 pollution. He learns about solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources to replace the burning of fossil fuels. A good film to show to young people as well as adults.

March 14, 2010

Thanks to the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz for sponsoring a blogging workshop. Check out their website. They sponsor artists and events as well as putting on the Open Studios every October. And thanks to Nada Miljkovic of Awake Media for providing the information to get a group of us started.

It’s just a beginning for me, but I’m excited to reach out and let you know about my writing and the other activities I’m involved with here in Santa Cruz.

On Saturday, my whole Master Composter class took a tour of the Second Harvest Food Bank in Watsonville. Their website is well worth visiting. They are the first food bank in California, and the second in the U. S. They’ve evolved a lot since they started up in the 1970’s and are now focused on good nutrition and education as well as providing food for the hungry.

They need a Master Composter to help them with their new composting project using Earth Tubs from Green Mountain Technologies, and there were some interested volunteers. We helped add greens and sawdust to one of the tubs and chop and mix it with the imbedded augur.

From the food bank we went to the Vision Recycling facility at the Buena Vista landfill. They turn yardwaste and other green waste into a variety of mulches and landscaping products and have been active in Santa Cruz County since 1997. They turn 90% of our green waste into products that go back to the soil.

Vision Recycling also has a program to collect and compost kitchen scraps from fifty county restaurants and turn it into EcoComp for use on gardens and farms. Unfortunately, this pilot program is in danger of being discontinued, but Vision Recycling and the county are working diligently to find a way to continue composting this material and they have a plan for a larger facility in the future.

Vision Recycling made a generous grant to the Master Composter program which made it possible for my class to take place. The county has had to cut funds to this program in the current economic crisis. In fact, all of the Ecology Action composting programs are in danger of being cut due to lack of funds. But an inspired new group of Master Composters is about to go out and join the other 200 already trained to promote putting our kitchen and yard waste back to enrich the soil.