Sustainable Living Archives - Page 5 of 15

Crapper: A Visual History

May 2, 2012June 16, 2011 by David Mark Brown

Thomas crapper poster Feces. Manure. Defecation. BM. Stool. Excreta. Dejection. Ordure. Body waste. Dung. Excrement. Crap. Whatever you call it, humankind has pooped since first walking in the garden with God. And throughout history, one key indicator of the sustainability of a culture’s society has been how it manages its manure. Sanitary management of excrement can be the difference between lock-jaw and locking lips with a loved one, thus should be celebrated as modern man’s greatest achievement.

Here at the Green Porch we’re doing our part with this visual tribute to the unheralded hero of spiriting away our bodily juices. The crapper.

Mess With Texas

June 9, 2011 by David Mark Brown

I say mess with Texas, ’cause it sure as hell is gonna’ mess with you. I’ve said it for years. Why do people put up with it? Everything in Texas wants to kill you. It’s like God’s experimental test grounds for militarized nature: killer bees, fire ants, scorpions, rattle snakes (who no longer rattle), cactus, locus trees, pickled okra, Branch Davidians…

Then you’ve got apocalyptic hail storms like grapefuit-sized goiters from heaven, firestorms, and Cary-Elwes-killing, Bill-Paxton-chasing F5 twisters known as the Finger of God! Is it just me, or

Redneck Sustainability: Paint Glove Philosophy

June 6, 2011 by David Mark Brown

Some of my uninitiated readers may yet be ignorant of such things as paint gloves or paint mitts. But they’re essentially paint brushes you wear on your hands, used mostly for painting pipe and such. As a young redneck I spent much of one glorious summer gently caressing the underbellies of mile after mile of pipe while wearing said paint glove.

The job at hand was to freshen up the pipe corrals on the family ranch which consisted of enough lots, runs, gates, chutes and ladders to create a dozen life-sized redneck versions of the child’s board game. Lest you think I exaggerate, I’ve included a photograph of a stockpile of metal pipe of which I’m sure would be insufficient to represent the amount of pipe constituted by our corrals.

The six-pipe-high corral, (redneck maze of pipe) equalled a butt-load of rustoleum red paint and a couple dozen lambs wool paint gloves. If it hadn’t of been for the tinny, ranch truck radio set to 94.9 the EDGE and basking me in Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus, and Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, I would have truly gone mad.