Eve's Garden Organic Bed & Breakfast and Ecology Resource Center

Holistic B&B in remote Marathon deserves a return visit

By Camille Flores
Assistant Features Editor
San Antonio Express-News
October 10, 2004

MARATHON — The first time I visited Eve’s Garden Organic Bed & Breakfast in Marathon, I was looking for a healthful meal. The drive between El Paso and San Antonio on U.S. 90 is surreally beautiful, lonesome for the most part, and devoid of vegetarian restaurants. I had spotted an ad for Eve’s in a regional magazine and determined to find it on the off chance it served lunch as well as breakfast.

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The Not-So-Secret Garden

By Marlys Hersey
The Big Bend Gazette, May 2004

MARATHON — I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Or Charlie in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I’m clearly in a magical place, however there is no sinister rabbit coaxing me on, no enigmatic, snappish Willy Wonka leading me further into his factory and testing to see if I’m worthy of learning his secrets of the trade.

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About Eve’s Garden

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Eve’s Garden is an organic Bed and Breakfast and Ecology Resource Center, located in the beautiful high mountain desert of West Texas, at the gateway to Big Bend National Park, in Marathon, Texas. Eve’s Garden is a research level organic gardening demonstration site and an urban hacienda, combining to provide a comfortable Bed and Breakfast environment and a conversational forum to address issues regarding the ecology we live in.

Every effort has been made to combine elements of “art”, “architecture”, and “ecology” in the layout and construction of this unusually progressive piece of work. A large amount of recycled content, strawbale buildings, paper adobe/fiber cement buildings, high Mexican contemporary color treatments, and a focus on locally produced food, conspire to create an aura of thoughtfulness.

“Thoughtfulness” — this is our goal — to motivate our guests to pursue the projects they have in their minds, and recognize that they can make a difference.

We, Clyde T. Curry and Kate Thayer, invite you to come and share your vision for the future and to see our work. Enjoy a stay at our Bed and Breakfast, join the FORUM on our website, and survey our environmental links.

We invite you to get involved, because “we” are the “they” in “they need to do something”.

Living in Paper

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livinginpaper.com is a detailed, up-to-date source of information about using waste paper for affordable, sustainable housing. In the United States, we discard enough paper each year to build a wall 48 feet high around the entire perimeter of the country. Even though about 45 percent of discarded paper is recycled annually, 55 percent or 48 million tons of paper is thrown away or goes into the landfills. Figuring conservatively, it takes about fifteen trees to make a ton of paper. That means that 720 million trees are used once and then buried in a landfill each year. We are experimenting with ways to turn this prodigious amount of waste into low-cost, high-value sustainable housing.

More at livinginpaper.com ...

A Vision for a New Civilization

If we are to create a Paradise on Earth we will have to change the way we live with ourselves.

In developed countries, the high cost of living requires that we earn lots of money. If we work hard and earn a lot, then something must be produced with that effort. If goods are produced, they must be consumed or else we will have no work. If they are consumed, natural resources must be used. If natural resources are used excessively and not recycled, as they presently are, then the earth is wasted. Therefore a high standard of living, based upon mass consumption and minimal recycling (our present design) inevitably leads to the destruction of the ecosystems that we rely upon for our survival. If undeveloped countries follow our path, the destruction of the ecosystems we depend upon is assured.

If we can eliminate the high cost of living, then we can live more sensibly on the Earth. In the past, a simpler lifestyle meant a low quality of life, but does it really have to be?

read more at planetaryrenewal.org

Treading lighter with low-carbon diets

To address the problem of greenhouse gases, conscientious consumers are turning their attention to the supermarket and dinner table. It’s not just paper versus plastic anymore.

By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2008

Not every student in line at the University of Redlands cafeteria was ready for self-sacrifice to save the planet.

“No hamburger patties?” asked an incredulous football player, repeating the words of the grill cook. He glowered at the posted sign: “Cows or cars? Worldwide, livestock emits 18% of greenhouse gases, more than the transportation sector! Today we’re offering great-tasting vegetarian choices.”

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Michael Chertoff’s Insult

Editorial
The New York Times
April 3, 2008

To the long list of things the Bush administration is willing to trash in its rush to appease immigration hard-liners, you can now add dozens of important environmental laws and hundreds of thousands of acres of fragile habitat on the southern border.

On Tuesday, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, waived the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and other environmental protections to allow the government to finish building 700 or so miles of border fence by year’s end without undertaking legally mandated reviews of the consequences for threatened wildlife and their habitats.

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Government Issues Waiver for Fencing Along Border

By Randal C. Archibold
The New York Times
April 2, 2008

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Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird?

By Bridget Stutchbury
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
March 30, 2008

Woodbridge, Ontario

Though a consumer may not be able to tell the difference, a striking red and blue Thomas the Tank Engine made in Wisconsin is not the same as one manufactured in China — the paint on the Chinese twin may contain dangerous levels of lead. In the same way, a plump red tomato from Florida is often not the same as one grown in Mexico. The imported fruits and vegetables found in our shopping carts in winter and early spring are grown with types and amounts of pesticides that would often be illegal in the United States.

In this case, the victims are North American songbirds. Bobolinks, called skunk blackbirds in some places, were once a common sight in the Eastern United States. In mating season, the male in his handsome tuxedo-like suit sings deliriously as he whirrs madly over the hayfields. Bobolink numbers have plummeted almost 50 percent in the last four decades, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.

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Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a ‘Clean’ Fuel

By Brenda Goodman
The New York Times
March 11, 2008

MOUNDVILLE, Ala. — After residents of the Riverbend Farms subdivision noticed that an oily, fetid substance had begun fouling the Black Warrior River, which runs through their backyards, Mark Storey, a retired petroleum plant worker, hopped into his boat to follow it upstream to its source. It turned out to be an old chemical factory that had been converted into Alabama’s first biodiesel plant, a refinery that intended to turn soybean oil into earth-friendly fuel. “I’m all for the plant,” Mr. Storey said. “But I was really amazed that a plant like that would produce anything that could get into the river without taking the necessary precautions.”

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