Trees in My Backyard Officially Giving Up on Winter

The National Park Service won't even issue its first cherry blossom forecast until March 1, but it's February 23 and the trees in Falls Church are already starting to bloom. Who's ready for an earlier allergy season fueled by global warming? Tree pollen is already considered high.

One Small Recycling Event Keeps 30,632 Pounds of Electronics Out of Landfills

I was really impressed by Saturday's Fall Recycling Extravaganza here in Falls Church. There were plenty of staff, the event was well-organized, there was no line, and in no time I'd dropped off about 50 pounds of old electronics (most of that a computer & its monitor).

How much electronic equipment, potentially laden with hazardous material, was kept out of the landfill? Here's a tally from Barbara Gordon, Falls Church director of communications:

A total of 30,632 pounds or 15.3 tons of electronics and computer equipment were collected at the City of Falls Church’s fall Recycling Extravaganza on Sept. 10. Total weight of items collected and therefore kept out of the waste stream and the land fill were:

• 19,472 pounds of electronics
• 136 TVs, estimated at 6,120 pounds
• 144 computer monitors, estimated at 5,040 pounds
• Combined total 11,160 pounds of cathode ray tubes

And that's just in a Little City of 12,332. If your community isn't holding a similar event, it's not because there isn't demand.

My Apartment Building Says Bikes Hurt Property Values

From my August newsletter here at Roosevelt Towers in Falls Church:

In walking in the community, we have seen a number of bicycles locked up on the railing of the lower lobby entrance. This is NOT the place for them, not the look we want to portray for potential and/or current residents and more importantly, it is an extreme safety hazard. Because we are unaware of who they belong to, we ask that the owners of these bicycles please remove them immediately. We do have storage space allotted for bicycles. We ask all residents to please help us in keeping the community beautiful and safe!

Given that my building is less than a mile from East Falls Church Metro & the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, I can imagine bike commuting is a popular option. I can also understand why people might not want to drag their bikes into the building, up some stairs, and down a long hallway to a storage area, then repeat the process before work the next day.

What's less understandable is the "extreme safety hazard" reference. The areas in question are wide paths, so they're not blocking the way. And there are railings on either side, so it's not like they're costing elderly residents their only handhold. If you were trying to move in or out through that entrance, it might be annoying, but dangerous? What are they really getting at here?

Then we come to the real meat of the argument: Thinly-veiled references that only poor people use bikes to get around frequently. The rest of us can lock up our bikes in storage and only pull them out on weekends.

It's strange that building management would respond to apparent resident need for more convenient bike storage not by gauging interest in a bike rack but by threatening to confiscate bikes. And it's not like the complex is hurting for outdoor space - even on the most-full nights, there are always at least 5 empty spots in the parking lot and usually a lot more.

They were responsive on my request for more recycling, so I emailed them:

I don't have a bike myself, but if there's such great demand for bike storage closer to the street, why not install a bike rack in one of the surplus parking spaces on the north side of the building?

I haven't heard back.

Do Bland Vegetables Make Us Fat?

I was making my work lunch salads tonight and took a bite of the organic green pepper I'd gotten from Harris Teeter - so incredibly tasteless, it was barely a step above cold styrofoam. Then I tried one of the grape tomatoes - my mouth barely even registered that there was something in it. May be time to get off my butt on Saturday mornings & check out the Falls Church Farmers Market.

Are bland vegetables the reason restaurants pile fat, salt & sugar on top of their salads to make them more appealing? Fresh, local vegetables are more expensive than huge cans of refried beans. And the vegetables go bad faster & need to be refrigerated - terrible for profit margins.

So today, we salute you, Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor. America couldn't have hit an obesity rate of one in three without you.

Rainbow Six: Bird Feeder Edition

One of the biggest myths of wildlife-watching is that you have to be at a zoo, a state or national park, or a wildlife refuge to see anything.

But here in East Falls Church, my simple bird-feeder stocked black oil sunflower seed continues to attract a wide range of birds. In fact, a bird showed up last week that I don't think I've ever seen before. When I first saw it, my brain thought "blue jay lite" - blue back, white chest, crested head - but it was way too small and not nearly as shrill. My National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Birds told me it was a tufted titmouse. (Yes, I keep a bird guide under the window. If the interns at work are going to call me a dorky old man, why not own it?)

The titmouse crept up on the feeder in a precision assault, picking off one seed at a time, always in the same fashion - from a tree across the parking lot, to my fence post, to the feeder, to the balcony upstairs to eat - pausing for only a moment at each stop to reassess the situation.

Another first-time visitor showed up the same day: A Carolina chickadee. The bird guide indicated that likely wasn't a coincidence, as the titmouse is known to hang out with other birds, maybe for protection in numbers.

So far, the species I've spotted in just the few months since I started putting out birdseed:

• Tufted Titmouse
• Carolina Chickadee
• Sharp-Shinned Hawk
• Carolina Wren
• Northern Cardinal
• Mourning Dove
• English Sparrow
• European Starling

And of course, plenty of squirrels. The National Wildlife Federation can teach you more about making your own yard (or even a porch, patio or balcony) a friendlier place for wildlife. I wouldn't be disappointed if all you get is sparrows the first few weeks, especially if you're right in the city. But spotting even one cardinal or blue jay in the morning can make the commute to work seem a little less dreary.

UPDATE 3/15/2011: The original post referred to the second bird as a black-capped chickadee. However, I told the story to my NWF colleague Doug Inkley, who says it was much more likely a Carolina chickadee. Doug says the two birds look nearly identical, but in this region the black-capped hangs out at higher elevations (like the Appalachian Mountains) while the Carolina is at lower elevations (like Falls Church).

Falls Church Tops in Virginia Recycling Rates

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has issued its annual recycling report (PDF). Virginia had a 38.6% recycling rate statewide in calendar year 2009, just barely higher than the year before. But as the Roanoke Times points out, it marked a milestone as every jurisdiction in Virginia met its minimum "required" goal of 15% (considering the DEQ has never fined a locality for failing to meet the minimum, it's not much of a requirement).

Elsewhere locally, Fairfax City also ranked highly with a 49.9% recycling rate. Arlington came in at 40%, barely topping the state average. The Virginia General Assembly, aligning itself with waste haulers, has repeatedly blocked Arlington's efforts to toughen its recycling programs. Fairfax County was just behind with 39.4%, while Alexandria badly trails the state average at just 28.6%.

And if all that wasn't enough to get you excited about recycling, check out this Environmental Protection Agency video:

The Green Miles Leaves Arlington

OK, so I'm only going two blocks outside Arlington into Falls Church. And I hope to put the savings that come from the move towards a condo in Arlington someday soon. But I couldn't pass up the vastly better deal that comes from moving literally 500 feet away from Arlington:

• In Arlington, I could've had a good quality apartment with a balcony in a high-rise with a pool & gym that was a 10 minute walk from Metro but not right next to anything for about $1600.
  
• In East Falls Church, I'm getting a good quality apartment with a patio area in a high-rise with a pool & gym that's a 15 minute walk from Metro but not right next to anything for about $1100.

I priced apartments in different areas, but to get to my target price range in Arlington, I'd have had to leave the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, give up proximity to Metro, or lose quality of apartment. Basically, an older apartment off the Pike with a longer commute would've been the same price as the nice place a short walk from Metro in EFC. And my new places is walking distance from some places I love in Arlington, like Upton Hill Regional Park & Westover.

And, much as I hate to admit it as a shameless Arlington homer ... my time in East Falls Church so far has been pretty nice. My apartment features this view of big old trees & I'm becoming reacquainted with how loud blue jays can be when they put their minds to it. My walk to Metro crosses Four Mile Run & I've now seen rabbits hopping past twice, making the 15 minute walk seem almost shorter than my previous 10 minute walk through the generic concrete office canyons of Ballston. And my building is much more pleasantly diverse than the filing cabinet for young professionals I'd been living in.

My friends have been reacting with mock horror when I tell them I'm leaving Arlington, especially after having run for Virginia House of Delegates here. To which I say, I don't know how to break this to you, but ... I lost. About the only fringe benefit of that is that I get to be a normal person & not be constrained by political boundaries. But it's also a statement about the guy who won -- Patrick Hope has been a great delegate in the 47th & I hope he continues to be for years to come.

So yes, I'd like to have stayed in Arlington, but I wasn't willing to spend an extra $6,000 annually just to keep "Arlington" in my mailing address for the next couple of years. I'll still be active in Arlington issues & politics (I'll be volunteering with Arlington Young Democrats this weekend), and am eager to learn where a mouthy treehugger might be able to help out on progressive issues in Falls Church. And maybe by the time I'm ready to move again, the bright line dividing affordable apartments in Falls Church from single-family homes on the Arlington side of the line will have been softened by the long-overdue EFC redevelopment plan.