Walking Their Talk
Story and Photos by Sandy Steers

It all started with the 1992 Landers/Big Bear earthquakes, when lots of things Peggy and Jim Otterstrom owned got broken. “We didn’t like our ‘throw-away society’s’ consumptive patterns, and even though we couldn’t change the world’s path, we could change our own,” says Jim. So, they started replacing the things they had lost with items that lasted a long time and were powered with muscle energy rather than electricity—an old stainless steel percolator, a hand crank coffee grinder from an antique store, a push lawn mower, a hand plow, a sharpening stone. “And since we have to use our muscles with them, they also give us exercise.”

“Then we started walking to work,” says Peggy, “and had talked about the idea of living without a car.” When an accident put their car in the shop for three months, they took a pact to go without one for one year. Twelve years later, they still do not own a car and the space where the driveway used to be is dedicated to a beautifully landscaped native plant garden. The majority of their local travel is on foot or by bicycle. They take the metro into LA, take train trips to San Francisco and rent a car a few times a year for travel out of town. “Not owning a car gives you a different perspective on things,” Peggy says. “And economically,” Jim adds, “it’s like having an extra income.”

“I was also looking for a craft,” says Jim, “especially a non-toxic one made from materials that are right here and readily available.” He ran across a book on weaving baskets from pine needles. “The materials described in the book were not all natural, but when I changed to using hemp twine and finishing with bee’s wax, I felt really good about the whole process.” Jim’s first pine needle basket took about 80 hours to make, but now he can create one in about 35 hours. Peggy has also taken up basket weaving.

As Jim walks or bikes around the valley, he collects seeds for his native plant garden, or gathers plants about to be displaced by development. The yard they have created is now one of the regular highlights on the Big Bear Sierra Club’s annual Xeriscape tour. The Otterstroms also grow their own vegetables, raise chickens for eggs and process acorns into food. “The earth has such abundance for us,” says Peggy, “if we open our eyes and see it.”

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