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Green Living

Seeing Clearly

Green Living Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published on Sarcastic Mom}

A few days ago I was feeling rather icky. You know what I mean. My heart was sticky with the tar of depression, my head was cloudier than a room full of Milton Berles, and my muscles were aching like I had just run a marathon with Sally Struthers strapped to my back.

So, I did the thing that generally makes me feel happier, no matter what else is going on: I kicked the dog put on my jacket, grabbed my camera, and went for a walk. Movement in Sunshine.

It was about 3:30 and very brisk. Clouds were milling around in the sky, crowding the sun as it begain to trail its path to oblivion for the night… As I strolled along, my muscles stretched and yawned. They woke up a little, and endorphins lifted the corners of my mouth, and my mind.

Usually during such a stroll, and basically as a general rule in life, I am intensely drawn towards visions of Beauty in Nature. I always capitalize when I refer to the concept in this way. It is as if it is its own entity, starkly standing out from the muddle that is everything else. My soul seeks out this type of beauty. My heart beats faster, my breathing slows, and my eyes seem to focus more sharply when I bear witness to Beauty in Nature. I feel… well, alive.

During this stroll, it started off that way, and I got a nice shot of the sun caressing these naked, shivering trees one last time before she turned and went to bed.

01.25.08 sunsetwtrees

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Editor Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom | October 27th, 2009 | Category: Author- Lotus Carroll of Sarcastic Mom, Channel- Green Living, Editor-Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom, Featured 2, Green Living, Outdoors, Photography, Thursday 2 | 2 comments

The First Pea

Green Living Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published on The Green Phone Booth!}

Stretching up to my chin, the trim green leaves blotted out the dirt, the borage that really did reseed itself, the dormant foxglove and even the wide stepping stones we put in last fall. A plump green pea pod stood in contrast against the grey March sky. I reached over and gently tugged it from the vine. White flowers, I noted. Shelling pea. The purple flowers were for snap peas and I let the kids get those. But no one was touching my shelling peas.

Sitting on the porch steps, I pried open the pod. Seven tiny peas lined up like clothes in a tween’s closet. Popping them in my mouth, one by one, I realized that I should have waited until the pod was a bit fuller. I also realized that I had a lot of work to do.

It is March and the garden waits for no one. Not even a mom consumed with school volunteer programs and parcel tax campaigns. I shuffled through the envelopes I’d set out on the bench earlier. Pretty packages of pink and green spilled out. Zinnias. Ice box watermelon. Amish pie pumpkin. Potato runner beans. My hopes and dreams for the summer. My homemade meals for the winter.

In years past, spring marched through the garden with neither pomp nor circumstance. The green lawn stretched out sleepily as in winter or summer. The daisies perhaps a bit perkier. The dearth of bees and sparrows rarely varied with the months. The gardeners came through with a bit more regularity perhaps. March never triggered a flurry of activity before. The urgent need to tie back the passion fruit vine, the “o” of surprise when a toad or ladybugs overwintered in the cover crop, the pink blueberry buds peeking out from autumn’s leaves that, neglected, decomposed in the planting beds.

As I sat on my front steps, surrounded by seed packets and dreams, I realize that living this way is a lot more work. I cannot rely on a gardener to mow and blow through my yard once a week. In fact, that gardener and, with him an $80 monthly expense, is long gone. No one will cut down the cover crop and drag it to the compost bin but me. I’m the only one who will take the time - while the kids are in gymnastics class - to sketch out the yard, the open planting spaces, consult Carrots Love Tomatoes, and figure out just where to put the carrots and the tomatoes, the peppers and the potatoes too. When seeds need to be planted or weeds retrieved, it will be my hands that become dirty and chapped. When the grape vine needs to be trained over the trellis or the pomegranate tree transplanted, the responsibility will fall on me. But I’ll also get the first picked pea of the season.

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Editor Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom | September 7th, 2009 | Category: Author - Bean of Green Bean, Channel- Green Living, Editor-Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom, Featured 1, Green Living, Monday 1, Nature, Outdoors, food, gardening | 1 Comment »

A recession friendly Green strategy

{Originally published on Tim Sanders’s Blog Sanders Says}

I don’t believe that we’ll be in a recession forever. I believe that followed by these lows, will be higher highs – hopefully built on reality and not greed.

Until then, though, all of us need to innovate our biz-strategies to account for the current gloomy economic climate. Money is tight, oil is still expensive and inflation is everywhere. If you want to make a difference to the planet, many of your green strategies may seem expensive (eg. Sustainable produce or promotional ingredients). Don’t give up your green-ness. Adapt it to hard times. When it comes to eco-friendliness, I always think about the four R’s: Replace the unsustainable with sustainable, Reuse whenever possible, Reduce the use of unsustainable items and finally Recycle that which is left (especially your e-waste).

If you focus on reuse and reductions, you are being green an likely saving money. That’s the great news. When Interface (a modular carpet company) went after waste to reduce its carbon footprint, it saved three hundred million bucks in the first few years. You can save money too with your green recession strategy. Here are a few ways I’m doing it:

1. Telecommuting one day a week, which saves gas and eating lunch out.
2. Replacing three face to face meetings this month with carefully organized conference calls.
3. Ceating a PDF brochure to email prospects, to replce the printed and mailed ones I’ve been sending.
4. Producing an iTunes version of my Email training product. This reduces the stuff I need to produce and mail.
5. Moving strictly to ground shipping, except in special circumstances. This is for FEDEX as well as USPS. Ground shipping, as Aveda learned, is much friendlier to the environment than air mail.
6. Reusing all paper that’s only printed on one side (for internal use, which is most of it for me).

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Editor Melizzard | July 31st, 2009 | Category: Author - Tim Sanders, Channel- Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Editor - Melissa Breaking The Dress Code, Featured 2, Green Living, Thursday 2 | No Comments »

The Forest Fire

Green Living Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published at The State of Discontent}

Once, there were two wise women who lived as neighbors in a village near a dark forest.

The land near the forest was fertile, and the village prospered. But every few years, a drought would sweep across the land, and fires would break out in the forest. For this reason, for generations, the people of that village had built their modest homes at a distance from the forest, and had taken care to keep the field between the forest and their village free of brush, so that the fire would not spread. And whenever the fires did come, the villages would work together, digging trenches in the field, and bringing pails of water from the river nearby to douse errant sparks and soak the ground around their homes.

But then more than a decade passed without a drought, and as the prosperous village grew more prosperous, and crowded, young families began to build homes in the open, empty field near the forest.

The two wise women considered it folly to take such a chance, and both shook their heads. They both advised their neighbors not to move into the field. But, enticed by the space and beauty the rich, open field afforded, the villagers continued to build there despite the advice of their elders.

Before long, the baron who controlled the realm around the village noticed this trend, and he began to encourage it. Because every time a new farmstead was created in the baron’s jurisdiction, he could tax the family that lived there for the use of the newly cultivated land. “Build near the forest,” the baron urged. “The climate has changed. We may never see a drought again. You are safe from the fires. Build larger homes and farms! Take all the space you want!”

And the loggers selling wood to those building new homes, and the merchants selling furniture, and the roadbuilders who were hired to build new roads into the new part of the village also found reason to encourage this trend. And some villagers even began to borrow money to build new, empty homes, in the hopes that they might encourage people from other villages to move there, and sell the homes at a profit. And so, people began to build houses right into the forest.

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Editor Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom | June 8th, 2009 | Category: Author - Jaelithe of The State of Discontent, Channel- Green Living, Editor-Leighann of Soy is the New Black, Environmentalism, Conservation, Featured 1, Green Living, Monday 1, Nature, Politics, community, gardening | 1 Comment »

Ecology of the Home

Green Living Blog Nosh Magazine

{Originally published by Coral Serene Anderson on the Green Baby Guide}

“It’s a crisp little block home,” my husband chortles.

He is repeating the brokerage blurb we read together the day before, laughing. At the moment, I don’t feel like laughing. We are buying a house. No, we are talking about buying a house. And I am feeling the weight of adulthood and its enjoining twin, responsibility.

“Crisp. As in corn flakes.” I attempt lightheartedness. “Or a cracker. But a house should not be crisp.”

He takes my hand as we walk over the soggy, uneven stretch of grass between our car and the tiny 480-square-foot house. There is an attractively potted palm just right of the door. Cute, really. In the way that palm trees at Christmastime are cute.

It is wintertime, 2007. There are tenants in the block home and, since the seller is in Mexico, they have to be there to let us in. So at six o’clock on a Thursday evening we are standing inside the house looking around, feeling awkward because the tenant is lingering by the kitchen sink watching us. Are we supposed to engage him? I wonder. Instead, after a brief introduction, I try to pretend he’s not there. It takes concentration to imagine myself living here. My fifteen month-old daughter is squealing and has taken off after one of his cats, which gives me a moment to look around.

The walls are white, textured, and the plaster around each window has been rounded. This last detail gives both rooms of the bungalow a soft aspect. And it is warm inside. Sometimes cinder block structures leak heat like a sieve, but in this home they are insulating. Which encourages me, because efficient heating will counterbalance replacing the cigarette laden, ivy-colored carpet that will undoubtedly mean another chip out of our liquid assets.

“Nicer than I thought it would be,” says our realtor to me in a low tone reminiscent of sharing a secret. I must look stressed out, because he clarifies his statement. “More ample, I mean, for such a small space.”

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Editor Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom | January 30th, 2009 | Category: Author- Green Baby Guide, Channel- Green Living, Conservativism, Editor-Leighann of Soy is the New Black, Environmentalism, Conservation, Featured 2, Friday 1, Green Living, Homemaking | 4 comments

10 Tips for Reducing Your Power Bill

House and Home Blog Nosh Magazine
Originally published on Lightening Online.

We recently received notification from our electricity supplier that charges are about to increase. No surprises there. The cost of living is really putting the squeeze on the average household. BUT, we are not powerless (hee, hee - excuse the pun). Now more than ever is a great time to work hard on reducing our usage so that we can reduce the overall impact on such increases.

1. Build Healthy Habits

One of the biggest wastages of power is the habit of not turning things off when not in use. Cultivate the habit of turning out lights when you leave a room and turning off appliance (if you can reach the power point) when not in use.

Image via Wikimedia/Copyright © 2005 David Monniaux

2. Make Use of What Nature Has to Offer

In winter you want to open up the curtains (window coverings) on a sunny day and make sure you close them again BEFORE the sun goes down to trap warmth inside and not allow the night chill to enter the house through the glass.

In summer, it’s more important to keep the sun OUT during the day and open up the house at night to take advantage of the cooler night air.

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Editor catnip | November 11th, 2008 | Category: Author- Lightening, Channel- Homemaking, Editor- Catnip, Environmentalism, Conservation, Featured 1, Green Living, Homemaking, Tuesday 1 | 1 Comment »

The Sweet Cha-Ching of the Holidays

House and Home Blog Nosh Magazine
{Originally published on Surely You Nest}

Well, my friends. It’s that time of year again. Time to snap those wallets shut and think about the true meaning of the holidays (even if you are not religious). I really love tradition, and celebrating with my family and friends. And usually, making the green choice involves having forethought and carefully planning how to tackle an event. So here are a few successful strategies I’ve found for limiting the giving-and-getting beast over the upcoming holiday season. Consider this a to-do-list for myself for the fall.

Halloween

  • Make our costumes; the more I can upcycle the better (signed up for a basic sewing class!)
  • Buy pre-packaged treats to offer kids at the door (I just ordered fair trade chocolates from Global Exchange) including non-food options like stickers and pencils, but make (more alluring) homemade stuff for the kids we know — like caramel apples or silly looking cookies
  • Get my kids to collect for Unicef
  • Order kit to educate adults about fair-trade chocolate issues (from Global Exchange - deadline is Oct. 1 for groups and Oct. 13 for individuals)
  • Make our decorations (ghosts out of tissues or handkerchiefs, paper-and-paint old-school decor)
  • Head out to the country for apple picking, hay rides, and selecting the perfect jack o’lantern from the pumpkin patch
  • Have a blast carving pumpkins and eating roasted pumpkin seeds
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Editor Amy Turn Sharp | October 29th, 2008 | Category: Author-Surely You Nest, Channel- Homemaking, Editor- Amy Turn Sharp, Environmentalism, Conservation, Family, Featured 2, Green Living, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Wednesday 2 | 1 Comment »

Sustainable Kitchen Project

House and Home Blog Nosh Magazine

{Originally posted on Kelby Carr}

When I decided to work at home most days, a major MAJOR factor was having more time to make good for my family. I wanted to use more fresh ingredients, and make more things from scratch. Oh, in my mind, I would be the uber foodie mom, baking and creating and freezing and canning and doing various fun things. I should totally have a sustainable kitchen.

In my kitchen, I have gadgets for making yogurt, juice, pasta, even sausage. I have a bread maker missing just one piece. Besides that, I have the knowledge (or the ability to Google and find out) to make any number of things from scratch. I have plenty of land to grow my own stuff, and I live in Asheville, NC where it is super easy to find cool locally grown produce.

Yet, my gadgets and cookbooks are gathering dust. I still hit the Super-Walmart so I can super consume. I spend $200-plus at least once a week on groceries. And I do still, sometimes (although definitely less and less often as I am at home more), give my children processed, packaged crap. OK, I said it. I may be a foodie mom, but I am a real mom. I am buying things in extra packaging for extra money and being totally non-green when I could just make and store things at home. Criticize away, if you must.

I blame life and having lots of work and having three kids and all of that. But when my twins were babies, I was working full-time and making homemade baby and pumping milk for them to have at daycare. It wasn’t easy, and I was pretty much psychotically exhausted. But it should be even easier now, much easier. So I clearly CAN do it.

So I’ve decided I will create this public as a way to motivate myself, to keep myself honest, to connect with other moms who want a more self-sustaining kitchen, and to track my progress. I’ve already started in a few ways, and I’ll post about these very soon. For example, we are starting an organic vegetable garden. Here is a lettuce seedling I’ve started:

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Editor catnip | October 23rd, 2008 | Category: Author-Kelby Carr, Channel- Homemaking, Cooking, Editor- Catnip, Featured 1, Food Philosophy, Green Living, Homemaking, Thursday 1, food, gardening | 6 comments

BPA: Better safe than sorry?

Homemaking

Originally posted on Diary of a Modern Matriarch.

I’m sure you have all heard on the news and media about the safety of the plastics we use, specifically in baby bottles, sippy cups, bowls, etc., especially regarding the chemical Bisphenol-A. In case you’ve been living in a cave, here is what it is:

From the Green Guide:

“Depending on whom you talk to, BPA is either perfectly safe or a dangerous health risk. The plastics industry says it is harmless, but a growing number of scientists are concluding, from some animal tests, that exposure to BPA in the womb raises the risk of certain cancers, hampers fertility and could contribute to childhood behavioral problems such as hyperactivity.

According to its critics, BPA mimics naturally occurring estrogen, a hormone that is part of the endocrine system, the body’s finely tuned messaging service. “These hormones control the development of the brain, the reproductive system and many other systems in the developing fetus,” says Frederick Saal, Ph.D., a developmental biologist at the University of Missouri. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can duplicate, block or exaggerate hormonal responses. “The most harm is to the unborn or newborn child,” Saal says.

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Editor catnip | August 26th, 2008 | Category: Author- Diary of a Modern Matriarch, Channel- Homemaking, Editor- Catnip, Family, Green Living, Health, Homemaking | 2 comments