Little Green Stuff

In my last post I said I would try to be mindful of my green-ness for a week. Shockingly, for those who know my weakness for squirrels and shiny objects, I did it. It was actually a very refreshing way to rein in the onslaught of emotions I had about this whole lifestyle upgrade. It's been hard to feel like there's anything one person can do in the face of the environmental disaster in the Gulf, but focusing on the little day-to-day stuff really showed me how much I've learned and how much one person really CAN do, and we all need a pat on the back every now and then. Here are some of the observations I made on my "little green stuff" list:

Researched geothermal systems
Turned off lights and tv before naptime
Picked up trash the landscapers left (i.e. others' trash, not just my own)
Used microwave instead of oven
Watered all plants in the early morning and used self-watering pots
Discussed our green progress with the family
Cooked food in double batches to save energy
Spoke to my parents about their green habits
Watched Planet Green with the family

It's not a complete list, by any means, but it did help me to see that even if I don't always make the best choice for the world, I DO always think about it now. I have to confess that I didn't even consider where my steak came from until dessert last weekend, but hey, date nights (and steak) happen about twice a year around here. At least we supported a local business!

Getting back to the list, the last item, watching Planet Green, comes with mixed emotions. I'm totally addicted to that channel, which means I spend far too much time watching tv instead of doing, well, better things. The tv burns energy, and I lose hours of my life. On the other hand, I've learned a LOT from watching Planet Green*. Yeah, some of the shows are kind of silly, and others are common sense, at least to me, but some of them have been really valuable resources. Bill Nye (the Science Guy) hosts "Stuff Happens", which explains environmental issues in his usual funny, helpful manner, and states clearly what we can do to help - love that! World's Greenest Homes, Renovation Nation, and Greenovate all make me fantasize about our "someday" home. Even the commercials are useful. Go to Oceana.org to pledge to help the oceans, and the organization will receive $1 to help save our oceans. (Just click on the heroes link on the lower left.) To date, over 125 Sea Turtles have been found dead since the oil spill, and BP officials claim it has nothing to do with their oil spill. Uh, yeah, right. Obviously, the ocean really, really needs our help - please do what you can.

By the way, I'm avoiding using the horrible pictures of dead wildlife, in case you read this with your children in your lap or with them, etc... but if you have any doubt of the extent of the tragedy, Google or Bing "Deep Horizon Oil Spill" images. You won't see birds getting baths in Dawn dish liquid. You'll see dead ones, as well as turtles, dolphins, and even shrimp that are supposedly in "safe" waters, yet are dying in the millions. One hurricane, or a strong current, and this will befall the only coral reef in the U.S, the entire East Coast, and the Gulf Stream all the way to Europe. Hurricane season starts in 6 days.

Now I'm off to water my "garden" again, before the sun gets too high and my little plants get thirsty. They've just started to bloom, and I'm so proud. I feel almost like when my kids' first teeth came in LOL. Of course, J.S. is already harvesting his veggies. J.S. has more squash than he knows what to do with - already. Fine. He's only the latest in a long line of over-achievers I can only hope to emulate. What matters is that somewhere not far from here there's at least one other family eating very, very locally (he didn't have to rub in that he also line-caught the Grouper that afternoon!). It doesn't get more local than that, and I'm glad we still have that luxury, for now.

*I suspect Planet Green is about to change their name to Verge. By the time you read this, it could happen, but the links, hopefully, will still work. If I were PG, I'd make sure my links kept working...

Embracing My Eco-Footprint

ARGH! No wonder the Earth is going to hell in a handbasket. Here I am, an educated, well-intentioned woman with the support of my friends and family, and going green is a massive pain in the tail. Why, if I didn't have 20 hours a day to devote to it, unlimited educational resources at my disposal, and enough guilt to bring down the Vatican, why, I don't know how I'd do it.

Ok, maybe that's a bit much. Perhaps I should watch less Planet Green. Or focus on my accomplishments. Or heck, even give this blog a rest. To be fair, I am a bit of a control freak and insomniac who tends to think things to death. On one hand, that's the perfect person to lead a massive lifestyle overhaul. On the other hand, I'm totally overwhelmed this time. The gap between the average American family and the green ideal is so huge, I hardly know where to start. Worse, the more I look for guidance, the more I discover I'm not doing, and the worse I feel. One of my favorite people is moving away soon, and the only silver lining to her move is that I won't feel so guilty now that she won't be inside my evil, wasteful house anymore (my words, not hers - she's actually very non-judgmental, hence, one of my favorite people).

But I don't need her around to make me feel bad anyway. I just tried two different ecological footprint calculators and got vastly different, confusing results. One said I was a "40". 40 what? I can assure you, I ain't 40, thank you very much. The other said my household is so wasteful that our eco-footprint is 25 hectares. That's 250 acres, right? Really? Because I just watched Wa$ted, the show based on this very calculator and watched people in a 5000 sq. ft. home who took 40-minute showers and didn't recycle and their footprint was only 104 acres. I'm not strip mining an endangered animal reserve in my backyard. I don't slash and burn tires for fun. I don't wave plastic bags like prayer flags out my giant SUV windows while driving through protected wetlands. So what gives? Maybe the calculator sensed I'm on the Gulf Coast and automatically factored in the oil spill.*

I've had it with feeling guilty. I've had it with way too much information, and conflicting information at that. I'm tired of being frustrated with the limitations of not owning our home or land. There MUST be more people in the same boat as my family than on the green boat to sustainable living. Right? We can't be the only bad people left, right?

Here's my new plan, just to get me though this slough of despond. This week, I'm embracing all things green. I'm going to try, for one week, to focus on being green. I'm not always going to make the best choice, but I'm going to at least make a choice. I'm going to consider my options before acting. Maybe there are greener choices right in front of me that I'm missing, overthinking, or simply overlooking. I'm going to embrace the mountain of information and decisions, just for these few days, rather than being buried by them. At the end of the week, I don't know if I'll be more green or less, pleased or disappointed, exhausted or rejuvenated, but at least I will have dedicated myself to the Earth for a little while, and no matter what, that can't be bad.

* Actually, 25 hectares is about 61 acres, which is probably pretty accurate. However, the fact that each calculator uses it's own units and doesn't explain them just goes to demonstrate the challenges of going green.

Our First Garden

You can't get any more local than growing your own food. This year, for the first time ever, I'm trying just that. I've intended to start a garden all spring, but I'm just getting around to it now. Not the best start, but at least I'm finally doing it. I tend to over-plan everything, and this project was no exception. I'd like to tell you that my yard now puts The Victory Garden to shame, but it might cause a few of my friends great suffering as they laughed to death.

At first, I thought I wanted to try hydroponics, and I still do, but not on base housing a few months before we have to pack up and move. The same concerns put a real damper on a traditional garden, raised beds, square-foot gardening, and all those other gardens that are actually in the ground. Unfortunately, when we move out, we have to leave the same weeds, er, lawn we got when we moved in. To be honest, though, I'm pretty sure there are some chemicals in that ground, so maybe it's not so bad that I ultimately chose a small (ok, downright puny) container garden. Hey - I've never done this before! There was no point in killing hundreds of innocent plants.

I was actually at the book store to buy the new Square-Foot Gardening book when I found Guide to Florida Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, by Robert Bowden. I'm not sure that it will save all my gardening dreams, but so far it's been really helpful in getting started. Without boring me to tears, Robert gives all the basics, from what to plant when and where to harvesting and eating. Even though the book doesn't announce it, Robert believes in chemical-free, organic gardening except when all else has failed. Basically, it's a fun-to-read, quick reference to natural gardening. He also says point blank that there's no shame in planting only one of something, just to see if you can grow it, and for that I am forever in his debt. After I read this book (and got a "just do it, already!" email from my sister), I finally bought a few seedlings and self-watering containers.

When I say this is my first garden, I mean first vegetable garden. I've had a little bit of luck growing herbs in containers in the past. This year my rosemary and basil are doing very well, and most of the others are, well, not dead yet. With that winning track record, I bought 2 cherry tomato seedlings, 2 pepper seedlings, some cucumber shoots, and 2 zucchini seedlings. I got two of everything to better my odds of success, if you follow me. I got self-watering hanging baskets for the tomatoes, and self-watering rectangular planters for everything else. I really want to try an Earth Box, but there aren't any local distributors and I've heard that shipping them is wicked expensive and goes wrong as often as it goes well. The boxes themselves get great reviews though, so if I ever find them locally, I'm still hoping to try them out sometime. In the meantime, I have ordinary planters. Sometimes "done" is better than "perfect"!

And done I'll have to be, because I'm out of money. Organic gardening soil, $70, pots and planters, $34, seedlings, $21. It's not a lot of cash, especially in light of the garden's potential, but it sure doesn't look like $100+ worth of food right now. Who knows if it ever will be? What matters is that my family is growing organic food at home together.

A Mad Lib Story by Cub Scout Pack 662

Being a mom has its perks, one of which is getting to do Cub Scout activities with my son (although I have to beg his dad to give me a chance now and then!). Tonight I spoke to them about communicating to many people by writing on the Internet. So here, for all the world to see, is the Mad Lib story the boys "wrote" tonight. (The words they gave me are bold, and no, they didn't know what the story was, even though some of the words seem to fit perfectly!) Enjoy!

Camping Trip

A group of us were sitting around a raging tree one night roasting airplanes and telling red stories when we heard a little noise coming from the fire. We jumped up and saw a gigantic light floating toward us. It looked like a disembodied frog, and we had to cover our heart because it was so hard. The weird figure scored above the flames until the fire went out, leaving us in total fastness. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the dark apparition drifted away and Yea! and behold - the fire was raging again. In addition, all our hairy food had disappeared. Nobody believed this story when we got home, but we decided that whatever the humongous thing was, it didn't want us to eat all the slimy marshmallows.