FIMBY

Farmer's Market Flowers

Not too many years ago in the past I almost exclusively shopped at Wal-Mart (shh... don't tell anyone), it was cheapest after all. The only thing local there was the poorly paid and under-insured "associates". To be fair our family budget was tighter. We were still paying down consumer debt (a folly we won't ever repeat) and saving for a house down payment. I wonder if my miserly shopping helped us save money? Probably, but now we're choosing to save money other ways so we can purchase food according to our values.

Our biggest money saver is owning a small home (we rent out the basement), on a small lot in the community my husband works in, walking distance from his job. A huge blessing and a choice I realize not everyone can make. But even if it weren't "easy" walking distance away he'd hoof it on foot, longboard or bike, that's the kind of guy he is. Living close to employment, and sacrificing a larger lot in the "country", enables us to live very comfortably with only one car. In fact, it goes days not being used and during those times we sometimes lend it to friends so they don't need to own a car.

But wait, don't we have children? Yep, 3. And don't we camp? Yep, every month. How can we manage with just a car, not even any roof rack, trailers or other "carry more stuff" storage? Light living is the name of the game.

Owning one, small, old car and not driving it a lot, having no debt and a smaller urban footprint (fancy speak for living on a small city lot and renting part of our house) are three biggies that enable us to buy more local food.

I heard the other day on NPR the "average US family" is now spending $100/week for gas (I nearly croaked). I'd rather pay $30/week and use the "savings" to buy more I-know-the-farmer grown food. To be sure, we're not driving in luxury. Our car is 15 years old, there's little squirmies living under the booster seats , and the AC stopped working years ago. But who cares we're eating well.

But what about those who aren't so blessed? Those who are on very limited incomes and can't even afford to own a car, never mind limiting their car usage.

Stay tuned for next week's (and the last - I'll get off the soapbox, promise) local food post on making sustainable, local food affordable for everyone.

One last question. Where would you rather spend your money and time?

Local Farmer's Market

There's been a lot of potty talk these days and not from the usual under-four-foot tall crowd.

It started over a month ago when Samantha at Our Green House wrote about hating waste and hum... could she somehow reduce that daily, down the toilet, paper waste??

Right around the same time I was feeling pretty good about our family making the switch to recycled, save-the-trees, toilet paper. That didn't last too long though as my friend Cori upped the anti with her Uber-Eco recycled, for real save-the-trees, cloth toilet wipes.

I'm not the only one noticing all this potty talk. Even my friend Rich (not so much of a tree hugger but great guy who plays a mean uilleann pipes), just posted this week about the growing cloth trend.

What's going on here? Until just a couple months ago I was blissfully ignorant of any toilet "alternatives", excepting of course composting toilets which are very cool but kind of impractical in our current bathroom directly off of kitchen house arrangement.

I'd of been content, for now, to stop the discussion here. However, my research-happy husband, whose RSS reader keeps him up to date with all the techie-eco trends, has one-upped ya' all.

I should of started to worry when he innocently asked "how much do we spend on toilet paper each month?". Next thing I know, "because for a year's worth of [kind of expensive recycled] toilet paper we could get a bidet. And it would fit right on our current toilet." (like this is a good thing)

Oh brother! We are weird enough already. This would shoot us right up into the eco-wacky stratosphere.

I gleaned peas from the farm this morning. No altruistic motivations here (wish I could say I donated them to less fortunate folks), just taking advantage of stocking the freezer with free, organic veggies. This isn't the norm though. Obtaining local, organic and sustainably grown foods costs, sometimes a lot. So why do we do it?

Basically, our family has made the choice to value the health of our bodies, community, planet and the farmers who grow our food. Incidentally, these are also the reasons, more or less, for us choosing a plant based diet.

But the health benefits of sustainable foods aren't just physical. Knowing your farmer is good for your whole health and well being. Buying food from local farms is spiritually grounding and a return to our roots. I am connecting myself to a person, not a corporation, brand or store. That person is directly connected to the land - blood, sweat and tears. My connection to them connects me to the land, albeit somewhat vicariously, and returns me to the original Divine mandate to tend the garden, the task we were created to do.

Valuing everyone's health and "returning to the garden" is all fine and dandy but let's get down to the nitty-gritty, what about the cost? I'm not even going to address the long-term environmental and health costs of eating a fossil fuel dependent diet, that's a book. But if I did the cost question would be blow out of the water. However, I know most people think of cost in terms of next month's paycheck so I'll stick to the here and now.

I thought I was green in using recycled toilet paper. That didn't come out right. I mean toilet paper made from recycled paper. My friend Cori is taking to the next level though with cloth toilet wipes. I am nowhere near there yet and not sure if I even think it's more green what with the soap, hot water and electricity required to wash the load of butt wipes (sounds crude but that's what they are folks!).

But (bad pun) I thought this would be a great post to add to the earth friendly tutorials at Natural Family, the newest FIMBY addition. Check it out.

No worries, I won't make this into a weekly feature, like the garden reports. My sis-in-law recently issued a garbage challenge over at her blog InsideOut. Specifically to record how much trash your family generates in one week. I'm all for participating in some good ol' fashioned eco-friendly competition.

So, this is the picture of how much trash our family of 5 generated this past week, about 12 ounces worth. Mostly craft scraps, some tissues (I know I should compost those), misc. non-reusable packaging materials (I hate those), some broken glass and styrofoam packaging from my elicit supper.

One Week's Trash: in reused bulk bean packaging

All our other waste from the past week was either composted (a lot was composted, just think next year we'll eat our trash!), recycled (cardboard, paper, a few cans, glass jars, certain plastic containers), or given away. You know the saying "one man's trash, another man's treasure".

I'd be ashamed to post a picture after we've done some renovations in the house. That generates a lot of waste that I feel terrible dumping. If it's reusable we donate to the ReStore but if it's simply trash I'm not sure what other options we have.

Well there you have it. The trash report. We'll now return the regular garden, kiddos and outdoor fun programming.

This journey to live more "green" is a process, often painfully slow. Sometimes the steps we take are large (can't think of any recent ones) but more often they are daily, small steps towards living a more earth friendly lifestyle, for lack of a better phrase.

One of this month's changes is....new toilet paper. Hardly worth mentioning but hey it's my blog and I can write about whatever I want.

Our family really appreciates trees. We hike every weekend in the mountains of Maine and never seem to get enough of the woods. The kids already understand how much humans and animals depend on trees for basic survival needs like, um, oxygen. The oceans produce a lot of oxygen as well, Laurent would pipe up if he were writing this.

So it just seems to make sense to try to use less of those virgin trees for wiping our ***es. Too bad we can't return to the good old days of outhouses and using well-read Sears catalogs and corn cobs for toilet "paper". We're trying to do second, third or maybe fourth best and use 100% (80% Post-Consumer) recycled toilet paper.

The ironic thing is that doing so costs more money. Why is making a better choice always a more costlier choice? At least initially, while there isn't enough demand. Sometimes I hate economics. For the past while we've been bumping up against the better choices cost more dilemma. And sometimes you can't choose the best for the environment or the best for your community or the best for your body because you simply can't afford to. But we are trying with each little step to move more in this direction. Which leaves us with less money for some stuff but then we realize in the end, we didn't need that stuff anyway.

Yikes, I forgot this little detail in my previously posted soap directions:

I use cold water wash and rinse. For an extra large laundry load I use 1/4 cup of laundry mix plus a squirt (very technical measurement) of Sal Suds. Because the soap isn't finely grated I whisk the 1/4 cup with 1 cup or so of hot water to help it dissolve before I add it to the washing machine.

I'm sure none of the 3 readers of this blog have done anything with my soap recipe but maybe somebody out there will find this information helpful. Otherwise, disregard and go on using your favorite, but hopefully not environmentally toxic, laundry soap.

I've been trying for a couple years now to make all our own cleaning products. I've succeeded fairly well with cold process hand & body soaps. Clean, Naturally: Recipes for Body, Home, and Spirit
by Sandy Maine is a great start for basic soap making. And of course vinegar, baking soda and borax works for most household cleaning. Add a little Dr. Bronner's (we like peppermint , though tea tree sounds great too) for dirtier jobs like the floor, toilet and shower.

I am now making our own laundry soap and it's a bit complicated so it's not for everyone. But a friend asked me how I do it and I thought I'd share it here:

First, I make a cold process simple lard soap. This is the hardest part and you have to read some soap books or websites if you want to do this part. I'm not going to instruct you on soap making.

Simple Lard Soap:

4 lbs of lard - nasty, yucky stuff
28 oz water
8.5 oz of lye

When the soap is ready, takes about a month to cure, I grate most of it in the food processor, saving some for basic cleaning bars.

Laundry Mix:

12 cups washing soda, not the same as by similar to baking soda
8 cups borax
6 cups grated Simple Lard Soap

I use cold water wash and rinse. For an extra large laundry load I use 1/4 cup of laundry mix plus a squirt (very technical measurement) of Sal Suds. Because the soap isn't finely grated I whisk the 1/4 cup with 1 cup or so of hot water to help it dissolve before I add it to the washing machine.

For stains I scrub and lather a bar of Simple Lard Soap into the stain, or soak in a concentrated solution of water and Laundry Mix. I'll be honest, our clothes get stained and all the scrubbing in the world doesn't take some of them out, oh well.

I also use Sal Suds for my dishes. It's very concentrated so a little is all you need.

I make my own dishwasher soap as well. That recipe another time, if there's any interest.

According to this article by National Geographic News it seems I'm off the hook for eating Florida oranges all winter. Good thing too, since this is what my garden looks like for 4 months of the year.

I was so excited to finally get my hands on this fantastic story about one family's year long experiment in growing and raising most of their own food. I love reading about people who think differently, act differently and live differently than the norm.

I think the grow your own experiment of this family is rather "out there" and unaccessible for most of the culture. I'm certain that's one reason I'm so attracted to it but also because it's a life lived with intention and deep conviction. In comparison to the Kingsolver-Hopp family gardening rigors I found our own family's efforts in supporting our local agriculture fairly piddly. This was a reality check since I can sometimes get on my high horse because I belong to a CSA and visit the weekly summer farmer's market.

My basic criticisms of the book are two. Firstly, Kingsolver spends a fair amount of time writing about being a working mother. How over the years she has managed to have a career and still can tomatoes. But from my farm and gardening experience I have a hard time believing that during the course of their grow-your-own year both she and her husband worked full time, yet she leaves readers with that impression. Or at the very least she doesn't exactly expound on her daily goings on except for what she's picking from the garden and special events celebrated with family and friends. What I want to know is how do you raise animals, plant, weed, pick, can and preserve the garden, butcher the animals and cook a home cooked meal every night? All while parenting, cleaning house, doing laundry, running errands, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da AND working full time?? These questions are never answered. And yet growing at least some of your own food is presented as achievable for the average over-worked American family. I believe that unless the American family determines to spend less, drive less and work less, growing their own food (even a small portion) is largely unrealistic. But hopefully books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle will be a part of the movement that changes our popular fast food, fast life culture. So that more families will choose to grow gardens and shop for local, in season food.

That brings me to the second criticism or perhaps observation. As a plant based eater living in Northern New England if I chose to eat only locally grown foods I'd eat a lot of potatotes and go crazy with summer blueberries (not a bad thing). Our family has chosen to base our diet on plants for improved immediate health and longevity, we want to be hiking with our grandkids. Eating a variety of foods from around the globe (at times) makes this possible. And for many, many people in northern latitudes the only way to achieve the health they want is to eat fruits and vegetables grown elsewhere. A bit of a conundrum if you believe in local sustainable agriculture - which I do. So, I'm thinking this one through. Trying to find out all the healthy foods which are grown here, how we can maximize our consumption of those and perhaps decrease the food we eat that is shipped from long distances.

Overall, the book was a fantastic read. Kingsolver is engaging, funny, convincing and just an all round excellent writer. The book is an eat your local veggies and meat mantra but the narrative of her family keeps it personal and interesting.