It's been about a year since I started this blog, with (as always) the best of intentions. In some things (eating locally, healthfully, naturally) I've been fairly successful. In others, not so much.
Organic gardening was fun, but driving across town 3-5 times a week no longer became practical when my daughter went to middle school. First off, I have to take half my lunch break to drive her to school in the morning due to scheduling conflict, so the remaining 30 mins only allows me enough time to eat quickly and not enough time to drive across town to water my plot. There isn't a branch of the organic gardening co op on my side of town, so I had to let it go. I still have the herb garden, and potatoes and lettuce in pots on my porch. Right now, that will be the best I can do, besides shop at the farmer's market down the road from me.
I don't have a suitable spot in the yard to create another one, but I might co-opt one of my former flower beds and try it there if I can figure out how.
The recycling and reusing project has gone much better. We are recycling and reusing a majority of our waste, with plastics going into the bin and glass jars being reused. We fill up our bins almost weekly now, and we only put out one small bag of trash a week, so that's not too bad. We still buy a lot of second hand stuff, and generally most things bought have more than one use most of the time.
All in all, it isn't possible in today's society to be 100% green without significant effort, but strides are possible. Different choices can be made, I think, to make a life less consumptive, and more environmentally friendly. It may not be possible to grow your own food all the time, but it is possible to make sensible, thoughtful choices like fair trade, organic coffee (pay the true price of those beans!), and free range eggs or local produce.
2 comments:
I didn't know you'd given up the co-op for good. They're a lot of hassle, I know from experience! ;-)
You seem to be excelling on all other fronts though!
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(I've forgotten my wordpress sign in! lol)
Yeah, the co-op was a bittersweet experience. I had to travel across town to do it, so there was the paradox of spending so much gas to go greener, plus I was kinda let down by some folks there. I went to the UK and while I was gone, no one watered and weeded for me, so it went fallow...but when they went on vacation, I did theirs. Left me feeling like I wasn't really part of a group. The UF Organic Co-Op did teach me a lot, and I would say the experience was worth it, regardless of my outcome.
http://sites.google.com/site/uforganicgardens/
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