Mostly corn, some cucumbers, squash and carrots.
Our blueberries
Doug and I recently had a conversation about "going green" (trendy) and "living eco-friendly" and/or "thrifty" (not-so-trendy). Although we disagreed on a few of the meanings of words, we both agreed that living eco-friendly as well as thrifty was important. We realize that God has given us what we have and that we need to be good stewards of that. What I'm trying to figure out is how to remain somewhat sophisticated yet do what we should with the resources that's been entrusted to us.
Due to the oil spill(ing) in the ocean, a lot of conversations have come up in our circle about using our renewable resources and looking for ways to be not so dependent on what is non-renewable. I feel like gardening is only a small way of contributing and we are continually looking for other ways to go crunchy (a term I'm new to and am testing out). Some of those ways include: starting our own compost pile, recycling, shopping at ALDI and at thrift stores, turning lights off when not in use, being aware of the amount of energy we're using, using the toaster oven instead of the oven, not running the AC too low... and the list goes on. We are by no means perfect and we're still trying to figure out what works for us.
Today I tried out something new. Laundry. Now laundry itself isn't new, in fact, it's my least favorite thing to do next to pulling weeds. What I do with the laundry is what's new. Today I didn't use our dryer. At all. Instead, I took the extra few steps, hung the laundry in the sun and let the heat of the day take over. All in all I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly our laundry dried and at how much energy we didn't use by turning on our dryer. Unfortunately, I picked a bad day to line dry my clothes because it started storming and I had to rush the remaining shirts inside before they got drenched.
I know I've written more today than normal so I thank you if you've gotten this far. I just had to share with you what has been going through our minds and hearts over the last few weeks/months. It certainly isn't easy or convenient but it's worth the effort in the end. Plus, you get this great feeling inside like you're serving the greater good and helping something bigger than yourself.
I realize I didn't talk too much about being thrifty, but that's another conversation for another day. In the mean time, are there any other eco-friendly tips you'd feel compelled to share?
Love yall!
-jb
weeellll... Jacob is way more aware of being green than me, but something very small that I've always done is washing everything on cold. I really don't see a difference unless of course I'm dealing with a heavily stained item, however even then I usually find that cold water will still do the job.
ReplyDeleteWe also have reusable shopping bags, which usually gives you a few cents back on your grocery bill.
We do both of those things too! How do you get money back on your grocery bill? I haven't heard of that.
ReplyDeletewell, there are some grocery stores that give you like a 5 to 10 cent discount for every reusable bag you use (the discount is meant to represent how many plastic bags you did NOT use). Not every store does this, but at least two different grocery chains in our area do... don't know about ALDI
ReplyDeleteThe only negative part about this is it's up to the cashier to add that discount onto your bill. If you have someone who is aware of the discount it's fine, but sometimes you'll get someone who is weird about it when you remind them (Jacob had a cashier basically act like he's a pennypincher, which was annoying when the cashier was not really doing their job).