Yes, do all the things!

  Why do we attempt to do all the things........

First off let me say, I am not a "prepper" I am just ridiculously curious and interested in way too many "things".   If I don't get it right the first I will be tenacious trying to figure it out.  It has lead me down some endless rabbit holes.   Take from the past but spin it today to make it better.  Gardening, pottery, food preservation, weaving and on and on.  Is there a better way to be easier on the planet, reducing my carbon footprint?  

Somewhere mixed in with girls scout badges and old monopoly pieces I have my Ranger Rick badge and my ecology flag patch from the 70's...

But when your Mom is a Tupperware lady and you grow up with suitcases full of plastic and Tupperware parties abounding in that little bungalow in Parma, Ohio, well ...... plastic was just magical. 

That was my first recollection of plastic in our house.  It just wasn't around and store bought food was in a paper bag, even produce was in a paper bag or came out of the garden or a jar in the basement.  Water came out of the backyard hose and not a plastic bottle.  The hose was real rubber and probably should have killed us.  When I was around 6 years old, my Mom was one of the few woman who took a full time job as a secretary for USDA, PPQ (plant protection and quarantine) and there she stayed for the rest of her working life.  She took the bus to downtown Cleveland and returned each evening and did not want to make dinner.  Enter Swanson TV dinners and Stouffers Tuna Noodle casserole.  It was miracle food, packaged in aluminum foil and waxed cardboard.  Meanwhile "the kids" spent snow days, afternoons and every summer vacation or school break at a very Hungarian Grandma's house with homemade noodles, lard, a big garden and homemade soup.  Grapes drying on clean white sheets draped over a day bed for raisins.  My uncle brought in a dead pig that would be cut up and processed on the dinning room table and side meat was salted, packed in a barrel and stored in the coal bin of the basement. that would be distributed between 3 families.  He brought a gallon jar of milk every week, the top thick with cream.  We went down to Islays or Franklin ice cream store and bought half gallons of ice cream in square paper containers.  No plastic.  The morning and afternoon newspaper was kept on the counter for scraps.  The scraps were neatly wrapped and taken out to the compost pile after each meal.  I remember when we started getting trash collection and there was nothing to put on the curb.  

My Mom on the other hand couldn't get to age of Judy Jetson fast enough and yet my grandparents were firmly rooted in the early part of the century.  My Mom would go to work and host Tupperware parties in her polyester knitwear.  She raved about no ironing, wash and wear.  And yet she picked up a bucket of soap chips from those immigrant grandparents.  We saved all our fat in 3 pound coffee can and when full ran it over so they could make lye soap.  She did the laundry with that soap and there was always a bar sitting by the laundry tub in the basement.  We bounced between two worlds and never thought twice. 

It took awhile for my brain to make the leap to where I am today.  Boycotting plastic, buying old furniture, haunting the used clothing stores for jeans and jackets.  I had my first tour of a landfill in the 80's and it was the catalyst to say Whoa, what are we doing?  Plastic was everywhere and in everything and it was alarming.  By the 90's I was estate gardening full time and by the late 90's we were aware something was going on with the weather.  The summers were hotter than Hell and there were noticeable storms more often.  The gentle rains were a memory by the mid 2000's.  It became drought or flood.  Plants were stressed and gardeners were stressed trying to figure out growing patterns.  We have bounced up two growing zones in my lifetime.  That set off alarm bells.  

Then I noticed the furniture we going to buy for our home smelled funny and wasn't made of real wood but a composite. We decided not to buy and wait. 

 Americans throw away 12 million tons of furniture every single year! New York Times

Most of that furniture was made in the last 10-15 years.  We live in the age of fast furniture, less quality to be sure.  The older, second hand furniture is better quality and can last a lifetime or more.  We now buy gently used furniture and donate any furniture we no longer need.  Keep it out of the landfill! 

Then we joined Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy, started donating to several food banks.  The more we read and picked our heads up out of the sand the more alarmed we became.  What could we do to offset our carbon footprint of 13.6 tons of carbon per year?  I thought we were doing so much, our trash pick up gone down to one 13 gallon trash bag a week, still too much but it was all from food packaging.  Why cucumbers need to individually wrapped in plastic and then if you buy three wrapped yet again in plastic I will never understand.  We stopped buying cheese or any food that sat in plastic due to nano plastics etc.  Our yard waste is now pretty much circular, it stays on site and is chipped for mulch.  The only thing I won't let stay on site are rose bush prunings and diseased plants.  I don't do hot composting so it needs to go to a bigger facilities.  The average American household puts out around 48 metric tons of carbon. University of Michigan study.   These charts on food and transportation are pretty eye opening.

 Guess what we quit eating?  Dairy and our meat has been cut way back to once a week.  My driving has been impacted also.  Last year I drove 1/3 of what I did the year before.  I have decided to stop doing shows and instead will ship pots off to galleries or keep the galleries local.  We are making adjustments for heating and cooling at home too.  We are living very differently. 

So far this year I have walked enough on my treecard app to off set my carbon foot by 47 tons and I can also contribute to remove plastic from the ocean.  

If your are still on the fence here is some great data to read on snowy afternoon with a cup of coffee and if it doesn't alarm you enough to adjust your lifestyle I'm not sure what will.  

Climate data 1995 to present

As we plod through our new lifestyle I hope to keep this blog open for any ideas to make living on the planet a bit easier.  So far the best thing I have found for big carbon moments like a road trip or airline trip is buying trees from the Arbor Day Foundation.   So if you're headed to Antarctica and you are contributing 4.14 carbon tons (Sierra Club) to a warming planet,  why not buy a bunch of trees for the future of the planet.  I think it would be a great selling point if an airline or cruise just added that to their ticket, included in the price to haul you're privileged butt around.  If you work for a big corporation why not buy trees for the carbon your employees are putting out there.  We have entered a new era of zoom meeting and teleconferences.  It's not always necessary to hop on a fossil fueled antiquated system of travel but if you are, plant a few trees! 

Happy March!