When bigger can be better

My first-grade friend Ashley Miller had the Barbie dream house. A three-story mansion. For a little girl living in a ranch, it was incredible. And I had to have it.

I asked for it for Christmas. I asked for it for my birthday.

My baby sister got one years later.

Instead, my homeless Barbies got to improvise. The cardboard cases of Girl Scout cookie boxes became the building blocks of some serious square footage. Our Barbie's homes would stretch in custom communes that covered my bed and bedroom floor. And each time it had a new look.

Flash forward 30 years, and my daughter tells me she wants  Barbie dream house for her birthday.

But you already have a Barbie house your uncle bought you at Christmas, I remind her.

But it's not a dream house. It's small.

I sigh. The "starter home" tucked away in the corner truly hasn't seen much play time, and she's asking for an expansion.

So I tell her the story of a little girl, whose imagination, a little brother and a lot of cookies made for great memories of building Barbie mansions. Her eyes light up. "That's a great idea!" she says.

Here's hoping that her dreams create that "dream house" of her imagination.  I can't wait to see what they bring.

Experimentation = Success + Failure

Eco-novice reflects on the inevitability of failure.

Since I embarked on my green journey, I have made numerous gradual changes to our lifestyle as time and budget have allowed. Making these changes has usually required not only some time-consuming research but a fair amount of experimentation. But here's the thing about experimentation. You will fail. At least some of the time. And that's kind of a bummer. Even when you know it's just part of the deal. Here are some of my recent green successes and failures.

Failures

Yogurt
Most of the time when I make homemade yogurt, it turns out pretty well. But every now and then, the yogurt doesn't set. So after incubating the yogurt all night, in the morning I find....warm milk (with a little yogurt in it). I have no idea if I can use this milk for anything safely (anyone???), so I end up throwing it away. Which is very depressing. Not least of which for the poor cow who put a lot of energy into making that milk (as I, a milk-maker myself, am well aware). When this happens, it takes me weeks to summon up the ganas to make yogurt again.

Oat Flour
I'm not ready to abandon gluten, but I am trying to broaden our grain horizons. I almost always make my whole grain pancakes with all whole wheat, and wanted to try incorporating oats, as in the King Arthur recipe. The King Arthur recipe calls for rolled oats ground up to a powder in a food processor. I don't have a food processor, but I do have a mill, so I bought oat groats and ground them to a flour, and then used some in my pancakes. The result? Gummy, rubbery pancakes. Even though this was an experiment, I had foolishly made the quadruple recipe. Phooey. My next move will be taking some rolled oats to a friend's house and using her food processor to grind up a bunch of rolled oats, and then to try using that in the pancakes. And I'm going to try the oat flour I already milled instead of whole wheat in my healthy whole grain "cookies."

Gardening
I really want a garden. For about 100 reasons. I get jealous whenever I read about others' gardens. I have yet to plant a single thing.

Successes

Early Potty Training
Parenting is riddled with failures. At least for me. So it's nice to have a little glimmer of success now and then. I don't really take credit for making these successes happen, I'm just pleased that I didn't screw up so much that I prevented them from happening. I started putting my second child on the potty around 9 months, and from that time onward, 90% of her poops were in the potty. This meant a more environmentally-friendly diaper washing routine (I often skipped the pre-rinse and just ran a regular wash/rinse cycle), and an earlier transition to exclusive use of the potty. I've been putting my third child (now 6 months old) on the potty first thing in the morning for about a month now, and every single morning, she has made a deposit. It's awesome.

Sucanat
I'm not ready to abandon sugar completely, but I'm quite sure I don't need to be eating bleached sugar. So I've been looking into alternatives. The situation was made more urgent by the fact that I'm having trouble obtaining more honey from my local raw honey supplier (I often substitute honey for white sugar). Fellow Boother Retro Housewife suggested sucanat as the least refined alternative that could be directly substituted for white sugar (with some changes in taste). When sucanat and its accompanying molasses flavor would not work, she suggested organic cane sugar, opining that turbinado sugar was not different enough to merit the mark-up. So I bought some sucanat and have been trying it in various applications. So far I've used it in my whole grain pancakes and whole grain cookies with great success.

Hummingbird
I've been wanting to buy a bird feeder for my backyard for over a year now. Still haven't gotten around to it yet. Nonetheless, a hummingbird has built a nest in our backyard. It is totally amazing. I love watching the hummingbird hover next to its nest and then, seemingly instantaneously, appear sitting motionless in the nest. I had never before seen a hummingbird with wings that weren't furiously flapping. I bet there are eggs in there. I can take no credit for this, but I still count it a success. I want my kids to have regular opportunities to interact with the natural world. Sometimes, just by luck, nature finds you.


What are some of your recent green successes and failures?
How do you cope with the failures?
.

There should be dirt on your food!

From the Laundry Basket of the Homegrown Mama

I will never forget having friends over for supper several years ago, proudly picking tender lettuce leaves from my garden to serve and then watching the look of abject horror come over the wife's face when she saw the dirt on the ends.  I was truly not aware that people though lettuce was always as dirt free as it is in those puffed up salad mixes at the grocery.  For the record, I did wash the lettuce and toss it into a fantastic salad with homemade dressing, none of which was eaten by our guests because they "tasted dirt".

The only time in my life that I can remember not having a garden (complete with dirty food) was in college.  Now, I realize that not everyone actually understands where our food comes from, especially when it's packaged so attractively in our grocery stores, but it's really something people deserve to know!  I also realize I'm kind of preaching to choir by telling you vegetables start out dirty, but perhaps your mother-in-law doesn't get it yet.  Maybe your baby brother equates all natural foods with the strange TPV chili you ate during an ill-fated attempt at a vegetarian meal in the 80s.  Or perhaps, your neighbor who doesn't understand why you would want to spend weeks nurturing your tomatoes before harvest when you can just grab a bunch still on the vine, at Walmart.

For people in your life that you need to convince, here are a few talking points to refresh the argument for REAL foods!

• Tomatoes are harvested unripe and then doused in ethylene gas to give them that glorious pop of color in your salad.
• Cornell University pulished a study stating that force-ripened produce is less nutritious than ripe-harvested crops.
• The wrappers on those "clean" veggies in the supermarket are often sprayed with fungicides/bactericides to prolong shelf life.
• By the way, veggies that are grown on vines, stalks and other types of greenery shouldn't be subjected to cold storage... it turns their beautiful, naturally sweet sugars into flavorless and mealy starches.
• No chicken should have to lose it's beak because the stress of being in a commercial production row could cause it to peck it's neighbor to death, thereby leading to the poor victim to be rendered and ultimately turned into additional "nutrition" for it's housemates or the cattle
• Avoid irradated meat. It degrades that quality of meat, provides a false sense of security since it doesn't actually eliminate all pathogens, the results in nuclear waste and oh... the long-term effects on your health isn't fully know yet.
• Avoid highly colored yogurt. It shouldn't be a purple and green swirl.
• You want eggs that are from chickens that have met the grass and visit it often. These eggs are high in beta-carotene and have brightly colored yolks. 
• When it comes to convenience foods, just don't buy them if you can avoid it. You are never going to get the "real thing" and that pretty package is filled with the cheapest food parts and loads of unnecessary dyes, chemical, preservatives and other yuck that you don't' need.
• Also, note that the greatest majority of ingredients are made from corn or soybean products. Buying these "foods" only gives Monsanto a stronger hold on the farming industry. In increase in a demand for these products causes Monsanto to up their production and slowly continue to edge out the local farmers who don't want to use their seeds or cannot afford the high cost. 

In our society of pasteurized, sanitized, perfectly shiny grocery store displays it can be a shock for some to realize the actual origin of food.  If you are just now learning, glad to have you joining us at the farm markets and local butchers.  If you are trying to teach others, keep it up!  Someday, you might be able to teach them the joy of eating lettuce straight from the garden... even if there's a little bit of dirt!

** bullet points taken from notes I wrote out while reading The Real Food Revival. 

Tips from the Market

The Homegrown Mama sets aside her laundry basket for reusable shopping bags and heads to the open air market...

To kick off the Memorial Day weekend in my town, our Carousel District Farmers Market opens this Friday morning, bright and early.   It's been a while since I frequented the market, but I'm anxious to return.  Until my garden starts producing, I look forward to supporting our local farmers and their families.  I look forward to seeing them again and marveling at how their lives changed over the winter from the addition of a new baby to the improvement in the math skills of the sweet little girls at the Amish stand on the end (my favorite!). I'm anxious to take my children and spend the morning strolling down town, visiting the  vendors, listening to the music from the carousel and maybe even ending with a visit to the Little Buckeye Children's Museum.  

Here are 5 tips to maximize your Farmers Market experience:

• Bring your own bags and cash.  Most of the vendors really appreciate the extra thought when you use smaller bills since they can't just run out and make the change you'd need if every one brought 20s from the ATM.
• Get to know the vendors.  Spend some time chatting with them while you're surveying what they have to offer or counting out your change.  Doing this can and often will lead to new information or experiences.  Chatting with vendors at a market several years ago was how I came to discover a berry farm in the middle of nowhere which then lead to me finding locally grown wheat! 

•  Ask questions about their produce.  It's really expensive to be declared certified organic and many small farms can't afford it, even though they fall within the guidelines.  Asking never hurt, the worst that will happen is that you'll actually know what's going into the production of your food... which is part of the reason behind buying from the source to begin with!
• Bring your friends!  Take someone who has never been to a Farmers Market and introduce them to the excitement of local honey or handmade soap.   
• Don't just find one market... find them all!  In my area, there are markets on almost every day of the week, in several locations.  Not all the farmers sell at the same locations and some of the prices are reflective of the locations (example: Greenhouse A farm market has higher prices than Town B farm market.  Same basic vendors, but the clientele at Greenhouse A is used to paying more.). 

In case you need some help finding markets in your area here are a few websites to help narrow down your search!

• Local Harvest
• Simple Steps
• Local Farm Markets 

Have you already benefited from Farmers Markets this year or are you still waiting in anticipation?

I know I should do another DIY green birthday party...but I'm so tired...

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I need your encouragement.

If our theme this month is about greening the birthday parties and stuff, I need some help. Not because I don’t have ideas—I’ve done this before, for the past 3 birthdays per kid, I’m just so damn tired now, and my daughter’s birthday has just happened and we need to schedule the “kid party” pretty soon. Like yesterday. And I just don’t know if I have it in me. Some of those party places are looking pretty tempting right about now…

Part of the problem might be how much energy I put into creating The Perfect Party those other times.  The year I did the Princess Pajama Party (a compromise, because she thought her brother’s “Almost Sleepover” was so cool she wanted one for herself, but she wanted the princess aspect as well) I made little capes, researched crafts, had them decorate homemade cupcakes and make their own pizzas and it was awesome…but exhausting.  Last year we went really late too, and she had a really fun summer “B-earth-day Party” outside, with painting little flower pots and making pinecone bird-feeders and planting marigolds and eating fruit and my questionably decorated “Earth Day Cake”…again, tons of fun, but really a lot of work to put together—even though the planning was kind of fun.

So…what I’m looking for now is perhaps the holy grail of parties: an eco-conscious kid party that’s not going to have me going nuts. Any suggestions, friends and neighbors? (And if anyone does have the energy to throw a party for their kids and is looking for green suggestions, click on the links above, which detail my own past experiences, for better or worse!)

--Jenn the Greenmom

The Biggest Green Party of My Life- The Wedding

EcoYogini shares some tips on how to eco-fy your wedding planning...

Ultimately, the biggest party I have planned in my life to do has been my wedding. Which took a full two years of organizing, searching and stressing out. And that's what everything except for the ceremony of a wedding is: a huge party where you and your partner are the hosts.

(our ceremony. It was hurricane weather until I stepped outside- it cleared only long enough for the ceremony on the ocean.)

There are several entire blogs with hundreds of posts committed to greening a wedding, so I'll just touch on a few things that we did for our families and life situations (ahem- budget).

Unfortunately, our wedding wasn't as green as I would have liked. Believe it or not, because we decided not to elope, we had to accept that it was our decision to involve our families... which meant certain compromises had to be made (like having a cake, not announcing both our hyphenated last names and having a dance).

That said, we did manage to sneak in a bunch of eco-friendly party tricks that I actually don't think many people even noticed the difference... (which for both our extremely conservative families, is a big deal).

1. No Save The Dates (or STDs in wedding land. No seriously, they are referred to as STDs lol). Ok, that's a slight lie, we only sent STDs (ugh) to relatives who were old school AND we made them extremely small (business card sized) to save on paper. Everyone else was prompted to email or call. Unfortunately barely anyone did... but from what I hear that's fairly common even with STDs. My mom was pretty darn excellent at tracking people down- so it worked.

(Our invitations. Because of the drama around our last name fusion, we left that off for the invitations too. Turned out alright for a DIY and someone with zero design skills!).

2. Invitations: were made with recycled cardstock by yours truly. They looked ok, and were much cheaper than custom designed and printed. Oh, and how many invitations do you save forever? Right, they go directly in the recycling (here in Nova Scotia it's the law to recycle... so this actually is most likely the case).

3. Guest Gift Packages: this was a silly idea, but I filled locally gifted and scrounged mason jars with locally roasted fair trade organic coffee, local pears from the farmer's market, local free newspapers and homemade delicious granola made by moi and gifted them to all the guests who were staying in cottages overnight for the wedding. The guests loved it, but delivering these packages the day before and morning of my wedding during hurricane rain storm weather resulted in some tears...

4. We requested that all our food and wine be local. It wasn't 100% unfortunately, but a lot of it was bought at the farmer's market. (The lack of local wine even though we specifically requested it is my biggest disappointment).

5. Flowers were all seasonal and from a local flower growing dude 5 minutes away from our venue. Since no one really remembers flowers and I just needed something to grip onto while I walked down that aisle. My friends helped me arrange my bouquet (less difficult than you think) and shove them into white wine bottles Andrew and I had been collecting for the past year (buying wine for the colour of the bottle is NOT the best idea...).

6. My dress was made in Canada using non synthetic fabrics. It wasn't organic, nor was it a sustainable fabric, but it wasn't made by slave labour using petrochemically derived thread. Which was my compromise since I was unwilling to buy a wedding dress online without first trying it on.

Our Guest Tree in action. The frame on the left was an old childhood "art" in my room that I repurposed to explain our favour-donation in memory of our loved ones who had passed. The two columns list them on each our side.

7. Our "Guest Book" was a Wedding Tree that took me 3 hours to paint. We set up the table with vintage (Value Village) tea bowls, some water, a face cloth and paint the colours of Fall with a few BTA (Bridal Team of Awesomeness) friends stationed to explain to more conservative relatives and guests what the heck they were supposed to do. Interestingly, only one (very eccentric anyway) guests refused. It's now on our wall and is a daily reminder of our beautiful event and the important people who were a part of our commitment.

The Guest Tree mounted in a shadow box. The cost was still cheaper than buying a fancy photo guess book and looks beautiful :)

8. My engagement ring isn't a diamond and our bands are made by local artists.

Our cake! On which we broke my Tante's 27 year old crystal wedding knife :S

9. My mom made dessert: local apple and pumpkin pies. Seriously, she's the best pie maker ever. And she made the pies in advance and froze them (and they were still delicious). We found glass pie plates at Value Village for super cheap and gave lots of them away to friends afterwards. She also insisted on cake, which was locally made with organic ingredients and sat on a piece of wood my dad especially cut for under the glass cake stand/plate that I also found at Value Village.

10. Instead of favours we donated money to the Canadian Cancer Society in memory of family members who had passed. All the money raised for the "kissing" part was also added AND we encouraged guests to donate to a few different charities for their gifts. In all we raised over 350$ (with our contribution), and we only had 50 guests. :)

I'm very happy with our mostly Green wedding, but my absolute favourite part of the entire experience was the 20 minute ceremony where we read our personalized vows to each other. Which really drives home that the most important part of a wedding isn't all the fooffy consumerism stuff, but the love and commitment made between two people and witnessed by their family and friends.

 The dip!

Both Andrew and I are very proud to live in a province (and country) where same sex marriages are legal and those who wish it are given equal human rights in love and marriage.

What do you do with old Disposable Dishes?

The Climate Crusader debates what to do with the disposable plastic dishes she already owns.

The Bad Old Days

In my last post, I advocated for using real dishes and cutlery - rather than disposables - at a kids' birthday party. I think it's a solid idea. However, like many people, I'm on a journey towards more sustainable living. I wasn't always as aware of my environmental footprint as I am today. Back in the bad old days, I bought a bunch of disposable plastic cups. I bought so many, in fact, that I still have dozens taking up space in a high cupboard in my kitchen.

These days I'm certainly not buying new disposable cups. But what of the disposable cups that are already in my possession? The packages they came in are already open, so I'm pretty sure no one else wants them. They already exist, they're mine, and now I need to decide what to do with them. As I see it, I have a few options:

1. Use the disposables I already have until they're all gone, and then go reusable from there on out.
2. Just chuck the disposables. It will de-clutter the shelf in my kitchen, and they're going to end up in the landfill sooner or later anyway, so why not sooner?
3. Use the disposables judiciously, perhaps even washing them between uses to get as much wear out of them as possible, and then go reusable once they've fully expired.

Image credit: Arvind Grover on Flickr

Making a Decision

There are some factors to consider as I make my decision. The first thing I'm considering is that the more use I can get out of the disposables I already have in my possession, the better for the planet. If I can use a disposable cup five times instead of one time, I'm going to go through the cups that much more slowly, which is probably a good thing.

But is it safe to reuse a plastic cup that's meant for one use only? The answer to that simply isn't clear. Disposable items are generally pretty flimsy, which means that they're more likely to bend and break, and give way to the stress of multiple uses. As this happens, the plastic could be leaching harmful chemicals. Not so good. However, there really isn't solid evidence one way or the other for what the actual danger level is. Most of the warnings about the dangers of reuse come from the people who make the disposable item, who are invested in you buying more of them.

Last summer at the BlogHer conference our food was served on disposable dishes. I decided to tote a plate and bowl around with me, washing them between uses. For myself, I made the decision that the risks of reusing were low enough that I would do what I could to reduce my environmental footprint. I think I'll take the same approach with the disposable cups I already have in my house. I'll use them as many times as I can before I get rid of them, and hopefully reduce the waste I produce in the process.

I wonder what you would do. How would you handle a bunch of disposable dishes that you already had in your house? Would you use them, reuse them, or just toss them outright?