Are you going "green?"

I go green… 😀 I recycle everything from glass to plastic to metal.. and every thing in between. I feel better healthwise helping “mother earth”. 8) You help her and she will help you… Love your world and your possessions…. 🙂 I drive only when I have to. When I do I go to my neighbors to see if they need something in town while I am out and we make plans around to carpool with each other… If you take 3 people not including yourself in your car to go 100 miles that is 3 less vehicles on the road going 100 miles each. 🙂

I’ve been ‘green’ since I was a toddler. 😛 Don’t know why, because my parents certainly weren’t, and today they only make a point of recycling if I happen to be at their house. I chalk it up to being a draconid,’wise beyond my years’ has always been me.

In our current household we do the following: recycle anything and everything that can be. Anything nasty is sent to the hazardous waste depot (batteries, lightbulbs, etc). We generate one or two plastic grocery bags of garbage most weeks and that is it. We compost and use the green bin for all the pet waste, at least during the winter. In the summer it becomes fertilizer for the garden(s). I am getting rid of the front lawn, and put in a low growing creeping perennial instead. Zero maintenance, zero need to water! And it’s shade tolerant because of the huge tree. And in the spring it flowers a vibrant shade of purple. I grow as much food as possible every year given space constraints. Tomatoes do just fine in a five gallon pail on the porch. And this year I am borrowing some land from my boss at work, and planting all the bigger stuff, squash and pumpkins, watermelons and cantalopes. Yay! The cold cellar is going to be so full! I make my own salsa too, rather than buy. And jams. Alas, I don’t do well canning fruits and other veggies.

We keep only a small freezer (the freezer in the fridge one), and buy our meats from a local butcher. Quality and price are better than Sobey’s anyday! I am also not afraid to slaughter my own animals. It’s hard, and I certainly don’t enjoy it, but at least they don’t suffer like in the factory slaugherhouses. And alot cheaper – a chicken or a rabbit only costs about $2 at the livestock auction. When we have the hobby farm I intend to raise our own small animals. All edible type food waste goes to the animals. Cantalope rinds are a treat for the guinea pigs, the last remnants of meat stuck to a chicken carcass go to the hamsters. They eat it, bones and all. This is in addition to their regular food, they just looooove chicken and beef bones!

Replaced all the light bulbs with those energy efficient ones. We run the house warm in the summer and cool in the winter. I gather rainwater in rainbarrels for watering plants outside, only resorting to the hose during droughty summer months. I grow alot of perennials, which need less water than annuals. I rarely throw anythng into the garbage unless it is beyond all use – we have a big garage sale every year and I sell just about anything anyone could want. Broken dehumidifier? Somebody wanted it, said he could probably fix it, so I let him have it for free. Even pieces of scrap metal, there is a place to donate them across town where the funds raised go to a cat rescue.

We try to limit herbicide and pesticide use to ‘need to be done’ rather than ‘make the lawn look nice’. I never use anything on the back lawn. The back lawn saw a lawnmower only once last year, we graze our guinea pigs out there and that keeps the grass short. We have one neighbour who is considering borrowing out guinea pig herd to use on their lawn, too. 😛 We hang the clothes outside to dry instead of using a dryer. We hand wash dishes.

Uhm. There’s probably alot more. But it’s all second nature, so it’s hard to think of.

I am groing my first garden in years this year. It’s what makes a house better than an apartment or condo! 😀 My yard is filled with shrubbery, and trees, and so many green flowering plants! Bees birds and animals find sanctuary here. I love my green! 8)

I ate a cow last night. Less methane.

From the cow yes, from you… :shrug: 😀

Me? Go Green? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA- No.

What people don’t realize is that there’s always someone waiting in the wings to make money. These so-called green “organic” farms everyone seems so hot on are in fact bullying and forcing smaller Ma and Pa type farms to go under just for some ridiculous rules. They have done it where I live, and it is the horrible truth behind this movement. They would have you believe they are safer and more environmentally friendly. Couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Example? My chickens get all the clean, fresh grass they could ever eat and want. They get to roam around, and eat bugs because I do not use pesticides, and they get veggie scraps from my own dinners. They only get drugs when they require the attention of a veterinarian for an injury. Sounds pretty cushy, huh? Yet, in spite of this highly natural diet, I may not call my chickens organic because I did not feed them a highly processed food labeled specifically as organic. Excuse me. But my chickens are about as organic as you can get. As are the animals I hunt – a wild animal eating what it eats naturally by their standards isn’t “organic”. Yet, people never seem to get this.

Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.

Example 3. Nuclear power. Oh, boy. Cue kneejerk reaction. Neverminding that nuclear waste can be recycled (The United States already does so for the rest of the world, as well as holding the worlds waste), it is the only power source that can breed itself. That’s right. Nuclear power can beget more power – it will never run out, and it is one hell of a lot more effective at generating power than anything else on this planet. This includes steam, hydroelectric, wind, solar, coal, gasoline, etc, etc.

I recycle. I grow my own food. I hunt. I try to make my existence as far removed from the general populous as I can because it doesn’t matter who you pay off nowadays, you are throwing money down the gullet of a monster.

Wanna be green? Grow your own food. Hunt. Compost. Forget ridiculous ideas like electric cars. Put a stop to more track housing. Go nuclear.

Get the facts before going green.

Long live the State of Jefferson!

Buying local, for the things you can’t grow or in the case of meat butcher, yourself, is also really great. Why?
+Well, in most cases you can talk directly to the people that grew or raised your food; you can make a reasonable decision if you agree with their methods or not without standing at the supermarket, staring at a label and wondering how good or bad for the planet (and yourself) something is. I can easily say, “Hi farmer Joe, do you use a lot of herbisides and pesticides to grow this?” or “I understand your critters are free range, what does that mean to you?” .. heck, in many cases if you really want you can probably drive by the farm and look and see!
+You are actually impacting the environment less in other ways. Most food that shows up at big supermarkets and places like Walmart especially has traveled over 1000 miles (often much, much more!) just to get to the store. That’s a lot of energy ‘wasted’ in transportation (fossil fuels, packaging, etc) if you can get the same thing locally!
+You are supporting your local economy. Further, you know you are supporting the US economy- e.g. a lot of produce that is easily grown here is actually shipped in great distances. For example… My friend was telling me that most of the garlic she sees in the California supermarkets is imported from China, which confuses her as there are a lot of garlic farmers around her area.*
+Did you know that a good bit of your income tax– yes, your dollars- go to support huge farms? Not all farmers receive this money– most don’t. Mostly the huge farms that grow feed grains– feed for livestock, not us. Your money is paying mostly ‘super’ farms to produce things like cattle corn and grains, and genetically altered crops… much of which we either feed to livestock or ship out of the country because it’s cheaper for many countries to buy our grains than grow their own (putting not only our smalltime farmers in the dust, but doing the same to those in other countries). Without getting political– Putting your dollar back into your small local farmers can’t hurt!

*Now, I DO know that international imports of some food is complicated issue, and really we will always have it, but for common veggies, fruits, grains, meat… you can usually get it locally grown, or at least US grown.

I know, as someone who lives in an area where the growing season outdoors is only 4-5 months at most, that it’s hard if not impossible to get local stuff during the ‘off’ season. All the more reason to consider going back to basics; canning and jarring things like tomatoes is great! Lots of things freeze well too. Stock up a bit and you’ll be happier for it. 🙂

So, seek out Farmer’s Markets, or even roadside vendors and veggie/fruit stands! 😀