I have been trying for the past few years to make my life, and that of my family's, more eco-friendly and organic. Sometimes we make great strides, but other times we fail miserably (like with our non-organic take-out dinner tonight). I thought this was such a new trail I was blazing in my life, but one little thing I noticed on a recent trip to my parents changed my mind. Late last summer as we arrived at my parent's house, I saw a Ziploc bag.
A Ziploc bag doesn't usually scream "green" but this one was different. It was washed out and hanging on the line outside to dry.
In my opinion, half the work in being environmentally friendly is to not waste anything. Reduce, reuse, recycle is the mantra we've all heard. The other half is to take steps to positively affect the environment by growing products organically, eating local, bypassing harmful chemicals that will destroy the earth and many other measures to improve the quality of our air, soil and water.
The Ziploc bag speaks to the first half.
I never thought of my parents as enviromentalists, but that bag made me realize how well they've trained me without my realizing it. My parents are in their 80s. They both grew up on small farms and attended one-room schoolhouses. They've lived through the Depression and every other blip on the economic radar since. They are masters of reduce, reuse, recycle. We all could obviously learn a lot from what we've deemed as old-fashioned.
My father has never purchased a brand new car. If he decided that a vehicle had finally given up the ghost, he would buy a used car. Dad fixed rust spots on the body, changed his own oil and even replaced engines rather than the whole car.
My mother washed clothes using a wringer washer until they moved a few years ago. The clothes would be hung outside on the clothesline to dry, or inside on lines strung in the basement. She owned both a conventional washing machine and a dryer, but the washing machine used too much water and they were always concerned about the well. The dryer was used to just "fluff things up a bit".
Clothes or towels that were worn out were torn up and thrown into the "rag bag" to be used for cleaning and dusting. Buttons were cut off and put into the button box for the next time somebody lost one or for the next sewing project.
When I was really young, my mom made quite a few clothes. I remember we had matching dresses for several holidays...my favorite accessory was the orange patent leather shoes that went with one of those matching dresses, but that's a whole different blog! She wasn't a quilter, but everyone had crocheted afghans to keep them warm.
When we took family vacations, we rarely stayed in motels. We pulled a camper and camped. We brought our food along and cooked out for meals or made sandwiches. The trips were to visit family and friends or to visit National Parks ... no Disney for us. My parents did, however, take in the World's Fair in Seattle in 1962 (they had family there). Our lake home was the trailer my parents lived in after they got married in 1948. My dad built an addition onto the trailer for more sleeping and eating space. We had cold running water and a refrigerator the size of my son's dorm fridge. And yes, we used an outhouse. As a kid, I couldn't have cared less. I spent my weekend outside in the lake or running through the woods. The only time we would come in would be to eat and sleep ... and sometimes we did those outside, too.
My family also always had a garden while I was growing up. My parents cursed the clay soil in our part of the Red River Valley, but always had something growing. I still love the taste of peas eaten right out of the pod. My mom canned veggies from our garden and bought cases of fruit to can each season. My only attempt so far at following in her footsteps in this has been to make strawberry freezer jam.
Although they could've easily afforded it, my parents didn't install air conditioning until 2002 after an unusually blistering heat spell in 2001 finally sent us all over the edge. Prior to that, my dad had installed a big screen on the garage door and they'd sit out there to cool off. This is Minnesota. You'd only use it a few times a year anyway, so why bother; just open the windows and turn on the fans.
When my parents were preparing to move to a different home after 40-some years, they had some purging to do. The basement storage area was full of empty boxes just in case they needed to wrap or send something. There must have been at least 30 blankets down there, some I recognized from when I was a kid. My dad loved to fix things and had an entire trailer full of buckets of bolts ... I kid you not. Very few things were ever thrown away in my house because we "might need that someday". So I guess I come by my pack-rat nature honestly.
My parents do not live an organic life by any means; my mom loves those dang Little Debbie Snack Cakes. But, they certainly have the first half of the eco-friendly game down pat. I realize now that I've been living their way and never really realized it. I'm now just trying to take things further. I am by no means an expert on this topic but I'm always trying to learn new ways to improve the planet and the life of my family. I will share my findings here as well as my successes and failures. Every little bit helps.
If you don't know where to start on your own "Green Odyssey", maybe a trip to the Senior Center is in order. You'll be amazed what the old ways can teach you.
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