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Today we are checking back in with Sustainable Together, a blog by Shelly Randall (our guest blogger at NWEI’s bi-annual conference last year). We also wanted to see what was going on in Port Townsend, WA several months after our sustainable food conference. Read on for a host of tips from Shelly on eating locally and affordably!
…When I launched Sustainable Together as a personal/professional endeavor, I made an ancillary pledge: to make food my main hobby.
I have other hobbies, many of which have fallen by the wayside as I raise a young child (pleasure reading, scrapbooking, kayaking, the list goes on!). Thankfully, I also enjoy cooking, baking, gardening, and shopping at farmers markets. At some point in my sustainable transition, I realized I wouldn’t be able to consistently feed my family seasonal, local, fresh, homemade meals unless I embraced sourcing and preparation of the food.
This takes time, so it helps if you enjoy it.
It also takes a financial commitment. We in the U.S. are conditioned to expect cheap food, year-round. But learning to shape your food budget around seasonal and local foods has many levels of benefits, both for your health and your community.
“With our food dollars, we create the future we want to have,” says Malcolm Dorn, co-owner of the new Chimacum Corner Farmstand, which proactively sources its offerings from local farmers and producers. “The dream is beautiful farmland, healthy people and a healthy habitat.”
Money tight? It helps if you follow the three simple rules the (Port Townsend) Food Co-op brochure lays out for “eating better on a budget”—with some of my own additions:
1) Eat food. (Not junk!) Avoid highly processed foods and consider the nutrient value of foods you ingest. (I found these handy charts of fruits and veggies with the highest nutrition for the least cost at the Sightline Daily blog).
2) Cook. Meal plan. Make it once and eat it twice or thrice (leftovers!). Prep your produce for longer life. Preserve the harvest bounty. Use a whole-foods cookbook. Share recipes, try new ones, get inspired!
3) Shop smart. Make a shopping list and stick to it. Buy produce in season. Definitely buy organic if it’s on the Dirty Dozen list. Buy direct from the farmer. Buy in bulk. Join a buying club. Special-order your regular buys for 15-20% discounts (a co-op member benefit). Shop sales. “Shop” from your garden, i.e., grow your own groceries. Shift your budget to spend less on luxury items and more on good food. Etc.!
I learned a lot about our county’s food system at the affordable food forum, and I was so impressed by the wealth of knowledge and experience represented by the seven panelists that I wanted to know what personal steps they had taken to eat local foods more affordably. So in the Q&A period, I asked each of them to share a tip. Here’s what they had to say.
Seth Rolland of Quimper Community Harvest (a gleaning network) said he picks “free food” from his neighbor’s apple tree and has built a rodent-proof box on his porch for outdoor storage of apples.
Malcolm Dorn of the Chimacum Corner Farmstand said he worked out a trade with a farmer to plant an extra row of pickling cukes for him. He harvested them himself and preserved them with a friend, resulting in a stockpile of one of his favorite foods: pickles!
Al Latham of the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative said he built a greenhouse to extend his garden’s growing season. He claims six millimeters of plastic added 600 miles of latitude to this indoor climate!
Judy Alexander of Citizens for Local Food (for more, see cover story of Nov./Dec. 2011 Food Co-op newsletter) said she bakes her own bread every week. She’s still using the 100 pounds of wheat she received as her share for volunteering for two years with Jefferson County’s dryland wheat project.
Candice Cosler of the Farm-to-School Coalition said she increased her garden’s production by adding “loads of compost”–which boosts the food’s nutrient content as well.
Irene Marble, a dietician at Jefferson Healthcare (our rural hospital) said she grows her own winter squash and preps them for storage by dipping their shells in a bleach solution.
Brwyn Griffin of The Food Co-op said she simplified her diet to be plant-based with little to no processed foods.
My tip is to start my weekly grocery shopping at the farmers market. (I am fortunate that there are twoweekly farmers markets in my neighborhood that run April-December.) With fresh produce, local meat, eggs, and a few value-added goodies (cheese, salsa) in hand, I go home and meal-plan, creating a shopping list of necessities for the Food Co-op. This one-two punch works well for my family, and I miss it in the winter-time!
For the full blog post, click here.
This week we are delighted to feature the photography and writing of Kallia Milillo, a 21 year old student photographer who will be transferring to the independent study program at Evergreen State College this Fall. She will be a seasonal guest blogger for NWEI in 2012, as one of her goals is to bring her art and perspective to the environmental community. To learn more about Kallia’s work, visit her website here. Thank you Kallia!
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I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits, beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth
Every year the earth enters a transitional time where the leaves slowly change from greens to oranges, yellows, reds, and browns. Gradually week by week all the leaves begin to find themselves down on the terrain underneath the branches they once called home. The days start to show that they are becoming shorter. The squirrels start collecting as many nuts as they can find laying about on the ground. Hibernation has clearly shown it’s face with winter right around the corner. The final leaves make their way to the ground. Autumn turns into winter. The landscape has become bare, dull, quiet, and cold. The stillness is almost haunting. Mother nature looks as if she has laid down and decided to die. The days don’t seem as bright as normal, as if high noon turned into dinner time. Time seems to being going slower and everyone feels as if life has been sucked out of the air. Weeks pass and there is not much sign of movement. Mother nature seems beyond the point of no return. She looks, feels, smells, and sounds dead. Suddenly as if out of no where, life shows itself in the tiny bud of a blue flower that has slightly opened it’s petals.
We face this transitional storyline in our everyday lives with the current situation on Earth. Our choices and decisions have been impacting the state of our planet and will continue to do so. Economic, environmental, and social reasons are all huge contributing toward our current affairs. How we use land, general human consumption, energy choices, eating habits, our lifestyles, and wastes all add to the condition to the environment. Our behaviors are having a negative impact on where we all call home. It has shown through in numerous ways like climate change, pesticide drift, land degradation, air pollution, and habitat destruction. Sometimes this can be discouraging and people can become overwhelmed: the flooding feelings of continual mess that has gotten out of control. The massive amount of damage can make things seem like they’re past the point of no return. People even start to believe that we have done so much damage that it wouldn’t matter even if we tried. Sometimes we loose hope, just like after weeks of the quiet dead winter days. We start to question if renewal will ever come again.
However, like Spring, the Earth’s vitality will be replenished through the growth of caring individuals. The development will come with perseverance, commitment, sharing knowledge, and through maintaining our goals. The earth is in need of more attention, care, and overall consideration. Instead of living in a world where we live our lives only based upon economic and social factors, we can add the environment as a equal factor. We could start to have consideration for our environment as the one big home we all live on. It can be as simple as planting a tree to help replenish the world’s forests, considering windmills for an alternative energy for your farm, sustainable food systems, supporting and protecting farmers, local food, not using chemical fertilizers for your lawn, recycling, even reusing a yogurt container, standing up for peace, or understanding the dimension of sustainability and poverty. Integrating the value for our planet into every aspect of our lives can help reduce our human footprint. The road towards renewal is a long path similar to the prolonged days of winter, but together we can make a difference.
The difference we all can make together will take commitment and time for this new system to finally show itself in it’s entirety. From time to time, choosing to undertake the sustainable lifestyle can seem more expensive. Many of us feel the money pressures in our lives, especially in the state of the current economy. There are actually tons of ways though in which your investments will actually put money back in your pocket and give back to the environment. Reducing your waste can help with saving on disposal costs, or investing in energy efficiency options can reduce your energy bills. Choosing sustainability is about our future, our earth, benefiting local business, being aware of social issues that need attention, growing our economy and society in a new dynamic way, and to replenish our environment. Much the same as winter, our planet may look damaged, but nature can defy all odds.
Precisely when you think there’s no hope – the bright side shines through. If we work towards making sustainability a reality in it’s totality we can give the world a chance to be resilient and restore itself…
Today’s post is a guest blog post by Kaitlyn Nakagoshi of the University Alliance, who submitted this article on behalf of The University of San Francisco’s online program. The University of San Francisco provides all the tools and resources necessary to gain a sustainable supply chain management certification online. Read on for tips on how to make your new year’s resolutions last beyond the month of January!
Make Your New Year’s Resolution Last – Make it Sustainable!
New Year’s resolutions are notorious for being broken – some after a few weeks, others after just a couple of days. How can you make resolutions that are both meaningful and easy to keep? By thinking sustainably and taking small steps towards positive change for the earth, you can make a resolution that you’ll be proud to carry with you throughout 2012 and beyond.
The resolution success rate will be much higher when helping others becomes a factor. It’s not just about the “new you” of the “new year”. Consider creating a healthier planet for future generations. Here are some suggestions to help get you started.
- Start with baby steps and write reminders to yourself, placing them around the house. In the laundry room, post a note to use cold water for all your wash loads. Most of today’s detergents are so effective that clothing which once required warm or hot water will get just as clean in cold water. Post another note by the back door as a reminder to take reusable bags with you to the grocery store, and by the mirror in your bathroom, tack on another note telling yourself to turn off the water while brushing your teeth. These small, simple steps should become habits in no time.
- Remember: You are what you eat and drink! Farmers markets are an excellent way to support local agriculture and stock up on produce. Many offer CSA options (Community Supported Agriculture) where individuals pay in advance for a portion of the farmer’s total seasonal crop. Seek out restaurants that are locally owned and prepare dishes with local ingredients. Have fun with meal planning and try some vegetarian and vegan recipes several times a week. Other food and drink related ideas include using reusable tumblers and travel mugs for drinks and containers for keeping your lunches hot.
- Paper towels are more wasteful than most people realize. Purchase stashes of kitchen towels (or better yet, recycle your old and worn towels) that can be washed as often as necessary. Use them for drying hands, wiping down counters and cleaning up spills.
- Get off the couch and help both your heart and the environment! Start walking and/or riding your bike to nearby locations. Many communities are making strides to become more walkable, and others have added bike paths that include stops at local shopping plazas. Start exploring your hometown from more perspectives than the driver’s seat of your car.
- What kind of recycling services does your community have? If you don’t know, call to find out the guidelines for trash and recycling. Some towns allow all recyclables to be combined in one receptacle, while others require residents to separate glass, plastic, newspapers, etc. You might even have to drive your recyclables to a transfer station in some cases. If you’re used to tossing everything in the trash, dump this old habit and resolve to be an informed recycler this year.
Many of us get caught up in the exciting potential of New Year’s resolutions, but isn’t it time we found something we can really stick to? Start small and tackle changes that are manageable and instantly gratifying. Gradually build good habits and by the end of 2012 you’ll be able to finally say you’ve stuck to your sustainable resolutions!
As we dive into Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we are delighted to share a guest blog post by professional writer Isabella Woods, who offers a few tips on a green Christmas. Tuck these away for next holiday season as well! Happy Holidays to all from us at NWEI…
We’re Dreaming of a Green Christmas
It’s that time of year again: when the festive sweaters see the light of day again and when we all come together to celebrate this most wonderful time of the year. And just like the rest of the year, when you should be switching off lights and sleeping on organic latex mattresses, it’s a time when we can focus on sustainable solutions. In fact, there are potentially more things you can do around the holidays to save energy and help the environment than any other time of the year. You just need to know where to look. There are lots of tips you can follow to make sure that this year’s Christmas is the greenest one yet. So while we may all be dreaming of a white Christmas (or so the carol goes), here are just a few tips to make sure you have a green one too.
Go easy on the Christmas lights
They may be one of the hallmarks of the holiday season, but Christmas lights are one of the most energy-hungry forms of lighting, period – at least the traditional filament bulb versions, anyway. So to keep your environmental impact down without sacrificing the lights altogether, you can simply use fewer lights than you normally would (perhaps limit them to just the tree), or use LED lights instead. LED, or light emitting diode, lights use up to 97% less energy than their traditional counterparts, so they’re a great choice for the energy conscious Christmas lover.
Wrap your gifts in recycled paper
Each and every Christmas, four million tons of wrapping paper will be thrown into the trash. That’s a lot of trees, and a lot of waste. You can do your part to lower this figure in a couple of ways: either make doubly sure that all of your Christmas wrapping paper makes its way into the recycling bin, or buy paper from a recycled and sustainable source. This latter method has twice the benefits because the person you’re giving the gift to will surely be thrilled that their present is helping to protect the environment. Once the festivities are over, make sure you give your home a quick once-over to check for any stray paper, then get all of it into your recycling bin.
Look for ‘battery free’ gifts
We’ve all been there: surrounded by kids playing with toys that buzz and beep and whir – it’s all part and parcel of the Christmas experience. But not every toy needs to be battery operated, and in fact those that aren’t are much better for the environment. Batteries are one of those items that are near impossible to dispose of. Once they’re empty they usually end up on the rubbish dump, never to be used again. It doesn’t need to be said that this is terrible for our environment. So, to avoid adding to the number of batteries we throw away each year, why not go for battery free gifts? Stuffed toys, musical instruments, toy cars, dolls – there are plenty of options. You could even go one better and make the gifts yourself from sustainable materials.
Go for a ‘live’ Christmas tree
It may seem logical to go for a plastic Christmas tree and hence lower the number of trees that are chopped down for use at the end of the year, but this can actually be the worse option. The reason is that plastic Christmas trees, especially the cheaper ones, are often made of non-biodegradable plastics that cannot be recycled. This means that if the kids get bored of the same tree each year, it’ll end up on the rubbish dump and damage the environment. By choosing a ‘live’ Christmas tree, you’ll get a more authentic festive experience and it’ll be simple, easy, and environmentally friendly to dispose of.
Make your own Christmas cards
This one ties in quite nicely with the wrapping paper point, and the same logic applies: by making your own Christmas cards from recycled paper, you can help the environment and reduce the damage done by mass produced cards. A phenomenal amount of energy goes into powering the factories that make these cards, and that’s something you could help reduce. Plus, home-made cards are so much nicer to receive!
These are just five quick tips for a green Christmas: there are plenty more – so don’t forget to experiment and find your own sustainable festive tips!
Happy Holidays!
A guest post by Duncan Berry
Duncan Berry has spent most of his life as a designer turned business man at the intersection of values based businesses like the global organic cotton movement. He is currently a partner in Ecosystem Services LLC whose business incubator is the coastal temperate forests of North America where he labors happily to strike a lasting balance between human communities and the natural systems of which they are an inextricable part.
I have had 2 questions on my mind ever since I spent 30 days in seclusion with the systems thinker and deep ecologist Joanna Macy 4 years ago.
What does it mean to be indigenous?
Can one become so in a single lifetime by living in deep relationship with a place?
My wife and I live on the edge of a continent, where 5000 miles of open ocean meets the buckled, young lands of Oregon’s coastline. We are the minority in this majority of wildness and we spend as much time as we can out under the sky working, exploring, feeding ourselves and occasionally slowing down long enough to lose our sense of separation in this wild place.
Grace Wilson-Woods of Sun Lakes, Arizona recently convened Arizona’s first Voluntary Simplicity course. She took the time to write some reflections about the experience, shared below. Thank you, Grace!
“The NWEI North American Gathering Conference was coming up September 15-18th in Port Townsend, Washington and I was excited to go. The Hans Hoffman statement on the cover of the Voluntary Simplicity course book touched me deeply: “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” I knew I needed to simplify my life. Once back in Sun Lakes, Arizona, I along with 8 other family members participated in the NWEI Eco-Challenge from October 1-15th. This increased my motivation to immediately form a discussion group.
I decided to invite ladies from my church (Seventh-Day Adventist), ladies from Church of God in Christ(COGIC) and ladies from Community Church of New Thought. I purposely selected 10 ladies from different religious denominations to make sure we had a variety of views in our discussion. Also to prove that voluntary simplicity has no boundaries.
The first article “Living Deeply” resonated with me immediately and I was convinced to begin living a simpler life. Some of the things I plan to focus on as a result of the course include: Have a zero balance on my credit cards; Shed excess clutter and clothing (donate to homeless shelter, etc.); Select organic produce as often as possible and buy smaller amounts to prevent waste; Become self-sufficient in the basics of life such as growing more food in my garden- move from gardening as a hobby to a sustainable food source; Buy local by ordering a “farm box” twice a month; I also plan to decrease spending – buy only what I need, not everything I think I want.
I have already stopped the newspaper delivery so I don’t see the numerous ads with percentage off offers that convince me to buy something. I have also decreased my TV watching and will downsize my cable capacity in an effort to cut my cable use and cost, which will save on electricity use and costs as well. I am retired but I plan to join a sewing group where I live to increase my skills and perhaps find a niche for a home business or craft shows. But with all the changes to reduce my impact on this earth, my underlying goal is to save money and use it to cover my expenses when I volunteer (at some future date) with Marantha Volunteers International. This group uses volunteers to build One Day Schools and Churches in remote areas for people who would otherwise not be able to have a school or church. There is no age or skill limit for volunteers just as with Voluntary Simplicity. Each person can do something! I believe that this course had an immediate impact on me, but will impact me well into the future…”
Thanks to Grace for organizing her group – and to the 10 ladies to joined her weekly for discussion and tea around the theme of simplicity!
This week we are happy to share a guest blog post by Patricia Damery, author of Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation and a novel, Snakes. She and her husband farm a Biodynamic organic ranch in the Napa Valley, California area, and she maintains two blogs: patriciadamery.com and harmsfarmlog.com.
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree. – Joyce Kilmer
Several years ago I attended an evening performance of several ecological poets and songwriters at an annual International Society for Ecological Restoration conference in San Francisco. I remember one songwriter straight out of the tradition of 1960’s, who accompanied her song about star thistle with her guitar. The song was a call for attack on this invasive plant that is, in fact, hard to get rid of and threatening native perennials of our California grasslands. But I found my attention flagging.
Then came poet Elizabeth Herron. She had collected statements from north coast tribal people who traditionally depended on salmon for their sustenance and incorporated these into a poem/song. As she read, a young man “played” a rain stick and dancers bedecked in blue and green filmy streamers danced. Any of us who had doubts about the divinity of the salmon became believers. We fell in love with salmon and with the waters so important to their healthy ecology. After that performance, there is nothing I would do to hurt such a fish. Love is motivating!
Recently I remembered that performance while reading Jean Bolen’s most recent book, Like a Tree: How Trees, Women, and Tree People Can Save the Planet . Both a Jungian analyst and a long time activist, Jean says there are three questions to ask yourself when you come across a cause you are considering. First, is it a cause personally meaningful to you? There are many causes, but does this one pull you? Second, will it be fun, although hard work? And last, and certainly not least, is it motivated by love?
Jean wrote the book as a way to deal with her grief about losing her beloved Monterey pine that sat outside her kitchen door. I met this tree once. It was a gracious tree with large and stretching thick branches that provided a micro climate of its own, catching the fog of the coastal atmosphere and dripping it onto the surrounding area. A neighbor wanted it cut to provide a view and ended up getting her way. Jean poignantly describes returning from a meeting at the United Nations to find her tree gone, how the micro climate changed, becoming dry and harsher, and how different plants grow there now. This is small example of what is happening globally as ancient forests are cut for timber and for farming.
There is the lovely biology of the tree, too, how trees take carbon dioxide out of the air, “fix it” into matter, while releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. Trees are the lungs of our earth. In understanding the science of the tree, one understands why we need to support economies that do not cut forests. As my sister, Judy Parrish, a botanist and ecologist, says, one of the most important things that we can do for our planet is plant trees, and certainly to stop cutting them!
I am reminded how what each of us does is important, that each of us has power in the present, and that is it important that that power be motivated by love. The tree we love and protect, the neighbor we are kind to, all of it adds up…
Ryan Harper
Deborah McNamara
Kerry Lyles
Mike Mercer
Lacy Cagle
Carolyn White
Rob Nathan
