Information about which "green" habits really work for families and actually make a positive difference for the environment is scattered, misleading, polluted by advertising and, frankly, trite.
Suburban Green is People is the hopeful and empowered alternative. With good information and a mindful approach, being the solution doesn't have to be confusing or horrible.
“Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles.”
- David Suzuki
I like things to be laid out and clear. I want to know what the best plan of action is. I know that what is considered the ‘best plan’ may change as information and circumstances change, but if I know what the best plan is for today, then I can get on with it.
I don’t think I’m so unusual in this and I believe that a (perceived) lack of a best plan is what keeps a lot of people from making significant changes to their lifestyles. Most people want to live greener lifestyles, I think, but many are unable to move forward because they are unsure which way to go. There is an expert for everything; pick one and go :)
Radishes from our backyard garden.
Food - what we eat and where it comes from - is a huge part of greener living. But buying food carefully can be really difficult. My grocery store labels produce as “local” - with the quotes. Is that really local or just quoty-fingers local? And how local? Telling me it is Ontario-grown doesn’t say much. Ontario is a huge province (according to Wikipedia, 1,076,395 km² or 415,598 sq mi), so Ontario-grown doesn’t necessarily mean local. But there is no ‘official’ definition of local, anyway, so.. Uhh?
My best plan for local is this: my first choice is food that is labelled with the farmer’s location. If is somewhere near me, then yay. If not, then I choose the one closest to me. Next choice, is to believe it when my grocery store says “local”. Some things I just won’t buy if they aren’t local. For example, I live in some of the best apple-producing country in the world. Many varieties keep well over the winter. I won’t buy apples that come from outside of Ontario. We are apples. So why is my grocery store stocking apples from South Africa? (or tomatoes from Holland for that matter?) Ontario grown apples only.
But then there is organic. (My plan: yes if I can get it, local is preferable, but I’m not paying 3x the price of conventional. Double is as high as I will go, usually.) And what about corporate farms vs family farms? And what about Fair Trade? It quickly becomes overwhelming and then I’m standing in the grocery store and can’t decide which broccoli to buy.
Homegrown salad greens. Several kinds of lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, chives, parsley.
If not FROM BACKYARD then locally produced.
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.
That there is a Food Hierarchy and I am ever glad to see that! I love option hierarchies. If possible, choose this, if not, then this, etc etc. I’ve printed that out and put it on my fridge and copied it into my PDA so I have it when I’m shopping. I have a Best Plan and will never be stymied by broccoli again. :D
And speaking of organic, this is an awesome little movie (thanks Jean!) about organic farming and produce. Sure to be a hit with Star Wars fans:
We’re working the Food Hierarchy here at my house. We’ve been eating greens from our backyard gardens all month. In fact, I haven’t bought any since the beginning of June. And I’ve already processed and frozen two flats of strawberries (well, what was left of two flats after all the eating that went on lol) from the farmer just up the road. I’ll definitely be freezing more and making jam too. Once the strawberries are done, that same farmer will have raspberries. Mmmmmmm :)
Additional Resources:
Little Homestead in the City I have been reading this blog almost since its inception. There is a lot of really good information there; it is a never-ending source of inspiration and is fast becoming one of the pillars of the Sustainable Living grassroots community.
We all have this deep-rooted fascination with the wild. It’s as simple as feeding squirrels and pigeons on a park bench for some people.
- Nick Jans
Maybe it is pushing it to call a squirrel “wildlife”, but technically, they are. This house is about eight years old and we saw the first squirrel in our backyard three years ago. This is the first year we are seeing them regularly. As far as I can tell, there are two grey and one black that come. Obviously, they are not bothered too much by the rain :)
Squirrel tongue! hehehhe :)
I had been leaving those peanuts out for them, but I’ve stopped now, because twice they’ve dug up my bed of tiny carrot sprouts to bury the peanuts, only to dig them up again hours later. No more peanuts in the shell for them! There are still lots of shelled peanuts, though.
Also not bothered by the rain are the Red Winged Blackbirds. They are regular and noisy visitors to our feeder. In fact, they are quite sure that when we are in the yard we are trespassing on their property and they sit on the fence and click and buzz at us.
I’ve been keeping a list of the kinds of birds we’re getting at our feeders. When you write it down it is surprising how many different kinds there are. I’ve made it a personal challenge to learn to tell apart the different types of sparrows, and to identify the females as well as the males.
Also surprising is how much time my 18month-old will sit quietly at the window watching the birds. He is facinated by them and reminds me to fill the feeder every day when we go out.
I apologise for the silence here recently. We’ve had a few rough weeks with the sudden illness and death of Artemis, our standard poodle.
House Approves Bill to Help our Nation’s K-12 Schools Go Green!!
Washington, DC - The House of Representatives has passed legislation that will provide nearly $7 billion in grants to help our nations’ K-12 schools go green. Called the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act (H.R. 3021), the bill, sponsored by Ben Chandler, will help schools to become more energy efficient and healthier. There is a special emphasis on low-income schools where children are most at risk from unhealthy facilities and on schools that still suffer from the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
According to Earth Day Network’s Green Schools program, close to 60 million students spend up to 40 hours a week in facilities that are often unhealthy and a hindrance to their ability to learn. Green schools reduce sick days, significantly improve the health of students with asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and increase student morale and confidence. ..
We help homebuyers, renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartments in great neighborhoods. Walk Score shows you a map of what’s nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment.
Ontario residents can now hang their clothes and linens out to dry after the premier lifted the ban on outdoor clotheslines on Friday.
There were restrictions in many subdivisions across the province, but the province’s new regulation will overrule the neighbourhood rules, which were put in place because clotheslines were considered unsightly.
Lifting the clothesline ban in not new news - it happened in April - but I wanted to put it up anyway because it has always struck me - and still does - as absolutely absurd that such bans existed and were permitted in the first place. And don’t think that it was a minor thing. I had a neighbour that was quick to report any outdoor drying of clothes in our subdivision to the town and I know a few people who were threatened with fines if they didn’t take theirs down.
I’m not sure how I feel about bumper stickers. When I see one that I like, one whose message resonates with me, I’m all excited and loving the driver of that car and sometimes I think, “Oh, I definitely need that bumper sticker for MY car!”. But I have never, ever had a bumper sticker on any car. I can’t bring myself to do it. But some bumper sticker messages I would definitely wear on a t-shirt. Like this cool bumper sticker from SimpleLiving.net:
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I always forget how purple the gardens are as May ends and June makes her grand entrance. Early in May, the crocuses come up purple and yellow, then the chives bloom purple, then the comfrey adds it’s hairy blooms, and now the clematis.
The bees are crazy for the comfrey. They love it. We especially get a lot of those giant biker bees that look like they’re wearing leather jackets. Their buzz is a loud and low BUuUUUuuuUUZZzzzzZZZz.. That is, until they get into one of those little bell flowers, then it becomes high and thin, almost nasal sounding. Zitzitzzzittzitzit.
The bees also love the chive blossoms. I know that, strictly speaking, if you are going to eat your chives, you shouldn’t let them bloom. We do eat them but I let them bloom for two reasons: 1) The bees. The bees start coming around before the first buds are even open, looking for one to snack on. 2) The people. The chives are some of the first blooms to come in the Spring and after the long Winter and grey and dreary start to Spring, the flowers are much more important than any subtle difference in flavour in my chives. My unofficial policy is the let the first flush happen unimpeded - all the chives can bloom all they want. And then, if I get around to it, I’ll keep a bunch here and a bunch there free of blossoms, while letting the others go to town - for the bees and the beauty. These chives are ready to be cut back. The blooms have faded now and the bees have lots of other choices for their dining pleasure :)
There are a lot of rabbits in our subdivision. A lot. No really. A LOT. And they like our yard because we have lots of clover and dandelions in our lawn. A benefit of this is that they tend to leave our gardens sort-of alone because their favourite foods are right there in the lawn. They do of course, eat some things in the gardens (hence the fencing around my vegetable gardens), and in winter they munch on the shrubs and trees, but compared to other people with no “weeds” in their lawn, my gardens are relatively unscathed.
This Spring there has been one rabbit that has been quite bold. She hangs around in the yard even when we’re out there and only runs away if we move directly toward her. She’s all calm and munching on the clover beneath the birch tree. The Baby loves her and grins when he sees her. And as a family we spend hours watching her nibble and twitch and wondered what we had done to deserve such a gift.
Eventually, quite by accident and just in the nick of time, we discovered why she was around so much:
(Pardon the blur. I was trying to be quick and intrude as little as possible). There were at least four babies in there. And whenever someone would wonder aloud, “I wonder how the bunny babies are doing” we’d all get that omg-they’re-so-cute-it-makes-my-stomach-squoosh feeling. And seriously, it was better than free money having those little guys back there.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive
and even spiritual satisfaction.
- Edward O. Wilson
Habitat - the environment where a plant or animal naturally lives - is all around us. The problem is, as we go about our business, we destroy natural habitat. If your subdivision has all the streets named things like Deer Run Way or Great Heron Crescent, there almost certainly are no deer or herons there… any more. What’s left are raccoons and mice and nobody wants to live on Rodent Blvd or That ^*%$^ Thing Got Into The Garbage Again Road.
Unless your house backs onto a huge green space or there are large quiet ponds in your neighbourhood, you won’t bring back the deer or the herons. But there are many other plants and animals that will make a comeback if you make it possible.
But why? Well, for one, biological diversity is a sign of health in any ecosystem. The more diverse, the better. By creating space that is more naturalised, we increase our proximity to nature and reap the benefits (see the post on Nature Deficit Disorder). It’s beautiful to look at. Trees help clean the air and the water and reduce background noise. Birds mask background noise and add colour and motion to your yard. Avoiding the use of lawn and garden chemicals to make your yard wildlife-friendly reduces pollutants in the greater environment and reduces health risks for us all.
The Canadian Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation have programmes to certify backyards as “Wildlife Habitat”. The key areas are:
Food
Water
Shelter from predators and to raise young
Earth-friendly gardening
Naturalised habitat (native plants)
Once your backyard meets these targets, you can submit for Certification, and then you and your yard are official and certified and you can buy a sign to put in your yard proclaiming to one and all that YOU have a Certified Backyard Habitat. And when the less enlightened ask you when you are going to ‘fix up’ your yard (i.e. plant more grass), you can point to your certification (which is framed and hanging on the wall of course) and nonchalantly reply, “We’re part of a North American network certified by the CWF/NWF in the creation of suburban habitats suitable for, and encouraging the recreation of, indigenous biodiversity in our specific ecosystem. “. And anyone who hears that must be impressed. You’ll be invited to all the best dinner parties. Maybe. But even better, you’ll have a colourful and vibrant little naturalised space all your own.
We’ve been keeping these goals in mind as we slowly landscape our yard. When we moved in, we had only grass in the backyard (oh, and a small mud pit) and the front yard had a row of shrubs and more grass. Progress is coming and we hope to get our certification this year or next.
And I am so getting one of those signs to put in my front yard :D
