Sustainable Living, Giving and Enterprising

Getting Around

In today’s life for many it is unthinkable to not have transportation available at will at any time. This wasn’t always like that and certainly isn’t like that for the population in many places. Once the automobile was becoming the center of fulfilling our transportation needs, our city and land use plans were designed around the need of the car. Eventually this has contributed a lot to the fragmentation in our lives. We live at a different place where we shop, where we work and where we meet with friends or where we learn. The distances are often so far […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 19, 2011 at 7:54 am

Categories: Economy, Energy, Lifestyle, Tips Tags: ecological footprint, energy efficiency, green lifestyle, personal finances, sustainability

We have Green Tomatoes

Last night we had the first frost in town. Besides some squash plants the tomato plants were effected. Today it was sunny and nice during the day and I went out to harvest the tomatoes, most of them green. It seems they they have survived the cold temperature. Although they had a somewhat sticky surface made the ones I tried as they were red enough taste different. I have no idea what the stickiness is about. There are a number of things one can do with green tomatoes, one made famous by a movie – Fried Green Tomatoes. Another option […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 18, 2011 at 11:19 pm

Categories: Food, Garden, Tips Tags: food system, gardening

Zero Organic Kitchen Waste

In our kitchen we produce a fair amount of organic waste. When we make our smoothies there are peels and seeds. When we prepare for stir fries, there are always some cut offs. Be it the greens of carrots or beets, some wilted or brown leaves from salads. Sometimes we don’t use some veggies or fruits in time and they go a little bit moldy. Then there are tea bags or skins from nuts or the table flowers are passed their time. So, what to do with all this? Is there a way to make this waste into a resource? […]

5 comments - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 17, 2011 at 9:36 pm

Categories: Ecological Design, Food, Resource, Tips Tags: ecological footprint, gardening, green lifestyle, sustainability

Sustainable Smoothie (part 2)

Have you been enjoying smoothies recently? We are just past the peak of our fruit harvesting season – pears, plums and apples. In the previous post about smoothies, we posted several questions to consider, if wanting to have a healthy and although otherwise sustainable smoothie, a “green” smoothie. Not because of the color it might have, but in the sense of having considered ecological aspects for its whole life-cycle and its footprint. To which level of detail and level of interconnections to other elements in the chain of processes and events necessary to produce our smoothie one wants to take […]

2 comments - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 14, 2011 at 6:23 pm

Categories: Ecological Design, Energy, Food, Health Tags: ecological footprint, embodied energy, healthy diet, sustainability

Produce Bag Solution

Not so long ago I ran across information regarding plastic, specially in the form of grocery bags. The reports were about what types of chemicals plastics contain and what they do to our environment and our heath if ending up in water, how plastic bags go into the landfill and slowly disintegrate into smaller and smaller pieces, finally into particle sized aggregate penetrating groundwater. How much plastic is found in the oceans already, from whole bags to those tiny particles posing and threatening to fish and the whole maritime ecosystems. There was one research project that scooped up water and […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 13, 2011 at 8:26 am

Categories: Ecological Design, Lifestyle, Technology, Tips Tags: ecological footprint, embodied energy, green lifestyle, product review

Thoughts on “Community”

Have you ever asked yourself about how your community, be it family, a circle of friends, or your whole town or neighborhood, your church, etc. are actually forming? What makes a community a community? And than of course why do we want and often deeply crave a community that we are part of? The term “community” for me brings up a number of different associations, like co-op housing, ecovillage, commune and also family – specially when coming together at my grandparents house during my childhood- and also friends and neighborhood. All this in this one word and at the […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 12, 2011 at 8:45 pm

Categories: Community, Lifestyle, Resilience Tags: green lifestyle, sustainability, thrive

Heating Tidbits

Where we live temperatures get low for winter and part of fall and spring and we can have lots of snow. So heating is needed. We have made sure our house is well insulated and has no leaks. The house is designed in a way to utilize some sun during the cold time of the year and not overheating in summer, but instead staying cool by using passive methods. We have the entry door on the West side, opening into a sort of entry/mud room, which provides another buffer to the outside temperatures. We can control the airflow from the […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 10, 2011 at 11:29 am

Categories: Ecological Design, Energy, Lifestyle, Resilience, Technology Tags: ecological footprint, energy efficiency, green lifestyle, heating

What is a Mail Chimp?

What is a Mail Chimp? You might wonder, why, as you find out below, I am writing about software, the internet and technology. Before I jump into this article’s topic, let me explain. I do think technology is playing such an enormous role in my live and many lives of people around the world and has such a huge impact that, if we can create truly green technology, the vision of creating a sustainable and green way of living will greatly benefit and maybe be really helpful in the transition towards that. One benefit for me is that it allows […]

5 comments - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 7, 2011 at 12:15 pm

Categories: Community, Ecological Design, Technology, Tips Tags: ecological footprint, embodied energy, green lifestyle, internet, sustainability

Where is My Money?

Have you been downsized? Lost work? Did you need to close down your business? Many of us have been experiencing a lot of changes in our personal economic situation and are facing reduced income or total loss of it. Many have, as a result, lost their homes and are struggling to provide for their families and dependents. And this is going on in a large part of the world. The economic systems in North America and Europe are definitely going through a time of big changes and sometimes it seems like they are on the verge of breaking down. There […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 6, 2011 at 11:11 am

Categories: Economy, Lifestyle, Tips Tags: empowerment, personal finances, sustainability, thrive

Sustainable Smoothie (part 1)

I want to use a smoothie, to go through the sort of thinking when looking into the question about what sustainability is, what details are involved to call something green, in the sense of environmental, social and financial viability. This is not treated exhaustively. Just a little warm up. So lets dive into this, first with the bigger picture. There is so much diverse and contradictory information out there in regards to what is a good diet. I am not planning to add to that. I am not a nutritionist or food scientist, or anything like that. Reading keeps me […]

Be the first to comment - What do you think?
Posted by Richard - October 5, 2011 at 3:37 pm

Categories: Ecological Design, Energy, Health Tags: ecological footprint, embodied energy, healthy diet, sustainability

Recommended Reading
- Laundry
  
  How much laundry do you have? How many times do you do laundry? What a boring...
  
  First Potatoe Harvest of the Year?
  
  Yesterday, I harvested about 25 pounds of potatoes! Spring equinox has just arrived, the weather...
  
  Free Notes Paper
  
  I have figured out how to reduce the use of white paper and even how...
  
  Short Green Study on Candle Jars
  
  Here we are, after Christmas, after New Years, after many other holidays one might have...
  
  Green Living Contradictions
  
  It seems that when working towards leading a sustainable lifestyle often I am ending up...