gifts of sustainability

This year our Valentine's Day gifts to each other reflected a huge shift in our priorities towards living a more sustainable life. One of the things we have been working on is establishing a sort of "permaculture" at our house. When we moved into this house, there were already two pomegranate trees, a grapefruit tree, a lemon tree, and a key lime tree. We now have six laying hens, have started composting on-site, grow our own herbs in a beautiful large pot in the front yard, and have a raised vegetable garden bed in the backyard. For Valentine's Day, I gave Kirsten a gift of more permaculture. We had two more fruit trees planted by a local nursery (Civano's): a Pink Lady apple tree and an Asian Pear tree. With all the rain we're having this month, they might just fruit next year...

Another thing we've been working on is reducing our waste stream. This was started with recycling first, then adding our non-meat food waste to the compost, now we are working on "pre-cycling" where you don't use or buy things that are packaged excessively or with materials that are non-compostable or non-recyclable. To that end, Kirsten gave me a very cool gift. A stainless steel "to-go food" container. Similar to this, although I'm not sure where she ordered my actual gift: I love it! It's perfect for to-go situations, and even just for taking a lunch or snacks on the road. Awesome gift honey!

Too much stuff!

Check out this great video about how/why we have too much stuff.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Some things our family is doing to help include:

* Using cloth napkins and towels instead of paper products

* Using toilet paper made from recycled material

* Bringing canvas and re-usable bags with us when we food shop, so we don't use disposable bags
* Using http://www.freecycle.com/ and http://www.craigslist.org/ when we do want to obtain something

* We frequent our local farmer's markets and joined a CSA this year, very yummy local produce

* Recycle, recycle, recycle

* Eventhough the boys are young, we have started talking to them about these subjects and will continue as their capacity for understanding increases

* The boys are not permitted to watch commercial TV and the adults Tivo most shows, so actual commercials seen are limited (not sure if we are ready to give up the TV altogether!)

* We frequent our local library to avoid purchasing books and DVDs, without feeling like we are missing out on anything

I hope to see the list above grow in the coming months and years. Please enjoy the video and share it with lots of people. Little steps by lots of people will make a big difference.