Sharon suggested a day’s worth of “how we do it.” Here’s mine.
Morning. Radio comes on. I warm up a cup of (fair trade) coffee on the stove. (Made by cold method the night before.) I warm up another cup of coffee on the stove. Open the blinds and raise the big quilt-curtain on my south-facing […]
As our economy slows down here in the U.S., while we continue to import more and more of our oil at exponentially increasing prices, there is cause to learn how to reduce our consumption. We’re quite used to being able to go to a plethora of stores to pick up something we need or want, but what if we can’t do that - during a recession, for instance? As Americans often don’t plan ahead, I just want to encourage you to prepare yourselves and your families in case it gets worse before it gets better…. it truly sounds like it might.
I know I have a large percentage of International readers. Please learn from our mistakes, and try not to follow too closely behind us! There was a comment on Sharon’s post yesterday that began with: “Over here in Australia, we’re watching what is pretty much now agreed to be … the decline of the US empire.” I would be very interested to hear if that is a common conception in the rest of the world!
So… Sharon at Casaubon’s Book has suggested that all of us in the 90% Reduction group join her in posting a Day in a Low-Impact Life. Re-watching “Sin Aire” yesterday, I realized just how different our lifestyle has become in a very short time. We lived in a very car-dominated, consumption-oriented world in Los Angeles. Can I just say that I LOVE OUR NEW LIFE?!!!!!
Please note that the following story is brightened up by pictures that you may not be able to see if you’ve got an RSS feed (so you may want to click back to our site).
Yesterday.
7am: Awaken to the pitterpatter of dog steps in the bedroom. Wait to see if they’ll go away. Give up with a sigh. Pet the dog’s head, throw back the covers and walk briskly to the closet to put on some layers. Greet the cat, let the two outside (the cat likes to go out with me), check on the garden to make sure it hasn’t had a freeze (had a nightmare about it last night – ugh), check the exterior temp: 38F. Call the dog so he doesn’t get run over by a farm truck. Bring the animals back in, feed them… While talking to them in a loving voice, of course.
(Note: Matt has already gone to work.)
7:30am: Make breakfast: espresso, toast from local bread, and scrambled local eggs with tomatoes from the garden. While toast is cooking, go look at the thermometer to see how cold it’s getting in the house: 58F. Did I really pledge not to heat the house until it got to 50 degrees!?
8-10am: Eat breakfast, take asthma meds, check email, read blogs and news on the computer.
10-11am: Make calls for work-related projects.
11am: Turn of the computer, drag butt out of chair and into the cold to make the beds for the plethora of seeds and starters that continuously call my name from the storage shelf. Dog and cat “help” by walking over the beds, barking at neighbor dogs, chasing bugs.
12pm: Take a break, sit on the deck while drinking sun tea, watch the bustling activity of birds and bugs in the garden, smile that my life isn’t so bad. Look at the thermometer: 80F. Admire my new beds, snap up and get to planting garlic for the very first time.
12:05pm: Run inside and turn computer back on after realizing I hadn’t looked up how to plant garlic, nor note any particulars about each variety. Write it all down. Start to turn off the computer, check my blog, get distracted, write a small blog entry. Turn off computer.
1pm: Plant my first garlic, listening to the children playing in the neighbor’s yard, the birds chirping in the trees above me, and my dog nibbling on fresh wild grass beside me. Bring down a bale of straw from the garage and heavily mulch the garlic.
2pm: Collapse on the couch with a glass of water. Revel for a moment in how good the garlic will taste in spring/summer. Revel that I’m living in a place long enough that I can think that far ahead. Go outside to take a few pictures for the blog. Realize that I still have a LOT of cold crop planting to do in the next few days so that we can eat in the winter!
3pm: Grab a snack in the kitchen (leftovers), tidy the house, hand wash the dishes. Focus on using very little water, and ponder the idea of re-routing our sink drain into a bucket – and wonder how my husband would react. (For the record, he loved the idea.) Stir “Audrey”, our beloved sourdough starter we’re bringing back to life.
4pm: Matt comes home, we decompress, discuss our days. Also talk about the weather getting colder, that it might either frost or rain tomorrow. I realize I should do many things before either happens.
5-7pm: Pick ripe tomatoes and attempt to cover them with a frost blanket. It doesn’t work. Call husband to help. Successfully do it together. (Note photo of tomato ghost to the right.)
6-7:30pm: Pick ground cherries, tomatillos, squash, salad greens, carrots, scallions. By friction-generated flashlight!
7:30-8pm: Go inside and comfort husband after he reads the latest bad news about the economy.
8-8:30pm: Make dinner: salad, pasta with homemade tomato sauce, local wine. Take a moment to water some exterior potted plants with water I caught while washing the veggies.
8:30-9:30pm: Eat dinner together, talk about how to reduce spending for Christmas presents, discuss the possibility of Matt taking the bus to work (it requires an extra 1.5 hours of travel each way), and the dreaded topic: what we will do if Matt is laid off at the end of the month.
9:30-11:00pm: Matt studies for a test on Monday (to get into a prestigious wine class), I do the dishes by hand, feed “Audrey”, and post about our weekly meals on the blog.
11:00pm: Let the dog and cat outside (yep, we have an unusual cat), hustle them back in because it’s cold: 40F. Give the dog his “cookies” (vitamins for health issues), while cat does figure 8s around both our legs.
11:10-11:15pm: Take asthma meds, brush teeth, get dressed and say BRRRR!! as I jump into a bed warmed by my lovely husband.
11:15-11:30pm: Read from Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Harvest until it drops from my hands as I fall asleep. Turn off 10W CFL light.
For more ways to reduce your impact, there are many interesting blogs and websites to peruse. Here are some that I frequent: Down To Earth, Riot for Austerity, Casaubon’s Book, Crunchy Chicken, Green as a Thistle, Plan Be, No Impact Man, and Path to Freedom. Also, Rhonda Jean at Down to Earth recently asked her readers to list their daily routines, which you can find here. These women are also working toward simplifying their lifestyles and reducing their impact.
Above and below: I believe this is a Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris), but according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, those shouldn’t be here. My second guess would be a Nuttall’s Woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii).
This is a record of yesterday (Thursday). This is about what my day looks like on Wednesdays and Thursdays…other days are also busy, but involve significantly more time at home.
6:50 AM: Got up when alarm went off. Spent about five minutes contemplating utter trippiness of last night’s dreams. Dressed very quickly as it is Very […]
Sharon (Casaubon’s Book) thought it would be fun for the Rioters to describe their day. What is life like when your trying to reduce 90%? Surprisingly boring!
So here is a look at life at the Hedges Homestead.
5:00 am — buzz, buzz, buzz. Argh, it is the battery operated alarm clock giving CK his reminder […]
