Earth Day Goals

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
– Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Showing some cairns some love.

Happy Earth Day everyone! Earth Day is one of our favorite holidays, right behind Groundhog Day.  No, I don’t jest. Noel is employed in the renewable energy industry, but we’ve had budding hippie tendencies long before that was his livelihood. At the core of it, we truly love the outdoors. Hiking, camping, gardening, trail running – all a balm for the soul.* 

Last year, we shared some ideas for how you can go green in the kitchen, but this year we’re being a little more reflective and sharing our goals for being more green in the kitchen. I could think of a nice long list of things we could do better, but to keep it manageable and realistic, I narrowed it down to three. Next year I hope to report back with positive progress and a new list of goals.

1. Compost. We have half-heartedly dabbled in composting – hoarding all our leaves in a corner of the yard and periodically taking kitchen scraps out to a flimsy DIY bin that mostly seems to be a buffet for the squirrels. This year I plan to get serious about composting and buy or make a better bin or tumbler to motivate us.
2. Plant a successful Garden. Even though we’ve lived in Colorado for almost five years, we haven’t cracked the code for successful gardening. We’ve figured out a lot of problems (soil, rabbits, sunshine) and this is the year that we install raised beds in our front yard (Yes, the front yard. Sorry, suburbia!) so we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll be eating very local produce this summer!
3. Use Cloth Napkins. We have a nice little stash of cloth napkins that we use infrequently. I’ll go through short stints were I’m really good at using them, but then quickly return back to paper towels because they’re easy or all the napkins are dirty. This year I plan on making a couple more sets of napkins out of my fabric stash for everyday use and being more diligent about using them.

Now, let’s hear from you, how are you going to be more eco-conscious?

* Back in February we hired our first babysitter and went to the Colorado Environmental Film Festival. One of the films we saw was a short called Nature-Rx that was both hilarious and poignant. They just started a kickstarter campaign to get the film out to more people. For just a $1 donation you get access to watch the film for one day and for just $5 you get unlimited access. Totally worth it. I wouldn’t even bring it up if we didn’t love it so much.