Comments katmainomad has made

I, for one, am with you. I send my kid (age 6) to a waldorf-inspired public school that would rather we kept our kids from any screen time. Most of us parents cave and open up at least non-school nights to some appropriate movies or internet. With an only child, self-entertainment is a magic thing, and luckily my kid finally likes to play by himself with objects he pretendsd are space ships or swords for long hours. I also nab any playmate I can to come help him in this activity. I agree that games, internet or otherwise, are not inherently damaging to most normal adults or near adults. I think they can have adverse effects on the development of a young child. The debate will continue, but screens are inherently different from paper books, and both may need to take a backseat to social and environmental play to raise a healthy child. I was a bookworm, but my parents made me and/or took me outside to play a fair amount, and the combination of the two is wonderful.

I totally emphathize! My green apartment project is currently a mess of torn off porches and insulation board and piles of dirt surrounding huge trenches all along my foundations. And I'm not even doing anything as major as you are! At least my tenants are supportive, and the neighborhood is curious (am I moving the building? - they want to know - luckily not anything that hard!) I checked out your pictures - I see the potential - good work! Mine are at ecolandlord.wordpress.com if you want to compare.

What I want to know is how do you promote a place as a demonstration home? I would love to give tours to school children, etc - when I'm a bit further along, but don't know how to offer this - by approaching teachers, the school district, doing a press release, what?? And then a lot of people in the local permaculture group are doing similar things to their houses/yards, so I'm not that special, but maybe we should get a big tour together or have the local school tour the closest green-renovated home?

There is a subset of us for whom personal eco-behavior is very, very satisfying. Perhaps we come from hard-working, protestant farm people that really enjoy self-sacrifice and a bit of extra labor. Perhaps we want to avoid a taint of hypocracy as we rally against climate change pollution. Perhaps we are self-control freaks who are more able to control ourselves than political process and reap the satisfaction of changing our own behavior for the good. Without being able to quickly rattle off the correct ranking of the above personal measures to reduce carbon emmisions, I am doing all of them (I don't purchase beef at all, don't own a car, and am currently wrapping my house foundation in blueboard). And man it feels good, because none of my letters, blog posts, personal actions, etc seem to have changed my elected official's or the publics position one whit, so at least I can feel good about my own life. I'm not a religious person, and there isn't a union for me, and I'm still trying to find my civil society niche. The groups that feel comfortable to me, like the local permaculture group, don't tend to take civil action but encourage and support personal lifestyles. And I do find some inspiration from folks who live without a fridge or eat completely local or whatever for a year, or more. So more power to them. I don't know if it has the right effect, or really changes public or political action, but it does show some of us some of the ways a more sustainable life can be lived.

Yes, I want to raise meat rabbits too. I'm not sure my 6 year old will let me.

Yes! I have! I live in Anchorage, AK, so we get about 7 months of winter, and I have to admit to a lot of bus riding then - I shlep one child, now 6. I do bike in winter with studded tires, I have moved to about a block from work so I just need to bike the kid to camp/school everyday and hit the library, or natural food store conveniently on the way home, or the farmers market/ friends houses also less than 4 miles away. And I do now own 2 bikes (summer and winter), a bike trailer and a trail-a-bike. I am certainly no athlete or amazing person, but I do 15 miles a week day in the summer to get the kid to camp and back, with some hills and the extra load of kid/trail-a-bike. It isn't always super convenient or ecstatic, but generally I love my bike and how fluid and mobile and great it makes me feel! And, unlike a car, I can usually do most of my own maintenance (with the help of a book or friend), and what I don't have time to learn to do myself is cheap. My child is also very happy to bike with me (on his own bike when we have the time), and doesn't mind pouring rain, long distances, mud splattering him, etc - kids are great to keep motivated.

You can do it! You will feel healthier, satisfied with your self, environmentally righteous, richer, and like a good problem solver (when you figure out how to work in your errands, carry a wierd load, etc). Every once in a while you will have to drop something, because you don't have the time or energy to bike that far or rent/borrow a car to get there and the buses don't hack it, but usually those things aren't that important anyway!

Thanks for your transparency - mine is also a family of great conflicts and great resolutions, of stubborn players, of the 'responsible one' and 'the artist without current car registration' and 'the 6-year-old on a rampage'. Some of our issues and methods and personalities are different, of course, but most of what you wrote could have been about us. I'm not always sure we will all be intact in the next 6 months, but somehow we always are. Of course, our (or 'my' - one of the issues is that I am more commited to this project) eco-remodling efforts are much smaller and less disruptive so far, so that may have helped us out a bit. Good to know we aren't too far outside the bounds of a normal (if not functional) family!

Unless you are allergic, I agree with the use it up (or find someone else to) then recycle the container. There are plenty of us out there that are willing to take on someones old, half-used products and use them. Then figure out how much of the gunk (eco or otherwise) you can do without. Buying bottles of products for beauty is pretty un-eco to begin with, given the plastic bottles (which use a lot of energy even if recycled) and other ingredients. If it makes you truly happy, then by all means indulge, but some ideas include: Use less each time, use less often, use one product for many purposes (e.g. Biokleen hand dish washing liquid can be bought in 5 gallon buckets, used to fill smaller reused bottles, and cleans dishes, clothes, hair, skin, floors, etc excellently! and the 5 gallon buckets are useful). Less hot showers/baths can mean less moisturizer, and a big jug of olive oil can provide the moisturizing you need...etc. I'm not there yet, and have to suck it up and throw out the non-recyclable containers I sometimes buy food in, but zero-waste IS possible, and is reachable by not buying stuff (that will become waste) in the first place.

Not that I discount the viscious and exasperating nature of invasives, and I am not familiar with this one, but is there good evidence that these actually invade pristine wilderness and take over? Most of the invasives up here in Alaska are not so good at invading pristine native ecosystems. What they are good at is invading disturbed roadsides and streambanks, yards, farms, etc. So then usually the issue becomes one of human interests against the invasive, more than pristine nature against the invasives. Though I am opening a whole can of worms by even saying this, down to the moral roots of given that humans do affect the whole earth, that pristine nature absent humans is not really extant, that the earth itself probably doesn't care a whole lot what form the future takes (permian-triassic extinctions and all), but that most of us agree to a moral imperative to lessen the death and destruction wrought by ourselves on living beings and natural beauty.

I agree that you seem to be following the prudent course to increasing the biodiversity and human utility of your yard. The roots can not live forever if the tops are consistently chopped off. At least you have winter to rest!

Whatever happened with the lack of a foundation? Are foundation constructing activities underway? Just curious!

how do I do no driveway/parking?

Another weigh-in from Anchorage :)  I'd love to do no driveway (because my car is a bike) but I'm buying a 4-plex (the ecoplex) and my understanding is that I must provide a certain number of parking spaces per unit.  Anyone know of a precedent for gaining exceptions to this - can bike parking count :) On Umbra on driveways posted 1 year, 2 months ago 9 Responses

Inspiring!

I've been so inspired by all the photos and stories on Grist about car free living.  I'm so impressed by everyone that bikes multiple children!  I stopped at one kid since my biking thighs are so puny.  We are just now graduating from a chariot to a trail-a-bike, and I'm seriously thinking of an xtracycle.  We bike in the winter until the snow is too deep to get through (with studded tires) and then bus it (winter here in Anchorage can be almost 7 months).  We walk anything less than a mile.  My kid is 5, and I do bike him to camp while I go to work.  My partner has a car he won't give up, so it does get used sometimes.  Funny, I'm into Waldorf and more worried about camp pushing the ABC's on my kid too early than in him not learning them!  To me, childhood should be about imagination, bonding, playing, nature, mud, compost, growing things, etc...the rest will be welcomed in time by a curious mind!  On A car-free mom gets her muscles -- and mind -- in shape for summer posted 1 year, 5 months ago 5 Responses