Category Archives: Not Green

These boots were made for walking

But unfortunately, these streets were not!

Saturday afternoon, we walked to an apartment viewing.  I knew it was less than a mile away, and the streets were in no condition for biking (for those of us without studded tires), so we laced up our boots and began the trek.  Unfortunately, the most direct route took us down a major arterial with lots of businesses.

I expected unshoveled sidewalks.  What I didn’t expect were the mounds of piled-up dirty snow and ice we encountered every time we came to the driveway to one of these businesses*.  The snow plows did a great job of clearing the streets and parking lots for drivers, with no regard whatsoever to any other users or means of transportation.  And we were not the only ones navigating the obstacle course, as a major bus route runs along this street, which means more pedestrians.

Despite the less than ideal walking conditions, I’m glad we opted to walk.  The apartment was another bust, which just made me extra glad we didn’t waste gas driving.  After viewing the apartment, we ventured just a bit further and had a lovely, snowy walk in Tower Grove Park — a great way to redeem the outing 🙂

* I don’t have photo evidence of the snow “removal” transgressions, but if there’s snow where you are, just look around when you’re out and about — I’m sure you’ll notice plenty of examples — especially if you’re out on foot!

Already increasing my carbon footprint

I mean that in a very loving and motherly way, of course 🙂

The big changes won’t come for another six months or so, but for two to three weeks in November, my diet consisted almost entirely of the items pictured above.  Items with packaging.

Prior to November, we made it through several months without buying breakfast cereal (we made our own granola instead), and we very rarely buy packaged items like pretzels or anything other than basic crackers to have on hand.  And then the nausea hit, and I just wanted to feel better.

The most atrocious item is not pictured above — a plastic bag of individually plastic-wrapped hard ginger candies.  For better or worse, they weren’t all that helpful, so I won’t be buying more.

On the up side, I’ll be getting prenatal care at a place that’s less than two miles from us — a nice, easy bike ride.  All last week I was anxiously watching the roads, hoping the icy snow pack would melt in time for my first prenatal appointment on Saturday.  Melt it did, which is good, because I was very determined not to drive there!

Anyway, the first trimester nausea came with a general apathy toward many things, including blogging, which explains my scanty posting in November and December.  At this point, I’m pretty much back to posting regularly (if you disregard the last seven days), feeling semi-normal, and eating a healthy, non-packaged foods diet, though I still have a winter squash aversion, which is unfortunate, because we kind of have a lot of squash in the basement (see header photo).

False alarm

So, I did it.  I took the plunge and bought airfare to Europe.  Now, I don’t fly often, partly because flying is not exactly on the “things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint” list, but I’ve never been to Europe (or off the North American continent), and this is something we’ve been talking about for more than two years.

During that time, I hem-hawed, waiting around for airfare that fit within my rather limited idea of “what I thought I should pay for airfare to Europe.”  When I didn’t see fares I liked for Fall 2008, I put it off until Spring 2009.  Spring 2009 fares not low enough?  Let’s wait for fall.  And so on and so forth.

We were already leaning heavily toward just doing it in 2011, when we received a bit of an extra nudge in November.  So a few weeks ago, I bit the bullet, found a decent (but still high for my frugal mentality) fare and actually bought the tickets.

I decided to be very well-behaved and not torture myself by continuing to track fares after that point.  All was well until I read “11 Tricks to Cutting Travel Costs in 2011” (see trick #4) — of course I had to take a peek at fares.

Now, I booked our tickets directly through the airline, thinking that if, for some reason, we needed to make a change, that would be the best and most reliable way to go.  Imagine my surprise (and excitement) when I searched that airline’s website and found the EXACT SAME itinerary for $150 less PER PERSON.

Three hundred dollars would be a nice chunk of extra change for our trip.  I immediately called the airline to inquire about a refund.  The customer service rep quickly dashed my hopes, claiming there would be a $250 “change fee,” which would  eat up a large portion of the fare difference. I asked a few more questions, trying to see if I could find any loopholes, but the conversation ended in disappointment.

After a brief retreat to lick my wounds (and scratch my very itchy torso), I regrouped and wrote a letter to the airline, expressing my disappointment with the situation.  I’ve pretty much accepted that we’re stuck with the original fare (which really was not too bad), but the letter can’t hurt anything.  Either way, we are Europe-bound in 2011, and I’ll spend the next few years working off the environmental impact of the trip 😉

Tunneling

My favorite gardener constructed this nifty little low tunnel to extend the growing season.  We should be able to harvest spinach almost all winter.

I’m not sure how this stacks up environmentally, since what you’re looking at there is a lot of plastic.  Sure, it’s heavy duty plastic that should last multiple growing seasons, but still.

It may be better than buying plastic bagged spinach shipped in from California, but the greenest option would be to just eat local spinach during the regular not-extended-with-tunnels growing season.  That said, it will be fun to get something out of the garden when fresh, local produce is scarce.

Plastic trash tally

As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, I took the “Show Your Plastic Challenge” on Fake Plastic Fish.

The trashy truth is now posted for the world to see.  Click here to see my Week 1 results and my thoughts on where I can cut back on plastic trash.

Anyone else out there ready to take the challenge?