I was thinking yesterday about how I don't feel as green as I did a couple of months ago. Let me explain.- It's been over a month since I've been able to hang clothes on the line to dry. November was a very rainy month, and now it's too cold.
- My garden is gone and so is the farmers market. My produce is no longer local.
- With the cold and the rain, I've been driving to places that I would walk to if the weather was better.
- My communion with creation is much less. Over the summer I was sitting at my picnic table at this time of the morning, writing and noticing the different types of birds and critters that share my backyard with me.
Could it be that I miss being outside? When's the last time that happened? When I was a kid? I've spent so much of my adult life indoors. While that has slowly been changing over the past couple of years, it changed greatly this past summer.
I think I'm going to have to learn to deal with the cold and get outside in it. I'm also going to have to put a clothesline in the basement. There isn't enough room to be able to dry all the laundry down there, but I could do a little of it. And what happens if I hang laundry out when it's 40 degrees? It will eventually dry, right? It might be cold when I bring it in, but it will warm up, right? Hmmmm. It's going to rain today (of course), but tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 40. I think I'll see what happens if I hang out something light like bed sheets.
So how about you? Are you finding your greenness fading to a bit of a lighter shade with the early fading of daylight? Will there be times where it's possible to be greener than other times or am I just a wimp?
4 comments:
Definately harder to be green in the cold months, we're still biking to and from school but I find more excuses as to why we sholuldn't on some days:) I definately have not been hanging clothes out and find myself throwing more food in the trash and not all in the compost, maybe because my garden is not green. I need to get myself inspired and just do it:)
Janine - it's obvious it's going to take more of an effort in the winter. I guess this is where we find out exactly how committed to this we are. We can do it!
I am having a harder time but not just because of the weather but because I am so much more busy. When I get busy it is really hard to be green if it is not convenient. I tried to work on convenience over the summer to get ready for the cold months like cleaning with baking soda, drinking water from the sink, freezing some veggies and fruit and buying clothes racks that can be in the house. But I never canned anything or planted a winter garden. I guess it may take a few seasons for us to get into the groove. Ha ha.
Allison - Yes, it will take a few seasons to get into the grove. I'd like to eventually learn to can the food from my garden, but it didn't produce enough last year to invest in the canning materials.
One of the things I did do on the last day of the farmers market was buy as much as I could afford of the canned local Jersey tomatoes, the frozen happy ground beef from a nearby farm, and the local honey. Perhaps I should have been buying one extra of those things each week the last two months of the market so I could have stocked up even further.
It's a learning process. We just need to take what we are figuring out now and find a way to be doing better this time next year.
And as always, don't beat ourselves up over it.
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