Locavores (and Wannabes) - I've Got Strawberries!

Just a short post to say:

STRAWBERRIES! 

The first of the season were at the farmer's market today. They were $5 a pint, but I didn't care. I haven't had a strawberry since mid-last summer. 

In about two weeks, I'll take my five year old on our annual strawberry picking day, and then not only will it just be strawberry time, but strawberry daiquiri time! 

Enjoy your weekend!

Last Minute Green Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Yes, there are only two days until Mother's Day. If you're like me, you haven't done anything for your own mom or all the other moms you want to honor. Here are some last minute gift ideas that lean towards being green.

Buy flowers or a flowering plant at your local farmer's market - For the past few years, I have bought my mom a humungous hanging basket of pansies, taken it right to her house, hung it on her lamp post and just left. 

Give her a tomato plant in a container - If mom doesn't have a vegetable garden, one potted tomato plant can give her yummy tomatoes all season long and all she'll have to do is step out the back door or on her apartment balcony to pick it.

If you're going to send her flowers, find a florist local to her who offers local flowers. A delivery of organically grown local flowers is much more environmentally friendly than sending her flowers that were shipped from another country through a national florist.

Bake her favorite treat using all organic ingredients. My mom likes rhubarb. It's in season right now. I think I'll be creating something tempting tomorrow with rhubarb.

Buy her all natural beauty products. If your mom likes to pamper herself, check out the all natural/organic products that are available and purchase a few for her to try.

Take her to a restaurant that uses local, sustainable foods. Go to www.eatwellguide.org to find one near you (this website is great - it also gives you the locations of farmer's markets, csa's and other places to get local foods near you).

Buy her music, DVD's or books from a used dealer. This one will depend on how your mom feels about it. Some mom's might be insulted, but others will be perfectly fine with a gently used copy of these things. And because they will be cheaper than buying new, you can buy her more. 

Buy her art from a local artist - Not so much green as it is supporting the local economy, but I'm beginning to see a connection between sustaining the earth and sustaining the local economy. 

Give her a gift certificate that allows her to invest in a micro loan - Micro loans are usually given to people who need a small loan to begin a business. They can buy a loom for someone who wants a textile business or a cow for someone who needs one for a farm. One reputable place is Kiva, and you can buy a gift certificate for as little as $25 that can be invested in the person of your choosing. 

I hope you found something worthwhile in the list. I know that just generating these ideas helped me decide what to do.

Happy Mother's Day!

Want to Know How Green Your Produce Is? Look at the Sticker.

You learn something new every day right? I've only been awake 20 minutes today, and I've already done my learning. Over at Tomato Casual (a blog I recently learned of that I'm loving because of the garden I'm growing has three different types of tomatoes, and let's face it, I'm clueless about what I'm doing), I found a post about the stickers on supermarket produce.

The numbers on the stickers actually indicate how the food was grown. I always assumed they were a pricing code. But not so. Here's the lowdown.

A sticker that has four digits on it means that the food was grown conventionally. That means that it was most likely grown on a huge farm, and the likely hood that chemicals were used is pretty good.

A sticker that has five digits and begins with the number 8 means that the produce has been genetically modified. It may have still been grown using chemicals, and the process is still relatively new. Not all of the effects (helpful and harmful) of genetically modified produce are understood yet.

A sticker that has five digits and begins with the number 9 means that the produce is organic.

The US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France and  all countries exporting to them are supposed to use this coding system.

This is really useful information. I can't believe I haven't stumbled up it until now, but thanks Tomato Casual for educating me.

Sometimes You Just Need a Car

I often wonder if my family could get along without our cars. We could conceivably go down to one car since my husband and I both work from home. The mini van doesn't get driven much anyway. Then a day like yesterday comes along. 

The boys wanted to go back up to the school to play on the playground after we got home from school. So they changed into shorts, we loaded a backpack with (reusable) water bottles and reading material for mom, hopped on our bikes, and pedaled off to the playground.

My reading material was unnecessary because there were four other moms up there already that I know, and we sat a picnic table chatting. Then came the scream. The one you know is from your child.

My eight year old had jumped off the swing and had a bad landing. Of course, my first response was what most good mom's response would be. "You're fine. Suck it up. Go back and play with your friends."

But he sat at the picnic bench and just laid his left hand on the table while he sobbed. After about 15 minutes it occurred to me that he really could be hurt. So I call my husband, "Can you please bring the van up to the school." I knew my son wouldn't be able to ride his bike home.

So hubby loads the bike and the kid in the van, my younger son and I hop on our bikes, and we all arrive at home. An hour later it was obvious. We needed to go to the hospital. Turns out, my son broke his arm.

And I wonder, if we didn't have a car, what would we do in an emergency? I'm sure one of the other mom's could have put my son's bike in the back of her car and driven him home. A neighbor could have driven us to the hospital, but that would have still been relying on a car. I suppose an ambulance could have come and gotten him (would they come for a broken arm?), but again, that would be relying on a vehicle and the resources of our town.

I am making great efforts to drive less. For me, someone who doesn't drive to work, it comes by cutting out little short trips. I  drive the kids the four blocks to school much less frequently than before. I make dinner from what is on hand instead of running to the store for the one or two ingredients for a dish that I'm in the mood for. The boys and I bike to their friends' houses. 

But, I'm not willing to give up a car completely. The mom in me needs to know that if there is an emergency, I can take care of my boys. And sometimes, you just need a car for that.

Green Term of the Week - Eco-Labels

As companies scramble to draw in consumers who are concerned about the environment, more and more eco-labels are popping up on the packaging of products. An eco-label is a label on a product that identifies it as being green or organic or environmentally friendly or something else that gives consumers the impression that the product they are buying is good for the environment.

The problem with eco-labels is that many of them mean nothing. They are created by the companies who make the product or given by a green organization that doesn't have any specific standards or ways of ensuring that products really are what they say they are (or aren't). There are no governmental standards for them.

Some eco-labels are helpful. If a product is certified organic, for instance, it must meet a fixed set of governmental standards. Fair Trade Certified is also a meaningful eco-label. Something labeled environmentally friendly or cruelty free, however, are basically meaningless because there are no sets of standards for those labels.

There are so many eco-labels out there, and more are being created by clever marketing companies all the time. I found a very informative website put out by Consumer Reports that gives information on the majority of them: Eco-labels Center.

For each label there is a chart that answers several questions including:

How meaningful is the label?

Is the label verified?

Is the meaning of the label consistent?

Are the label standards publicly available?

There are also more details about the label under each chart.

I grabbed one of my green products and checked it out on the website. I choose Window Kleener by Earth Friendly Products. On the back of the bottle, there is a leaping bunny symbol. Turns out it's one of the meaningful labels that means that the product was made with compassion for animals. 

Preaching Green

Yesterday, I took my son to his friend's house and as we rode up on our bikes we saw his friend's family unloading their car full of groceries packed in plastic bags.

After dinner last night, my husband was doing the dishes (yes, he does them every night - I got a good one), and as he was wiping down the counter he left the water in the sink running.

Later in the evening, I went to tell my neighbor something as she was pulling up, and she too had a car full of groceries packed in plastic bags.

Last night I had a dream. I dreamt I went to the grocery store and left with everything in reusable bags. But when I got home and opened the back of the car, everything was DOUBLE BAGGED in plastic. When I walked in my house, everything was wrapped in plastic grocery bags - the books on the shelves, the stuff on the coffee table. Plastic bags were everywhere. And then all of these people came out from different rooms with a look on their faces that seemed to be challenging me to say something as if I was being dared to call them on this plastic.

Who could have ever predicted that my nightmares would have ever looked like this?

I do not want to become a pushy green preacher.  I wonder how it's best to approach people, including my own husband, when I see that they could easily be doing what they are doing in a greener manner.

By now most people close to me know what the focus of my writing has become. And often, in conversations people offer me a guilty apology when they mention something they did that wasn't particularly green. How am I to respond?

I believe that living by example is a much better way to influence people than preaching at them. I'm ready to talk to them about how they can make changes in their life to be more environmentally friendly, but I need some sort of invitation from them first.

So my question, readers, is how would you like to be approached in one of the scenarios that I opened up with? Would you be open to being approached at all? What's a good way to be give helpful suggestions without sounding judgmental? 

Follow me to Freelance Writing Jobs

I'm guest posting over at Freelance Writing Jobs today on being a writer who is concerned about being green. But the post isn't exclusively for writers. The tips I give for making your home office more environmentally friendly can apply to anyone. Check it out.