Green Thoughts

I don't know your weather, where ever you might be reading this, but in Kent right now we have approximately 15 inches of snow.  Oh, joy.  All the white stuff has me thinking of nothing more than green.  Spring.  Garden.  Dirt.  There's the real joy! 

I'm so happy to have seeds on the way, a new grow light for the basement, seed trays cleaned, starter arrived, and getting labels made up.  Usually I just plant seeds and then forget which variety is where, so it's a big surprise when things are ripe, because by then I have *no* recollection of what on Earth I planted.  And by "surprise" I mean huge frustration trying to figure out what seeds to get and which ones we disliked.  Oops.  So this year I'm trying labeling.


All the excitement has had me talking gardening with plenty of people, one of whom was only too happy to tell me all about his compost system.  That's a few hundred dollars.  And made of plastic.  And uses worms.  And comes pre-assembled from northern California.  And has a small heating element to keep things going even in winter.  He was shocked when I suffered a bought of oral diarrhea in an effort to tell him that this whole thing is NOT SUSTAINABLE!  I don't care how much compost he makes with this thing- it's not the ecological wonder that he thinks it is.  How many issues can you count with this contraption? 

Which gets to one of my pet peeves.  I'm thrilled that "green" and "eco-friendly" are popular and sustainability is "cool" right now.  But will "green" go the route of alternative music- filled with sell outs and loosing all meaning?  What will be the sustainability equivalent of the Metallica-Napster melee?  Ugh, that makes my heart sick.  Green is supposed to be "simple" in the sense of fewer components and ingredients.  No, that might not always be easier, but it should be cheaper, and doesn't require fancy new gadgets.  Hrmph!

In other news, Baby by Nature cloth diaper store has moved to http://www.babybynature.org where we're having a bit of an issue switching over the old site, but it'll be coming shortly.  Also, http:www.lifeofnature.org is on it's way (slowly) to coming into being, but populating the forum and designing that is turning out to be a bit more than I had thought.  No matter what, fun things are on the horizon!  Which should keep me too busy to wallow in self pity too long. 

And our household will be growing soon- with Galluceria sp. beetle farm for purple loose strife control, more bees, and small poultry- quail and chicken.  I'm so excited!