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Being Green Is A Life Choice

 October 10. 2024,

Hi, being Green is a never ending journey of exploration, frustration and contentment. 

October 10. 2024, Hi, being Green is a never ending journey of exploration, frustration and contentment. It's not a Damascus Road conversion, it's a journey. I'm in my 70s, and M'Lady is not too far behind. About thirty years ago, I promised her that we would end up in the mountains, close enough to her work for a reasonable commute and far enough away for my need to be surrounded by nature. Admittedly, I had a temperate rather than a tropical rain forest in mind at the time. But hey, a forest is a forest! Over the years, we have constantly redefined what we needed from the land we have with gratitude become Stewards of. At one point, I was seriously into tai chi and pineapples. Our yard had a large flat grassed area for tai chi and a seriously sunlit area where we tended to more than a thousand pineapple plants. Let me state categorically that on a hot day nothing is more refreshing than freshly squeezed pineapple juice with the froth just right. Now, my balance is no good for tai chi and my blood sugar can't handle pineapple every day. So, we have a diverse vegetable garden, many floral plants a hidden orchard, two fish, turtle, geese ponds and lots of giant butong bamboo for shade and building materials. Which brings me in a roundabout way to the point of this epistle. For breakfast tomorrow, we'll be eating goose eggs from our geese and homemade coconut flour sourdough bread. Trust me on this one, it will be tasty. With the added bonus of freshly brewed coffee from an old-fashioned percolator coffee. Of equal importance, it will be a Green leaning breakfast. We haven't had a truck deliver some stale eggs to our local store. Nor have we bought mass-produced bread that has a surprisingly high carbon footprint when you throw in things like transportation. We feed our geese some grain, but they are, within reason, free to roam and scavenge. Homemade bread saves on all the carbon footprint of store bought, and I dare say tastes as good. The old-fashioned coffee percolator and a thermos to hold the leftover coffee saves on electricity. Could we be Greener... certainly! Will we be Greener? Probably. Green is a journey and like all good journeys the end is yet to be written. The Green Man
It's not a Damascus Road conversion, it's a journey.

I'm in my 70s, and M'Lady is not too far behind. About thirty years ago, I promised her that we would end up in the mountains, close enough to her work for a reasonable commute and far enough away for my need to be surrounded by nature. Admittedly, I had a temperate rather than a tropical rain forest in mind at the time. But hey, a forest is a forest!

Over the years, we have constantly redefined what we needed from the land we have with gratitude become Stewards of. At one point, I was seriously into tai chi and pineapples. Our yard had a large flat grassed area for tai chi and a seriously sunlit area where we tended to more than a thousand pineapple plants. Let me state categorically that on a hot day nothing is more refreshing than freshly squeezed pineapple juice with the froth just right. 

Now, my balance is no good for tai chi and my blood sugar can't handle pineapple every day. So, we have a diverse vegetable garden, many floral plants a hidden orchard, two fish, turtle, geese ponds and lots of giant butong bamboo for shade and building materials.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to the point of this epistle. For breakfast tomorrow, we'll be eating goose eggs from our geese and homemade coconut flour sourdough bread. Trust me on this one, it will be tasty. With the added bonus of freshly brewed coffee from an old-fashioned percolator. 

Of equal importance, it will be a Green leaning breakfast. We haven't had a truck deliver some stale eggs to our local store. Nor have we bought mass-produced bread that has a surprisingly high carbon footprint when you throw in things like transportation.

We feed our geese some grain, but they are, within reason, free to roam and scavenge. Homemade bread saves on all the carbon footprint of store bought, and I dare say tastes as good. The old-fashioned coffee percolator and a thermos to hold the leftover coffee saves on electricity.

Could we be Greener... certainly! Will we be Greener? Probably. Green is a journey and like all good journeys the end is yet to be written.

The Green Man
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