Today was a car free day for the whole family. Aaron has been bike commuting the 11 miles to work each day since early in the spring so he has not been using his car to commute. The kids and I walked to a nearby playground at their school and as it turned out the school is moving the books in the library from one room to another so we went in to help out with that. It would be so neat if public schools were more of a community effort in our town. As it is there is a core group of parents who are involved in volunteering to organize events and fundraise, but I would like to see more community action in the maintenance of the grounds and buildings.
We rode bikes to the kids friend’s house and spent the day there. We could have driven, but it has been my goal to have the kids ride or walk to as much as we can. They seem to really enjoy it too.
When we got home in the afternoon I cooked dinner – local chicken sausages, cornbread with local corn in it, and a salad of local lettuce, carrots, blueberries, and feta cheese. It felt good to know where so much of our food was coming from. I have been taking the kids to Ingaldsby Farm in Boxford, MA for our produce, milk, and eggs. It is a great little farm stand and the kids love to go and check out the animals there too.
After dinner I needed to mow the lawn. This spring I decided we were not going to use the electric lawn mower and more or the electric weed whacker. I asked my parents for their old Smith and Hawken push lawn mower that they had sitting in their garage and took it to get tuned up and sharpened. I also spent the spring and summer covering over all the grass which goes along the side of the street and the sidewalk. I planted day lillies and other plants that would naturally spread and don’t need much watering. A few of my neighbors have since done the same! All that I left for mowing is a small area of grass for the kids to play on around our tree. So I can now mow our little patch of grass without noise or air pollution and it feels great! The kids like to get in on it too. The mower is a bit hard for them to push but they seem to like the challenge and want to do it anyway. Hand-trimming the edging is the hardest and most time consuming part, but it feels good not to be using fossil fuels to maintain our lawn and my hands are getting stronger too!
The human powered lawn care system!
Area of lawn left in our yard
No more grass along the sidewalk and street!
After finishing the lawn it was time to get some exercise. I have decided not to use my elliptical trainer unless I absolutely cannot do anything else as an outdoor form of exercise, like maybe in the winter when it is getting dark at 4:30pm and the temperature is in the 20’s. So I went for a bike ride on the bike my mother-in-law rode across country on. I love that it has seen so many miles and now I can give it some more since she is done with it and has moved on to recumbent cycling. Reuse!
Terry
On another note – a very exciting article in the Eagle Tribune paper today (story)- (which I happened to see at a friend’s house since we do not get the paper in order to reduce paper waste and save money) – it looks like there are a few active members of the environmental community here in Haverhill, MA who are interested in getting the town to start curbside recycling for more than just paper and cardboard, which is all that you can currently recycle here curbside. I have been collecting our 1 and 2 plastics, glass bottles, and tin and aluminum cans and taking them to a transfer station a few towns over for the last six years. It would be so great to see the town recycling more and to know that less trash is being generated because of it.
