Green Bay Farmers' Markets

One good post deserves another! Inspired by Di's posting of farmers' markets in the Appleton area, here are the farmers' markets up in Green Bay, and like Di I will post any additional ones I find.

Downtown Green Bay
Saturdays from June 7th - November 1st
7am - Noon
On Monroe St., between Cherry and Pine streets

Broadway Farmers' Market
Wednesday Evenings (I couldn't find the dates, but I know it started on the 4th of June)
3pm - 8pm
On Broadway, downtown Green Bay, between Dousman & Walnut

Oneida Farmers' Market
Thursdays from June 26th - October 9th
2pm - 6pm
Oneida One Stop
W180 Hwy 54, Oneida

How come everything's a green trend?

I was listening to Wisconsin Public Radio last Saturday morning; a show called Calling All Pets.

The guest was author Hannah Holmes, who discussed her latest book Suburban Safari. The basic synopsis of the book is that there's a world of wildlife in your backyard, you just don't know about it.

It was fairly interesting, but I couldn't help but laugh when the guest mentioned that you could increase the wildlife in your backyard with a trend called "freedom lawns." A freedom lawn basically means you don't put any chemical insecticides or fertilizers on your lawn, and allow a natural variety of plants and bugs.

Freedom lawns? Seriously? Do you know what I call it? A YARD! My parents once again prove to be on the cutting edge of the trends! We never put anything on our yard. My mom's philosophy was that if you waste money making grass grow faster, you have to cut it down more frequently. (And she likes dandelions, thank you very much.) Apparently, not dousing your lawn with poisons is a new concept to some people. That's just too funny.

(A quick footnote: I believe that Holmes was mentioning freedom lawns in jest as well. Less chemicals=good for nature. That's not rocket science. She was doing it and discovered it had an eco-trendy name.)

This Hairband Keeps Me Motivated

(Please enjoy the world's worst jpeg, courtesy of yours truly.)

A week ago, I snapped this hairband while trying to put my hair up. I tied a knot in the hairband and trimmed off the ends. It works just fine. In fact, it's in my hair as I write this.

I scored a great clearance deal on hairbands, I got a pack of 250 for $.49. At about two-tenths of a cent, it wasn't going to break my budget if I threw it away. From an environmental standpoint, one tiny hairband has a very small impact on a landfill.

So, why would I bother? I did it because there was no reason not to do it. It only took a moment, didn't cost me anything, and works just as well now as it did before.

We've been trained to think, "Throw it away, buy a new one." That's not a sustainable way to think. I'm retraining myself to think, "How does this still have value?" The hairband still had value, so there was no reason to throw it away.

Now that I've fixed it, it has even more value. It serves as a reminder that I shouldn't throw something away without a good reason. When I'm not wearing it, I usually keep it wrapped around my pen, where it reminds me several times a day to question whether something heading for the trash still has value.

Should You Buy CFLs if You Live in an Apartment?

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) are a mainstay of articles both on living green and on saving money. But the high up-front cost can be hard to justify if you are only planning on staying someplace for a year.

Why pay more for CFL bulbs so the next tenant can reap your savings? (According to the Energy Star website, a CFL bulb saves $30 or more over its lifespan.) Of course, it’s the environmentally-friendly choice, but it’s not always possible to make the green choice when money is tight.

A clever solution is to purchase CFL bulbs, but keep the halogen bulbs. When you move, return all the halogen bulbs to the light fixtures, and take the CFL bulbs with you.

Alternately, if you move to another apartment, you can switch the halogen bulbs from your new place to the old. (I’d only do this if the old place had halogen bulbs when you moved in; otherwise it’s a down-grade and a bit of a rip-off for the landlord.)

When my husband and I moved into our first apartment, we replaced all of our bulbs with CFL bulbs. We moved five years later and took those bulbs with us. (Actually, we had far more CFL bulbs than we needed for our new place, and left several there.) It was another year before the first of the CFL’s finally burnt out.

Happy Earth Day!

In the past few weeks, I've encountered more and more green new stories, magazine articles, radio spots, TV commercials, etc. All of it lead up to today, a storm of greenwashing larger than any I remember.

It could just be that I'm now more aware of it than before, or that more companies are actually developing a sense of social responsibility. But it seems to me, and forgive me if this seems trite, that Earth Day is being marketed as another reason for thoughtless consumerism.

So, to bastardize a phrase heard at Christmastime, Let's Keep the Earth in Earth Day.

Here's my suggestion. Since Earth Day is our one and only "green" holiday, let's treat it as a Green New Year. A chance to look back on your last year, and make resolutions for the year ahead.

I'll put myself out there first; here are my green resolutions for the year ahead:

Stop Wasting Food. I am terrible about knowing what's in the back of my fridge. Many a green pepper and bowl of leftovers have met their demise back there. To do this I'll need to plan the weekly meals to best use the food we buy, and remember to take those leftovers for lunches.

Cut Down on Unnecessary Driving. That means no more trips across town just because I "feel like going to Target." Now that the weather is nicer, when I get cooped up, I should go outside instead of clearance shopping.

Instill My MSG Values in My Daughter. At her age, that comes down to showing her the beauty of nature (lots of time outside), and the rewarding feeling of doing something for yourself (baking bread for example).

Just like on January First, the challenge here will be to remember these resolutions, and not let them fall to the wayside by mid-May.

What do YOU think?

Should the news of "food chain destruction" make us want to live greener faster, or is it too late? Is this just another scare tactic, or something we should really be worried about? I found this article a few minutes ago and couldn't help posting it:

Why Flowers Have Lost Their Scent

It's not too in-depth, but it makes you think about both sides of the story. Should we believe in our country's research teams, or should we believe news that comes from other countries (while considering our own media)?

I personally found the comment section to be very worthwhile...

The Cat Litter Chronicles Part II

Read Part I of the Series here.

While reading up on alternative cat litters online, I was excited to find several that were touted as flushable, including Feline Pine and World's Best Cat Litter. The idea made sense to me - no litter in the landfill, no stinky cat box garbage can.

At the pet store, I read the packaging of a box of World's Best, and found a warning saying that the state of California prohibits flushing cat feces. I was confused by this. The best guess I could venture was that since California has such a tight water usage, flushing litter was a waste of water.

A few weeks later, I came upon this article on Feline Pine's website. Basically, it states that the parasite Toxoplasmosis Gondii that some cats carry (the reason pregnant women shouldn't change cat litter) can survive sewage treatment and make its way to the ocean. Once there, it is harmful to marine life, most notably the sea otter. According to the site:

While Feline Pine & other alternative cat litter varieties are flushable, and while that aspect may seem convenient to cat owners, we at Nature's Earth strongly urge our customers to dispose of their cat's feces in the garbage - especially if you live in a coastal community.

I take away two lessons from this discovery. First, the seemingly environmentally-friendly choice may not always be so. Second, every action we take has some impact on our world. It's our responsibility to weigh those impacts and choose our actions wisely.

Turn Off Your Lights at 8pm March 29th

The World Wildlife Fund is hosting its second Earth Hour on March 29th. Last year's event was based in Sydney, Australia. This year they are taking it world-wide.

You can participate by turning off your lights from 8pm to 9pm on March 29th. You can sign up to participate on Earth Hour website, and while you're there you can learn more about the event.

There is some other interesting info on the site, including a carbon footprint calculator for Facebook (for those who have Facebook pages).

As for me, I might just participate with the Mountain time people. I get my daughter ready for bed around 8pm, and I don't see her taking too well to brushing her teeth and reading stories by candlelight.

MSG Loves Seventh Generation!

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."
-From the Great Law Of The Iroquois Confederacy

Wow. That's some pretty heavy stuff when you're perusing all-purpose cleaners at the supermarket. But you know what? It's the little things that count for me, and if a company is gutsy enough to use this law as the basis for itself, sign me up for a lifetime supply!

I've been using Seventh Generation's Natural All Purpose Cleaner for the past few months, and it's one of the BEST small changes I've made in the process to becoming more responsible.

I say responsible, because the whole idea of using products that actually contain natural materials (and not a newfound chemical created in a lab) should be the obvious choice to anyone looking to clean. How did it get to the point in our society that basic compounds are labeled as trivial and useless, while new "cleaning cocktails" are considered trustworthy and useful?

Trust is important especially if you have children or pets, because you never know who can get where no matter how much proofing is done. How much do I trust Seventh Generation? This is what's found under the warning section:

"Keep out of reach of children. In case of eye contact, flush with water for at least 15 minutes. If swallowed, drink a glassful of water."

There it is. Cut and dry.

A glassful of water? What? Nothing like "CALL POISON CONTROL IMMEDIATELY" or "SEEK PROMPT MEDICAL ATTENTION"? That seems like it's too good to be true...but it's not.

However, I would like to mention that a cut and dry explanation can also be harmful. Bleach and ammonia are very poisonous, and I do not endorse any kind of assumption that either is acceptable to use under every cleaning circumstance. But if those are the only two products you know the most about under your sink, should you really have to worry about 6 or 7 other products that contain unknown substances? Shouldn't using green products with natural substances make you feel better about your parent or pet owner responsibilities?

To answer my own question above, I completely trust Seventh Generation over name brand cleaners. I know it has made me feel safer about what I'm putting on my counter and down the drain. The extra few cents we pay for a green product in our home is worth lives we care about, not just for the sake of being a "trendy green".