Welcome to World Wide Wood, the online home of Peter, Rebecca and Catherine Wood.

Category Archives For Conscious Living

Local Food Consumption

Part of our commitment to living more conscious lives involves being more local consumers. Buying locally grown and produced foods from local vendors is good for both the environment and the local economy. We have already changed our eating out habits in order to patronize local establishments (Acapulcos, Pizza Bella Mia, Daily Harvest Cafe) and we’re working on filling our pantry with locally produced staples.

When it comes to groceries we’ve always shopped at Market Basket. They’re a locally owned franchise of grocery stores that don’t waste time and money on advertising, websites, or stock presentation. They just have low prices and a wide selection of groceries. They’re based out of Tewksbury, Ma, so I already feel better knowing that we aren’t supporting a multinational company like Stop and Shop.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a few positive changes at my local Market Basket. First, they got on board with the larger chains and started selling their own, branded, reusable shopping bags. Yay! I haven’t bought any, though, because I already have enough bags. They have also upgraded their checkout computer systems. My receipt is now printed on both sides and I can now sign the digital tablet when I pay with my credit card- both of which save paper on every transaction! And slowly but surely I am training the baggers to fill up my cloth bags and forgo the plastic. I’d like to think that eventually they’ll use so little plastic that they’ll stop offering it all together!

I usually stick to my list while shopping and buy the least expensive/best value of the selection that I can find. Take peanut butter for instance. Normally I buy the Market Basket brand at $1.50 a jar. This week I noticed that the same size jar of Teddie all natural peanut butter was 2/$4. I decided to pay the extra 50 cents to check it out. As it turns out, Teddie is a local, family owned company, based right here in Everett, Ma. And as an extra bonus the peanut butter comes in a wide mouth glass jar that will be perfect for fridge storage once we’ve licked it clean of pb!

The last month or so we’ve also been drinking local milk. Those of you on the North Shore will certainly know Richardson’s for their ice cream but they also sell their own milk. I don’t drink milk, but Peter claims that it tastes quite good and milky. I like the fact that Richardson’s raises their own cows and feeds them corn and grain that they grow themselves here in Massachusetts. We do have to drive a little further to get it, but I think it is a good trade off.

We’ll continue to seek out opportunities to buy local food. When the weather warms up I’m sure we’ll have a ball at the farmer’s markets that are in our area! How do you support your local farmers and economy?

Need something to read?

I’ve recently finished a couple of good books:

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John de Graaf, Davin Wann, and Thomas H Naylor

I found this to be a good primer for examining the effects of over consumption. The book is based on a 2000 PBS documentary and, as such, it has a casual narrative style. It was a fairly easy read but is definitely intended to incite its readers to action- specifically to reexamine your own consumption and to reduce it- for the sake of the Earth.

Affluenza was strong on the causes and symptoms of Affluenza but seemed to fall short when discussing cures or solutions.

More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre

This second book offers some of the solution that was lacking above. Written, and contributed to, by members of the Mennonite faith, this book is primarily a cookbook. In addition, it is a handbook for cooking and living in simple and sustainable ways. I especially like the mindset that the author is coming from. The recipes are all basic, but unique and tasty. Most of the ingredients are easy to find at the store. And there are little tips here and there about how to save and use your leftovers and scraps. I love having thrifty inspiration.

Daily Harvest Cafe

Peter, Catherine and I had the opportunity to check out a new local restaurant last week. The Daily Harvest Cafe recently opened on High Street in Danvers and we were eager to give it a try.

We were all very pleased with what we found there. Catherine loved the wagon full of kids toys and was disappointed to see that the kid sized table was already occupied. Peter and I were intrigued by the variety of the menu offerings. Peter had the “Chloe” (a turkey and muenster sandwich with a cranberry orange mayo) and I had the Thai Chicken Wrap. Both were delicious! It was difficult to choose from all the sandwiches, salads and burgers on the menu. They also had a huge selection of natural juices and bottled soda as well as a soda fountain serving Real City Soda.

I particularly like that if you ‘eat in’ your sandwich comes on a real plate and you get a real glass for your fountain soda! It is great that they are doing their part to reduce waste. Overall, it is a comfortable, earth/health conscious, locally owned establishment. We will definitely be going back.

Keeping Warm the Earth Friendly Way

Here it is November 5th and the Wood family has yet to fire up the furnace. I had set a goal not to use the heat until October was over, but now it is a game to see how long we can go without it (and without the high heating bill!) We know that eventually it will get too cold and we’ll be happy to turn the heat on. Until then, though, here are some things that we’ve been doing to keep warm as the temperature starts to dip.

wearing socks and slippers
wearing sweaters
drinking hot tea and cocoa
eating soup
exercising (tai bo, neighborhood walks, ddr)
yard work
opening the shades to the morning sun
shutting the windows and doors up tight
putting flannel sheets on the bed
curling up with blankets to read or watch tv

All of these things are helping us to conserve natural resources. We’re using what we have on hand to keep warm instead of burning natural gas. And as an added bonus, the exercise and yard work have their own distinct benefits as well.

What are your favorite ways to keep warm?

Spread the Love

Over the past couple of months I’ve used Vegetable Oil to stir fry veggies, but Sara, Matt and Bella Janssen have been using it to drive across the country. No, really! The Janssens are a month and a half into a one year tour of the country in their veggie powered RV. Their goal is to educate folks about sustainable living and alternative fuels.

I had been a reader of Sara’s blog, Walk Slowly, Live Wildly (which was full of inspiration for a simple life) when she mentioned that they were downsizing from their apartment to an RV. They spent a while refurbishing the interior with earth friendly, sustainable materials (bamboo flooring, sunflower seed counter tops, etc.) and now their on the road, “spreading the love”.

Peter and Catherine and I met up with the tour on Tuesday evening and our families got to know each other over Thai food and pie. On Wednesday we all hopped on the train and zipped into Boston. We walked a good chunk of the Freedom Trail, had lunch in Quincy Market, visited the ducks in the Public Garden, checked out Harvahd Yahd and grabbed some Vietnamese noodles for dinner.

We were glad to show our visitors around our fair Capital and were thrilled with a tour of their rig. I’d highly suggest checking out their tour site at Live Lightly Tour. If it looks like they’re coming to your town keep your eyes peeled for the big blue bus!

Our photos are here and don’t forget to Spread the Love!

Hand-me-Downs

There are few things better, in my mind, than shopping for baby clothes. Every little outfit is so soft and adorable and colorful. You can get away with things like frilly collars and ruffles that you can’t do with older kids. I just love looking through racks and racks of little dresses and sweaters and onesies and shoes!

But filling a baby’s wardrobe with new outfits can be very expensive. It also takes a huge toll on the environment. Each outfit has needed energy to produce it and fuel to get it to our stores. We buy the cute little clothes, dress baby up, snap a few pictures and, before you can say monkey, your little one has grown out of them. Wash, rinse, repeat with the next size up.

There are a couple of age old, time tested, practices that can keep your baby clothed in style, your wallet full and the earth happy: Buying used and Hand-me-downs. We’ve done both in the past couple of weeks.

Twice a year, here on the North Shore, the Children’s Drop and Shop is held. It is a several day event- the first few days local parents drop off anything they want to consign- labeled and on hangers. All these clothes, toys, etc. are put on display and the last few days you can go back and buy. Everything is clean and in great condition and usually at 50% off the retail or greater!

I only found a couple things to buy this time around but I got great deals on them. A Gymboree brand collared shirt (with the tags still on) for $1. (normally $15-$20) and this super cute dress for $7! It is a win win win situation. The clothes are all being reused which the earth loves, they’re cheap which I love, and the consigner gets a percentage back which they love.

We also love hand me downs! Catherine’s fall wardrobe has been almost completely stocked by two wonderful women: my cousin Angela and my good friend Joanna. Their girls have grown out of some nice clothes and Catherine is more than happy to wear them. Hand me downs are almost always more comfy since they’ve already been worn in! Again, the more times these clothes get worn, the less strain on the environment there is.

We are fortunate to have a great children’s sale and some even greater friends and family. You can check out your local thrift shops, yard sales, Goodwill, Salvation Army, craigslist or Freecycle for some great deals on earth friendly kids clothing.

Mount Olga or “why I love hiking”

At the Molly Stark State Park you can find very clean bathroom facilities and a trail to the top of Mount Olga. As we hit the trail Peter turned to me and asked, “why do you love hiking so much?”

When I started to answer I came up with one or two reasons, but as I kept thinking I came up with many more. So, why to I love hiking?

It’s outdoors. I love the fresh air and sun shining through the trees. I love the smell of fallen leaves.
There’s often a great view as a reward for all your work fighting gravity.
It is free- for the most part. Usually if there’s a park fee it goes back into maintaining the trails and facilities, so it is totally worth paying.
It is great exercise.
It is quiet.
There is very little commercialization surrounding it (minus EMS and REI and LLBean- but you can hike without spending one penny at any of those)
It is family friendly. And I have great memories of hiking with my family when I was a kid.

Well, the list could go on and on. Hiking just makes me happy.

And I was happy last Sunday when we stopped into the Molly Stark campground and hiked to the top of Mount Olga.

Cloth

This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned diapers on this blog…and probably won’t be the last! I’ve said before that I wanted to use cloth diapers when Catherine was born. What I didn’t want was schlepping all the dirty ones over to the laundromat and pay to wash them! So for a year we used disposables. Sometimes we used gDiapers.

Now that we have our own laundry facilities, and we are working so hard to be green, we are making the switch to cloth diapers. The benefits are pretty obvious- they are less expensive in the long run, softer, make less waste, and are pretty cute! Cloth diapers have come a long way since my Mom diapered me! You won’t find a single diaper pin or pair of vinyl pants at our house! For some good information about today’s cloth diapers see here and then surf around and look at all the cute diapers for sale!

Making the switch is not cheap in the short run, however. A good set of cute diapers can run a person $80-$100! Never mind any accessories that go with it! We decided to ease ourselves into it. We already owned two ‘little gs’ that we have been using the flushable diapers in. I found them on craigslist- a starter pack (2 pants and 10 diapers)- for $10 [normally $25]. I went to Wal*Mart and got a dozen prefold diapers to get us started. I just fold the diapers and stuff them in the covers. The covers get velcroed on around her waist. Easy as pie!

We are still working out the kinks in our system. We’ve figured out washing and drying- we dry on a rack outside…the sun bleaches out the stains! It is a little more work than disposables, but worth it. There are a few things I’d like to add to the mix. I would love to get a couple more gDiaper covers and another dozen diapers. That would set us up with a healthy stash. We need some sort of ‘wet bag’ for the dirty diapers when we’re on the go.

We still use disposables here and there for some occasions, but I think as we grow more and more comfortable with the routine of cloth diapering there will be less and less need for them.

In other cloth news, we have abandoned paper napkins for cloth. We have a few napkins that came with a wedding present (the khaki ones) but I wanted more. I dug through my fabric bin and found some lavender linen fabric from an abandoned project. I whipped them up into little napkins with my trusty Singer and immediately pressed them into service.

These two changes require me to spend a little more time dealing with laundry-type chores, but I feel good knowing that I am reducing both the amount of material things I need to buy and the amount of trash I’m sending to the landfill.

A Green Yard

And it’s not just the color of the grass!

One of the things I was most looking forward to when we moved here was having a back yard. Apartment living had turned a normally outdoorsy gal into much more of a homebody and I was excited to have space to live in-outdoors.

Over the past few months I’ve been adding different things to the back yard that are helping us enjoy the space we have while minimizing the impact we have on the planet. Let me take you on a short tour of the yard:

Rain Barrel

We purchased this little beauty from the New England Rain Barrel Company. It only has one job, but boy does it do it well. Water runs off the roof, through the gutters, down the spout right into the barrel. There are two nozzles. The one at the top allows water to run out when the barrel gets full. The second is at the bottom and has a short hose attached. We use the second nozzle to fill the watering can for watering the gardens.

The benefits are numerous: by collecting water we keep it from running off and eroding the area under our deck, it also prevents water from pooling or seeping into the basement, we’re saving money (and water) by not using town water to water plants and by using a recycled barrel we’re cutting down on the waste byproducts of manufacturing. The company had a partnership with the town of Danvers so we were able to get our barrel at a discount, even!

Vegetable Garden

Just because we have a yard doesn’t mean that we have all the tools necessary to maintain a yard or a garden. I had originally wanted to put in a medium to large size veggie garden. Then I realized that I didn’t have any way to till the ground…I didn’t even own a hoe! Through the mamas (and dads) at Motheringdotcommune I was introduced to Square Foot Gardening.

The basic idea behind the method is that in each1′x1′ section of a raised bed garden you plant one crop. Because of the size of the garden (only 4′x4′) you can reach each section easily for weeding and harvesting. The footprint is small, and no tilling is necessary.

I built my own bed with lumber from Home Depot and some nails we already had. Add in some soil and seeds and the cost is still minimal. I put in beans, peas, carrots, peppers, squash, spinach and pumpkins. The plants are growing up nicely and I’m happy to say that there are very few weeds! The squash and beans have a few blossoms and I’m hoping for a nice harvest come the end of summer. We’ll probably have enough for some meals or snacks but not enough to freeze or can for the winter. I figure this year is my test run and if the garden does well I can expand it next year.

Compost

Worst come to worst I was planning on having a compost heap out back. Really just a place to toss yard clippings and kitchen scraps where they could decompose in peace. As luck would have it, though, I found a stack composter on Freecycle (like this one). It sits just beyond the edge of the yard and I take our food scraps out there every couple of days. The stack hasn’t decomposed into usable mulch yet, but it is definitely working. I think that I’ll have some nutrient rich mulch to mix in with the veggie garden’s soil when I prep the bed for winter. Then by spring there should be plenty to kick start the beds for the growing season.

As a bonus the composter helps keep our trash output lower and by not using the garbage disposal we are conserving more water and reducing the energy needed to treat the gray water. And it gives me a great place to toss the occasional worm I find crawling around!

Clothesline

I love that crisp, crunchy feeling of clothes dried on a line. I love seeing beach towels and bathing suits hung side by side. I love knowing that every time I hang out instead of machine dry the pennies are adding up in my bank account. Plus, this time of year who wants the dryer heating up the inside of the house? Not me! (though, I’m a bit to bashful to hang my underwear out to dry…)

This clothesline cost us one dollar. The rope I found amongst our things (who knows when [or if] it was purchased) and the fence and the tree were preexisting. I just had to buy pins. I found a package at the dollar store. They’re pretty low quality, but I’m willing to put up with that for now. As long as my laundry doesn’t end up on the ground.

Overall, it is a pretty good setup for us who don’t want to spend tons of money working on the lawn. I’d like to get some flowers in for next spring but I wouldn’t change much else!

Green Printing

Another in a series of posts dedicated to making conscious decisions for living a better life.

Since finishing school Peter and I have found that we rarely need to print from our computers. Maybe for craft projects or directions from Google, but not the multi page papers we once printed. It is easy to say, “put scrap paper in!” before we printed something, but much harder to do it. It was often that we forgot and would print something inconsequential on a beautiful, white, clean piece of paper. What a waste!

To solve this problem we’ve taken all the new paper out of the printer and replaced it with ’scrap’ that has printing only on one side. Now when we print something it automatically goes on the recycled paper. If we’re printing something nice we remember to put clean paper in.

It is such a simple, free, earth friendly solution…I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner.

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