Sometimes it's hard to be green & frugal

And most of all:

Don't sweat the small stuff!

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Life is a compromise in most areas. I used to have a second hand store in town 9 miles away and I don't drive. I got up at 4:00am, cooked for the day on a wood stove and in summer did some preserving. Then I left walking to town to work and hoped I got a ride! At night I started walking home. At home I washed clothes in the bath tub by hand and hung them out over night to drip and hopefully dry the next day. The cooking never ended when I was home and baking because there were six of us to feed.Water was heated on the wood stove for baths.
My husband worked for others gardening and came home and worked until midnight in our gardens and fields. He was often eating supper at 11:00pm! He invented and made and refurbished old horse drawn machienery as we had no extra money to buy anything. We were 39 and 40 years old when we got our homestead.

We weren't trying to prove anything by doing things the old fashioned way. We did what we had to do to survive! However when our economics changed we gradually made things easier to do. I have a freezer and small washing machine and electric stove. I appreciate them all. My husband has a lawn tractor and whipper snipper and hand tiller to use if he needs them. He still prefers hand tools though and still uses the horse for harder work on the farm..
Having lived the the pioneer life and "green" almost completely I can tell you it was a hard life and a person has to be long on endurance to live that way completely. There is a reason many of our forefathers and mothers died early in life. The work would wear them down and fifty was more like eighty now days.

I think the best way to live is a compromise between the old ways and new. The new ways can be green too by incorporating modern technology such as solar power. The old ways of composting for gardens and farm fields and hanging clothes on the clothes line for me will stay the same though.

Here is my take on it, it is all about time management. Everyone has 24 hours in their day it is how that time is spent that becomes relevant. Sometimes you have the time to do things the "green' way and sometimes you have the money to do them the "green" way other times you don't. For example, I needed to level one spot and fill in another, could I have spent half a day or more digging the one spot down and wheel barrowing it to the other to fill it in, sure I could of. Well I don't have a spare half day sitting around so I took about 20 minutes and did it with the tractor, was that the "green" thing to do probably not but it was the most efficient thing to do. A lot of the folks who try to make you feel guilty about not being "green" have a staff to do their work. I don't and I suspect you don't either, do what you can do when you can do it and don't worry about it.

I hunt for 60-70% of our meat. There is no way it's cheaper, but its what we choose. I don't worry about stuff like the washer and dryer as long as Mexico, India, and China have little to know regard for the environment.

Doing it right, whatever "it" is, usually costs more in time or money or both.

Listen, if somebody like AlGore can live in a mansion and fly around the globe in jumbo jets w/o his conscience keeping him awake at night, then you've got nothing to feel guilty about.

Use the dryer.

I still don't get why some people don't drive. What's the rationale behind it? I have arthritis so it's important for me to be able to drive plus I have two young children.....

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

I totally get where you're coming from - I'm also a single female (grown kids, so live alone), and I work 12 hr night shifts full time as an RN. There are just too many jobs to get them all done alone, and if I tried to get everything that needs done, done...I'd hurt so badly that I'd be completely out of commission!

You do what you can do, and don't sweat the rest. I have a clothesline, but most of the time I use the dryer. I have really nasty iron water, even with a filter system, so I do wash my clothes with rain water in a wringer washer, but I spin them in my electric front loader (not hooked up to the taps, spin cycle only). Sometimes I make my own laundry soap, sometimes I use "storebought". I even, gasp, use half a dryer sheet in the dryer!

I'd be really, really happy just to get enough weeds out of the garden to actually GARDEN this year....

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My posts and words remain my exclusive property and may not be used without my express written permission and proper credit given for authorship.

...i know exactly how you feel. i have a fresnel lens and never use it because it's too ---- hot and bright outside...

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I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.

Scrub Land's Blog

Corollary: It's all small stuff.

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Some people cannot afford a car and all its attendant expenses.

Some people are not physically capable of driving.

Some people have lost their licenses.

Some people prefer mare's shanks (the proverbial Sock-o-Mobile).

Some people like to bicycle.

There are as many reasons as there are people. Just because you drive doesn't mean that it's imperative to others.

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Too funny!

Thanks to all who wrote in and shared. I feel better!