EARTH DAY APRIL 2009

by rosemary on 04/16/09 at 6:26 pm

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It is almost time for Earth Day, April 22. April showers and snow and hail have delayed me but there is so much to do weather or not I want to. My IRS personal taxes are done, whew, but I had to do an extension on our family business corporation taxes. It’s so hard to stay inside now that Spring finally beckons, but I must try to find a balance.

So for the sake of our earth and ourselves this year my family and I are:

“sharecropping” our elderly neighbors 900 sq foot garden patch. We garden and they get fresh produce. This plot has been weed infested for the past two years so we are growing a cover crop of annual rye first to suppress the weeds, then planting seedlings [growing in paper cups next to a south facing window upstairs] after the last frost date late in May.
Planting a huge variety of spinach, Asian greens, cabbage and peas in the raised beds I installed in my backyard last year. Our son is home from Asia for a few months and finds American grocery store greens selection quite boring and not very fresh.
Making a lot of compost. I have all the leaves from last Autumn for our entire block steaming away in my backyard.
Riding bicycles instead of driving [well I am at least thinking of buying a bicycle]. My son [26] tells me that he and many of his friends have no interest in owning cars. I am searching for a bike that I can get on and off of safely as I am mobility impaired.

Over at the Woman’s Club clubhouse I am counting the ways we have gone green since 2007.

By programming the clubhouse thermostats every week for actual building use we reduced monthly energy use by over 35%. Two years ago our monthly bill was $556 today it is $360, and rates have gone up! This was like doing a fundraiser without all the hassle.
I added hardy, drought resistant annual perennials to our landscaping beds. All of the new plants were donated as plant divisions by friends and neighbors.
The City arborist planted a 15 foot tall flowering Linden tree in the hot SW corner of the clubhouse lawn. The clubhouse is located in a very low income downtown neighborhood that qualifies for HUD community development block grant funds. Thirty percent of the area residents walk [do not own or drive cars] so planting street trees to shade the buildings and sidewalks is considered a priority use for CDBG funds, as trees serve the needs of so many.
We are well into the process of converting all of the incandescent light bulbs in our 10000 sq foot building to fluorescent. Our local utility has added a rebate incentive to do this.
We are using neutral cleaning products, like orange oil, that give good results and result in a better smelling building.