Toby Hemenway’s book “Gaia’s Garden”

  Just published a review on Suite101.com of Gaia’s Garden, the book that led me to Holmgren’s Permaculture. I  tremendously enjoyed reading Hemenway’s book and I hope the review does it justice. I also hope that, once we have some land, I can put the permaculture way of gardening into practice. I might have to revisit …

Compost Dream Replaced by Other Dream

Compost Dreams Dashed The vote is in and it’s a veto: the majority of the Trustees of our condominium have said no to our composting bin idea. The first one was personally against it, the second one would dearly like to do it herself, but she knew many other residents would revolt. The third and …

An organic WHAT WE DO list

An organic list I’m still sniffing, coughing and my ears are still ringing, but while Amie naps, I can quickly announce the following (though I really should be cleaning up the kitchen…): In a previous post I started the “WHAT WE DO” list: a list of small life-style changes that I feel really do make a difference …

My weakness: possessing books

Reduce! The first rule of our more ecologically responsible lifestyle is reduction (ReduceReuseRecycle!). That means, of course, less consumption. Thus less buying. (Why “of course,” though? Why did I leave it unspoken in our Here and Now List“?) We haven’t been buying new toys or clothes for Amie, except what is absolutely essential. We are lucky to …

Where the Manushes live

Meet the Manushes Amie has a set of 1-2-3 Playmobil guys (and one gal) called the “Manushes” – “Manush” is the Bengali word for “human”. From left to right in the picture: Pilot Manush, Baba Manush, Sailor Manush, Engineer Manush, Mama Manush. Pretend play She is getting into real pretend-play now: a new stage in …

Saving the planet, at home

Worrying  Our concern for nature and, more generally, the state of the planet, has grown over the past couple of years, and I don’t foresee an end to our worry. Especially since having a child, we’ve been trying to make some changes. For instance, the day we realized we were pregnant, we switched over to organic, …