our green summer efforts

1. I am riding my bike to work as much as possible. 10 miles x 20 trips = 200 miles = 10 gallons of gas saved. Ok, not much, damn it, but I'm trying. Oh, and, several trips to the mall, the dentist, etc., on foot or bike...so maybe another 5-10 gallons. I've been promoting the idea of "totally gas free days" with the boy driver. He has been happily using the scooter quite a bit, which gets about 80 mpg.

2.We're buying most of our food from the farmer's market. From www.newdream.org: "For every pound of local food you add to your weekly shopping list, you'll keep 13 more pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere per year." We buy approximately 10-15 pounds of local food per week. We've grown another, I don't know, twenty pounds (?) in our own garden. That's a really rough estimate and will go way up once we start digging potatoes and harvesting the winter squash.

3. Until last night, we had not turned on the air-conditioning. Yes, it's been hot, but we've managed to make it halfway through the summer, and it has mostly cooled off in the evenings. But last night the air was so humid that the house seemed damp and mildewy. Not good. So we're drying the place out.

4. I held onto the above pair of shorts for 15 years, until finally the whole backside ripped out, for the second time, while kayaking with my son. They were reused until they were greatly reduced and now they have been recycled. They have provided much cheap, fossil fuel-free humor over the years.

We're doing what we can over here.