Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Us(*addition)

I haven't talked much about what our family is doing to simplify our lives. Due to economic restraints we have tried to find ways to cut back. For health reasons we have worked to improve our diet. To help the environment, we have implemented several things.

We have actually recycled for quite awhile. Plastic and glass are all put aside to go to the recycle center. It has become second nature to all of us. We also compost which reduces our garbage.

We make our own clothes detergent and it has worked well. In warm weather the clothes and towels go on the line outside. We moving to homemade cleaning supplies.

Mostly we cook at home. It is so much cheaper, we can avoid the preservatives and it tastes so much better. I work to buy what is on sale also.

Right now we are working on removing high fructose corn syrup from our diets. It is so many things it is ridiculous. Ketchup, pancake syrup, drinks, jellies, salad dressings, etc. We also try to cook mostly fresh vegetables and have added more fruit.

Our chickens provide us with fresh eggs and we are planning to add to the flock this year. Fresh eggs are so different from store bought.

This year we are going to focus our garden on what we use most. Then work to put up as much as possible for winter. We will grow tomatoes for ketchup and sauces. Green beans are a favorite sauteed.
We use a lot of peppers and onions. The girls want to grow more strawberries for jam.

We also want to reduce our food miles. This will take some work to find where we can find the foods we want within 200 miles of our home. Of course the farmers market where we sell in the summer will provide much of what we do not grow. The biggest challenge will be finding meat at a price we can afford. (sorry, not giving up meat!)

I am sure I have left out some things. I'll update as I think of them.

* We have used cloth towels in the kitchen for a long time now. I thought getting rid of paper towels would have been difficult, but it wasn't that hard.

photography by Hannah Queen