When Was the Last Time You Walked Your Errands?

Driving to run errands is very much so a habit for most people. It’s easier and faster. But if the places you need to go are within walking or bike riding distance, it’s perhaps not the right choice. How often could you do errands without using your car, and how often do you?

It’s a question worth thinking on.

Distance

Whether you want to walk, ride a bike or drive depends in part on how far you need to go. If it’s under a mile, walking is often not a bad option, weather permitting. Biking a few miles each way can be a reasonable choice too. There’s certainly a point where driving or taking mass transit makes more sense.

Weather

Some weather is better than other weather for walking or riding. Extremely hot and humid days can be a poor choice, especially if you aren’t used to doing a lot of walking. However, you could carry a water bottle and wear a hat and sunscreen on hot days to make things safer. You do not want to overheat or suffer from heat stroke.

Personally, I like walking on rainy days, but not quite so much for shopping errands. It depends on how much rain you’re talking as well. Snow is probably not the best for walking errands unless they’re pretty short.

Safety

Not all areas are safe for walking or riding a bike. You need to use your common sense.

A lack of sidewalks is a big part of the problem in some areas. There isn’t always a safe shoulder for pedestrians to walk along on busy roads that they need to use to get where they’re going.

How Much You’ll be Carrying

Some errands, even over a short distance, really don’t work as walking or biking, or even mass transit errands. Sometimes you need a car to carry everything you buy or are disposing of.

Reusable Bags

Having reusable shopping bags is wonderful when you don’t drive your errands. They can have much more comfortable handles for carrying purchases. They also go well in bicycle baskets or folding shopping carts if you want an easier way to lug things along.

Gear

You don’t need a lot of gear to walk your errands. The main things you need are comfortable walking shoes. Good shoes are worth the money.

I also recommend a hat for sun protection. My mother’s been serious about hat use since having a skin cancer removed from her scalp. That’s good motivation for me too.

If you think you might take a bike for some errands, it’s worth the money. They cost much less than cars (obviously!) and need only a little maintenance here and there. Include a basket on the bike to make running errands on it easier.

Make Your Yard a Bee Friendly Space

Bees have been having trouble for a few years now, suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder, a disorder which has a name, but the cause is not yet understood. Possible causes include pesticides, varroa mites and poor nutrition due to a lack of variety in the plants they’re pollinating. You can do your part by making your yard a friendly place for bees.

This can be hard when you have kids and you worry about bee stings. So long as you teach your kids to leave the bees alone, and no one has a life threatening allergy to them, bee stings should not be a huge issue. Bee stings aren’t dangerous to most kids, just painful. If they’re dangerous to someone you love, then clearly you don’t need to encourage them to visit your yard.

Wild bees are a huge benefit to any backyard gardener. They pollinate most plants you’re likely to be growing. If you have other plants for them to enjoy, you should get them in greater numbers.

Plant Local Species

Local plants grow the best and are usually quite attractive to bees. You may want to consider species that produce a lot of flowers for the bees to enjoy. Having only a few blossoms isn’t going to bring out a lot of bees.

Bees love heather, thyme, clover, lavender, marigolds, sunflowers, roses, blackberries and many more. Ask at your local garden center if you need help finding bee friendly plants. They’ll know what’s available in your area.

Bees love to have a variety of flowers to pollinate, so don’t limit yourself to just a few.

Don’t Use Chemical Pesticides

Pesticides are one of the possible causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. At the very least, spraying a pesticide when there are bees around is likely to kill those particular bees. It may also be a problem if the pesticide residue is on the flowers the bees are pollinating.

Provide Water

Just like other creatures, bees need water. It’s the perfect reason to put a small, decorative fountain in your yard. They don’t use much water, and they’re very friendly to bees and other creatures.

If you have standing water such as in a birdfeeder, make sure to change it out regularly. Standing water is an attractant to mosquitos, which lay their eggs in the water.

These things are all very simple to do, and can make a big difference in how many bees come to your yard. Treat them well and you’re helping them to grow strong colonies. Bees are a species that is vital to the cycle of food production, so helping the bees helps us all.

Suggested Reading

Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded

5 Habits of Eco Friendly Families

Raising an eco friendly family takes a lot of work, but much of it becomes habit in fairly short order. It even becomes fun.

1. Be more environmentally aware as a family.

Talk as a family about what’s going on in the world and how it effects the environment. Talk about how your individual habits and habits as a family effect the environment.

Talk about how your individual habits and habits as a family effect the environment.

Keep this simple when the kids are young.  You can explain to young children why they should do things like recycle paper, not litter, and pick up litter that others leave behind. You want to keep it a little on the fun side, and not bring up a lot of worries about what’s happening to the world when the kids are too young for such worries. There’s a balance there.

As everyone gets older, get into more details and encourage everyone to work harder on doing their part for the environment. Try volunteering as the kids get old enough.

Make sure you always pick reliable sources. The usual news media is great for presenting the worst of the big stuff while ignoring the overall impact of other things. They over simplify things like climate change so much that people don’t think it’s likely.

You can find great, age appropriate books by searching online, and don’t forget to check your local libraries. Many websites work hard at providing good information too; just be sure that they’re using good sources, as others are little more than online tabloids or are actively against the environmental movement. Nothing wrong with reading both sides, but make sure you get into how these differences come about.

Suggested Websites

TreeHugger
Environmental News Network
World Resources Institute
The Earth Charter Initiative

Suggested Books

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change

2. Reduce, reuse, recycle

Practice these as a family, and remember that they’re in order.

Reduce is the most important. The less you use, the less of an environmental impact you have on the world.

The less you use, the less of an environmental impact you have on the world.

Next comes reuse. This can include buying from thrift shops, resale shops, garage sales, consignment stores and more. Don’t forget Freecycle and handmedowns from family and friends.

It also includes thinking of ways to reuse things that you’re otherwise done with. Think of ways you can reuse paper for crafts for the kids. Think about how to reuse glass jars when you get them.

Recycling comes last. It’s a big help, but only recycle when you know you’re done with something. Find out what is collected for recycling in your community and make sure you recycle it. This won’t be easy in all areas, but do your best.

If you don’t have curbside recycling, find out if there is any place you can drop off recycling and figure out if you can store items until you have enough to make a trip worthwhile. It won’t always happen that way, so just try.

Suggested Websites

Earth 911
EPA Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

3. Have a sustainable, organic garden

How much you can garden depends on where you live. It’s harder to garden in an apartment than in a house with a big backyard… but not quite impossible.

Gardening combines well with having a compost pile. You get organic fertilizer for your garden while disposing of kitchen waste and yard waste in the best way possible.

Gardening combines well with having a compost pile.

The best part about gardening for families is getting the kids used to fresh fruits and vegetables. It often encourages picky eaters to try new foods. Garden fresh produce tastes much superior to what you can buy at the grocery store.

There are many ways to make the most of the garden space you have.  You can garden in containers if all you have is a patio, balcony or even just a window shelf. You can do square foot gardening and make the most of the yard space you commit to your garden.

Suggested Books

Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded
All New Square Foot Gardening – Grow More In Less Space

4. Help your local environment.

Pay attention to what your local environment needs. Some of your living habits should be determined by the particular needs of your area.

Water use, for example. Many areas are either facing water shortages or are likely to do so within the next few years. If your state allows, look into installing water barrels on your property to catch rainfall. Look into alternatives to growing a lawn.

Many areas are facing water shortages

Many communities have groups that help care for the local environment. You may be able to help clean local parks, trails and/or beaches. You may be able to get involved in wildlife rescue – after the proper training, of course. You may be able to help campaign for stricter environmental regulations in your area. You may be able to talk to local businesses about how they can be more eco friendly.

5. Tell Others

Don’t limit your activities to your family. Tell friends about what they can do. Don’t be judgmental; do your best to be helpful. Many people will be surprised that being more eco friendly can be cheap, not expensive.

Eco Friendly Water Play for Kids in the Summer

The weather is heating up, kids all around the country are out of school or soon will be. Now is the time that they’ll start asking about going swimming or otherwise going to play in the water. What’s the best way to let them have their fun without wasting valuable water?

Combine Regular Watering with Play

While the best time to water in terms of limiting evaporation is during the cool parts of the day, the best time for kids to play in the water is when it’s hot. If you’re going to let your kids play in the sprinklers, on a slip n’ slide or otherwise have fun with the water, make sure to combine that with the needs your plants have for water.

This includes moving the kids and their water fun around as a given area gets enough water. Don’t let them play too long in any one area. Move them, and you can get much of your yard watered while the kids have fun getting soaked.

Do note that most waterslides and kiddie pools really are not eco friendly. They’re often made of vinyl and only last a season or two before starting to leak or otherwise break down. I much prefer to set the kids up with plain old sprinklers.

Go to the Local River, Lake, etc.

Not all water play has to be done at home. Local rivers, lakes and so forth are a lot of fun for kids. Just be sure they’ve had swimming lessons for safety.

Don’t use motor powered craft on the water. If you want to get out in a boat, try a kayak or rowboat. They’re not as fast, but they’re good exercise and you can really appreciate the view. In some areas you may even be able to fish from a rowboat.

Visit the Community Swimming Pool

Unfortunately, most community swimming pools have a lot of chlorine and other chemicals in them. That never seems to stop kids from having fun in them!

Using a community pool makes more eco sense than having one of your own. More people use it.

Most importantly, many community pools offer swimming lessons. I strongly suggest finding a way to pay for swimming lessons each summer until your kids are as advanced as possible. It doesn’t completely drownproof them, but anything you can do to make them safer around water is a good thing, particularly if they’re ever at the home of someone else who has a swimming pool.