I was raised "green" before "green" was cool.

(I can hear Marie Osmond in the background singing "I was country before country was cool". ha)

I don't remember my parents being particularly enviromental. When I say that I mean the things we did around the house weren't to save the earth--more to save my parents money. (And if they were to save the earth I never heard my parents say that.)

We grew up frugally. My mom was a stay at home mom until I was in high school, my sister in 7th grade. So, we had a big garden--1/4 of an acre--maybe not big to your standards but huge to us. We grew corn, green beans, sweet potatos, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, and I'm sure other things I don't remember. We also had a grape arbor and also Dad grew blackberries. We also had a cherry tree. We canned or froze most of the above veggies and fruits. Mom made grape and blackberry jams/jellies every year. My dad tried his hand at making wine too. I remember sitting at the front porch pitting cherries (which I hated)but I loved cherry pies so I did it. I also remember snapping beans, cutting corn off the cob and canning tomato juice. It was smoking hot in the kitchen those canning days--and of course because we didn't have central air conditioning. Mom's mom would come over and help us out. I remember hoeing and weeding and hating every minute of all that work it took to grow all those veggies. I also remember all the cool bugs that were in the garden--tomato worms and huge spiders and my favortie--praying mantis'.

We also mulched our yard. Then we raked up the grass and used it around our plants to keep the weeds away.

We turned off the water while we were doing dishes (until we rinsed), while we were brushing our teeth and while we soaped up in the shower. All this stuff is wonderful for the evironment now but we did it because we were on well water and they were afraid we would run out of water. It bothers me to this day when Doug is doing dishes and the water runs the whole time he is in there. UGH! Wasting water.

We didn't own Illinois Power either so we turned off the lights when we left a room or turned off the tv when we were done watching it--etc. I will go upstairs now after the kids leave for school and Zach's lights will be on and his tv is going and there is no one there.

And another one of my dreaded things growing up was hanging out the laundry. Everything.even.socks. ugh! Saved on electricity though. I'm looking now to get a clothes line. I won't be hanging socks out, but...I'm sure everything else will get hung out some time or the other.

I guess it is a good thing that I did all those things growing up because they are ingrained in me now and I do them without even thinking. I need to be better about recycling now--we are getting there--we do plastics and aluminum now. I need to move on to glass and paper too. Baby steps. My parents recycle. Have for a long time. So, maybe they are stewards of the earth--they just never told me that's why we were doing it.