KV Organics

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Downward Mobility

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I always want to be very careful about how I say this, and I hope you’ll hear me out, but I believe that the recession has been one of the biggest blessings that our country needed.  OK, before you think I’m totally crazy, let me explain…

I do not in any way wish to downplay the real hardships that people are facing right now.  They are significant and at times overwhelming, no doubt.  However, have you noticed the good that is coming out of all this?  There is so much good happening.  Here are just a handful in no particular order other than as they come to my mind.

1- People are walking away from the pursuit of stuff.
2- People are reconnecting with God’s green earth and its provision for us.
3- People are realizing the unsustainability of our consumer-crazy culture.
4- People are more carefully evaluating their spending, focusing on quality not quantity.
5- People are reducing and reusing more, instead of just recycling and throwing away.
6- People are becoming more conscious of negative environmental impacts on their health.
7- People are plugging back into to community and sharing more.
8- People are returning to entrepreneurship.
9- People are regaining time with family.
10- People are turning back to their faith.

In our household, we are on an intentional journey of what we like to call “downward mobility.”  Do we own a home-based business?  Yes.  Do we desire to grow that business as large as the Lord allows?  Yes.  Do we do it for our own gain?  Only partly.  Our take on business and entrepreneurship is this: it is a way for God to meet our needs and then bless others through us.  At the same time as we are growing a business, we are seeking to reduce what we consider to be our needs.  By intentionally learning to live with less and less, we are finding a deeper connection to God, family, community, and the earth, and we are creating space for God to pour out even greater blessing to others through us.  Instead of focusing on wanting more and striving in our business to attain those new heights of material living, we are focusing on wanting: less stuff, more meaningful connections with people, and for God to grow our business to the extent that He wants to position us to be a blessing to others in the future.

And we are so thankful for how God has used this perspective to put up a strong shield around our hearts and minds during a recession.












Energy Choice

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We first ran into this topic in August 2009 when a door-to-door salesman for an alternate gas supplier came by.  We decided to give it a shot, signed up, and then forgot about it.

In August of this year, we started getting various offers from alternate electricity suppliers also.  This prompted us to go back and check our bills from the previous year of alternate gas supply, which left us quite skeptical because it turned out to have cost us an extra $129 over the year.  However, since we had also been learning more about energy conservation and green energy, that skepticism drove us to research the topic more thoroughly instead of just tossing our hands up and staying with the utility out of fear of the unknown.

One of the questions a friend (who owns a very successful energy consulting firm in Philly) told us to ask was whether a company was a licensed supplier or a broker.  As I understand it, broker companies are not necessarily bad, but they generally drive the price up because they’re an extra link in the chain getting a cut of the profits.  Turns out the alternate gas company we had said yes to was a broker company…  Ah-ha!  Check – look for a licensed supplier (and verify it with a third-party resource, such as a list of alternate suppliers found on your local utility’s website).

In early November, while still researching energy choice options, we came across Viridian and were really impressed.  Although I have seen some hype and accidental misinformation out there from their independent sales force (which is a risk of using the otherwise solid direct sales model), the company itself is straightforward in its message and mission, and they resonated with us as potential customers because of their green energy focus at a savings.

We decided to become Viridian customers ourselves, and since 1- energy conservation and renewable energy is something we’re also passionate about, 2- it ties in on some level to the work I already do in organics, and 3- I had researched it a great deal and felt I could help answer people’s questions about energy choice in general and the company specifically, I decided to do a little consulting work for them on the side.  My purpose in this is to add a realistic, no-hype voice into some of the confusion & misinformation out there in the popular buzz about both Viridian and energy choice companies in general, and to help people figure out if Viridian specifically would be a good fit for them or not.

So, if you’re looking into alternative energy suppliers, here are a few other things I’ve learned to ask in general, in addition to the licensed supplier vs broker question…

1- Is it a fixed or variable rate plan?  You might be surprised to learn that variable is often better than fixed, though it can depend on your preferences.

2- Are there sign-up fees, lengthy contracts, early termination fees, hidden fees? Can you cancel at any time?  We loved that Viridian was “cancel at any time with no penalties.”

3- If you also care about long-term sustainability and air quality issues (which tie closely into stewardship, pollution, and health issues), ask about a company’s “energy content,” or percentage mix, of “dirty/brown” energy vs “clean/green” energy sources.  For example, our local utility currently uses only about 7-8% renewable sources.  And many of the 3rd party suppliers who are not necessarily “green-focused” in their company vision statements offer about the same.

4- If you want to buy/support greener energy, find out the percentage vs cost. For example, we found that Viridian offers the highest percentages of greener energy at lower prices compared to other green options we’ve seen so far.  Their basic option is 20% renewable energy generally below your cost from the utility (who almost certainly has a much lower percentage of renewable content).  So, their “everyday green” option supports a higher percentage of green power while saving you money at the same time.  And their 100% renewable energy option costs only slightly more than the utility rate, instead of a higher ‘premium price’ for 100% renewable content that other green suppliers are offering.  For example, one company we looked at would have cost us, on average, $24 more per month for 100% renewable energy, whereas with Viridian, we could do their 100% “pure green” option for an average of just $5 more per month.

5- If anyone is showing you an example bill, or when you begin looking at your own bill to compare prices, please make sure you know what you’re comparing.  Supply portion only.  I have seen a handful of reps for Viridian accidentally comparing the wrong two parts of the bill, which made the savings look bigger than it is.  They were very nice people, not being intentionally deceptive at all – they just misunderstood.  The savings is still there, just not as amazing as it may look if you’re not comparing the right things… and it will also depend on whether you’re a low or high usage household.  If you’d like someone to go over your bill with you to help you understand what to compare, get a realistic idea of your potential savings, and figure out if an alternate supplier would actually make sense for your situation or not, I can help you with that since I’ve gone through it myself.

If you want more details on any of the above, feel free to contact me.  There is also a good list of FAQs under the “Energy Service” section of their website.  While obviously Viridian-specific in the answers, these FAQs are good to ask any company you may be considering.

If you decide to you’d like to become a Viridian customer, as we did in our home, would you please consider calling them at 866-663-2508 to sign up (instead of signing up online) and giving them my referring ID#11636?  Disclosure statement – I am not actively growing a business with Viridian, but yes, I will get a small commission for referring you.  Thanks!  🙂

 

 

Earth Exploders

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Ever heard of MTR?  I hadn’t until a month or so ago.  It stands for a common coal mining technique called Moutaintop Removal, and apparently, over 3 million pounds of ordinance is detonated every day, blowing up entire mountains just to get at a thin layer of coal – to help feed my home electricity.  For a variety of reasons, I’m not at peace with that.

Now, to be sure, every source of energy has its benefits and challenges.  Coal, nuclear, hydro, gas/oil, wind, solar, biomass, and others all have their “issues” to be weighed, and no one particular source is perfect.  There will never be a one-source answer to energy problems.  In fact, the best answer has nothing to do with sources – it is conservation.  If everyone used less energy at home, and took tangible steps away from the consumer lifestyle that demands so much energy use across the country to make “stuff” for us that we don’t really need, there would be far less of a problem at hand.  But more on this another time.  In this post, I’d just like to share a bit of what I’ve been learning about MTR so that you can consider these issues for yourself.

From a website for “Coal Country,” a documentary:  “Most Americans are shocked to learn that nearly half of the electricity used in the United States today is produced by coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel…  The tops of mountains are blasted away, exposing seams of coal, while debris is pushed into valleys and streams. Residents endure health problems, dirty water in their wells, dust and grime on their floors…” (liaisondistribution.com).

Many coal companies bury streams with mountain debris and then plead innocent to polluting the water on the basis of there being no water there anymore.  “To date, the legal system has bought this kind of logic to the tune of twelve hundred miles of vanished streams and rivers in the state of West Virginia alone” (Sleeth, p.13).

Not only are we destroying God’s mountains, forests, valleys, streams, and ecosystems to power our country’s excessive consumer lifestyle, but we’re making people in Appalachia (and all around the world) sick to do it.  Both the human health and the environmental sides of this are equally problematic to me, since the long-term health of people depends on the health of this planet given to sustain us.

“A typical family uses 1,800 pounds of coal per year powering just its electric clothes dryer.  An average of 20,000 pounds of forest, dirt, and rock must be dumped in a stream in order to get that amount of coal.  It is easy to rail against greedy corporations and corrupt judges.  It’s a little harder to actually do something about mountaintop removal by changing our behavior” (Sleeth, p.14).  “Environmental topics can get so politicized and polarizing that we absolve ourselves from personal responsibility” (Sleeth, p.65).

We had already started line drying clothes as part of our household move toward “intentional downward mobility” and increasing conservation, but learning about MTR has helped to solidify the commitment that much more.

Wherever you are on this issue or journey, please know that my intention is to lovingly challenge and encourage.  For example, please do not feel bad, guilty, or defensive if you use a clothes dryer!  That is so not my intention at all.  But please do some prayerful soul-searching on these big-picture issues and how our personal everyday choices help combat or perpetuate the overall societal problems.  And please also be encouraged – you cannot make these changes all in a day and that’s OK.  Lord knows I still have a ton to learn and alter myself!  But challenge yourself to continually learn more and take steps to make changes as you’re able.

These days, you can find energy conservation tips just about anywhere. But one of my favorite resources for everything “green” including energy conservation tips is Nancy Sleeth’s book, “Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God’s Green Earth.”

Additional quotes above from Matthew Sleeth’s, “The Gospel According to the Earth.”

Laundry Revolution

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Looking for ways to save money and help the environment?  Going green can definitely do both, and revolutionizing your laundry routine can be a good place to start.

Did you know that each load of laundry you hang instead of machine drying “saves 5 pounds of coal from being burned back at the electricity plant” (Sleeth p.12)?  And if you wash your clothes in cold water, you save energy by not using so much hot water.

We have washed our clothes in cold water for years (except for a rare hot wash here and there as needed), but we just put up a clothesline this summer, and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying it for so many reasons.

1- It puts manual labor back into our lives, which we find both fun and beneficial, and helps save money on the electric bill.  (Not to mention… no need to pay gym fees when your life has some exercise built into everyday life).

2- It brings our family closer together as we divvy up who is washing, hanging, pulling down (the kids love to pull down the laundry), and putting away the laundry.

3- It helps reduce our impact on the environment, which ultimately also helps reduce our negative impact on those less fortunate all around the world.

4- It reduces common consumer lifestyle stresses brought on by over-dependence on labor-saving devices.  Example: our dryer actually seems to have gone kaput, and wow, is it freeing not to have the stress of needing to buy a new one!  Our ~25 year old microwave went kaput recently, too; we can do without it just fine.

Now to get our indoor line-drying system and routines in place for winter – and the rainy days of next year’s outdoor drying season.  One step at a time.  🙂

Though I haven’t explored it thoroughly, this link shared by my cousin looks like a good resource for laundry ideas:  www.laundrylist.org
And here’s the Sleeth book quoted above:  The Gospel According to the Earth

Cloth Diapers

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Similar to my homemade baby food post (Oct. ’10), this is meant to be a simple post of encouragement to anyone considering cloth diapering.

Really, if you’re thinking about cloth diapering for the first time, it’s not the nightmare you might imagine. It’s not the same as when your mom cloth diapered you – or your grandmother cloth diapered your mom. Cloth diapers have come a long way since the days of pins and rubber pants, and the benefits are huge:

#1- Safer and gentler on your baby’s skin. Cloth diapering keeps the absorbent chemicals of disposables away from that cute little tush, which is important since the skin absorbs so much of what it touches. Another perk? Fewer diaper rashes.

#2- Huge cost savings. Though I can’t recall now where I got this statistic, I think I’ve heard that the average disposable-diapered child will cost his parents between $2500-$3500 in diapers over the course of 2-3 years.  Cloth diapers are certainly a bigger expense up front, but much less expensive over time, particularly when you consider the multiple child usability factor. We’re about to put baby #4 into our same set of FuzziBunz.  You can do the math on that.  Under $1,000 vs $10,000? And if budget is an immediate concern, you can always ask for your cloth diapers as gifts from people. We got ours as major Christmas and birthday presents from family, instead of having to buy them ourselves.

#3- Significantly cuts down on environmental waste. Cloth diapering doesn’t just keep the disposable diaper itself out of the waste stream, but consider also the chemicals inside the diapers and the plastic bags often used to contain diaper stink when placing them in the trash or ‘odorless’ diaper pail systems. Don’t buy into the myth about your water and electric bills skyrocketing if you choose to cloth diaper. I think our water bill went up about $5 a month, maybe? And the electric bill, I’m not sure, but it couldn’t have been much because: a) I didn’t notice and b) we line dry our dipes most of the time.

As with homemade baby food, cloth diapering is so worth the little bit of extra effort – worth it for your baby, for you, and for the planet. If you want to cloth diaper, but just need that little bit of friendly encouragement… “You can do it!”  🙂

Homemade Baby Food

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A post of encouragement to all my fellow moms and soon-to-be moms of infants…

Making homemade baby food was one of my first green lifestyle choices. How about you? Despite what many instinctively think, making your own baby food is not that hard. Seriously, I am one of the most ‘culinarily’ challenged people on the planet. My husband does most of our cooking because he really enjoys it, whereas I can just get by when I have to. But I make the baby food in our house, so if I can do it, anyone can. And the benefits are entirely worth the effort. Below are just a few.

#1 – As with grown-up food, fresh is always better than processed, both in terms of health and taste. Doubt it? Taste for yourself. Try the jarred bananas vs a freshly fork-mashed (so easy) banana. Or for a real treat, open up a grocery store jar of baby food “meat.”  Whoa…

#2 – Significant cost savings. The first baby food veggie I ever made was a butternut squash. Out of one $3 squash, I got the equivalent of 20+ baby food jars. Do the math. Sweet!

#3 – Keeps extra jars, lids, and plastic/foil/cardboard packaging out of the global waste stream. Remember, recycle is the last option of “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Trash reduction comes first, and making your own baby food is a great place to start.

Again, so worth the effort – and it’s not even that big an effort. I used to (and will again come May or June) take a Saturday afternoon and make up huge batches at a time to last most of the month. Or, you can take less time more often as you wish.

Click here for the website I found most helpful when first learning the basics (and for quick refreshers with each new baby since). For their informative page on organics, click here.