My Big, Fat....

vermont in the fall

I think Vermont is out to make me a better person.

Moving here has been an eye opening experience. I always had a vision of the people in Vermont as earth loving, Ben & Jerry's grubbing, organic farming, hemp growing, local food eating, hybrid car driving, tree huggers.

And they are!  ( But its a wonderful thing : j )

Never have I been to so many restaurants where right on the menu they name the local (literally down the road) organic farm where the turkey (in your turkey burger)  grew up and where the cheese (from that cheese platter) was made and the orchard those apples (in your dessert) were grown! Amazing!

It is a way of life here and I love it. 

reuse + reduce = responsible

I think being aware of your personal impact on the environment (your carbon footprint i.e. the amount of carbon dioxide that you personally produce from the use of electricity, water, flights, your car, etc) is the first step to becoming  a responsible citizen of planet earth.. Then the next step is actually practicing the well known "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse". 

Here are the top 5 things I am trying to do to reduce my  BIG, FAT carbon footprint:

1. reduce bottled water ( this was hard! we now use a filter and reusable bottles)

2. turning off lights when not in use

3. buying locally grown and organic products when possible (also hard because organic can =  more $$)

4. recycling and buying "made from recycled material" products

5. reusing grocery bags and refusing plastic bags when buying small items

some "earth friendly" items I like:

reusable aluminum water bottle

                            

                           reusable bamboo utensils with chopsticks!
                              never use a plastic fork touched by a million germy hands again

   

recycled water bottle gel pen
doctors love a good pen and this one's awesome!