Green Adventures Plus Two! Oh And Cloth Diapers Too!

Boy, those "couple of weeks" off referenced in my last post were sure an understatement! That said, I promised to come back so here I am!

First of all, I have to say, I do believe we have got the cutest little twin boys in the world. We are so blessed. And they actually SLEEP! Still, there is little time for much in the way of any fancy sorts of green endeavors. I am still keeping up with our CSAs and love them, but aside from that and the usual recycling my green-ness has been a bit pathetic!

One new effort that is successfully underway though is the cloth diaper experiment. We have been using Do Good Diapers cloth diaper service and it is F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S! Couldn't be easier. Seriously. And adding a few more diapers to cover two babies instead of just one is really only a few more bucks a month. So for little more than the cost of disposables for a singleton, we get enough cloth diapers PLUS the laundering for TWINS! Like I said: F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!

The process couldn't be easier. Do Good Diapers drops off a set of diapers once a week. We use them, putting the dirty ones in a diaper pail - with the dirty business inside and all . We set them out on the front doorstep the following week for them to pick up and they leave behind a new batch of clean ones. What a cinch!

Now for those of you like this City Girl you might be wondering, "Yeah, but do they work as good as disposables?" "Do they leak?" "Aren't they a pain to put on?" Well, since we used disposables on our singleton and I have experience with both, I'm here to give you the full City Girl scoop.

Pros

1. No more diaper rash (okay there was that once when the twins were sick...)
2. No more poop blowouts - really!
3. Half the price of disposables for twins! Or about the same for singleton! Or even cheaper if you launder them yourself!
4. No guilty conscious about adding to the landfill and no need for that extra large garbage bin you otherwise need during the baby years!
5. Earlier potty training (or so they say - will report on that one in a year or two!)

Cons

1. They do seem to take up more space in the diaper bag (especially noticeable when trying to pack for two!)
2. It takes about 5 seconds longer to put them on.
3. When you're out and about you have to lug the dirty cloth diapers around with you in the diaper bag til you get home.

I have to say, looking at the lists, the pros FAR outweigh the cons! One thing I didn't put on the list because it could be a pro OR a con, is the big-round-cloth-diaper-butt-syndrome. Cloth diapers are much bulkier than disposables. But for us, this is actually a pro! I have no earthly idea how our twins would keep pants on without their big cloth diaper butts. They're so skinny they'd fall right off!

I guess the biggest surprise to this City Girl about using cloth is that it really is not any harder than using disposables. Yes, I am kind of resentful when we're out for the entire day and I wind up with a huge bag of dirty diapers in my diaper bag. BUT compare that to the experience of going through those dirty diaper blowouts we had with disposables? I'll take cloth thank you very much!!!

And I'm just thrilled about the financial savings. Before I began my green initiatives I thought that being green was more costly than not being green. So I'm psyched to find yet another way it actually SAVES me money! Can't beat that, can ya?

If you're like I was and on the fence about whether or not to try cloth, see if you have a local diaper service and if they offer any starter or trial packages. It was a great no-commitment way for us to try things out. We got diaper covers and a diaper pail on loan so we really had to make no investment whatsoever until our package ran out at 12 weeks. By then we were sure we wanted to stick with cloth and had already made an investment in diaper covers that worked better for our little guys skinny legs. Couldn't have worked out better.

To close, I'll share a photo of our happy boys sporting their cloth.

Is Being Green Affordable?

I'm not sure I would have known the answer to this question even a few months ago. I didn't give much thought to greening my life. Well, actually I did think about it, a lot, but didn't take much action. Practically none actually. Sure I put some recycling out every week and rode the bus to work, but those were the easy things. When I started to really think about greening my life and how I never seemed to take action on things, my biggest fears seemed to be with the affordability of it all. And particularly with food. Local, organic food. Sustainable food.

I was a big coupon clipper. I mean BIG. Like I had a big binder filled with baseball card sleeves of thoroughly organized coupons. I would go to the local big chain grocery store with a computer printout of exactly what was on sale, which coupon(s) to use for each product, what price it was before and after the coupon, and my big hefty binder. I looked so serious and official that people would come up to me to ask for help. I guess all the paperwork and the binder made me look managerial or something.

So since eating more local and more organic is what comes to mind when I think of greening my food life a bit, and we all know buying food at the co-op costs more, I of course was pretty convinced it wasn't for me. After all, we all know you can't clip enough coupons for organic, local food to save 60% on your shopping trip like I was used to at the big chain stores. So I did some research.

I had heard all this stuff about CSAs for years. What's a CSA? It's Community Supported Agriculture. Meaning you buy a "share" in a local, usually organic but not necessarily, farm and in exchange receive weekly or sometimes every other weekly boxes of produce from the farm. I had actually always wanted to try one just because it sounds a little fun. But I thought it also seemed expensive. After all one share is hundreds of dollars. For VEGETABLES.

But then I did the math. For us, signing up with a local CSA with Harmony Valley Farm for a half veggie share (every other week), extended season veggies, a full fruit share, and once a month cheese is only costing us about $37 per week. For more than enough veggies, fruit & most of the cheese we need for our household. That's actually a good deal! And it's organic! And local!! Now, we will NOT get shares in February through April. I do live in Minnesota remember! But we are also not paying for them in those months either.

Then I did some more research and found out there are local meat CSAs too. I just joined Sunshine Harvest Farm. It runs $100/month and you get 20 lbs of organic meat/eggs each month. That's about $5/pound which may be a lot compared to the local chain stores, but not so much compared to the organic meats found at the local co-op. It's also plenty of meat for our family each month. So now we're up to about $255/month on groceries. Throw in a few extras like grains & milk from the co-op which I probably spend about $100/month on.

Bottom line? That's actually AT LEAST as cheap as I was getting our groceries for with all my coupon clipping frenzy. AND I no longer have to spend hours (really) clipping & organizing coupons, nor do I have to make that arduous 1.5 hour long grocery shopping trip to meticulously buy exactly what is on sale with the exact right coupons to get the deals. I simply pick up a box of veggies, fruit, or cheese every week from a neighbor's garage, and a box of meat every month. And make a couple 15 minute stops at the co-op.

I'm floored by my experiences so far. I had no idea I could do this and actually NOT spend more money than I used to on groceries. Cheap, unhealthy, processed, full-of-pesticide-and-fake-ingredients groceries. And I'm really enjoying the process of learning about new vegetables and introducing them to my family. Dinner is an adventure every night and so much fun to be trying new things.

What about other green initiatives and their affordability? Well, composting doesn't cost a thing. Gardening can, but can also be done on the cheap or at least cheaper than it would cost to buy the fruits of your labor in the store. Recycling, at least where we live, also doesn't cost a thing. It's a service provided by the city and they'll come by every week whether we like it or not. Soon we will begin cloth diapering with a local diaper service, also cheaper than disposables even though we are splurging to pay the service to launder them. (I'll go into the details after our twins are born - I PROMISE!) Bicycling? Also cheaper than both the bus and the car.

I'll admit. There are those who's grocery allowance may be even lower than what I've detailed here. But I'd challenge folks to at least check it out. And do the math. If it doesn't work for you, then do what you can to buy local and organic every now and then. What about a local farmer's market? There are often amazing deals on organic, locally grown produce there. You can spend anywhere from $1 on up. And it's fun. My four-year-old LOVES a trip to the farmer's market. Especially if we can arrange to ride the light rail (a.k.a. "train" to him) to get there.

Are there ways that you've found to make greening your life affordable? Insights or tips you'd like to share? If so, I'd love to hear 'em!

Wanna-Be-Granola-Girl

I am a city girl at heart. I love my car, hair products, nice clothes, nail polish, central air, convenient foods and convenient life. I do not come naturally to all-things-green! But secretly I'm a Wanna-Be-Granola-Girl. There. I said it. Cat's out of the bag. So short of quitting my job and moving to a hobby farm to live the kind of sustainable life that I haven't a clue about, what's a city girl to do?

Well, I'll tell you! For starters here's what's on my plate for the next few months:

1. Join a CSA. For you other not-yet-so-green-city-dwellers that's short for Community Supported Agriculture. You sign up with a local farm to have farm fresh goodies delivered to a spot near you, usually weekly. I joined Harmony Valley Farm and will get organic veggies every other week, organic fruit on the opposite weeks, and once-a-month organic cheese. Yummy! (I think!?) Last week we got our first box of goodies and I have to confess I had never even heard of some of the items it contained: Parsnips, Chives, Salad Greens, Sorrel, Arugula, Ramps, Sunchokes, Black Radishes, Spinach, and Asparagus. Our cheese share contained organic cheddar, mozzarella and blue cheese.

2. Start composting - I'm attending my first how-to workshop next week hosted by our local recycling center. I'll bring home my first compost bin (deeply discounted through the recycling center) and let ya know how it goes!

3. Beef up my gardening skills to grow more of my own food. Sure I've done the usual tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, but I'm a pretty new gardener and not that adventurous. I'm just starting to put in my first "square foot gardens" and hope that this method is really as easy as it sounds! I've bought tomatoes, chives, leeks, onions, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, several varieties of lettuce, and several herbs to plant.

4. Bike Commuting. I'm not sure how many miles it is from my home in Saint Paul to downtown Minneaoplis where I work, but within the next few weeks I'll start bike commuting. My four-year-old's preschool is close to home so I don't anticipate any logistics problems. And the exercise will be amazingly good for me! I've got a biker friend who will help me get outfitted and plan my route.

5. Cloth Diapering, the ultimate adventure for a city-girl-gone-mommy!! My partner and I are expecting identical twin boys at the end of the summer and are already signed up for the one and only cloth diaper service in town. Just thinking of the cost of disposables for two makes me more than willing to give cloth a try. I'll be sure to keep you posted on this one when we get there!

Is that enough for ya? It is for me, for now at least! Check back for more posts as I embark on my green adventures. Next up will be recipes from my CSA adventure!