Kids & Parents

Ours is usually a 'half-full trash bin' sort of family. Some of our neighbors roll out an overflowing trash bin each week while our bin usually holds one small bag. Our full recycling bins and compost account for some reduction in our trash output. I try to avoid excess packaging and waste, but we definitely aren't a zero-waste family. Our trash bag filled quickly this week when we ordered takeout food that was packaged in unrecyclable styrofoam clamshells.

The more I learn about conservation and frugality, the more I re-discover what my grandparents knew. In this case it's darning. I vastly prefer the warmth and comfort of wool socks, glove liners and sweaters to cotton and most synthetics. Those same wool garments (especially socks) consistently wear out in the same places. Instead of throwing out mostly-good wool socks I've started darning (mending) them and extending their useful life.

So, do you have big plans for the weekend yet? If your Sunday is still open, check out the 350.org 10/10/10 Global Work Party to see if there are any events in your area. There are 10/10/10 events planned worldwide that range from group bike rides to trash clean ups and tree plantings. Santa Fe is home to a Skill-Share event and a long bike ride to join the Albuquerque event.

In celebration of our upcoming anniversary, my wife and I visited Rocky Mountain National Park this fall. We love camping and neither of us had seen this great example of accessible wildness. Our trip turned out to be much more educational and exciting than expected. We had close encounters with wildlife, a tour of a lodgepole forest ravaged by pine beetles and a brush with wildfire all while surrounded by a gorgeous landscape.

Have you ever wished you could go back in time? Well, until physical time travel is invented and perfected (I don't care to be a beta tester) looking at old photos is a reasonable substitute. The Third View is a recent project to document the west of the past and today. Third View revisited the sites of 1860's and 1970's western American landscape photographs. The project made new photographs in the late 1990's, kept a field diary and collected materials useful in interpreting the scenes, change and the passage of time.