Whoa...check out that temperature...18 degrees!

To celebrate the warm weather, I put a load of laundry out on the line...now melt snow melt!

A Dilemma: Sustainability versus the Snowblower

image courtesy of Andrew Burgess

An advantage of being a purist, I suspect, is that many decisions are made for you. We are far from being purists, but I suspect even they face the same challenges that creep into our everyday lives: organic versus local/grain-fed/free-range; recyclable plastic versus single-use glass; or even polyester versus wool.

We had a huge amount of snow in December. I was ready to shovel it all. Really, I was. We have a local fellow to plow the driveway, but there are several kilometres of paths that need clearing (you doubt? spend a day shoveling them and tell me there were less that a few kilometres!) The work seemed worthwhile when we considered the impact a snowblower had on the environment, and in it's use of non-renewable energy.

Then we lost a whole weekend to shoveling. Suddenly all our projects, and our holiday planning, had to be put on hold for a week. The snowblower was now deemed a necessity (and we got one that week).

So how do we reconcile this? I've been going over this for a few weeks now, and running ideas past other sustainably-goaled folks.

Some decisions are clearer: we got a gas-guzzling truck (a Honda, but a truck still) because our van kept getting stuck, and we plan on doing more towing and hauling. It supports our greater goal, and there's no real alternative.

A snowmobile, on the other hand, which would make some of our winter chores (hauling wood) easier and way more fun, does not justify it's gas-guzzling existence to us. I see other folks whose livelihoods depend on traveling over snow quickly feeling otherwise, justifiably.

But the snowblower comes with a clear alternative - hard work. Getting one feels lazy.

This leads to the question - what is our goal here? If we truly want to lead simpler, Nearing-modeled lives, the projects would wait, and the shovel would work. But what I think we are aiming for is a balanced (albeit Nearing-inspired) lifestyle with certain sacrifices in ideology made in favour of painting the bigger picture. It's to acknowledge that sometimes to get to our destination, we take shortcuts on the journey.

It's not perfect, but it's conclusive enough to let me sleep better at night. Or maybe that's just one of the benefits of a snowblower - no sore back!

Keeping it simple...

Well the house is listed...so now we wait. While getting our house ready, we did a fair bit of decluttering. This is something I have wanted to do for quite some time but always got overwhelmed at the sheer volume of stuff we have to go through. As often happens...we got down to the crunch so this time instead of sorting through the clutter ( a huge job) we basically just pulled out all the non-essentials, put them in bins and sent them off to storage...kind of cheating really. But...I am so enjoying being in our clutter-free house! I am amazed at how much it affects my state of mind...I just feel so much lighter. It makes sense, but I'm just surprised at how much different I feel. That feeling of ...I just can't do another thing...has been replaced by ...sure let's do some crafts (especially now that we have all this counter space to let things dry!).

Our new house at Wise Acres is approximately half of the square footage of our current place so by necessity, we will have to streamline this operation, and I am really looking forward to it! Over the last few months I have been siphoning off the toys that get little attention and by the time we move, I hope to be down to the much loved, and most played with items.

Watching the girls play this afternoon has confirmed for me what I have been learning over the last year or so and that is...simple is best. All of our backyard toys are packed away at the moment so I pulled out a bucket, filled it with some water and handed them some paint brushes and rollers I had in the garage. These items kept all of them busy for most of the afternoon, when they finished up here: