Stewards of the Earth and Future Goals

We have decided to try and reduce our carbon footprint.  My mother has been doing this for years and preaching how we can leave this earth a better place.

We are starting small... we have been looking for a calf or two to buy and raise to sell.  We don't even eat beef.  We agreed tonight not to buy a calf or add to the methane issue in our state.

We already try to eat local as much as possible but we will continue to eat vegetarian at least 3 days a week. That includes all meals. Someone at work rolled their eyes when I said this. He said all I have to do is go out my back door and this dinner.  Well, not quite, but I guess our message is partially getting through. (even though we could do this in an apartment too)

Turn off and unplug.  We usually do well not using much electricity and our bill proves it. But when winter really hits we heat the greenhouse and our chicken coop.  The coop, I may look into a small single solar panel to see if that would work.  I need to research how to warm the greenhouse in the winter without a heater.  I have read about adding compost piles in the corner of greenhouses to heat them. It will be an experiment worth trying.

Recycle - we will update you on this. We will recycle aluminum, food scrapes (we already do this) for the animals and the compost. Friends send me their old jeans to reuse and fabric that people don't use. Minimize our packaging. We put out a lot of trash for only two people. 

I do have quite a commute and last year changed my gas guzzling vehicle to a more efficient  vehicle which gets 44 gallons a mile and runs partially on battery.  I will stay more in town, especially during bad weather or traffic issues not to contribute to emissions.

Goal to plant more trees.  Now that we have our well and water issues resolved for now we can plant more trees.

I am lucky to married to someone who feels this is an urgent issue and we will work to do what we can in our little area of the world to help where we can to be "good stewards".

Like everything we post here we will have successes and fails but we will share what we learn along the way.  For every small change we make there is a potential for a big impact that we may never see. 

Faith- We haven't talked much about it here but on the homestead we are doing our best to hear the call of God.  We do go to mass and visit with our priest once a week.  We are slow and small but our faith keeps us going.

Taken from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

 "Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God's works."

---the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 198