Clothes Drying on New Removable, Retractable Clothesline
The Sierra Club has a helpful slogan, when it comes to the sometimes overwhelming effort of decreasing our carbon footprint: “Pick Two You Can Do.” Doing two things that are actually do-able at this particular point in our lives is doing a lot.
The first (recycling) we started several years ago, when curbside recycling was available in our town – albeit very briefly. After that, we had to take it to the recycling center but by then we were dedicated to the idea. And even after a storm blew the roof off our town’s recycling center, we piled it up and took it to a town further down the road when we had occasion to go there for something else. Now that we live in the country, we pile it up and take it to whatever town we’re headed for.
After recycling became a habit, we began changing lightbulbs to CFLs and taking our own reusuable shopping bags to the store. That required behavior change: we had the bags but kept forgetting to take them out of the car and into the store. We’re better at remembering now; it’s become more of a habit.
Becoming more aware of the little things we could do and becoming more deeply committed, it got easier to make changes: adjusting the thermostat a couple of degrees to keep it warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter (and keeping the windows open a lot more in the summer); using the back side of printed paper and making our own scrap paper; turning off the water while brushing teeth; not flushing the toilet every single time; avoiding fast food restaurants. We discovered worldcentric.com and trash bags and paper products that are compostible (though we try not to use many of these either). We replace worn out appliances with Energy Star appliances now.
We committed to doing some more challenging things: insulating the attic; planting more trees (including 50 sand plum bushes this spring, purchased from the state’s tree nurseries); burying our kitchen scraps in the yard, and then, composting in a composter, and then, making our own turnable composter; purchasing red wiggler worms and vermicomposting. We joined the Oklahoma Food Coop and order monthly from them so that some of our food now comes from local growers; plus we are more aware of where the food in the grocery store is shipped from.
A big project has been getting back to vegetable gardening and this time, without chemicals.
My current “pick two” are driving slower (that’s going to take planning and restraint) and drying my clothes on a clothesline. We ordered removable, retractable clotheslines from Gaiam’s Real Goods Catalog 
and I installed one on my front porch. Yesterday, I hung my first load of clothes. I could wax poetically about the practice I got at living in the moment as I hung the clothes with those wonderful wooden clothespins and then folded up the fresh, air-scented dried clothes, but I know there will come a day when I’m not in a poetic mood about drying clothes on the clothesline. It will be my commitment to cutting my carbon footprint, based on my care for creation, that will have to sustain my practice.
In the offing… among my next “pick two”: buying clothes from the second-hand store.
There’s a lot more change needed, but progress is made by making two do-able changes at a time.
