Learning to Live Green - Things My Grandparents Already Knew and Practiced

Everywhere you turn someone is telling you how to live green and conserve energy and save the planet. These are things that our grandparents did without being told. They knew how to live 'green' and they made it work. They didn't need books or how to classes to work as one with the earth. They did it because it was the right thing to do. They didn't use disposable items. They built quality items, and reused them many times. They didn't waste things like we do now.

My grandparents were the best at living green. They didn't waste anything. Everything that they owned they used then when they couldn't use it anymore they recycled it into something else.

Monday's were wash day. My grandmother had an old wringer washer that was filled once with water. This one washer full of water washed the week's worth of clothing. It started out hot water and the whites got washed first. After they got washed, they were then put through the wringer on the washer then into one of the rinse tubs. Then through the wringer yet again, then they didn't go in the dryer, they were hung on the line outside. Why would anyone waste energy to dry clothes on a perfectly nice day to hang. After the whites were done my grandmother would then do the next load, leaving the work clothes till last. Once the work clothes were washed then the water could be emptied from the washer and the rinse tubs. But one washer full of water did all the laundry. Clothes that they didn't want or need anymore were given to the church to be resold, or cut up to make quilts out of. They weren't just thrown away.

They grew their own vegetables in their garden. They didn't use gas operated tillers, they did it by hand with a rake, shovel and hoe. Sure it was backbreaking work, but it was the way it was done. After the plants were planted, they would need to be watered this was done with recycled water that was saved in a wooden barrel from the rain. At the end of the gutter the rain water was caught by the wooden barrel and saved just to water the garden. We would fill up the sprinkler and water the garden with used rain water.

Garbage was burnt in a fireplace outside. Of course you couldn't burn cans or glass, these would be recycled. Newspapers also were taken somewhere to be recycled. I do not remember where they took them but I know they would be neatly stacked till they took them somewhere. Cans were opened at both ends and smashed so that they would fit better when they took them to be recycled. There weren't plastic bottles when we had soda, it was glass bottles, and they were taken back to the store for credit.

The gas stove was another way they conserved energy, they lit the pilot light each time they wanted to use it. Cakes and main courses were baked at the same time. This way the oven didn't have to operate longer than necessary. Left over food wasn't thrown in the disposal, it was taken to the garden and was used to put nutrients into the soil. It was buried in one spot then eventually moved to the other spots in the garden to help the vegetable grow better.

If it snowed, we all got out and shoveled, there was no sense in buying a snow blower when there was a shovel that was free. They did have a gas powered lawnmower of course it was a push mower, because it used less gas.

Maybe we don't really need millions of books to tell us how to conserve energy, and not waste things like all the paper to print the books. Maybe all we really have to do is think back to how our grandparents lived green.