Jamie Brame

I first engaged in the Ecochallenge with members of our church several years ago - I actually cannot remember when. Since then, we have paid attention to the amount of water we use in the shower and washing dishes by hand. Learning not to run water while brushing teeth or leaving the water running when handwashing dishes (waiting until all dishes are cleaned before rinsing) has become a daily practice. When our water bill occasionally rises, we immediately start checking faucets and toilets (usually, the rise is because of visitors during the month, especially during holidays - the pandemic has made water use even less much of the time). I wanted to do this third round of the ecochallenge just to remind me of how important all of this is and to support the program again!

I have to admit that I have loved this part of the challenge more than any other. Seeing green plants from brocolli to tomatoes to lettuces and kale growing in their containers has just made me happy! We ate some of our lettuce earlier this week. The flavors and the knowledge that we had grown some of this meal ourselves had me outside the next day, poking at the weeds and planning for more containers!

While I know that  plant-based eating is a good thing, it is difficult to go without some kind of meat when it has become such a part of my life. Consequently, going plant-based means really thinking more about my food planning. I'm sad to say that I won't be giving meat up completely, but I expect for the next few weeks, as I continue to think about this meatless existence I have sometimes led, plants will be in danger of being devoured by me more than cows and pigs will! Some of it was enjoyable, and I certainly saved some money in the process, but I'm still trying to learn how important it is to eat plants, which take up less land and do less damage to the environment than animal farming does!

Hard to believe that this is almost over. It's been good to be able to keep up with the outdoor stuff, walking and gardening. I find myself purposely walking out of the house for no other reason than to breathe and enjoy the weather, whatever it is. People who only want sunshine all the time, who never appreciate the wind and rain and cold, really are out of touch with reality on some level (a mean thing to say that really isn't meant hurtfully, just honestly). Reality exists in a much broader form when we take it all in - indoors and out, looking into the woods and onto a screen. The separation exists in us, like calling a piece of our body a separate thing from "me." Walking has reminded me of all this, and being outdoors during this month devoted to the Earth will take me outside the rest of the year!

Since we live near woods, there are lots of seedlings and saplings that won't have a chance to survive under the canopy of the larger trees, so one of the things I am able to do is rescue these small trees from being overwhelmed by the larger ones and replant them in a place where there is a chance for them to grow. Mostly, they are white pines, red oaks, and maples; there are some southern hemlocks now, and we are going to contact the local forestry folks to see how they need to be treated in order to survive - we have the woody adelgid in our area, and hemlocks only survive for a few years before being killed. With treatment, there is hope of repopulating the woods with the native hemlocks.

So far, I am managing to do all of my commitments. It's going well and I'm enjoying it!

One of the things that I notice as I garden (I have to do container gardening in our yard because we are surrounded by woods, which block out sunlight at different times of the day) is that I am beginning to be more aware of the woods that approach our property. My wife and I spend several hours each week cleaning up the edge of the woods to protect our property from fire - a friend of ours who is a firefighter commended us for this, saying that if the woods catch on fire, firefighters would have an easier time of protecting us. The brush we cut is used to fill in low places near our property, and some of it is compostable, so it does not go to waste. We are also careful that trees have enough leaves at their base to use for food. Amazing how a small thing like my gardening has made me more aware of the surrounding land.