Raising environmentally aware kids

We talk a lot about the environment around here. At 8 and 12, the girls are old enough to understand the impact our nation's current exploitation of this earth will have if it continues unchecked. This week Shelby, our almost 8 year old, attended one of her favorite camps. Besides towel, swimsuit, and sunscreen, we pack a lunch from home. While grocery shopping for her lunch items last week, she begged for Lunchables (I did a cringe that was so noteworthy I think my face may be stuck that way). But, it was the perfect lead in for another conversation about conservation and keeping unnecessary crap out of the land fills. I asked her to pick one up and look at it.

Me: "Where do you think all that stuff comes from?"
Shelby: "Probably China."
Me: "Probably so."
Shelby: "And that's a lot of stuff to throw away. And it doesn't recycle."
Me: "Right."
Shelby: "Well, then let's make our own and not take anything that has to be thrown away."
Me: "Perfect!"
Shelby: "Because otherwise, that would be a gigantic carbon footprint."
Me: Happy sigh.

So, our solution:
You can find these little guys a lot of places, just Google bento boxes and they'll pop up all over your monitor like hair removal ads. We picked up ours at Laptop Lunches. Need some other ideas? They have a whole gallery of photos that people have submitted with their kid's lunches. If your kids are more sandwich types, this looks pretty tasty.

At the end of the day, Shelby comes home with her lunch box and the plastic containers. The only thing she throws away is the Gogurt packaging. So far, I haven't really found any ways to re-use those. I'm open to ideas!

Retro blogging

I don't do this. Even though I have started a couple of blogs in the past, I'm not going to steal those entries and post them here. This blog starts right now. I live on a 38 acre farm with one husband, two kids (pre-teen girls, 'nuff said), four dogs, three cats, six horses, one miniature donkey, a Chinchilla bunny, and a Rose Haired Tarantula.

As you can imagine, I will have a plethora of topics to write about. Oh, and I love to take photos. And since I have now joined the ranks of Crackberry addicts, I have a phone at ready all the time! And since I have to start somewhere, this is a cool little wooden donkey I picked up at my favorite junk store. I'm thinking about painting her in festive colors - like Fiestaware.