Being Green - Salt Ranch
Living in California, you tend to dive into all of the green practices because it’s so ingrained in the culture there, that if you don’t, you feel guilty - so you do and it eventually just becomes second nature - because everybody, everywhere is doing it… Reduce… Reuse… Recycle… Compost… Ban Single use plastics… reusable bags… green energy… Bicycle commuting… Public transit… Organic… reducing your carbon footprint… Caring for your planet… Building a better earth for the future… it makes you a bit nauseous, truthfully.
So when we moved to Texas, it was a pretty big shock how careless or just plain ignorant people are.
I can’t leave a store without seeing every person using 10 plastic bags to take 15 items from the store. Why? To get to their car, to their house, and then put those bags into the trash… so they use those bags for what, 25 minutes and then throw them out? Straws - they don’t even ask you in a restaurant, you just get straws for every drink and styrofoam cups for your kids.
The obsession with balloon arches here is mind boggling to me. Every celebration includes a balloon arch made of 100 latex balloons that are used for a few hours, and will ultimately end up in the stomachs of our local wildlife.
In my small town, a city official told me that since we can no longer can our recycling to China, our sanitation department doesn’t actually recycle anything. But they won’t stop the recycling service here because the residents would be up in arms if they knew they weren’t actually recycling. So they just pay for an additional trash day and allow their residents to remain ignorant. Happily “recycling” their hundreds of plastic bottles and trash bags (each.)
Every party we go to involves plastic table cloths, plastic dishes, plastic silverware, plastic cups, plastic bottles, plastic decorations and plastic party favors. Plastic which will be around forever in our landfills. It doesn’t disintegrate it doesn’t breakdown. Forever. We are drowning in it.
Driving down the freeway here - or really any road - you see so much garbage, that it really doesn’t compute for me that people have no awareness of what they’re doing to their environment. To the Earth.
And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. Jeremiah 2:7
So, due to all of this heartbreaking ignorance, here at Salt Ranch, we have decided to start a movement to bring some green to our ranch, spread it to our community, and onward.
COMPOST
We compost all of our non-dairy non-meat organic matter. Our dairy and organic matter goes into our septic system by way of the disposal. Our horse and donkey manure are composted for a year, and then reused in our gardens and spread around our pasture. Rabbit manure makes an amazing manure tea which gives tons of nitrogen to our garden plants. Our chickens get the weed and grass clippings. Our cardboard boxes make a great weed barrier. Pretty much any leftovers go to our dogs, chickens and rabbits.
REDUCE WASTE
We have great parties, at which we serve drinks from a dispenser rather than from plastic bottles, we use paper plates instead of plastic, we reuse our “disposable” plastic cups and silverware, they do pretty well in the dishwasher and we can’t recycle here. Even kitchen towels and sponges go from kitchen, to cleaning, to animal use before they are tossed. We don’t use papertowels - we use washcloths for everything and launder them. It is fun to see how creative you can be!
REUSE
We survive without balloons, without plastic bags, without plastic water bottles, without Ziploc bags and saran wrap. We use a lot of mason jars, Tupperware and reusable bags. We salvage parts and repurpose wood scraps for building projects.
We tend to choose Mother Earth and spend a few extra minutes - because the cost of convenience is too high for our future generations.
Now our mission is to spread the word to our community, work with our town council, and try to spread some awareness beyond our bubble.
““The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
We recognize that all created things belong to God and that we are accountable to Him as stewards of the creation.”
