Heirlooms

In honor of Mother's Day weekend, I'm going to indulge in a bit of mommy-love by sharing some things with y'all that I learned from my mom about Green, Gray, and Grace.

 

First up: What I learned from my mom about living Green

 

1. Use what you've got.
My family grew up in farm country, in a house that mom and dad built themselves (with the help of some skilled friends and family) soon after they were married.

 

Our house, decked out for Les and my wedding.

The house included lots of local material, which probably made my parents seem a bit like hippy kooks at the time, but really, it was a combo of financial cheapskateness and the abundance of things like field stones and re-purposed barn beams from my mom's family farm. They didn't go the thrifty route for everything. The siding is the original redwood from 40 years ago. Buy quality stuff, and it will last you forever.

 

The steps down to the garage are scavenged surplus rail road ties. Still the originals.

 

 

2. It's dumb to use electricity when you don't need to

• In the summer, mom used a clothes line instead of the dryer.
• The house was built with huge south-facing windows that heated the house up nicely in the winter, and were shaded by big trees in the summer.
• Open the windows if you are hot. Put on a sweater if you are cold.

 

3. A lot of good-old-fashioned thrifty habits are good for the earth too!

• Use cloth diapers instead of buying disposable (we were all Tidy-Didy-Diaper babies).
• Bake your own bread, make cake from scratch, pie crust is not as challenging as everyone makes it sound.
• Your shirt has a hole in it? Here's a needle and thread. Same goes for your jeans.
• We learned to sew at a young age. Making your own doll clothes, or simple skirts or purses is fun, and no one else will have the exact same stuff.
• Grow your own veggies. Make compost and use that instead of expensive, nasty fertilizer.
• Every time you get something new, something old has to go to Salvation Army (Ok, so we rarely, if ever, followed through with this directive, but she tried).

 

And if I had to choose the best Green thing that my mom passed down to me, it would be this:

 

Everything everything everything that God made is beautiful. Amazing. And precious.

 

I remember walking around with mom in the woods behind our house and not even needing to demand that toddler-tyrant drone of "What That??" because she was touching and naming everything for me with such wonder and pride.... "Elm tree! Columbine! Look! A momma cardinal! Hear her?"

 

We learned the names of plants, birds, animals, trees, weeds, stones (limestone! slate! I think that might be a geode!) with enthusiasm and great interest. I've forgotten some of them now, but I find myself telling our dog Auggie the name of every plant and flower we pass on our evening walks. Because I need to share the wonder with someone. The amazement of a fluffy hosta twirling free from a tightly-wound straw of green stalk. The eager anticipation of irises shooting straight out of the ground like arrowheads.

 

Mom didn't go to college, but she was a voracious reader. And she grew up close to the earth - on a farm, with 5 siblings. She worked in a doctor's office for over a decade. I believed she knew everything about anything that was important. Until she died in 2009, I called her every spring to talk about the first flower buds, or to ask her what setting I needed to use on the sewing machine to sew on denim, or to remind me of that soup recipe. She knew where to plant things, how to can vegetables, and where to buy the best yarn. She knew how to get stains out of the carpet, and when it was safe to transplant pansies.

 

 

I miss her every day. Especially around Mothers Day, when I used to hunt for a new peony plant for her garden, or a wind chime or a bird feeder to give her. I miss her in this whole G3 experiment. I want her to show me how to bake bread and freeze corn. I want to ask her about life on the farm. I want to show her how much I learned from her, how much of her I carry around with me every day. How much grace.