Dispatches from Dufferin Street

Eco-Sabbath

Steps to take today 

• stop everything. At the end of the day don’t track your impact! Because this is your day to relax, reflect, and unplug, don’t worry about sharing your experience with the rest of us. Keep this one for yourself.

• turn off the faucet, run the water gently when needed, soak the dishes, sponge-bathe

• power down

• eat food from within Ontario

• don’t drive

• stop making trash

• don’t buy anything new 

7:28 am, 11°C outside, 17.5°C inside

Leo and I are just enjoying the early-morning candlelight, talking about No Impact week. I asked him what he liked most about the week: reducing garbage, eating local food, etc. 

LEO: Eating local food. Especially that bread.

KATE: What did you learn this week? What did you think about?

LEO: I thought about that soup we had with that bread, and I want some RIGHT NOW. 

End of day report

12 noon, 13°C outside, 18°C inside 

We enjoyed another quiet evening last night, reading by candlelight, and an early bedtime, which was a treat we don’t enjoy often enough. It’s so quiet in the house with no power – there is nothing humming, beeping, flashing… even with the at times outrageous volume of our sons, it feels peaceful, silent, calm… 

I walked down to the LCBO after Leo went to bed to pick up some wine and beer for the weekend, a trip I would rarely take on foot in the evening. It was awesome, and I hope I remember after a few days “off-plan” that it didn’t really add too much time to my trip, and added a whole lot of enjoyment. Walking down just made the whole trip seem less rushed, less urgent, less of a chore. The walk was super-nice, I took my time and browsed in the store at things I might not have glanced at if I was in the car and in rush-mode, and I meandered home, finding the wind and sprinkling rain not at all unpleasant. In hindsight, just the act of taking the car somewhere to “save time” creates, or at least heightens, that feeling of urgency and haste, which so much of the time is just unnecessary. So what if I get home 10 minutes later with the bottle of wine? So what if we start the DVD 20 minutes later? I can use that time to be outside, see people, look at and think carefully about what I’m doing on my errands. This feels like a big realization, but yet something small I can change almost every day to enhance my quality of life considerably. 

We used the stove top for maybe 10 minutes this morning, and the coffeemaker for about 5. Matt and Leo cycled down to the market for apples and fresh cinnamon buns for breakfast – lovely! While the boys made apple crisp for our trip, I went for a run through the gorgeous leaves strewn about the sidewalks of downtown, and just lapped up the weather and the scenery of the city. I got rained on a bit, but it was pretty refreshing, to be honest (especially since I haven’t showered in a couple days!), and the colourful leaves against the grey sky – wow. So nice. I did take a super-fast shower and despite a pang of regret at using some extra water, I feel a like a million bucks now. Imagine Monday, when I can do laundry – I’ll feel like a movie star! 

We’ve adjusted our schedule again somewhat, since it’s pretty yucky outside, and no-one – even our intrepid team leader – wants to go outside and pick up garbage today. The forecast looks a little more promising tomorrow, and my mom came up with the idea of cleaning up the garbage on the road at the end of their driveway. So, today will be about taking stock of what we’ve done, and tomorrow about doing something outside of our own home to make a difference. 

Now Matt’s out getting his exercise before we hit the road, and then we’re off for a tour of the eastern-region grandparents. I don’t imagine I’ll be able to resist checking in later today, but I can’t imagine we’ll have anything No Impact-worthy to report. In fact, I imagine the rest of the weekend will be pretty high-impact. 

Even though I’ve been aware this trip was coming, and have been totally OK with going off-program for the weekend, I’m feeling sad that our week is coming to an abrupt end. Maybe we’ll do Sunday night bedtime by candlelight when we get home, just to end the week on a note that fits with what we’ve been doing, and finish it all together, at home. Yeah. I like that. 

I’ll do the final round-up posts and thoughts tomorrow night when we get home – I feel like the time we’ll have on the road today and tomorrow can provide some great time for family discussion about what we’ve all gotten out of the week. 

Garbage

• 2 plastic apple bags (1 reusable, 1 recyclable)

• 2 pieces of waxed paper trash found in garden

• cores from 8-10 apples for apple crisp

• 2 candy wrappers from yesterday

• 1 lollipop stick

• 1 piece of cardboard from Tootsie Roll

• 1 foil eyeball wrapper

• l plastic candy wrapper

• 1 piece of saran wrap

• 1 coffee filter and grounds

• 1 cardboard cracker box

• 2 plastic/foil bubble wrappers from antihistamine

• 1 soy milk carton

• 1 plastic bag from cracker box (non-recyclable) 

For our final day, we’re sorting through the week’s trash to see what is recyclable, compostable and what goes straight to the dump. 

The whole week (Sunday to Saturday) yielded one plastic shopping bag of garbage and recycling, and 1 large ziploc bag of compost. 

The shopping bag full of garbage breaks down into about 60% recyclables, and 40% garbage, so just under half a grocery bag of garbage all week – that’s not bad for a family of four! 

Purchases 

• $11.60, market for local apples and fresh-made cinnamon buns

• $20, gas for trip 

Tomorrow

Giving Back