The Kline family is "Going a little bit Green"

When I first moved to Colorado it was a bit of culture shock. Durango is a very liberal, tree lovin, granola munchin... garden growing town. We have a good mix of people who are "hippies" if you must who just live off of the earth and recycle reuse and that is what their life revolves around (which is cool, but just totally not me). For every one regular grocery store we have about 2.5 natural food stores and a variety of Herbal retail store where you can buy tinctures and oils and herbs to help cure any common ailment.

BK and I recycle, but that has been about it. We understand how to sort out the plastic from the glass aluminum etc. Recently it has been more of a focus to Bill that we take care of the earth. He even asked if we could "compost" this summer. I was like.. WHAT? What am I going to do with all the scraps and junk for a compost and more importantly where are we going to put it and ALSO, what if the deer and dogs eat from it...ewwww! But Grace piped in because she is learning about recycling and taking care of the earth at school and she listed for me all the reasons why you SHOULD do this and how it is good for the earth etc.etc. To me it just sounds like more work for me. (what a whiner I am)

But this summer we took a rafting trip with some friends... and on our way back we drove past a landfill. Now, mind you... I"ve seen them from far away... and not really thought much other than they should make it into a ski hill... But when we drove by the landfill and there were dozens and dozens of grocery plastic bags flying all over the place... it hit me that our garbage is not "good" for this earth. I began to look at the number of garbage bags I bring out to the garbage can and I began to wonder how long it would take for all my trash to decompose... That landfill grossed me out and I felt bad, that God created this beautiful place for us to live and I am not doing something about taking care of it by not stockpiling my garbage on it. That I am just piling my "stuff" on it... not really paying attention of what goes where and how I might be able help take care of it.

So, we began our compost pile. I collect, eggs, greens, coffee grounds, and any natural scraps and we put it out in the pile... We put our pumpkin guts and our old pumpkins in the compost. I am also concious of what can be recycled. Now I have to be honest... we do not have a good system for this right now which makes it a VERY painful endeavor. We keep the recycleables under our sink... so they spill over onto everything and it takes BK some time before he goes tot eh recycling place behind our grocery store to sort it out... But it feels good to go there and know that we are taking care of the earth and showing our kids how to do this as well.

Billy told me one day that he was reading his Bible and something he read in it made him feel like this was something important to do. I looked up some verses and found this one to back up his story.

Genesis 2:15
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

I am a little surprised at how much I am beginning to care and want to "take care" of the earth. I posted this blog because I believe it makes a difference... and if I can do it... anyone can.