My Green Journey – Part 1
Do you know my green journey? Probably not entirely. I’m sure that if you have been reading here for any length of time you will know bits and pieces, but you probably don’t know the whole thing. I decided that it would be fun to share, and also to write out for my own benefit!
I started blogging in the year 2001. Yeah, that was a long time ago. I was in my third year of college, and one of my apartment-mates had a blog. I thought I should jump on the bandwagon, especially considering the insane dynamics in our apartment of 6 women. What did I learn that year? That I was crazy for living in an apartment with 5 other individuals…and I liked my privacy 🙂
9/11 happened during my first few weeks of junior year. It was completely surreal. Two of the women I lived with had family in NYC, and a third had a father who was a pilot and regularly traveled one of the routes one of the planes had been on. Luckily, all of the family was found to be safe and sound. We were glued to our little TV watching news constantly. It was jarring. Being in college you are in such a fish bowl, it doesn’t matter how big a school you go to. It woke me up. I started to think about how fragile our society really was.
What does any of that have to do with my green journey? Well, it got me thinking about my life and how I was so reliant on everyone else. During the second semester of that year, I learned about a new show that would be airing on PBS called Frontier House. I have written about my love affair with Frontier House before, but I will reiterate it here. I watch it just about every year, and every time I watch it, it renews my desire for self-sufficiency.
It was during a time when reality television was still relatively new (except for the Real World and Road Rules, which no one ever seemed to mention). It was captivating. What an amazing premise. Take three 21st century families and put them back in the 19th century. The show was really entertaining. Obviously the dynamics of the three families interacting was the biggest draw, but to see the families working hard to provide for themselves was encouraging.
At this point I had no knowledge of “green.” I’m not even sure that was a well-used term at that point. I knew nothing of GMO’s or pesticides. I honestly thought that all food was grown the way my mother gardened when I was younger, just on a much larger scale. And really, I didn’t think about the source of my food at all.
Before 9/11 I had no thoughts about not having what I needed, but after 9/11 everyone seemed to think more about their place in the world. Then when I watched Frontier House, it made me wonder how much I would be able to do on my own, or in a small community setting.
Was there a turning point in your life where you could say you started your green journey? Was it something that happened on a national scale, like 9/11? Or was it perhaps a silly reality TV show, like Frontier House?
Linking up at the Homestead Barn Hop, Clever Chicks, Your Green Resource
Linking up at the Homestead Barn Hop, Clever Chicks, Your Green Resource
Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop this week; I hope you’ll join us again!
Cheers,
Kathy Shea Mormino
The Chicken Chick
http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com
I'd say my green journey started after I watched Food, Inc. It totally woke me up to how wrong this are in the food industry and I wanted to be in control of what goes into my body and be more self-sufficient. We are still on our journey today, but we are much farther along than we were 5 years ago!
The events of 9/11 were a real wake up call for me. Made me rethink what I was doing with my life.
My green journey didn't start until moving to the country and connecting with people involved with the Farmer's Market and learning about growing our own food.
I'm looking forward to Part 2! 🙂
I remember hearing about that show, but I've never seen it.
I want to know the rest of the story…..bc this is something that's been on my mind.
I've always been more of a herbivore but everything changed for me even more in 2003 when I was pregnant with my 1st. Suddenly I was obsessed with everything to make our lives more healthy, green, local and organic. We never looked back!
Frontier House sounds like a good one and now that I'm caught up with my (ahem) show…..
I would like to see Frontier House. Very interesting how you came to your green journey.