Comments on: Green Granny?

By: Awe and wonder always welcome in the garden | Conservation Gardening

Awe and wonder always welcome in the garden | Conservation Gardening — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:55:31 +0000

[...] Note: a tip of the hat to Alison Kerr, of Loving Nature’s Garden, for writing the article that inspired this very happy memory! [...]

By: Melissa @ Raising Them Green

Melissa @ Raising Them Green — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:48:53 +0000

My grandmother sounds very similar. She had a garden and was the Queen of reuse. She had a large chicken coop so whatever we didn’t eat, the chickens did! I don’t recall much of anything ever going to waste while I was at her house.

By: admin

admin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:59:22 +0000

Dana, I love that your granny uses gray water wisely. Did she have to pump water from a well when she was younger? In many cases I think modern conveniences make it so easy to be wasteful. We just don’t think about the energy involved in getting clean water to us because it’s not our physical energy.

Carole, it sounds like your granny would be proud of you. What struck me as I read these comments is the pride our grandmothers took in their own frugality. My mother wasn’t wasteful, but I don’t think she had quite the same pride in making do with what she had as her mother had.

By: Carole

Carole — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:51:12 +0000

My one grandmother died when I was three so I don’t know much about her. The other was very frugal. She got married right before the Depression and they were very poor. My grandfather died when my mom was quite young, so money was always an issue. I remember she reused everything, including paper towels. We used to tease her that she could squeeze a nickel until the buffalo pooped. She never learned to drive so never had a car. She took the bus anywhere she wanted to go.

Despite all of the teasing we gave her, I am now trying to emulate some of her frugalness by participating less in the consumption culture. I drive very little, we grow some of our own produce and get the rest from a CSA, and I’m trying to lessen the amount of energy we use.

This was a great post. Thanks for helping me remember with fondness my grandmother!

By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:52:41 +0000

Yes, and the thing I always found most interesting is that “green” was never part of her vocabulary. She’d probably laugh at me if I told her she was.

She does all those things and uses her gray water for flushing and watering the garden. But it was because she came of age in the depression and saving and reusing everything was just how she was raised.