scifiknitter

Very recently I said, "When we bought our land and built our home in the woods, I thought we were choosing a more ecologically sound way to live. I was wrong." I have been asked why. The answer is very simple: we are too far away from everything. In our early days here, we used to joke that we lived 20 miles from everything. Well, it's true, and the joke is very hollow now that I have lived what that means: many, many miles of driving. Between the two of us, we drive at least 40,000 miles a year. I alone drive nearly 10,000 miles a year to work and back. Robert's work takes him even further afield. Then there's the sailboat 70 miles away from our home, band gigs, and friends and family many miles away. Over 30 years, that's 1.2 million miles of driving and a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide, perhaps a million pounds. We could perhaps ameliorate that by being good stewards of our 137 acres of woods and beaver pond, but that is much harder than it seems. In 1998,...