For my ¼ acre lot, I have a pretty elaborate garden. I do not mean lots of vegetables rowed out and annuals for cutting. I have an ornamental garden. Boxwood hedges, as well as azaleas, cherries, dogwoods that bloom all spring. Summer color is taken care of by crape myrtles, hydrangeas, and abelias. Fall color is grand with maples and gingkos. I am completely covered with a lovely evergreen shield of hemlocks, hollies, and junipers all winter long. I really like plants and all their diversity.

I do; however, have to share my garden with three children. I work around the basketball goal, the fort, and the swing set. One of the hardest lessons to teach my children is to leave the trees alone. The soft new growth makes excellent swords, wreaths, batons, just about anything a kid can imagine. I try to tell them the soft new stems won’t grow back. They just answer me that the trees have lots of stems. They will be fine. Well, they are not like hair. They do not grow back. The tree might grow more, but once that branch is severed it is lost to the tree forever.

These are the areas of life where the gardener and the mother must compromise. My children will grow up and move on. Someday I hope they will struggle with teaching their own children the same lesson. By then, I’ll have a quiet garden all to myself.

My wife and I recently saw Food, Inc., a documentary by Robert Kenner. We were stunned to find out the lengths to which the public is kept in the dark about the food we eat. This is an even more important issue given that we are in a national obesity crisis.

One thing that I found particularly disturbing was the ways that food companies like Tyson, Perdue and Smithfield keep the farmers under their thumb. The farmers must continually buy expensive new equipment or face termination of their contracts with the companies. This keeps them heavily and constantly in debt.

Since most people love white meat, the food companies have genetically modified chicken so they have bigger breasts. This is achieved by injecting them with hormones. Naturally these hormones make it into our bodies, causing any number of health problems for us.

Our beef has also been tainted because cows have been taught to eat corn feed instead of grass. This deprives the beef of the natural nutrients that grass fed cows have long provided. In turn, it affects our bodies in a negative way.

What we took from the film was the need to know what is in our food. We cannot assume that our best interests are being looked after. Knowledge is the best weapon.

I believe that a huge population of Americans no longer prepares meals from the basic ingredients. A growing number of people are content to choose from the wide variety of fast food restaurants of varied price range. There are frozen foods that require 1-5 minutes in a microwave or longer in conventional oven. And then there are the people who prepare meals from boxed easy to make food-stuffs that require nothing extra or maybe one additional ingredient. This is a sad trend that disconnects people from understanding what our actual food is and where it comes from.

The true nature of food can only come about when we see and touch the actual ingredients and mix and change these ingredients to the food that we share and eat together. This is the basic thinking behind the growing slow food movement gaining in popularity around the globe. People are reacting to the basic disconnect behind the food industry and how it relates to our eating habits. Many of us are thinking that it may not be a good thing that food is fast and we have no idea what our food is and are choosing to understand our place in the world by understanding the food we eat.

I am one of the growing numbers of nameless Americans that cannot afford health insurance. I consider myself a self-insured person. I see the doctor at least once a year for an overall checkup. Years ago, I was diagnosed with gout and have been living with this easily treatable affliction for as long as ten years now.

Health is a wonder, especially when the news comes that health is also fleeting if taken for granted. I have recently been informed that I am a borderline diabetic. I am amused at this diagnosis because it seems much like being borderline pregnant. It seems to me that one is either a diabetic or not a diabetic. But alas, I won’t allow my cynicism to belittle the very dangerous news of my condition.

And since I am an American with no health insurance and now am in possession of a pre-existing condition, my chances of gaining affordable health insurance seem to be near impossible. I am forced to take responsibility for my health and work to possibly reverse the condition since I am still diagnosed as “borderline”. I am looking forward to an increased health awareness and responsible and healthy life choices to reduce the need for expensive healthcare treatment. Carpe diem!

Almost once a week I get a link sent to me to watch a documentary about our food source. If you have ever watched any of these then you know there are some very disturbing issues with the way our food is delivered to us in regard to what we are really getting. While we seem to think this is mostly about cows, chickens and pigs and the way they are treated to how they are being fattened up before slaughter, it also has to do with the chemicals used on our fruits and vegetables.

So with this in mind, you may want to start thinking of ways to grow at least some of your own food and become your own food source. Knowing that you can accomplish this with the help of raised beds and small greenhouses makes it a little easier than plowing up half your lawn! You will still need to watch the type of soil you use as well as the seeds you get so you get an organic finished product. Also know that having cedar (non-treated) is also the best type of raised bed to buy.

If you had a real tree this year for Christmas, one of the best things you can do for the environment is to recycle your tree. Almost every community has a program these days of some sort where you can “donate” your tree for mulch. Some of the programs are sponsored and carried out by the Parks & Recreation Departments while others are taken care of through the cities Sanitation or Recycle Departments. Go online to your local government website and see if they have such a program.

If not, another place that sometimes takes trees this time of year is your local nurseries, if they are set up to create mulch. You will want to call ahead of time and make sure they can take your tree so you don’t waste a trip or the gas. Next year you may want to think about getting a live tree that you can plant after the holidays so you can “recycle” the tree into your landscaping. It all makes for a wonderful holiday season as well as an environmentally sound one.

So what is a “green” Christmas? While some may go overboard and stop the lights, forget the tree altogether and not shop for presents due to carbon gases, there are some things you can do that are practical to help your Christmas be as green as you can possibly be without giving up all the wonderful traditions of the holidays. You can start off by making sure all your lights are safe LED lighting. Since LED’s take less energy you won’t feel guilty about having lights in and outside your home.

Buy a tree you can use for three of four days and then plant. You can buy these at a local nursery with a nice root ball. Put the tree for about a half a day in the garage or shed to help it come in from the cold. Make sure you have a large pot to both cover the root and hold water because it will need water. Keep it in for not more than five days before getting it ready to go back outside. You can either plant it in the pot or in the ground, if the ground is not frozen where you live. The last tip is to shop online and save gas and those carbon emissions by shipping directly to your family and friends.

A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture and is a way for the community to create a direct relationship with a local farm. Most CSA’s provide and box or basket of food on certain days that come directly from the farm. Some farms only have fruits and vegetables while others also provide meats and if you’re lucky you can find one that also have dairy as well. The farm normally agrees to bring you whatever they are producing in exchange for you agreeing to purchase whatever they can provide on an ongoing basis.

There are many CSA’s popping up all over the country and the vast majority are great! They provide a wonderful service to the community and, in exchange, the community supports and keeps the local farms going and making money. You can also find CSA’s where several farms have come together to provide the many different food products so you can actually order meats, baked goods and dairy along with the seasons fruits and vegetables. Some of these farms also welcome you out to see where your food is being grown and can make for a wonderful day trip for you and the entire family.

One of the things about buying a house that uses a lot of energy is traveling around the city looking at houses. In some of the larger cities this could mean a lot of emissions going up in the atmosphere. However, there are some things you can do to help eliminate the need for all this driving; though you will want to see the home in person before you place an offer. The first thing is to do some research online to discover some of the great neighborhoods in your area. Here is an example of some great Nashville area neighborhoods that give you a lot of information and pictures so you can narrow your focus.

Another great tool for selling and buying a home is the use of up to date search tools like the MLS Market Snapshot found in the right hand column of Liz Davis Homes. I actually used this tool to find out what houses in my neighborhood were selling for so I could set a good fair price when I sold my home. It was great to get the information I needed delivered to my email. It can help borrowers to determine if they can afford a certain neighborhood or not as well as making sure they don’t overpay for a property in a neighborhood. So you save on gas, reduce your carbon footprint and get great information. It doesn’t get better than this!

When I first heard this term I had no idea what it meant so first let me tell you what it is; green wiping is when certain products or services are said to be green for marketing services but there is little to back it up that says it really is a green product service. So now that you know what it is, let’s talk about what you can do to protect yourself from being bamboozled into thinking it is a green product.

The first is to ask the person why they believe this product or service is green and listen to them very carefully. A green product must be better for the environment, sustainable and good for the planet. One could argue that battery powered cars are not really green because even thought they are better for the air and can be considered sustainable with a low carbon source, the batteries are not good for the environment and there is no good way of disposing on them making them not so good for the earth. Now you have to decide if this product is “green enough”, or has been “green wiped” and make your decisions from there.