Car Free with Kids

Still trying to be as car-free as possible

As you'll know if you've followed this blog at all, we recently ended our year of car-free living and now are the uncomfortable owners of a four-wheeled vehicle as we plan our move to a more rural community where, for now anyway, a car will be required. We're still very committed to living the life that we established when we gave up our car in early 2009, and it requires ongoing good intentions and commitment. Because, well, having a car in the driveway is simply too convenient. Now that one is parked there we test ourselves on how long we can go between trips, because it's really the only way.

My new blog already has a post about our recent bike camping excursion (an expanded version of what we did last year, if you've been here for that long) and, for the next six months during the North American summer and autumn we'll find it pretty easy to choose our bikes over most other modes of transport most of the time. We're also big walkers and turn to the bus quite happily for meetings (we work from home but sometimes venture out to meet with clients) and family outings or appointments.

The one thing I didn't share following last weekend's bike camping trip (in pretty hot weather), was how bloody energetic we felt on our return. After a weekend away in the car I'd come home and feel like mush. After a pretty demanding weekend away on our bikes, we came home only to find that both my husband and I had the energy to do some much needed cleaning and painting at our house. We've seen this effect before, but I was totally blown away by it. (Let me shine for a moment, won't you?)

The thing is, the more you use your body, the more it will do for you and this is really our mantra with ourselves and our kids. I like flaking out on the sofa on a Friday night in front of a movie with some good grub as much as anyone, but I also like what a charge I get out of pushing myself the rest of the week. The really nice thing is that it comes quite naturally to our kids because we've been doing it consistently for a long time; getting around under their own steam (whether for day to day stuff or pure recreation) is just a part of how they live and they don't question it. 

I've recently come across another family trying their best to do the car-free thing and these folks are blogging about it from their homebase in New Zealand. Love their blog's name, The Tyranny of Convenience (wish I'd used that!).

What's that in the driveway?

Yes, it's a car.

We're approaching the time of our move to a patch of land adjacent to a small town west of Ottawa. We knew that would mean becoming car owners again. My husband likens this to taking up smoking again after having successfully quit and kept off the vile things for a long, long time. And he's right. It's shaming and strange.

We're making a trade of sorts - we once again will have the responsibility and guilt associated with running a car, but we've deliberately situated our new home in a place where we will still be able to walk and cycle to most of the day-to-day places we need to go (school, dentist, bank, post office, farmer's market, library, coffee shop, etc.). We're expecting to look at the car sitting idle in the driveway quite a lot. The other part of the "trade" is the fact that we'll be able to grow more of our own food and we'll be living in a house that is much, much greener and energy efficient than our current drafty 1940s model.

And, as our monthly budget will never tire of reminding us, we made sure that we paid more so that we could drive the greenest car available at the moment (that would be a VW diesel, folks, and not a hybrid). My dream would be to go back to car sharing, and we've discovered that our nearest neighbours are also former Vrtucar users and Ottawans, so who knows where that might lead? (We've actually asked Vrtucar about whether they'd consider expanding West of Ottawa to our town, but that hasn't gone anywhere at this point.)

Speaking of paying more for the necessities of life, I invite you to walk on over to my new blog to read about paying more for clean energy in your home.

In honour of Earth Day

Kids birthdays have grown over the years into festivals of excess, from the balloons and wrapping paper, unwanted or un-needed gifts, "loot" bags and more. Our oldest shares his birthday with Earth Day and this year we were determined to make his birthday as green as possible.

We have foregone balloons and other birthday paraphernalia for quite a few years now and even when parties take us to somewhere away from home we bring reusable plates and cups, etc. A few years back I gave up the loot bag tradition and switched to a small bag of nice sweets for each child to take home. That way, the children get something, but it's a consumable and contains almost no waste. We've also done electronic invitations for many years.

The biggest change this year, however, came about thanks to a wonderful new organization called Echoage. This online business allows children to send out electronic invitations and to build their party online - which isn't new - but much better still, it allows guests to pay online for a gift that will be equally split between a charity (of the child's choosing) and the child. In this way, gifts to the birthday child support an important charitable effort and allow the child to put the financial gifts towards a special item that they want/need.

For many years I had taken every opportunity to guide parents on gifts that would be used (ie, "Thank you so much for asking about our son's interests. He inherited a lifetime's worth of Lego from a cousin a few years ago and so he really doesn't need any more! He's really into his bike and could use an x, y or z [small bike accessory]."). This wasn't a bad strategy, but the truth is, once children reach a certain age (which happens very quickly), they just don't need stacks of gifts on every birthday. Money towards one item that they have been saving for is much better for the planet, not to mention the battle against clutter at home.

When thinking about the stuff associated with birthdays, it's easy to feel that the accumulation of waste is minor in relation to your child and their handful of friends, but when you multiply that out to the millions of children having stuff-driven birthdays, suddenly that little Playmobil person that you bought for each child's loot bag looms monstrously. Cutting back in small ways really can make a big difference, and an organization like Echoage has made it incredibly easy to do that as well as to focus the giving on those in need while honouring the birthday child.

UK's Royal Mail to park its bikes

This news makes me want to hang my head and cry. The UK has provided a lot of leadership on climate change and sustainability , but this is a real blow.

The UK's Royal Mail has used bikes since 1880 to deliver the mail, one of many ways in which this island nation has always had a natural tendency towards sustainability. Small electric milk floats for daily home milk delivery are another great feature of the UK's transport profile. Inventions borne out of necessity are usually pretty sensible.

The Guardian has published another in a long string of recent articles on the planned demise of the Royal Mail's bike service. Read it here. What a shame is all I can say, what a shame.

It's easy to see why James Lovelock thinks humans are stupid

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change is the conclusion that world renowned scientist James Lovelock has come to. And it's hard to disagree with him. Read on...

In an article by Leo Hickman of the Guardian newspaper, Lovelock puts the blame on democracy:

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", [Lovelock says]. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

I can imagine happier thoughts on a Monday morning, but sadly I hear a lot of truth in this.

Take turns, the new traffic sign we need

Ted.com has a wonderful five-minute talk by Gary Lauder proposing the Take Turns traffic sign, which I absolutely love. Lauder very sensibly outlines the benefits of traffic circles or roundabouts, but also acknowledges that they are not always possible to implement, as at a three-way intersection. I won't trouble you with a clunky description of what Gary Lauder says so well - hop over to Ted.com and take a listen.

But a final thought on traffic circles or roundabouts. They are sorely needed in North America and I've seen new ones cropping up here and there in Eastern Ontario. Ottawa doesn't stand a chance of implementing this model properly, however, until someone sorts out the ridiculous excuse for a roundabout at the Central Experimental Farm. Joining traffic takes precedence over vehicles already on the roundabout, which is a bizarre reversal of the whole concept.

Edited to note: Gary Lauder himself has pointed me to a good comparison website for traffic circles vs. roundabouts, having noticed that I made an unintentional mistake in describing Ottawa's existing roundabout above (I was short on caffeine when I wrote this earlier today). The description above is now correct.

Getting out when you otherwise wouldn't

I was particularly grateful to be car-free yesterday. Our oldest came down with a virus on Friday evening after a fun and busy March Break week, and spent most of the weekend looking pale. Having been out of the house a lot during the week, some downtime at home was much needed and the rest of us were able to get caught up with spring yard work and cooking and homework projects.

By Sunday afternoon I realized that we needed a few groceries, and a short trip out on our bikes was just what was needed. Pre-teens who get sick often don't seem to know when they should let go of being an invalid (at least ours doesn't!), and booting them outside for a short spell of fresh air is always a good idea. He was decidedly gloomy as we climbed onto the bikes and held onto the gloom as we arrived at our destination, but by the time we exited the grocery store and were getting back on our bikes he was laughing and chatting and looking much more like himself. A brisk ride along the river before heading home perked him up even more.

I can't help but think that if we owned a car how easy it would have been to just slide into it and avoid that fresh air opportunity altogether. It makes me think of our grandparents who could say "when I was your age I walked four miles to school in all kinds of weather..." and while the tone with which those words were delivered could jar, the fact remains that I've always thought our elders were better off for that experience.

In transition

I've just been reading on Green Living Ottawa that Canada's capital became a Transition Town last fall. Sheesh, how did I miss that? Transition Towns first got traction in the UK and are now appearing in different spots around the globe, including about a dozen Canadian communities. Such towns possess a citizenry (usually a small group) committed to dealing with climate change, peak oil, the whole deal. Transition Ottawa has carved out a space for itself on the Ning community platform and shares this self-description:

Transition Ottawa is an informal place where those interested in a more sustainable, more self-reliant way of living, can gather to exchange ideas, share resources, learn from what others are doing, become inspired, encourage each other, and come together as part of the larger 'Transition' network. It is a grand and ambitious social experiment. None of us pretends to have all the answers. But we're learning. Fast.

This is welcome news, long overdue. I'd love to see Ottawa join the vanguard and take the steps needed to become a sustainable place to live, work and play for all of its inhabitants. Getting on top of suburban sprawl and the mistakes of suburban development has to be job #1.

Our family is also in transition, as we're getting ready to leave Ottawa for a more rural existence. We've purchased a piece of land on the edge of a small town outside of Ottawa where we intend to keep doing many of the things we love (walking and cycling most places that we need to go or want to explore, growing some of our own food, providing our children with access to nature and the time and space in which to discover the world) along with some new ones.

I'm in the process of building a new blog, Starting from Scratch, which isn't quite ready yet. I love this oft-used quote by Carl Sagan:

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." There are apple trees on our bit of land, so I'm hoping to take something of a shortcut, but you get the idea. Inventing a universe sounds pretty cool anyway.

More myself on a bike

Are we at the end of the winter that never was or in a lull before that winter makes another stab at it? I'm not watching the long forecast, nor am I thinking too heavily about global warming today (unusually for me), but I am realizing that never before have I hit March 10th and been able to say that I've been on my bike three days in a row. Our boys have been on their bikes on and off since some time in February, but for me the temperatures have now been above zero for long enough that I'm comfortable getting back on the bike.

Sunday was our big tune up day; my bike was in the sorriest state, having had its rear brakes trashed by me at the end of the season (I tried to head out for a ride on the first snowy day of the season, having left my bike outside, the brakes were cold and, well, enough said!). The other bikes really just needed a bit of air or oil and a quick ride round the block to be sure that all was well. We decided that our inaugural family ride of the season would be to the local beach, something close for a quick spin, as it was late in the day by the time we were ready (and I had just put a cake in the oven!).

The next day we rode back to the beach again for our annual spring run-off play in the sand and snow. It's the most amazing time of year, when the beach is full of runnels of water, all of them making their way to the river. The boys love creating dams and diverting channels, and we muck in with them. It's one of the most fun things we do together as a family and there is only a very brief time in the year when it's possible to do. And no one else is ever there!

Yesterday we had to run an errand after school that in the depths of winter we would likely have booked a car for, but with the now dry roads and warmer temperatures, we were able to cycle. Everyone seemed happier for the third consecutive day of riding and there is a general enthusiasm about being back on the bikes that just feels good. I realize how much more myself I feel on a bike; it's the right pace for me and I've missed it so much after another winter when I was effectively forced to slow down and slog.

Seedy Saturday is sublime

I know that I'm hooked on gardening because I look forward to Seedy Saturday with something like a child's anticipation of Christmas or Hallowe'en. Today's was no exception.

Seedy Saturdays and Seedy Sundays are seed sales and swaps that take place across Canada each spring; you can find a complete list here. Ottawa's own Seedy Saturday takes place at Ron Kolbus Centre, Britannia Bay in West Ottawa and hosts amazing Ontario organic and heirloom seed suppliers like The Cottage Gardener (my personal favourite), Greta's Organic Gardens (based in Gloucester), and Urban Harvest Garden Alternatives (from Toronto).

The seeds these folks carry are truly wonderful and using them helps to ensure that rare and heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables will continue to be with us. If you shop in mainstream grocery stores usually, as most people do, you're exposed to a handful of varieties that have been bred to travel well and last a long time (flavour and nutritional value frankly do not come into the equation). Almost none of them are varieties that you'd want to plant in your own garden if given the choice. If you buy seeds from mainstream garden centres, you're often not doing a whole lot better in terms of the seed that you're obtaining. Organic and heirloom varieties are simply the way to go (in my obviously not so humble opinion). There is a very quick overview of the value of these varieties here. If you're interested in something more in depth, you can read Thomas Pawlick's The End of Food, or this interview with him.

All of that scary stuff aside (which is sadly true), how wonderful is it to come home with little packets bearing names like these:

Chadwick's Cherry Tomato

Silvery Fir Tree Tomato

Early Blood Turnip Beet

Queensland Blue Winter Squash

Armenian Yard Long Cucumber

Golden Midget Watermelon

Scarlet Nantes Carrot

Every year I go expecting to get Chiogga Red Beets, a beautiful beet with alternating bands of white and red, and they are always sold out. I should know better, I should special order them, and I forget. But no matter, we always come away with a dizzying array of choices, many of them planned, many of them whims. Red Russian Kale was the first packet I seized on this year (and if you've been here before you'll likely know why), and we chatted with the seed sellers about what an amazing year it was for kale last year (when so many other crops struggled in the endless rain).

Our older son has decided that he'll handle the herb garden this year, so we handed him some money and asked him to choose the first five or so herbs on his own. His choices? Lemon balm, two kinds of chives (regular and garlic chives), peppermint and thyme. Two of those will make lovely tea (the lemon balm and the peppermint, of course), which always makes me happy. He was really chuffed when the owner of The Cottage Gardener stall gave him a free packet of seeds (of his own choosing). Gardeners are always thrilled to find children who like to garden and they are very generous about supporting that interest. Our youngest was thrilled when it was his turn to choose (having asserted that he really is a grower himself) and decided on French Brocade Marigold, one of our few non-vegetable packets. He also purchased two varieties of sunflowers as he is keen to raise a field of these giants this year.

Last year when we returned home from Seedy Saturday it was to plan out our seed trays and watch our seeds grow into little seedlings long before ever taking them outside to put in the soil. With the way this "winter" is going, perhaps we'll be skipping that step? Who knows what this growing season will bring, but as always it will be an adventure getting there.