little eco footprints

Library love

I have a long-term on-again, off-again relationship with libraries. I visit them every now and then and remember how unreal they are. Then I amass a huge late fee and avoid the place for a while.

I’m determined to change this old pattern and become a regular, as there are so many reasons to love libraries.

High on my love list is that they reduce clutter.

I recently culled my books. I had shelves of idle books. Books that related to past hobbies, books that I’d read once and loved, but were unlikely to ever read again, and classics that I was saving to read to my daughter, but could easily borrow from a library.

The frustrating process of finding new homes for these idle dust collectors through donating, gifting or selling has me determined to try and never ever buy another book. I’ve swapped buying for borrowing.

If my local library doesn’t have a book I’d like then I put in a request. They either purchase the book or organise an inter-library loan.

Library books are also a far more efficient use of resources, being read by dozens of people in their lifetime, rather than only one or two.

Libraries also offer much more than books.

My daughter loves borrowing DVDs from the library and given that borrowing them is free they are a nice alternative to visiting the local video store.

I enjoy browsing the magazines and newspapers and have even used the library as an office. I work from home and was without an office for a few weeks during our recent move. I parked myself in a library quiet room and enjoyed the lack of distractions and free internet access.

Now my challenge is to avoid late fees.

We’ve incorporated a visit to the library into our weekly routine. I’m hoping that by visiting regularly I’ll manage to return books on time.

I’m also tackling the mysterious case of disappearing library books that usually infects our household by identifying spots for library books to live.

Hopefully, between these two tactics, I’ll continue to enjoy the benefits of our local library for a very long time and break my book-buying habit.

Are you taking advantage of what your local library has to offer?

[Originally published in my column LESS IS MORE in the The Newcastle Herald Weekender Magazine 23rd February 2013]

Room for change

Our home has a spare room that sits empty most of the year. We’re not alone. More than 75 percent of Australian homes have one or more spare bedrooms.

We decided to earn a little extra cash from our spare room and took in a housemate.

In collaborative consumption lingo, we utlised the "idling capacity" of our spare bedroom.

Collaborative consumption describes the rapid explosion in sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. These traditional actions are far from new, but new online technologies have made them easier.

Rachel Botsman, co-author of the book What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, suggests we are surrounded by unused or underused assets that have an untapped value, or idling capacity. Collaborative Consumption is about using the latest technologies to redistribute idling capacity and maximize usage.

The financial benefits of renting a room to a friend and her son soon faded into insignificance against all the unexpected bonuses of collaborative living.

We shared cooking, child-minding, chores and my daughter got to experience a sibling-like relationship.

I know a number of families who regularly rent out rooms to students or travellers. One friend has shared her home with 12 international students in the last eight years through the Newcastle University Homestay program. She loves that each introduces her and her family to a different culture.

There are several online communities that make it easy for home owners to realise the idling capacity of their spare bedroom and even their couch.

Airbnb.com helps people rent their homes to travellers. I checked out what’s available in Newcastle and discovered dozens of people renting out rooms, from $36 a night for a tiny room with a view to $111 for two bedrooms, bathroom and lounge.

For home owners more interested in receiving a helping hand than money there’s helpexchange.net or workaway.info where hosts provide food and board in exchange for a few hours work.

There’s even an option for people willing to offer accommodation for free at couchsurfing.org. I was surprised to discover over 140 people offering free accommodation in the Newcastle area.

Perhaps you like the idea of sharing your home, but only while you’re not in it? There’s a suite of home swapping websites where you can arrange to swap your home for another, either in Australia or abroad.

These collaborative living options are a nice way to save resources, help a friend, make some money, or just enjoy some extra company. There’s room for change in everybody’s life.

Are you tempted to realise the "idling capacity" of your spare bedroom? Would you, or have you, shared your home? 

[Originally published in my column LESS IS MORE in the The Newcastle Herald Weekender Magazine 9th February 2013]

Embracing working bees

We had our first working bee at our little farm on the weekend. I invited a few colleagues along for a 'flora and fauna ID party' to start a species list for the property.

After a few hours we had a list of over 100 plant species.

Although I'm a plant ecologist, my plant identification skills are pretty rusty so it would have taken me weeks to get this list.

I’m going to embrace working bees on our little farm.

I love that working bees:

• provide a great excuse to hang out with friends;
• can make a not-very-fun task enjoyable;
• make tasks that we otherwise couldn’t do possible, because the collective skill pool of our friends is much larger than that of Daddy Eco and I alone;
• and they provide an opportunity to learn from friends.

Have you hosted a working bee? Or do you enjoy attending working bees? Have you got any advice for me on what makes a working bee successful? I'm guessing providing good food and drink is pretty important?

Raising resilient kids for a better world

"It's great to encourage our children to tinker physically with items, skills and crafts, as well as mentally with ideas and dreams and their own big picture. So many of us have lost the art of tinkering. Perhaps that's because its loss suits the 'modern' economy in so many ways. After all, business prefer us to buy new things rather than fix what's broken, they prefer us to buy in a box what we would otherwise create and construct ourselves, they prefer us to pay people to do the things we really could do ourselves".     Anna Campbell, Honeycomb Kids.

I've just finished reading Honeycomb Kids: Big picture parenting for a changing world...and to change the world by Anna Campbell. Anna's book is full of practical tips for how we can ensure our children have the skills needed to become resilient, considerate and happy adults.

I found Anna's discussion of 'Smart Thinking' particularly useful.

"Our children will benefit if we encourage them to think, not just to learn. Mastering thinking is more important than mastering a specific technology that could well be outdated by the time they finish their studies. By learning to think, they'll be able to find the answers to many difficult questions".

I've applied some of Anna's tips for introducing the skill of thinking to children and have been amazed at some of the conversations Little Eco and I have since had. I'll share more in a future blog post.

Newcastle forum on raising resilient kids

Anna will be talking here in Newcastle Tuesday 19th June about her book and about how we can raise resilient kids for a better world. Her talk will be followed by a Q & A panel. More details here and in the flyer below.

I'm one of the Q & A panel members. Will I see you there?

Wildendurance - tomorrow i'll be walking 100km for the Wilderness Society

It's time. After months of training, planning, and freaking out - Wildendurance is happening.

Tomorrow i'll be walking 100km. Pop over here if you are wondering why i'd bother.

I'm anxious and excited...tired and restless...but most of all I'm happy and proud that I'm even giving it a go.  

Thank you to those who have sponsored me. I truly appreciate your generosity and am certain the Wilderness Society will put your donation to good use.

If you are interested in following our progress there will be live updates on the Wildendurance facebook page. Our Team is called 'Just Us'.  

I've enjoyed my blogging break - but am looking forward to returning to regular blogging next week.