Pushing Gravy Uphill...

Kurt putting the finishing touches on the bay window.

...is finally paying off! Yesterday, with a bunch of smiling volunteers, we moved most of the Mercantile merchandise into the store. Let me repeat that. WE MOVED THE MERCANTILE MERCHANDISE INTO THE STORE! Whooeeee! Kurt and I can walk in the bedroom now, without scooting along sideways between boxes like crazy people. We're hoping to have a "soft" opening on Friday after dinner - by soft we mean that we're just opening the doors and inviting Rabbits in for a little looksee. I'll post more pictures as I get displays done.

Food Matters - Green Mom's Carnival for July 2009

Photo credit: zach kowalczyk on flickr

Food. It is my passion. I like cooking food, eating food, thinking about food, and reading about food. I read cookbooks for fun, and have made many new friends in restaurants after staring unabashedly at their plates. There is nothing better than cooking a hearty and healthy meal for friends and sharing it over good conversation. And while I was horrified to find out that all of those delicious photos of food that I had been drooling over online were actually referred to as "food porn," I could not stop looking!

We, as Americans, are at a crossroads, foodwise. We can continue to be taken for a ride by corporate agriculture OR we can take control and say "enough." WE CAN BE POWERFUL. Every single time you purchase produce from a local farmer's market instead of produce flown in from, say, Chile, you are taking a step in the right direction. Every time you avoid purchasing commercially prepared food with high-fructose corn syrup you score one for the good guys. Every time you let grocery store managers know what you will (and will not purchase) you make a difference. It is not only your right, it is your responsibility. There are lots of ways to make a difference. Many are included in this month's Green Mom's Carnival posts below.

Stepping off my soapbox, I'll make room for others to spout off, encourage, and share their truths. Thanks to all who participated!

Lisa at Retro Housewife Goes Green starts us off with two great must-see movies, King Corn and Food Inc., and a reminder that every one of us can make a difference. Watch the trailer for Food Inc. at Retro Housewife; King Corn is available from Netflix. Best enjoyed with non-GMO popcorn, organic butter and sea salt. But I digress...

Anna at Green Talk shares many ways to get local healthy food into your family's diet. Also included: inspirational photos of her garden and encouragement for all. Gorgeous!

Lynn over at Organic Mania, and Maryanne at Not Quite Crunchy Parent both have a bone to pick with the USDA and the growing ambiguity of terms like "organic" and "natural." How on earth are mere mortals to unravel the secret code and know what is really what? Lynn and Maryanne can help.

Jennifer at The Smart Mama reminds us of the joy that children find in fresh grown food, and that growing our own is often possible - what a great place to start! Fresh blueberries 1, Lunchables, 0!

Jammies and Jam are on Renee's mind at Enviromom. Yes we can!

And speaking of fresh delicious food, the post at the Green Phone Booth, where ordinary women become eco-heroes, features photos that make me happy AND hungry.

Katy at Non-Toxic Kids reminds us that organic by itself isn't necessarily the answer, and confesses her difficulty in "steering clear of the frozen and canned organic foods that call to me-- "no cooking! look, we are organic, we must be healthy!" Even better, after reading her post I vowed to forgo my daily Dr. Pepper (speaking of eco-guilt) and go out to the garden and harvest some kale for dinner.

Mindful Momma gives us just the nudge we need - it is up to each of us to help ensure that our food systems are safe. Click here to read her post, and to take (easy!) action supporting the Organic Consumer's Association, and get info on farm and food issues.

Beth at Fake Plastic Fish provides some (organic, wholesome and plastic-free) food for thought about food packaging. Because really, don't you find it a teensy bit ironic that organic food comes wrapped/encased/surrounded/bagged in plastic? Arrrrggghhhh!

Diane and her Big Green Purse take on Pepsi, Eco-Fina and disposable plastic bottles. Because woman doesn't live by food alone. Yay Diane!

Karen at The Best of Mother Earth reminds us why we eat, and garnishes her post with some encouragement and practical advice.

Fabulous Ruchi of Arduous Blog continues to be the voice of reason, the burning bush, the spirit of sanity in a sea of orgasmic (but organic!) desserts and sweet things. Defending balance in the eco-blogosphere, she is calling for blog posts about healthy food, which while possibly less exciting, are much more real. I've got that writing assignment on my list for tomorrow!

And last but certainly not least, Lisa at Condo Blues is looking for ideas for her abundant mint harvest. Click and help her out!

Thanks for joining us!

Alline 1, Lyme's Disease 0

Hi all. Just reporting in that I do NOT have Lyme's Disease. See the details at Ecovillage Musings: Doxycycline, or Alline Opens a Big Can o' Whup Ass.

Dances With Ticks

Two weeks ago I returned to Dancing Rabbit from the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair ebullient, ecstatic, enraptured and just plain happy with the reception that both Dancing Rabbit and the Milkweed Mercantile had received.

People walked up to our table and a smile just spread across their faces. “Wow,” they sighed, “you have such lovely stuff.”

I had to agree. I have spent three years researching, thinking, writing, and obsessing about the perfect combination of merchandise. Products that are more than mere “stuff.” I wanted to make sure that everything would be durable, last a long time, be more than worth the money spent, be made by people who were paid a fair wage (or at least owned the business). I had spent months on Etsy looking for artisans with ethics, and had been gratified to find an abundance of talent and heart out there looking for a place to shine. I found many women-owned and SAHM businesses which I am thrilled to support, and people doing incredible things with reclaimed resources. When the only organic cotton flannel hanky producer decided she was not interested in selling wholesale any longer I hunted down the fabric and bought a serger to make the hankies myself. And I haunted auctions to build my stash of vintage hankies for my personal campaign to make the laundering of hankies (instead of the disposal of tissues) a way of life again.

But within a week I was in bed. I woke up achier than I had ever been, had an on-and-off fever, an inability to stay neither awake nor vertical, and absolutely no appetite. In six days I lost ten pounds. The doc, given the info he had, could only diagnose a vague virus, and proscribe Tylenol and sleep. Then late Saturday night, lying in bed sweating with fever while under the wind-tunnel of a ceiling fan on ‘high,’ I noticed that while all of my skin felt cool and clammy, an area behind my left knee felt warm, and a bit tender. Unable to sleep, for that moment anyway, I crawled out of bed, went downstairs, hauled out a full-length mirror and took a gander.

When they say “bulls eye” when talking Lyme’s disease diagnosis they are not kidding. There on the back of my leg, in brilliant Technicolor, was a 6-inch-wide blazing bull’s eye. I felt relieved and pissed off at the same time – relieved that I finally knew what was wrong with me, and pissed off that it was most likely Lyme’s disease.

The next morning Kurt took me to the ER, where test were taken, educated guesses made, and antibiotics proscribed. After just one pill I was able to sit upright for over an hour for the first time in almost a week. The exhaustion lifted, and I could not stop eating. (So much for my unexpected weight-loss program!). So while I do have some sort of disease (we won’t know which one until the tests come back) I at least know what is wrong, and that it can be fixed. Everything I’ve read online verifies that early treatment almost always takes care of it.

And once again I’ve come to appreciate my health, and my life. While lying in bed day after day feeling absolutely awful, unable to do anything but doze and think I couldn’t help but remember my friends and loved ones who have gone before. Marcia at 25, Carter at 40, Jess at 47, Cindy at 50, on and on and on. Lots of pain, lots of suffering. Soon my little bout of tick-ness will be neatly cleared up. I’m almost back on my feet, and am struggling to feel worthy. It’s an odd sort of survivor’s guilt I suppose – why do I get to be here? What worthwhile things can I accomplish on behalf of those I’ve loved who did not get as much time? I’m still working on it. In the meantime I'm taking lots of naps. More soon!

MIdwest Renewable Energy Fair

The Mercantile made its debut at this year's Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. It was a great success! It was especially gratifying to see all the little items that I have been obsessing about for the last two years sell, and sell well. We sold out of stainelss steel screens for spouts and the organic cotton/hemp un-paper towels. Vintage hankies did very well (my personal campaign continues) as did Klean Kanteens. We met some incredible people, and made a lot of really good connections for future seminars to be held at the Mercantile. I'll fill in more details later!

Creativity, Courage, and Forgetting to Drop Your PomPoms

Tomorrow morning, at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m., I am off to the train station in Quincy, Il. From there I go to Chicago ("...my kind of town, Chicago is..."). On Saturday morning, at 9:25 a.m. I will be standing in front of three (or so) editors of Country Living Magazine, trying desperately to explain the fabulousness of the Milkweed Mercantile. After my two minutes, they have three minutes to ask questions. They will choose five or six women entrepreneurs to be featured in the magazine.

I am so torn. A part of me feels supremely confident, fearless, brave and excited - this is the part of me who loves microphones, public speaking, sharing ideas and being the center of attention. But the other part of me, the part who forgot to drop her pompoms during cheerleader tryouts (at age 15) and then promptly burst into tears, is a bit worried. How to tap into the first, but not the second? How to honor the foiled cheerleader while embracing the woman I've become?

To me, the Mercantile is a wonder. Each day something new is finished, and we get closer to being open, and I am so excited that I practically jump up and down and clap my hands. I did a mock-up of a display for photos to bring along this weekend (since the building isn't exactly finished, I chose to feature bits and pieces...) and had so much fun doing it I thought my heart would burst.

But how to convey this in two short minutes? If my "product" were, oh, I don't know, a new kind of stapler, two minutes would feel plentiful and abundant. Two minutes for the Mercantile feels inadequate, miserly and impossible.

I've written and rewritten my 2-minute pitch, but was feeling totally stymied the other night. Kurt and Sparky happend to be there as I was melting down, and both suggested I listen to Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk.

I did, and promptly burst into tears. This is the part I especially love:

I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who’s now in her 90’s, but she’s been a poet her entire lie and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew hat she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, “run like hell.” And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And the other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she’d be running and running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it “for another poet.”

I want to be there to catch the poem. I want to not miss my creativity as it goes barreling across the prairie. I want to be wise enough and prescient enough and present enough to grab it and share it with these editors, so that they can see what we are doing out here.

So Saturday, at 9:25, please stop for a second and send positive thoughts towards Chicago. I'll be waiting there, to grab them, and share.

Eco Goes Mainstream - International Home & Housewares Show

Recycled glass glasses from EuroCeramica.

Where does the time go? It's been over a month since I returned home from the Home & Housewares Show in Chicago.

What a great four days that was!

Topping off my experience was the opportunity to be on a panel of retailers discussing The Green Gourmet: Merchandising Green in a Gourmet Housewares Setting--What Works and What Doesn't. The three panelists were various shades of green, ranging from extremely customer-service oriented, green-if-it-sells Dominic Cimilluca of Dominic’s Kitchen Store, a traditional gourmet housewares store to way, WAY green (that would be me). In the middle was Maria Ornesto-Moran of Green Home Experts, who tries to lead her customers to greener options in her fabulous Oak Park, Illinois store, specializing in all things green for your home, from cleaning products to paint. Thoughtfully moderated by Bill McLoughlin of Gourmet Insider Magazine it was a fascinating look at how the cooking industry is slowly but oh-so-surely ooching it's way into the world of true sustainability. To listen, click here.

This is the Oatmeal Brulee from breakfast at the Hyatt. At the risk of sounding a bit naive, I thought it was a really cool idea!

In addition to the microphone aspect (which, as you may know, is my idea of a good time!), it was really fun and thought-provoking. I so enjoy speaking about the Mercantile and sustainable business, and am passionate about being able to share my ideas. Bill's questions led us down a very interesting path, and brought up all kinds of new ideas for me. It is also a really fun interacting with the audience, and I love practicing thinking on my feet. Trying to convey the many layers and facets of sustainability felt challenging and creative. Like most things in life, there are so many shades of gray, but a few key points stand out:

1. First of all, do you really need to purchase something new?

2. If you decide to purchase, consider investing in top quality goods and using them for decades. While a Le Creuset pot uses a lot of embodied energy to create, it will last FOREVER. This is so much more sustainable than a $5.99 "bargain" from WalMart that gets thrown in the landfill after a year.

3. Given a choice, choose the greener company. Granted, this is often VERY difficult - greenwashing is rampant! The good news is that many companies have certification that will help you determine if they're real or not. Take Bambu for example; on their website is a page that tells you all about their sustainability initiatives. They are members of 1% for the Planet, use certified organic bamboo, and have sustainable packaging. Additionally, they support Fair Trade practices (they are members of Green America) and take a socially responsible approach to business.

4. Ask questions, scrutinize the fine print, and use common sense - This Luminarc glassware display was shouting "GREEN" at the show. Upon closer inspection the product was glass, but not recycled glass. The box it came in was not made of recycled materials, it was merely "recycleable."


5. Which brings me to point number five: do we really need so many disposable, um, I mean recycleable products? No matter what they're made of, they're STILL disposable. It's time to return to bringing real plates to picnics instead of bamboo or compostable plates. Because, honestly, how many of those plates really get composted? Very few, I'd imagine.

Can you say "Greenwashing?" This product was supposedly green becasue it was glass, and came in a cardboard box that was recyclable. Wake up, Luminarc! This isn't going to cut it!

That's it for now. More soon on the very exciting, well-made, sustainably-sourced products from responsible companies that the Milkweed Mercantile will be bringing in. Thanks for reading!