Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property , livre ebook

Self-Counsel Press - Tracy Bartley , Joan Bartley

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69 pages

English

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Even Your Weekend or Summer Getaway Can Be Green!
It’s not easy to be environmentally friendly all the time, but it turns out there are lots of things a mindful cottage or vacation property owner can do to not only fully enjoy a cottage or property but also preserve it for future generations to enjoy.
Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property offers ways to save energy, reduce waste, and make your cottage or vacation property a more sustainable place for you and your friends and family, as stewards of the buildings and the land. Authors and long-time cottage owners and environmentalists, mother and daughter team Joan and Tracy Bartley, show us how their family — and now yours — can not only vacation in an environmentally friendly way, but turn time away into a teaching experience.
A cottage or vacation property is the perfect place to begin to live a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle. Whether your cottage is of new construction, or older and in need of renovations, opportunities abound to reduce, reuse, recycle, and restore with the practical, affordable, and insightful advice in this book.
The download kit includes:
• Cottage Greening Action Plan template
• Progress Monitoring Checklist
• Resources for further research and reading
• Closing the Cottage for Winter Checklist
• — And much more!
Introduction xi
1 Getting Started: Crafting Your Vision Statement 1
1. Defining Greening and Sustainability 2
2. Setting Your Greening Goal 2
3. Exploring and Visioning: What Lifestyle and Environmental
Values Define Your Ultimate Cottage Experience? 3
4. Get to Work Straightaway: What Can You Do Now? 6
5. Crafting Your Cottage Greening Vision Statement 7
2 Taking Stock Inside and Out 11
1. Taking Stock 12
1.1 Categories for taking stock 13
1.2 Taking stock checklist 14
iv Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property
2. Four Rs and Beyond 18
2.1 Common greening practices 19
2.2 Common greening practices and furnishing
your cottage 27
3. What’s Next? A Practical Project 28
3.1 Painting, inside and out 30
3.2 Composting 31
3.3 Homemade cleaning products 32
3.4 Reduce recyclables 33
3.5 Chemical-free pest control 36
4. Now That You’ve Taken Stock and Started a
Practical Project, What’s Next? 39
3 Becoming Environmentally Savvy 41
1. Living an Environmentally Sustainable
Lifestyle Is Not New 42
2. What Do You Need to Know about Greening at
the Cottage? 43
3. Learning and Greening 44
3.1 Nature’s classroom for tomorrow’s stewards 45
3.2 Learning and practicing stewardship with the kids 47
3.3 Simple rainwater catchments 48
3.4 Exploring the forest, or woods 50
3.5 Learning and conserving 50
4. Deepening Understanding and Improving Your
Greening Lifestyle 54
4 Making a Commitment: A Cottage Greening
Action Plan 57
1. Steps to Creating a Cottage Greening Action Plan 58
1.1 Your Cottage Greening Action Plan 58
2. Sharing Your Commitment 62
2.1 Green gifting 63
Contents v
5 Putting Your Cottage Greening Action Plan
into Action 69
1. Our Action Plan in Action 70
2. Your Cottage Greening Action Plan in Action 73
2.1 Substantive greening actions 74
3. Reflections: Where Are We Now? 82
4. One Step at a Time towards a Sustainable Lifestyle 83
Sources and Resources 85
Books and Articles 85
Children’s Literature 86
Websites 87
Visioning, Mind Mapping, and Mission Statements 87
Environmental Sites 87
Download Kit 89
Checklists
1 Taking Stock Checklist 15
2 Monitoring Progress of a Project 62
Example
1 A Cottage Greening Vision Statement 9
Exercise
1 Cottage Greening Action Plan 60

Sujets

Sustainable living

Informations

Publié par	Self-Counsel Press
Date de parution	15 juin 2017
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781770404823
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0020€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property
Reduce Your Recreational Footprint
Joan Bartley & Tracy Bartley
Self-Counsel Press (a division of) International Self-Counsel Press Ltd. USA Canada

Copyright © 2017

International Self-Counsel Press All rights reserved.
Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter 1: Getting Started: Crafting Your Vision Statement

1. Defining Greening and Sustainability

2. Setting Your Greening Goal

3. Exploring and Visioning: What Lifestyle and Environmental Values Define Your Ultimate Cottage Experience?

4. Get to Work Straightaway: What Can You Do Now?

5. Crafting Your Cottage Greening Vision Statement

Example 1: A Cottage Greening Vision Statement

Chapter 2: Taking Stock Inside and Out

1. Taking Stock

Checklist 1: Taking Stock

2. Four Rs and Beyond

3. What’s Next? A Practical Project

4. Now That You’ve Taken Stock and Started a Practical Project, What’s Next?

Chapter 3: Becoming Environmentally Savvy

1. Living an Environmentally Sustainable Lifestyle Is Not New

2. What Do You Need to Know about Greening at the Cottage?

3. Learning and Greening

4. Deepening Understanding and Improving Your Greening Lifestyle

Chapter 4: Making a Commitment: A Cottage Greening Action Plan

1. Steps to Creating a Cottage Greening Action Plan

Exercise 1: Cottage Greening Action Plan

Checklist 2: Monitoring Progress of a Project

2. Sharing Your Commitment

Chapter 5: Putting Your Cottage Greening Action Plan into Action

1. Our Action Plan in Action

2. Your Cottage Greening Action Plan in Action

3. Reflections: Where Are We Now?

4. One Step at a Time towards a Sustainable Lifestyle

Sources and Resources

Books and Articles

Children’s Literature

Websites

Download Kit

Dedication

About the Authors

Notice to Readers

Self-Counsel Press thanks you for purchasing this ebook.
Introduction

You said you need the tree for its pulp,
You’d take but a few, you’re aware
Of the home of the deer, the wolf, the fox,
Yet so much of their land now stands bare …
If the beauty around us is to live through this day
We’d better start watching — and care.
— David Bouchard, Roy Henry Vickers
A cottage, or vacation property, has as many reasons for being as there are properties and cottagers. However, one thing we can all relate to is the relationship between lifestyle choices at the cottage, and our shared environment. Greening one’s cottage, inside and out, is an opportunity to make an environmentally conscious commitment to learn about and work towards a sustainable environment for our children, grandchildren, and beyond.
Our cottage vision, (yes, we created a vision statement for our cottage and we’ll cover how you can too, in Chapter 1), expresses our greening journey towards an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Yours can be tailored to your cottage, property, and personality.
Our cottage vacation property is on land belonging to the Coast Salish people. Today, constant reminders of that past come to mind as we cohabitate with the fauna and flora of this Canadian, west coast vacation property. The setting is quiet. Our little cottage and vacation property is on an island, hidden within a new-growth forest of giant Douglas Fir, cedar, and grand fir. (This land has been victimized by clear cutting.) The relentless crashing of the ocean’s waves against the sandstone beaches contributes to the naturally peaceful setting.
Grandchildren explore the forest, draw and paint their curiosities, organize the recycling, and plan for their tomorrows. This is nature’s classroom where three generations of family members learn, work, and play.
At our family cottage, living in harmony with nature is the very essence of our lifestyle choice. It was clear right from the outset that this rural property was begging for an eco-conscious stewardship, and that’s what we aim to give it.
The cottage was already 15 years old when we made our decision to purchase. It had been mindfully built and was of sound construction. Many salvaged materials and fixtures such as energy-efficient double-glazed windows, doors, and kitchen cabinetry were sourced from previous dwellings. The appliances were all as old as the cottage, yet in good working order. Outbuildings, such as a woodshed, garden/storage shed, and water system shed were in an unfinished state. Over the years the grounds had acquired quite a bit of Scotch broom (a noxious weed), and fallen branches and trees, creating a fire hazard. The potential to restore this property was obvious, yet there was work to be done.
Immediately we began recycling, repurposing, and reusing; we had begun our greening process. However, there was much to learn about greening, and a need to prioritize in order to determine a plan of action: a greening action plan. Our goal was to reduce our environmental footprint and attain a sustainable lifestyle; that is, we wanted to restore and conserve our natural resources, to invest in eco-friendly upgrades, and ultimately to attain a long-term environmental balance inside and outside our cottage.

1. Purpose of This Book
The purpose of this book is to show cottagers, across the generations and a wide variety of locations and builds, that they can make a difference to the wellness of the environment. Based on one family’s journey at one cottage, this book illustrates a greening process which is planned, practical, flexible, and adaptable.
The chapters take you through a vision-constructing process, setting out with the end in mind, and closing with substantive greening actions and reflections.
Throughout the book, environmentally conscious projects and actions are described in everyday terms complemented with personal stories and experiences. In some instances, environmental concerns, particularly those resulting from years of consumerism and perceived convenience, are discussed as they pertain to various aspects of greening at the cottage, and as a reminder that human actions have caused great havoc to the environment. Yet we wish to bring a message of hope; that greening your cottage, inside and out, can make a positive difference towards environmental sustainability.
Greening strategies, eco-friendly tips, and reflective practices are provided, and readers are given the challenge to create a Cottage Greening Action Plan to put into place at their own cottages or vacation properties.
A list of websites and books for further reading, including children’s literature, is shared on the download kit included with this book.
Chapter 1
Getting Started: Crafting Your Vision Statement

… cleaner energy and a healthier Earth are within our reach as long as we remain attentive and committed to a vision of a world in which our perceived needs are not always placed first.
— Lori Ryker
Getting started at greening your cottage is a vision-constructing process, setting out with an end in mind: a greening goal. Thus, the process starts with goal-setting: What do you expect to accomplish as a result of your greening commitment?
Your goal is the foundation upon which your vision will be crafted, and, your vision (put into a statement) puts into context your goal. A vision describes a broader picture of values, aspirations, and greening actions. Your cottage greening vision statement will express how your greening goal will ultimately look, sound, and feel.

1. Defining Greening and Sustainability
It is important to define “greening” and “sustainability” before we move on. Greening encompasses the conscious practices taken to attain an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Greening your cottage will become influential to your transitioning lifestyle. You will notice that your greening practices or habits will evolve and grow, becoming a natural way of living. Over time, your lifestyle will become one which nurtures sustainability.
Sustainability is the ultimate goal of greening where everyone at the cottage, or associated with the cottage, works toward a sustainable lifestyle. A sustainable lifestyle will enable nature to re-establish her original role of checks and balances to restore and conserve a healthy self-sustaining environment.
Greening and sustainability, two interrelated concepts, are integral to what we are discussing in this book and what you are attempting to do. These two concepts will take on a deeper meaning as you work through your vision-constructing process. With conscious and persistent greening, sustainability can become a reality.

2. Setting Your Greening Goal
Setting your greening goal needs to be a collaborative effort in order to engage all family members, partners, or co-owners: you and your fellow cottagers. What do you we want your greening goal to be? Ask yourself and your fellow cottagers: What do we expect to accomplish as a result of our collective greening commitment?
As the title of this book suggests, a sustainable lifestyle is the ultimate greening goal. This is lofty; indeed, it is within reach. Your goal may seem far off, or even unattainable at first. Greening goals are based upon