Environmental Champion Status

My down winter quilt certainly came in handy last night … I was freezing! Today was absolutely the most perfect day ever, though, and I am sitting in the Tumbleweed tonight with my laptop, enjoying the lovely cross-breeze and the peace of the evening, as I post today’s thoughts. We got some good news a little while ago. This afternoon I received an email from Michelle Veasey, Director of the NH Sustainable Lodging program, of which we are a member. We recently had to go through a lengthy re-certification process, to validate the extent of our continuing efforts to be an ecologically and environmentally friendly hotel. Not only did we pass once again with flying colors, but we received the highest commendation one can receive in this program: the status of “Environmental Champion”. Here’s an excerpt from Michelle’s email: “Congratulations, Dana and Cathi, you have officially achieved Environmental Champion status in the New Hampshire Sustainable Lodging & Restaurant Program! You have implemented many wonderful initiatives at your lodge and obviously have a deep passion for preserving the environment. We are lucky to have you in the program!”. Michelle also invited me to write a column on topics of interest to business owners with a commitment to the environment. I am very excited about this opportunity and have just made a pretty long list of ideas about which I can write. Certainly this tiny house, with its small environmental footprint, will be high on the list. The more I sit in it, the more I know that this is pretty much all the house I really need. It’s true that I have a lot of ‘stuff’ … even though I’ve been recycling and pairing down since we moved here. Some things are treasures I could never part with, because they have too much sentimental value. But it is extremely liberating to live lightly, or as Gregory Johnson, founder of the Small House Society says in the title of his book, to “Put Your Life on a Diet”. I remember when Dana and I moved from our big old rambling 1790 farmhouse, with its 13 rooms, garret, cellar, as well as barns and loads of outbuildings. The move from there to a New York City apartment, in close proximity to where Dana was then going to law school, was quite a shock. But we humans are very adaptable, and in no time we had pared and scaled down to a point where we felt our new home was actually quite large. The same thing happened after we moved to NH from our spacious, 3600 sq. ft. timber frame house to our much smaller living quarters at The Lodge. Personal needs magically shrink to accommodate available space, though the opposite is equally quite true. It might be challenging at first, but how liberating it would be to live in this tiny little house. I think I could get used to this!