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Betty Saenz GREEN REALTOR

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Have you ever heard the song "I was country, when country wasn't cool"?  Well my theme song is, "I was GREEN, when being GREEN wasn't cool"... I was an early "eco geek" and marched to the beat of a different drummer.  Some people 'round these parts bleed burnt orange- like my huband for example.  I however, I bleed GREEN. 

 

I have always loved nature, our beautiful Earth.  Maybe it’s a Taurean trait- I don’t know why- I just know I am.  Animals, plants and the great outdoors have always soothed my soul.  I was wearing green and white outfits with ecology socks with the green ecology symbols on them & reading the Mother Earth News back in the 1970’s.  In 1980, my late husband and I attended a build your own solar hot water heater workshop at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi with the Coastal Bend Solar Energy Society.  Dietrich Braun, an architect and then president of the Coastal Bend Solar Energy Society, went on to become the architect on a passive solar, state of the art GREEN log home plans we had drawn up.  For other reasons- it never got built.  : (   I wish GREEN was affordable.  Anyone can buy GREEN with enough money.  Retrofitting.

 

I took books on trees and identified all the trees at our Raetzsch Ranch in Seguin.  I enjoy natural foods and Eull Gibbons’ Stalking the Wild Asparagus was among my repertoire of books in Junior High.  I have been a long time gardener.

 

Natural, Holistic Medicine:  I studied natural medicine going to Bernard Jensen’s health ranch in Escondido, California as well as interviewing at the School of Natural Medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I studied Jensen’s Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management program as well as Iridology.  I love being at home births and have attended several.  The caesarean section epidemic caught me on my first 2 births even though I wanted both to be natural.  On the 3rd, I had my son at home, on the farm where I lived, peaceful and natural.  The physician I was using gave me a $1000. refund since he did not deliver me.  I had a midwife, coach and nurse practitioner present. 

 

These are all things I do in my everyday life.  I wanted to share, maybe you do them all already, maybe you can add:

 

Recycle/Reuse-  Take your shoes to a shoe shop and rehab them.  A new heel plate, insole, etc. Or if you have grown to hate them- give them away on Craig’s List or FreeCycle or a charity.  Ditto for clothes and other household items.

 

Paper- recycle office and home paper.  Shred and then recycle and any personal papers.  Newspaper goes into my recycle bin.  I take my office and other paper to Pleasant Hill Elementary- right by my house- close by to save gas.  They have a bin and it actually is WIN WIN in that it helps Pleasant Hill to get money for their school too.

 

Recycle kitchen scraps by using a compost heap.   You can buy a tumbler system or build your own.  I aspire to own a good one but have always used a pile, as did my grandmother in Hyde Park before me.  Good to have 2 or 3 walls or a bin but you do not have to do that.  Vegetable scraps such as potato peelings, coffee grounds, etc.  Add a some leaves, little dirt.  Think of compost as nutrients plus innocculent.  It adds beneficial bacteria to your garden or yard like yoghurt cultures do to your body.

 

Plastic/Glass:   Recycle glass & plastic.  Shampoo bottles, milk jugs, etc.  My trash service takes glass and plastic but not plastic bags.  I take my plastic bags to HEB to be recycled.  Any stretchy plastic like drycleaning bags, plastic bags newspapers come in and grocery bags.

 

Driving: No “jack rabbit” starts.  Nice and easy, coast to that red light.  No speeding saves on tickets, insurance and your gas used.  Keep your car tuned up for peak efficiency and your tires inflated to the proper air pressure.  Investigate public transportation, carpooling as well as natural gas, vegetable oil, hybrid or other energy efficient cars.  I drive a 4 cylinder car in a fuel efficient way. 

 

HELP Needed:   If anyone has any tips on training Energy inefficient non-sustainable husbands please let me know.  My husband drains Lake Travis every time he brushes his teeth.   He leaves lights on.  I ask him- are your clothes afraid of the dark?  !!!!!   

 

My Future Plans:  Sell my retrofitted home with bog/pond/waterfall.  Energy Efficient, sustainable life in the country in a passive solar, energy efficient home with rain catchment.  A horse or 2, chickens, organic gardens, natural non-chlorinated swimming hole.

Date: Monday, June, 9th 2008 @ 08:56:12 PM
Views: 129

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