Introducing Local Tier 2

For the last several days Jeff and I have been shopping locally.  Remember when I said I was going to do that?  Well, today is day four, and so far we’ve stuck to the plan, but we’re still mostly Fact Finding.  As you can imagine, there are problems with doing this.  It was part of the idea to figure out where the problems would be, and see how inconvenient shopping locally really is.

Going Out to Eat: chances are, this it isn’t a problem to find a local restaurant wherever you are.  Or delivery either.  Around here you can get local pizza and Chinese delivery, plus during the week people will actually bring you soup and casseroles.  No kidding.

Grocery Shopping:  this is more of a challenge.  Locally, I thought we’d have more choice but it turns out our options are the farmer’s market, Wheatsville Co-op, Greenling organic vegetable delivery and Grape Vine Market (which is more liquor/specialty).  I refuse to count Whole Foods, even though it started here and still has its corporate offices here.

Specialty Stores: No problem whatsoever to find coffee and tea.  We have a local gourmet tea shop (Tea Embassy) and places to purchase specialty coffee too.  Also, things like a haircut, boutique clothing, record shops (Waterloo!), all okay.  We also have a really excellent local outdoor shop with great shoes, Whole Earth Provision company.  Oh!  and Vulcan Video and the Alamo Drafthouse for movies.

Bookstores, Coffee Shops:  Austin’s fortunate enough to have a really great bookstore called BookPeople, and there are more coffee shops here than you’d think the population could support.  So, good on those fronts.  Without these things, I’d probably wither and die.  I’m a total book/coffee addict.

Crafting:  Near my house there are 2 local yarn shops and 2 bead shops.  There are also some sewing/fabric stores and even a local upholstery/interior design fabric shop.  However, if you want to do any other sort of crafts I think you might be out of luck.  Also, pretty thin on local hardware stores – all we’ve got is the small boutique-y places.

Summation on day 4:  it’s easy to get specialty items and fun stuff here, but not as easy to find the basics.  It’s going to be difficult to find basics in a lot of cases, things like normal toilet paper, new socks for running, etc.  We’re trying to decide what to do about that.

We’ve thought about instituting a “Tier 1″ and “Tier 2.”  Tier 1 would be Austin local and Tier 2 would be Texas stores so it’s still somewhat local but we could still manage to live in a functional manner when the situation called for it.

Anyway, will report again next week with what’s happened, and whether we were able to get groceries!

May’s Challenge

Although I come up with a lot of adventures (”I’m going to rent an RV and drive to Alaska!”) during the course of a normal day, most are not enacted.  However, my recent idea about shopping locally for a month, well, that’s going to happen.  In May.  Austin stores only. Althought I’m sure that some things will prove to be a challenge, Austin has that whole buy-local-Keep-Austin-Weird thing going on. There’s also the Austin Independent Business Alliance.  In general, Austin’s pretty independent-business friendly, and the southern part of Austin I live in has that attitude in spades.

Hey look, it’s where I am right now (Austin Java)!  I’ll still be able to come here in May.

Not that there aren’t some spoilsports around here.  College Station (home of Texas A&M) has an anti-Austin program called “Keep College Station Normal” and there are plenty of unweird pro-corporate types right here.  Boo.

Overall, I think it will be an interesting experiment, and my brother (who, in addition to his other pursuits, is something of an economist!) has offered to explain to me some of why shopping locally makes a material difference, as opposed to just being a fruity hippie pointless exercise in anti-corporate bitching.  I think it might also be a very tasty experiment, regardless of the potential economic and ecological benefits.I can definitely shop at the Sunset Valley farmer’s market!

Wild onions and garlic from the farmer’s market waiting to be sauteed with mushrooms and chicken. I love wild onions.  I particularly love onion flowers.

So, we shall see what happens.  I shall also see what sorts of rules to apply as far as what’s local.  I wonder if I’m going to be able to buy shoes…

Meanwhiles, from yesterday some of my favorite Earth Day posts: (and other stuff I found as a result)

From Curbly, we have Bonnie’s Plants in biodegradable pots.  This is wonderful.  I tend to kill plants while transplanting them.  Perhaps this will help my black thumb.  Did I mention I came up with an idea for an indoor greenhouse for herbs & small veggies yesterday?

Scrap Organic Cotton Fabric from Natural America’s manufacturing.  Sometimes they have left over batting, too.

Revisiting the Worsted Witch’s post on cleaning supplies and the cute bottles you can put them in.

Soaps Gone Buy some great classic cleaning products. Not that I like cleaning, but c’mon, it’s Fels Naptha and about 20 different kinds of borax products!  Oh, what, you never made soap?  Well, I can’t help you.  This is exciting.

Re-Nest had a post on a Billion ideas for Using Lemons for Household Cleaning.  Got to try these.  Good excuse to have a lemon tree in my nonexistent backyard!

A billion alternatives to commercial cleaning products at the Ecology Center, clean your whole home with baking soda, and a lot of suggestions for using tea tree oil (I love this stuff, but it’s an acquired smell) from Treehugger.

Interested in the book Clean House, Clean Planet for alternatives to chemical cleaners from a pro.