What I learned from camping i really appreciate now!

You Grow Girl had this to to say about camping-   Camping is a reminder of how easy we have it, a demonstration in the excesses in our modern lives that we can probably do without. I learned that baking soda really is the miracle powder. You can use it to scrub dishes, wash hair, brush teeth, and remedy bee stings. It really doesn’t taste that bad when used as toothpaste. Check out here gardening blog, it is delightful.

I grew up using baking soda to brush my teeth with.  I have been using it to clean with now for 30 years.  She’s right, it is great for lots of things!  My favorite use for it is an exfoliatant; it is a fruit acid.  I use it in my skin cleanser that I make myself using honey, baking soda, almond oil, rose oil, a few drops of Dr. Bonners, and lavender oil. Mixed with fresh lemon juice it will fade brown spots on your face (hydroquinone is soo toxic!).  I have had fifty dollar facials that did not work as well as these simple, non-toxic recipes!  I quit using Retin-a and glycolic about 6 years ago, and do not miss them at all.  And my skin still looks amazing for 55! 

I grew up camping in central Florida 3 months out of the year, every year from age 5 until I was 20.  We started out camping at Juniper State Parks for a few weeks at a time.  Then after that we camped on the banks of the Okeechobee from the time school got out until it started again in early September.  We used no running water, no electric, no TV, no radios.  Primitive camping in a tent. 

I have always been an environmentalist, but last year I was finally able to begin growing veggies and fruit, begin using  greywater for all my flowers, built the rain barrels, work in the yard more.  My youngest child turned 18, as I nudged him out on his own, I began having way more time to do all this. But as I get more radical (doesn’t feel radical to me, but I guess it is by the raised eyebrows I see!) about conserving it strikes me that growing up the way I did prepared me to see these changes as, not inconvenient, but deeply satisfying. 

Us kids learned how to cook bread over coals, how to dinner, how to brush your teeth with just 8 ounces of water, how quickly to yank the oars in when alligator scraped the bottom of the boat, how to take off all day alone in a john boat and always find our way back, how to avoid snakes.  For years our toilet was a shovel and a roll of toilet paper. A bath was plunging into the creek no matter what the temperature, and watching the red eyes of the gators on the other side of the creek, about 50 feet away.  We learned how to never be bored, same as at home. We had no TV at home either, so we didn’t miss it a bit.  I fact, even at home we lived in the woods.  Our homes, at my grandparents and our parents, were in subdivisions, but were surrounded by miles of woods (this was southern Florida in the fifties and early sixties), huge Norfolk pines to play under and build forts, oak trees to climb and swing in, a citrus grove to play in.  We would eat oranges all day and not even go home til dinner..

I love living more primitively.  We all need to be acutely aware where our resources come from, how fragile it all is, what damage we are causing with our greed. 

Next time, hang the clothes on the line. Consider a sawdust toilet, Install a bidet, stop using all that toilet paper. Brush your teeth with one cup of water. Use the dish water that has nontoxic soap in it on the flower beds. Xeroscape.  Dust off that bicycle.  Get a Kleen Kanteen.  Route your shower water outside to the trees or non-edible shrubs.  Better yet, yank those azaleas and put in berries!

Consider going camping just for the weekend, it will open your eyes to how wasteful we can be when we have all the amenities.