The Bluebird Market is the result of one mom, Patti Robinson, making her dream to help bring together artisians, home bakers, and local growers on Saturdays so the local community can buy local and support our hometown folks. She created the Bluebird Market and has promoted it in the local newspaper, on her blog and on Twitter. Patti proves that dreams can become reality and one can make a difference. Local residents were able to buy local produce and eggs, many of which are organic. Here’s a short video from opening day.

Patti and I were delighted to have a guest appearance from Tommy from the You Gotta Be Kidding Georgia Recycling Campaign at the Bluebird Market in Thomaston Georgia. Tommy is one of the characters who claims he doesn’t recycle because we can always find a planet somewhere else on which to live once we trash this one.

Find out more about recycling in your community at YouGottaBeKidding.org.

Free Community Breakfast There will be a free community breakfast in honor of everyone growing edibles in home gardens and our local sustainable growers and farmers, on Saturday, June 6th. It is an Early Bird Wrangler Breakfast at the Bluebird Market between 8 and 10 a.m. located at 215 Barnesville Street, Thomaston, GA.  Cooked Outside Over Open Coals The Wrangler Breakfast menu has something for everyone like Eggs in a Saddle, Fried Egg Sandwiches, Egg Muffins, French Toast with hot maple and blueberry syrups, Cook’s sausage breakfast pizza, sliced tomatoes on wheat toast, toasted bagels with cream cheese, fig preserves and pear honey.

Today, I attended the Atlanta Green Expo and met several vendors promoting a green products and services.

There were products ranging from solar panels for water heaters, to insulation and windows, to Green Computers, to solar powered flashlights, non-toxic cleaners, to vegan restaurants, to locally grown produce and more.

I am giving out awards of recognition to those that impressed me the most.

MOST TASTY VENDORS

Loving Hut, A vegan restaurant coming soon to Norcross, GA.  I enjoyed the carrot and cabbage spring rolls and the banana bread!

Split Cedar Farm:  I met Neil Taylor who spent time explaining the community supported market in his area and how we can do the same for our town.  Thanks for the Kolrobi. We’ll be eating it tomorrow.

MOST TECHIE

Solar LED Innovations: Patrick Beugnon, Vice President impressed me with the solar powered flashlights he is marketing. I got a sneak preview of the prototype for an upcoming product that includes a solar powered flashlight which can also recharge your cell phone.  Boy, I wish I had that when I was in a hurricane a few years ago and went without power for a week and couldn’t recharge my phone.  This 5 month old company has a “bright” future ahead of it.  Order a flashlight today and tell Patrick I sent you.

Greenlite: This company distributes Green Computers.  These computers require less energy to run and the prices are amazingly comparable to regular computers.

BEST CAUSE

Growers Alliance Coffee: This could have been in the most tasty category too, but I thought the cause was important to mention as it is the mission of the company to help improve the standard of living for the farmers of coffee beans in several countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.

FRIENDLIEST

Warm Spirit: I met the owner LaKeyta Baker who was warm and friendly and very excited about the mission of her company to help empower people to care for themselves and nuture their potential within.  She gave me a sample of Mango Body Butter and it is delightful to the senses.  She’s looking for customers and distributors for her spa products.

It was a fun day!  See you at the next Green Event!

Below is a reprint of an article written by a friend of mine who is an example of how one woman can make a difference in her local community. She is leading the way by educating her local community to support local families when shoppping. It makes sense! I will be doing a live Twitter cast for her opening day of the Blue Bird Market, so be sure to follow me on Twitter.

Carte Blanche

by Patti Robinson

Have you ever given anybody a big blank check signed by you? You might say ridiculous! I say we do it every day when we consider the power of one. In a manner of speaking, every time we collectively spend/invest/entrust one dollar it adds up to huge big blank checks of empowerment. When we spend we are really investing for a return on our dollar. The choice then becomes, how do we invest to better sustain our hometown in a vibrant way? We come together in hearts and minds for our childrens bright futures and a chance to live longer, stronger and healthier.

Let’s redirect to buy local. Each one of us has immeasurable value and how we use our dollars counts. When we act collectively to rebuild, hatch and grow local owners, we better sustain our hometown culture. Token short term prop-ups can be well meaning for survival. Our sustainable aim is to thrive. We want to do what it takes so each family will have the tools to begin a genuine and thriving personal best way of living!

It’s easy when we follow the simple rule of buying locally. That is our part. Shop local. Look at the annual budget of chain stores. Now redirect to local owners for an immeasurable ripple effect. That is the power of our collective dollar. Do we believe in the long run it is sustainable for trucks to bring tomatoes and bread from across the country just so we can serve an affordable tomato sandwich to our children for lunch? I like the way people are rebuilding the power to grow their own food and operate their own business. Equip our precious children to have credible hope for a bright and healthy future right here.

To rebuild our town like others are doing, my advice is do it ourselves. Redirect each collective dollar to local establishments who in turn aim to order from local suppliers. Who could be more deserving of the power of our collective dollars than our own people?

We are living our one life on planet earth right this moment second to none in Thomaston, Georgia. Each of us has special skills and value. I love being given the opportunity for unleashing life-changing potential. Get outside, do something. Find people who want you to bloom. Show up at the Bluebird Market and hatch something simple that you do well.

My market product is garden sweetened lemonades. I believe simple, fun fresh lemonade is healthier and worth more in our town than boxes of sodas. I hope to supply Gardenade on a weekly basis to a local owner to earn extra income. Delicious real fruit blueberry, cherry lime and more. I invite you to come to market and test Gardenade to find the flavor you like best.

I want to test your product too.
Who is fueling big loads from tractor trailer trucks? We buy. Our dollars together add up to make big profits everyday for somebody. It is our collective power to determine who the somebody will be. Entrust the power of our collective blank check with local family main street owners so our children win. Find people who encourage what you need to unleash your personal best for the highest good.

Join me in acting locally for sustainable choices with our collective carte blanche.

Countdown is a few short weeks until the recycling campaign and Bluebird Market. Explore with us each week to discover simple ways we can affordably contribute to sustainable and renewable eco-friendly living.

Find resources online at www.yougottabekidding.org and www.planetgarden.wordpress.com. Email EE questions to: planetgarden at live.com.

This is an example of how one woman’s vision of sustainable living is becoming a reality in a small town in Georgia. Patti Robinson, a friend of mine, is launching the Bluebird Market this June. It is my hope that Moms across the nation will follow her example.

Bluebird Market by Patti Robinson
As a new community service local artisans, growers and buyers have the opportunity to come together at a tailgate market on Saturdays 8 am – noon, beginning June 6th, in the old R.C Cola Building parking lot at 215 Barnesville Street in Thomaston.

Bluebird Market

Imagine the cars at local chain stores and those collective dollars redirected one-day-a-week to our downtown district again. It is our aim to stimulate our local economy by redirecting shopping one-day-a-week to buy local. What would it mean to Thomaston if we each redirect at least $25.00 one-day-a-week of our weekly grocery budget to local people? All are welcome to participate as a local vendor of locally made or homegrown products. The vendor fee is $5.00 AFTER you sell $20.00 of locally made or grown product.

There will be demonstrations, educational ideas for kids, a cookout picnic lunch and more fun for all ages.
If you would like to sponsor this local sustainability initiative on any level that would best serve you or your business, visit our website at Bluebird Market.

Follow Bluebird Market on Twitter

This week, we switched to Energy Saving Lightbulbs. My husband heard on the radio that you could save $30/month on your electricity bill by switching to Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (now he wants to go green.) That very same day, he bought some cheap CFL’s at a dollar discount store. They were an off brand and he had no idea what to look for, but he knew he was saving us money. He got home and replaced the lights in my bathroom and my bedside lamp.

Oh my. As The Green Mahma, I really wanted to support this environmental move he was making, but the light was dreadful. It was a blue light that didn’t illuminate the room. It was more like a nightlight.

I told him I just wasn’t ready to take that step to being more energy efficient. I like my soft yellow light. But I did say I would compromise and he could put the CFL’s in the closets. If this was what we had to experience for light, then I wasn’t ready to make the change.

The next day, he went to the local home improvement store and started asking questions. He learned there are 3 brightnesses of light available: soft white, bright white, and day light. He realized he had bought the day light and they didn’t meet our needs or expectations. It looked industrial and the light didn’t seem to bounce off the walls and give the colors of warm home.

At the store, with some guidance, he purchasd some soft white bulbs with an “Energy Star” rating. He brought these home and switched out our most used bulbs. The color was just like our incandescent bulbs. I couldn’t tell the difference. Now, I am totally on board with the switch to energy saving bulbs.

The negative side of this is I’ll have to wait 5 years before I can replace those first bulbs he bought that are now in my closets. Ugh!

Attached is a video I found very helpful explaining the CFL Lightbulbs and how much money they save you and how they help reduce pollution:

CFL Light Bulbs in Plain English (Revised)

I just got home from an extended weekend trip. The cats we love are usually fed indoors, but since we were gone, they were fed outdoors by a neighbor. Upon returning home, we found an infestation of ants in their food bowl and in the sealed plastic container where their food was stored in our shed!

In our part of the country these nasty things bite! These are not fire ants that have an even worse bite! But, they are difficult to kill. They had invaded the food bowl and I couldn’t even move it.

Being in my green mood, I googled, “natural homemade ant killers” and decided to find a natural way to deal with my ant problem. (Click link to see the ideas.)

Here’s a review of the natural homemade ant killers I tried.

So now my immediate problem is solved, next I’ll need to try the baking soda to see if that keeps them away from my back porch.

If you have any ideas on how to tackle ants without poison, please add a comment so we can all learn.

I switched from a 6 gallon a minute shower head (quite reluctantly) to a low flow shower head and didn’t miss my old shower head as much as I expected.

In fact, when the electricity and water bills came in less, I really liked the low flow shower head even better. The new models have an aerator so it feels like you are getting more water than you are.

Changing to a low flow shower head will save you between $50-75 on water bills and $20-50 on energy bills to heat the water (depending on your usage and local utility rate.)

Read this and more at my Squidoo Lens, How to Save Money Going Green.

Recently, I wrote about some easy ways to go green that actually save you money.
One of the tips I wrote about was using reusable shopping bags instead of asking for paper or plastic. I think it’s common knowledge that we are wasting resources and filling our landfills with all the bags we use.

Now, my husband does a lot of the shopping, so the burden of going green while shopping was placed on him. I had ordered some reusable bags and off he went to the store.

He told me he was really nervous about it, because no one in our small town was doing such a thing and he was afraid of the reaction of everyone.

But, he and our daughter found the courage and did it anyway.

I got a phone call while he was at the check out stand. “Where did you get these bags? I’ve got a lady here in line with me who wants to get some. And there is another lady standing here reusing her bags because her husband insisted she not waste the bags they had a home.”

That was so funny. He was very nervous and it was awkward, but it got a lot of positive attention and even converted one more person to make a change.

Have you used reusable bags? If so, what was the reaction of others in line? Is it common where you shop? Please comment and let us know.

Read more at Save Money Going Green.