New farmers markets are emerging every day and they are getting pretty hard to ignore. It’s difficult, nigh impossible, to eat or shop anywhere nowadays without running across the mantra chanted by hippies, health nuts and regular folk alike, “buy local, buy local, buy local”. You know these words; you hear them in your sleep. It isn’t possible to live in this fine city without stumbling upon them at least once in a while. You understand the importance of supporting local business, of eating organic, yadda, yadda, yadda. Sometimes it’s hard though. Sometimes you’re tired and you just want to head to head to some seedy Wal-Mart somewhere and pick up a peach or an orange of mysterious, and probably sinister, origin. It’s like a silent middle finger to those outdoor stands filled with pure goodies that will better your soul but drain your wallet. Your own private rebellion.

If you’ve lived in Austin for any amount of time you should know by now that there is no shortage of farmers markets in a variety of sizes and shapes. Although you may have already found a market you have sworn loyalty to, you still might want to pay HOPE Farmers Market a Sunday visit. HOPE is an acronym for Helping Other People Everywhere. The HOPE campaign did not begin as a little farmers market in Austin, but it found its way here and is settled comfortably at the corner of E. 5th and Waller Street.

After bearing witness to so many environmental travesties in the past few years it’s difficult not to take a look at your life and wonder what you could change that would minimize your impact on the earth. It’s easy enough to say what you want to do “someday” or “when you have enough time”, but thinking green thoughts is not enough. Yes, small changes are effective, but it is truly inspiring when you stumble across a person who has built their life around environmental sustainability. Heather Carter is a one such person. As a sculptor, journalist, consultant, and mother she not only lives an environmentally sound lifestyle, she makes it look good. 

 Carter is the visionary mind behind the website greenguru.org. The site offers green consulting services to both individuals and businesses that are working towards more sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyles.  Her blog seamlessly blends personal anecdotes with simple suggestions on how to live a life with less environmental impact. Her passion is evident with every entry posted and the facts and figures she uses to deter readers from using materials such as plastic are, well, downright terrifying. 

 As if maintaining a consulting website was not enough, Carter is also a skilled artist. She works with different types of wood; bending and shaping it into forms and figures that resemble ribcages and boats. One of her pieces “Souls of the Trees” was commissioned by the Spicewood Springs Library in 2007. Like the rest of her life, crater strived to keep this piece eco-friendly. “Souls of the Trees” was designed to be entirely carbon-neutral. Carter calculated the amount of carbon emitted during the production of the piece and planted three trees outside of the library to offset it. She currently has an exhibit at Texas State University entitled “Lifeboats” that will run until August 4th. 
 

If you take the time to explore Heather Carter’s world, and I mean truly explore, you cannot help but wonder why more people have not embraced this way of living. In a world where we watch helplessly as oil coats our beaches and plastic covers roughly a quarter of our planet’s surface, Mrs. Carter is truly a beacon of hope.

For more information about Heather Carter, her art, and her lifestyle, visit http://www.heathercarter.info/

 June 5th will mark the yearly journey of the Texas 4000 riders, a group of cyclists that make a 70 day, 4,500 mile journey from Austin Texas to Anchorage Alaska. The team of intrepid bikers will depart at 8:00AM and journey relentlessly, averaging up to 70 miles a day, until they reach Anchorage on the 13th of August. 

The team will sleep in tents and with host families and give presentations to the towns they happen to be in. They meet with cancer experts and doctors and visit children’s medical wards. As if that wasn’t enough, the team speaks with the local press and documents their travels with blogs and photographs.

 When one decides to begin living greener it is easy to make a few small adjustments. An organic fruit or veggie here, a small compost pile in the backyard there; it’s easy to begin a green lifestyle when you start with the little things. Olive Green Dog is here to help you with those little things.

 Olive Green Dog is a line of all-natural, eco-friendly pet products guaranteed to keep you, your pet, and the earth happy and healthy for a long time. The idea of a green pet product line was conceived by Gina Quiroga and Barbara Savidge. Both owners harnessed their passion for green living and channeled that passion into memorable and creative products guaranteed to please even the most discerning of pooches.

     It’s that time of year, especially after a very mild spring and lots of rain, that gardens are in full bloom. Of course, the downside to those mild temps and an abundance of rain is an army of pesky bugs eating your precious veggies! It can be tempting to run to the nearest store and purchase an arsenal of pesticides to knock those bugs out! But before you do, please consider a few things about pesticide products.