On eggshells around my reluctantly green husband

We're thrilled to have a guest blog from commercial photographer, green advocate and friend, Mette Kristiansen. Amongst her many eco-initiatives, Mette has been an inspiration for her home-made wine, freshly baked bread and a gorgeous goumet herb garden.

I call my husband a “begrudging greenie” or “greenie by default”.

Poor thing. He’s been badgered, cajoled and coerced into many things green; firstly by his sustainable-architect mother, then by his health freak/vegetarian/placard-waving photographer wife. Okay, maybe I’m not that bad, but I have added some annoying green habits to my repertoire by watching and learning off my mother-in-law -- much to my husband's disappointment.

He bemoans the trips he had to make as a child to the compost heap deep in the heart of the New Zealand winter, with a cold Antarctic wind whipping up Wellington Harbour.  His mother was cunning: she raised him and his brother to think cucumber skins and dried pasta were a treat. Unfortunately, he has now completely switched and is abnormally partial to the candy bins at the local store -- but has fantastic teeth all the same.

A new habit his mother has introduced me to, and one he tries to dodge with great regularity, is the cleaning and storing of eggshells.  We put them into either the compost or the worm farm. Admittedly, and despite my great intentions, the dried shells tend to pile up and spill out of their containers in our already over-flowing pantry as they wait for me to grind them up into eggshell dust. Hating this “eggshell infiltration”, Hubby casually flings the shells into the green-bin, hoping I won’t see or, even more tragically, into the rubbish bin! ‘Traitor husband!’ I mutter to myself, as I fish around in the bin rescuing mucky eggshells under his disgusted glare.

Another mother-in-law-influenced behavior is the saving of banana skins to put under our lemon tree. My husband hasn’t succumbed to this one yet and I haven’t quite reached the saintly heights of chopping them up carefully into little pieces as the in-laws do, tending more to fling them at the lemon tree with wild abandon. It does give me a wonderful warm fuzzy each time, but I’m not sure if it’s helping the lemon tree!

One green behavior he did enthusiastically attempt was the placing of coffee grounds around my hostas to discourage slugs. However, instead of placing them neatly at the base of the hosta, he would hurl them at any old plant that was in the area. As a result, all our plants now wear a layer of dried, black coffee grinds -- not the look I was hoping for in our little courtyard garden!

So, as time passes, I think hubby has resigned himself to the fact that he will spend the rest of his life hiding eggshells and banana skins under bits of green waste, dodging the wrath of the eco-warrior women in his life. Deep down, however, I am sure he loves the fact that he has something to moan about to the boys over a Friday night beer and that, when he wants to, he can win dead-easy brownie points just by chopping up a few banana skins!

 

Comments

[Andrea Deely]

Thanks so much Mette. Don't dare tell your husband that his wonderful (I think!) home-brewed beer is eco-friendly -- not to mention the recycled beer bottles! :-)