Nostalgia

We’ve moved into our house in the forest. We haven’t built the mud room/wood storage area yet so every morning I tromp towards the door in my muddy boots and leave bottles of fresh goat milk on the doorstep before taking my boots off.

During my husband’s childhood milk was still delivered each day in glass bottles, a layer of cream would rise to the top. The bottles would be washed and returned, reused again and again. In my childhood memory is milk still being delivered, but by then it was homogenised and in plastic-lined cartons. The old system of reusing the glass bottles was not done with any thoughts of sustainability, it was just the way things were. It made sense to reuse bottles rather than throwing everything into landfill, or throwing it in the recycling pile to be melted down and turned into another single-use plastic item with the use of a lot of energy.

At some point in time it became so cheap to simply make new things all the time, and it became so easy to just throw everything in landfill without a thought that the culture of reuse stopped. This happened more recently with a raw milk farm we were buying from, the farmer decided it was taking too much time to clean the bottles and started using single-use plastic bottles. No thought is given to how much time it took for the oil to form in the earth to make this plastic, how long it will take to break down in landfill, how much time it would take to create these bottles if the specialised bottle-making machines were to break down, or what the end result will be of all the tiny particles of plastic seeping into our soil and water, all that is thought of is the inconvenience of washing something versus the perception of an easy and quick solution.

One of the earliest lightbulbs ever made still functions today. The businesses that made lightbulbs quickly realised that they would make more money if their products had to be bought again and again, rather than being made to last.

The other day I saw an advertisement on an ice cream fridge for a new flavour of ice cream. I could only see half the name and thought it said “red vegetable”. The corporation had become so desperate for new and exciting things that they were now trying to make vegetable flavoured ice creams, to appeal to people seeking new things for the sake of the newness of things. It turns out it wasn’t really red vegetable flavour, but I’ll remember it because it prompted some nostalgic thoughts about the amount of foods around when we were growing up. We had treats sometimes, but it was usually in small quantities, and it usually was a particular thing or another, to be eaten as a treat, rather than eaten because it was new and we had to try it. I don’t remember there being any overweight or obese children growing up in the 80s and 90s.

Autumn leaves now drift gently down from the trees while cold winds stir the evergreens, bringing cold gusts of air while the sun radiates the last warmth of summer. Night falls earlier and earlier every day. Soon our wood stove will be ready and our nights will be warmed with fire.