We are lucky to live in the desert right next to BLM lands, and are able to go rock hounding whenever we like.  The project at hand has been to redo the path from the back gate to the back patio in a cobblestone style to resemble my wife’s native England.  Rock hounding is a job best done on the quad-bike.  Yes, it takes a bit of gasoline and time, but it is a great time for my wife and I to be together and to talk without the kids around, and to get out and explore the area around us.  We stick to established trails so we do not kill any of the vegetation around us.  Sand is readily available here to lay the rocks into.  So it has been a pretty fun day for us! 

The path does not necessarily have to be permanent at this moment, so we have set each stone close to the next one, and leveled it at the top by laying it in appropriate sand levels underneath. 

“For humans, enough is never enough.”  RJ – Over The Hedge. 

I caught this quote just as I was writing the post, and it poses a question for a Prospering Peasant.  When is enough enough?  It is a question I ask myself whenever I am in a store.  I know some people live to shop.  I have had the pleasure of moving a couple of times in my life in rather unique ways.  Both times I had to reduce to almost no possessions at all, and when I did, I could not believe the amount of stuff I threw out!  And in my head I added up estimations of the amount of money I threw out.  It was not a pretty event, especially when considering I was not on a high income at the time anyhow! 

The environmental impact of these moves could not have been good.  I consider the environment in many things I do, but it is not the primary focus of this blog, or my life.  I look to be as neutral as possible, but I don’t push it to the point of tree hugging.  I try to do enough, and enough is enough.  The focus of this blog, and my life at the moment is living on little, and using what we have got to benefit our family more than just for an item’s intended use.  The environment goes hand in hand with this kind of thinking and living. 

Today we burned more fossil fuels than I would care to admit.  Today we ate packaged foods that were not home grown.  Today we used power from the electric company to heat, light, cook, and even to write this blog post!  Despite an overt effort to reduce my consumer lifestyle, I bought a drink in a plastic bottle, and ate a snack from a plastic bag. 

As this blog moves forward, I want to lever out these habits.  The goal is to improve my lifestyle and develop the skills required to free me from reliance on foreign oil, goods, and services.  After all, enough really is enough!