About Us

Hello, and welcome to our blog!  We're a couple (with three kids) in our early-mid thirties trying to reduce our impact on this miracle we call Earth.  We really only started on this journey about two and a half years ago.  Our landscaping business in Dallas, TX began to flounder in the wake of the economic downturn of 2008.  Jason decided to go back to school to finish college and get a Masters in Landscape Architecture.  We moved to Arlington, TX about 20 miles west of Dallas, to be closer to his school.  One of the earliest posts he wrote explains it here.  However, for various reasons, namely the energy sieve of a house we were renting near school, and the vacancy in Dallas of a tiny rental property we owned, only five months later we were forced to move back to Dallas.  Living in Arlington we began to face a myriad of questions regarding our purpose here on Earth and how to best be stewards of the land.  It was the beginning of a quest we continue on today.

Just a few of the things we've done to try and lessen our impact on the planet since about January 2010:

• Install two rainbarrels
• Install a few raised beds to try and grow some of our own food
• Compost anything and everything in sight except meat and dairy
• Greatly reduce the amount of meat we consume (less than once per week)
• Purchase three hens to supply our eggs (three isn't cutting it & we'll probably get a few more in Spring 2011) [Editor's note: OK> couldn't wait until spring!  Purchased 13(!) more in early January 2011, detailed here, with building a larger coop detailed here; then purchased 26 more in early February - no, we're not insane!  Decided we wanted full sized hens, not bantams - will end up selling many and our final count come summer 2011 should be about 16].
• Put the fact that Carrie enjoys cooking to work for us - making much of the food we consume from scratch
• Start walking and biking more to complete our daily local errands, and if we must drive, combine trips to the greatest extent possible
• Start gleaning food and reusing others castoffs in order to keep things out of the landfill - and lighten the impact on our wallets!
• Install and use a whole house fan during summer - only turn A/C on when it gets over 90 in the house, and even then it is turned on to 86
• Keep heat at 65 or below during the winter
• Get rid of over 1,000 square feet of crap and move to a much smaller house
• Stop using plastic bags as much as possible and only use cloth
• Install a drought tolerant landscape in our front yard that only requires once or twice a year of supplemental water

We want this blog to be an open forum everyone can benefit from.  We do not profess to know everything about sustainability and are a constant work in progress.  As of November 2010 we still own two cars - and pretty much use them both every day.  However, one is about to be put on the market and we're going to try to make it as a one car family of five (and all at 5 different schools might I add!).  Wish us luck with that!  We also hope to one day own more land.  Our current 50x125 shaded suburban lot feels woefully inadequate for what we want to accomplish.  We'd love to own about 5 acres.  Hopefully in a few years we can make that a reality.     

If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for posts, please email us at whatpigsdontknow@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for taking the time to peruse our site.  We hope you enjoy it!
-Jason & Carrie Lackey