Happy First Day of Spring!
Recently a customer told us she was pleased when I mentioned that we used bubble-wrap collected from Roy's office to pack her shipment. It comes naturally to us to run Triple Mountain in an Eco-friendly way, but it made me realize that we rarely let our customers know that! Since today is the first day of Spring (happy Ostara to those of you who celebrate it), it seems like the perfect time to share our commitment to being Earth-friendly with everyone.
We made a promise to the Triple Mountain (for those who don't know: yes, it's a real place!) in 2001 to live as gently on it as possible, and to protect its forests for all of our four-legged and feathered neighbors. We started by placing the land officially into Tree Growth, a designation that insures no one can ever clear-cut or build on it. That means 250 acres will remain forested forever for the deer, moose, black bears, and hawks that call the mountain home... and even for the porcupines.
We're proud to say that both our home and our Hiram store now get most of their electricity from solar power. ReVision Energy installed solar panels and solar hot water in the fall of 2015, which should accrue enough credits this year that we can say we're fully solar-powered by year end!
Roy and I both collect boxes and packing material to re-use when shipping orders, which is why you may receive models in a box labeled with the name of a coffee or computer company. Bubble wrap and packing peanuts come to us in huge plastic bags from his office building. Until they're needed, they're stored in the loft of our store, increasing the insulation factor up high and making the building more efficient. Even our store itself has been recycled (the story on the building is in an earlier blog post.)
Living almost 45 minutes from any large town, we chose to both drive Priuses, which we love. Mine now has 140K miles on it, and still gets almost 50 mpg in summer, producing a lot less carbon per year than what we used to drive.
With spring upon us, we're already making plans to improve further. This year, we plan to re-insulate the store for increased efficiency, and hopefully convert its heating to a super-efficient heat pump. Most of the store's lights are already LEDs, but we'll be converting the rest to LEDs this year as well.
While many the models we sell are made overseas, we're very proud to say that our T-shirts are made by the most Earth-friendly apparel company we've ever seen: The Mountain (no relation!) of Keene, NH. They take great pride in using Earth-friendly materials, including using organic dyes and water-based inks. They even created from scratch a way to clean their used water before it leaves their building! We love to support companies who believe in doing things the right way.
If you appreciate ethical, Earth-friendly practices in business, won't you show your support by adding a T-shirt from The Mountain to your next model order? They last for years, come in lots of great equine designs, and you can feel good wearing them.
We are blessed to live here on the Triple Mountain, sharing our love of nature and horses with the world. Thank you all for being a part of our great journey!
~ Eleda