Over 100 volunteers teamed up for Sustainable Saratoga’s first ever Team Up to Clean Up community litter pick-up event on April 24-25. An estimated 200 bags filled with trash were removed from neighborhoods, roadsides, parks, ravines and commercial areas.  Several large teams participated in the event, including the Saratoga Lions Club, Ballston Spa Mentoring and the Saratoga Interlaken Garden Club. There was even an international team that joined the effort from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Photos from the weekend clean up. Friends, families and community groups cleaned up roadsides, trails and more. 

“The enthusiasm for this first clean up event has been overwhelming,” explained Sustainable Saratoga’s Executive Director, Wendy Mahaney. “Our local communities, including teams from Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, Wilton and Greenfield, have a strong sense of stewardship and pride towards the environment. This event gave people an opportunity to take meaningful action to help keep litter, specifically microplastics, out of our waterways, soil, air and wildlife.”

Among the items collected during the event were tires, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, plastic utensils and cigarette butts.

We want to thank Stewart’s Shops for their generous ice cream coupon donations, which were distributed to the first 100 participants. We are also grateful for the support of several municipalities, including Saratoga Springs and Greenfield, that provided supplies and helped pick up filled trash bags. We hope to hold additional litter clean-up events throughout the year.

Sustainable Saratoga invites you to join us on June 17 @ 7 pm for a virtual dinner and dancing fundraiser to celebrate the arrival of summer! We will be sampling wines from Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery, enjoying a pasta dinner from Comfort Kitchen, & learning to swing dance with Tango Fusion Dance Company.

The wine and dine portion of the event will feature the award-winning Finger Lakes wines of the Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery, paired with Comfort Kitchen’s fresh pasta and a Barkeater chocolate bar for dessert.

We have also teamed up with the Tango Fusion Dance Company to get you moving with a swing dance lesson.

All proceeds from the event go directly to helping fund the sustainability efforts of Sustainable Saratoga.

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WINE, DINE & DANCE EVENT DETAILS

Our Wine, Dine & Dance with Sustainable Saratoga fundraiser will be held on Thursday, June 17 @ 7:00 pm (on Zoom).

• Barbara Frank, Consulting Winemaker and Regional Sales Manager of the Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery, will take us on a virtual tasting experience of some of the Dr. Konstantin Frank wines and talk about how they grow their grapes.
• Diane Lachtrupp & Johnny Martinez, co-directors of Tango Fusion Dance Company, will get you moving with a swing dance lesson during the Zoom event.
• Rory Moran, Chef & Owner of Comfort Kitchen, will provide information about his delectable homemade pastas and the importance of eating local and seasonal foods.

TICKET INFORMATION

Wine, Dinner & Dance Ticket. For a $75 donation, you will receive:

• A wine tasting kit (187 ml tasting size bottles of Dr. Frank’s Dry Riesling, Chardonnay, Rosé & Cabernet Sauvignon)
• A scrumptious dinner (salad and homemade pasta that serves 2)
• A delicious dark chocolate bar from Barkeater Chocolates
• A free swing dance lesson from Tango Fusion Dance Company during the Zoom event.

Wine & Dance Ticket. For a $50 donation, you will receive:

• A wine tasting kit (187 ml tasting size bottles of Dr. Frank’s Dry Riesling, Chardonnay, Rosé & Cabernet Sauvignon)
• A delicious dark chocolate bar from Barkeater Chocolates
• A free swing dance lesson from Tango Fusion Dance Company during the Zoom event.

Extra Wine Ticket: For an additional $25, you will receive a second wine tasting kit. These make great gifts!

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You can pick up your wine and dinner packages on June 16 from 4-6:30 pm in the Caffe Lena atrium (47 Phila St). If you cannot make that pick up time, please contact us to discuss alternative arrangements.

Please email info@sustainablesaratoga.org with any questions.

THANK YOU! We look forward to seeing you on Zoom!

ABOUT SUSTAINABLE SARATOGA

Sustainable Saratoga is a not-for-profit organization that promotes sustainable practices and the protection of natural resources, through education, advocacy and action, for the benefit of current and future generations in the Saratoga Springs area. Since 2008, Sustainable Saratoga has been a leader in promoting awareness of environmental issues and what we as a local community can do to minimize our ecological impact while maintaining a high quality of life.

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ABOUT THE WINERY

Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery is a family run winery on the southwestern hills of Keuka Lake. The founder, Dr. Konstantin Frank, immigrated to the United States in 1951. Within 10 years, Dr. Frank founded Vinifera Wine Cellars, a winery that quickly gained a reputation for spectacular Rieslings. His ability to produce European varieties of wine in the cool climate of the Finger Lakes revolutionized the East Coast wine industry. The Frank family has carried the legacy of Dr. Konstantin Frank on through four generations. The winery has generously donated a portion of the wines for this event.

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ABOUT COMFORT KITCHEN

Opened in 2012, by Chef & Owner Rory Moran, Comfort Kitchen has become the premiere destination in Saratoga Springs for hand crafted, farm-to-table comfort food. Comfort Kitchen utilizes the best local produce and focuses on simple classic American dishes that reflect the tradition and history of our diverse country.

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ABOUT TANGO FUSION DANCE COMPANY

Tango Fusion Dance Company is located in Saratoga Springs and offers group and private lessons to adults and children in Salsa, Swing, Tango, Foxtrot, Waltz and all other types of ballroom dance. The educational portion of the company has brought dance to over 20 schools in the Capitol District and Northeast offering students the opportunity to experience the rhythms, culture and history of partner dancing from all over the world.

Co-directors Johnny Martinez and Diane Lachtrupp Martinez are award winning Tango, Salsa and Swing dancers. They are the former owners of Stepping Out Studios in Manhattan that offered 80 classes a week and had a roster of 400 students. They have performed and taught throughout the United States and Internationally bringing their art form to festivals from Argentina to Spain. Both dancers have a strong theater background and have been either the choreographers, directors or performers in numerous venues in the Capitol District including The Egg, Proctors, Capitol Rep, The Charles Wood, Opera Saratoga, Fort Salem Theater, SPAC, HMT and SLOC. They recently created a dance television show for Proctor’s Collaborative Studios which can be viewed on the Proctor’s web site.

ABOUT THE WINES

2019 Chardonnay. The 2019 Chardonnay offers a sweet spiced oaky richness with an undertone of slate and tea. The flavors – yellow apple, flower blossom, lemon curd and honey – are delivered with a firm structure with a long almond-filled finish. Fermentation: 46% Stainless Steel and 54% Barrel Fermented in French and Hungarian Barrels (23% New Oak) with 9 months aging. (90 pts – Wine Enthusiast)

Food Pairings: lobster, white fish, salmon, scallops, veal (grilled), chicken (fried, roasted), butter sauces, creamy goat or sheep cheese, light cream sauces and caesar salad.

2019 Dry Riesling. The 2019 offers a vibrant and attractive style, harmonizing lime zest, granny smith apples, and minerality from the Keuka vineyards with fresh citrus and tangerine from the Seneca vineyards. Behind the zingy freshness are a rich body and a discreet creaminess which form a well balanced union ideal for long-term aging. Fermentation: Unoaked. (90 pts – Wine Advocate)

Food Pairings: apples, soft cheeses, chicken (poached, lightly prepared), white fish (lightly prepared), salad (green fruits, seafood), green vegetable dishes, sushi and crab cakes.

2020 Dry Rosé. 50/50 blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. A new wine from the famed 2020 vintage, this deep ruby rosé is vibrant and seductive with fresh strawberries, red cherry, hibiscus and plums. This is a rosé for those who like a full-flavored and fuller-bodied rosé that can handle foods that you would normally pair with lighter red wines. Fermentation: Unoaked. (New Release)

Food Pairings: charcuterie, white fish (grilled), pork (grilled), salads, shrimp (grilled), sausage (grilled), other grilled foods like hamburgers and hot dogs.

2018 Cabernet Sauvignon. Seductive complexity in black fruit scents, a hint of foresty dried herbs, and a touch of leather and cedar spice. Earthy tannins are grippy and they ground the fruitiness, giving breath of texture, and providing a strong foundation for the fresh, mouthwatering black fruit. Aged 18 months in 2-4 year-old French oak barrels. (New Release)

Food Pairings: cheese (aged or blue), grilled lamb rack, grilled steak, thyme, mint, rosemary, mushrooms, lentils and pasta bolognese.

ABOUT THE FOOD

Chef & Owner of Comfort Kitchen, Rory Moran, makes the pasta from scratch and uses the freshest local ingredients he can find. Dinner options include:

• Marinara Primavera (vegan): House made macaroni, San Marzano marinara, local kale, peppers, onions, eggplant with local greens & white balsamic vinaigrette
• Spring Pesto (vegetarian): House made radiatore, spring peas, spinach & parsley pesto with local greens & white balsamic vinaigrette
• Sausage and Peppers: House made rigatoni, roasted peppers, sweet Italian sausage, San Marzano tomatoes, & pecorino with local greens & white balsamic vinaigrette
• Ricotta Gnocchi Bolognese: House-made ricotta gnocchi, slow cooked beef and pork bolognese, marinara, pecorino Romano, Parsley and local greens with white balsamic vinaigrette

* To accommodate any gluten-free requirements, we can substitute the fresh pasta with a box of gluten-free pasta (all of the above sauces are gluten-free).

The sun was shining brightly on Saturday, April 24, 2021, when Sustainable Saratoga celebrated our community’s resilience and hope for the future by planting trees at the homes of 15 excited Saratogian families. This most recent outing by our fabulous volunteers brings the total number of Tree Toga plantings to 270 trees since 2014.

We had to take into account COVID-19 precautions, and do things differently this year. At previous Tree Togas, we gathered our 100 or so volunteers for camaraderie and orientation before dispersing them around town to the planting sites. This year, we were grateful that we could depend on our most experienced lead planters to meet the Tree Hosts directly at their home. These small crews planted trees that will be nurtured and cared for by the homeowners for all to enjoy for generations to come.

Photos from the planting day, including our youngest planter and planters young at heart.

Peggy Brown, long-time Tree Toga volunteer, and part of a three-generation team who planted a Tree Toga tree this year, shared these thoughts:

I’ve been involved with Tree Toga for several years and have planted with friends, family, and neighbors all around Saratoga. For all of us, it is so much fun to see the trees grow and really add to the community. To me, the trees feel like a legacy that will live on and give back to us. But this year in particular, with all that the world has been through, planting a tree seems even more important. Planting is a hopeful act, and a sign of rebirth and resilience after a dark time.

Spring is a great time to plant your own tree. So why not join Tree Toga in spirit by planting one in your own yard, and sharing a picture of your new tree using the hashtag #NextGenTree? Sustainable Saratoga recommends planting a variety of trees native to our local forests, as well as a few of those from the wider region, that are adapted to our soils and climate and provide food and shelter for a variety of insects and wildlife. CLICK HERE for a wealth of practical information on choosing, buying, planting and caring for trees.

Hopefully our next Tree Toga will again be an event open to the entire community of tree-loving volunteer planters. We hope to see you there! 

Sign up to request a Tree Toga tree from your yard.

Four generations of family will enjoy hosting the tree they planted.

Our Executive Director, Wendy Mahaney, recently sat down with Skidmore College students Alexa Dayan & Emily Chase and SMARTACUS editor Dan Forbush. Their discussion explored Wendy’s journey that led to her current role at Sustainable Saratoga, the organization’s contributions to our community, and the ongoing challenges of education and advocacy related to sustainability issues. Read the article here!

THE LOSS OF AN ICON. Saratoga Springs is losing another of its few remaining historic American elms. One of the most majestic, and certainly the most visible of our city’s few remaining large native elms died suddenly last summer, most likely another victim of Dutch elm disease. Towering above the northwest corner of Broadway and Van Dam Street, where it has welcomed every visitor arriving from Exit 15, this tree is scheduled for removal soon by the tree crew in the City’s Department of Public Works (DPW). City Arborist Steve Lashomb will manage the complex operation. Ironically, the announcement about plans to take down this titanic heritage tree coincided with Sustainable Saratoga’s Tree Toga event, when their volunteers planted 15 trees throughout the city, including 2 disease-resistant American elms.

Saratoga once was home to hundreds of American elms, the most graceful and beloved street tree of them all. During the city’s Victorian heyday, elms lined both sides of Broadway. The arrival of the Dutch elm disease midway through the 20^th century wiped out all but a handful of these beloved trees. With this new loss, the only large old specimens left on or near Broadway are those in front of the Roohan Realty building, behind the Collamer Building near Maple Ave, in Congress Park near the Casino, and on South Broadway near Lincoln Ave (Click here for a map).

The big Broadway elm must be removed as soon as possible, because elm bark beetles breed in sick or recently killed elms. These tiny beetles fly to feed on healthy elms, carrying the spores of the deadly Dutch elm disease fungus with them. The DPW has expressed interest in taking effective measures to protect the remaining large City-owned elms, including inoculating them against future infections and quickly pruning or removing any infected elms.

After the near disappearance of the stately American elm from city streets, the DPW planted a variety of European and Asian hybrids that were developed as substitutes. In recent years, a number of disease-resistant American elm cultivars have become more commercially available. Sustainable Saratoga has assisted DPW in its effort to re-establish this iconic tree on our city streets through a program of limited and targeted planting. If these cultivars prove sufficiently resistant over time, they may grow to take a prominent place in Saratoga’s diverse and resilient urban forest.

Sustainable Saratoga invites you to team up with us on Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25, to clean up neighborhoods, streets and trails for Earth Day. “We’re seeing extra plastic pollution and pandemic-related litter this year – things like masks and gloves – littering our streets and sidewalks,” explained Whitney Davis, a Sustainable Saratoga board member and co-chair of their Zero Waste Committee “We were looking for a COVID-safe activity to both reduce the impact of the litter on the environment and raise awareness about the chronic problem of litter pollution in our local communities. This event lets us do that.”

While COVID has limited the opportunity for large groups to gather, we designed this event so that anyone can participate by volunteering an hour or two to clean up an area of their choosing. 

“The great thing about this event is that you can do it any time over that weekend and do it anywhere – not just here in Saratoga Springs,” said Sustainable Saratoga volunteer and event organizer David Sayer. “And while cleaning roadsides for an hour or two is just a small step in the larger effort to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, we know that all who participate will be motivated to reduce and reuse.”

So, grab some trash bags, gloves and friends to clean our roadsides and neighborhoods on Earth Day weekend! 

Please register (click here) for the event so we can keep track of the impact that participants collectively make that weekend. We will also have free ice cream certificates, generously donated by Stewart’s, for the first 100 confirmed participants! Thank you for helping make a difference in your community!

Sustainable Saratoga’s Tree Toga is BACK for 2021, planting the next generation of trees in Saratoga Springs on Saturday, April 24

On Saturday, April 24, 2021, Sustainable Saratoga’s Urban Forestry Project is celebrating our community’s resilience and hope for the future by putting trees in the ground at the homes of 15 excited Saratoga families. This will bring the total number of Tree Toga plantings to 270 trees since 2014.

Peggy Brown, long-time Tree Toga volunteer, shared these thoughts about the importance of Tree Toga in 2021:

I’ve been involved with Tree Toga for several years and have planted with friends, family, and neighbors all around Saratoga. For all of us, it is so much fun to see the trees grow and really add to the community. To me, the trees feel like a legacy that will live on and give back to us. But this year in particular, with all that the world has been through, planting a tree seems even more important. Planting is a hopeful act, and a sign of rebirth and resilience after a dark time.

We’re bouncing back from a tough year by bringing back Tree Toga. Of course, this year we’ll be doing things differently and taking into account COVID-19 precautions. Teams of planters will gather at each planting location, getting those trees into the ground, to be nurtured and cared for by the homeowners whose yards will host the trees. The care that Tree Hosts provide is critical to tree survival and the success of Sustainable Saratoga’s mission to preserve and expand Saratoga’s urban forest.

Why plant trees? According to the City’s 2013 Urban & Community Forest Master Plan (UCFMP), trees are one of the most cost-effective pieces in the city’s infrastructure. Research shows that trees enhance retail and restaurant profitability, increase property values, save energy, improve air quality, reduce water pollution, enhance our mental and physical health, beautify our city, provide wildlife habitat and provide a direct link to Saratoga’s vibrant history.

Spring is a great time to plant your own tree. So why not join Tree Toga in spirit by planting one in your own yard, and sharing a picture of your new tree at #NextGenTree? We recommend planting a variety of trees native to our local forests, as well as a few of those from the wider region, that are adapted to our soils and climate and provide food and shelter for a variety of insects and wildlife. You can find a wealth of practical information on choosing, buying, planting and caring for trees on our website.

Sign up to be a volunteer or Tree Host for a future Tree Toga event here. Email us with any questions. Click here to donate to our efforts.

We recently published a story about Mark Youndt and Karen Kellogg’s net-zero house in Greenwich, NY, but their house is not the only green building on their property. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been joined at home by their daughter, Colby Kellogg-Youndt, a Biology and Environmental Studies major at St. Lawrence University. Colby is putting the finishing touches on a tiny house that she intends to live in after she graduates this spring. Colby sat down with Sustainable Saratoga to share her experiences in green construction and low-carbon living.

But first, let’s give a little background on tiny houses. Have you heard about tiny houses but are not quite sure what they are? Tiny houses are just that–they are very small houses. While the average size of a new single family home in the United States was 2322 square feet in 2019, tiny houses are typically only 100 to 400 square feet. They can be built on a foundation or a trailer.

The Tiny House Movement became mainstream in about 2014. According to Tiny Home Builders, the Tiny House Movement is an “architectural and social movement that encourages living a simpler life in a smaller space.” Some people turn to tiny houses as they simplify their lives, minimize their impact on the environment and reduce their financial obligations. Smaller homes mean saving money on utilities, homes on wheels mean saving money on property taxes and rent, and having less space means you just spend less buying STUFF. Smaller homes also have less impact on the environment, and many tiny homes are off the utility grid altogether.

There are challenges to tiny house living beyond the challenge of uncluttering your lifestyle to fit in a smaller space. Finding a place to park or insure your tiny home may be a challenge. In many areas, zoning regulations do not mention tiny homes, though that is starting to change as they become more popular.

Two groups with an increasing interest in tiny homes are younger people without children and those entering retirement age. Tiny homes are also being used as a tool in combating homelessness in some areas of the country. Check out the links at the end of this post for more information.

What follows is our conversation with Colby Kellogg-Youndt (CK-Y), which has been edited for clarity.

Sustainable Saratoga (SS): Colby, let’s turn to your tiny house. What was the inspiration for this project?

CK-Y: I have been designing a tiny house plan since I was really little. I wanted a place to live that was sustainable but also kind of unique. When the tiny house movement started taking off, I saw the ideas and started drawing blueprints on graph paper for an ideal tiny house. As I learned more and got older, I realized what I wanted out of space to live in, so I refined my drawings based on that. And then, two summers ago, I made my finalized blueprints of exactly where everything would go. The thickness of the walls, the width of the trailer, how tall it could be—I looked at all those guidelines and compiled it into this.
SS: What kind of guidelines did you have to meet?

CK-Y: It’s on a trailer, so it has to meet road specifications as well as housing specifications. For instance, it can be eight feet wide, and 13-and-a-half feet tall from the ground. I got a trailer that was specifically designed by a tiny house company. The flooring is actually within the trailer, so you get to keep that space without putting another sub-floor in. That gives you like an extra six inches of height. And it also gets you around wheel wells, which are hard to build around.

Where you can park it and what you can do with it varies by state. But a lot of times you can park it in the backyard on your own land or go to an RV park and just plug it in—or plug it into solar panels. Right now, it’s plugged into the barn.

SS: What did you use for materials?

CK-Y: The metal on the side is from a company near my grandparents’ house. That was pretty cheap to do a lot of siding with. Cedar siding is the other outdoor material that I used. You don’t really have to do much to it and it will last for years.

The wood that I used inside is from a guy in the Adirondacks, at Adirondack Hardwoods. He had wood lying around his shop that was too expensive for him to keep storing, so he sold it to us for incredibly cheap. We saved a lot on that sort of stuff. The countertop was wood that we found on the side of the road and the door was on a junk pile, so that was all free. The cabinets are just standard cabinets from Home Depot or Lowe’s.

SS: It sounds like affordability was a key consideration in your planning. Now that you’re almost finished with the project, do you think that tiny houses are a cost-effective way to live?

CK-Y: The total cost for this build was something like 15 grand. I’d live in a tiny house. I don’t know if I’d want to live with another person in a tiny house. But with just a dog or cat, it’s an affordable alternative!

SS: Describe the layout for us.

CK-Y: There are stairs up to a loft, which is my sleeping area. Downstairs, on one side, there’s going to be a little table and hopefully a wood stove. On the other side is going to be a couch that can fold out to be a guest bed.

In the bathroom there’s a shower and a toilet, and also some space under the stairs. It’s open underneath there, so there’s a bunch of storage space in the bathroom. It’s big enough that you could fit a washer/dryer combo in, which I don’t need right now, and that takes a lot of electricity—but eventually I could put one in there.

SS: We can see a stove and a refrigerator. Are all of your appliances electric? What do you use for heat?

CK-Y: I have a tiny little propane heater. It’s pretty efficient. Eventually I’d like to get a mini wood stove that can be mounted on the wall, and that would be my primary source of heat. The stove is also propane, and while the fridge is electric, I put a propane lead behind it so I can easily switch to a propane fridge if I want or need to go off-grid because it’s pretty hard with a small solar array to power a fridge.

SS: Are there any lessons that building a tiny house can teach us about reducing our environmental impact?

CK-Y: You just need to figure out what you want. I knew I wanted a shower where I didn’t hit my elbows, which is something that a lot of tiny houses don’t have. So that sacrifices some space. And I knew I wanted a kitchen that I could cook and bake in, because I like doing that. So then that took away from living space. But I don’t really like entertaining that many guests, so that was something I was willing to sacrifice. The key is to figure out what you want, and what you’re willing to give up, because there isn’t much square footage. And obviously, you can’t bring like a lot of belongings into it. So that makes you pare down your wardrobe and your things, which is inherently environmentally friendly. And you also don’t use much electricity, or much propane or whatever kind of method you’re using for heat.

SS: When will you be ready to move in?

CK-Y: Whenever the composting toilet comes! I just have to finish the plumbing.

For more info on tiny houses, visit these webpages:

• Tiny Home Builders
• Tiny houses are becoming a big deal (AARP)
• What is the Tiny House Movement?
• Affordable housing for people coming out of chronic homelessness in Austin, Texas

In honor of Women’s History Month, we want to highlight just a handful of the influential, brave, groundbreaking women who have had a positive impact on our planet and our lives. Women are powerful voices for change and we hope to inspire you with some of these stories.

Wangari Muta Maathai

Sustainable Saratoga Board member, Anne Ernst, recommended we profile Wangari for our trailblazing women series.

Wangari Muta Maathai was a fearless, rabble-rousing environmentalist and feminist who advocated for the rights of those who had the least power. One of 300 Kenyans chosen to go to a US university through the Kennedy Airlift program, she got her BS and MS in the US, then became the first East African woman to earn a Ph.D. from the University College of Nairobi. She was the first female professor at the University of Nairobi and organized a union to negotiate equal benefits for women. She believed that the hardships of the rural poor (environmental degradation, deforestation, food insecurity) were caused by disempowerment and loss of traditional community values, and she fought for a great democratic space, particularly for women.

Dr. Maathai founded the Greenbelt Movement, which focused on desertification, deforestation, water crises, and rural hunger. She paid women to gather seeds from native trees and successfully rear them to seedlings, and then planted those seedlings across Kenya. In the immediate focus, this addressed the concerns of rural Kenyan woman who said that, because local streams were drying up, they had to walk a long distance for firewood and their food supply was not secure. In the longer-term focus, the Greenbelt Movement began running seminars for women in civic and environmental education, to advocate for greater democratic space and to demand more accountability from national leaders.

Dr. Maathai fought a long series of conflicts against Kenyan president Daniel Moi, who cut off funding to the Greenbelt Movement and had Maathai thrown in jail multiple times. She was elected to Parliament in 2002, the same year that Moi lost power. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her effort to promote sharing resources in an equitable way. She passed away in 2011 from ovarian cancer, and the world is all the poorer for her loss.

Photo credit: Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA – Wangari Maathai 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75053665

Anne LaBastille

Our Board member and co-chair, Dianna Goodwin, recommended Anne LaBastille for our list of trailblazing women. Anne LaBastille was a conservationist and writer who lived and wrote in a cabin in the Adirondacks, à la Thoreau. You may be familiar with her best-known work, a four-part book series titled Woodswoman. She was one of the early conservationists that gave attention to important issues like acid rain and climate change. She was a staunch conservationist, a charter member of the New York State Adirondack Guides Association, and a commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency. She was also a feminist, a photographer, a Cornell faculty member.

Her obituary in the Adirondack Explorer described Anne: “To outsiders, her life seemed austere and simple, but she was a bundle of contradictions: tough yet tender, naïve yet calculating, and repulsed yet attracted by the power of her celebrity. She spoke in a near-whisper, allowing her writing to do the shouting. She had few peers when it came to stubbornness. Still, she was admired for steadfastly fighting for the preservation of the natural world. Her appeal was broad and lasting, yet her footprint on the earth was light and fleeting. She found all the philosophy she needed in the still, crystalline waters of a mountain lake at dawn.”

She has a fascinating life story, which is too hard to capture in this short space, so please check out these two links to learn more:

• Written in the Wilderness: The Life & Legacy of Anne LaBastille
• Anne LaBastille, 1933-2011 | Adirondack Explorer

Mary Oliver

One of our Board members, Robin Ambrosino, recommended Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver for our list. Robin: “I’m not a big fan of poetry in general. But Mary Oliver’s poems about the natural world appeal to me. They’re written in language I can understand.” They’re not “fancy” – as Mary Oliver herself said about her work. Mary had a deep love of nature, which is illustrated by these lines from “When Death Comes”

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

Mary Oliver died in 2019, but her voice lives on. Here’s her obituary from The Guardian. And here are a few of Robin’s favorite poems:

North Country
When I Am Among the Trees
This World

You can read more about Mary Oliver from the Poetry Foundation.

Photo credit: PoetryFoundation.org

Eunice Foote

Board member, Laura Faulk, nominated climate pioneer, Eunice Foote, for this series.

More than 150 years ago, Eunice Foote performed a simple but elegant experiment that led to a remarkable conclusion – that greenhouse gases warm the planet. Her experiment entailed filling glass cylinders with various substances like carbon dioxide and water vapor, placing them in the sun, and then recording the air temperatures inside. She noted that moist air became warmer than dry air, and that carbon dioxide caused the temperature to rise even more. She concluded, “An atmosphere of [carbon dioxide] would give to our earth a high temperature; and if as some suppose, at one period of its history the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature…must have necessarily resulted.” Foote’s work did not garner the attention it warranted, in part due to her gender. Foote was also a feminist and a signer of the Declaration of Sentiments at the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. She also has another New York connection: She attended the Troy Female Seminary from 1836-1838.

You can learn more about Eunice here:

• Happy 200^th birthday to Eunice Foote, hidden climate science pioneer!
• Overlooked no more: Eunice Foote, climate scientist lost to history
• This Suffrage-Supporting Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect But Didn’t Get the Credit, Because Sexism

Image Credit: Drawing by Carlyn Iverson, NOAA Climate.gov

Julia Butterfly Hill

Board member and co-chair, Laura Rappaport, recommended we profile Julia Butterfly Hill. Many of you may remember media coverage of her 738-day sit-in up in the branches of a 1,000-year-old California redwood tree in the late 1990s. Her courageous act of civil disobedience brought world-wide attention to the environmental impacts of clear cutting and the importance of preserving these unique ancient forests. Since climbing out of that tree, Julia has been a motivational speaker on social and environmental activism, an author, and a life coach. You can read more about what she’s been working on these days on her website.

Learn more about Julia:

• The Life of Tree-Sitter Julia Hill
• Julia Butterfly Hill: The Story of Luna, Leadership, and Legacy

Lois Gibbs

Board member and co-chair, Dianna Goodwin, suggested we highlight activist Lois Gibbs, “The Mother of Superfund” and organizer of the Love Canal fight. Lois had no formal training, but armed with persistence and passion, she founded the Love Canal Homeowner’s Association and fought government bureaucracy and industry money to protect the health of her Niagara Falls community. After years of struggle, more than 800 families were evacuated, and cleanup of Love Canal began. Her efforts also led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program. Gibbs inspired many people with her story about the power of ordinary citizens to enact meaningful change on environmental and social issues. She continues to be active on environmental justice issues, and formed the Center for Health, Environment and Justice to help train and support community groups around the country.

Learn more about Lois:

• Love Canal – Center for Health, Environment & Justice
• Lois Gibbs – Goldman Environmental Foundation
• Lois Gibbs: Grassroots Organizer and Environmental Health Advocate

Photo Credit: www.chej.org

Winona LaDuke

Winona LaDuke is a charismatic leader and grassroots organizer on climate change, Indigenous rights, environmental and human rights issues. A member of the Ojibwe Tribe, a graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities, a mother, an activist, and a political and cultural leader – LaDuke has become a leading voice in the struggle to protect Indigenous culture, food and lands. She is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, which works to raise awareness and support for Native environmental issues. She was highly visible among the opposition movement for the Keystone pipeline. She was also presidential hopeful Ralph Nader’s running mate in 1996 and 2000. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame for her leadership and impact.

Learn more here:

• Winona LaDuke (National Women’s Hall of Fame)
• Winona LaDuke: Activist, author & Politician

Photo credit: honorearth.org

Margorie (Margie) Richard

Our Executive Director, Wendy Mahaney, recommended Marjorie Richards for this series. Marjorie (Margie) Richard has spent decades fighting environmental racism, starting in her own backyard. Margie grew up in the historically Black Old Diamond neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana. You might be more familiar with its other name, Cancer Alley. Richard fought to hold corporations accountable for the health impacts caused by their pollution. In Norco, Margie fought Shell for over 25 years before the residents of Old Diamond were relocated and the Shell agreed to reduce its toxic emissions by 30%. Her work in Norco and her dedication to helping other communities fight corporate pollution earned her the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2004. She was the first Black recipient of this award.

You can find more about her fascinating story at:

• Goldman Environmental Prize
• Here is a great interview with Margie: How one woman fought one of the world’s biggest oil companies — and won
• Margorie (Margie) Richard

Photo credit goldmanprize.org

Skidmore professors Karen Kellogg and Mark Youndt live in a net-zero home in Greenwich that they designed themselves. Completed in 2013, their home combines passive solar design with a rooftop photovoltaic system to produce more fossil-free energy than it consumes each year.

Mark and Karen’s house is not the only green building on their property. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been joined at home by their daughter, Colby Kellogg-Youndt, a Biology and Environmental Studies major at St. Lawrence University. Colby is putting the finishing touches on a tiny house that she intends to live in after she graduates this spring.

Karen and Colby sat down with Sustainable Saratoga to share their experiences in green construction and low-carbon living. We start with our conversation with Karen, which has been edited for clarity. Click here to read our interview with Colby and learn more about the tiny house movement.

Sustainable Saratoga (SS): We’ll start with the main house. Karen, could you please tell us about your background and how you came to build your home?

Karen Kellogg (KK): I teach in the Environmental Studies and Sciences program at Skidmore. I teach a course on renewable energy and an environmental engineering class, among other things. I have an undergrad degree in engineering and a PhD in ecology. Mark, my husband, has always loved to build things, and he taught Colby how to build things, so there are always projects going on in our house.

Mark was the general contractor for this house. He and I had been collecting and sketching out ideas for years—ten, fifteen years or more. When we moved over to Greenwich, we finally had the opportunity to build our own home. And we found a piece of land that had great southern exposure that allowed us to build this house.

SS: What were your guiding principles?

KK: We made a few of decisions early on. For example, we were not going to go over 1400 square feet. In most regions of the world, that’s incredibly luxurious, but in the United States, that’s pretty small by current new build standards. We also wanted to not have any fossil fuels on the property. We wanted to use as much local material and local labor and expertise as possible. And we wanted to use as much recycled material as possible. Those were some things we decided out of the gate, and you’ll see all of them wrapped into this house.

Finally, we wanted to build a house that a typical person could see themselves in, where you didn’t have to monitor a lot of things, and it looks and feels like a typical home. We have a lot of friends who did off-grid, straw-bale, and other amazing building projects. I personally love straw-bale construction, but it’s a different kind of look and a different kind of feel. We wanted to build a house that an average family could see themselves living in, so we picked this contemporary farmhouse design.

SS: One essential feature of your house is its passive solar design. How does passive solar work?

KK: The southern face of the house is comprised mostly of windows and glass doors, so we get great sunlight coming in on that side. And then we have overhangs that are really exaggerated. In winter, the sun tracks low in the sky, so the sun’s rays come into our house. But in the summer, it tracks higher up in the sky, and the large overhangs block the sunlight. So it stays fairly cool in the summer, but takes advantage of that solar gain in the winter months.

Down the middle of the house is a thermal mass. It’s basically a cinderblock wall that’s filled with cement, and then there’s a stone face to it. As the sun comes in, it heats up the thermal mass during the day, and then it radiates heat into the evening hours. I got this idea from Hudson Valley Community College. One of their sustainable classroom buildings has something like this right down the center of it.

The passive solar alone is huge. We can leave for two weeks in the winter, like we do for the holidays, and without leaving any heat on or anything, it will stay 55 degrees in here. It’s incredibly effective. We don’t have a central heating system. We do have a woodstove in the middle of the house and a small mini-split that we use, which is a very energy efficient little heating and air conditioning unit. If we’re going to be gone and we know it’s going to be sub-zero for weeks on end, we’ll turn that on. But we rarely use it. We use it more for cooling in the summer than heating in the winter.

SS: You really don’t need any source of heat beyond that?

KK: Well, in the winter, like today, Colby and I had a fire in the woodstove, just because it was a cloudy day and it’s cold outside. Since we had a fire for part of the day, it’s 72 degrees in here now. But the passive solar will keep it warm enough. And sometimes, even in the winter, if it’s a sunny day, it will get hot and we’ll actually crack some windows. You can keep it super comfortable.

SS: Your house must be very well insulated, to stay that warm. What are some of the features of the house that help it retain heat?

KK: The envelope of our house uses double-studded wall construction comprised of an exterior two-inch by six-inch wall and an interior two-inch by four-inch wall, separated by three inches of space. Typical construction uses a single two-inch by six-inch wall with insulation installed between the studs. The downside of this method is that you get a thermal bridge happening through the two-by-sixes. The three-inch gap in our double-studded walls eliminates this thermal bridging. In our particular case, we used blown-in cellulose insulation, which is largely recycled material. When used in our double-studded 12-inch wall it gives us R-values of around 42, creating a super tight, super insulated home. An additional benefit of our wall design is that it creates really deep windowsills, sort of like the ones you see in old stone construction.

For the roof, we used trusses with 18 inches of blown-in cellulose insulation. This method also eliminates thermal bridging, and the 18 inches of cellulose create an R-value of around 65. And in the basement we used insulated concrete forms (ICFs), where concrete is poured between layers of polystyrene foam. That’s another piece that makes a big difference. The ICFs create an insulated layer in our below-ground space so that we don’t get that heat loss that comes from being next to 55-degree ground. ICF walls have an R-value of around 22, whereas a typical concrete or cinderblock foundation only has an R-value between one and two.

Finally, there are the windows. That was the biggest part of our budget, because we got really high quality, double-paned windows with different glazings. Every side of our house has slightly different windows to help regulate heating and cooling. We spent so much time talking about windows that I said, if I have to talk about windows for one more minute, I’m going to lose it!

SS: Does the design of your house pose any special challenges that you’ve had to meet?

KK: With super insulated houses like this, you have to be careful about carbon monoxide poisoning and that sort of thing. You really want some air exchange somehow. We have a heat recovery ventilator down in the basement that gives us fresh air exchange in an energy-efficient way. It uses baffles to give you some heat exchange, so that you’re not dumping warm air outside and taking in cold air—there’s some warming of that air as it comes in, and the reverse in the summer. We do have a few ducts in the walls, and the ventilator connects with the ductwork so that we get fresh air in all parts of the house. And it helps keep the house at a constant temperature.

That’s another thing that people worry about with these kinds of homes: that you’re going to get zones where it’s really cold and zones where it’s really hot. We designed our house with an open floorplan in order to minimize stratification. There’s an open stairwell down to the basement. Upstairs, we installed indoor windows in the two bedrooms to help with airflow, and both of those rooms have ceiling fans in them.

SS: Let’s turn to your roof. Tell us about what’s up there.

KK: We have a 7.2-kilowatt photovoltaic system on the roof. There are inverters in the basement, because we are net metered. To take advantage of incentives at the time, we decided to net meter, so we’re still connected to the grid. The inverter inverts our electricity so that it’s compatible with the grid. We use whatever electricity we need in the house, and then whatever is left gets sent back to the grid. There are moments when we might draw some electricity, but on the balance, we sell more than we draw. We’ve always had the intention, as battery technologies come along, of going off-grid, we just haven’t quite done it yet. But the battery technology is to the point where it’s affordable and reasonable to do that.

Then, we have solar-thermal hot water. We get all of our hot water from a flat panel drainback system, which is really straightforward. We have a 90-gallon tank that’s heated with the thermal panels, and then we have a small reservoir in the same unit that can be heated with electricity if we need it. Pete Skinner designed and installed our system. He’s a super interesting guy, and he’s been designing these systems for a long time.

We got our PV system from Hudson Solar, which is now SunCommon. The person who helped us, Scott Rakowski, is great. He’s now at Kasselman Solar.

SS: You mentioned incentives. What incentives did you take advantage of?

KK: We took advantage of NYSERDA’s incentive when we installed the PV panels and solar thermal. It was a nice incentive. The passive solar design wasn’t covered.

SS: What made you decide to put solar panels on your roof, as opposed to elsewhere on your property?

KK: We have eleven acres, so we could have done it on the land, but we thought it would be aesthetically pleasing to have it on the roof. We also manage our land to promote as much biodiversity as possible. We have a mowing regime that we use to promote milkweed growth for monarch migration, and that kind of thing, so we really love keeping our land open like this. That was a piece of it, too.

SS: Did you ever consider geothermal as an option?

KK: Yeah, we looked at geothermal. And it was just overkill for us. Good siting and passive solar design: that just takes care of so much of it, you know?

SS: How do you monitor your home’s energy performance to ensure that it’s actually net zero?

KK: Well, we have to record our electricity production. We do meter readings every month. But it’s all electric, so that’s it! I mean, I guess we monitor how many truckloads of wood we get every three years, but there’s just not a lot to monitor.

SS: It seems like one key component of living in a net-zero home is reducing your energy use, so that you don’t consume more power than you can generate. When you designed your home, did you also have to consider making changes in your lifestyle?

KK: We were pretty minimalist people to begin with, so I don’t know that we made a conscious choice—that’s just how we are. I’m looking at our kitchen, and we have the stove, a coffeemaker… we don’t have a lot of stuff. We’re not big electronics people, either. We finally got a TV with COVID, because we need some entertainment! But we just don’t have a big plug load.

SS: But you make enough energy to charge your electric vehicle—

KK: Yes, we do. I’m laughing, because we have three Chevy Volts now. We each have a Volt, so we’re rearranging plugs all the time. But yes, we generate enough to charge those vehicles. And we’re lucky that at Skidmore, we have charging stations, so Mark and I can charge at work, too.

SS: Is there anything you’ve had to give up in order to attain net-zero energy?

KK: Yes, you do have to make compromises—like I’m looking at the stove right now. We committed to not having fossil fuels at the house site. We do have gas in our tractor, down in the barn. But we have an electric stove, and honestly, I’d rather have a gas stove for cooking. And we sometimes wish we had a third bedroom, but we were committed to lower square footage. We’ve had to make those kinds of compromises.

SS: Did you take any steps to minimize the carbon footprint of your building materials?

KK: We made that commitment to use local and recycled materials. All the flooring in the house is recycled bleachers from a gym in New Jersey that we purchased through Trevett Millworks. The wood that we used for our kitchen island is from an old house that was being torn down here in Greenwich. The fireplace slab is an old sidewalk piece that we picked up. The table is made out of barn siding, and the chairs were being thrown out from a geology lab at Skidmore, so I grabbed them and brought them home. Those have been our dining chairs for 20-some years, I guess. They’re super durable. Our kitchen countertops are made of slate from a place up in Granville. So again, we tried to buy local materials and we hired local people to help with the build.

SS: Some homeowners who would like to live in net-zero houses might be put off by the perception that they’re more expensive than standard construction. Was your home costly to build?

KK: The cost per square foot of this build was comparable to a build with high quality materials that you’d build in a standard sort of way. But we sort of didn’t process that we wouldn’t have monthly bills! We don’t have heating bills. I mean, we buy wood once every three years or something. And we make money on our electricity.

SS: What advice would you offer to someone interested in building a net-zero home?

KK: Do your homework. We spent so much time, so many years, researching what we wanted in a house and visiting and talking with other people that have done similar sorts of builds. It was a super rewarding process, because we love the outcome. And we loved picking out and finding all of the different components of the house.

But it was also a disheartening process in a lot of ways, to think that we still have so far to go to have this be more of a typical mindset, a typical kind of build. It was a challenge to find people that had any experience with this kind of construction. We told the people who did our framing, for example, to follow the prints—it’s a different kind of build, follow the prints! But we pulled up the driveway one day, and they had framed out the second story as you would a standard build. So they had to take some of the walls down and reframe them. That part was a little bit frustrating.

I think things are getting better as more people are sharing information, but finding good subcontractors is hard. When we found the people who did the blown-in cellulose insulation, we were thrilled. It was a father-daughter team, Patten Insulation, and oh my gosh, it’s like artwork. They did such a great job. It was amazing to see their craftsmanship. Finding somebody to do those insulated concrete forms—that was tough, but we finally found somebody to do it.

To help them plan their house, Karen and Mark consulted with architect Scott Baum of Eco+Plan Design LLC. You can see further pictures of their home at his website.

Click here to read our interview with Colby, and learn more about tiny houses.

Interested in geothermal? Check out our webinar on geothermal heating.