The First Six Months: Nothing, and Everything, Went Right

The Plan Included a Fence

Six months ago today, we moved into our house. It was the fifth house we had made an offer on, and we were ecstatic to finally be moving in. We had grand plans for a beautiful privacy fence to be installed right away, as we knew the outdoor accessories of our Zero Waste lifestyle would receive backlash from our extremely tidy neighbors. Believe it or not, we truly did not intend to become as visible as we are today!

Almost immediately, the fence plan failed. Lumber prices were astronomically high, and fencing companies were already booking into next spring by the time we got here. We realized quickly that the fence simply wasn’t going to be an option, and made plans to explain our increasingly visible shenanigans as best we could. We’d try for the fence again in the spring.

Or so we thought.

Then, our neighbors got loud, and not in a good way!

The best-laid plans, am I right?

Within 3 weeks, we’d been reported to the city multiple times and had visits from local inspectors.

Within 3 months, we’d made it onto the front page of the paper. Twice.

Is it tacky? Millard family practicing zero-waste lifestyle deals with neighbors’ concerns

‘This is America,’ city councilman says of complaints about zero-waste property in Millard

Ultimately not a single citation was issued, nor law was broken. We’d taken great care to ensure we complied with all city and county regulations. We’d done our best to explain the whats and whys of our lifestyle, and we promised we’d get the fence up next spring. Ultimately, it didn’t matter.

A handful of neighbors wanted to make sure we knew the unwritten law of the suburbs:

Differences are best kept behind tall fences, and conservatism must remain supreme at all costs.

After the second article ran, Omaha showed us what it’s made of.

In the wake of an increasingly public and occasionally violent reaction to our zero waste, openly progressive existence in this place, we discovered something unexpected: Our city is bursting at the seams with folks who want to make sustainable change. In just a few weeks, hundreds of people had reached out to us with questions about how they could make sustainable change in their daily lives, and we did our best to connect with every person that contacted us. We ramped up our social media presence as well. Even then, we quickly realized this local sustainability movement is gaining enormous ground, and we’d need to get a little more organized in our personal involvement.

Thus, this website was born! Morgan has experience in the basics of blogging from her experiences during 2020, and the rest of the crew has been crash-coursing these past few weeks. We’re learning as we go!

We know that we have an enormous amount of work ahead of us, both online and off. We’re ready for the challenge, and we’re excited to continue along this lumpy, bumpy, ‘unexpected fiascos around every curve’ adventure with y’all.In the first six months, somehow nothing, and everything went right – We expect that trend to continue.

No more fences

Looking back, it seems silly to us that we ever wanted a fence. We didn’t plan to come to this suburb to change it from within; we wound up here because this is where we found a house. But every moment in this place has been a reminder to us to think beyond our individual actions and work as a team with those around us who are fighting for change.

Breaking down barriers between families and communities is the future of inclusive and sustainable urban and suburban spaces. We knew about the familial aspect of this from the day we got here. Moving in with your in-laws is no small adventure! But it wasn’t until the fencing plans fell through that we experienced the true value of community and knew that we needed to take our sustainability goals to the next level – again.

Whether you live in our city or not, we hope you enjoy the content we create, and can come with us on a journey to tear down fences wherever we are. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re all in this together, and the more connections we can make, the more change we can create.