Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Into the Hermitage: Low-Impact Gypsy Life on the Road

Few of us can even begin to imagine whittling our possessions down to just a few boxes full of items and living in a room that measures barely eight feet wide. But what if that room was a recycled gypsy home on wheels, with an ever-changing view of the Scottish countryside out of reclaimed leaded glass church windows?

Welcome to the utterly enchanting reality of artist Rima Staines and her partner Tui, a musician. The talented pair live a nomadic existence in their wooden horse box turned charming miniature home, complete with a double bed, rows of bookshelves and a wood stove – all documented on their blog, Into the Hermitage.

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WebEcoist: Sustainable Living, Green Design and Environmental Oddities

One of the latest additions to the green blogosphere comes to us from the creators of visually breathtaking, fascinating web magazine WebUrbanist.  It’s called WebEcoist, and it’s a buffet of beautiful green design, stunning nature photography, green tips and even vegan recipes. Since WebEcoist debuted in August they’ve been rolling out article after article packed with the kind of images and topics that suck you in for hours until you realize it’s 3am and you totally forgot to do the things you went online for in the first place.

Take, for example, a recent piece entitled ’10 Breathtaking Natural Cloud and Color Formations’. It’s part of a four-week four-elements series, which also includes sublime HDR sky, weather and cloud photos as well as chilling airborne disasters and weather patterns.

From WebEcoist:

WebEcoist is dedicated to the premise that the natural environment is not only fundamentally important to us in practical terms but is also amazingly intriguing in all kinds of ways many of us rarely consider. WebEcoist, like its sister site, is dedicated to in-depth and original articles on all kinds of subjects from art, design and technology to daily green living and environmental exploration. Here the idea of ‘going green’ does not just mean sorting your recycling – it is a way of looking at the world and thinking about our place and actions within it. Here you will find a vast amount of information condensed into articles and series that bring a wide range of useful and interesting eco-info right to your web browser.

Smart writing, unique topics and fantastic images (we really can’t overstate that, they’re that good) make WebEcoist a highly worthy addition to your RSS feed.  WebEcoist will undoubtedly surpise you again and again, serving up the kind of content you just can’t find anywhere else.

Get a Dose of Humor with your Green News at EarthFirst.com

If you’re not already reading EarthFirst.com every day, you’re missing out.  And I’m not just saying that because I’m the snarky green blog’s lead writer.  It’s the best place on the web to get your green news served up with some humor, sarcasm and goofy cartoons.  Created and run by a cast of characters that believes green can be funny, cool and exciting, EarthFirst (not associated with activist group EarthFirst!) doesn’t shy away from calling out greenwashers and foes of the environment.

There are a lot of doom-and-gloom stories out there in the green news world, and while you’ll certainly find dramatic topics like ‘7 Reasons You Should be Losing Sleep Tonight’ and ‘9 Natural Disasters Throughout the Ages’ on EarthFirst, you’ll also find the latest green gadgets, weirdest eco-inventions, funny illustrated go-green tips and original cartoons by EarthFirst’s own Jerry King.  Among the blog’s unique categories are ‘Haters’, which exposes people attempting to derail positive change, and ‘EarthFirstU’, which highlights all the green goings-on at colleges and universities throughout North America.

We at EarthFirst.com aren’t afraid to call out folks doing the wrong thing, and heap praise on those working hard to further green causes.  We’ve caught greenwashers attempting to use the environmental movement to market their shady products and services, and berated politicians for taking the side of greedy corporations and their lobbyists.  One need only peruse posts tagged ‘jerkass’ to see what I mean – stories to which this tag has been applied include ‘Senate Fails Again to Renew Key Energy Credit’ and ‘HP Over-Packages to Epic Proportions’.

EarthFirst also highlights the good being done in the world, including the series ‘Who’s Who in Green’ (which has featured Eco Chick’s own Starre Vartan, Olivia Zaleski and Summer Rayne Oakes!) and ‘Featured Change Agents’, which calls attention to environmental activists and their pet projects.

So head on over to EarthFirst.com and check out the videos, book reviews, analyses of the ‘green-ness’ of the original Star Wars trilogy and controversial takes on topics like ‘Why You’re a Global Warming Denier’.  If you spit your coffee all over your computer screen reading EarthFirst’s latest posts while enjoying your breakfast, don’t say I didn’t warn you.