The outdoor living of summer doesn’t have to end when the weather turns cooler.

Autumn is the new summer when it comes to outdoor living. From tailgating at football games and outdoor hikes on the weekend to Halloween and Oktoberfest, there are plenty of opportunities for gathering with friends and celebrating the bounty of the season outdoors. The outdoor living in autumn is easy, so fire up the grill and get the fire going in the firepit!

Outdoor Living Tips and Ideas for Autumn

1. Firepit

A fire is a must have when entertaining in autumn. Not only can a fire provide warmth and lighting, but nothing’s much better than homemade s’mores over a fire whether camping or in your backyard. If you looking to build a fire in your backyard, consider whether you want to purchase a firepit or build your own.

2. Pumpkin Everything

Autumn is the season of the pumpkin. While you may eschew the cult of the pumpkin spiced latte drink, that doesn’t mean that everything pumpkin is bad. Roasted pumpkin soup and pumpkin muffins are the perfect eats for those cooler nights out on the deck.

3. Outdoor Games

If you are having friends over, outdoor games are a fun way to pass the time. While you might not want to sit down to a board game outdoors (or maybe you do), games like flag football, tag, or cornhole are not only fun but can help keep the blood flowing and keep you warm and energized.

4. Warm Drinks

The cooler days and nights of autumn call for warming drinks. From mulled apple cider to hot toddys, the key to staying warm on cool nights around the firepit are “warm you from the inside” drinks. From hot chocolate to Irish Coffee, it’s all good!

5. Outdoor Seating

If you are planning on spending time outdoors chillaxing, the same seating that served you in the summertime may not do in the autumn. Consider swapping out those plastic Adirondack chairs for something that’s not going to be so cold to sit on–and consider adding some warm and washable throws to keep your legs warm.

6. Outdoor Lighting

While spending time outdoors in the autumn sun sounds nice, you may want to invite some guests over for an outdoor dinner party on the deck. That’s all well and good, but don’t forget that it does get dark earlier in the fall and you will need to provide light for your evening dinner. Everything from candles to camping lanterns will work, but just make sure that your guests can see their plates!

7. Autumn Garden

Don’t watch everything you grew over the summer just wither and die — be sure you’ve got some late summer and early autumn crops to tend to. Be that squash, corn, greens like kale or collards — there’s plenty you can grow before the first frost hits (and beyond). Plus, tending to your outdoor garden gives you an excuse to get outside. And what better for your outdoor dinner than fresh picks from your autumn garden?

Related on EcoSalon

7 Super Lovely Additions to an Autumn Party: Entertain Beautifully
20 Inspiring Quotes About Autumn
Add a Backyard Fire Pit and Make the Most of Autumn

The post 7 Ways to Extend Your Outdoor Living Season Well Into Autumn appeared first on EcoSalon.

We know where you’ll be this Wednesday. Somewhere hot, grassy and sweaty, waiting for festivities. Here’s how to do it, with dignity.  

The fourth of July is all about humming John Doe’s classic and waiting, be it for a parade, a veggie burger (“No, Uncle Buck. Chicken doesn’t count.”), fireworks, or your mid-morning buzz to pass.

While waiting, you might find yourself sitting gracelessly on a patch of grass, feigning comfort as each blade congeals with the sweat on your fanny. Realizing that your tequila intake has rendered you dehydrated, you might resort to the nearest plastic water bottle with funny tasting water, probably the result of your toddler nephew’s backwashing.

Anything can happen, on the fourth, and it’s usually not for your (or the planet’s) greater well-being. Until now. Here’s a lifestyle friendly waiting kit to keep you contented and comfortable on the sweatiest day of the year.

Old Glory Tent

For gazing at stars…and stripes, or escaping the sun. From our new favorite conscious camping goods purveyor, FieldCandy.

Lounge Cushy

A portable chaise luxury lounger with a detachable waterproof cover and carrying strap. By Smooff, products designed for embracing living and breathing the outdoors.

Sigg Swigs

Swiss reusable bottle company, with an Americana twist. First two via CafePress, third one available from Gifts.com.

The Anti-Bored Game

We’ve covered BIS’ board games before, a no-brainer smart alternative to an afternoon of beer pong. The You Are What You Eat memory game is a surefire way to keep you from relapsing on Franken-footers.

Drinkwel Before Getting Drunk

Prior to over-imbibing, remember to take the drinker’s multivitamin, formulated by a naturopathic doctor. Its blend of antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals is designed to help your body process alcohol without hindering your God-given liberty to get really, really pissed.

What Not-So-Fresh Feeling?

These personal body wipes/outdoor kit allows you to stay fresh outdoors. It comes with Action Wipes and an all-natural sports spray that rehydrates the skin and repels bugs. From Life Elements.

The Wine Tote

For the BYOB occasion, a handcrafted bent walnut bag with latigo leather strapping and wool picnic blanket. From Teal and Gold.

Image: Celebrations Home via Tiny Water Photography

The post A Fourth of July Tailgating Kit for This Year’s Fireworks Display appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnTake that obsession with food porn and sea salt and do something with it.

“I just had a Portland moment and only you will appreciate,” my friend said, calling from Tuscon in the middle of a Sunday.

“Ok, what?”

“Well, so we walked into this cute coffee shop and the first thing I thought to myself ‘I wonder where they roast their beans?'” she paused. “Who am I?”

At first thought I saw nothing wrong with this situation. Good coffee shops tend to sell good coffee, and if they’re really good, they’re probably running a coffee roasting operation in the back. Nothing weird there.

But at second thought, I realized what she meant. Most people, even those in coffee-centric cities, are probably more concerned with what coffee drink they’re going to buy than where the beans were roasted. We’re in the minority.

This call came less than six hours after brewing a morning French press on a quick one night girls’ camping trip. I had ground the beans before leaving home to ensure that we had good coffee on the trail. As we’ve already discussed, coffee is exponentially more delicious when brewed after a night in a tent.

“What kind of coffee is that?” one of my girlfriends asked.

“Water Avenue,” I responded.

“Have you tried Oblique?” she offered up

“Have you tried Extracto?” chimed in the third of our trio.

Here we were by the side of a stream in the middle of the forest discussing craft coffee roasters, and although we left it at that, I am certain that the conversation could have continued, naming off a handful of other small coffee roasting companies in the city that are neighborhood favorites and garner cult-like followings.

The rest of the world thinks Portlandia is guided by Stumptown, but the rest of us know better than to put all of our coffee desires into one basket, even when we’re not extreme coffee aficionados. Most of us just want a good, strong cup, and like being able to purchase beans that are roasted on site. When we travel it’s not surprising that we seek out the same thing.

Back to the phone call a few hours later.

“This coffee thing has gotten me thinking,” continued the friend calling from Tuscon. “I realized this weekend how many times I thought “food porn!” and it’s getting a little out of control. Am I a foodie now? I think you should write about that in your column. When did you realize that you were a foodie? What was your defining moment?”

Good question.

What is it that makes you a foodie?

Is it when you’re sitting on your couch post-run eating a semi-failed batch of No Bake Chocolate Energy Bars with Sea Salt that you made the day before because you just felt the need to tweak a recipe? Is it when your friends ask you to plan dinner? Is it when you look at your phone and realize that 75% of your photos involve food or drinks? Is it when you took your own syrup with you to a restaurant because you knew you wouldn’t be happy with what they had to offer? Is it when you’re in the backcountry drinking specialty coffee because you refuse to bring instant?

It could be all of those things, or a long list of others, but does a defining foodie moment even matter? Why is it that having an appreciation for good food is all of a sudden an indicator for something larger?

As human beings, we have a need to define ourselves. We’re born with a tribe mentality, and because food brings us together more than many other things do, if we like good food we seek out those that do the same.

But unfortunately the word “foodie” also has a negative connotation to it. It’s stuffy, implies the obsession with a certain type of menu and a little pretentious. I in fact, hate calling myself a “foodie.” “Food-obsessed,” “food crazed” or “food freak” sure, but “foodie” just has an odd ring to it.

However, we have yet to find a better word for the phenomenon and it has come to define a cultural trend and shift. A trend of people that have started thinking about food. Although we might smirk at craft coffee obsessions and the need to check out every hole-in-the-wall operation that claims to be farm-to-table, we are thinking about the value of food, the time that goes into it and the people that are behind producing it.

Or are we?

A Mother Jones article last week cited that only 13.5% of food workers earn a living wage.

Americans love to talk about food—how asparagus is best prepared, which preservatives to avoid, which types of fish are in peril, where to find the best tacos or most delectable peach pies. Most of us spend far less time contemplating the people that pick, slaughter, sort, process, and deliver the products of this 1.8 trillion dollar industry—a group of workers that makes up one-sixth of the country’s workforce.

Herein lies the problem. We are obsessed with food, talking about it, taking pictures of it, and making our own judgements on the establishments that serve it, and even so we are still disconnected from the entire process. This thing that is at the core of all of our daily routines and we still don’t really know where our food comes from, who’s producing it and how much those people are getting paid.

That is frightening.

All this talk of and obsession with food doesn’t amount to anything if it doesn’t lead to change. Be that change in public health, workers’ rights, or corporate social responsibility, there’s a lot that needs to happen. Which means that voting with your fork does make a difference. Not once or twice a week, but every single day.

Having a vested interest in food has to be more than a trend, it has to be a movement. If we’re in the position to be making smart choices about every item that we eat, we should be. That means no food from China, even when it comes from a store with a fancy name, always thinking about if we’re eating the most sustainably sourced product, even when we’re tired and lazy, and choosing brands that are committed to working directly with independent farmers, even if doing so takes a little more research.

Maybe our defining foodie moments aren’t when we realized we were food obsessed, but when we realized we were making choices that made ourselves, our communities and our planets healthier. And that is something that anyone can do.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Are You Part of a Movement? appeared first on EcoSalon.