With every passing year my appreciation grows for the great care that my Grandmother took with the environment and conservation. Certainly the Great Depression had an impact on her, but she had an obvious deep sense of the world’s limited resources — a deeper sense than most — and her actions spoke mountains. At The Pinto Ranch, small wood-burned plaques still hang above all toilet paper rolls reading: “Please use tissue sparingly. 4 squares is all you need!” I remember Grammy’s store-room shelves stacked with used egg cartons, waiting to be filled with eggs from her free-roaming ranch chickens; I remember carefully flattened and folded tin-foil to be re-used; plastic utensils, containers or paper items that had the potential for later use, stacked neatly; glass jars for storing bulk dry goods to avoid wasteful packaging. I remember the adamant instruction to “Don’t let the faucets run.” Short showers. Water early in the day or late in the evening. Grow your own food. Waste nothing. Treat the earth and the animals with care and respect because they care for you.

In building a brand that carries the spirit of my Grandmother, I feel a great sense of responsibility to honor her teachings, and to continue a life of good stewardship toward the earth. It’s not easy to do, with persuasive price pressures dictating that our business cannot always support a green effort. We do what we can, today, and are committed to the ongoing transition to becoming a more and more earth-friendly company. With our Organic line of Yoga apparel, we make the choice to pay more for natural and organic fibers, such as Bamboo, Soy, Organic Cotton. In doing so we also make a choice to make less on, or sometime to charge more for, these items, but we know that there is value in the non-toxic farming methods and healthy treatment of the environment. That’s what we are buying, and we are willing to pay more for it. That’s what you are buying, and we hope you recognize the value in making your own conscious choices about where something comes from and how it is created. Consumer purchases sometimes seem so far away from the earth, but they are directly connected, as we all are… as I am to Grammy Mac.