Dirt cheap

photo courtesy of vickihoefle.com

I know, it's been awhile, but did you really think you'd heard the last from me?  Come on, you know I love to dish the dirt!  Here's a riddle for you...

What do eggs shells, coffee grounds, cucumber skins, banana peels, apple cores, nut shells, and grass clippings have in common?

Well they make great organic "green" additions to the compost pile. Greens are rich in nitrogen, and are usually wet or moist.  Eliminating organic items from our trash and landfills, then turning them into "black gold" or gorgeous rich soil is a sustainable, dirt cheap way improve soil quality and feed your plants and/or lawn. 

Besides the free "greens" that often originate from the kitchen or yard clippings, you will need to layer in "browns" or carbon sources that provide energy, prevent compaction, and increase airflow.  Since browns are dryer, they help absorb moisture and decrease odors, which helps eliminate critters from visiting the compost pile.  So where do you get browns?  I'm willing to bet you have lots of "browns" that can also be saved from the trash.   Do you have a paper shredder?  If so, you can add the shredded paper to your compost.  How about newspapers, wood ash from your fire pit, dryer lint, or sawdust?  And everyone has toilet paper tubes or cardboard egg cartons that can be ripped up and added to the compost.  And most notably at this time of year, the beautiful leaves that drift to the ground need to be raked, make a wonderful addition to your compost pile.  It always makes me shake my head when I see black plastic trash bags full of leave out at the curb.  Don't they have any space to compost?  Do they not know how?  Could they take the leaves to their DPW?  The leaves should be decomposing naturally, replenishing the soil somewhere, not taking up space in a landfill encased in plastic bags.  Browns are an important part of the composting process because they slow the composting process and feed good bacteria.

Some people favor compost bins that can be purchased for big bucks, but it's not necessary to buy a

bin.  Growing up, I remember taking the compost out to the very simply constructed "bins" made from galvanized wire fencing that was fashioned into a circle and supported by green fencing posts.  Or how about constructing a "bin" out of found or free materials such as 4-5 pallets.  Simply nail or screw them together creating a square enclosure, with or without a bottom.  There are also plenty of plans on the internet.  Or if you aren't the handy sort, you can compost  "in place" if you desire.  In the past, we've had a section within our garden that was left fallow, and we composted directly in that area.  A side perk of that method was that the following summer we had a cantaloupe plant grow, and we enjoyed the melons late in the summer!    

Although taking the compost out has never been one of the favorite chores in the household, we continue to compost even during the winter months.  Deep within the compost bin, millions of micro-and macro- organisms such as good bacteria and worms are hard at work breaking down the greens and browns.  Along with the greens and browns that you supply, air and moisture are also necessary.  In our yard, the bin stays warm and steam resulting from decomposition can often be seen in the colder months.  Even if we can get the pitchfork into the bin to cover over the latest offerings, we can place shredded paper on top, or allow it to freeze until the weather warms.  The soil that has resulted over the years is wonderful rich, organic soil that we use in our vegetable and flower gardens.  

As the saying goes, you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die, so why not give composting a try?  Eliminate huge amounts of organics and paper products from your trash, enhance your soil quality and enjoy the benefits of free, new soil, and just think ...it's dirt cheap!

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Have you ever read the book  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff?  It's one of my favorite kid books because I can relate to it so much! Read on to see why...

Following a recent teenage get together at our house, I was putting away some serving trays and bowls in the dining room buffet, but the drawers were cramped.  Soooo, I took the opportunity to clean out the drawer to make things fit neatly; the things that we rarely use, or never use, went into a donation box, which of course is much greener than the dumpster.  I repeated the process for the remainder of the drawers....which meant recycling some mostly spent birthday and scented candles into firestarters.  Which lead me to the laundry room to my lint collection basket, and recycled cardboard egg cartons, which I stopped to fill with the lint and candle pieces.  Wah-la, firestarters!

While I was in the laundry room, I spied a bunch of cook books that I had placed on top of the dryer...I had moved these cookbooks from cabinet above the microwave because there were too many crammed into the hard to reach cabinet.  The kids could never fit the cookbooks back in the cabinet because they can't reach, and because there were too.  Soo, to resolve that problem, I culled through the cookbooks so they'd fit neatly in the cabinet, and added a few to the growing donation pile.  I was wracking my brain to figure out a new location for some of hubby's specialty cookbooks.

As I was trying to figure out a good home for the overflow cookbooks, it dawned on me that there were a few of hubby's cookbooks on another nearby bookshelf.  So, in typical If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion, I went to the bookcase to see if the overflow cook books would fit.  Well, you may have guessed that this lead me to sort through the dusty, kid's books that have been taking up space on the bookshelf (my kids have outgrown the books).  Many of the kid books are books I cherish and want to keep for future grandchildren.  So, during the course of the day I went through the books with each of the kids to see if there were any they also considered keepers.  This process resulted in 3 piles of books: books to share with our cousins; the keepers that needed to be moved to a new location; and a pile of books to swap.  If you haven't heard of swap.com, you should check it out.  It's a site to swap books, housewares, and much more with others who want to keep things out of the landfill, but receive something useful in return.

So the kids' books were cleared out, and the overflow cookbooks now filled that space...but you guessed it...this little Mouse now had to find a home for the kid's books that we wanted to keep, which lead me upstairs to a bookshelf with a collection of kid books, including the Little House on the Prairie series, a bunch of picture books, and classics.  Sooo, to fit this batch of keepers, I had to delete an equal amount of books that were already shelved there.  Which lead me to add to the 2 remaining piles;  books for cousins, and swap.com books. 

Since the downstairs bookshelves were being reorganized, I figured we should continue with the second bookshelf....so we cleaned out the collection of movies, deleted some, and vacuumed the shelves.  Some of the movies went to the donate pile, some of the movies went to the swap.com pile, and the rest were neatly replaced in the shelves. 

But wait, there’s more!  My Mouse experience wasn't over just yet.  I headed back to the laundry room.  There were still some bowls and things to fit back into the laundry room pantry…which was a mess.  I stood staring at it for a minute, and a light bulb went off that I might be able to consolidate all baking pans, pie plates, cake pans, specialty shape cake pans, etc. under one of the large cabinets in the laundry room.  It took me awhile to figure out what to keep, and how to best organize the odd shaped pans such as bundt pan, snowflake and heart shaped pans, special muffin tins, etc.  As I took items from the pantry, and stacked them neatly in the cabinet, I realized that there was still another weird shaped pan...and then I found another half sheet cake pan.  I culled a bunch of cookie cutters that we no longer use and added them to the pile for our cousins, creating space for the pans.  Removing the baking pans from the pantry created space for the food processor, potato slicer, the Pampered Chef mandolin slicer, crock pot, large bowls, etc all on one shelf in the pantry.  Eventually I turned my attention to the very top shelf of the pantry, and as I reorganized it, I kept thinking that I needed to make things easily accessible because since the top shelf is tough to reach, and I didn't want things falling down on us.  Sooo, I took the opportunity to toss some more things into the donate pile. 

Cleaning out the pantry lead me to my computer to email my Mom with a few questions about a few of the items I was removing from the pantry.  Did she want them?  If not, they could be swap items, or donate items.  The day continued in this fashion, but in the end I felt like I accomplished a lot by decluttering several cabinets and drawers, removing and donating boxes and bags full of items we don't need and/or use while simultaneously keeping all those useful things out of the landfill. 


So in the event that you have one of those clean-out days that doesn't turn out the way you planned, and it evolves into a If You Give a Mouse a Cookie kinda day, do your best to keep it green!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Does anyone remember the funny Staples commercial?  It makes me smirk every time, and now  at Christmas when I hear the original tune, I think of the commercial ;)

Well, the "most wonderful time of year" when the kids head back to school and hit the books, is just a few days away.  So why not send them back with a few eco-friendly school supplies?  One of my favorite green pens is the Pilot Bottle 2 Pen or B2P.  It's the "world's first pen made from recycled bottles", writes nice and smooth, and the kids can brag that they are using a pen made from 89% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.   

It's hard to believe but my youngest is about to begin his last year of elementary school.  A few things almost all elementary school teachers ask children to bring are crayons, colored pencils, and markers to school.  For years my top pick has been Crayola.  Not only do I like Crayola's products, but I'm thrilled with their green initiatives.  Crayola is committed to using renewable energy, reducing waste, and "helping protect the environment, so children have a cleaner, greener planet".   Crayola's initiative to harness the power of the sun, and build a 30,000 panel solar farm on 20-acres of it's land is impressive.  According to Crayola, the panels produce enough power to make 1 billion Crayola crayons and 500 million markers a year.  Not only are their markers made with solar power, but they are manufactured with re-ground plastic scrap from marker production.  Although the entire marker is not recyclable, the #5 plastic caps can be recycled, and if the tip and reservoir are removed, the marker barrels can also be recycled.  Finally, Crayola's colored pencils are never made from endangered or rainforest wood, but are made from reforested wood; for every tree used, another of the same kind is planted. 

When it comes to paper, there are many eco-friendly options as well.  Staples sells Eco-friendly composition books and wirebound notebooks made with 80% sugarcane waste and printed with "eco-conscious vegetable-and-water based inks."  Other options, available at Target are the trendy and cute Greenroom products made with soy inks and recycled paper; recycled paper notebooks, recycled 3-ring binders, tree-free notebooks made from banana paper, recycled file folders, and recycled journals.

Even pencils, a staple for the school-bound, are now more eco-friendly.  For precision pencils, there are Pentel EnerGize-X Mechanical pencils made of 84% recycled plastic and making them more eco-friendly is the fact that they are refillable.  For traditional pencils think "green"...not only are the Paper Mate Earth Write pencils green on the outside, but they are also green on the inside and made with 100% recycled wood.

So send them back with some guilt free eco-friendly products and as they board the bus and you wave good-bye, go ahead and smirk as "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" commercial plays in your head.  

It Ain't easy being green

So it's been awhile since I've posted.  

Basically, we got stuck in project purgatory, but at least there was green intent behind it! 

Remember "A is for Air Quality"?  http://alacartegreen.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-for-air-quality.html Well, in an effort to improve the indoor air quality, we embarked on removing the dust mite laden carpet in Tiger Lily's bedroom, and replacing it with bamboo flooring.  


In terms of "green" flooring, bamboo is extremely sustainable because it can grow between 1-2 feet a day.  It does not need to be replanted after harvesting because it has an extensive network of roots, and spouts new shoots continually.  In addition, bamboo perpetually converts greenhouse gases as it grows, filters the air while making oxygen, and doesn't need pesticides or fertilizers to grow at amazing rates.  This is one rugged, useful, rigid, sustainable grass!  Not only was our choice of flooring "green", but it saved us some green too.  Compared to the oak hardwood we'd originally considered to match the first floor, the bamboo cost significantly less, approximately half as much per square foot.  http://alacartegreen.blogspot.com/2010/05/bamboo-or-bambooooozled.html 

As a result of the difference in price, the flooring replacement extended into the hallway, and the next 2 bedrooms.  These areas also desperately needed to be replaced, and by removing the dust laden carpet and padding, and installing the green, clean bamboo flooring we've improved the air quality, as well as increased the value of the house.


To complicate the project, we took the opportunity to remove the horrible, contractor-special, "popcorn" ceiling that is sprayed on quickly and cheaply.  Besides the fact that we hate the look of the popcorn ceiling, it's impossible to clean off spider webs and dust because the "popcorn" flakes off.  So, the unhealthy ceiling needed to be scraped off before the carpet was pulled up.  Talk about labor intensive and messy!  Fortunately, the ceiling dust that didn't make it in the bag while scraping, fell on the carpet, which was rolled up and removed.  

Oh, and lest I forget...after removing the horrible popcorn ceilings, the entire upstairs ceiling had to be primed and then painted (low odor paint).   And just for good measure, we added to project purgatory, and primed and painted the walls in two of the bedrooms. 


Suffice it to say DIY projects, have many bumps along the way, both human (hubby smashed his finger, I wrecked my shoulder, and we both ached for weeks) and projected related.  As we did each room, the kids had to endure being displaced from their rooms, and having their stuff mostly inaccessible in piles and boxes.  In addition, we all put up with tools, project mess, and the inconvenience of it all.  Even with great planning there were extra trips to the store, plenty of snags along the way, and days it felt like it we'd never finish.  

Although it ain't easy being green, and we were in project purgatory for weeks, I can honestly say the rooms look AWESOME, and the pride in greening and beautifying our home is something that can't be measured :) 

bamboo or bambooooozled?

Bamboo...so you hear all about how "green" it is; it's categorized as a grass, literally it's green, and it's the environmentally friendly kinda "green" as well.


In terms of "green", bamboo is extremely sustainable because it can grow between 1-2 feet a day.  It does not need to be replanted after harvesting because it has an extensive network of roots, and spouts new shoots continually.  Bamboo perpetually converts greenhouses gases as it grows, filters the air while making oxygen, and doesn't need pesticides or fertilizers to grow at amazing rates.  This is one rugged, useful, rigid, sustainable grass! 

Bamboo is used for many things;  for flooring, cutting boards and other kitchen items, and fabric to name a few.  I recently purchased a Scotch-Brite cleaning cloth made from 60% rayon from bamboo,  and 40% cotton.  The cloth is very soft and works well.  I've also seen clothing made from bamboo fabric that is marketed as green and sustainable, and that got me thinking....bamboo almost seems too good to be true...so I did a bit more research specifically on fabric made from bamboo and sadly  it is not as sustainable as it may seem due to the processing.  The processing to make bamboo into fabric can be accomplished in two ways, either mechanically or chemically. 

"The mechanical way is by crushing the woody parts of the bamboo plant and then use natural enzymes to break the bamboo walls into a mushy mass so that the natural fibers can be mechanically combed out and spun into yarn." Fabric made with the mechanical process may be called bamboo linen, but it is a very labor intensive and costly process.  


"Chemically manufactured bamboo fiber is a regenerated cellulose fiber similar to rayon or modal. Chemically manufactured bamboo is sometimes called bamboo rayon because of the many similarities in the way it is chemically manufactured and similarities in its feel and hand.  Most bamboo fabric that is the current eco-fashion rage is chemically manufactured by “cooking” the bamboo leaves and woody shoots in strong chemical solvents."  The solvents can be harmful to the workers, causing neurological and breathing problems, and because of the potential health risks and damage to the environment adjacent to manufacturing facilities, bamboo fabric manufactured in this way should not be considered sustainable or environmentally supportable.


source:http://organicclothing.blogs.com/my_weblog/2007/09/bamboo-facts-be.html


After researching the process of bamboo fabric manufacturing I felt a bit bamboozled because I took it for granted that bamboo rayon/fabric was green...now that I know the processing is not green due to the chemicals, I still think that bamboo has great potential as a sustainable resource for several types of products, and in the end is more sustainable than many other options even in light of the processing.  

Colleges Go GREEN

So it's that time of year when Juniors are looking around at colleges, and besides SAT scores, tuition, room and board, fees, student body makeup, etc., your teen might be interested to know some information about the "green-ness" of their prospective college.  The Princeton Review's Guide to 286 Green Colleges is chock-full of information about 286 college's and Green Facts about each.  Information such as waste diversion rate, % of school energy from renewable resources, % of school grounds maintained organically, % food budget spent on local/organic food, and whether the school has a sustainability committee, etc. are included.  

One example is Bentley University in Waltham, MA.  In the book, Bentley highlights and boasts about the Bentley Green Society, a student run organization with over 200 students, that 50% campus buildings have Energy Star rating of 69% or higher, and about a solar wall on outside of their gym center which saves 116,000 kilowatt hours of energy/year, and more.

You can check out The Princeton Review's Guide to 286 Green Colleges at http://www.scribd.com/doc/30197111/The-Princeton-Review-s-Guide-to-Green-Colleges . 

For today's eco-conscious teens and their families, this compilation of information just may tip the scales on which school they end up calling home for 4 years and their Alma mater, and will hopefully lead to eco-wise future leaders, eco-savvy businesses, eco-aware citizens, and ultimately a peaceful, planet-loving world. 

My carbon neutral blog

What do you mean your blog is "carbon neutral"?                                              

Let me start by saying that I had never considered that my blog contributed to CO2 emissions.  How is that possible?  I learned that the emissions are mostly attributed to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems.  Well, I’d never really thought about it like that, but it makes sense.  Some highly frequented blogs contribute as much as 8lbs of CO2 emissions in a year! 

How does a tree neutralize my blog's carbon footprint?

I was happy to stumble upon a German group that has an initiative called “My Blog is Neutral”  (http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/carbon-neutral/what-we-do/ ).  After reading about the initiative, I learned that their goal is to re-plant forests in northern CA that have been destroyed by fires while simultaneously “erasing” the carbon foot-print of ever popular bloggers.  A tree can absorb about 11lbs of CO2 in a year, and can continue to absorb CO2 as long it lives, therefore it is estimated that over the life of the tree, it can "neutralize" the emissions of a blog.  For each participating blog-domain, the German group who is partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation, will plant one tree, and each of those blogs will include a small logo indicating that their blog is neutral.  The trees will be  planted in Plumas National Forest in Northern California. 

It's genius, and it’s a win-win situation!!!  I’m happy for the chance to participate and help make the world a little greener as well as neutralize my blog's carbon footprint.

Black Mush

Today I inadvertently found something neat while shopping for new shoes for the 4 kids.  Darn it their feet keep growing!  Well, as it turns out when shopping for shoes, I ended up looking too, and got a new pair that I think may become a favorite :)  They are Teva Mush sandals.  The black mush is so soft and cushy, it made me wonder if the rubber is recycled like the rubber on some tracks and courts.  

What I did find out was that the Teva parent company has some green roots!  I figured it out when I noticed an insert in the box (which would be used to hold the shoes up on a rack).  At first I thought uggh, how wasteful, but then I read it, and lo and behold, "this hanger is biodegradable"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I though, NO WAY!!!!  So then I checked out the shoe box that states that the box is "printed on recycled materials, 100% recyclable, please recycle all packaging"   The box also states that the company is also a supporter of Waterkeepers alliance that protects the Earth's waterways (www.waterkeeper.org). 

So, I went to the Teva website to learn more, and found that their parent company, Deckers  has done quite a nice job of  limiting their footprint!  AhhhHAHA, they should market themselves about their reduced carbon "footprint".  Get it?  :) You can check them out at  http://www.deckers.com/esc/distribution.aspx  Wouldn't it be great if all companies walked in their footsteps?

Census WASTE = SENSELESS WASTE

Ok one word comes to mind regarding the Census...SENSELESS. It is BEYOND ridiculous to be wasting the time and money of the American people, not to mention precious resources! Again, I'm not against the census, what I'm incensed about AGAIN is yet ANOTHER mailing! The first mailing told me to expect my formal census in about a week. Then my census came in the mail about a week later. Of course I dutifully filled it out. Now a THIRD mailing came to tell me I should have gotten the census in the mail.

OMG, let's list of the senseless waste that has occurred that I can think of (I'm sure there is way more, but this is just off the top of my head: postage and paper wasted have been wasted; green house gases have polluted the Earth in order to deliver the mail 3x (2 unnecessary mailings); human resources that could have done some positive work was wasted and paid to do multiple mailings; tons of paper that probably ended up in a landfill instead of being recycled x3 was wasted; and of course the MONEY wasted on senseless,unnecessary multiple mailings.

BOTTOM LINE: the government needs to establish better policies regarding resources, waste, recycling, global warming, and be the BEST example to the American Public instead of the WORST offender! The multiple mailings regarding the Census is WASTEFUL, contributes to pollution, and global warming, and I doubt it will make any difference in the outcome. If the government wants to have an impact, they could have a positive green impact by not wasting trees, money, resources, and preventing green house gases.

Earth Hour - Saturday, March 27th, 8:30-9:30pm

Mark your calendar for this Saturday, March 27th, 2010, from 8:30-9:30 pm, it's Earth Hour!

Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turning off their lights for one hour as a “vote” FOR the earth, and a “vote” AGAINST global warming. By 2009, even more people, hundreds of millions joined in to "vote". The Sydney Opera House, Rome’s Colosseum, The Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Parthenon in Greece, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the Las Vegas Strip and New York City’s Times Square participated.

Earth Hour is organized by WWF; their mission is to "stop the degradation of the Earth's natural environment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature."

Let's hope that even more people from all around the world will switch off their lights, and other items that use electricity. No matter where you live, no matter your political views, regardless of what religion you are, we all depend on our planet for life.

It's a perfect time to turn off the lights, discuss global warming and the importance of “being green” as a family, and consider taking actions to assure that we aren’t polluting our earth and overusing resources in our everyday lives. Unplug, celebrate together time, play a game, and reconnect by the light of candles. Enjoy!

Check out to www.earthhour.org

Eco Friendly Reusable Bags - Day 10

I'm doing much better about remembering my Eco Friendly Reusable Bags :) Hubby happily reported in that he too remembered to use an Eco Bag the other day! I actually received a really nice nylon Eco Bag as a gift, and it is so small and light that I keep it in my purse. Today I saw some neat Eco Bags and I think they will make perfect gifts for family and friends; and the best part of the gift will be motivating others to be greener as well.

Green Design - Day 8

Still learning the whole blogging thing....I don't know what happened but the blog for February 24, so I will do my best to recreate it because I wrote about how proud I am of my daughter Rosebud and her green design.

Did I mention that I'm VERY proud of Rosebud? She is participating in an eco-design event using her creative talents to REcreate, REdesign, and REuse materials to make stylish clothing. Today when we were at the fabric store for a zipper for her green garment, she discovered some really neat buttons made from recycled plastic and recycled cotton. Besides the zipper and thread, her garment is made of re-purposed and recycled materials, making it very eco-friendly, and although I may be biased, I think the garment is gorgeous as well.

Window Binds - Day 4

Today I enlisted the troops to help me with the window blinds. I'm hoping to make this into a good habit they can all help with :)

Opening and closing the blinds (we have double cell blinds) helps to conserve energy in the winter and in the summer. During the winter, opening the shades to take advantage of the sun's rays helps to warm the house. Then towards the evening, we close the shades to keep the heat in. During the summer, keeping the shades closed during the heat of the day helps to reduce cooling costs. Since I don't like to feel like I'm in a cave, I keep the shades closed on the sunny east side of the house in the morning, and open the shades on the west side to let light in. Then in the afternoon when the sun bakes on the west side of the house, those shades are closed, and those on the east side are opened. So enlisting the troops to help keep things open and shut will definitely help with the bottom line and conserve energy in the process.

An Inconvenient Truth - Day 3

Today, Hubby, Rosebud, Sweet Pea and I watched An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. At first the girls grumped a bit, but by the end the movie seemed to have made an impression. The information about the melting glaciers and rising sea levels was eye opening. The girls were sad about the plight of the polar bears, and also found ice cube analogy interesting. Now to get the other 1/3 to watch it with me :) Babysteps, babysteps!

baby step #1 - Day 2

For better or for worse, my awesome family will be taking this green journey with me :) With their help, I think we will all learn and grow along the way. It seems like only yesterday that our 4 children came into our lives, but just like flowers, they are growing, and blooming before our eyes. Within my blog I will fondly refer to my always encouraging and witty husband as "hubby", and I've lovingly nicknamed each of the children with a flower name. My oldest daughter, "Tiger-Lily" is 14, my second daughter, "Rosebud" is 13, my third daughter, "Sweet Pea" is 11, and my son, "Rhody" (short for Rhododendron) is 9.

Today Tiger-Lily and I took baby step #1 when we defrosted and unplugged our extra freezer! I can't wait to see the positive impact it has on our electric bill :)

Green Snowballs? - Day1

For as long as I can remember, my favorite color has been GREEN. I remember being asked why I liked the color green, and the answer was a simple one, "because I like green trees and grass".

Today, green is still one of my favorite colors, but it is more than just a color to me now. Of course I still love green grass and trees, but now the word green means much more to me. It means Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling, it means Respecting the environment, and it means teaching my kids Responsibility for taking care of our planet.

It might be a little bit geeky, but if my family and I can take some green "baby steps" to reduce our carbon "footprint", and encourage our family and friends to do the same, and if they in turn encouraged their family and friends to be greener, what a wonderfully green snowball we'd have rolling!