Self-Sufficiency & Farming

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Chalk: The Eco Stain Remover

05/30/2010 in Sustainable Living | No comments

Today I saw another commercial promising to magically remove stains from your laundry. All you had to do was buy another product just for stains, throw it in with your laundry and laundry detergent and presto bamo! no more stains. Some women I know adore this idea of a quick fix, but those same people are often the last ones to ask what chemicals are in the product that are strong enough to do that.

Most laundry detergents and softeners are not required by law to disclose the chemicals in each product. The same goes for most soaps and cleaners marketed for “household” use. So if you can figure out what powerful chemicals are in those magic stain removers and powerful detergents, it is liable to be things that you would not volunteer to wear on your clothing next to your skin or your child’s skin all day.

So what to do about stains? Keep a stick of blackboard chalk in your laundry room. Simply rub a little chalk on a stain before throwing it into the wash. The chalk powder absorbs grease, leaving the stain easy to remove by the laundry detergent.

And what about all those soaps? Well, I don’t want to get up on my soap box (pun intended), but soap is soap. There is no need to have a soap for the floors and a soap for your hands and a soap for your hair and a soap for your face, etc, etc. Finding a basic liquid and a basic bar soap without chemicals and additives is really all you need. Companies that sell a soap or cleaner for every little surface in your house and on your body just make money selling more bottles of the same chemical laden crap to you. In our household, we buy J. R. Watkins “dish soap” for a liquid household cleaner. We make our own vegan bar soap for hand washing and body washing and we simply use vinegar mixed with club soda for an all purpose surface/floor/window cleaner. The vinegar we buy from Sams Club is $1.30 / gallon. It saves a surprising amount of money and leaves us with a peace of mind knowing our house isn’t covered in nasty chemicals.

To get the job done, we have found that Trader Joe’s laundry detergent and Seventh Generation Laundry detergent are paraben-free liquid detergents that are concentrated and work well. For the dishwasher, we use Mrs. Myers Automatic dishwashing detergent. We have tried using our household liquid soap, but the dishwasher needs a higher concentration to get things clean. Selecting a chemical free dishwasher soap is vitally important, because it is inevitable that some soap will stick to your dishes and be ingested as you use them to eat.

DIY Round Up: Weekend Projects

05/27/2010 in DIY Maker Projects, Self-Sufficiency & Farming | No comments

Junkmail Clock	How to Make Dried Apple Rings
Copper Clothes Hanger	Reusing Glass Jars in the Bathroom

How To: Raw Feed your Cat

05/20/2010 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming | 2 comments

Why switch from kibble to raw meat? Watching my cats eat dry kibble with fillers and wondering what mystery ingredients were actually in their cat food made me rethink how I feed my pets. I had been feeding my cats a product that was marketed as "all natural" and "organic". I thought I was doing my best for my pets by investing in "better quality" kibble. For an animal who is best suited to killing and eating it's dinner, what does this really mean? Because pet food is not human food, producers are not regulated and are not required to disclose the real ingredients in kibble or canned pet food. It is not uncommon for diseased carcases from meat packing plants and even dead animals from humane shelters to make their way into the kibble factory. Diseased livestock, flea collars around the necks of dead pets all get ground up with "filler" like corn scraps, baked, bagged and sold as cat food or dog food. The most unnatural thing you can feed your dog or cat is ground, dried kibble in a bowl. When going natural, it is best to consider what your cat would eat if she were a wild cat. Many "organic" dog and cat foods, whether raw or not, claim that dogs and cats need supplements of vitamins, minerals, etc. The only thing your dog or cat really needs is what it would get from naturally killing and eating prey (bones, organs and all). There are two "types" of raw meat methods that pet owners use. One is called the BARF diet, short for "Biologically Appropriate Raw Food." With this method, you grind up raw meat with small bones, grains and veggies. You cannot cook the bones because during the heating process the bones microscopically fracture which can cause intestinal bleeding if your pet eats cooked bone. Once you grind your raw pet food, you then portion it out into patties and freeze the patties, taking them out to thaw in rotation from your freezer to your fridge for each meal. The disadvantages to this are: * You need to invest in an industrial strength grinder that can handle bones ($250+) * You spend more time making your pet's food * Your pet is still eating ground up mushy food. * Traditional BARF diets include grains and veggies, which dogs and cats don't naturally choose to eat themselves in the wild. I considered the BARF diet, but this did not seem natural. In the wild, cats would not be eating veggies or grains nor would their food be served to them in a neatly ground up mush patty. Feeding my cats a Raw Diet was easier than I thought. The purely raw diet consumes less of your time to implement and allows your pet to chew on bones and eat raw liver and heart, much more natural than a bowl of mushy food. I feed my cats mainly chicken, but 2-3 times a week I feed fish, eggs, or a live rodent. Variety is key because cats (not sure about dogs) can get hooked on one type of food if you feed it to them too often. Cats eat small bones like the breast, neck and rib bones from chickens. This is how the get their calcium. Eating the organs like liver and heart provide Taurine and Iron. I can buy a 4 pound whole chicken from the grocer for $4 and it lasts a whole week with 2 cats. Feeding your cat the right amount of food is also important. Each animal is different, but most cats need to eat 2-4% of their body weight in meat each day to maintain their current weight. Before you start feeding raw, weight your pet and record their weight every 5 days or so. If they need to lose some weight, adjust their daily intake slightly until an ideal weight is reached. One of my cats, Edison is still a young adult, just under a year old. He started at 10 lbs, but is still a growing boy. 4% of his body weight is 4 ounces/day. Because he is growing, I usually provide him with a half to one ounce more than the 4 ounces and let him decide if he needs to eat more or not. My other cat Autumn started at 11 pounds and could afford to lose a half pound, maybe a pound. I give her 3 - 3 1/2 ounces per day. She has only lost 1/4 lb over a three week period, which is a good pace for her to drop the weight. They eat about 3-4 oz/ day to maintain their weight. (Tip: to weight your kitty, stand on a bathroom scale, weigh yourself. Then weight yourself holding your kitty and subtract to find her weight) Raw is cheaper than a medium quality kibble brand. Before I switched to raw I was going through 2 bags of Blue Diamond kibble per month and each bag cost $18. At $4 for one whole chicken, I spend less per month on fresh, raw chicken than I spent buying just one bag of catfood. Some things to noticed when switching to the raw diet. My cats are more relaxed during the day. They are more friendly towards me and towards each other. Their coats are less oily and are much softer than before. They don't pace around the house aimlessly. They are more engaged during playtime. They also drink less water. Because their raw meat has water weight and is not packed with fillers or grain, their digestive systems work more naturally. They go through about 1/4 of the water they used to drink daily. Their poo has also changed. Where it used to be smelly, gummy and dark brown, now it resembles poo you would see from a wild animal: light brown, very crumbly. They also poo less because they are not eating "filler" kibble, so that means less litter box cleaning for me and no awful smells when they do use the kitty box. Helping your cat make the switch Some cats are addicted to kibble. Others will take right to eating raw. There is no magic plan to making the switch, just go at your cat's pace. Pushing her isn't going to help her and starving her into submission can actually harm her. If a cat goes more than 24 hours without eating there is a danger that she will develop a fatal liver disease called hepatic lipidosis. Hepatic lipidosis occurs when a cat's fatty deposits are metabolized in the liver for energy. A cat's liver is not built for long term fat metabolism. What can happen is the liver becomes overwhelmed and covered in fatty deposits, which causes organ failure. Don't make your kitty go cold turkey. There are some general steps that you can progress your cat through. Some cats don't need to take all these baby steps and will jump from kibble to raw meat and bones, while others may need more time on each stage. Simply offer your cat the next "stage". If he loves what you gave him, try the next stage. If he sticks up his nose and won't eat what you offer, step back one stage. * To get your cat off the kibble, you can start wetting it with water. Softening the kibble helps kitty get used to non dry food. * Try giving your cat canned cat food. If she refuses, crush up some kibble and sprinkle it on the canned food. * Move to canned herring or sardines. These have tiny bones and skin still on the fish. * Cutting raw chicken or turkey into bit size pieces will help your cat get used to the texture and smell of raw bird. * Next, try giving her larger pieces of chicken. She will have to learn to break up the meat with her molars in order to swallow. * Add in some small bones with her raw meat meals. Leave tasty morsels on the chicken ribs and neck bones. You will get to watch the true carnivore come out! Basic Raw Feeding Tips: * Frequency: I have found that feeding my cats 2oz in the morning (like 8am) and then 2oz at night (9pm) is best for them. I could get away with feeding them once a day, but this is the equivalent to them catching a mouse in the morning and a mouse at night and eating each prey item entirely. * Never cook bones. Cooking bones creates microscopic fractures in the bone that can cut your kitty's soft intestine causing internal bleeding. * ALWAYS SERVER RAW MEAT AT ROOM TEMPERATURE. This goes back to thinking about how a cat naturally catches and eats prey items. They would never eat a cold piece of raw from the fridge. If cold raw meat hits your kitty's tummy, she is liable to throw it up. An easy way to thaw out food is to set it in a dish submerged in warm water for 10-15 mins. * Giving your cat a balance of 47% meat and 33% fat, 15% bones and 5% organs is an approximate ratio of what they would ingest by eating a whole prey item. Your kitty isn't going to eat the large thigh bones of a chicken, but she will crunch up and eat the little neck and breast bones, wing bones and connective tissues. If you buy a whole chicken, you can use everything. * Invest in an accurate scale. Weigh out the portions you give your cat each time. * Record! Get a logbook just to keep track of what you give your cat, what she actually eats and what she weighs every 5 days or so. You can also record foods that she refuses to touch in case you want to reintroduce them later. * I usually take one day a month to prep all my cat's food for the entire 30 day period. I buy 4 whole birds from the supermarket, butcher them and bag them in weekly portions that I can thaw out for the week at a time. I even save money on birds sometimes by offering to take and butcher birds from friends of mine who keep chickens for egg laying. Sometimes a hen will get a taste for eating eggs. She'll start stepping on fresh eggs to eat them. Once she does this, there is no cure and she must be removed before she teaches the rest of the hens how to be egg eaters. I make myself known as someone who will take these hens away for my cats. People generally don't like eating hens that are egg layers because with age the chicken's meat toughens up. Most birds humans eat are killed at 9-12 months of age. Raw Diet meal plan I feed my cats: * Eggs (or just the yolk) 2-3 times/ week * Fish 2-3 times/week o Tuna and Sardines have needed Lineolic acid (so does safflower oil, sunflower oil or corn oil) * Cod (has Arachinodic and Vitamin A) * Bird with bones for all other meals * Whole mouse/rodent (usually live) What I know about cat nutrition (not sure what applies to dogs): * Though cat food usually only consists of 26 percent protein and 9 percent fat, cats get about 47 percent protein and 33 percent fat in the wild, so their bodies are set up for the increase. * Nutrients that may need to be supplemented: vitamins A, B-complex, D, E and calcium, which can be aquired naturally. Vitamin A can be found in cod liver oil, and calcium is present in bones, which your cat (or dog) will ingest. * Cats also require linoleic acid, arachindonic acid and taurine, all of which may need to be supplemented in a homemade raw diet. Lineolic acid can be found in safflower, sunflower or corn oil as well as some fish such as sardines and tuna, and arachindonic oil can be found in cod liver oil. Taurine is found in organ meat, such as heart meat as well as tuna, mackerel and clams. The transition to raw diet is simple, cheap and healthy. Cats usually make the switch easily as long as the right protein sources are chosen. My cats turn their nose up at shrimp and clams but love to eat lamb, tuna, herring and tilapia. I keep an aquaponics system to grow herbs for myself and fish for my cats. It is sustainable and very green :) Enjoy watching your kitty find her inner carnivore. Check out this website for instructions on raw feeding cats. http://www.rawfedcats.org/practicalguide.htm

Why switch from kibble to raw meat? Most people dislike the idea of handing raw meat and watching their pet chew on bones. For this reason, there are very few resources detailing how to implement a raw diet for your pet. Most Americans are not realistic about where their meat comes from and would be appalled if they saw a meat packing plant. You owe it to yourself and your pet to realize where your meat comes from and to recognize that the natural diet of your pet is not a bowl of dried kibble.

Most kibble is made from the diseased animals that die before reaching the slaughterhouse. It is not uncommon for dead cats and dogs shipped from humane societies to make their way into your kibble mix, flea collars and all. This awful mix of meat gets ground up with fillers like corn husks and bi-products from farms that cannot be used for any other purpose. It is neatly packaged and sold to you, the pet owner, who is naively unaware of what you are buying. Because cat and dog food is not sold for human consumption, the manufacturer is not required to disclose the actual ingredients.

When going natural, it is best to consider what your cat would eat if she were a wild cat.
Many “organic” dog and cat foods, whether raw or not, claim that dogs and cats need supplements of vitamins, minerals, etc. The only thing your dog or cat really needs is what it would get from naturally killing and eating prey (bones, organs and all).
There are two “types” of raw meat methods that pet owners use. One is called the BARF diet, short for “Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.” With this method, you grind up raw meat with small bones, grains and veggies. You cannot cook the bones because during the heating process the bones microscopically fracture which can cause intestinal bleeding if your pet eats cooked bone. Once you grind your raw pet food, you then portion it out into patties and freeze the patties, taking them out to thaw in rotation from your freezer to your fridge for each meal. The disadvantages to this are:

You need to invest in an industrial strength grinder that can handle bones ($250+)
You spend more time making your pet’s food
Your pet is still eating ground up mushy food.
Traditional BARF diets include grains and veggies, which dogs and cats don’t naturally choose to eat themselves in the wild.

I considered the BARF diet, but this did not seem natural. In the wild, cats would not be eating veggies or grains nor would their food be served to them in a neatly ground up mush patty. Feeding my cats a Raw Diet was easier than I thought. The purely raw diet consumes less of your time to implement and allows your pet to chew on bones and eat raw liver and heart, much more natural than a bowl of mushy food.

I feed my cats mainly chicken, but 2-3 times a week I feed fish, eggs, or a live rodent. Variety is key because cats (not sure about dogs) can get hooked on one type of food if you feed it to them too often. Cats eat small bones like the breast, neck and rib bones from chickens. This is how the get their calcium. Eating the organs like liver and heart provide Taurine and Iron. I can buy a 4 pound whole chicken from the grocer for $4 and it lasts a whole week with 2 cats.

Feeding your cat the right amount of food is also important.
Each animal is different, but most cats need to eat 2-4% of their body weight in meat each day to maintain their current weight. Before you start feeding raw, weight your pet and record their weight every 5 days or so. If they need to lose some weight, adjust their daily intake slightly until an ideal weight is reached. One of my cats, Edison is still a young adult, just under a year old. He started at 10 lbs, but is still a growing boy. 4% of his body weight is 4 ounces/day. Because he is growing, I usually provide him with a half to one ounce more than the 4 ounces and let him decide if he needs to eat more or not. My other cat Autumn started at 11 pounds and could afford to lose a half pound, maybe a pound. I give her 3 – 3 1/2 ounces per day. She has only lost 1/4 lb over a three week period, which is a good pace for her to drop the weight. They eat about 3-4 oz/ day to maintain their weight. (Tip: to weight your kitty, stand on a bathroom scale, weigh yourself. Then weight yourself holding your kitty and subtract to find her weight)

Raw is cheaper than a medium quality kibble brand.
Before I switched to raw I was going through 2 bags of Blue Diamond kibble per month and each bag cost $18. At $4 for one whole chicken, I spend less per month on fresh, raw chicken than I spent buying just one bag of catfood.

Some things to noticed when switching to the raw diet.
My cats are more relaxed during the day. They are more friendly towards me and towards each other. Their coats are less oily and are much softer than before. They don’t pace around the house aimlessly. They are more engaged during playtime. They also drink less water. Because their raw meat has water weight and is not packed with fillers or grain, their digestive systems work more naturally. They go through about 1/4 of the water they used to drink daily. Their poo has also changed. Where it used to be smelly, gummy and dark brown, now it resembles poo you would see from a wild animal: light brown, very crumbly. They also poo less because they are not eating “filler” kibble, so that means less litter box cleaning for me and no awful smells when they do use the kitty box.

Helping your cat make the switch
Some cats are addicted to kibble. Others will take right to eating raw. There is no magic plan to making the switch, just go at your cat’s pace. Pushing her isn’t going to help her and starving her into submission can actually harm her. If a cat goes more than 24 hours without eating there is a danger that she will develop a fatal liver disease called hepatic lipidosis. Hepatic lipidosis occurs when a cat’s fatty deposits are metabolized in the liver for energy. A cat’s liver is not built for long term fat metabolism. What can happen is the liver becomes overwhelmed and covered in fatty deposits, which causes organ failure. Don’t make your kitty go cold turkey.

There are some general steps you can follow.
Some cats don’t need to take all these baby steps and will jump from kibble to raw meat and bones, while others may need more time on each stage. Simply offer your cat the next “stage”. If he loves what you gave him, try the next stage. If he sticks up his nose and won’t eat what you offer, step back one stage.

To get your cat off the kibble, you can start wetting it with water. Softening the kibble helps kitty get used to non dry food.
Try giving your cat canned cat food. If she refuses, crush up some kibble and sprinkle it on the canned food.
Move to canned herring or sardines. These have tiny bones and skin still on the fish.
Cutting raw chicken or turkey into bit size pieces will help your cat get used to the texture and smell of raw bird.
Next, try giving her larger pieces of chicken. She will have to learn to break up the meat with her molars in order to swallow.
Add in some small bones with her raw meat meals. Leave tasty morsels on the chicken ribs and neck bones. You will get to watch the true carnivore come out!
The final step would be to let your cat try to kill her own mouse or fish.

Basic Raw Feeding Tips:

Frequency: I have found that feeding my cats 2oz in the morning (like 8am) and then 2oz at night (9pm) is best for them. I could get away with feeding them once a day, but this is the equivalent to them catching a mouse in the morning and a mouse at night and eating each prey item entirely.
Never cook bones. Cooking bones creates microscopic fractures in the bone that can cut your kitty’s soft intestine causing internal bleeding.
ALWAYS SERVE RAW MEAT AT ROOM TEMPERATURE. This goes back to thinking about how a cat naturally catches and eats prey items. They would never eat a cold piece of raw from the fridge. If cold raw meat hits your kitty’s tummy, she is liable to throw it up. An easy way to thaw out food is to set it in a dish submerged in warm water for 10-15 mins.
Giving your cat a balance of 47% meat and 33% fat, 15% bones and 5% organs is an approximate ratio of what they would ingest by eating a whole prey item. Your kitty isn’t going to eat the large thigh bones of a chicken, but she will crunch up and eat the little neck and breast bones, wing bones and connective tissues. If you buy a whole chicken, you can use everything.
Invest in an accurate scale. Weigh out the portions you give your cat each time.
Record! Get a logbook just to keep track of what you give your cat, what she actually eats and what she weighs every 5 days or so. You can also record foods that she refuses to touch in case you want to reintroduce them later.
I usually take one day a month to prep all my cat’s food for the entire 30 day period. I buy 4 whole birds from the supermarket, butcher them and bag them in weekly portions that I can thaw out for the week at a time. I even save money on birds sometimes by offering to take and butcher birds from friends of mine who keep chickens for egg laying. Sometimes a hen will get a taste for eating eggs. She’ll start stepping on fresh eggs to eat them. Once she does this, there is no cure and she must be removed before she teaches the rest of the hens how to be egg eaters. I make myself known as someone who will take these hens away for my cats. People generally don’t like eating hens that are egg layers because with age the chicken’s meat toughens up. Most birds humans eat are killed at 9-12 months of age.

Raw Diet meal plan I feed my cats:

Eggs (or just the yolk) 2-3 times/ week
Fish 2-3 times/week
- Tuna and Sardines have needed Lineolic acid (so does safflower oil, sunflower oil or corn oil)
Cod (has Arachinodic and Vitamin A)
Bird with bones for all other meals
Whole mouse/rodent (usually live)

Cat nutrition:

Though cat food usually only consists of 26 percent protein and 9 percent fat, cats get about 47 percent protein and 33 percent fat in the wild, so their bodies are set up for the increase.

Nutrients that may need to be supplemented: vitamins A, B-complex, D, E and calcium, which can be aquired naturally. Vitamin A can be found in cod liver oil, and calcium is present in bones, which your cat (or dog) will ingest.

Cats also require linoleic acid, arachindonic acid and taurine, all of which may need to be supplemented in a homemade raw diet. Lineolic acid can be found in safflower, sunflower or corn oil as well as some fish such as sardines and tuna, and arachindonic oil can be found in cod liver oil. Taurine is found in organ meat, such as heart meat as well as tuna, mackerel and clams.

The transition to raw diet is simple, cheap and healthy. Cats usually make the switch easily as long as the right protein sources are chosen. My cats turn their nose up at shrimp and clams but love to eat lamb, tuna, herring and tilapia. I keep an aquaponics system to grow herbs for myself and fish for my cats. It is sustainable and very green Enjoy watching your kitty find her inner carnivore.

Check out this website for more instructions on raw feeding cats.
http://www.rawfedcats.org/practicalguide.htm

Top 21 Ways you Know you Live in a Tiny Apartment

05/17/2010 in No-Impact Living | 2 comments

Living in a small apartment or home can be challenging but fun. After living in a small space for nine months, we have a top 21 list of ways a tiny living space changes your life: 1. When your friends come over you worry about who will have to sit on the floor... and it's usually you. 2. When you run your dishwasher it humidifies the entire apartment. 3. Your two cats have figured out the longest distance in your apartment and Using the top of the cabinet as a bookshelf. A little herb garen below. periodically run laps to get some exercise. 4. You watch TV on your computer, which you can see from any place in your apartment. 5. You can watch TV from your toilet. 6. You have only one window :( 7. During the holidays you ask people not to give you anything, partially because you don't like getting "stuff" but mostly because you don't have any room. 8. Your storage containers are also your bedside tables. 9. 50% of your total storage space is located under your bed. 10. Your books are displayed next to your dishes and kitchen appliances. 11. You are never out of sight or earshot of your partner/roommate. 12. Passing gas is no longer a private matter. 13. Your body heat is enough to warm your entire apartment in cool weather and you have no idea if your heater actually works because you've never had to use it. 14. When you shoe shop, you consider if your purchase will fit on your shoe shelf. 15. Instead of buying a dresser you store your underwear and socks in your kitchen drawers and have to explain to guests that your kitchen is also your closet. 16. An antique chest serves as a coffee table, extra seating and of course extra storage. 17. Your clothes are on display, and not because you want to look at them. 18. There are more mirrors than paintings on your walls, and not because you are vain. 19. You have actually considered buying a murphy bed. 20. You can clean all your tile with one paper towel and all your carpet with a dustbuster. 21. You and your partner have gotten used to "dancing" with each other in the kitchen as you prepare meals.

Living in a small apartment or home can be challenging but fun. A first hand, top 21 list of ways a tiny living space changes your life:

1. When your friends come over you worry about who will have to sit on the floor… and it’s usually you.

2. When you run your dishwasher it humidifies the entire apartment.

3. Your two cats have figured out the longest distance in your apartment and

Using the top of the cabinet as a bookshelf. A little herb garen below.

periodically run laps to get some exercise.

4. You watch TV on your computer, which you can see from any place in your apartment.

5. You can watch TV from your toilet.

6. You have only one window

7. During the holidays you ask people not to give you anything, partially because you don’t like getting “stuff” but mostly because you don’t have any room.

8. Your storage containers are also your bedside tables.

9. 50% of your total storage space is located under your bed.

10. Your books are displayed next to your dishes and kitchen appliances.

11. You are never out of sight or earshot of your partner/roommate.

12. Passing gas is no longer a private matter.

13. Your body heat is enough to warm your entire apartment in cool weather and you have no idea if your heater actually works because you’ve never had to use it.

14. When you shoe shop, you consider if your purchase will fit on your shoe shelf.

15. Instead of buying a dresser you store your underwear and socks in your kitchen drawers and have to explain to guests that your kitchen is also your closet.

16. An antique chest serves as a coffee table, extra seating and of course extra storage.

17. Your clothes are on display, and not because you want to look at them.

18. There are more mirrors than paintings on your walls, and not because you are vain.

19. You have actually considered buying a murphy bed.

20. You can clean all your tile with one paper towel and all your carpet with a dustbuster.

21. You and your partner have gotten used to “dancing” with each other in the kitchen as you prepare meals.

Add your own below!

Dishtowel with a Great Message:

05/07/2010 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming | No comments

How to Make Dried Apple Rings

05/04/2010 in DIY Maker Projects | No comments

A little weekend food project I filmed on

How to Make Dried Apple Rings:

DIY: Junk-Mail “Guts” Clock

04/24/2010 in DIY Maker Projects | 2 comments

Junk-mail, “Guts” Clock:

Using the directions from apartment therapy for wall clock made from junk mail, I edited it a bit to incorporate the guts of an old

The Clock Center: Guts and all. A great way to recycle an old clock.

wind-up clock on the face. The exposed clock parts are actually fascinating and add to the intrigue of of this unique maker project. It turned out to be a fun 1.5 hour evening project.

I simply used sheets of junk mail, mostly grocery ads and torn out pages from a national geographic magazine. I took apart an old Ikea clock for the clock mechanism, glass face and plastic ring. The whole thing came apart without any tools.

For my version of the clock you need:

approximately 24-30 sheets of junk mail
pen or pencil used for rolling guide (I used a long knitting needle)
scissors
tape (invisible works best)
long needle (a yarn needle works best or even a crochet needle)
embroidery floss, twine, or just anything string-like and durable.
glass piece from the clock you dismantle
a plastic ring about 2-3 inches in diameter to secure the back (salvage from clock)
battery-operated clock mechanism with hands (reuse an old clock)
Hot glue gun and sticks

Find the full instructions here.

Some changes I made to the apartment therapy version of Junkmail clock:

I modified the paper rolling instructions by using paper of varying lengths to add some variety. I also used the plastic ring from the clock face that I disassembled to glue to the back of the clock, keeping each paper roll from flopping forward once hung on the wall. The glass backing just behind the clock “guts” was from the clock face. Some hot glue was all that was needed to secure the clock guts to the glass and the plastic ring to the back of the clock.

Junk-mail "Guts" Clock

Story of Stuff

03/26/2010 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming | No comments

A new movement, illustrated by the Story of Stuff, encourages us to break the cycle of work,shop,work,shop and try to understand where all our stuff comes from and the impact it has on the earth and other people around the earth.

So what can you do?

-Get involved.

-Become a Maker and start reusing your own stuff to make new stuff.

-Learn how to live sustainably

A New Years Resolution to Healthy Armpits

01/02/2010 in Health, Product Reviews, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

This December I read an article on Treehugger.com addressing healthy armpits. Armpits are a common conundrum among health nuts like myself who have decided not to use deodorizers with chemicals and metals in them. So many armpit products today advertise as an “antiperspirant”. But do you really know why they work or how?

Metals that exist in most antiperspirants like Aluminum Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex GLY actually react with your skin to close the sweat pores so that you are unable to sweat from your armpits. Aluminum Zirconium is a metal that is a human nervous system toxicant. This metal is the most common ingredient in antiperspirants like Axe, Dove, Secret, etc. These products often also contain fillers like PROPYLENE GLYCOL, BHT, CYCLOPENTASILOXANE , and PPG-14 BUTYL ETHER. The EWG states that these ingredients are known to cause “neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, persistence and bioaccumulation, organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), enhanced skin absorption, contamination concerns, occupational hazards, biochemical or cellular level changes.”

Do you know what you are smearing under your arms each morning? Check your label and consider an alternative.

The only product out there that does not contain harmful substances and actually works is called Crystal. Instead of forcing sweat glands shut with a toxic metal powder, Crystal uses natural salts to kill the bacteria that eat your sweat and exude that awful stink you are trying to get rid of in the first place. Get rid of the bacteria producing the smell, don’t force your skin to swell shut preventing natural sweat.

My favorite Crystalproduct is the “original” stick. It is actually a rounded piece of salts rock that you apply right after showering when you arm pits are still damp from the shower. I have been using it for a month now after previously having settled for another all natural stick that just masked odors. There is no smell! Even after a hard workout at the gym, I smell good. Amazing!

Put your balls on that jar! A new way of storing.

12/14/2009 in DIY Maker Projects, Sustainable Living | No comments

This caught my eye. It is right up our alley. I think we will use stone balls instead though. There is the issue of where to put the ball when you need to get into the jar… No teabagging though

Copper clothes hanger. DIY project for $5

11/30/2009 in DIY Maker Projects | No comments

On Black Friday we got creative instead of buying crap and trying to maneuver through clotheshanger hoards of people. Here is what happened!

DIY project: Copper and wire clothes hanger for the studio.
Cost: $5 (materials only)
Time: 20 mins
Materials: 1 half-inch Copper tubing (about 2 feet), 2 half-inch copper elbows, 1 half-inch copper T joint, strong wire, codder pin (or you can use some other way to fasten), 2 long screws, 1 metal wall hook
Tools: Screw driver, Drill, drill bit, pipe cutter (the $8 ones work fine), pliers

The copper pieces before being assembled. The wire codder is in place.

1. For the long piece where the clothes will be hanging, cut a piece of copper tubing to length with a pipe cutter.

2. Cut two pieces of 2 inch long copper tubing for the supports.
(Optional: shine the copper pieces with steel wool)

3. Assemble with one T joint and two elbows.

4. Drill a hole through the end of the long piece for the wire

5. Screw large hook in the wall and measure about 10 or more inches down and screw two long screws in the wall for the copper “legs” to rest on. (The copper arms that rest on the wall will go over the screws)

6. Measure your wire from the hook to the end of the copper tube. Create a loop with one end for the wall hook and on the other end, slip the codder diy2 through the hole in the copper tube, securing with pliers by bending the metal to fit the shape of the tube. (Optional: Solder the copper pieces together for extra strength and/or put an end cap on it for great looks.)

Give it a tug to make sure it will hold and you are ready to hang!

This is great for more hanging space, drying rack, etc. Put it up in your laundry room or closet. Once you have it put together, it can easily be taken down out of the way, just leave the hook and screws in place to put it back up again. Best of all it is 100% recyclable!

dyi3

Take the No-Impact Challenge this weekend!

11/09/2009 in Environmental, No-Impact Living, Self-Sufficiency & Farming, Sustainable Living | No comments

What are you doing this weekend? Anything to improve your quality of living or reduce your impact on the earth? Well, if those things appeal to you, sign up for a one week trial of guided No-Impact Living! The challenge starts this weekend October 18. There is no cost, just simply visit the website to sign up using an email account. Each day you will be emailed a how-to for each step along a one week period for reducing your footprint on the environment.

No-Impact Global Experiment Video:

No-Impact: Revised Apartment Living

11/02/2009 in No-Impact Living, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

Many people live in apartments for various reasons. Let’s face it, houses are expensive and if you buy anything for $100,000 or more and pay over 30 years, you actually end up paying three times the actual cost of the house. So until we can put a sizable chuck down on a piece of land and build our own “off the grid” self sufficient home, we will begrudgingly rent.

I have rented apartments in Minnesota and Arizona. My top complaints with these buildings are the lack of foresight into the energy efficiency of the buildings and the lack of recycling in the apartment community. In Minnesota the insulation was terrible on most places resulting in monstrous heating bills. In Arizona, so many buildings are colored to absorb rather than reflect the blaring sunlight and so few buildings capture sunlight on the roofs with solar panels. Appliances are often not energy efficient, window glass is not insulated, carpeting is made from plastics, the list goes on and on.

However, there are some things a renter stuck in a situation where they are unable to control these factors can do to have a smaller eco footprint:

Rent small. For most of us who work all day, home is a place for eating, relaxing and sleeping. Assess your family’s space needs and rent the smallest apartment necessary. This will save you money each month on your rent, and in your
Using the top of the cabinet as a bookshelf. A little herb garen below.

heating or cooling bills. For just the two of us, this meant sizing down to a 595 sq ft. Studio. You may have to get creative in utilizing your space when downsizing. If you approach it as a challenge and an opportunity to free yourself of unnecessary “stuff” you may have accumulated over the years, it can be a rewarding experience. We solved our lack of storage predicament by buying a metal frame fold up bed that has 14″ clearance for under the bed storage. Instead of buying a bookshelf, we used the top of our kitchen cabinet to keep books. It looks chic, saves space and money!
Solar may still be in the cards. Most apartment complexes do not allow you to install solar panels outside your apartment, but there are still some ways to get around this. If you have a porch that gets full sun, you can rig a mobile solar unit and run the power into your home for day use things like computers. There are also solar bedside lamps or desk lamps that you can set outside to charge during the day and use at night. Or if you are a DIY type person, you can rig up a small solar panel light yourself. You can even hang a solar panel in your window that will charge your iphone when you get home from work.
Freeing yourself of THINGS. I have a rule about my clothing. If I have not worn it in a year or I didn’t know I had it, it is time to get rid of it. This motto bleeds into
The studio laundry/utility room had only one shelf, so we installed two more metal shelves for towels and cleaning supplies.

other areas of my possessions, making me prone to throw things on craigslist.com or donate to Goodwill. Keeping my life clutter-free allows me to need less space to live and to store. In our family, everything we own that is not “in use” a majority of the time is stored under our queen bed. This mainly consists of camping gear and out-of-season clothing.
Quality over quantity. In our house, we have a very low tolerance for plastic and disposable things. When we do buy items for our home, we insist that they be made of quality materials, even if it means paying more. Buying a glass food storage set may cost four times as much as buying a Gladware pack, but the glass will last forever, will not have BPA leaching, and has a better resale value if we decide to pass them along. Glass and metals are also easier to recycle than plastics.
Buy reclaimed. Furniture and antiques are a great way to recycle furnishings from the past. Make a family project out of finding interesting garage sale pieces and fixing them up to fit your home. Or if you have a little more to spend, stop by a quality antique shop. These places carry beautiful reclaimed pieces that come from Europe, Asia and date back often to the 1700′s. You’ll find dining tables with thick cuts of wood that you would never be able to buy brand new. These pieces often are comparibly priced with high end Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel funishings, but with antiques you get the benifit of adding some history to your home and recycling all at once. The quality of the antique wood is often far better than any modern furnishing.
Grow your own herbs. Get creative and make a little ledge or indoor garden. If light is what you lack, use a flourecent or led lamp (powered by solar?) and cut your own fresh herbs, tomatoes, whatever you have space and time for.
Recycle! At our current apartment, they do not advertise where the recycling recepticle is located. I had to call the front desk to figure out where it was. Because I had a difficult time finding it, I assumed that other residents might not know either. So I sent a letter to the management of the complex asking if there was a way to make residents more aware of where to recycle and requesting that they put a permanent sign on the recycle bin so that non-recyclables would not be thrown in by accident. Be proactive in your apartment community. Most people will not recycle unless it is easy, so you may have to insist that your management be more helpful in letting residents know where and how to recycle.

Learn more: Glass in the Bath, Growing an Herb Garden

Growing a Kitchen Herb Garden

10/28/2009 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

Our family cooks our meals two days in advance. We spend about and hour cooking for two days, which frees up a lot of time not having to prepare food throughout the day or worry about what we will be eating. Using herbs to flavor our food is important when eating clean, so we added a little herb garden to our studio apartment.

Budget: $40-$80

1. Finding a location for your garden is the most important part. A ledge, shelf, counter top, separate table all work fine. Without sufficient lighting in our studio, we installed two fluorescent lights under the kitchen cabinets for $14 a piece from IKEA. We also bought a light timer from Walmart for $4 and set that to be on for 18 hours and off for 6 (plants do best with 6 hours of darkness).

2. To find a container we went to Marshalls and found two red metal containers for $20. Try to avoid wood or anything that absorbs water. If the metal container you find does not have drainage, you can solder some drainage holes along the back about an inch from the bottom. This will prevent extra water from constantly leak out, but will let excess water

Sage, Basil, Mint, Oregano, Rosemary

escape if necessary.

3. For soil we selected a $5 organic blend at the nursery for convenience, but you can collect from your yard or elsewhere. We gathered a few pounds of large rocks from the desert during an afternoon hike and placed the rocks on the bottom of the metal containers before adding soil. This helps with drainage and also makes it possible to use less soil for each container.

4. Our herbs are from a local organic nursery and include the most common plants that we cook with. If you buy seeds or small starter plants they each cost about $2-3 each. Assess your own cooking preferences before buying herbs and buy what you most commonly use. When cooking with your fresh herbs, use 3-4 times as much fresh herb when a recipie calls for dried. For example if you need 1 teaspoon of dried basil, you can substitute 3-4 teaspoons of chopped fresh basil from your herb garden. Happy growing!

Sexy Solar Charger for the iPhone

10/27/2009 in Product Reviews, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

Regen’s new solar charger for the iphone is set to hit the market in February 2010. This sexy, stylish charging unit is designed to blend into a chic room. The back panel hangs in a window to capture sunlight and then can be placed in the iphone charging stand to rejuice your phone. As an added bonus it also will plug into the power grid and tells you when it needs to be charged. You can also order additional bases for playing music that utilize the solar charger panel or even a desk lamp that also draws power from the flat panel solar array.

No-Impact: Glass in the Bath

10/17/2009 in No-Impact Living | 1 comment

So, we’ve talked about reusing glass containers, but how about in your bathroom? Use a glass herb container for q-tips or a small salsa jar for cotton pads? This can save you money and give your bath a chic, expensive look.

From right: cotton pads in little salsa jar, coffee grounds (for facial scrubbing) in a tall jar, q-tips in a spice jar

From Left: Cotton pads in little salsa jar, Coffee grounds (for facial scrubbing) in a tall jar, Q-tips in a spice jar

No-Impact: Baby Food Jars vs Ziplocks

10/16/2009 in No-Impact Living | No comments

Ok, for some things the handy ziplock bag is nice, but have you ever considered using a small glass jar or even a baby food jar instead? They work great for carrying nuts in (and you can portion your food out knowing how many ounces each jar holds).

Ziplocks cost money. Every bag you use and throw away is about 7 cents/bag. That bag goes to the landfill and is never used again. When I was growing up my mother used to wash ziplock bags by hand and reuse each one about 10 times before throwing it away. I’ll give her brownie points for effort, but there is a simpler and healthier way to say goodbuy to needless plastic baggies. Baby food jars!

Ok, so if you make your baby her own food or you don’t have a baby, you can do a few things. Find a friend with a baby who is willing to save their jars for you. Or, if you buy spices in glass jars, save the glass containers. When shopping at the grocer, buy products in glass containers instead of plastic (like salsa, sauces, oils, canned fruit).

Depending on the size of your baby food jar or alternative jar, you can use it for things like nuts, peanut butter on the go, dressing or oil for a salad on the go, the list is endless…

From right: 8oz baby jar with nuts, 4oz jar with walnut oil for salad, 4oz jar for all natural peanutbutter

If your jars get too dirty to clean by hand, just boil some water and sterilize the jars and their caps for a fresh start! (and remember to let your boiling water cool so you can give your garden or house plants a drink)

No-Impact: Reusing glass jars

10/15/2009 in No-Impact Living, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

This will be the first of an ongoing series to share the ways in which our family is becoming a No-Impact group of humans (and animals). You’ll find tips, creative ways to reuse and simple ideas to decrease your impact on the environment.

Reusing your glass jars can be fun and save money! When shopping at the grocer, select products like salsa, coconut oil, apple sauce, etc that come in glass jars. Since glass is generally easier to recycle and does not contain BPA found in most plastics, you can do yourself and the environment a favor by

Clockwise from top: Juice Jar as rice container, applesauce jar as grape container, salsa jar for nuts, coconut oil jar for water

avoiding food products that are packaged in plastic. Jars with metal screw tops work the best for storage. When your jar is empty of whatever foodstuff came inside, give it a good washing, scrub the lable off and let it dry thoroughly.

You can keep a spare cubbard for glass jars so they are handy when you need the perfect sized jar. Some common uses around our house:

Portable water jars. (We use salsa sized jars instead of sigg bottles. They fit in most cup holders and allows you to see if the jar is clean or dirty)
Countertop storage for oats, grains, nuts, etc.
Big jars are perfect for making Ice Tea in.
Jars of every size are a great way to replace food storage plastics like gladware and ziplocks that only help to add to our landfills.
Small glass jars like an empty Burts Bees facial lotion, baby jars or empty spice containers make perfect q-tip holders or cotton pads for the bathroom.

Let us know how you have reused your glass jars around your home!

Honey Extraction How-to Video

09/30/2009 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming | No comments

Tutorial Videos on Extracting Honey from Beehive frames:

Organic Toothpaste that actually works: PerioBrite

09/25/2009 in Environmental, Health, Product Reviews, Sustainable Living | 3 comments

When our household switched from toxic products to non-toxic, all natural alternatives we enjoyed every part of it… except the toothpaste. We went through so many toothpaste brands like Jason, Toms of Maine and many others. All of them left our teeth feeling fuzzy. Some of them even still contained Fluoride, one ingredient we get too much of in our drinking water and a chemical that disrupts the natural hormone production in the thyroid.

Feeling dismayed and out of options, we found ourselves at the Wholefoods store, staring at a wide array of natural toothpastes. We were going to trial and error again, just pick some and return them if they didn’t work when we bumped into a gentleman buying toothpaste as well. He reached for a brand familiar to him. I quickly piped up and asked him if he liked that stuff. He looked at me funny. I explained that we were having a hard time finding a paste that worked and wondered if he would recommend the PerioBrite he held in hand. He told us it is the only thing that works and turned to leave. Dylan and I looked at each other. I grabbed a tube of PerioBrite and since then we have been hooked.

PerioBrite is clay-colored and does not contain “sudsing” ingredients that make conventional toothpastes suds in your mouth. It does contain natural peppermint flavors that really cool and refresh the mouth. And they graciously leave out the Flouride. It is clay based and does not leave your teeth feeling fuzzy. We use it three times a day and our teeth are healthier and cleaner than with chemically loaded conventional toothpastes.

Learn more: Organic, non-Alcohol Mouthwash

Solar Powered iPhone charger doubles as protective case

09/08/2009 in Environmental, Product Reviews, Sustainable Living | No comments

The protective case made by NovoThink is called “Surge” doubles as a solar charger with its own built in battery backup. It will soon be available for $70.

The device comes with an application for the iPhone that indicates how much power is available in the batteries and how much power is being pumped into the phone. The built in extra battery pack can be charged by the solar panels and holds 120% capacity. It comes in a range of color options and if you live in sunny state, might be your ticket to getting your iPhone “off the grid”.

Border Collies help keep up solar farms.

09/02/2009 in Environmental, Self-Sufficiency & Farming, Sustainable Living | No comments

Sheepdogs may now be considered an important part of green energy. Solar farms in Europe have begun keeping sheep in the pastures beneath solar array farms. The sheep are a green way to keep the weeds and grasses from blocking the sunlight. A fence around the solar farm keeps the sheep in and the people out. Sheepdogs like Border Collies have hit the spotlight helping to move the sheep around. The sheep cut the grass for free and provide wool.

Nothing works! The Do-Nothing method to natural, healthy skin

08/31/2009 in Environmental, Health, Product Reviews, Sustainable Living | 1 comment

Are you at the point with your skin blemishes that you just feel like giving up and saying “Nothing works”? Take a step back and consider that your skin did not evolve to deal with harsh soaps, twice daily washes, makeup clogging up pores. These things strip away the skin’s natural defenses. If you are at the point where you have no idea if you have dry or oily skin, you have tried so many acne treatments you want to cry or you are just feeling like giving your skin a break, the “Do-Nothing” method may work for you. 10 easy changes. Try it for 3-4 weeks. “Natural”, “Nothing” and “Free” don’t make anyone money, that’s why you’ll hardly hear of someone advocating this method.

1. Nothing works!

For your daily face regimen, simply do nothing. No makeup, no scrubs, no washes, nothing. Let your skin regulate itself by producing natural oils that protect the skin and keep it moisturized. Washing your face strips your skin of it’s natural defenses, leaving it dry and vulnerable, often leading to an overproduction of oil that causes acne breakouts. It is a vicious cycle. Go cold turkey and see what “nothing” can do for you! The day you start this method, use a mild scrub (see below) and steam the follow day to start the cleansing process.

2. Cold showers, short showers

Hot water strips away the natural oils in your skin, leaving it dry. If you can’t stand a cold shower, take a warm shower (not hot) and turn the shower handle to cold at the very end when you rinse your face. If there are very oily spots on your face, go ahead and gently rub them with your fingertips, but on most days just a cold rinse should be enough.

3. Never pop a zit!

That white puss that forms on a zit is your skin’s way of cleansing out the inflamed area. The puss is actually filled with white blood cells, and repairing components that clean and heal the infected pore. By “popping” it, you are stripping that natural healing method away and opening up a wound that will take longer to heal and may leave behind a pock mark. Once you get a pussy zit, leave it alone, let it works its magic and it will “pop” and go away on its own. The key is to avoid getting zits in the first place, but once you have a puss filled zit, best to leave it to repair the damage already done rather than causing more damage by popping it.

4. Wash your makeup brushes

If you do need to use makeup to occasionally cover embarrassing blemishes or just to add some color to your eyes, be sure to wash your makeup brushes once a week with warm water and an all natural paraben-free shampoo (the one you use for your own hair of course). Dirty makeup brushes harbor bacteria. Don’t let that build up or you will just be rubbing that grime all over your face! If you must use makeup, use a mineral makeup like Bare Minerals and apply as little as possible. For eyeliner and mascara use a natural, organic product like HoneybeeGardens.

5. Exfoliate Once a week

Sluffing off those dead skin cells is necessary at least once a week. You can buy a natural product with no parabens and a very fine granule like Hugo’s Sea Fennel Scrub. A cheaper and more natural alternative is to use organic coffee grounds from your morning brew. Coffee grounds not only exfoliate, but the caffeine helps tighten your pores giving you smooth skin. If you have dry skin, you can add a tablespoon of cold-pressed coconut oil to a handful of coffee grounds and use to exfoliate.

6. Massage the lift into your face

When you scrub your face once a week, give yourself a mini facial massage to increase circulation to your skin. Facial massages help reduce wrinkles by loosening the muscles of laugh lines and tension areas in your face.

7. Steaming for acne

A weekly steaming can help open your pore to flush out toxins.

Use a small pot of water (add lavender, thyme or chamomile if desired). Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for a few minutes. Form a tent over your head by draping a towel over your head and lean your face over the steaming pot. Let the steam hit your face without getting too close (to avoid scalding yourself). Steam for 5 minutes, then immediately rinse your face with cool water to close your pores.

8. The Hair on Your Head

Since we spend about 8 hours a day with our faces on a pillow, it is important to consider what sleep situations may do to our skin. If you have long hair, put your hair up in a binder before hitting the sack to keep the oils and product in your hair off your pillow and off your face. Using a hairnet also works for those who have shorter hair or don’t like their hair tied up all night. It is also important to evaluate what is in your hair products, as these are the closest in proximity to your face and scalp. Check your shampoos, conditioners and hair products for parabens such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and known human carcinogens, such as triclosan. If you find any of these things in your product, throw them away and start fresh. A big factor in your skin’s health can be the laundry detergent you use. Bed linens and clothing rub on us all day. Buying a natural detergent and staying away from dryer sheets can help clear up acne, yeast infections and skin irritations as well as keep harmful carcinogens out of your system.

Health food stores sell all natural cosmetic and beauty products that will be gentler on your hair and better for your overall health. Look for ingredient lists that are short and do not contain words you cannot pronounce or chemical names you have never heard of. Less is more in this case. Keep this healthy practice with all your cosmetics, cleaners, and soaps and you will have less chance of coming in contact with harmful chemicals and carcinogens throughout your day. Our favorites are Hugo shampoos and conditioners and Dr. Bronner’s liquid hand and body soaps.

9. Exercise

Healthy skin is tied in with healthy living. Eating fresh produce, meats and avoiding processed sugars, corn syrup and parabens goes hand in hand with regular exercise. Exercise aids in carrying nutrients to all cells in the body and carrying out toxins that build up in our cells. Our bodies are not built for sitting on the couch or at the computer all day.

10. Avoid sweets

Avoiding sweets and refined sugars is the best way to avoid zits and aging. Glycation is a process by which sugar bonds to a protein or lipid molecule without the controlling action of an enzyme contributing to the deterioration of collagen in your skin. Collagen is responsible for that young, tight skin look we all strive for. Not to mention, avoided sweets and eating healthy will make you feel better and look better!

BeeKeeping Videos

08/20/2009 in Self-Sufficiency & Farming | No comments

All you ever wanted to know about basic beekeeping, right here. When we have a few acres, we are definately going to keep bees along with a natural or “forest” garden.

How To Make Starter Strips

Smoker and Hive Basics

Bee Housekeeping

Swarm Capture and HIve Rescue

House Designs determine neighborhood interaction

08/03/2009 in Sustainable Living | No comments

This past weekend our primary vehicle had major technical issues, leaving us stranded for the weekend until Monday morning when the rental car place near us opened up shop. Being stuck without wheels got my wheels turning. Realizing how car-centered our world has become, I began to notice the distances between our apartment and every thing we normally drive to during the week. Luckily, my work was a short 10 minute bike ride away, making me feel rather guilty for not biking it more often keep a little less mess out of the air.

Houses caught my attention as well. The car has become the focus of the modern home design. Our garages face the street. We come home, drive into our mini house for the car and walk from that into our home. We don’t need to walk past the neighbor kids or the guy who lives next to us watering his grass. In older neighborhoods, the houses have prominent front doors and porches. If there is a garage, it is an afterthought behind the house, accessed by the alley. To get from your garage to your home, you still have to walk through your yard and be seen by your neighbors. Our vehicles dominate the distance between home, school, work, grocery and family. And they even govern how we build our homes. Most households have one car for every legal driver and most cars on the free way carry just one driver. Some of us have better insurance on our vehicles than on ourselves. We spend more on oil changes and car repairs each year than we do in our own routine checkups and preventative care. It is all very fascinating.

And in light of that, we have purchased a new vehicle. The repairs of an older car are too costly and disruptive for a two person household with only one vehicle. We picked a Toyota Yaris 2009 3 door hatchback. Our first instinct was to go with a hybrid, but the technology is not at a place where we are willing to sing 20 thousand dollars into a vehicle at this point. Our second choice was “clean diesel” by VW. 102_2798 Their Jetta TDI gets 40+ mpg. Alas, the price tag was hefty and the 2009 models were nearly all gone. (We thought that odd since 2009 is only half over and their 2010 don’t hit the road until November at the earliest. We suspected that there were some bugs in the clean diesel model that caused them to be pulled from the production line for 2009. VW hasn’t made diesel engines from 2006-2009). The Yaris was cheap ($16,000 tripped out) and the most fuel efficient gas car in its class. It gets us from point A to point B on a low budget. When we get rich, we’ll be the first one’s line for a Tesla car though, trust me.

Human powered taxis in Arizona

07/06/2009 in Sustainable Living | No comments

EcoCab is a new company that is leading the way in human powered taxis through Scottsdale, AZ. The “cab” is shaped like open air horse drawn buggy. Except the horse isn’t a horse, it is a human on wheels.

If you catch them around town for a short ride, they only charge for a tip and lunchtime rides are only $2. Their “tours” that take you around Scottsdale to all the major venues over 75 mins cost just $75.

What a great idea! There should be more of these, especially in warm, busy cities.

Coal is secretly dumping ash in your backyard.

06/13/2009 in Environmental, Politics, Sustainable Living | No comments

An aspect of coal energy that we might have overlooked is now being kept under wraps at the highest levels of government. The Huffington Post reported that ash from coal plants is being dumped at over 40 sites around the USA and those sites are not public knowledge.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States — or a storm or some other disrupting event — could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.1

The Head of the Department of Homeland security has been told not to discuss the locations. Here is what she was able to say:

There are several hundred coal ash piles across the nation, she said, all of them unregulated.

“If these coal ash piles were to fail they’d pose a threat to the people nearby,” she said. While keeping it from the public, DHS is alerting first responders as to the location of the piles. 1

Thankfully, she also thinks people should know where these toxic dumps are located so the public can make their government clean up the mess and regulate the disposal of such poisonous byproduct from coal burning.

Bottom line: coal is not clean energy. We should continue to focus on renewable energies like wind, solar and tide. These are forms of energy than can be used by individual homes and businesses. They are 100% renewable with no byproducts to dump secretly in American neighborhoods.

Eat Well online resource

05/06/2009 in Sustainable Living | No comments

This website allows for an easy zip code search to find local organic and sustainable markets, restaurants and farmers in your area!

Eat well Guide

10 Myths About Sustainability

04/11/2009 in Sustainable Living | No comments

Taken from Scientific America:

Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.That’s not even close to being true. By all accounts, the modern sense of the word entered the lexicon in 1987 with the publication of Our Common Future, by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland commission after its chair, Norwegian diplomat Gro Harlem Brundtland). That report defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Or, in the words of countless kindergarten teachers, “Don’t take more than your share.”

Note that the definition says nothing about protecting the environment, even though the words “sustainable” and “sustainability” issue mostly from the mouths of environmentalists. That point leads to the second myth….

Myth 2: Sustainability is all about the environment.
The sustainability movement itself—not just the word—also dates to the Brundtland commission report. Originally, its focus was on finding ways to let poor nations catch up to richer ones in terms of standard of living. That goal meant giving disadvantaged countries better access to natural resources, including water, energy and food—all of which come, one way or another, from the environment. “The economy,” says Anthony Cortese, founder and president of the sustainability education organization Second Nature, “is a wholly owned subsidiary of the biosphere. The biosphere provides everything that makes life possible, assimilates our waste or converts it back into something we can use.”

If too many of us use resources inefficiently or generate waste too quickly for the environment to absorb and process, future generations obviously won’t be able to meet their needs. Says Paul Hawken, the author (his latest book is Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, and Why No One Saw it Coming) and entrepreneur (he’s a co-founder of the Smith & Hawken garden tools company) who helped to found the sustainability movement: “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP [gross domestic product].”

If people continue to pour carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air, for example, we won’t necessarily exhaust resources (there’s plenty of coal still in the ground), but we will change the climate in ways that could very likely impose huge burdens on future generations. The same, of course, goes for the poisonous by-products other than CO2 from all kinds of human activity, from manufacturing to mining to energy generation to agriculture, that get dumped onto the land and into streams, oceans and the atmosphere.

Shipping Container Eye Candy

03/26/2009 in Sustainable Living | No comments

Shipping Containers As Home Eco Blocks

03/11/2009 in Sustainable Living | 1 comment

We have been exploring the idea of building a small ‘off the grid’ container home on a 40 acre plot of land. 4-6 boxes seems about the right size to start. Eventually this would turn into a guest house a short distance from the main house.. but it would serve us very well until then. I love this design very much. It is simple and allows for a second level master bedroom balcony on one side and a covered outdoor patio type place on the other. I love all the open windows and the ability to put solar panels on the top of the home.

40 foot shipping containers can be purchased for a little under 2,000 (2003) dollars apiece. Each shipping container is 2261 square feet. They are somewhere in the range of 7.8 feet high, 7.8 feet wide and 40 feet long.

If we end up with land that had hills to supply shade, a design like this might make sense, although the stairs might get a bit old… This home is located in New Zealand:

Eventually for the Main House, we might do something like this:

Self-Sufficiency & Farming

A little weekend food project I filmed on

How to Make Dried Apple Rings:

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