Composting to improve your outdoor Life

I first learned about it via the internet through a great site called Smell Like Dirt. There are some great YouTube videos posted there, but there are tons of local resources too.I recommend watching these videos to learn the how to or attend a class- They broadcast from Charlotte. I found a link about taking a composting class, my husband and I took the class and the rest is history – we got hooked!

Composting reduces the amount of matter that goes into a landfill,according to the EPAComposting what’s the big deal right, especially if you are already recycling. Well, composting can be a huge deal for all of us.Yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 26 percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream.Composting at home allows it to decompose on the surface where it can be of most use! It saves the community money and energy because it isn’t having to be hauled to the landfill. Not to mention that it isn’t taking up space in a landfill. I use way less garbage bags one 20 count box lasts 2 months or more at my house. Anything that can be put into the compost goes there.
Personally it benefits you by improving the soil quality and helping to protect against drought, because it allows your soil to keep more water. This is great for you, because you pay to put the plant life in your yard. It may be that you have a garden, or just expensive landscape.
Do you have a lawn guy in your family? Did you know that compost is the best defense for your lawn too. Adding compost to your lawn in addition to grass cycling helps the lawns root system to be able to penetrate further, making it more drought tolerant. There are obvious fertilization benefits as well, because compost is nutrient rich.
It’s expensive though, right? NO! This is one of the cheapest things you can do to help you and the environment! Most everything you will need is available FREE to you and the rest can be purchased for less than fifty dollars in most cases. It costs about $5 to produce 10 cubic feet of compost vs the $25 it would cost to buy it! You don’t need to buy anything though. The basic ingredients to a good compost already exist in your yard – you just need to put them together.
I don’t have that kind of time. The beginning process of setting up the compost site takes about forty-five minutes,after that you just have to add your scraps and turn it once a month. You can turn it more often – this will speed up the process. You will have usable compost in about 6 months!
It’s fun…. Yeah I know you are thinking… messing with used foods and dirt doesn’t sound fun. It can be especially for a family. Building a bin together to maintaining it all can give an opportunity for your family to spend time together and do something that will produce benefits within a growing season, especially if you plant a small garden using your compost. I have several coffee canisters that I add my compostable to when I am cleaning the kitchen. I take it out when I take the recycling out, and add it to the compost.
Give it a try – if it isn’t for you –well at least you attempted it!Get the basics! I believe though that once you get started and find out how simple it is you too will be hooked!!

TP your Christmas, and Roll into Reusing!

Hey all it has been a while since my last post and I want to apologize looks like the Holidays caught up with me.
I have been working on the article on indoor air quality and I will be posting that in early 2010.
I wanted to take advantage of the Holidays being here to post some things that are reliant to this time of year!

This post is dedicated to my nearly five year old daughter Addy. She is obsessed with the cardboard tube in the middle of the toilet paper roll. She will remove them from the dispenser and add them to a collection she has in a gift bag in her room, she does all sorts of things with them from making "Lincoln Logs" and building things to making puppets. When I say she is obsessed I mean it, she will take them from other peoples homes- she says, "Are you going to recycle this?" The usual answer is no- as most people don't even think about them being recycled they just toss them into the trash - where Addy rescues them! So in the interest of not having all of my in laws and neighbors now bringing my daughter TP rolls I am sharing some of her better ideas of what we can do to repurpose the TP roll! below are the ideas with instructions for doing things , crafts and practical ideas with Toilet Paper rolls.
This time of year she had some really amazing Christmas ideas!!

The Advent "Candle" wreath:
4 TP Rolls
1 side of a large cereal box
adhesive

We started by covering 4 rolls with the corresponding colors of the Advent(you can color with markers or glue construction paper around the tube). One Pink , One white and two purple. Addy traced a large circle on a cereal box and then a smaller one inside that one. We cut it out and that made the wreath shape, to make the wreath look green and full we shredded green scrape paper and attached it. Then we took each of the candles and placed them in the space appropriate, for the Sunday.

Nativity Scene
You need at least 3 tubes for this one but if you plan on making it more elaborate then save more.Mary Joesph and baby Jesus are the main attention so start buy making them. You want to clothe and swaddle your characters. You can use paper (reclaimed or construction or felt) Make the faces, and if you fill they won't stand up well with help you can secure the bottoms to a cereal box you have cut a base out of. You are essentially making puppets.(* You can also use the remaining box to make the stable- or if you have enough TP rolls make a "log" stable)

Christmas Light and Extension cord storage:
fold lights or extension cords end over end and push through the center of the tube the tube keeps the cords wound tightly and secure until you take it out to use it- NO MORE BALLS OF CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!
Candy or small gift containers
Roll the tubes in enough wrapping paper to go all the way around and extend about an inch at either end.Adhere the paper to the tube then twist and tie one end securely with pretty ribbon or twine. Fill with goodies and then twist and tie the other end.
This is a great way to wrap stocking stuffer or an inexpensive holiday party favor idea!!!
(greener version - use those odd pieces of paper scraps from wrapping or use newspaper, at our house we stamp news paper with holiday themed stamps and soy ink)
Stay tuned for more Greening your Christmas, Holiday ideas and as always if you try any of these ideas please post pic or comments letting me know what you thought. I would love some feed back too- what do you reuse your TP rolls for?

Green Halloween Costume Contest

Hey Halloween Goers
Did you make your costumes? Did you get one second hand or just use
what you had?
Send me your pictures of your green costume, explain what makes it recycled , up cycled or green in general- then send us a picture and be entered into a drawing for Soap Nuts laundry berries packet.
Contest ends at Midnight on October 31.
Winners will be be announced on November 2!

Post your pics here in the comments section. Good Luck

Baby Green: Choosing the "better" formula for your little one

I have to say that this is one of my longest researched blogs yet. In case you haven't figured it out I am a huge advocate of breast milk, but I also recognize that there is sometime circumstances where breast feeding solely or at all isn't an option. My own daughter Addy needed formula supplements to save her life, I wasn't producing enough milk to help her rid her body of Bili Rubin during her first weeks of life. I maintained sole breast feeding and she had her levels checked nearly everyday. ultimately though James and I chose to supplement her rather than see her continue to yellow and possibly do irreparable damage to her liver.
There are also those special couples who adopt and thus mothers milk isn't really physically possible. Some mothers have their miracles born too early and their milk never comes in, and there are those moms who just can't get the hang of it try as they may, it just becomes so tiresome and frustrating for them and baby.There are a number of really GOOD reasons why we need a quality choice in formula. This became most apparent to me during what I call a "God moment" this week,when my brother in law, a bachelor, brought me an orphaned kitten he had found. I had to purchase formula for an infant, though not of my species in order to keep it sustained and alive. It was sometime during one of the midnight feedings that it dawned on me that though I advocate breast milk, it truly is important to have a safe healthy alternative to breast milk sometimes.
I was researching the topic from the perspective of not being able to breast feed. What is important to me. Well obviously as close to breast milk as possible, organic, without any additives. I began with what I knew, the main stream brands and their organic options.
What do I mean by organic? A true organic formula whether it is milk to soy based must come from organic certified source ie organic soy beans or an organic cow (no hormone injections and a strict organic vegetable based diet), all the essentials added things like carrots for the beta carotene or other vegetables for fat and vitamin content must also be certified organic before becoming part of the formula. The process by which the formula is made must also be organic, meaning that nothing can be don chemically to alter the ingredients, heat and additives are all strictly monitored.
I was surprised to find that there are a lot of things I didn't know about formula. DHA is all the rage. So what is DHA - it is "fatty acid,that occurs naturally in breast milk.These long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are powerful enough to affect brain and eye development.They work in concert with other fatty acids which make up lipid bi-layers.These lipid bi-layers are found in every cell in the human body.They regulate proteins involved with signaling.The regulation and balance of lipids in these bi-layers is critical for proper cell signaling.Cholesterol is essential for s-acylation which activates and de-activates protein signaling.Disruption of this s-acylation by increasing the amount of unsaturation will have devastating consequences. in breast milk there is a natural regulation not fully understood by scientists". However, they found DHA in breast milk so they thought to add it to formula to make it "just like breast milk"

So we are going organic? UNTIL you get to the process of adding that magic accompaniment that makes the world believe that it is just like breast milk. I have learned that the process used to derive DHA is what I would consider to be "dirty", there is a number of ways but one of the most disturbing is to use bleach - yes bleach to break down the wall on the fat cell in order to extract the DH:,C. cohnii oil (algae) & M. alpina oil (fungus) used in some organic and conventional infant formulas,are treated with hexane solvent (a suspected neurotoxin), acid, and bleach. After reading a blog by Jenn Savedge,I started checking network news sources, like the Washington Post and I FLIPPED OUT! The really disturbing thing is that the FDA knows this and still allows some organics to carry the USDA seal.
I found a few formulas that are certified organic sealed and used nothing toxic extract DHA.A few but they are out there! I have posted a link, on my facebook page and will include in my newsletter,that compares the alternatives to these, this was a great list and included prices.
If organic isn't that important to you then a conventional formula may be your choice, I would recommend avoiding the DHA/ARA additives all together, as the process isn't guaranteed in the least.
Of Course, as anything these days price is one of our biggest concerns, so I also took a look at some of the generic and store brands too. A few of the big box stores have organic options, again I would opt for not getting the DHA/ARA to avoid unnecessary chemical exposures, if you choose to use even the organic store brands.
It comes done to this for me, if I have to use formula I would choose Natures One baby's Only Organic formula... they have organic certification disclose all ingredients and offer explanations for how they get the DHA in the formula. You may be concerned that they don't offer an infant formula, well the baby's only is nutritious enough for infants, it is a labeling tactic to encourage breastfeeding moms to stick to it for the first 12 months... but they told me that on their label - how is that for truth in advertising?
My best advice for any product is to avoid the green washing, find a product that discloses ALL it's ingredients and tells you in plain language how each additive is extracted,if a product is worth your time, trust and dollars then you are worth it enough to that company to be allowed to know what they are asking you to put into your body and the bodies of your family.

Baby Green : Breastfeeding

So, I have to say I was really surprised at the reaction that I got about my post on disposables.
I am proud to announce that I will be breast feeding baby number three.
Why breast feed? Well to start with , it is the design I mean mom comes equipt to do it. My doctor as well as most of the world's doctors state that breastfeeding is better for baby and mother. Your natural immunity is passed to your child through your milk.Studies are showing that not only are babies given moms immunities but they are also at lower risks for ear infections and recently I read for lukemia.Not to mention that mom's recovery time is quicker!
It's convenient.Always the perfect temperature. I have to say i know both sides of the fence on this one and I liked having to roll over pick up Addy and nurse her back to sleep while a peacefully dozed versed having to get up measure and heat water, mix test , feed burp... that was the case with TJ. I also liked not having to carry bottles around. Addy did take formula - she needed supplements.
I never had the problem of eating anything that didn't agree with Addy, I made sure that I had a lot of fluids and ate a well balanced diet but I never avoided any foods for the milks sake. Although, I always avoid alcohol I know that several moms have prepared for an evening out where they planned to have an adult beverage by pumping before going out for enough until they had metabolized the alcohol, and simply "pumped and dumped' the alcohol laced milk.
There is a lot of information out there on breastfeeding, I got the most help with Addy from other moms. I also got a great deal of encouragement from those moms. I think the best advice for a nursing mom is to join a support group, like Le Leche League. There are groups of moms that meet on a regular basis to discuss feeding, naturally.
I think that one of the best things about breast feeding is that sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing you are providing your babies nutrition, the bonding that takes place during nursing is absolutely amazing. I can't describe the feeling that I had looking down at my baby as she nursed and knowing that I was giving her something that no one else could.
What makes breastfeeding green you might ask? Well a few things, primarily to start breastfeed mothers forgo bottles most of the time, so the amount of plastic being produced for bottles is reduced, especially if the "drop in" disposable liners are avoided altogether, no plastic scoops. In exclusively breastfeeding moms aren't taking advantage milk based formulas, which come from obviously cows milk, a good 20% of green house gases come for the dairy farm industry, nursing inadvertent reduce green house gases.Not to mention the energy used to "harvest" the cows milk. Breast milk, always the the perfect temp required no energy, well no outside energy. You don't have to use electricity or natural gas to heat a bottle, no water or detergent that would pollute that water is used to clean the bottles. Then there is the poop factor,the issue of a breastfed versus formula-fed and the environment. When changing a diaper especially a cloth diaper, you know the difference! Breastfed baby’s waste is much easier to wash from a cloth diaper, as well as the odor is not nearly as bad. When considering the energy and water involved in washing cloth diapers, breast is definitely best!

I plan on writing next on bottle feeding, so what is the big deal with bottles these days anyway?Since having her and using the Avent brand bottles I have learned more about the dangers of plastics and how the constant heating and washing some brands of bottles can cause petro toxins , BPA that leach into the baby's milk and digestive systems. Rest assured though there are green options!

Baby Green