Earth Month, All Month: Day 4

From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Here’s another action that many are already doing. It reminds me of the energy crisis of the 1970s. Yeah, I was around then, people. I’m old enough to know better. Suggested action for April 4 is this lower the thermostat (while the heat is on) by one degree. One simple degree Fahrenheit, folks. It’s an almost undetectable difference for us humans, but it makes a significant difference in the amount of fuel used to heat an entire home.

Heck, if you’re lucky enough to have a programmable or Smart thermostat, set it to a lower temperature when you’re gone to work and turn it up just before you arrive home. Make sense? Of course it does. It made sense in the 1970s, too.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Earth Month: Day 3

From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Today’s action is easy: turn off the tap when brushing your teeth. Fellow green-conscious types probably already do this. Folks who brush their teeth twice a day can save up to eight gallons of water this way.

Handle the challenge the way you might if you were camping. Grab your cup full of bottled or boiled water, and use that to rinse after brushing. Task accomplished – without wasting treated water down the drain unnecessarily.

Try it, folks. We can make a difference.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Earth Month Action – April 2

From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Put a politician on speed dial.

What? How can this be considered an environmental action for Earth Month? Frankly, it can. Those in office have a great deal of power and influence by making laws that take care of the world in which we live. By having your Senators and Representatives in your contact list, you can quickly call and leave a message with your position on environmental policies and bills. Whether or not you influence the vote, the people in office will have a collection of data showing how their constituents feel about the issues facing them.

 

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

April is Earth Month!

April is Poetry Month, too, but I’ll focus on environmentalism here. My school district used to have Earth Week and Earth Month activities for students and staff. I usually found the staff activities, well, dull. Wimpy. Boring. Been there, done that, already on that track type of feeling. I’d fill out my calendar, get the tee shirt, and shrug my shoulders. If it helps move a few people toward a greener lifestyle, yeah. Okay, participation is worth something.

Treehugger, one of my absolute favorite websites, set up an awesome challenge for April this year. It’s called Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions.

This is a challenge I can accept. Each day has an action, for beginners or green freaks (as Amigo tends to call me). I’m going to dive in and see if this works for me.

April 1: Unsubscribe from 5 unwanted emails. Apparently email newsletters generate a carbon footprint of their own, even if they’re unread. Instead of zipping through my inbox and hitting delete, I’ll take a little time and make the inbox itself leaner.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself! Subscribe to their e-newsletter. It’s one of the few that I always read.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Water, Water Everywhere

So, Daisy, how’s the water catchment thing going?

Very well, thanks. Too well, if I’m honest. I ran out of containers, so I had to dump several buckets in the backyard, which was actually the original plan. The shelves in the back hallway are full. The kitchen table is covered with bottles and jars filled with water. Three water bottles and a two quart pitcher (full) sit on the counter waiting to be poured into the coffeemaker one of these days. I have a box full of cider bottles now full of water. We must use this water before cider season arrives!

I’ve got Chuck trained reasonably well now. He grabs a bottle of This Water for cooking before he turns on the tap. He drinks This Water most of the time, except for the batch that somehow developed a metallic taste. Overboiled in a metal pot, perhaps, is my theory.

The next question in the Water Catchment Saga is this: how long will the water last? We need to use up enough of it to make the containers available for vegetables in June, and all of the actual bottles by October for cidering.

The forecast is promising (temps in the 40s, no new snow), so I felt confident putting the buckets in the garage. If the back door icicles reappear, I’ll drag the buckets out again.

And the water saga will continue.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Ice Melt and Springtime. Ah, Water.

It happens every year. The icicles near the back door take over my life. The dripping makes the area by the door very wet, which freezes overnight, and the ice just piles up and gets slipperier and slipperier. I spend all kinds of time chopping the ice and spreading sand and salt on it to protect the family from sliding and falling. This corner doesn’t get any sun, either.

Sigh.

This year, I had a brainstorm. (Chuck would say I watched too much of a Homestead Rescue marathon, and he wouldn’t be wrong.) I thought to myself, what if I captured this water instead of letting it freeze in this inopportune location? Based on that thought, I grabbed a few five gallon buckets, positioned them under the icicles, and collected water. Lots of water.

My original plan was simply to dump the buckets into the grate at the end of our driveway. The water would go to the river with the rest of the rainwater and snowmelt that goes that way. But Chuck said, hey, why don’t we keep it? Set the water aside and use it? (Haha, yes indeed, he did watch quite a bit of Homestead Rescue with me.)

Just to be safe, I strained the water through a clean towel and then boiled it. After the pots cooled, I filled canning jars and extra bottles and a few pitchers with this lovely, cost free, potable water. Now I have water that’s already boiled if I need to use my sinus rinse. I have water for cooking, making coffee, and more. All that, and I’m on a good quality municipal water system, too. The ice melt we collected is all bonus. All extra.

Best of all, I’m not slipping on the ice every time I walk out the door.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Blizzard – Thoughts on the Closings

La Petite is grown up now, but I’ll always remember the time I pushed to get her out of bed saying, “Schools are open! Let’s go!” and she countered with, “Moooom, did you check ALL the channels?!”

We’re just watching the evening news followed by Jeopardy, and the crawl at the bottom of the screen keeps going, and going, and going. And even though the closings on the list no longer matter to us, we can’t help but watch.

How is a television news crawl supposed to spell cancelled — or is it canceled? We saw both, on the same station.

Then there were multiple postings for the various branches of the County Library – all ten of them. This could have been consolidated into one post saying All County Library Branches are Closed.

The channel we were watching had a long stream in alphabetical order. I looked down at my phone briefly and missed our school district. The next time it came by – I’m not making this up – was 12 minutes later.

The vintage mall in which we have a booth closed early today and will remain closed tomorrow. This was not on the crawl, thankfully, but on social media. We did coast through a few odd posts such as the Small Town Hypnosis Center closure. Really? Could they not call the affected clients and keep this off the endless list on television?

Meanwhile, we’re grateful to be home, wrapped up in our blankets, sipping our hot beverages, and making decisions like whether to snowblow tonight or wait until the snow ends tomorrow.

Readers, I hope you’re safe and warm, wherever you may be. And always remember to check all the channels.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Whether the Weather

Whatever the weather, we’ll weather the weather, whether we like it or not.

That’s the last line of a song we used to sing at Girl Scout camp. It sure fits this week – whatever the weather, indeed. Last night we had a surprise thunderstorm just before midnight. It kept me up – not the thunder and lightning, but the “oh, no, what if” feeling that came with it. What if the temperature was perfect for freezing rain? Would the driveway be slick as an ice rink? Could we lose power? None of that happened, fortunately.

Today my car’s thermometer read 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so I got in line at the car wash near Petunia’s home and got my mid-winter exterior wash. The interior needs cleaning, too, but I’ll get to that. Eventually, I’ll get to that.

There’s a snowstorm in the forecast that promises to be more slush-storm than anything. Roads will be a mess, and my just-washed vehicle will again be a mess. Oh, well, that’s the weather in Wisconsin.

After the snow and slush another bitter cold stretch moves in. Good thing I washed sweaters today!

As the saying goes, if you don’t like Wisconsin weather, wait a day. I’m ready for tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. Whatever the weather, we’ll weather the weather, whether we like it or not!

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Daisy is grumpy.

It’s cold outside. Not just cold, but bitter cold. Below zero cold. Nasty wind chill cold. The kind of cold that attracted a hawk to take shelter next to our French doors and eat the sparrow that was its lunch. Well, this happened a few years ago, but it was that kind of cold.

I’m privileged enough to be able to stay home and wrap up in a blanket and wear fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm. The cold weather shouldn’t make me grumpy, but it does. If I wanted to go anywhere, I’d be miserable.

With grumpy comes impatient. Amigo and Chuck are pushing my buttons constantly. I am normally a patient person, but I’m running out of patience. Have some courtesy, guys! We’re stuck inside and can’t leave each other alone, so be nice, alright? Okay?

I’ve decided that a gin and tonic along with cheese and crackers might help. And I might go hide in a corner of the bedroom and look for old episodes of Homestead Rescue.

The other option is to go down the basement and start a few seedlings. No, that won’t work because it requires going out to the garage to get potting soil and small pots. It’s cold, very cold, outside.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Grow Vegetables.

Not my original, I confess. I saw this on social media and said, “That’s me!” Life around me and around the world gets crazier and crazier, and what do I do? I buy seeds. I set up a spot in the basement for starting seedlings. I rearrange the living room furniture to maximize sun exposure and find the grow lights, too.

I can’t stop Russia from invading Ukraine. I can’t stop Kevin McCarthy from giving in to his party extremists. I can’t stop George Santos from cheating and lying – and voters from believing his statements. I can, however, feed my family.

Last year’s garden was meager. We had several setbacks. Foot surgery (twice!) put me in a bad spot. Chuck tried to take over the unplanted section with a three sisters plot, and then the neighborhood deer took over from him. No corn, only one squash, and we relied on the farmers’ market for beans.

I plan to plant marigolds instead of morning glories along the garage. Hopefully, the marigolds will be less appetizing to the deer. Chuck and I are working on plans for a higher fence, too. The challenge will be building the fence in such a way that it doesn’t block the sun. We’re brainstorming ideas.

I can’t stop the roller coaster that is gas prices. I can drive my hybrid car and use less fuel. I can’t stop the clueless conservatives in my state legislature from introducing misogynist bills, but I can vote for a governor who will exercise his veto power. I may not be able to change the world, but I can take action by sending postcards and by writing my (thankfully) progressive state assembly representative.

And when the going gets tough, I can grow vegetables.

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares