Tooting my own horn

I was featured in A Mom in Red High Heels blog today and wanted to share the news.  For those of you who know me you might find the thought of me in high heels more than hysterical, but the blog is a great way for moms to connect and remember that they deserve some much deserved me time!  Enjoy

http://amominredhighheels.com/

Chickens, Chickens, Chickens

Chickens are one of the easiest pets to have and fresh eggs are the best.  They are also great for keeping most of your organic garbage out of the landfills, which is a great bonus.  When you are looking to raise chickens there is a couple of things you should check out first.  The biggest problem you might encounter is whether your county or city allows chickens in your area.  After you get the OK do a little research on the type of chickens you might want.

There are many different types from the pretty chickens that don’t lay very big eggs, to the large “laying” chickens who might give you more eggs than you know what to do with and every kind in between.  We have always had Barred Rock or Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island,  Ameraucana.  Almost all these chickens lay brown eggs and are decent layers, about one egg per day per chicken.  The Ameraucana does not lay brown eggs, but instead lays great blue green eggs, great for the kids!  My two year old loves to go and get the “Easter eggs”.

An Araucana egg (center) with white and brown eggs .

Once you have figured out what kind of chickens will work for you and whether your allowed to even have them, they are going to need a home.  I highly recommend going to your local library and finding a good do it yourself book.  Building a chicken coop is relatively easy, depending on how many chickens you decide you want.  Here’s a great site to check out when building a coop http://www.backyardchickens.com/

Chickens need very little to keep them safe, healthy & happy.  Here’s a short list of things you will need:

1. a perch, chickens like to sleep off the ground, but not in their laying boxes.  This should be about the size of a broom rod and about 2 feet or so off the ground and very stable.

2. Water & food containers these things you can buy at most feed stores, they should have a top on them to keep the chickens from making a mess out of the inside.

3. Dirt, chickens need enough dirt or loose soil to bath in.  Without this they are prone to mites and other funky things mostly cosmetic blemish to their feathers.

4. Nesting boxes.  These can be simple wood boxes that are open on the front for the chickens to get in and out of.  The chickens should not have to jump to get into the box, unless you’d like scrambled eggs.

5. The nesting boxes should be in some sort of chicken coop to keep the birds safe from predators, their perch would also do well in the same area.  Those are the basic needs of chickens.  They really don’t need all that much.  Your thinking what about organic waste and things that I can give to the chickens.

Chickens will eat anything and I do mean anything, that doesn’t mean they should.  Chickens that eat egg shells are more likely to pick at their own eggs.  Onions are very strong and will taint the taste of the eggs, so unless you like onions a lot I’d put that in your compost bin. There are some other things that you should now about chickens but I’m just writing a blog not a book.  If you have specific questions your more than welcome to email or comment and I will get back to you surprisingly fast!

I’ll be adding some updates on chickens and the benefits to having them and how they can help reduce the amount of garbage that goes into the landfill.

all the pictures are courtesy of Wikipedia, our chickens weren’t being very helpful today as they kept turning as I would take a picture.

Small “Green” Rant

This is going to be short, I hope!!!

I feel like every time I turn a page in a magazine, go to the store or flip on the TV I’m being forced “fake” green.  Today I went into a mall, which normally I avoid like the plague since I’m pretty sure the plague is thriving in the mall, and this sort of pushed me over the green edge!

Anyway my daughters feet had some sort of crazy over night growth spurt and I was left with one option to put on her feet, slippers not really summer shoes!  I tell my husband and daughter, she’s 2 and really it was more directed at the hubby.  “We have 10 minutes, that’s it 10 minutes get shoes get out and head home!”  We ended up wandering around the first store looking on all 3 floors before realizing that the kids shoes are in the women’s dept go figure!  We find two pairs go to pay for them and are told if you pick out another you get it for a dollar.  OK that’s a great deal so we find another pair of shoes and the sales lady says “store X is going green, want to buy one of our reusable canvas bags?”  OK so I’m all for companies going green, but how exactly are you going green by offering us a canvas bag that your selling?  Are you changing all your lights to CLF?  Are there solar panels going up on your roof currently to provide the store with clean energy?  Are you producing cloths using organic cotton?  So the answer to those questions are no, but your store is going green!  I’m at a loss!  By the way the canvas bag was made in CHINA, and on it in big letters “store X is going Green”  in green letters!

So this is my problem I feel that people are being fooled or companies are trying to fool us to believe everything that has “green” written on it or has the color green on it is in fact GREEN.  It’s as if companies are saying we don’t really want to go green, but if we don’t do something we are going to fall behind.  It’s not just department stores, but big companies.  I read recently about how Johnson & Johnson are “going green” and within a few weeks I read another article about how they are being told to pull their baby shampoos because they have formaldehyde in them!  How the heck do you explain that?  Just by saying your going green or slapping a new green colored logo on doesn’t in-fact make you a green company.

DOES THIS MAKE ME GREEN??!!!???!!!

What I’m getting at is don’t be fooled, and don’t let companies try to fool us!!!  If you find a new product that is labeled green check out the ingredients,  look for things like biodegradable and avoid things where the majority of the ingredients you aren’t able to say out loud without sounding like you have to sneeze.  As for stores, if they are claiming they are green ask how they are doing this.  What are the changes they are making?

OK that’s my rant for the day, thank you for coming along for the ride!

Off the Grid update

This is an update from a previous post in which I began discussing what it takes to go off of the grid and how we were taking steps to remove ourselves in a realistic timeline. One of our biggest hurdles has been the costs, even though there can be great savings in going green it still requires initial costs.  Anyway that’s a whole different post.  We have been talking about things that we can do that will help cut back on our energy bill.  We live in a really old, hodgepodge style house and don’t have AC, there are so many cracks in the house we’d just cool the outside, but we still use fans and an attic fan.

Our plan… We’ve decided that one of the simplest things for us to do right now is put in well placed, drought tolerant, fast growing trees and vines that will grow and shade our home.  We have a huge tree in our front yard that has been providing great shade which keeps our house really cool until the sun slips into the west and starts frying the back of our house, and I do mean frying.  Some days it gets so hot in the back portions of our house that we have to leave the house all together.

Action…We strategically placed a few new trees and vines around the house. The new trees and vines that we have planted are already doing great in terms of adding size, but it will be another year or so until they are at a height that we will see useful. These same plants will also shed their leaves during the winter and allow sunlight to reach the house and keep down heating costs.

I know this doesn’t seem like much but putting in plants that help protect your house from the sun can reduce the amount of time that your AC is on or reduce the amount of energy that you use for your fans and other cooling devices.  We are hoping that this will help us cut back on the amount of energy we are using.  I’ll keep you posted and let you know if we see a reduction in energy costs, granted it probably won’t be until next summer.

Greening one step at a time.

Green & Charitable

Here’s my question: Do you think that people that are “green” tend to give more to charities?  I think of myself as being a pretty Eco friendly, green person, but along with those titles I also wear the animal rights hat and children’s rights.  I don’t know if it’s just that they seem to go hand in hand for me or if they actually do go hand in hand and that is my question.  If you consider yourself green do you find yourself giving to charities and if so are they always environmental related?

Here’s how this came about.  I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a few charities to my site and giving customers the choice of where the money I donated would go.  I have been thinking about 2-5% from each purchase going to charities, but what would be the best charities to give to?  I find myself giving to a lot of different charities depending on what the cause.  I would really like to put this question out to others and find out what you all might think.

Here is a short list of charities that I have been looking at or have given to in the past.

http://www.charitywater.org/ This charity helps bring water to developing nations.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/ This charity is all about the environment from animal issues to climate change.

http://www.hsus.org/ Humane society

http://www.nature.org/ Works to conserve and protect important ecological land & water.

Any additional thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Making new Traditions

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about birthday presents and how things seem to get out of control anytime a kids party comes around.  The crazy thing is that the majority of the time when you buy a present for little kids they look at it for about 10 seconds throw it back in the bag or on the floor and move on.  What they are looking for is completely unknown to me and usually them!  I think it’s just the thrill of ripping through paper and packaging.

After the party parents are then forced to say thank you so much for all this stuff that we have no room for and our kids will play with today and maybe tomorrow and then I’ll really have to find a place to store it.  The ironic thing is we do it to each other.  Don’t get me wrong I love the fact that people care enough about my child to go out of their way to buy something they think she will like.  So maybe it’s time for a change in the classic birthday party present, a birthday present overhaul if you will

How about a whole new birthday present tradition a green tradition?  The idea of going green for a birthday party isn’t just about sending an evite instead of a paper invitation or using real plates instead of paper plates, but what about the idea of not giving traditional gifts?  What if everyone that was invited to the party donated the money they would have spent on a present and gave it to a charity in your name or better yet let your child donate it?  What if everyone brought money and put it in a donation jar and then at the end of the party your child could figure out the charity they want to support?  This is a great way of getting your child to see what the money is really going toward and they are the ones that are giving it.  Another option is to adopt, sponsor, a sanctuary animal?  I know there are sanctuaries that will send you monthly updates on the animal you’ve adopted and tell you how your adopted animal is doing.  For the same price of a plastic figure from china you could give a sanctuary animal dinner and vet care for over a month.

The whole idea of giving something to someone that helps others is a great way of thinking, in my opinion.  I think that teaching children at a young age that giving to others is just as rewarding as receiving is a lesson worth learning.  I’m not suggesting that you never buy any gifts for your kids or you don’t allow others to give them gifts but moderation is not something we use very often anymore.  I think that giving children a lesson in sharing and compassion is a much more rewarding present and a gift that will last.

This post is an ongoing project I will be adding different ways to green your party, but until the next one I hope I’ve given you something to think about.

I’ve added in some ideas of places to donate to & animal sanctuaries.

Green people a great Green site with info about animal sanctuaries: http://www.greenpeople.org/sanctuary.htm

Local humane society or you can contact them at http://www.hsus.org/

The Nature Conservancy http://www.nature.org/

Check out Charity Navigator, which is a site that gives you details on all sorts of charities. http://www.charitynavigator.org/

For extra help and birthday invitations check out Echoage great site it just needs to be seen to fully understand!  http://www.echoage.com/index.html
Some other ideas: Local animal shelter, Local Homeless shelter, Child’s own school, local wildlife rescue, there are really so many options find one that is close to your child’s heart and let them make a difference!

I’d love to hear what you think or what other charities you come up with.

Merlin the wonder dog

Organic clothing discount

Green as Wee Grow is offering a 20% discount on all items from now until August 31st 2009.  Green as Wee Grow is an organic baby & toddler clothing and bedding company.  All of our products are made in the USA all of our cotton comes from fair trade farms.  Come check us out. 

 Just our way of saying thank you!  The coupon code is blogged!  

http://www.greenasweegrow.com

 Happy shopping

A Healthy Green Start

If you haven’t heard about Greensburg, Kansas now is the time to take a look at this amazing little town.  I was watching a green building show when Greensburg was brought up.  The show went into a few details about how this little town was going green and why.

In May of 2007 the entire town of Greensburg Kansas was destroyed by an F-5 Class tornado.  When the dust had cleared the town got together to figure out the best way to rebuild their community and their homes.  This amazing little town has decided to go all sustainable and green in their rebuilding.  The construction that they are working with is sustainable as well as being stronger than before.

If you have a chance I highly recommend going to http://www.greensburgks.org/.  This is the website for the town and it has many details about how the town is actually making the buildings green. I have never been to Greensburg, but I found the whole idea of taking something so tragic and turning it into a whole new healthy start inspiring!  I hope you do too.

I hope someday soon it won’t take a tragic natural disaster for all of our towns to be GREEN!!!