Reuse and Recycle

I thought I'd showcase a couple of great finds that A~ picked up at our local thrift store and surprised me with. We really like to take advantage of reused and recycled items around our house. It helps us to stretch a dollar, which we all know are getting pretty tight nowadays, and it feels good to know that we are helping to conserve resources at the same time.
Check out these bushel baskets that we got. They're a bit dry but are in otherwise very good condition. I had been using a basket that I picked up at the same thrift store until just recently but, with the HUGE hauls of food that I've been getting... naw just kidding, actually the handle broke off the basket. Although no doubt this was due to the poundage right? Anyway, we scored these babies for a buck a piece. Great deal!

Since we've been really been trying to put up the stuff we've been growing, we have noticed how expensive it is to buy these suckers new. I mean, yeah, we have bought them new. But if we can buy 10 of the quart size jars for $2.50 then you can bet we're all over it. On a side note, we always saw a glut of these in years past when we weren't really canning much but now, they always seem to be snatched up right away. It sucks if your in the market for some, but I'm really glad to see that more people are putting up food.
And my pride and joy. The Precision Garden Seeder. This is one of the coolest little gadgets. My boys saw this and somehow knew what the heck it was. It's a little big for the scale of gardening that I'm doing currently, but truth be told, I have aspirations of grandeur that some day I'll have some land and you can bet this baby will be in full use.
I wonder what these things go for new. This one was only 6 bucks and there's not a thing wrong with it.
Have any of you ever used one of these? They have interchangeable seed gears on the inside to allow them to be used for different types of seed.
Well, that's about it for tonight. It was a long day today, working on cleaning out our garage and straightening up around the house and tomorrow hold more of the same. Time to get some late season stuff into the ground you know. Plus it's about time we get serious about our expansion to liberate some lawn.

Till next time.

P~

Reduce - Energy and Fuel

We received our power bill yesterday and I have some great news to share. Below are the stats as I've received them:

July - Aug 07	July - Aug 08

Are they the lowest power usage amounts in the world? No. The thing I am proud of though is the fact that there is a consistent down trending there. Take a look at the usage on the left from last year. You can see that we used 2501 kWh throughout the billing period, but what's really important though is the Avg kWh per day use because the number of days billed can vary from year to year and that number is 69, down 4 kWh from the year before. That reduction was last year when we had just begun to pay attention to our habits, and our power footprint. This year (graph on the right), I'm proud to say that we were able to increase that reduction further, by dropping another 14 kWh from even last years totals.

That reduction means a lot of things. First, of course, is the fact that we are truly beginning to walk the walk more in our everyday lives and this is a sort of validation to ourselves. Secondly, it is realized in actual dollars. This savings translates to nearly $70.00 for this billing cycle alone. When you're able to make these types of changes, it translates into serious savings throughout the year. Which brings me to the last thing that this means to me. By reducing our use, we begin to put ourselves in a place to be less impacted in the future by rising costs. That, more that probably any other one thing, is the reason that we try to strive toward these changes.

On a related note, I had to put gas into my old Toyota last Friday. Big news huh? Well, actually it really is. You see, the last time I had had to put any fuel into that car was on June 9th. So that's two months of driving on a 10 gallon tank. Not too shabby huh? Mostly that's due to the fact that I've had a little over three weeks of bike commuting so far this summer. Not as much as I'd have liked to have had, but it makes a difference.

I guess the biggest point of all the efforts that we make is just that, "we're making an effort." It's about trying things out, seeing what fits your life, and what changes you can make. Everyone can't do everything, we're not saints and there are things that we just aren't willing to do without, but to make the effort at least gets us into the game.

Till tomorrow,

P~

New Additions

I got a package about a week and a half ago. When I opened it, this is what I saw.

Inside was a thin muslin bag...Interesting. What could it be?

WORMS!! About 1000 of them (give or take); I bought them from Uncle Jim's worm farm the week before and had just received them. I had been wondering why they waited nearly a week before mailing them, I ordered them on the Wednesday before, and they still weren't showing as sent on the web site so I called. Well I jumped the gun, they just hadn't updated the status' yet but the wigglers had been mailed on Monday. It seems this is the standard practice, mailing on Monday that is, so that the worms don't get held up over the weekend and dry out and die. Very considerate worm farming isn't that?

So anyway, I got out the compost crock from under the sink which had a bunch of "goodies" in it and got ready for a feeding. I've been using this crock for almost a year now. It's lid broke toward the end of summer last year, so I've been just placing a small tea plate over it. If you empty it regularly, it doesn't really even stink (too badly). I need to find a new one. It was just an old second hand cookie jar that I found at the thrift store.

Before I got the worms out of the bag I had put together a new home for them. I shredded some old cardboard that I had available, and added some peat moss that was also lying around to act as bedding. I wet the whole thing, and then squeezed it out till it was about like a damp sponge. I added this bedding material to a 15 gal. Rubbermaid tote that was one of our old book boxes before the library was finished and that I had drilled holes around the bottom and lower sides of for air flow.

So far so good. I received them not last Wednesday but the one before that and they seem to be adapting very well. Just tonight I went out to feed them and they are all densely packed around the scraps from the other night. The main reason I got them, apart from the tales of amazing nutritive properties of worm castings, was that I had a very tough time last winter with composting through the cold. This way I hope to have built a large enough colony of worms to accomplish our composting needs throughout the winter, and provide an occasional treat for the chickens.

Anyone else out there, worm farming? How's it working out for you?

P~

Sunrise and torn up tee's

I ride along, golden light bleeding over the ridge.

Cold air passes like a cool spring breeze,

In my ears a melody, in my chest a fire.

a beautiful accident delivered me here; I'm glad.

~P

So in my fog that is waking up, I got ready, hopped on the bike and peddled off to work. As I'm riding along down the road I am struck by the gorgeous sunrise coming over the Wasatch Mountians. The sky was golden, and the clouds glowed. It was truely magical. Last week the bad weather that we had forced me back into my car and I have to say I hated it. Not the driving necessarily, as much as the waiting, and the impatient people. I saw at least twice people cutting one another off and cussing back and forth. I got stuck at three consecutive lights for two and three changes. Were I on my bike I could have leisurely blown right by. I may not get there any faster, but it will certainly would have been a more peaceful trip. But as I was saying, I head off to work this morning in my usual fog, and don't realize until I've gotten to work that I am an hour earlier than normal. I must've screwed up the alarm last night when I went to bed, and got up at 5:00 rather than 6:00 (No small miracle in and of itself I assure you.) So as a reward for my inept clock handling skills and foggy morning haze, I was shown a beautiful sunrise. I wish I could honestly say that I would try to continue getting up that early; I'd get to see all the sunrises and would get off work an hour earlier. But that just isn't going to happen. Really it's not. But it was a pleasant surprise.

I decided to continue one of my practices from last week with a little help from a neighbor of mine. He gave me a "Box o' Rags" which is basically just a bunch of old recyled T-shirt scraps in a box. I grabbed a bunch last night and packed them to bring in so that I can always keep one in my pocket for hand drying and such. I liked using a hand towel last week, and now that I know how many paper towels we actually go through in a week since I kept them all in a separate bag for composting, they are ruined for me. Not to say that I won't grab one here or there, but I don't do it without looking for something else.

P~

Sunday was composting day around the house. I took a bunch of pics of my process and equipment. I'll be working on getting those imported later today so watch for that update.

Bike to work week.

I learned yesterday that next week is National Bike to work week, and that Friday the 18th is National Bike to work Day; in fact I learned that May is Nat’l bike month for that matter. With the upcoming Low Impact Week activities and with one of my main goals being to bike to work and significantly reduce my driving for the week, I think that this is a fine opportunity to get in shape, or probably more realistically to learn how out of shape I am so that I know what I have coming in June!
If I can get over the blasted spring cold that I have had for the last three days, I am going to try to bike it to work at least a couple of days next week. I invite you to do the same if it is possible for you. Many of us live a great distance from our places of business, in this case, I would encourage you to at least try to make a few of your local trips by bike; perhaps a run to the store, library, or even riding to school and back with the kids if you have them. Anyone who had the opportunity to watch the GMA or Nightline interviews with Colin from “No Impact Man” saw he and his wife making the trips to work and daycare on a push scooter, with a toddler no less. I don’t think it would be such a stretch to think we could try to at least supplement our driving with pedal power to some degree. Even for those of you out there that aren’t worried about the environment or reducing our impact on it per se, I’m sure you’d agree that the $$ savings at the pump would be worth it! So get up, pump up those tires, and get on the bike!
P~