The girls...

Well, as promised I thought it was time to post an update to how my girls are doing. I have to say that I am very happy that we decided to mail order our chooks. (Australian term for chickens. I just love it... sounds just like the noise they make... chook chook...) anyway as I was saying. I'm glad we decided to order them a month and a half before our local farm store was going to get them in. The white leghorns that we got in first started laying over a month ago and have been providing us with a consistent 3 eggs a day.
This is big momma, she runs the roost around here, and is really the only one that has a name. She matured before the others, and started the laying off first as well.
And here is one of the brown leghorns that are just hitting the 19 - 20 week mark and are starting to lay now too. These girls came from the farm store and if we had waited until they came in, we wouldn't have gotten any eggs yet but maybe one or two. Timing is everything isn't it?
Here's the browns again. They pretty much just sit around and watch what the whites do. Then when the whites are done, they do the same thing. After the picking on they got when being introduced the "pecking order" is pretty well ingrained in them.
They sure are nice to take pics of though. I have to say that now that we've had the chooks for a bit they are everything I'd hoped. (but friendly) they don't make noise, they give me healthy, tasty eggs, and their fun as heck to watch. The City Counsel here finally accepted the draft of the Title X change that is pending with the chicken law amendments in it. The first "reading" will be on Sept 9th, and hopefully they'll vote on it then too. A little at a time, I'll get them legal eventually.

Have a great Friday all, more to come this weekend. Sooo Many chores.
Take care!
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~

Earth Hour 2008 - Lights out.

This morning A~ informed me that Earth Hour 2008 was scheduled for tonight. We found out about it too late the last time it happened and we missed it. So this year, we planned ahead of time to spend that time in the dark. Or at least without electric light. So tonight from 8-9:00 pm Mountain time we went "Lights out". The kids weren't necessarily looking forward to it, but we plied them with cookies and games. We put a few candles out on the table, took out the scattergories game and had some of A~'s very tasty no-bake chocolate cookies. (See even the snacks saved energy!)

We all noted that it was funny how trained we were; we kept instinctively starting for the lights for this or that. Even when I went to take this picture. Even though I had taken out the tripod so that I could take a no-flash picture in low light without blur, I still went for the light. We never turned it on though, and we had a great time. After the 9:00 hour had passed, we kept the lights out for a bit and just talked. We talked about school and choices, and about what the kids thought about the Earth Hour experiment. They had a great time and are wanting to do it more often. I suggested doing it at least once a month, but they thought once a week would be better. We'll see I guess, but either way we'll certainly do it again.

We also talked about what it must've been like before electricity, and I got to thinking. Wouldn't this type of exercise get us more prepared for events like blackouts or unexpected catastrophes? It's similar to the idea of living for a week or month from food storage to get a better idea of the things you don't think about, and makes obvious the areas where you are lacking in skill.

Did any of you also participate in the Earth Hour 2008 event? If so I'd love to hear what you did, and what you thought of it.

Till tomorrow.
P~

Resolutions begin - extreme simplifying

In my resolutions I said that we wanted to downsize, eliminate clutter, and simplify our life. A~, my wife, and I spent a goodly part of the weekend going through our basement, garage and storage totes to pick out what came up to be enough to fill a parking stall in the garage with "Stuff". These are things that were "great deals", or are things that we have used in the house, that we just don't have a reason for anymore. We have been toting a lot of stuff around for years that we basically just said to ourselves, " if we haven't used it in the last three years, we can live without it!".

We are having some relatives of my wife's over, that are just starting out on their own, take a look at what we have and we will be giving it to them if they want it. The rest I think we will post of Freecycle for a week and see if anyone needs it, or it will be donated to the local charity store. We thought about having a garage sale. I'm sure that we could make a 150-200.00 if we did. We have been the recipient of a lot of help from both family and the generosity of others throughput our time together, and we want to give back a little if we can. Someone out there will appreciate the stuff that we no longer need.
The other side of this simplifying is that we have made a commitment to each other to not purchase any new junk this year. There are things that we have determined that we will need; a chair for the front room that is not fabric (allergy issues...), a cast iron pot for bread baking, and essentials like clothing of course. The main idea is that we will talk purchases over before we make them, identify whether or not it is a need or a want, and make a slow decision as to whether it is something we actually want to purchase. I hope to have this change of thought process help us to reduce our consumption, simplify our lives, and save us money.

I'll keep you posted as we finish and have more info.

P~

Call me "David"

No, I'm not changing my name, but I am challenging Goliath in a sense.
The other afternoon A~ picked up a couple of reusable bags at our local Wal-Mart store. She got them for me to use. I generally reuse one of the plastic bags that we get from shopping to carry my lunch and what not to work each day. She, being ever the considerate wife thought I could use these bags instead, which I am by the way. They, the bags that is, got me to thinking though. I think that it's great the a huge retail outlet like Wal-Mart is trying to make an effort to encourage their shoppers to re-use, and are providing us the ability to purchase the tools to do it with. But if you've ever taken your own bags into a Wal-Mart and tried to fill them without both backing the whole system up, and perplexing the poor girl behind the counter then you're better than us. The problem as I've found it, it that all the Wal-Marts use the carousel style bagging islands that allow them to expeditiously fill as many plastic bags as they can as fast as they can, while you load your cart. Basically, the system is not made to encourage the use of the reusables.
So what about this challenge?
I emailed Wal-Marts corporate headquarters the other day with my issue and explained what I thought would be a potential solution, after all you shouldn't complain without coming to the table with possible solutions right?

Here is the text of my mail:
I have noticed WalMart's efforts lately to reduce their environmental impact and appreciate it. I recently purchased a couple of their reusable bags for use in my local shopping. My problem with them is that there is nowhere I can load them at my local walmart store because of the carousel style plastic bag dispensers that all the stores have. I thought a unique way of encouraging people to use these low impact bags would be to one, provide a table style checkout area similar to older grocery stores that used to have a bagger. Two, would be to perhaps limit these lanes, during the peak hours at least, to people using the reusable bags or that have brought their own. I want to use these bags at walmart, but have really had a hard time because of this. Also, at stores like Smiths and Albertsons, I get a .05 cent discount per bag used. It really doesn't amount to much but again, it encourages the use of reusables. I am glad to see Walmart making some effort on this front, I'd just like to see the effort be complete, rather than just veneer.Thank you, I hope to hear something on this from you.

Today I received this response:
Dear P~, Sam Walton built Wal-Mart on a very simple belief--the customer is the boss. That means we are always looking for better ways to serve the people who shop at Wal-Mart. Each comment, concern and suggestion is very important because it gives us the opportunity to improve our overall service. Rest assured that your message has been forwarded to the proper division where it will be reviewed and carefully considered. Thank you for your observations. It is customers like you who help us continue to offer everyday low prices and friendly service. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Now I have no delusions that this was not a canned response; I'm sure it was. But I hold hope that maybe I will see a change. That maybe my challenge will not go unanswered. OK, so maybe the challenge isn't a huge one, but I'd like to see if there's a way to be the trim tab on this. And I'd like to encourage you too as well. I know there are a lot of you that view Wal-Mart as the evil empire and refuse to shop there yourselves. I can appreciate that, and it's your decision, but if a company with the kind of wide spread consumer base that they have can be steered into even a moderately sustainable direction, it could have a trickle down effect of huge proportions. I invite you to join me in this.; send them a letter. I thought about including a scripted letter in this post, but you know, honestly, I think they probably react the same to scripted spamming by action groups about the same way we respond to canned auto-responses, not at all. Use your own words. If you agree with me that it would be nice to see actions by them that would encourage consumers to use reusables tell them. If you have a better suggestion than mine, by all means tell them that. I think the most important thing is to let them know it is on our radar, and we are paying attention.

If you decide to take me up on this challenge, let me know about it, and by all means pass the word along. Link here, re-write it on your own blog, or email it if you like. I'm not trying to get people to read me by this, I just want to make a change.

I'll be sure to let you know if I hear more.

P~

link to Wal-Mart corporate contact us page.

Repurposing #3

Well here we are, number three. Have you been hanging on the edge of your seats waiting for what I'll re-use next? No? Well I can't see why not, this is exciting stuff! This is money in the bank, something for nothing, a free lunch... well alright I wouldn't reuse someones lunch, but you get the point.

Today's installment in the repurposing trilogy is something that I'll be using in the garden. Something that I've been wanting to get a hold of for a little while and have been diligently keeping an eye, or in this case an ear, out for. Old single plate wooden frame windows.

I've been wanting to find some of these windows for some time to use in the garden for building cold frames to help me harden off plants in the spring, and to extend the growing season for some of the cold weather crops that are able to be grown through into the late fall. One of the things that I hope to be able to do over the winter months in preparation for next springs sprouting is to go through at least a few of these windows and strip and refinish them to extend the life of them as well as to pass the "don't junk up the back yard" test that all of my projects must vet before being deployed. As you can see from the picture at the left, these have seen better days. The Gazing needs to be removed and the paint stripped. I'll probably mix up some of my own white wash for them, and give 'em a new coat before re-glazing, or more likely, caulking. If you've never done this before, it's not a hard process; I'll surely cover it to some degree when the time comes.

As I said, I was able to come across these by keeping my ears open. I was talking to one of the guys in my office on Thursday last week when he mentioned that his co-worker, a mutual friend of ours was changing out all of the windows in his older home. I jumped into action! After getting a hold of him and getting the all clear to take the old windows, I had my wife meet me with the truck and we headed over there to get them right away before the window man threw them away. Obviously, mission accomplished.

One that subject I thought I would leave this trilogy off with my Golden Rules for Effective Repurposing:

1. 
   
   Know what you want. You can't find the thing that will fill the need, or whose parts may fill the need, unless you know what the need is.


2. 
   
   Keep your eyes and ears open. Once you can picture the thing clearly in your mind, and how you will use it, you'll be surprised at how quickly it will randomly appear available if you are keeping a lookout on a regular basis.


3. 
   
   Timely Action. When it's available, get it. It may not be there later, or tomorrow. Sometimes this will get you a queer look from a friend or stranger when your putting a bunch of "Junk" in the back of your car but you'll have the last laugh. (All the way to the bank I might add.)


4. 
   
   Buy the best you can afford, whether new or second hand. When you decide to repurpose things you already own like the table in Repurposing #2, you will have much better luck when you already have quality that you're working with.

I hope you'll try your hand at repurposing around the house. I know a lot of you already do, I'd love to hear about your triumphs, and link if you have any. Share, motivate, and encourage!

Happy reusing all!

P~

Repurposing #1

I am a huge fan of reuseing items. Whether you call it dumpster diving, recycling or the new term de jour, re-purposing, I call it good common sense. If I can make good use of something that has already seen a good life of use, or better yet, as is the case with this installment something that has not been used at all and is being discarded, I get a warm fuzzy happy feeling inside. Part of the reason for this is because I think it's a great thing to do, reusing that is, but honestly the biggest part is that it saves me a bunch of money of the course of a year. A lot of times I am able to do things around the house or the yard that I may not be able or willing to do if I had to pay for them. You can see a couple of examples of this HERE or HERE.

Earlier last week we were moving people around the office where I work. This became a good reason for cleaning out and going through a lot of the stuff that we had been collecting around the building. Some guys from our network support team asked me if they could throw some trash into the back of my truck so that we could bring it out to a dumpster, I said yes and that I'd be out

in a bit to move the truck. When I got there, I found that the "trash" was a bunch of the unused keyboards and new sets of computer speakers; they were literally still in their boxes. I couldn't allow them to go in the trash. I took the three boxes of "trash" and the 15 boxes of new speakers home and went through them. After sorting, I found in addition to the obviously useful keyboards and speakers, nearly a hundred old Cd's. After pulling the old CD out and the labels, I now have a box of good CD cases. something there's always a shortage of around our house since we usually buy them in spindles without cases. (Cheaper that way.) Amongst the Cd's were five full versions of Microsoft Word with Certificates and serial numbers. Now granted these are Word 97, they are not the most current versions. But there are a lot of people out there running older machines, or that have their kids running their old machines, that could potentially use this software; it will be donated to our local thrift store who's profits go to both local and global relief for people less fortunate. What of the keyboards and speakers you ask? Well, as with many of our children's schools, ours is always looking to be able to augment it's current computer equipment. I gave them the first chance at the equipment and they jumped at it. My kids will not be at they school for many more years, but I like knowing that classes after them may get to have some use from it.

What did all of this cost me? A little gas from work to home, and a little motivation and time. I find that when I keep my mind and my eyes open, I see so many opportunities to reuse and re-purpose so many things. Often, I find myself thinking "what could I use that for?" when I see something that I know is usable. It becomes a habit once you're able to get beyond the notion that if somebody had something or used something before you that it's no good, it's "trash". When simplifying life and trying to stretch a budget there are few things that can benefit a home or in this case a community like effective reuse.

There's been a lot of reuse opportunities around the house lately. Check in tomorrow for post #2. Till then...

Future recycle

Made a great find the other day! Our city is building a new main city hall and sheriffs department HQ. Somebody must have messed up in a big way, because yesterday their dumpster was overflowing with this 4' Diameter PVC pipe, and some 6" PVC. These are going to be used in the future as some sort of hydroponic system. I love being able to find something that's being thrown out and reuse it for something that I have been putting off. These would have cost me quite a few bucks to get new.

Now I just have to stumble over an air and water pump and I'll be almost there.
P~

Compost Day

You may remember a while back when I built myself a DIY homemade Compost Tumbler from an old pickle barrel and some salvaged wood. Today I pulled and screened the finished product of that endeavor. The rich brown humus that is the finished product couldn't make me happier. I was told that if you can't recognize what was put into the compost then it is done. Well, this pile has garden cuttings, grass clippings (some of those from the last addition are still recognizable but barely.), egg shells, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, sawdust, paper towels and shredded documents from work. I'm sure there's a lot of other things that I can't remember, but it is a very well rounded mixture I assure you. I was not really too happy with the physical performance of the composter itself however. The plastic barrel that I used as the main portion of it, was warped pretty seriously because of the double to triple digit heat that we've had this summer, plus the couple hundred degree internal temperature caused by good composting action. I have a method that I am going to try to solve the problem with it, but in the mean time, I was able to procure a new, metal food grade barrel for a measly 3.00 dollars. It was originally a bulk wheat barrel for the Church storehouse and I got it from their thrift store. I haven't modified it too extensively yet. I only punched a bunch of holes in the top and bottom. The lid is removable so I can take it off to add content, or water the mix. Rather than put this barrel in place of the other one, since it has no side opening yet. I decided to leave it on the ground, and roll it across the grass to tumble it. This method I am happy to say, took considerably less time to come up with, and works great. I thought I'd try something new, and post a short clip of it here.

Hope that works for you. It's my first time useing YouTube. So I'll mark two days ago, August 6th as the day I loaded the composter with the goods, and we'll see how long this batch takes to "cook". The last time I did it, it tooks something like 2 1/2 months, I kept adding as I went though. This time, I filled it with kitchen scraps, grass and sawdust and I'm leaving it at that to see how long it takes. Having two tumblers now, I can get one going good, while I start collecting in the other.
I'll keep you posted.
P~

We lost our TV

No , not really; but we did take it out of the bedroom. We decided to try "living" without one in the bedroom. I know a lot of you may think that this is just obsurd. Not the idea that we are taking it out, but rather the fact that we had one in there in the first place. Of course a lot of you probably have one and think we are nuts for taking it out, who knows? I have been slowly trying to wean myself off the tube for a while now; I always feel like there is something I didn't get done at the end of the day, I have a lot of reading that I am trying to get through for instance. Thats not even counting the blogs that I haven't had a minute to catch up on. At any rate, I got the wife to concede for a short period to give it a go. She loves to have the noise in the room when she goes to sleep, and I guess my clattering away on the keyboard isn't enough. It's been nice the last couple of nights to get into bed and get to focus on something other than the news, or some re-run, Although I will admit that I miss the documentaries. We love documentaries and all the best ones seem to come on late at night, almost tempting you into insomnia. This is just one little way to try to simplify life a little. we'll see how it goes.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you have tv's in your rooms? Lurkers, you chime in too OK. You don't have to leave your name, I'm just curious as to where I stand.
Thanks.
P~

Low Impact reflections

Well, Day two down and I have a few reflections to share with you.
As I said before, I had begun to ride to work a couple of days before the LIW began. Friday I took it to a new level. I needed to run some errands after work, stop by a junk yard to check on something I thought I saw while driving by and stop at the local farmers supply store to pick up some hardware to finish my composter with this weekend. Anyway, I decided that since I'm trying to conserve gas, and I could make these places be on the way home if I took a little bit longer path home so I did. I guess it turned my 5.5 mile trip home into more like 8 miles, but a lot of it was down hill and I felt great doing it. I've begun to notice a lot of different things while riding around. For instance, I see the same guy every morning standing at the bus stop out on main street; now he waves to me and I to him. Yesterday while taking the long way home, I crossed over one of our irrigation canals and watched 6 or 7 barely hatched ducklings cruising along behind momma, something that I would have blown by during my daily driving. I feel a little more connected to my community this way I guess. I see people, even the ones in cars because I make eye contact with them when they are getting ready to turn. I catch the smell of the farmers harvesting early hay, and share a wave with other bikers as we pass.
As for some of my other goals; I think I've done pretty well so far on most things. I brought a small hand towel to work to use rather than using the paper towels, but both times I went to the bathroom I forgot it so I had to walk back with wet hands and dry them back in my office. I didn't cave and cheat though. On a side note, for the last couple of weeks I have been using a separate bag at work for all of the paper towels that I use there. I bring them home periodically to throw in my compost pile since I don't really have any "browns" to add but am "green" rich. I have been doing the same with p. towels from home as well. This works great by the way, and I can't believe how much longer it takes to fill a trash bag without p. towels. I have also been collecting our used coffee filters in an old coffee can at work and toted them home on Fri. to add to the pile.
My family and I went out for a movie that we had had planned for a couple of weeks, (Can't pass up free tickets to Pirates of the Carribean) and I passed on lunch when everyone else grabbed a quik bite after the movie. I was hungry, don't be mistaken. But one of my goals was no restaurants, so I passed.
I've had some other things that I've noticed so far, but I think I'll let them develop a little more before I share them.
I hope everyone's having a good experience with this so far.
P~

It's all down hill from here.

And I mean that literally! I did the ride into work this morning, only 5.5 miles but that sucker was uphill all the way. Not big steep kind of uphill (other than going over a big bridge that is.) but the long slow never ending uphill slog kind of uphill. I know, I know, Whaa Whaa! Anyway, I am pretty proud of myself if I do say so. This was one of my goals for this year, to ride to work. I guess if I only do it once this year at least I'm 100% more than last year right? But I won't, I hope to ride to work for at least the majority of the Low Impact Week that's coming up end of next week. (You can see the rest of my goals for that week HERE.) I really have to say that I was pleased to see the kind of comments that I received on the last entry I put up about riding. It is actually the post with the greatest reader input surprisingly. It's good to see a lot of people are getting out to ride more often, although I still have to give the prize for total ambition to Cynthia for her nearly 20 mi. one way ride to see her boyfriend.
Happy pedaling!
P~

Addendum: Well I made it back home tonight. I had a headwind, and got caught up at two lights, but still made it home in just under 25 mins. It took me nearly 40 to get in this morning. I hope that as I ride more often It will get easier.
P~

Personal Note
I wanted to keep a count of the number of days that I ride to work this year, just for posterity. I will update this as I go.
todays count: 7 (Last Update 6-12-07)

IKEA Madness

There is a new IKEA store opening today just south of Salt Lake City. I was born in Sweden; my mothers side is 100% Swede. I grew up with that sense of style and love for all things culturally swedish, so yeah I have to say I am a little excited to be able to pick up a Marabou chocolate bar, and some good meatballs. But the buzz that I have been hearing about this place has me stopped dead in my tracks. The city of Draper where the new store is located has actually been working on a traffic plan for the last 6 months because of the number of people they are expecting! Last night the news was talking about the number of people camping out there waiting for it to open. ??? Are we THAT deprived of shopping venues here? Like I said, I look forward to going there. But I just can never wrap my brain around waiting overnight for a store opening. I kept thinking, "We have really gotten to a new level of mad consumption habits when a new store is like a cultural phenomenon." I guess the best I can say is that at least from my understanding IKEA is a pretty responsible retailer. For my part I'll wait until the fervor dies down a bit and I need to go that way for something anyway.
P~

Finally finished with the concrete.

Well, I think we've finally had enough with the concrete already. My wife and I had a great idea to recycle some concrete and use it in our landscaping rather than buying a bunch of basically the same thing for $3.00+ a piece. I should correct myself, I had the idea to use the stuff for a retaining wall around our front flower beds and brought home a few pieces to show her. After she decided she liked it, I felt like I had created a monster. She figured, hell it's free and it looks good, why not put a wall around the back garden bed too? And while we're doing that, why not use it like flagstone under the pergola? We could plant some creeping thyme; it'd look like a old english garden. Mean while I'm like," Hold on now sweetie. I mean, this stuff weighs a ton. Maybe we could just do a little at a time?" But really, I have to admit, I thought I would have ended up doing most of the work, but I didn't. The amount of pure labor that this woman put into it, was nothing short of amazing. She went with me to get the rock, she stacked most of it, even started swinging the sledge hammer towards the end. By the end of this project we had put such a dent in the pile of scrap concrete that we used for these projects that what was a 10x10 and 5 ft high pile of ugliness laying by the side of the road, can now be entirely missed if you don't know that it's there. We hauled in around 7 loads of concrete scrap that we had broken up on site and worked for oh, I dunno a month I guess every weekend and a couple nights a week. but all told I would say we saved about $1200-$1300 plus the fact that not only did we keep the concrete out of the dump, we didn't contribute to digging more rock out of the ground. Win win situation in my book. So here I am, enjoying the fruits of my labors so to speak, and here shall I be as often as possible. But now, I need to get a second one for the wife, she certainly earned herself one! So, what do you think? Just because it isn't sold at the home store and just because the neighbors don't have the same thing doesn't make it not nice; in fact in my book it makes it that much better.
P~

Low Impact Week Goals

Crunchy Chicken posted some great ideas over on the main Low Impact Week section of her blog. Many of these we already do around our home, I won't go into them in much detail because I see this challenge as being about what new things we can do to conserve and reduce our impact; suffice it to say that we do at least some of the ideas in all of her suggestion sections. I personally have come up with what I think are reasonable next steps for myself, and that I will be focusing on for that week. They are as follows:

1. Unplugging appliances when not in use. TVs, Computer, Radios, Printer.
2. I will decide to not watch television for that week. I certainly have enough reading to catch up on.
3. Turn off water when brushing teeth, and/or shaving.
4. No take out food, and no restaurants.
5. I will eat as much as possible from my home grown foods, and choose locally produced foods whenever available.
6. I will use a washable towel for hand washing and cleaning both at home and at work.
7. I will not drive to work. (This is my biggie.) I will instead use pedal power.
8. I have a compost bin, but I will make a bigger one from recyled materials, and will compost as much of my household waste as possible.
9. I will use organic and/or homemade cleaners to do all of my household cleaning and washing. (This is a change that our household plans to make on a permanent basis.)

This is the list I have come up with. I think it includes a fairly well rounded grouping of tasks from all areas. I will commit to these for the duration of the Low Impact Week and will keep you updated on my progress and impressions of each of them. In the coming weeks I will prepare for these actions by assesing what needs I will have during that time to make sure that I am successful. Some actions like number 9 I will begin to phase into as our current cleaners are expended so I may actually begin prior to the Low Impact Week start.

If anyone reading this plans to participate in this challenge, I encourage you to either post your action items in the comments here or at Crunchy Chickens blog, and look forward to participating with you.

Reduce, Recyle, Reuse!

Take one pile of "unusable" concrete waste left over from trampling march of urban sprawl.

Break into manageable pieces, and transport to "refining" facility.

Once there, add two heaping helpings of manual labor. (And yes, I mean HEAPING HELPINGS!)

And Voila! Beautiful, garden edging, complete with "Rustic" cobblestone-like appearance for that quaint English garden look!

To me this is what Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is all about. Reduce what you consume, Reuse something in order to accomplish your goal, and Recycle because it saves resources and $$.

Get out there and see what you can find to reuse. It feels great to have something beautiful for nothing, and to get a good feeling for helping the environment to boot!