Repurpose with a Purpose: Old Charcoal Grills

With hamburgers, ribs, and brats teasing our imagination, we purchased a charcoal grill six years ago.  During the first few summers that we had it, we used it a few times each year.  I always stored it in the shed when it wasn't being used and cleaned the grilling surface before and after using it.  Over time, the grilling surface rusted, and there was no way I was going to prepare food on that.

So it sat in the shed, year after year, until a few days ago.  While it isn't the most environmentally friendly activity, we would like to roast marshmallows over a campfire once or twice a year.  Although we kept our eyes open at garage sales for raised fire pits, no one was parting with them.  While I was cleaning out the shed, I figured it was time to do something with the old grill.
 
If you are planning to have a campfire, use locally sourced wood or charcoals, ideally cut from dead trees and not living ones.  If purchasing wood, be wary since the wood may harbor pests, such as the emerald ash bore, and could encourage deforestation.

While a campfire creates carbon emissions, it is a way to dispose of diseased tree branches.  If you compost or shred the diseased wood, the disease can survive and spread to other plants.  By burning the diseased portion of the wood, you can eliminate the disease, have a campfire, and create woodash that you can use with your compost or to melt ice on the driveway. 


For a project like this, you need some tools and about half an hour.

Tools:
Phillips Screwdriver
Tape Measure
Hacksaw
Leather Gloves
Rasp (optional)

1. To begin, unscrew the handles and hinges that hold the lid on.  The lid, handles, and screws were fairly beat up so they were placed in recycling since I didn't have a plan for there use.  

2. Next, you'll be shortening the legs with a hacksaw.  For my grill, I kept six inches of each leg and recycled the rest.  I wanted to keep the ash collecting can that is underneath the grill to help increase airflow with the fire.  The cut edges of the legs may be sharp or have burrs on them.  If you wish, you can file them with a rasp.

3. Now you're ready for a campfire.  Use it only outdoors in open areas.

Meatless Monday Menu: Week 6

Our Meatless Monday Menu dinner for this week is a delicious vegetable lasagna.  You can build this dish around local, in-season vegetables.  While not consuming meat will lower your carbon footprint, using locally grown vegetables will further minimize your carbon footprint.  Here's how we did it.

Ingredients: 1/2 box of no boil lasagna noodles
Your favorite pasta sauce. The amount varies depending on the amount and type of vegetables you use.
2 cups of cottage cheese
1 egg
2 tbs of olive oil
2-3 tsps of dried Italian herbs
8 ounces of shredded mozzarella cheese
Olive oil for greasing the casserole dish
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese

Vegetables: We used the following but feel free to try different vegetables or combinations.
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red onion, cut into roughly 1 square inch pieces
2 sweet peppers, cut into strips
10 baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1 eggplant, sliced

Directions:
1. Wash and cut vegetables.  Place the olive oil in a large a skillet and heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender stirring occasionally.  While it is cooking, grease a large casserole dish and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. When the garlic and onion is tender, add your other vegetables to the skillet, stirring frequently.  Season with salt and pepper. While the vegetables are cooking, place the Italian seasoning, egg, and cottage cheese in a bowl and stir.

3.  Once all of the vegetables are tender, its time to add your favorite sauce.  Ideally, you want the vegetables to be well coated with sauce, but not drowning in a skillet size swimming pool.  Simmer the sauce and vegetables for a few minutes.

4. Now for the fun part, assembly.  If you use no boil noodles like I did, do not, under any circumstances, not even as part of a five dollar bet, put the noodles on the bottom of the casserole dish.  (They will just be very hard and you will have an odd lasagna like pie with a hard crust.)
Place some of the vegetable mixture on the bottom, then cover the mixture with noodles.  Then cover the noodles with the cottage cheese mixture.  Repeat the pattern until you run out of the vegetable mixture.  The final (top) layer will be covered in mozzarella cheese.  We like to sprinkle some parmesan cheese in with mozzarella on the top layer.


5.  Then bake for around 35 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown.  Don't burn your tongue, let the lasagna cool for about ten to fifteen minutes before serving.

Befriending Beneficials

It's one of the biggest insects I've seen outside of a museum in quite a while.

"What the --!?"  This afternoon, that phrase sprang forth as I stopped down to pull out a plantain that was growing by my strawberry patch.  There, resting on a strawberry leaf,  was a large dragonfly of a kind I had never seen before.  I'm not an expert but I think it is a common green darner. Normally, I'm comfortable with Midwestern insects as long as they are not crawling on me, but the surprise of seeing a large insect unexpectedly near my hand did startle me. 

Once I recovered from my surprise, I quickly grabbed the camera and had the kids come take a look.  They of course wanted to touch it, despite my admonishments stay back a bit and not scare it off.  After continuing to edge closer, the dragonfly became uncomfortable and flew off. 

Without thinking, people sometimes freak out or grab the insecticide when they see any insect.  But really, not all insects are harmful.  Dragonflies, like bats and earthworms, are a beneficial species that should be welcomed into your garden and yard.  They prey on mosquitos, flies, and other insects. 

How can you encourage beneficial species to help you?  First of all, become familiar and comfortable with different beneficial species.  While you may not want them inside your home, in the outdoors, they can be extremely helpful controlling pests and/or pollinating flowers.  Gardening books and websites can help you identify some species.  You can also use your cyber-sleuth skills to identify unknown species that you find. After all, it is important to know whether that little creature crawling on your prize tomatoes is going to eat the plant, is just visiting, or is providing a benefit to the garden.

Ok, you're comfortable knowing the black and yellow orb weaver by your backdoor is not going to jump on your face and drag you back to its lair.  What do you do when you have trouble with pests or weeds in the yard or garden?  First, take a deep breath, and assess how bad the problem is.  Ideally, you want to avoid reaching for the pesticide and carpet bombing the whole place with "who knows what this will do to everythingcide."  You and your family might even be exposed to the pesticides as well.  If the problem is out of control, chemicals may be necessary, but think of it as your last resort.  Spraying everything will not only harm the pests, but it can also harm beneficials that call your piece of property home.  If the beneficials are wiped out, you have even less protection if the pests and weeds come back.  And lets face it, pests and weeds usually do. 

Great!  Your thumb is no longer resting on the big red pesticide nuclear button.  What else can you do to help those great beneficials?  Consider setting up micro-habitats for them. If you want frogs or toads to help control insects, they are going to need a nearby water source.  Birds may need a safe nesting site while other animals may need a place such as small brush pile to hide in when they rest. 

Good luck encouraging Mother Nature to help you in the outdoors.  A little assistance from us can help beneficial species prosper. 

Repurposing with a Purpose

Many of the things that we have around the home and yard are not made to be permanent.  Fortunately, a better solution is available instead of tossing things into the trash can, or even the recycling bin.  Repurposing can help you can find a new life for old items, thus reducing our contributions to the landfill and the necessary energy used for recycling.  When it comes to repurposing, our only limitation is our creativity.

How often should you replace your toothbrush?  The American Dental Association recommends every three to four months.  Those old toothbrushes may not be good for your teeth, but they are still fantastic for other purposes. 

Old toothbrushes are fantastic for cleaning between cracks and in hard to reach places.  Grime often builds up around fixtures to sinks, bathtubs, and toilets.  A toothbrush, with a solution of vinegar and water, can clean around those fixtures as well in the grooves between the fixtures and surfaces.  You can also use a toothbrush to clean exhaust fans in the bathroom, the grill-work under the refrigerator, vacuum filters, and the inside of the clothes dryer. You can even use a toothbrush to remove the silk from corn.

Since you are replacing toothbrushes fairly frequently, you can easily accumulate enough old toothbrushes that they can be specialized.  And truthfully, you probably don't want to use the same old toothbrush on your toilet and kitchen sink.  I mark the handle of each of my repurposed toothbrushes with a certain kind of tape: duct tape for the filters and fans, clear tape for the toilet, one stripe of masking tape for the bathroom sink, and two stripes for the kitchen sink. 

What great uses do you have for old toothbrushes?

Water Conservation in the Shower

How much water do you think is used by showering in the United States annually?  According to the EPA, that figure is 1.2 trillion gallons.  Reducing the amount of fresh water you use in the shower can be very simple, and important.  The Earth Policy Institute states that water tables are, "falling under the Great Plains and throughout the southwest."  Water shortages could occur if the water is used before the water tables have a chance to replenish.

Installing a low flow showerhead can drastically lower your water usage.  Showerheads with a water sense label use a maximum of 2 gallons of water per minute (gpm) while standard showerheads use 2.5 gpm.  Comparing the two figures, a low flow showerhead saves at least half a gallon of water each minute.  While half a gallon may not sound like a lot, imagine if everyone in your community had low flow showerheads.  That would result in a lot of water saved everyday.

Installing a low flow showerhead is a great start, but to save additional water, more or perhaps less, needs to be done.  Quite simply, showering for shorter periods of time.  A low flow showerhead does not help conserve water if you stand under it until the hot water heater is drained.  Before you step into the shower, make a goal of showering in less than a certain time.  An egg timer or stopwatch app can also help you know when it is time to start drying off.

A final suggestion for saving water is to temporarily turn off the water while you wash and shampoo. While scrubbing and lathering, you don't need the water running.  In fact, the water could be rinsing some of the soap or shampoo off of your hands while you wash, causing you to require more soap and shampoo.  When you are done washing, simply turn the water back on and rinse.  I've found that turning the water off is quite easy with showers that have a single handle.  Showers that have hot and cold handles are trickier to turn back on since it can be more difficult to correctly adjust the heat of the water.

What tips do you have for saving water in the shower?  We would love read your comments.

Meatless Monday Menu: Week 5

As promised, this week we have a meatless breakfast option, homemade honey peanut granola, which we found on Allrecipes.com.  This by far, is one of the favorite breakfast choices for my family.  When I make it, I double or triple the recipe so that we better utilize the oven.  Plus, I have a fear that the granola will be completely devoured in one sitting so having extra alleviates that concern.

This recipe is best made the day before you plan to eat it since it bakes for an hour and needs to cool as well.  Like many recipes, I treat them as suggestions and often tinker with the ingredients or directions.  I have never peanuts but added sunflower seeds this time.  In the past, I've also added flax seeds and pecans, which are my favorites.

Ingredients:
3 cups quick oatmeal
1/2 cup nuts or seeds
1/4 wheat germ
1/3 cup honey: We like to purchase honey from our farmers' market.  You can buy local and select the type of honey.
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoon warm water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
We prefer to omit the salt from the recipe.

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.  Lightly grease a large casserole dish. Tip: I save the wax paper wrappers for butter when I have used up a stick of butter.  Then when I need to grease a pan, I rub the inside of the wrapper onto the pan.  Because of this, I really don't use the vegetable spray cans, cutting down on waste.

2. In a large bowl, combine the liquids and brown sugar.  Then add the oats, nuts, and wheat germ, stirring with each addition.

3. When the dry ingredients are thoroughly coated, spread the mixture out on the greeased casserole dish.

4. Bake for one hour, stirring every fifteen minutes.  I use a metal spatula to scrape the bottom of the casserole dish when stirring.  You want to avoid having the granola stick to the pan.

5.  After the granola is finished baking, set it out to cool.  Stir it occassionally as it cools.  Store in an air tight container.

What do you like to serve with granola?  We add dried fruit or fresh, seasonal berries.

Four Rs and an M?

What exactly are the Four Rs and an M?  Many of us have heard of the original 3 Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.  These are actions that can greatly decrease the harmful effects that human beings have on the environment.  In 2011, 250.4 million tons of trash was produced in the United States alone.  Reducing, reusing, and recycling will help lower that total but the additional R and M will help lower it even more.

But what about the new R?  Well, it stands for repair.  By repairing an object, you can shrink the amount of waste that enters landfills or is recycled.  Often, when an object needs to be fixed, a small component is broken.  The rest of the object works fine.  For example, a few weeks ago, our sliding glass door stopped latching shut.  The door was fine except for the mortise lock.

After a watching a couple of videos on youtube.com, I felt confident that I could repair the door.  All I needed was a new mortise lock.  Twenty-five minutes later, the door latched properly.  What's great is that we did not need to replace the whole door, just the lock.  The old lock was then placed in recycling.  If we had replaced the whole door, that would have created more waste and it also would have required more resources and energy to make a door instead of just a small locking mechanism.

So the fourth R is for repairing.  What does the M represent?   Maintenance, which can prevent repairs from being necessary.  A simple way of thinking of the importance of maintence is with an automobile.  If you don't maintain the car by having the engine oil changed every 3000 to 5000 miles, the engine will eventually stop working properly or even stop working altogether. When that happens, you may have to repair the engine or replace it. Instead, routine maintanence can help the engine last much, much longer.

While we should always try to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Maintaining and repairing our possessions will reduce the amount of waste generated while simultaneously lowering demand for new objects, all of which require energy and resources.

Do you have any repair or maintence tips?  Please share.