Leave Those Leaves

Tired of raking and bagging the fallen leaves?  Are you going deaf from the leaf blower?  Then leave those leaves.  The leaves will decompose over the winter and help fertilize your soil.  Any leaves that are not decomposed in the winter will eventually break down over the spring.

If you insist on a tidy yard, rake the leaves into your flower beds.  The leaves make a great mulch in the spring.

Benefits:       No green house gases from leaf blower usage.
                     Your soil will not need synthetic fertilizer.
                     The leaves will not need to be shipped away by your garbage company, reducing the
                     carbon emissions.

Drawbacks:  Your yard may look untidy until the leaves decompose.
                      If the leaves are too thick, rain water may not reach the soil.

Meatless Monday Menu Week 7: Creamy Garlic Dressing

Buy local vegetables, dress up your salad, and shrink your carbon footprint.  During this time of year, there are many varieties of vegetables that are in season.  Head out to your local farmers' market and choose your salad ingredients.

If you are looking to give your salad a dressing, try making your own.

Creamy Garlic Dressing:

Ingredients

3 Tbs plain yogurt or sour cream
2 tsps garlic powder.  Minced garlic works well also.
1 1/2 tsps Italian seasoning or herbs
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Directions

1.  Place all the ingredients in a bowl.  Mix with a fork and it is ready to serve.

2.  Adjust ingredients according to taste.  We are garlic lovers so we tend to add extra garlic.

Skip the meat, eat the salad, reduce the CO2.

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.

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?

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.

Meatless Monday Menu Week 4

It's time to shrink our carbon footprint a bit and have a great meatless meal.  Tonight we had noodles and tofu in a peanut butter ginger sauce.

I enjoy cooking (actually eating) but one of my weaknesses is with making sauces.  Most of my expeience with cooking and sauces has been opening up a jar of something.  The sauce tonight was quite easy to make.

Ingredients
Sauce
3 cloves garlic minced
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2/3 cup soy sauce
2 tsps ground ginger
8 green onions sliced
1 cup peanuts
1 tbs of honey

Pasta
1 pound of pasta
1 package of tofu, rinsed and cut into 1 inch cubes.  We used organic since soybeans can be heavily treated with pesticides.

2-3 tbs of olive oil

Directions
1. Peel and mince the garlic and set aside.  Then wash and slice the green onions.  Set aside.
Tip: I used scissors for the green onions.  My knives tend to shred the delicate green onions.

2. Prepare the tofu.  Then heat the olive oil in a skillet until it is hot but not smoking.  Add the tofu cubes and use a spatula to toss the tofu periodically.  Begin boiling the water for your pasta as well.  Add the pasta when the water boils.

3.  While the tofu is cooking and the pasta is hopefully not boiling over, it's time to make the sauce. In a good size bowl, scoop out the peanut butter and honey.  Then add the hot water and stir using a fork.  It might not look too appealing at this point.  Then add the soy sauce, and stir.  You may want to use a spoon since the peanut butter can settle or stick to the bottom of the bowl.  Finally, add the ginger and garlic and stir some more.  Don't forget to check on the pasta and tofu.

4.  When the pasta is ready, drain the pasta and place it into a large bowl.  Add the cooked tofu and sauce and mix everything together.  The sauce can be somewhat runny so pull some of it up from the bottom of the bowl to help mix.  Finally add the green onions and peanuts.  If you wish, you can stir these in with the pasta.

Enjoy this protein rich, meatless meal and way to go cutting your carbon emissions.



Next week, we'll profile a meatless breakfast recipe.

How Big Is Your Carbon Footprint?

What is a carbon footprint and what does it matter how big it is?  Well, your carbon footprint is an estimate of how much carbon dioxide and methane, two greenhouse gases, are produced by all of the actions a person does.  The estimate of a carbon footprint also includes all of the objects that a person buys that require carbon to make and ship. So if I take a trip on a plane, carbon dioxide is produced by the burning if the fuel.  If I buy a new toaster, carbon dioxide is generated to gather the raw materials, ship them to a factory, make the toaster, send the toaster to a store, and to take it home.

Does size matter?  Yes it does and the larger the footprint, the larger the problem is.  There are many ways to shrink your carbon footprint, but first you should find out about how large it is.

Try one of the online calculators below.

Nature.org highlights areas such as home energy.  It also includes the world and U.S. averages.

The EPA also has a carbon footprint calculator.  Make sure you have an electricity and heating bill handy since they ask for an estimate of your monthly heating and electricity usage.  They also provide a list of suggestions to decrease your carbon emissions.  

The Oregon Carbon Calculator shows how you compare to similar households.  It also suggests ways that you can improve your carbon footprint.

Once you've estimated your carbon footprint, it's time to take action.  The actions you take and the purchases you make have an effect on the health of the planet.  

Meatless Monday Menu: Week 3

Today's meatless feature is a homemade basil, red onion, and mushroom pizza.  And let me tell you, it was delicious.

Quite a few years ago, I used to subscribe to Time magazine.  The April 9, 2007 Global Warming Survival Guide edition really caught my attention.  We had recently had a winter which was the warmest in my lifetime and I thought, "this is real and something needs to be done."  Fortunately, there are many practical suggestions that I have tried to incorporate into my own life.

Number 22 is the reason why I am doing the Meatless Monday Menu.  When I was younger, almost all of my lunches and dinners would have meat, lots of meat.  Knowing the impact that eating meat has on our planet, I eat less, less meat.  My goal in with these posts is to provide meatless meal ideas that taste good and are nutritional as well.

Tonight's meatless meal can be as simple or fancy as you like so feel free to modify the recipe.


Ingredients:
Pizza dough from a store or homemade pizza dough.  We used Jay's Signature Pizza Crust Recipe.
Olive oil for greasing your pizza pan or stone
Your favorite pizza sauce.  We used sauce from Trader Joe's
Mozzarella cheese

Toppings:
Dried oregano
Parmesan cheese
5 baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1/4 of a red onion, cut into larger pieces
1/2 cup of fresh basil, rinsed and cut into strips

Directions: Make the dough or follow the directions for the premade dough.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  If you are using a pizza stone, be sure to keep it in the oven until the baking temperature is reached.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to your desired thickness and shape.  This is a good time to add flavors to the dough like garlic or oregano if you so desire.  Then pour a small amount of olive oil on your pizza pan or stone.   Using a brush, coat the pan or stone so that the pizza dough won't stick.

Transfer the dough to the pan or stone.

Then spread the sauce onto the dough, leaving the perimeter of the dough sauce-free.  Next add the cheese, covering all of the sauce.  I prefer to sprinkle the oregano and parmesan before I add any other toppings.  Once you have the oregano and parmesan cheese sprinkled onto the pizza, it's time for your main toppings.  I like a lot of toppings so the amount I used may be too heavy for your taste.  If so, adjust accordingly.  If you are feeling adventurous, try adding the sauce, toppings, and cheese in a different sequence.

Finally, bake your pizza for about 15-18 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown.  If the pizza dough has stuck to the pan, use a spatulla to seperate the pizza from the pan before cutting.

Enjoy your pizza while lowering your carbon footprint.

For more meatless meal ideas, check out the Meatless Monday website.

Line Dry Your Clothes to Save Energy and Money

Line drying clothes is a sure way to reduce energy consumption.  According to Laundrylist.org, clothes dryers account for 5.9 percent of residential energy use.  By investing in and using a clothes line or drying rack, you could potentially eliminate that portion of your home's energy consumption, costs, and any associated pollution.  All of that by letting the sun and wind do the drying for you.

Calculate your clothes dryer costs.

In our house, we use three drying racks to accommodate each load of laundry.  One of the racks has three pieces of netting attached to the racks.  The netting is great since it prevents stretching of knitted fabrics by allowing you to lay the clothes out flat.  In spring, summer, and autumn, we are able to line dry clothing on most days.  In the winter and on days with precipitation, the clothes are either placed in the dryer or line dried in our basement.  As a note of caution, if you line dry clothing inside your home, use a dehumidifier or have open windows so that humidity does build up in your home.  A home that is too humid may encourage mold growth.

Using a clothes dryer has hidden costs as well as the obvious cost of energy used to run the machine. If you use a clothes dryer in the summer months, some of the dryer's heat will warm your house.  In effect, your air conditioner will have work even harder to cool your home.

As with any machine, using it will cause wear and tear.  Maintence, repairs, and replacement will become necessary.  Reducing the usage of your clothes dryer will decrease the frequency of necessary care.  This can save both money and reduce the needed materials needed for repairs and replacement.

Speaking of wear and tear, using the dryer is harsh on the fabrics of your clothes.  All of that lint in the lint trap has to come from somewhere.  When you use the clothes dryer, your clothes become worn out much sooner.

If you use a clothesline or drying racks, there are some things to be mindful of.  If you plan to dry your laundry outdoors, keep an eye on the weather.  Rain can quickly soak your clothes.  And while we are on the topic of things falling from the sky, don't dry your clothes under trees or other places that birds congregate at.  Finally, if you are able, take dry clothes off of the line when they are ready.  By doing this, more air and sun can reach the remaining damp clothes.  This will speed up the drying process of the remaining clothes.

Meatless Monday Menu: Week 1

I'm starting a weekly feature called the Meatless Monday Menu. I grew up eating a lot of meat and potato meals. It has only been in the past few years where I have really made a concerted effort to eat a balanced diet. Now I look forward to the delicious vegetarian recipes that we have found and prepared.

One of my reasons for having a Meatless Monday is to shrink my carbon footprint. Cows and other animals produce methane as a byproduct of digestion. Methane which over time, is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. According to the EPA, methane can trap 20 times more heat than carbon dioxied. If the demand for beef decreases, farmers and ranchers will shift what they grow and raise away from cattle. By skipping meat, your carbon footprint is reduced.

Tonight's menu will be: Homemade bean burgers, rice pilaf, and grapes. Drinks will be organic milk and water.

Here is our recipe for the bean burgers.

1 30 ounce can of black beans rinsed and drained.
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
10 tablespoons of bread crumbs.  These can be made easily in a food processor.
2-4 mushrooms, minced.
8 hamburger buns or lettuce for wraps.
4 tablespoon olive oil
Optional: 1 tablespoon of minced jalapeno pepper

1. Mash the beans in a bowl until they are smooth.  I use a metal reusable water bottle to mash the beans.  Stir in cumin, breadcrumbs, and jalapeno.

2. Then use floured hands and make the burgers.

3. Next, you will be cooking the burgers on either a large skillet or electric grill.  If you use a skillet, you will have to cook the burgers in two skillets or two batches.  Heat the oil on medium heat until hot but not smoking. Place the burgers in the skillet or on the grill.  Cook until they are golden brown.  Flip them once.

Instead of using buns, we are going to use lettuce leaves to hold the burgers.  I prefer cheddar cheese and red onions as a toppings. Avocado slices and sautéed mushrooms are a welcome addition as well.  

Locally Sourced: Wood Chips

If you are like most people, you probably don't wake up in the morning and say, "I can't wait to pull every single weed in my garden!"  Instead of pulling those weeds, and seeing many return, most gardeners would recommend placing a mulch on your flower beds.  The mulch can save you time and work as well helping to regulate the moisture content of the soil.  You can purchase wood chips from most garden and home stores as well as many big box stores. 

A better, and inexpensive alternative would be to find out if your local municipality or park district has wood chips available for residents.  If they do, all that may be required to obtain some mulch is time, a vehicle, and a shovel.  If you do not have a truck, you can use a car.  If you are using a car or SUV, be sure to place a tarp in the trunk in order to make it easier to clean out the remaining wood chips when you are finished.

On Saturday, I made several trips to the large pile of wood chips in a parking lot near city hall.  In total, I took around 24 cubic feet of wood chips.  All of it came from trees in the community which had either been knocked down in storms or from branches that were trimmed.  The amount of carbon dioxide produced shredding local branches is often far less than what is made commercially.  Commercial wood chips is often shipped from other sources, and consequently, the carbon footprint of using those wood chips is greater. 

If I had went to my local hardware store, the least expensive bag would have been $3.33 for 2 cubic feet.  The total cost for the 24 cubic feet of wood chips would have been $39.96, not including tax.  The locally sourced wood chips were completely free.

How have you used locally sourced products to reduce your carbon footprint?  

Is It Past Time to Jettison the Cargo?

After driving to a destination, you leave your vehicle and go take your belongings with you.  However some of the items in your car are staying in the car.  Perhaps your hands are too full and you can't make a second trip back to the car.  Whatever the reason is, the stuff in the car is staying put.

If it is possible, you should take the extra cargo out.  According to the US Department of Energy, there is an approximate loss of 2 percent of your vehicle's miles per gallon for every 100 pounds of extra weight in your car. 

This may not sound like a big deal.  My old car gets about 22 miles per gallon of gasoline in city driving.  100 excessive pounds in my car reduces my mpg by .44 mpg and now I'm only getting 21.56 miles per gallon.  I lose just under half a mile of driving on that gallon of gasoline.  If I leave that stuff in the car and keep driving, I waste more gasoline, spend more money, and pollute more.

                  Normal 22 MPG                          vs.         21.56 MPG due to 100 extra pounds
I can go 220 miles on 10 gallons of gas.                        I can go 215.6 miles on 10 gallons of gas.
With 100 gallons of gas, I can go 2200 miles.               With 100 gallons of gas, I can go 2156 miles
With 200 gallons of gas, I can go 4400 miles.               With 200 gallons of gas, I can go 4312 miles.

While the difference is not great, even considering driving for longer periods, it is still important to reduce our energy consumption.  The next time you exit your vehicle, consider taking everything out with you.  If many, many people reduce the extra weight in their car, the effect would truly become beneficial. 

Saving the Environment, One Library Book at a Time

We are in the midst of a major cleaning event on the homestead.  Maybe you've experienced it yourself.  Someone, or more than one someone, has an overwhelming urge to clean out all of the clutter.  Our urge has been born out from the desire to simplify our lives with less clutter and consequently, less picking up. Many families throw the discarded items in the trash, give them away to friends or family, donate to charity, or have a garage sale.  For us, it will be the last option.

In the midst of all of our cleaning, we have discarded very few books and slightly more DVDs.  Everyone in the house is an avid reader and we do own plenty of books.

Over the past few years, we have purchased very few books and instead go to our local library.  When I think about it, we have reread few of the books of we own.  Additionally, there are few movies and shows that we have watched a second or third time.  So with that in mind, we only purchase books or DVDs that we feel we will use multiple times.  For everything else, we go to the library.

Why the library?  To begin with, you've already paid for it.  Libraries are often supported through local and state taxes.  If you own a home, part of your taxes supports your library.  If you rent, your landlord paid the taxes with money he collected from you in the form of rent.  Since you have paid, why not use it?

By going to your local library, you will lower your impact on the Earth by reusing items from the "commons".  Today, I checked out The Hobbit after being on a reserved list.  When I signed up for it, I was the 42nd person in the queue.  My library has six copies of the movie.  Instead of 42 copies being purchased, only six were.  There are thirty six copies that do not need to be shipped halfway around the world.  When we use the library, it means less pollution, trash, and packaging,  It also means more money saved in our pockets (assuming you don't have late fees).  Then imagine if a million people, or even better, 100 million people used their local library instead of buying a copy of each movie or book that they want.  What a difference that would make. 

April Showers Bring Grass to Mow

Many Americans like to have a green space around their homes.  Often, that green space is a sea of grass.  While that green space is pleasant to view, walk on, and play in; it usually requires mowing.  A simple thing that homeowners can do is to mow their yards with a reel mower.  If you are not a homeowner, encourage your landlord to use one or hire a landscaping company that does.  Even offer to use the reel mower if necessary.

Using a reel mower provides great benefits.  Because there is no gasoline or electricity being used, you are not generating any additional carbon dioxide.  The up front cost of a reel mower is usually less than a powered mower as well.  Everytime I use the mower,  I am saving money by not consuming fossil fuels or electricity.

Pushing a reel mower is a great form of exercise and is sure to raise your heart rate.  Having a reel mower also means you have fewer working parts that may need to be replaced, saving you time and money as well as reducing the amount of garbage in the landfill.  Speaking of reducing waste, using a reel mower means no more gas cans, oil cans, and cleaning up gasoline spills from when you filled up.

When I use my reel mower, I enjoy how quiet it is.  I can mow the grass at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning and my neighbors do not mind.  I've even had lengthy conversations on the phone while mowing the lawn.  How many of us can do that while riding on or pushing a powered lawn mower?

While reel mowers are great for your health, the environment, and your wallet, there are downsides to using a reel mower.  Before you mow, it is important to pick up any sticks in the yard since a stick can stop a reel mower cold.  You will also need to keep the blades sharp and oiled.  Before I mow, I place a small amount of vegetable oil on a paper towel and wipe the sharp edges of the blades as well as the cutting bar.  Finally, you may need to make adjustments to the cutting bar to be sure the mower cuts well.  The owners manual should explain how to do this.  A lawn mower repair shop can help you as well.

Good luck with your mowing and enjoy the quiet, fresh air, exercise, and saving when you mow.

Time to Air Out the Laundry

Spring, summer, and autumn offers us a great opportunity to reduce both our carbon dioxide emissions and energy expenses.   As a child, my parents would hang laundry out to dry.  I always loved the fresh smell and feel of the warm laundry when it was brought in.

As an adult, we hang our freshly washed laundry out to dry on everyday that is rain free.  We reduce the wear and tear on our dryer.  Additionally, we are increasing our energy efficiency by not heating a portion of our house while simultaneously running the air conditioner.  

If you don't have a clothes line, you can purchase collapsable hanging racks.  We use three drying racks for each full load of laundry.  They are compact enough that I can fit three on our back porch.  The downside of the drying racks is that it takes clothes longer to dry than from using a clothesline.


What do you like about line drying your clothes?

Living Simply

I've been thinking of the common theme of my actions concerning our environment and it really comes down to living simply.   Living simply can be done quite easily and with many benefits.  While I'd love to do some of the high tech, green endeavors such as placing solar panels on my roof at this point, that is not something I can do.

What I can do is live simply.  Living simply means I don't need to buy the latest and greatest thing.  My wardrobe has old clothes that are in good shape.  I live in a small home, although not a microhome.    Rather than going shopping, I go for a walk with my family.

Living simply means you consume less, save more money, and most importantly, enjoy life, not things.

Farmers Markets

Are you looking for additional ways to lower your carbon footprint?  Try going to your local farmers market.  Generally, the food is grown closer than the majority of supermarket produce.  That means less fuel is consumed bringing the food to your kitchen table.  Additionally, the food is more likely to be harvested when it is fully ripened and not picked prematurely.

It has been my experience that produce from the farmers market is often more expensive than the grocery store.  I remind myself that these tend to be small oprations and that by shopping locally, I am keeping money in my local and regional economies.  I'm helping my neighbors.

If you don't have a farmers market in your area, petition your local government to start one.

What is the most unique food you have purchased from a farmers market?  I recently purchased kohlrabi which I had never had before.