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.  

Dropping by a Green Fair

If you are looking for new ideas for how to be more green, check out a local green fair.  While Green fairs vary greatly in size, you can be sure that all of the organzations are concerned about and arebcommitted to the environment.

If you go to a green fair, chances are that you will find volunteer organizations, green companies, entertainment, and people wishing to inform you of ecologically sound practices.  There may even be drop off sites for specific recycleables but be sure to check ahead.

Whether it is finding out what is recycleable in your community or discovering ways to compost in your garden, you can be sure to find out how to be a better steward of the Earth. At a recent green fair, I was able to speak with the proud owner of a Nissan Leaf.  I was able to not only check out the car, but to also find out that they have never run out of battery power, which is a concern of many potential electric vehicle drivers.  There is also little maintenance.  Good bye oil changes!  The next time I purchase a car, I will seriously consider electric.

Education at green fairs is fantastic, but one must act on that knowledge in order to help our planet.  When attending a green fair, there may be companies promoting their environmentally ethical practices and products.  These companies are great for helping families and organizations improve their environmental impact.  The also supplement a person's ability to do it yourself.  At my house, I was able to install our rain barrel, but I would prefer to hire a certified company to place solar panels on our roof.  A green fair is a great opportunity to shop for environmentally friendly products and services, and all under one roof.

If you missed your local green fairs, don't be disappointed.  Most are annual and depending on where you live, there may be several held nearby.

What was the best thing you saw or learned about at a green fair?

Making Muffins and Reducing Waste with Silicone Muffin Liners

As a child, my favorite breakfast food was blueberry muffins.  As an adult, I bake muffins anywhere from two to four times a month.  Originnally, I did not use any muffin tin liners since I thought it would be less wasteful to just grease the muffin pan.  Too often though, the muffins stuck to the pan.

It was one Saturday morning that I found silicone muffin liners at a garage sale.  I've never looked back.  The muffins come out of the pan with ease.  Most muffins come out of the liner cleanly, especially if you let them cool.  Waiting though, can be nearly impossible in my home.

Due to the fact that the silicone muffin liners can be reused, they can help reduce the waste generated by our homes.  Through repeated use, they can save you money as well since you are buying disposable liners. As for muffin recipes, I find Better Homes and Gardens has a great standard recipe.

You can also make your own chocolate peanut butter cups.  This is an improvised recipe so there are no exact measurements. I melted chocolate chips and a smaller amount of butter in a sauce pan, stirring frequently over low heat.  A small amount of powdered sugar was added as well.  Once the chocolate and butter was mixed, I filled silicone muffin liners about third full with the mixture.  Be sure to save some of the mixture.  While the mixture was still warm, I dropped a spoonful of peanut butter into each partially filled liner.  To cover the peanut butter, pour the remaining chocolate mixture on top.  Then chill the peanut butter cups in the fridge or freezer.  After the chocolate has solidified, enjoy!

Finding Great Deals and Conserving

One person's trash is another person's treasure.  That is the essence of garage sales.  Whether it is moving away or combating hoarding, people are trying to clear out their homes for various reasons.  You show up, take a look at what is for sale, and maybe purchase something for cash.

Those treasures, or trash, are usually on sale for bargain rates. The sellers want everything to go.  If there is something you might need or want, hold off buying it from the local stores and spend some time going to garage sales.  If you find what you are looking for, you are almost guaranteed to spend less for it than at a store.  Besides being priced for less, you can also save money in other ways.  Although I don't, some people haggle for even lower prices.  Also, I have yet to go to a garage sale that collects sales tax.  Case in point, yesterday, I purchased a small item organizer, seven child's size pants, and a pizza stone for only $7.00.  No tax was charged and things were much cheaper than in the store.

This brings me to another beauty of garage sales, randomness.  Who knows what in the world you'll find.  In my car, I keep a list of items that I am looking for.  When I get caught up browsing, the list helps me remember what I would really like.  However, the randomness of the what might be on sale makes it fun.  Last year I purchased old but unopened Lego sets for my children.  I found a marble mortar and pestle, perfect for guacamole, for $3.00 a few weeks ago.  One place I stopped at had old Playboy magazines for a $1.00 each.  A collector would love to find that. 

How do garage sales help the environment?  Quite simply, you are reusing items when you make a purchase.  In the spring, I bought an office chair for $5.00.  The seller didn't throw the chair in the trash.  And since I purchased a used chair, I didn't need to buy a new one from a store.  That means a new chair didn't need to be manufactured and shipped from thousands of miles away to get to me.  Less trash, less shipping, less cost, and less pollution are all the results of going to garage sales.  What tips do you have for going to garage sales?

Developing an Apppreciation for Nature

  How can you develop an appreciation for nature?  Go outdoors.  A person's appreciation for nature begins with and is sustained by that.  Appreciation does not mean unconditional love.  There are things in nature that can be painful and poisonous, wondrous and beautiful.  But respect and knowledge can be gained for natural things when you step out of the doorway to your home.  My own appreciation for nature began there.

  I had the fortune of growing up in a rural, midwestern town.  Countless unstructured hours were spent outdoors.  A lot of time was spent playing in the yard and sandbox.  As I write this, there are memories that I am recalling that I have not thought of in years.  There were the thistles that grew in the yard, eating fresh rhubarb with a friend, catching lightning bugs, discovering that you can be stung by caterpillars (I do not recall the type).  My sister and I ran laps around the house during a summer shower.  One summer I decided to knock a wasp nest down from the shed using a baseball.  The memories of hearing people yell, "Run!!" now brings a smile to my face.  I don't think I ever ran so fast.  The free play allowed me to discover, and figure things about nature on my own.

  Having 100 percent of your outdoor time to be free play is limiting though.  When a child discovers something, adult guidance can help create further understanding. When I found a small brown lizard on a tree, my grandfather told me that some lizards can lose their tails to predators.  They can then regrow a lost tail.  That was completely fascinating.  Opportunities to learn come from discovery.  Those opportunities give us a reason to learn. 

  There are many things that keep one inside.  Television, computers, phone, unsafe neighborhoods, limited access to green space are such examples.  I admit that I have spent time creating in Minecraft, conquering in World of Warcraft, and exploring other video game worlds.  While these can be fun, they can also be prisons that keep us indoors.  The entertainment that people create is impressive, but nothing is truly as fascinating as the art that Mother Nature has painted.  So take some time, disconnect, and go outdoors.  Take someone with you.

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?