Tutorial Tuesday: Going Green

So this is not so much a tutorial as it is a list of the small easy changes our family has made in the last year to help make a smaller impact on our earth. This has become a big topic these days and nothing could make me happier. The truth is I don't care if people are making changes to help the planet and insure a healthy future for our kids or because it is currently the cool thing to do. Either way, in the end, every small effort we make does make a difference.

For Our Family:

Cloth Diaper - We started to cloth diaper with the arrival of Hudson. We had many friends that cloth diapered when we had Sailor but I just couldn't believe them, I mean how on earth could you LOVE cloth diapering. I was convinced they were just not telling the real truth, I couldn't believe it could be easy. I was wrong, we love cloth diapering. It is sooo easy and Hudson seems to love it and even more important my husband who was adamant we not cloth diaper in the beginning is a true convert and can't stand to see him in a disposable. If you want the details on how cloth diapering works and how to choose from all those beautiful diapers out there Kelly at Our Lincoln Log did a great post on it a while ago.
***"DISPOSABLES: The 18 to 23 million disposable diapers sold in the U.S. all end up in the landfill once soiled. That’s 3.5 million tons of poop and plastic going into the ground each year. They are the third largest users of landfill space in the U.S. And the diapers, because of the plastic content, take approximately 500 years to breakdown. It is illegal in most states to dump human waste in landfills but that law is unenforced when it comes to diapers—though the packages of many disposable diapers say to scrape the poop into the toilet before disposing of it, almost no one does—and that human feces can leach and cause contamination or spread communicable diseases when disposed of in the landfill."-From the Green Mama


Diva Cup - I switched from using tampons and cloth pads to the Diva Cup. The Diva Cup is simply a non absorbing cup that catches your menstrual flow. It is worn internally and is made of silicone. Simply empty it every 12 hours. This means no sanitary pads and tampons in land fills. Between 1989 and 1999 more than 170,000 tampon applicators were collected along US coastal areas.

Homebirth - When we chose to have Hudson born at home we did it for personal reasons, it wasn't until later that I thought about how much "Greener" having an out of hospital birth is. We were so lucky to have Adrienne at our birth. She is a midwife assistant and recently wrote a post about how Homebirth benefits the planet on her blog Abundant B'earth.

Toys - This is also a personal choice of ours that has turned into a green one. We have some rules about toys in our home. The biggest one is that we are battery free. This was an easy one for us, we just don't like the noise of them. We also think kids simply miss out on something when the truck makes it's own noise and therefore the child doesn't need to do the sound effects. We also try to limit the amount of toys that pile up. I try to buy from companies that are filled with great natural, imaginative toys. Often this can mean more cost upfront thought we have found these toys have a much longer "shelf life". They last longer and our kids play with them longer. I also don't mind spending some money on a great toy verses a lot of money on a lot of toys. We also love to purchase hand made items for both the kids and us, there are so many amazing and talented crafter's out there. We also love a good yard sale, we have a bag of Lego's collected from many garage sales. Here are some of our favorite places.


*Nova Natural
*Stubby Pencil
*Sprig Toys
*Dream Child Studio
*Green Mountain Wee Woolies
*Syrendell



For Our Home:

Cloth Napkins & Non Paper Towels - We made the switch to cloth napkins 8 months ago and it has been great. I bought them on Etsy, I did not buy napkin style ones but instead smaller sized ones sometimes called picnic napkins. We like that they are about the size of a regular paper napkin. I bought them in a pattern so stains would not show as much. These would be super easy to make yourself. We still have paper towels in the house but we rarely use them. Instead we use rags, old towels and the Sham Wow(thanks to our friend Sara).



Rain Barrel - The hubby recently installed a rain barrel and so far so good. It cost about $40 for the barrel and parts and he had it put together in about 20 minutes. I still use our hose for my morning watering of the garden but use the water from the rain barrel for my afternoon watering. Here in the south watering once a day or not at all isn't really an option. We placed it under a piece of gutter that had no downspout. It seems to catch a lot of rain water this way, it got almost completely filled in one thunderstorm.


Keeping a Garden & Shopping Locally - We have a good size garden so we can produce some of our own food. We are also blessed with a weekly farmer's market that is within walking distance. This year is the first year I am undertaking canning, we will see how it goes. We also freeze extra veggies from the garden. This is especially great for overproducing squash plants. Simply slice them up and put them in a freezer safe container or bag and throw them in the freezer for an easy side dish come winter.


Cloth Bags or Bagless - We have cloth bags for our groceries. We even made our own produce bags thanks to Kelly, here is her tutorial on produce bags. When we are in the store for one or two items we simply say, No Thank You to the bag and carry it out or throw it in the diaper bag.


The 3 R's - Reduce, Reuse & Recycle
We also try to remember to use the basics. We try to keep the lights off unless we really need them, turning off the water while we brush our teeth, doing laundry on nice days so it can be hung out to dry, separating out all the recyclable, re-purposing old items and reducing our overall waste. Nina at Painted Rainbows and Chamomile Tea gave us a glimpse of her trash. I only hope ours can look that good sometime soon.

Tutorial Tuesdy: Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg MD (Author), Zoe Francois (Author)

I have been making this bread since it was featured in an article in Mother Earth News, that was six months ago and I am still obsessed.

Now the book has more recipes than I think I will ever dream to make but their are a few that we make all the time. The classic artisan bread and the bagels are our, all the time breads. I believe Sailor asks me to make bagels at least twice a week, don't worry I don't. Though I will admit to sitting with my wine and polishing of the rest of the loaf of the artisan bread while the hubby does dishes at least twice a week.

***Now before we continue I must warn you that once you begin to make this bread you could be come so consumed that the need to buy a second refrigerator may seem mandatory to store all your homemade dough.


The Master recipe:

3 Cups warm water
1 1/2 tbs granulated yeast (1 1/2 packets)
1 1/2 tbs coarse kosher salt or sea salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all purpose white flour
cornmeal

You will also need:

Large plastic storage container with a lid. (It will need to be about 5 quarts for the full recipe)
1/2 inch thick baking stone
Pizza peel or edgeless cookie sheet
Broiler tray

Making the Dough:

Mix the warm water, kosher salt and yeast together, don't worry if it doesn't all dissolve. Mix in the flour with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor with dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer with dough hook, until uniformly moist. DO NOT KNEAD. Cover loosely and set out at room temperature for two hours after that refrigerate for at least 3 hours in a covered but not airtight container. The dough may be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks.



*This recipe may be halved our doubled depending on your need.



On Baking day:

Sprinkle a pizza peel or cookie sheet with corn meal, sprinkle the dough with flour and cut of a 1 pound piece(grapefruit sized), flour the dough lightly to prevent from sticking to your hands, gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go, until the bottom is a collection of four bunched ends.




*This dough ball is slightly smaller than I would normally make but it was just me and the kids for dinner.

Place the ball on the pizza peel or cookie sheet. Let it rest for 40 minutes. 20 minutes before baking preheat the oven to 450* with pizza stone on middle rack and a broiler tray underneath.

Just before placing in the oven dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour and using a serrated knife slash a 1/4 deep tic tack toe pattern into the top.

With a forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the baking stone. Quickly pour about a cup of hot water into the broiler tray and quickly shut the oven door to keep in the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is browned.



Remove and allow to cool.

Refrigerate the rest of the dough in a lidded but not airtight container.

Bread your friends will never believe you made and in just a few minutes, how can you beat that.

This same dough also makes great pizza, just bump up the oven temp to 475 or 500 and skip the broiler tray. Roll it out thin with some sauce and fresh mozzarella for great authentic Italian pizza.

Turtorial Tuesday: Keeping Backyard Chickens

I know this seems out of the question for many of you but in reality keeping back yard chickens is supper easy and very rewarding. Some of the main reasons people keep a back yard flock are:

* Easy and inexpensive to maintain
* Eggs that are fresh, great tasting & nutritious
* Chemical free pest control
* Free fertilizer
* Bug and Weed Control
* Fun & friendly pets with personality (yes, you read that right)


So here are the basics, Chicken's 101 if you will.


The Chickens-
Their are so many breeds to choose from I can't begin to even preview them. You want to figure out what you will be wanting from these chickens; eggs, meat, companionship or all of the above. You also want to decide what age you want your chickens to be when you get them. You can get eggs to hatch on your own, have day old chicks shipped to you or get older already laying hens (Hens start laying around 18 weeks). Keep in mind though hens will greatly decrease their laying between 2 and 3 years of age. You can order online through hatcheries like, McMurray's. Search craigslist or visit your local feed store which often have day old chicks.

Here are our girls at 10 weeks old.



How To Care Of A Chick - First 60 Days:

* Young Chick Brooder - Can be as simple as a sturdy cardboard box or a small animal cage like one you'd use for rabbits.
* Flooring - Pine shavings work best
* Temperature - 90 to 100 deg. for the first week, decrease 5 deg. per week. A 100 watt bulb pointing in one corner (not the whole brooder) works well.
* Food & water - chick crumbles / starter & a chick waterer
* Play time - Play with your chicks when young to get the use to being around people.
* Outside time - Section off an area in your yard where the chicks can explore, scratch, etc. Make sure you can catch them when it's time to come in.
* More details: Raising Chicks

Chicken Care After First 60 Days, General Chicken Care:

* Chicken Coops - Once feathered out you'll want to move your chickens into a chicken coop! Rule of thumb is about 2-3 square feet per chicken inside the hen house and 4-5 sq/ft per chicken in an outside run. Keep local predators in mind and make a safe home for your flock!
* Flooring - Pine shavings work best. You can even try the deep litter method for even less maintenance.
* Food & water - Most people go with chicken layer feed / pellets. You can even make a homemade chicken feeder / waterer
* Treats - Vegetables, bread, bugs, chicken scratch (cracked corn, milo, wheat)


The Coop:

The hubby built our coop, isn't it beautiful.

But their are many coops in endless shapes and sizes available, these ones are such a great idea... Eglu

They will need a safe place to go in bad weather and at night, they will also need nesting boxes in which to lay their eggs. Many coops have some sort of attached run that the chickens can come in and out of freely.

Here is their run with a ramp so they can go up and down as they please...
*That's Ruby free ranging for bugs behind the coop.

We used sand for the floor of the run and the girls seem to love rolling around in it. It is also makes it super easy for clean up we just use a cat litter scoop.

This is the door that leads from the coop to the run. It slides open and closed. We leave it open all the time now but will close it at night when it gets cold here.
Open:

Part way closed:


Here is their nesting box, the Hubby simply made a small box inside the coop. You can buy nesting boxes and I have head of people using milk crates or other things turned on their sides for them.

*The floor of the coop is covered in a laminate and then pine shavings. The laminate makes for easy clean up.

Perches, chickens like many birds like to perch. The hubby thought this would be an okay step to skip until the girls started to try and perch on their feeder and were spilling food everywhere. So he added them in:

*Many people simply attach a large stick to the coop.

Landscaping, those of you who know me know this is a mandatory step for me. I think it came out nice. I even laid the bricks, well some of them:)


Their is tons of info out there on keeping back yard chickens, here are some good places to start:

BackYard Chickens

Youtube

***As many of you know we have a large dog, Whiskey. She is doing very well with the chickens. She has yet to bark at them or really pay them much attention. She will go up and sniff at them every once and a while but that is about all. So far so good.

Their HERE!!!!

Well it was an exciting week here at the Groom camp. The grandparents were in from Boston and we added a few members to the family. All in on week, we managed to get our worms for our worm bin and picked up two nine week old red sex link chickens.

We Will Start With The Worms...

I made my poor husband stop by the bait shop on his way home from work and pick up the worms with strict instructions to get a LOT of Red Worms. I was thinking about a half pound of worms. Well the bait store it turns out only sells them in small little cups packed with worms.

He picked up about 12 containers. So in the worms went. I tried to shake of any big clumps of the other stuff in the cup, which looked like coffee grinds but smelled like dirt. I saved it for the garden! So I pulled back the bedding and in they went.

I then covered them back over with bedding and gave it a good spray of water.

****This all happened a few days ago and since then we have hit a bump in the road...FRUIT FLIES!!!!! Now this is a very common problem with worm bins and one of the main causes is not enough top bedding. Something we are defiantly guilty of. So more cardboard was added and a good old fashioned fruit fly trap was also added. We now seem to have a happy healthy worm bin.


Now For The Chickens...

We picked up our two nine week old chickens from a family I found on Craigslist, oh what you can find on Craigslist but that is a whole other post. So Ruby and Marge joined the family.



Sex link chickens are cross-bred chickens whose color at hatching is differentiated by sex, thus making chick sexing an easier process. This helps if you know you don't want a rooster.

Red sex-links are a cross between a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster and a White Rock, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White or Delaware hen. They are often very good layers, don't mind confinement and typically very friendly. Their are many different breeds to choose from, here is a good place to get basic breed info; Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart.

This is Ruby.


and here is Marge


Both are doing well and seem to love their new coop. We are putting up netting around the fence so they can free range for plants and hopefully lots of bugs. I will be back later this week with a full chicken and coop post, until then you can get tons of info from my favorite chicken site; Backyard Chickens.

Setting Up A Worm Composting Bin

I have been wanting to do this for a while and have finally got around to it. Many people can find composting overwhelming, as there is a lot that can go wrong. It can also take a lot of time and work before you actually see any compost. Which is why I choose to do worm composting. Worm composting is great for many reasons; it is super cheap to set up, takes up very little space and will provide you with amazing compost in very little time.

Here is what you will need:


*2-Plastic stackable storage containers
(I like the Rubbermaid Roughneck Tubs)
what ever you choose to use it must be something that will block direct light

*Drill with 1/8" drill bit

*Cardboard

*Spray bottle- for water

*2-cardboard milk or juice cartons

*Food scraps
-BEST:Fruit and vegetable waste, coffee grounds & tea bags
-IN MODERATION: Citrus, onions, starchy foods,spicy foods
-KEEP OUT OF BIN: Meats, oily foods, dairy



Building The Bin:

Step 1
Drill holes in the lid, about 10-20 holes will be good for air circulation.


Step 2
Drill a total of 10-20 holes around the sides of the worm bin. These holes should be located around the top half of the bin since it will be resting inside the drainage bin. We did seven on either side and two in each end.



Step 3
Drill holes in the bottom of the worm bin. There should be Between 4 & 8 holes. These holes are for air circulation and drainage.



Step 4
Set up your supports. We used the bottom 3/4 of a milk and juice carton. This allows the worm bin to rest in the drainage bin and allows good air circulation. We simply cut off the tops and then placed them in the bottom of the drainage bin. We then placed our worm bin in the drainage bin resting on the supports.




Step 5
Shred your cardboard. Many people use news paper and peat moss though in my extensive reading it sounds like cardboard works best so it is what we chose. I am sure either or a mixture would work fine. You can then add most of your bedding in to the worm bin.


Step 6
Add your food scraps. On hand the day we built our bin we had some; carrot, apple, kiwi, celery, blackberries, tomato, egg shells and coffee grinds that we had saved up over the past 48 hours.


Step 7
You will need a little dirt in your worm compost bin but just a little. Worms like chickens have gizzards. They will use the sand and small stones to grind up the food. The soil will also add in some microorganisms.



Step 8
Cover food scraps with remainder of bedding pieces and spray down the bedding with water until damp. Worms breathe through their skin when it is wet, so it is important to keep your worm bin moist. Some people repeat steps 6 & 7 a couple times. We stopped with two layer's of bedding sandwiching a layer of food.


Step 9
Place the lid on your worm bin and find a place for it that will not be to hot or cold. A garage or basement would be a good spot. I know what you are all thinking we forgot the worms but we didn't. In all my reading I have found that waiting 1 to 2 weeks before introducing the worms is the best way to go. This allows for microorganisms to build up in the bin.


So we will be back in a few day's to update you on adding our Red Wiggler Worms.

Here is a good place to read up on worm composting;
Red Worm Composting.

You can also find some other great projects through Tutorial Tuesday...

Monkey's on the Bed

Our Lincoln Log

Oh How I LOVE Amazon

Okay I know there are a LOT of great small bookstores out there that my money would benefit better but I have two kids and limited time so Amazon it is. I will admit here that I am one of those people with a huge Amazon wish list. Now I hate the feeling of needing something but books don't count and for that matter plants and seeds don't either. So my Mother's Day present came two days late but it was well worth the wait. Here are the contents of the box...


The Unschooling Unmanual looks to be just what I was looking for; a book I can turn to flip open and get inspired to let my kids live and learn as they would like. A reminder of sorts for me to put down and step away from the workbooks, they are only 4 & 2 and I am sure there is much more to learn outside.











I have gotten to flip through The Backyard Homestead and it really does have it all, gardening, canning, small livestock and much more. I think it will be perfect for someone like me who is looking to create a homestead in their own yard even if it is in the middle of a subdivision.



The Garden Primer is one I have been wanting for a while as it is considered by many to be the gardening Bible. It is said to be full of info and yet very down to basics at the same time.


You can find the links to these and others on my; Book's I've Pulled of the Bookshelf List to the right.

The LIST

So before we even left Texas I sat down with the hubby to discuss the LIST. It was my dream list; everything I wanted in our new home to be. This would be the first time in 4 years that we wouldn't be living in a subdivision and under the constant watch of the Home Owners Association which can make it hard when you are trying to live a more self sustainable life. I mean how do you teach your kids that hanging your clothes out to dry can make the earth a more beautiful place if your HOA rules don't want clothes lines because they are ugly and could bring down home values. I have personally never seen an ugly clothesline.

So here it is:

1) Large Garden

2) Clothes Line

3) Chicken Coop & Chickens

It is pretty short but does involve a good amount of manual labor by the hubby but he agreed. I don't know if we were drinking or it was just the overwhelming guilt trip my friends had put him on for taking me and the kids off to a far away place. Either way he said yes and the amazing hubby that he is we have been in our new home 19 days and he has done a lot.

Garden-Raised Beds Built and veggies and flowers planted



Clothes Line- Up and Drying Clothes...Though ten minutes after this picture was taken I had to run outside and rescue the clothes from a thunderstorm!




Chicken Coop- Still in Progress



*I must add he also did a ton of much needed work on the house, painted, unpacked most of the boxes and took the kids to the park (I think everyday). I know what you are thinking but he is not for sale, he's a keeper.

The Big Move

As many of you know we just moved to North Carolina from Texas. Moving is apart of our life, the hubby is in the Coast Guard, and to be honest we really enjoy it. I am sure to most people the idea of packing up and saying goodbye every 2-3 years would be too much. Don't get me wrong it is hard, especially this last move where we had to bid farewell to way to many amazing friends. But we have found their are many perks to always being on the move.

1) We tend not to accumulate to much "stuff", though books don't count. It is impossible to accumulate too many books.

2) We have seen places we would never have seen if we had just stayed put. I think I cried for hours when Chris told me we were transferring to Texas but I cried even more 2 years later when it was time to say goodbye to Texas.

3) The people. I am just so thankful for all our friends now spread across the US.

4) The chance of a new beginning. A new year resolution of sorts. The opportunity to leave things behind and begin afresh.

5) A sense of home within ourselves. We have really learned that home truly is where the heart is.


So here it is; our new home...





***On the map we are just south of Wilmington. The Cape Fear river is just down the street!