The Crazy Green Contest 2nd Question

Ok before I answer my second question, I want to point out the little button over on the Right It looks like this: It's a direct link back to the contest post if you want to enter. So far I only have 2 entries.

My second question entry is from Jami from Confessions Of a Stay At Home Mom. Click the link and show her some love. I hope she like the button I made for her :D

1. We have a small recycle center at our dump. And they only accept cardboard, aluminum cans and newspapers. The closest one to accept anything else is 30 min away. So my question is, "How can I better store my tin cans, plastics, and magazines until I take them off?" (We don't own a truck to be able to haul away large trash cans or tubs.) Congrats on your new 12th follower!!!

Thanks for the Congrats Jami. I don't know the size of your car so It will be hard to give exact advice but there are several different types of storage containers out there. If you take a measurement of your trunk you can figure just how big you can get. Then when you're ready to take your trip to the recycling center you just have to grab the bins and go.
You might also talk to the small recycling center to see if they can expand what they take. If there is enough interest from the locals then they may consider it a worthwhile expense.
Remember to wash out your cans and plastic items so while you are waiting you don't attract insects or rodents. If you can squash them flat. This is mostly for the plastic items since squashing a tin can isn't that easy.
As for the Magazines instead of taking them to the recycling center take them to your doctors or dentists office (we all know how old those magazines are ) or any other place that has a waiting room where new reading material would be appreciated (mechanics, barber or beauty shops). This way the magazines can be read over and over again.

I hope this was helpful.

The Crazy Green Contest 1st Question

My First Question From the Crazy Green Cheapskate Contest Comes from Sherrie from Boogers Screams Headaches and Dreams. She even made it easy for me to give her a link with this swell button. So click the button and show her some love.



1) What made you decide to go green?


I started playing around with going green when we bought our first house. It was actually a trailer on an Air Force base Trailer Park. I think they are all closed now which is a shame because it gave Airmen a way to afford their first place without breaking they bank. There was a little spot in the back where the previous owner had a small vegetable garden. It had been a long time since I was able to have a garden so I was very excited. I started from seeds. I had tomatoes, peppers, beans and I even tried corn (just four stalks of it). In a black garbage can I started my first compost pile. The black color helped keep it warm in the winter months and when I turned the soil in the spring I added it to the garden. It wasn't full decomposed but I figured the rest would break down in the soil. The tomatoes peppers and beans did great the corn grew tall but got some kind of growth on it. It looked like it might be some kind of insect hive but there was never any sign of bugs. (to this day I still have no idea what it was).

3 Years later when I became pregnant with my daughter we moved out of the trailer and into a house. The backyard had about 12 trees and in the fall I started a huge compost pile. We set up a wire fence behind our shed and to keep it hot without turning it all the time I got a composting tool which is basically a short pole with a handle on one end and wings that fold in when you push it into the pile and open up when you pull it out to create new air passages.
When my daughter was old enough to start drinking milk we started buying organic milk. At the time there were several news stories and articles about how girls were entering puberty at earlier and earlier ages and though my husband and I hadn't seen anything to confirm our suspicions we decided it probable had something to do with BGH's. We decided that Samantha would get organic milk to help keep any possible side effects away from her.
Our final push to green living and as much organic food as we can afford happened when Samantha started 1st grade . The school wanted me to do a survey about my daughters behavior. She would talk constantly and would get up and do things while her teacher was giving lessons. (see where this is going?) The survey the teacher completed showed that she might have ADD and they started hinting that it might be a good idea to get her tested. Well having don't a research project in College on ADD/ADHD I know there is no REAL test they can give a child to show that they have ADD/ADHD they just watch the kid and decide whether or not they had it. We decided that there was no way we were going to give our child a personality altering drug we would try everything else possible. We started at the doctor's office and NO we didn't tell them the school though she had ADD. We asked for sleep tests, thyroid tests and had some other things tested. These were things that we looked up that could cause a child to have the same behaviors as a child that supposedly had ADD/ADHD. None of these were the problem.
Then we came across the Feingold Diet. I vaguely remembered seeing it when I was doing my research paper and started reading up. The Feingold Diet has a very simple concept. Artificial Flavors and Colors and Certain preservatives are made from Petroleum (that's right the same stuff you put in your car.) The HUMAN Body is not meant to digest Petro and has a negative reaction. Included for some children the same symptoms as ADD/ADHD. Well there was nothing in this diet that could hurt us so we decided to give it a shot. In two weeks my daughters behavior at school improved about 90%. The thing that sealed the deal was I had decided to go ahead and give them some blueberry waffles we had in the freezer so they wouldn't go to waste (you know the kind that don't have any blueberries just blueberry flavor chips ). My daughter was pinging off the walls for hours after having them.

Sorry that was so long. Now your second question.

2) What type of light bulbs are the best if going green? We've tried the ones that are swirly, and you know what...well, some have blown too quickly, so I'm not very impressed. Or -- do you HAVE to buy the name brand?

I use compact fluorescent. I don't really pay attention to the brand I tend to go for what is on sale. I haven't had any burn out yet but if they burned out really quickly you might try contacting the manufacture they may replace them. If I owned my home (we are renting right now) I would look into installing recessed LED lights which are even more energy efficient they fluorescents. (sometimes I think about buying some of the solar powered LED Christmas lights and put the solar panel in the window and attach the lights to the ceiling ) They tend not to be as bright as fluorescents though. So I think a mixture of the two would probably be best. LED's for general lighting and fluorescents for when you need more light like when your reading.

10th.................Make that 11th Follower

I was waiting to get my tenth follower to hold my next contest and while I was surfing all the cool blogs out there I got my Eleventh.

So in honor of this momentous occasion I hear by start The Crazy Green Contest 2. (The first was in November). Now to enter is easy just post a question in the comments section. That's it It can be any question (keep it clean) about me, going green, how to (if I don't know I guarantee I can find out).

There was going to be 10 prizes Now I'll make it 11. I don't know what they will all be but they will be in keeping with Saving Money and Going Green. So what would you like to know?

OH I ALMOST FORGOT: Contest will end Jan 23 2009 and winners will be picked at random. (I'll drop your name in a hat and let my daughter pick) I will answer every question and include a link to the blog of the asker.

I'm joining the S.W.A.K. Carnival going on!

It's going on at WE Are THAT Family Blog

It's dedicated to hubbies on Valentines Day which is right around the corner. It even comes with a cool button. So come join the fun and visit We Are THAT Family for your own button.

Nature Saves the Day

My hubby brought me home a Discover magazine the other day. In it along with the Top 100 Science Stories of 2008 ( Like The Rise of Slime , Plants Inspire Better Solar Power and Fish Farming Threatens Wild Salmon) the was a wonderful article called The magic Forest: Where Poplars are Purifying the Planet.

In Argonne, Illinois they are using Poplar trees to clean up contaminated ground water. They train the roots, of these very thirst trees, to search deep in the earth for water. The trees then suck up the contaminated water and move it up their trunks to their leaves where in evaporates and the sunlight breaks down the chemicals and renders them harmless. In the summer one tree can move about 26 gallons of water and they have a whole forest of trees working to clean up the man made mess. So instead of using electricity to pump the contaminated water to a treatment plant the trees do the work powered by the sun making it doubly green.

Now if we could find such clean solutions for all our mistakes maybe we won't have to worry about global warming.

Look What I Got

Aren't those just the cutest little pepper plants you have ever seen. Of course now I have to decide which to pull to thin it out. Poor little pepper plants.

Choosing Vegetables

In an effort to decide what Veggies to plant I've been consulting a book called Gardening in Small Spaces, written by Marcus Schneck. It talks about all the different aspects of gardening when you don't have much room. (although the pictures they have show yards with a great deal of space) In the back is has a list of Vegetables best suited to growing in a container.

The ones that he suggest are: Beans (pole), beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, muskmelons,onions, parsley, peas, peppers, radishes, spinach, squash, swiss chard, and tomatoes. With his listed vegetables he offers advice on how deep the container should be and how much soil it should hold so that the plants have the necessary room to grow.

Based on this list I've decided to try growing broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, onions, peppers, spinach, squash and tomatoes. Now I just have to wait for my seed catalogs to arrive so I can start choosing the varity I want. I'm look for compact plants from companys that sell heirloom seeds and organic seeds.

It's Not Easy Being Green.........Sometimes

Kermit the Frog had it right It's not easy being green.... at least for me right now LOL.

I'm an avid recycler but right now I'm almost ready to chuck it in the trash. I'm up to my elbows in recyclables because or recycling day is on Thursdays.

If you check your calendar you will notice that BOTH Christmas and New Years falls on Thursday. That mean I can't put out the recycling for Three Weeks and on of those weeks has Christmas in it. So you know what that means tons and tons (well maybe not that much) of cardboard just waiting to go to be recycled taking up my house and garage space. Not to mention three weeks of Newspaper, cans, bottles, ect.....

It's driving me absolutely nuts!

Like I said It's Not Easy Being Green!