Sustainability Book Review- Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn

Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Written as a collaborative work featuring the homes and space, written by the people who built them, Tiny Homes is a great source of inspiration for smaller more sustainable living. Many of the homes and spaces (studios, saunas, offices) were built using salvaged materials, opening up the readers options, not only in size, but also in economy.
Covering a great number of less-than-conventional but earth and pocketbook friendly construction methods, like straw bale, cobb, and palate, and including an article on the basic municipal planning and building approval process, Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter is a valuable resource for people dreaming tiny.
After reading this book, I look around my ridiculously oversized spaces filled with too much stuff and feel compelled to pare down the clutter and live with more of the things I use and less of the things that just take up space.
What makes this book special, beyond the valuable information, is the peak into the lives of the diverse people who have decided to live somewhere tiny and sometimes hand built for very different reasons and in very different places. I also like that tiny home builders featured throughout the book are easy to find and contact because the inclusion of website information from the contributors. All in all, it's a great resource filled with beautiful pictures sure to plant the seeds of a plan in readers' minds.

Edible Landscaping: Urban Food Gardens That Look Great, by Senga Lindsay: a Review

Edible Landscaping: Urban Food Gardens That Look Great by Senga Lindsay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


If you are looking for a book to give you examples of different types of areas that can be landscaped for edible purposes, this is a good book. If you are looking for copious example pictures to inspire you, this is not the book you are looking for. If you are looking for a quick run down of various different colored common edibles, this is a good book for you. If you are looking for a long list of edible plants, their growing requirements, and a few edibles one might not think of on their own, this is not the book for you. It's a good starting point with some great ideas for gardening with kids in mind as well as good information you will be able to use when you start planning your garden, but it will have to be a companion book to a more extensive one that deals more with plants than garden form.

Buddha Bunz Dryer Balls Review & Art Project

So, I have this friend who makes wool dryer balls. They're awesome. I've bought a few of them and now have a grand total of 8 wool balls.
Basic questions and answers so I can get on to the fun part.

Do they work?
Yes. Very well.
I have been able to dry loads of laundry which normally took two to two and a half runs through the dryer in one to one and a half.  That makes me very happy.
How do they work?
They beat the heck out of your laundry to help soften it while the wool absorbs excess moisture, thus speeding the drying process.
How many do you need?
Buddha Bunz suggests around 9 to reduce your drying time substantially, but I started with three and started noticing a reduction in drying time immediately.
Will they lint-up your laundry?
Nope. I haven't had any trouble with them doing so.
Are they safe to use with cloth diapers?
Yep. And they make it so your cloth diapers actually come out much softer, way faster.
What if I don't use a dryer so much, is it still worth it to own some?
Definitely.  The kids seem to love them as much as I do. Mongoosine likes juggling with them and Snapdragon simply adores playing with them.  I like that they're lightweight and soft enough that I don' tworry when the kids are tossing them about in the house.
Shouldn't I just go ahead and order them from anywhere?
Nope.  I've gotten three different kinds of wool balls, and I've started experimenting with making my own, and here's what I have to say, Melinda from Buddha Bunz does 'em best.  My Buddha Bunz weigh the same as my Wooltopia, but are wound much more neatly and tightly, so all the same ability to absorb, without any of the "hey, could this come apart?" worry, plus they're nearly perfect little spheres.  My other ball, which I bought from a fair, though pretty with swirly black green and yellow (JabberWalky picked it out) is nice and big, but super light-weight, so not nearly as inclined to actually absorb excess moisture.  As for mine, well, lets just say that if I wanted to make them as perfect as my Buddha Bunz, I'd likely give myself carpel tunnel AND an inferiority complex.
Besides, Buddha Bunz are less expensive by the time you add shipping.


There. Done. Now the fun part.
Buddha Bunz sells plain dryer balls, colored dryer balls, and even specially custom designed ones.  They come scented or unscented, and she even makes ones specially as toys with la jingle bell in the center for extra kidlet amusement.  Well, I like the specially designed ones a *lot* but I'm A. cheap, and B. one of those creative types who always wants to figure out how to do things myself.  So, when Melinda from Buddha Bunz was having a sale on undyed wool dryer balls, I couldn't resist the urge to get some plain ones and see what I could do with them.

So, I turned to my favorite know it all, Google, and came up with these two sites on how to dye wool with common household or kitchen ingredients.  No really, very common ingredients.  One is on how to dye wool with kool-aid drink mix (here), and the other is on how to dye wool with vinegar and food coloring (here).

The first thing I noticed about both of these sets of directions was that they're for dying skeins of wool yarn.  Well, I'm dying balls, so it's a little different.

First I decided to try to dye wool using the kool-aid drink mix, so that's what I'll show you here.  I had my heart set on doing a Battlestar Galactica inspired Eye of Jupiter dryer ball, you know, because I'm a geek.

See? Pretty Eye of Jupiter?

So, I gently soaped and rinsed my pretty plain dryer ball, then wet it a bit more as per the instructions I'd read, and then I mixed the contents of a lemonade and a cherry  Kool-Aid drink mix pouch in separate empty clean baby food jars with a tiny bit of water in each, and then a blue raspberry generic drink mix in a third.  I started to paint on the color with a water color brush, but it didn't seem to be working well, though I admit that is likely because I started with the yellow, so I pulled out the baby-medicine syringe and sucked up the mixture into it and gently tapped the color into place until I was happy with my design. I should have taken a picture then.

So, if you're doing a 3 dimensional ball of wool, bear these tips in mind

.

1. if you oversaturate it, the color will settle to the bottom.  

2. the directions i read said to heat set it in the microwave for 2 minutes, let it sit, then heat set it for 2 minutes... well, don't. heat it 30 seconds at a time because at 2 minutes, you start smelling something unpleasantly scorchy, well, i did.

3. if you have a lovely intricate pattern which you've carefully painted onto the ball, be sure to put that side UP when you are heat setting it, even if you're using a non-microwave heat setting method, because you'll be irritated when you open it up to find a hot ball of wool where the color has bled over the bottom half, obliterating half your design.  Also, see tip 1.

See how that started out  Eye of Jupiter-ish but ended up being all red on the bottom instead of nice concentric circles?  Yeah. Dang it.

It's still cool, but that was a bit disappointing.

4. wear gloves

Definitely wear gloves, that way you don't have to walk around with "Red Right Hand" stuck in your head all day, night, weekend, week, month, year, however long...

Well, after I heat set it, let it cool a bit, rinsed it, resoaped it, and rinsed again then wrapped it in a paper towel and rubbed it to verify that it was color fast, I realized two more things.  

A. This smelled good.

B. Melinda is better at it than I am.

Bottom line? Buddha Bunz wool dryer balls are the BEST ever, and it takes a while to wash kool aid off your fingers.

Don't worry, I'll show you what I do with my other ones too.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated at all in any way shape or form for this, and I really hope that my friend Melinda who makes the balls isn't irritated with me for sharing this.  But as I said, you can have her do the messy work for  you, get radder results, and not walk around with stained fingernails for a week.

Hand Washing: As the Diapers Swirl

One of these was handwashed. The other was machine washed. Can you tell the difference?

Didn't think so. Neither could spouse, and he even had to sniff them.

So as promised, here is a breakdown of todays handwashing routine.

This is where I keep the fluffies. Yes, it's a Repurposed Tidy Cat liter bucket, 'cuz that's how we roll around here. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. All about the Reusing.

From there they go to the bathroom to be rinsed with the diaper sprayer. I actually took the camera in to take a picture for you, but lets just face it, some days you don't want people looking round your bathroom, you know?

From there it's out to the washtub in the tiny alcove in the garage, and by tiny, I mean two feet wide.

In my narrow, yet deep but plumbed alcove I have a washtub, complete with spray nozel, and handy dandy fence stuff for hanging things like scrub brushes and bags of, yep, you saw it, Rockin'Green. Yeah, I'm still hearting the Rockin' Green.

The diapers got dumped into the sink, complete with freshly found plug and recently steralized plunger. (That was fun, not!)

Then, while filling the wash tub with HOT water and 1TBSP of Rockin' Green, I invoked the Laundry Goddess, Mischief. Oh wait, that's just my cat.

I agitated the water with the plunger for a while. It didn't really do it for me so I went back to using my fists and body weight to agitate the water. I'm still not quite sure what I was doing wrong with the plunger, but I'll try again tomorrow. After the "wash" cycle, I was really wet. So I decided to do the rinse cycles in the bucket after I drained the sink.

So I drained the wash tub, put the bucket back in the sink, and filled it half way with HOT water while wringing out the diapers into the washtub.

Then I put them all in the bucket and agitated them by plunging both hands in as though I was kneading particularly stubborn and squishy bread. I agitated it for a few minutes, then dumped it out, and wrung the diapers while refilling the bucket again.

This step got repeated 3 times, because I'm all paranoid 'n stuff, and then I wrung them, sprayed them, and wrung them again.

After they were thoroughly wrung, I lugged them through the house and to the back porch hang out on the rack to sun.

While todays batch were sunning, I pulled yesterday's out of the dryer (where today's will end up after they're done sunning, because in this weather, there is no hope of hang drying in just one day) and folded them.

I was a little proud that I had gotten them all clean, as well as the wipes and inserts to the pockets that got used yesterday too.

For tomorrow, again, I plan to make a few changes.

1. I want to see how Tiny Bubbles works compared to the Rockin' Green.

2. I want to see about using a different style of plunger.

3. I want to see if I can scare up some gloves (still) because my hands aren't loving the HOT at all.

I am, however, feeling fairly confident that by the time we get the washer fixed, I will know how to wash a fluffy backwards, forwards, or inside out.

For the record- they aren't repelling today, so yay handwashing!

And for the germaphobes out there- I am planning to boil the inserts and prefolds on Friday, but the sun works wonders for killing bacteria too.

6am Sustainability

After a night of post stomach bug cluster feeding, and consequently very little sleep, this is not about Snapdragon.
Surprise.
Sustainability means a lot to me. I don't like creating bits and pieces of my daily routine that needs must end due to overconsumption of resources. I'm one of those quilters who will sit down for hours trying to puzzle out the most efficient use of materials possible before bustin' out my rotary cutter. I just made a bib out of the fabric I pulled off a chair before recovering it with my old favorite "skinny skirt," figuring I loved it enough to want to see it, and it certainly want stretching over my hips anymore. I believe in conservation of resources as a way of life. My sandals are over 5 years old.
My husband approves of my sustainability minded mindset because while it means that the flannel shirt he outgrew (to put it kindly- I normally just ask him when he's expecting *his* baby...) I just might turn into baby wipes or a few squares in a quilt, it also means that I'm not the shopaholic wife that so many men end up with. Granted, they are often prettier, all dolled up in a brand new (I don't know the names of designers so bear with me) dress and handbag, their hair and nails recently resculpted and colored, makeup expertly applied. However, the lower-maintainance models require less overtime hours to subsidize them.
Yay me!
But this morning as I am grudgingly pulling Snapdragon to my chest for earlier-than-I-appreciate feeding, all the while smiling and interacting, I hear from the next room the voice of my Silly Mongoose. Mongoosine, never up this early, has zeroed in on yet another opportunity to deplete my energy reserves. "Mooooom?" Mongoosine calls from her bed, "is the pool open today?" "I don't know, Sweetpea." "Are we going to walk to the library this morning?"
Hm. Are we? I don't know yet. Having spent the last day or so with one of those stomach bugs that leaves you four pounds lighter, I'd told her yesterday that I'd base that decision on how I felt today. But I've only been awake three minutes. So again, sighing, "I don't know." Honestly, I'm exhausted just thinking about it, and since when does she get to ask me yo do stuff when her teeth aren't brushed yet? Hmm?
Kids will suck the life force right out of you. As infants they're pretty blatant about it, going straight for the tatas, but as they get older, they develop marvelous long distance energy vampire skillz.
Then it hit me. Sustainability really needs to apply to all our resources. Not just fuel and paper, clean water and air. not just the tangibles.
I need to let sustainable living evolve to include things like my energy reserves and my sanity.
Sometimes its okay to take mommy moments where no kids get to pester you. They won't die if you don't look at their newest mini-oragami while you're going to the bathroom, rudely sliding it under the door and demanding immediate feedback. They think they will, but its a good time for them to borrpow from their patience reserves, and let mama sustain her peace of mind, don't you think?
So I'm challenging every one of the two of you reading this to do something today, tomorrow, and everyday you think of it, to treat yourself as a non-renewable resource and do something to help sustain and conserve yourself. We all deserve it.

Sustainable Baby & His Eco-chic Cheeks

Butt cheeks, that is.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself just what kind of eco-friendly you are being. Eco-green or eco-cheap? Well, sometimes you're being eco-green, and that's my favorite.
What does this all have to do with Snapdragon's bottom? Well, I've had a few epiphanies. That might be an overstatement, but nonetheless I've had some thoughts.
Baby wipes are A) expensive over time B) a waste of raw materials C)expensive to transport, and D) yet another avenue for human waste (and I do mean poo) to wind up in landfills where it doesn't belong. Clearly cloth wipes are the solution. Reusable to the nth power, and without all the questionable chemicals on that unscented wipe you can still smell from two feet away.
But, ewwww you say? Its no more grosstastic than wioing down your baby's newest abstract mustard art creation with a thin sheet of porous papertowelesque fibers, is it? If you're already using cloth diapers (fluffies is what we call 'em in our household) then you're already rinsing and washing, so these are actually easier. No more hunting for a trashcan near the grocery store enterance, wipes in hand after Mt. Babybutt's latest carseat explosion or peeling them out of the fluffies to throw away when you get home.
But greening baby butt wiping isn't so easy. We are easily seduced by the convenience we've been trained to believe disposable wipes are. So if you're having a hard time making the switch, here's a greener and cheaper way to do disposable while weaning yourself to cloth:

When you pull that wipe out of the container, rip it in half and put half of it back.

I'm not saying don't use the other half if you need to, by all means be clean about it. We don't want any rashes on any soft & sweet little bottoms, but make yourself use that first half til it is good and fully used. Then use the second half if your LO's bottom, legs, feet or any other part still needs it, heck use another half if you need to, but just remember to rip it in half and use them like you're serious about it. You'll be surprised how many fewer wipes you're suddenly using.

But if you're ready to take the risk and switch to cloth, you've still got options.

Eco-green: Buy some nice WHAM-made (not mega-corp commercial, while yes they're more efficient, I think the planet is also benefitted by supporting the WHAMs of the world who aren't commuting 2 hrs a day each direction too) cloth wipes. They're so pretty you'd never think of throwing them away, althiugh it might be tough to wipe that runny goo with some of the absolutely gorgeous fabrics that these wonderful ladies use to make their wipes, in the end you can wipe with a light green kind of pride.

Eco-cheap: Make your own wipes. Its pretty straightforward. They're typically two layers of a pourous and grabby material (flannel and terrycloth are pretty popular) about 7 or 8 inches square, surged or zigzagged copiously around the outer edges, or trimmed neatly with piping or bias tape. My mom is keen on sewing them inside out, right sides together, and turning them, pressing them, then topstitching. Viola! You have your own cloth wipes and didn't have to have them trucked to you.

Cheap-Eco-GreenER: make your own wipes out of t-shirts you stained and won't rewear or flannel pjs that you wore til they grew holes. Instead of sending the worn out yet wipelike materialed clothes to the big closet in the sky, give them a new lease on life as infant... er, bathroom attendants. You'll not even feel bad about botching your stitches on these. They're nearly free, prevent old clothes from hitting the landfill, and reduce future waste. Awesome.

Cheap-Eco-GreenEST: here's where the epiphany comes into play. Disposable wipes are just one layer of paper or quasi-cloth. Not too. Double your homemade wipe stash by making them one layer whenever doing so wouldn't bee too ridiculously flimsy. One layer of flannel is probably plenty. You don't double your washcloth to clean your bottom, why not turn that ratty towel into wipes that don't need to be doubled either? Waaaay greener. Just be sure to finish the edge if its a material that's given to fraying.

But what about the wetness of the wipes. Honestly, most of the time you could probably get by with just some water, but the interwebz are full of homemade wipe solution recipes.
So green it up a little already. Your baby's bottom will than you, becaise let's face it, would you rather get scrubbed with cotton or a damp paper towel?

Sustainable Parenting- Save the Trees Already

I'm sure that you're thinking that this is going to be a tirade against Kimberly Clark's clearcutting of old growth forests in order to bring you things like Kleenex and sposies, but I'll leave that to Greenpeace. (But you could always see if your school district would reword the supplies list to read "facial tissue" instead of being brand specific, that is, unless Kleenex is sponsoring your child's education like a megacorp might sponsor a NASCAR team.)
No, this is something else entirely, but first let me say I've been known to fall down on this one.
Books. We all love em, own em, read em, but is that responsible. Can you see your bookcase from where you're sitting? Your kids' books? How many were one hit wonders? Sure, you read it. Heck, you enjoyed it. But do you have to own it? Do you ever feel bad, knowing its just going to clutter your home, and that you actually spent money on it? I call that biblioguilt.
I admit, I own the entire Harry Potter series, because sometimes I like a good fantasy with none of the sexual overkill that so often creeps into general fiction. I even admit that I preordered "Deathly Hallows," which meant more waste. I'm not perfect. No one is.
That said, if you open your wallet, there's a good chance you'll find a library card in there somewhere. It might be dusty from neglect, or stuck to the ice cream shop's frequent binger card. It might be well worn and so accustomed to use that it practically scans itself. But try this trick the next time you're out and want a book, or your kids want one. Write down the author's name and the title. Then go to your library. If they don't have it, they can request it.
Sure it takes patience and discipline to get the most out of the library, but think of all the trees that don't have to die because you're book sharing. And now think of how awesome it is that your kids have access to all the reading material they could want, with minimal environmental impact and maximum potential for building lifelong good habits.
Seriously- your kids will learn to be more eco-smart, to be patient in waiting for their bok of the moment to come in if it wasn't on the shelf, and to be responsible for things. Its an all around win.
So go to the library and rediscover the joy of reading a book just once, without guilt.

2 week alarm

We're officially two weeks into this crazy thing I like to call babyhood. You'd think I'd be better at it, considering I've done it before, but in the end, that just complicates things. I find myself comparing this and that all the time. DD wore prefolds, so should I feel guilty that I don't want to devote the time to oragami that I'd have to to prefold diaper DS? By this point I'd caved on breastfeeding DD. I admit it, the latch was bad in the beginning and I couldn't tolerate the pain. But does that mean I should feel superior to former me because I'm still an all night buffet?
The emotions are pretty crazy too. I'm sure sleep deprivation had a lot to do with the crying jag last night, though.
But nonetheless, here's my goal. I want to raise a happy, healthy, and sustainable baby boy. You with me on this? Sustainable. This means a lot of things. It means getting off my bumper and finishing sewing up some cloth baby wipes and making my own wipes solution. (Whatever happened to just a damp washcloth like my grandparents used?) It means researching a little more into the teatree oil psuedoestrogen issue. Does repeated exposure really lead to gynecomasta in prepubescent boys? It means not caving to the will of the bottle-nazis and continuing to breastfeed. It means being a bit of a lactivist when I need to. Sustainability means not buying the latest gizmos I don't need for baby, and only investing in the ones that really are going to reduce waste and replace other products with potentially harmful chemicals.
Its a lot of things. So yeah, its going to be a lot of mental work and a little physical work, but I think we can do this. Ya with me?