Hope you had a great weekend

Sorry I am a bit unprepared for today.

I hope you enjoy these pictures.

A waterfall seen on a quad ride

Our dream wood pile

A friend in our yard, one of many

 

Dream clouds above our heads

Another view from a quad ride

I hope you enjoyed a peek into the world around me.

Plastic

How much of the plastic that you "purchase" do you use?

What I mean is, when an item, say lettuce, comes in a plastic container, which is becoming the norm in many grocery stores, how many of those containers do you save?  What do you do with them?  AND where do you store them all?

I have been saving them and using them for the following:

• They make nice containers for things, such as cookies, where you don't want to worry about getting a nice container back.
• I have used them for holding compost items in the fridge til I take them to the pile.
• I have used them as seed starting trays.

I know that I don't have to "buy" items in these plastic containers, but I have found that the lettuce in these containers tends to be fresher and stay longer.  Plus, they pack so much into the container it seems the greens go on forever.

I feel guilty if I don't try to use them at least once before recycling them into the garbage pick up.  So I'm looking for other ideas of how to use them.

I also try to "reuse" the coffee containers,  those are great for "hiding" things in, because I buy Folgers and those containers are red.  When I get a good deal on chocolate chips or chocolate kisses, I put them in there, that way, when I want to bake cookies, I have them!

Now, the plastic bags that grapes or oranges come in, I rinse them out and put them on the side, but I still haven't figured out what to use them for.  I already save and reuse Ziploc bags if they haven't had raw meat in them, they get used until they have holes in them.

When I forget my reusable shopping bags, and get a plastic one, I try to reuse those as well, usually in the bathrooms for the garbage cans.  Or they get used as dog poop bags.  I don't have many of those anymore though.

What types of things do you do with your plastic? AND where do you store them?

Merry Christmas

Just a note to wish anyone who reads my blog,

Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the day with family and friends.

Eating Creatively

 

I am often left with the thought of "what am I going to eat for dinner?"

 

I truly wish that we didn't have to eat, it would make life SO much easier.

 

On this night, I decided to look inside the refrigerator and try to find something to eat.  Now of course, there is food in there.  There is always food in there.  But what do I FEEL like making?  Better yet, what do I FEEL like eating?

 

I found some left over potatoes.

 

I LOVE potatoes and because I do, I try not to eat them very often.  But, we had some for dinner earlier in the week and there was a small amount left.  I don't like to throw food away, so I saved them.  I could make SOMETHING out of them.

 

Now, what else was in there........

 

I know, eggs.  If only I had a good cast iron frying pan.  My dad made THE BEST ever fried potatoes when I was a kid for breakfast in the cast iron pan he had.

 

Anyway, I took the potatoes and an egg out and here is what I came up with.

 



 

 

A little butter went into the pan as it heated, then I put the potatoes in and waited a few minutes for them to brown, but they didn't really, not like in the cast iron pan, but they would be okay.

 

 

 

Then I scrambled the egg in a bowl and dumped that in on top. 

 

Now that I think about it, I probably should have fried some onions first and maybe some peppers that I keep handy in the freezer, then put in the potatoes and then the egg.  I'll have to remember that for next time.

 

Anyway, that was what I had for dinner.  I can at least say there was a protein in there, as well as the carbs.  I did put on some salt and pepper.  I think potatoes are the only thing I actually put salt on.

 

I just wanted to share this with you to hopefully inspire you to look and see what you have in your refrigerator tonight, that needs to be eaten up, so it isn't thrown out or forgotten.

 

I know that I mentioned recently that I have been trying to look at the food we eat and the amount we eat and to use up what we fix so that there isn't so much food going to waste and being thrown out.  Give it a try.  You'd be surprised what you come up with!

 

This weeks experiment

Every week I try to pick something to improve upon to either save money, the environment or to use our resources to the best of our ability.

This week, at least Monday through Friday evening, I have decided to make it a no TV week.  I have not turned on the bedroom TV in the evenings in over a month in an effort to save electricity.

It's winter here, and there is snow on the ground, and it gets dark at 4:30 in the evening.  So believe me, this isn't easy.  Usually I have the TV on as background noise or something "to do" when the nights are long.

There are a few reasons for my wanting to try this, first I want to see if I can.  Secondly, I want to see how much this will change our electric bill.  And finally, I really need to get some of my holiday knitting completed for gifts that I am planning to give.

I have gone without TV before.  When we were kids, we had a house at the shore and we had no TV and no telephone.  Growing up back in the 60's and 70's, you didn't really need a TV to keep you busy or for company.  You went outside and found your own adventures, you played board games on rainy days, or you read books that took you to far away places.

I have managed to get through quite a bit of a sock, that will be for my husband, and I have finished reading two of the garden books that I took out of the library.

These are a pair of socks I did for myself last year.

Compost

Yes, winter is "almost" here in the North Eastern part of the United States.  It is a few days away, according to the calendar, but it has felt like winter for a few weeks now.

I'm thinking about compost.  I guess, once a person begins to garden, their thoughts are never truly far away from the soil of their garden.

One of the books I took out of the library is "The Rodale Book of Composting" Deborah L. Martin and Grace Gershuny, Editors.  The copyright of the book is 1992, so while the information in it is 21 years old, I am sure there are a few things that I can glean from the book that will help me to better understand how to "grow my soil".

Did you know, there is actually a "history" of composting?  I didn't, but I'm not going to go in to that here.

I wanted to share just one topic from the book today that I found interesting and have never really given thought to. In Chapter 5, there is a section called "from trash to treasure", here is what I wanted to share:

Up to 75% of household garbage is derived from organic matter and, theoretically, can be composted.  If you include sewage sludge, the rate is even higher.  Even if the finished product were simply dumped into a landfill, composting would realize savings because the sheer bulk of the material would be reduced by almost half.  Furthermore, it would no longer pose a toxic leachate problem, requiring expensive liners and test wells.  Using the resulting compost to build healthy soil can be regarded as an added bonus.

I never really thought of this one before.  Granted the book is 20 + years old, but I always thought that any food waste in my garbage can would decompose and make soil in the landfill.  I'm wrong about that and I have to try to be a better steward of my resources.

I never thought that by composting my organic matter it would help, not only my garden, but would also help my community by lowering the cost to haul away my garbage.

I do know that my community does offer yard waste recycling.  Those pick ups are only done during the summer and fall months of the year, the rest of the time, if you put out yard waste, they just throw it into the garbage truck. 

Compost conserves energy because it supplies soil nutrients without calling on fossil fuel support.  It saves energy because it can be made on the farm and in the garden, requiring no transportation from a factory.  It saves energy because it is waste recycled via a very short route - so short as the distance from the kitchen to the backyard compost heap.  Even the organic debris of an entire city can be recycled and returned to the land without leaving the metropolitan area.  Compare this system with the one we have been following since World War II, and you begin to see not only a major root of our current solid wastes and energy problems, but a solution to those problems as well. 

And, it saves energy!  I never thought of this one either.

Before the winter weather arrived, we began our first compost pile in our yard.  I am so looking forward to using it in our garden next season.  And reading just these two paragraphs in this book has got me thinking about better ways for me to use all the organic material I can from our yard to compost it to make soil and to save money and energy.

Isn't it amazing how when you start to do one thing, so many other things open up to you?

Look for a future post about this project.

I'm Trying

Well, I'm trying to make my blog look more appealing. 

What do you think?  Too much?

I'll keep trying.