National Colonial Farm trip

Yesterday we braved the rainy weather and headed over to the National Colonial Farm.  They were having a "green" homeschool day.  There the kids learned a little about recycling, planting native trees, grasses, and flowers, and worm composting. 

J and C weaving coasters out of "plarn" (strips of old plastics bags.)

C getting as close as she dares to the worm colony.  Believe it or not there are about 4,000 red wigglers in there!

Unfortunately, the sky opened up before we were able to get to the far end of the farm.  That's the one place they all wanted to go.  At the far end are some old mulberry trees that they remember climbing and harvesting berries from.  Since we just planted a mulberry tree in our backyard, they were very excited to go see these old trees again to help them imagine what our tree might look like someday.  I could be wrong, but I don't think the mulberries are quite ready yet.  So maybe it is just as well that we didn't see them yesterday.  We will plan to go back sometime in the next couple of weeks (maybe with Daddy) on a sunny day to really explore the farm again and visit those wonderful old mulberry trees.

Felted sweater tote bag

I have a bunch of all wool sweaters that are no longer suitable for wearing like this one.

A while back I had used part of this sweater to make a hat and mittens for myself.  Hence the clipped out parts.

 

Now I decided that it was time to use up the rest of the sweater.  This is what I made:

  

And the inside:

 I was thinking I would use it to carry around my current knitting project.  But J might have other ideas.

 

Small changes:2

A while back I wrote about the small changes I was trying to implement in my life to be more environmentally friendly.  A few months ago I tried another small change.  I didn't share right away because I wanted to see how it worked out first.  What is it?  Well....I have stopped using shampoo and conditioner.  I know, I know...you are probably thinking, "Eeeewwww!"  But it is actually great.  I haven't stopped washing my hair.  I'm just using much more environmentally friendly products.  Baking soda and apple cider vinegar.  My hair feels great, has tons of body, and I've gotten lots of compliments on my hair lately (from people who have no idea that I'm not using shampoo). 

This is how it works:  I keep a water tight container of baking soda on my bathroom counter.  I have a plastic one-cup measuring cup and a teaspoon there too.  The apple cider vinegar is in a bottle in the shower just like conditioner would be.  Before I get into the shower I measure out 2-3 teaspoons of baking soda into the measuring cup.  I take that into the shower.  When I'm ready to wash my hair I simply fill the measuring cup about half way with water.  Stir to semi-dissolve the baking soda.  Then I pour it onto my hair, trying to work it into the roots as much as possible.  It doesn't feel like it's working.  It actually feels like I'm just washing my hair with water.  Rinse well.  Next I pour a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into the measuring cup and fill the rest of the way with water.  At this point I gather up my hair and dip then ends into the cup for 10 seconds or so since my hair is longish.  Then I dump the rest over the top of my hair.  Rinse and I'm done.  It's amazing how well it works.  I will say that there is a bit of an adjustment period. But after you get used to not having a foamy lather to wash with, it is really nice.  The kids especially like it.  Also, they really like using apple cider vinegar instead of conditioner.  Conditioner always felt too "slimy" for them.  For a good article on the how and why of going "no-poo" check out Babyslime.

My small changes

I happened across this really inspiring blog a while back. It's called One Small Change. You should go visit it right now. And then come back here. But in case you don't have time I will tell you that its purpose is to encourage people to make small changes in their daily lives that will have a positive impact on the earth. So I started thinking about what I could do. I realized that there is one change that we have sort of already been doing for a while, but haven't really committed to. So, to make it really easy on myself, I thought my first small change would be simply to commit to what we've already been doing. What is it? Paper towels! We used to use tons and tons of paper towels every day. There is always some spill or messy kid face to wipe up. And with two big, elderly indoor dogs...well, we were using paper towels for their messes, too.

Then one day we ran out of paper towels.
It sat like this for a while. Then, partly for eco-reasons and partly for budget reasons I decided to see if we could get along without them. Most of the time it's pretty easy. All the kitchen spills and messy faces are really so easy to wipe up with a cloth. I have a big stack of them and I just grab a fresh one whenever would have grabbed a paper towel. I have a basket in the laundry room (right off the kitchen) where I toss the dirty ones. It does add one more load of laundry each week, but I have to believe that is still better than using up all those paper towels. And it's a really easy load to do. Even the two-year old can do a pretty decent job folding the cloths.
(This one is one of my prettier ones. We also have a big stack of small wash cloths that we use for little hands and faces.)

I feel so much better not using all those paper towels everyday! So I finally committed to this change and took down that ugly paper towel holder. Aaahhh. Much better!

If only I could get rid of that other perpetual eye-sore in my kitchen:

Now I must admit, the doggies messes are harder to deal with. But, I have several old bath towels that are now dedicated "dog-towels" and that works okay. Occasionally, there is still some small mess that is just too gross to want to use a washable rag. So I keep a small supply of cut up old tee-shirts that I can use and toss. But I try really hard not to use these except in the direst emergency.

So that's my small change. I already have a few ideas in mind for some more small changes. Actually, I'm implementing one this week. I'm going to work at it for a little bit before I share. But stay tuned for small change #2.