It's Easy Being Green

I’m absolutely blown away by the amount of paper Victoria’s Secret wastes on their catalogs.  I think we must receive a new catalog at least once every week in our mailbox and it’s because we order from them, not because we want the catalog.  What’s even more frustrating is that there’s no indication on the catalog that they use any form of recycled paper for the printing.  Thinking about the amount of paper they use and the amount of gasoline it must take to transport their catalogs to the masses around this country makes my head spin!  Maybe I’ll just tell them not to ship the darn thing to us anymore.  In the meantime, I’ll continue doing my part by throwing them into the recycling bin.

On the flip side, we just bought new print cartridges for our HP printer.  I’m impressed with the steps HP goes to make recycling printer cartridges an easy process.  I know our toner cartridges at work come with prepaid UPS labels to ship the empty cartridges right back to them for recycling.  Here at home, it’s super easy by going onto their website and requesting free, postage-paid envelopes to be sent to you so you can drop in your cartridges and send them back too.  I’ve also noticed most of the packaging for their products is recyclable.  They use cardboard boxes with none of those annoying, non-recyclable plastic bubbles.  Plus, the plastic they use to hold the cartridges securely in the box is a #1…making them totally recyclable in my area.

It’s funny how once you start recycling at home, you really begin to pay attention to the packaging of everyday products.  I’ve even formed some purchasing decisions around the packaging that the item comes in.  But, those purchasing decisions have led to our recycling bin overflowing every couple of days while we really only generate about one bag of trash per week.  That makes me feel great!

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So, maybe you’re considering a trip to escape everything during the holidays.  Or, maybe you’re thinking about treating yourself to some time alone after the holidays!  Whatever it may be, there are now more ways than ever to travel in a “green” way.

The first and most obvious way to travel green is by putting some careful thought and consideration into your trip.  This can be as simple as running your daily errands and considering a gas-saving route to complete them.  If you’re going to be hitting the road, heading to Grandma’s house, you can make sure that your tires are inflated to proper pressure, pack a little lighter and make sure to use that cruise control set around 65 or 70mph to get the most out of your gas mileage.  You could also rent a hybrid car for your trip.  Most of the big rental car companies now offer hybrids and will even teach you how to use them if you’re feeling intimidated about the technology on-board.  There’s now one whole rental car company that rents nothing but environmentally friendly cars in California and Phoenix, AZ.

But with the current green movement underway, there’s now all sorts of environmentally friendly ways to travel about.  You could plan to visit green cities.  One city that’s consistently ranked tops for it’s green way of life is Portland, Oregon.  The city is surrounded by nature, has a great mass transportation system, plenty of parks and open space and a host of environmentally responsible hotels and restaurants.  What could be better?  If Portland, Oregon isn’t in your trip planning future you could look for green hotels at any destination.   There’s now a Green Hotels Association, where innkeepers can pledge to make a difference with their property. You can check out a listing of their members by clicking this link to the Green Hotels website.  If you can’t find a listing for a green hotel in the area you’re headed there’s some steps you can personally take at any hotel.  The number one suggestion: don’t have your room serviced every day.  The wastefulness of washing every room’s sheets and towels once a day when the same people are staying in the room is ridiculous.  You don’t wash your stuff at home that much, why let the hotel do it!  Also, take your own bottles of soaps and shampoos so you don’t have to use the ones at the hotel.  If you do use them, take the leftover with you and get the most out of it before throwing away the packaging.

If you’d like to literally lend a helping hand to the environment and have an unforgettable trip, there’s several groups offering ecological experiences.  One based in Flagstaff, Arizona takes on projects for places like the National Park Service.  You volunteer your time to the task at hand and pay a fee that covers food and expenses, usually for a week at a time.  You can log onto the Wilderness Volunteer website to get an idea on what kinds of trips they have to offer.

Last but not least, when you head out of the house for that trip, shut it down!  Lights are essential to make your house look lived in while you’re away.  But, put those lights on timers so you’re not wasting electricity 24/7.  If you haven’t already, change the bulbs to compact fluorescents.  That will also help you save the cost of energy.   You should also unplug electronics that always suck power, no matter what.  These are your VCR’s, DVD players, televisions and most of all…your computer.  If you’re not going to be home to read your email for a week, turn it off!  There’s so many fun, new ways to tread a little lighter when we head out to travel.

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No doubt about it, I’ve been a neglectful blogger these past few weeks. Between getting into the groove at my new job and the craziness here at the Half-Acre Homestead, I just haven’t found much time to sit down at the computer. The awful severe weather has gone on hiatus for now and after an early May bout of frost, I think it’s finally time to get out and hit the garden.

I recorded a vlog from the square foot garden just a couple of weeks ago and totally forgot to post it. Better late than never, right? This will help you get caught up to speed on my next garden update, hopefully coming this weekend. Check it out in my featured video box on the right!

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A lot of people have funny thoughts about home brewed beer. One of the many visions people get is the quintessential picture of someone brewing beer in their home bathtub. It is a funny thought but not one that represents home brewing at all!

I’ve had the hobby of brewing for about 7 years now. A good friend of mine down in the Valley of the Sun decided to try it out one day and were quite impressed with our results. We both enjoyed fine liquors, beers, wines and cigars. Beer happened to be one of those products we could make ourselves! We used to brew pretty regularly, putting together a batch about every other month. It’s definitely motivation to have a “brew buddy”. When I moved away, I kind of lost the spirit and enjoyment of the process without my “brew buddy” and really only brewed once or twice a year. It didn’t help that I ran across some batches of brew I didn’t particularly enjoy. What do you do with two cases of beer you don’t like? Give it away…and hope the bottles find their way back to you!

Lately, I’ve been trying to get back into my homebrew hobby. So, over the weekend I got together with a buddy of mine from work who also brews and we put together two separate batches. Last fall, I brewed a Pumpkin Ale. It was like drinking a slice of pumpkin pie only in a beer! A couple of bottles were fun to try but not anything you would drink on a regular basis. This year, I opted for something a little more mainstream…a Honey Brown Ale. Most people should be able to enjoy more than a couple of bottles of that! Fermentation began within about 8 hours of pitching the yeast. That’s always a good sign when your fermentation kicks off that quickly. This morning, when I woke up, fermentation was literally on a roll. The wort (liquid that is fermented into beer) towards the bottom of the jug looks like it’s boiling. Streams of tiny bubbles rush toward the surface of the carboy (jug) and then burble through the airlock to be expelled. No matter how many times I see it, I’m always fascinated.

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Two weeks from now I’ll rack the brew into another carboy for secondary fermentation. On December 16th, my homebrewed Honey Brown Ale will be ready for bottling. Homebrewing is a fun and rewarding hobby. While it’s really no cheaper than buying good store bought beer it is a good lesson in self-sufficiency. With just a few simple ingredients available at your local homebrew shop, you can whip up some suds you really enjoy and know that it didn’t take a truck, traveling thousands of miles and using hundreds of gallons of fuel to get to you.

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The idea of turning our waste into energy we all can use has been around for awhile.  Now a professor at the University of California – Davis, has developed a new technique to get more energy out of that garbage.  Ruihong Zhang has been working on her Biogas Energy Project for the past eight years.  Now the university has taken the steps to acquire the license on the product and a power company has even signed on to adapt the unit for commercial use.

The piece of technology Zhang has been toiling away on is called an “anaerobic phased solids digester”.   This type of machine is already in use at wastewater treatment plants and livestock farms around the nation, breaking down the sewage into usable gas.  Zhang has apparently improved the technology to allow the use of more wastes like food scraps, yard clippings and animal manure.  It also apparently cuts the processing time in half and produces hydrogen and methane.  Other systems apparently only produce methane.  That would be a true energy revolution, just like bio-diesel.  Can you imagine the food scraps we don’t eat and animal manure being turned into a fuel for our car?  That would be truly amazing.

UC Davis estimates that about 5 million tons of food scraps go into California landfills every year.  If one ton can produce enough energy for the average day at 10 homes, that year’s worth of food could power 50 million houses for one day or 130,000 houses for the entire year.

If you’d like to read more about Zhang’s system, head over to the website of UC Davis.

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I really enjoy living in a place where you can feel connected to nature and the natural environment that surrounds you.  Last night, while coming into the village where we live I got to see the local herd of elk grazing on grass around midnight.  I stopped the car probably about 10 feet away from them.  They looked at me and continued munching their evening meal.  I just watched for a few minutes before coming up the hill to the house.  It was a very relaxing and peaceful sight to watch.

Today, I was out in the the front yard talking to one of our neighbors when all of a sudden, I felt a piercing pain in my right hand.  I immediately looked down to see a wasp planting his rear end  into the palm of my hand.  Sure, it stung and still does nearly an hour later.  But, I just brushed the little guy off and let him go about his day and thought how lucky I was it picked me!  Sometimes it’s just the simple little things that put a smile on my face.

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Referred to as a “nectar of the gods”, I can firmly say my first experiment with dandelion wine has left me with my stomach turning inside out. The wretched brew smells more like the “nectar” of a porcelain god, enough to send anyone with a working sniffer to run far, far away.

My dandelion wine experiment began last year. Seeing fields of yellow, perky dandelion blossoms painted through the grass left me wondering what could be done with the pervasive “weed” that leaves many lawn enthusiasts seeing red. Using the greens for a salad is a popular notion but you have to catch dandelions before they bloom, otherwise the leaves turn horribly bitter to our sensitive human palette. Vintage wine books however paint tantalizing imagery of a sweet and wild wine that trickles down your gullet and warms the depths of your belly with the sunshine captured by perky petals. Who wouldn’t want to lap that luscious sounding sun juice?

Last year my Darling Daughter and I spent the better part of an hour in a nearby field on our hands and knees. It’s hard work plucking a gallon of petite, sticky flower heads dotting the field grass. Some issue or another prompted me to delay the process of getting the wine started so I stuck the gallon container of flower heads into the fridge. By the time I went to work on them the next day, those darned dandelions had all clamped shut. They looked like a pack of clams with their mouths firmly sealed. Those flowers made it into the trash since they were no longer fresh and it would just take an inane amount of time to pry them open and pluck their petals. That was the last attempt of 2010.

Kicking off spring 2011, we’ve had rain storms measuring feet instead of inches of rain and the resulting carpet of dandelions was magnificent. Silver dollar sized, fuzzy lion heads bobbed and swayed through most grass patches up to just a week or so ago. Before our first official mowing of the year, Homestead Hottie, Darling Daughter and I grabbed a bucket and started plucking. From the front to the back (can you handle that?), we managed to pick 6 quarts of dandelions.

The recipe I used was from a vintage dime store paperback titled “Successful Wine Making at Home: How to make your own wine and liqueurs,” by H.E. Bravery. I only share the recipe so you can look at the process yourself, not because I endorse trying it out!

Ingredients:
- 1 gallon flower heads without the tiniest piece of stalk
- 3 lbs. sugar
- 1 oz. yeast
- 1 gallon water
- 2 lemons

1) Pull out the petals by gathering them between your fingers whilst holding the base of the flower head. Put the petals in the fermenting vessel and pour on 3 quarts of boiling water, covered tightly and left to soak for 7 days.

2) Stir daily and cover at once

3) Strain and wring out fairly tightly and return the liquor to the fermenting vessel. Boil half the sugar in a pint of water and when cool add to the liquor. Then add the yeast and juice of 2 lemons. Cover and ferment for 7 days.

4) Pour carefully into a gallon jar leaving behind as much deposit as you can. Boil the rest of the sugar in a pint of water and when cool, add to your liquor. Fit fermentation lock until all fermentation has ceased.

More than an hour's worth of work went into pulling out the dandelion petals and discarding the flower heads, seen in a pile on the right. It's not a fast process and I was hoping the payoff would be sweet.

I dutifully followed the directions to get this “nectar” going including taking sanitary precautions and sterilizing the equipment coming in contact with this wine. By day three though, the vile brew was putting off an aroma that indicated to this brewer’s nose it had gone sour. I was ready to pitch it at that point but Homestead Hottie urged me to let it run its course before dumping all our hard, dandelion pickin’ work down the drain. When it came time to pitch in the first batch of sugar the stench was overwhelming and one whiff was enough to send your stomach convulsing. Talina even likened it to the sickening and so hard to forget stench of one of our high school math teacher’s breath.

Needless to say my “mighty fine” dandelion wine found its way straight into the garbage disposal. It’s disappointing but I’d rather it be that instead of getting violently ill, like the time I drank Dogfish Head’s Red & White (that’s a completely different story though).

I reviewed more than two dozen other dandelion wine recipes and all are pretty similar to this vintage recipe. Most only let the dandelion petals ferment for three days instead of 7, but remember, my wine was spoiled by day 3 anyway. I think my fermenting location was way too warm and I think there was obviously some “nasty” that made it through the boiling water infusion. I think if I try this again, I might trying actually boiling the dandelion petals for a couple of minutes before pitching the whole pot into the fermentation vessel. This longer exposure to boiling water would kill off even more bacteria, especially on a plant that hugs the ground and comes into contact with who knows what!

Have you tried making dandelion wine? What has your experience been like? Please share!

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