It's Easy Being Green

It’s that time of year when the skunks start coming out of the woodwork and interacting with the friendly wildlife we call pets living in our yards.  T had a near heart attack the other night when she heard our dog going crazy outback and opened the door to the most pungent skunk spray smell ever.  We’re pretty used to the odor coming from Flagstaff, AZ.  We practically had a skunk wander by our bedroom window just about every night regardless of what house we were living in there.

T remarked that the odor was so bad her eyes were watering and she was almost certain the dog had been sprayed because of the way she was acting.  Co-workers told me to pickup lots of cans of tomato juice on the way home, with extra to make a Bloody Mary to enjoy during the bathing process.  While I’ve heard good things about the tomato juice, I’ve heard it takes several washes and wondered if there was anything better and not chemically based for getting rid of the smell.

That’s when I sent a good friend of mine back in Flagstaff a message to see what he’s used.  He had the unfortunate experience of having both his dogs sprayed and then they ran into the house, fumigating his two story abode with the smell of woodpussy.  He got back to me with his favorite and effective green skunk deodorizer recipe and here it is:

Green Skunk Wash Deodorizer Recipe

-  1 bottle of hydrogen peroxide

-  1/4 cup of baking soda

-  A few drops of liquid dish soap

Mix all ingredients together and get to washing!

As it turns out, I got home and the dog did not get sprayed, thankfully.  It seemed as if the creature simply wandered through the yard and was quite smelly but never deposited it’s fragrance on my four-legged beast outback.  Do you have a good home remedy or green recipe for getting rid of a skunky smell?  Leave a comment with your recipe or email me and we’ll post it in a future article!

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Are you looking for an environmentally friendly way to get rid of those tires that may be piling up in your Vanderburgh County yard?  If so, Tire Amnesty day is coming up, allowing you a free opportunity to drop off old and used tires and not have to pay a thing for it.

Each year we discard tires at about the rate of one per person.  Vanderburgh County alone throws out about 175,000 tires a year which is a huge environmental waste.  Instead of throwing them in a creek or letting them rot in your yard, have those old tires recycled at the Tire Amnesty Day on Saturday, October 3rd.  The event will be held at the Civic Center in downtown Evansville from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The first four tires will be accepted for free and recycled.  Any additional tire beyond four will be accepted with a nominal $1 fee per extra tire.  Make sure mud and water has been drained from the tires and remove from the rims if possible.  They will only be accepting car and light truck tires.  No business tires or commercial vehicle tires will be accepted.

It’s nice to see Vanderburgh County taking some steps to keep tires out of local yards and other places of beauty throughout the county.  Left sitting around, old tires are a detriment to the environment and people should take more care in disposing of them.  It appears this event is catching on with local residents.  At their event in the spring, the county collected about 2,000 tires for recycling.

If you have any questions about the event, contact the Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District at (812) 436-7800.

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We’ve all heard the concerns surrounding pollinators, especially bees, and the diminishing populations we’re seeing worldwide.  Now is the time to step up our fight to save these tiny creatures that do so much work to keep us alive!

A Monarch butterfly migrating through southwestern Indiana stops to sip some nectar from a purple thistle.

The North American Pollinator Protection Project has come up with 30 regional-specific guides discussing the pollinators found in your area and how best to attract them.  Each guide discusses native plants found in your area that bees, butterflies, beetles and birds use for food and nesting.  They also show you how to include those plants in your landscape to best provide shelter from predators and harsh weather.

To find the guide for your region, just head to the North American Pollinator Project website.

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This last week I ran across a desk that popped up on Freecycle.  I’ve been working off of a tiny desk that was barely big enough for my monitor and the keyboard since moving to Indiana last year.  The only challenge was the desk was about a 30 minute drive from the house so it was going to require some advance planning to find a morning I could sneak out early and pick it up.

Wild sunflowers bloom alongside one of the many gravel roads leading in and around Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area in northern Warrick County.

I chose Wednesday, a day when we don’t have much going on other than me going to work, and made plans with the Freecycler to come cart their old desk away.  I woke up early, loaded the car with recyclables to drop off on my way out of town, grabbed a free coffee at McDonald’s and then headed out.  I was supposed to call the Freecyclers just to warn them I was headed out so they would be ready for my arrival.

A typical grassy meadow borderd by forest and found throughout the Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife area

Needless to say, I wasn’t really surprised when nobody answered the phone and I didn’t get an immediate call back after leaving a message.  I wasn’t too concerned though since I needed to stop and drop off my recyclables before heading out to the desk.  After 10 minutes of sorting recyclables and getting them into their correct bins at the recycling center, I decided to drive around in the general area waiting for my return phone call.  It just didn’t make sense to drive all the way back home only to turn around and head back out that direction again.

Wildflowers of all different shapes and colors bloom in the grassy praires and even right alongside the guard rails on all of the gravel roads

Sometimes the magic of just driving around on the roads less-traveled is enough to keep me occupied.  I love seeing the land and discovering little hidden corners and hideaways.  As I was driving along on two-lane farm roads, I discovered a gravel road that veered off the pavement and up a hill.  I decided to meander up the road and check it out.    It ended up running into the nearby Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area, a network of prairies, woods and lakes that attract all sorts of local game.

Reflecting on their serene view, wildflowers bob and sway in the breeze at Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area

I parked the car and decided to turn my frustration at a flaky Freecycler into some good mind clearing fun.  I wandered down the gravel roads, checking all sorts of native wildflowers blooming just about everywhere you looked.  Since I”m a horticultural nut, I also spent some time collecting seed pods off of the different wildflowers so maybe next year I can grow some of my own and cultivate them.  The quiet and solitude of that 30 minutes was just what I need to rejuvenate my mind for the rest of the day.  The only man-made noise was from a plane passing overhead.  The rest was the breeze blowing through the reeds, fish jumping for bugs, insects and frogs chirping and whirring away and a heron swooping in over one of the lakes to setup his observation post, looking for his next meal.

Even dried flower pods are colorful. These ones are covered with bright orange and black beetles that look like cousins to the squash beetles that attacked my zuchinnis and cucumbers

I started out angry at yet another Freecycle Flake who says one thing and then does another but was able to turn the wheel down the road less-traveled and cleared my mind with nature.

A beautiful Monarch butterfly stops for a sip of nectar on one of probably thousands of purple thistles blooming in the area

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If you haven’t already read my brief review on a new book profiling modern architecture and alternative energy, click here.

A new book profiling 10 modern homes and how they're built with alternative energy useage in mind

Lori Ryker, author of Off The Grid: Modern Homes + Alternative Energy, grew up in Texas and has lived several places around the world. She now lives in Livingston, Montana and teaches at Montana State University’s School of Architecture and is a partner of Ryker/Nave Design. I recently had the opportunity to ask Ryker some questions about her new book and her thoughts on the future of sustainable living.

Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about living off the grid?
A: That someone else should take the first step, that alternative energy is something of the future.

Q: You discuss how you think living off the grid brings people closer to where we live, making us more involved in how we live. Why do you think it’s important for more people to be connected to where and how they live?
A: Understanding where we live in the world and the reality of what it takes to live in that place (without the support of mechanical/big energy that creates a pseudo-environment) helps us take responsibility for the place in which we live, and the planet in general. Understanding the conditions of where we live help us make healthier and more responsible choices for environmental conditions such as clean water, air and landscapes; local food sources including plants and animals. Peter Berg coined a phrase in the 1970’s called bioregionalism, which addresses how we live in a place with particular identifiable physical and environmental features that then influence the use and consumption of local foods, materials and native plants, among other things. In the same way, living responsibly with alternative energy requires the knowledge and understanding of regions, bioregions and particular places so that we most efficiently employ the natural resource, such as sun or wind. Such a quality of life also makes us more grounded and invested in ourselves and the world.

Q: Have you found that a lot of people don’t think modern architecture and green features like off the grid living can be combined together?
A: No. I find that most people believe this relationship is normal. However, even three to five years ago this was not the case. There has been a strong and successful popular media push in the past few years to dispel the perception that living off the grid means living in the back-woods somewhere.

Q: You say the book is all about great living in great architecture. These homes certainly aren’t like the earth ships of the 60’s and 70’s are they?
A: No, but every once in a while I drive by an earth ship style place and think to myself, they are still quite sophisticated in their energy use and ability to connect people to the place in which they live, even if they do not appeal to everyone. I would argue that earth ships are also a “style” of architecture. An architect or designer could use the same materials and strategies of an earth ship today and arrive at a vastly different form of expression.

Q: You talk a lot about resource extraction and what you call “dirty energy”. What do you think it will take for people to understand how big of an environmental impact their home has?
A: A completely different way of evaluating home construction and energy use. Such as how bank loans are made, or how homes are taxed, how a builder accounts for the construction of the home and the materials used. In the meantime, we need alternative energy to become more affordable, better methods of measurement of an individual’s energy use and means to control particular components of energy use. Such as being able to separate out use of heating and cooling from media, not simply unplugging. We need more accountability. Simple things such as timers on lights and showers that are already in use in other parts of the world. These strategies remind us that the Earth is not limitless.

Keep checking back for the second half of my Q&A with Lori Ryker coming up later this week.  That’s when I’ll also post the details behind how to enter the contest to win a copy of Lori’s book.  You can get an early entry now by subscribing to my RSS Feed and then posting a comment on this article.

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There’s a lot of talk these days centering around living life on Earth a bit greener than we have been. Green living, alternative energy and sustainability are all buzz words surrounding the movement to live more in harmony with our environment. Some might question though whether that movement can really be partnered with the construction of a new home utilizing modern architectural designs.

A new book profiling 10 modern homes and how they're built with alternative energy useage in mind

Lori Ryker’s book titled Off The Grid: Modern Homes + Alternative Energy shows that you really can live in a beautifully designed, modern home while reducing your demand for energy. The 160-page glossy, hard-backed book profiles ten homes around the globe and shows how they’ve overcome complete dependence on the grid and leave a smaller footprint on the Earth.

Through example and illustrations, Ryker shows how each technology from geothermal heat pumps, wind turbines and solar arrays, can be integrated into the beauty and design of a modern home. The homes profiled in the book aren’t straw bale homes or Earthships. They range in size from small to large and sparse to intricately decorated. If you’re embarking on a journey to build a new modern house and have considered making it more green, Ryker’s book might be just the ticket to turning your visions into reality.

Stop by later in the week for a Q&A chat with Ryker and I’ll also tell you how you can have a shot at winning a copy of her new book.

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The so-called “Dog Days of Summer” are paying off in the veggie garden this week. My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time outside pulling weeds, smashing squash beetles, plucking Tomato Hornworms and giving our little 10×4 foot plot of wholesome paradise some good ‘ol TLC. Mother nature has been a big help too, squeezing some much needed rain out of a passing cloud or two at least once a week. That’s apparently a rarity out here in southwestern Indiana during August but who’s complaining? We’ll gladly take the free water!

Our collander is brimming with Friday's tomato harvest, sporting a fresh batch of roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes.

On Friday I had to make a mad dash through my tomato patch to harvest what was ripe before the plants sucked up all the rain water. I’ve been having a big problem with tomatoes expanding way too quickly with all the rain and then splitting just as they ripen. Since I’ve been picking preemptively, they’ve been faring much better though. Our roma tomatoes are producing a bumper crop of pear-shaped goodness that will be perfect with pasta. The cherry tomatoes haven’t let up either, gifting us with a fresh flush of fruit every couple of days.

On Saturday our baby was fast asleep for an afternoon nap so we decided to hit the garden again and do some cleanup. Squash beetles totally annihilated both of our zucchini plants. They bore into the stems of the plants and kill their ability to suck up water. They eventually get the wilt disease and die. I would normally be sad about it but those two plants each produced about ten pounds or more a piece of fresh summer squash.

A weekend bounty of fresh vegetables for the picking. Clockwise from top left: Handfuls of cherry and roma tomatoes, lemon cucumber, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato.

While we were out there dealing with the squash beetles we harvested another basket full of produce. Saturday’s take included more roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato. All have really taken off and produced wonderfully in southwestern Indiana. We can’t wait to enjoy the fresh tastes of each of them.

My failures were definitely sweet corn, yellow squash, pickling cucumbers and pumpkins. I’ve been struggling with powdery mildew spreading from one cucumber vine to the next and then it spread onto my pumpkins. Both are still putting on fresh leaves and trying to set fruit but the mildew just marches on. My sweet corn growth was very stunted and produced some very tiny ears of corn, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. I didn’t follow proper planting recommendations by planting at least four rows so that was probably the cause there. Yellow squash were attacked by squash beetles early on and never really had a chance.

We still have another three months to go before the first average fall frost so I think our harvest days are far from over. I’m also going to try my hands at growing some fall vegetables this year and am getting ready to tackle that project this week.

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