It’s Easy Being Green

Here’s four more tips as we count down to Earth Day:

9. Install low-flow shower heads to reduce the amount of water you use while taking a shower

10. Caulk and weatherstrip around doors and windows to cut down on air leaks and save on your energy bill to heat or cool your home.

11. Ask your utility company to do a home energy audit. A lot of utilities provide this service for free and can offer up some tips customized to your own home and energy use.

12. Walk, bike, carpool or use mass transit whenever possible to get to where you need to go.

Stay tuned for more tips tomorrow!

If you’re like many people, you love to have a yard filled with birds. In order to entice them to stick around your slice of paradise, you might hang bird feeders around your home. But, did you know your feeders could do more harm than good?

Bird feeders can be a source of disease, spreading sickness from bird to bird that flies in for a quick meal at your feeders. In some cases, your birds might become lunch themselves when a neighborhood cat figures out there’s a virtual smörgåsbord in your yard or they can knock themselves silly flying into the windows on your home if you put feeders too close to them. So, a few simple steps is all it takes to ensure you can continue enjoying your fine feathered friends.

First, you should always provide more than one feeder around your yard. If birds crowd one feeding station, it can actually cause them to become stressed out which will lead to sickness and possibly even death. When it comes to re-filling those feeders, clean them out first. Bird droppings and other bacteria hanging around on the stations can lead to the spread of sickness too. Just a simple rinse of hot water and an air dry will do when it comes to cleaning them up. However, if you happen to find a bird dead near one of your feeders and there’s no obvious signs a predator got to it, you’ll want to disinfect the feeders with a bleach solution and leave to air dry before re-filling.

Moving your feeders around your yard regularly will not only prevent the buildup of wasted seed in one spot but also stop the buildup of bird droppings in one area. This is another important tip for the health of your local birds. It’s not recommended to lay seed out on the ground because that opens the birds up for an attack or ambush from a predator. Instead, hang them 5 to 12 feet off the ground in shrubs or trees that provide some cover and protection for the birds. A nearby brush pile or some cleverly placed bushes will also provide a place for birds to take cover when the weather gets bad and when a predator comes looking for a free lunch at one of your feeding stations. These should be within a 5 to 12 foot radius of the feeder.

Don’t think about just providing food. Birds need to get a drink of water every now and then too! Plus, many different species love to take a bath on the edge of the bird bath. Shallow bird watering dishes should be placed near the emergency cover as well in case they get spooked. In the winter you’ll obviously need to buy a bird bath heater if you live in a cold climate with freezing weather. During the summer, the water should be changed out about every two to three days.

When it comes time for planting and gardening season in your area, put in some native plants around your yard.  The natives will provide year round food in the form of berries, nectar and seeds.  Evergreen shrubs and trees will provide year round protection and habitat for your birds.  If you’re not sure what kind of native plants to pickup for your area, you can visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for information on what’s native to your locale.  Also, if you happen to have a dead tree on your property you might want to leave it alone.  Birds will nest in the open cavities of what would otherwise be chopped up into bits and thrown out.

These simple steps will go a long way to ensure that you have many years of bird watching fun from the comfort of your own home.

I can still remember the glowing feeling I had nearly 12 years ago when I received my very first paycheck from my very first job. The money you earned as a teen was completely unencumbered. There were no bills screaming to be paid and the masses weren’t clawing your eyes out to receive their portion of your piddly $300 paycheck. You could spend that glorious amount of cash on anything you wanted; new clothes, a bicycle, the newest video game system or *gasp* you could save it. Those were the days and how quickly things change when you enter the adult world.

For the most part, I didn’t go overboard this holiday season with the amount of money I spent buying gifts and should have all credit card accounts back to zero balances by mid-February. And hey, now that our President wants to throw several hundred dollars our direction to “spur the economy” I’ll be even better off. But, I occasionally do miss those days of having a couple hundred dollars you could just spend on some item you really wanted. Just about every summer, I pick up a second job. I work on the weekends to help make ends meet and supply that extra cushion of cash that can weather you through a mild storm (blowing a tire, replacing the water heater, etc.). But that turns into a real drag trying to gear yourself up to work 7-days a week for three to four months.

Since I concluded my ‘07 summer job, I’ve been brainstorming ways to earn some extra cash from the comfort of home. Seeing my girlfriend’s freelance writing picking up at home, I thought I could pursue that too…making some extra cash while sitting in front of my computer. For the past three months I’ve been trying to sign on with payperpost. It’s a website where bloggers can sign up and get paid for opportunities to post blogs about products or services. My blog has finally been accepted and I can now earn some extra cash doing something I already love doing. Don’t worry, my blog isn’t going to turn into an advertisers paradise. It’s simply meant to tag along with my current and future content. I feel that it’s a super sustainable activity to do at home in my spare time. Hey, maybe I can earn enough to pay for the gas to drive to my regular job!

As we fully head into the new year, you might be thinking about some spring cleaning activities to get you into high gear.  We’re now officially close to four weeks post-Christmas but if you’re like me, there’s probably still a few reminders of the holidays lingering around the house.  If you received a lot of mail ordered gifts this year than you probably have a lot of those styrofoam packing peanuts shoved somewhere.  We all know their full of static and just plain annoying when they start flying around the room.  They’re also wasteful.  So, instead of just chucking them out in the next round of garbage, consider these next options.

If you happen to know you’re going to be shipping something very soon (maybe the horrible figurine Aunt Maude got you for Christmas that you’re just now deciding to exchange) than you can simply reuse the packing peanuts for your own use.  Many UPS stores around the nation will also recycle your packing peanuts and bubble wrap if you drop them off.  In fact, a lot of the stores report only having to buy 50% new packing material in order to fill all their shipments after people donate their used materials.  To find out where you can drop it off, head over to the Plastic Loose Fill Council website.  It’s as easy as typing in your zip code to find out where you can recycle all those peanuts and bubble wrap.

Lastly, if you do need to buy new packing materials, buy the eco-friendly versions that are now available.  While styrofoam packing peanuts aren’t biodegradable,  new ones made from corn starch are.  They simply dissolve in water and they’re gone.  Stores like Staples and U-Haul sell them.  Just hunt around and you’ll find them.  You can also buy cellulose wadding that’s 100% recycled material or you can buy air chamber cushions for your boxes that are made from recycled plastic.