Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...

Better late than never, I wanted to mark the celebration of Earth Day with one of my favorite quotes...

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" 

                  ~ Henry David Thoreau 

Ahead of his time, Thoreau knew how important the environment is and what we do to it, we ultimately do to ourselves.  I try very hard everyday to remember this phrase and try to live as true to it as I can... but it can be difficult.

When I lived in an apartment I didn't have many choices in the recycling department.  Waste just went into the big dumpster.  Now that I have a house, I am able to take recycling more seriously.  I even feel the thrill of separating glossy from newsprint... a thrill, mind you, that I never thought I would enjoy.  I also got a rain barrel, which I never even KNEW existed!  What a wonderful idea... I use it for my flowers and my vegetable gardens...the plants enjoy it more too.  I also acquired a composting  bin to help me breakdown my garden, yard, and kitchen waste. 

What I find really interesting is these days there are so many "easy" choices out there to make the most of our time, but unfortunately, most of those have extremely harsh ingredients.  The more research I do, the more I realize that the most safe and most effective products are those that our grandmothers used... like white vinegar or tabasco.

Let me know if any of you have any homegrown product, advice, or recipe; I'd love to hear 'em.  

Happy (belated) Earth Day!

Spring Cleaning

Like a breath of fresh air, open the windows and doors and let the sunshine in!  It was a very long, long winter and if you are like me, you have been dying to get outside and get your hands dirty!  Today was fantastic!  I got to play in the yard and cut back the grasses, clean the beds, and put out the lawn furniture where it awaits good conversations, barbeque laden plates, and glasses of iced tea.  

After the grey days of winter, nothing is more exciting than the sight of tulips breaking through the earth, the buds on the trees readying to burst, and the grass turning greener and greener by the hour.  As I was stuffing the yard bags and dragging debris to the composter, I got to thinking when or where did the practice of spring cleaning come from?  So I did some research.

It turns out that much of it has roots in religion, specifically Passover.  Traditionally, Jewish families clean their houses in preparation for Passover, specifically to rid the house of crumbs made from leavened bread, which is forbidden during the holy days.  

Non-religiously speaking, it's a way of clearing out the old to clean and freshen the things that you decide to keep.  It is a great way to not only air out the house, but clean, arrange the furniture in a new way, polish floors, and clear out the cobwebs and dust.

I once was given a book as a gift called "Clearing Your Clutter with Feng Shui".  It explained how to get rid of items and "stuff" you don't use anymore.  The lesson that enlightened me most was if there were boxes that I hadn't opened in six months, I should just throw them away... don't look in them, just toss them!  The idea being, if you haven't used them in that time, you never will.  So I did it!  I never felt freer or lighter... that was until five months later, when I was missing my expensive badger faux finishing paint brush... and then it didn't seem like such a great idea.  The lesson from this?  Peek inside and THEN throw it away... it still feels really good!

So whatever your beliefs or preferences, welcome spring!  I look forward to sitting outside among your blooms and drinking in your fragrance or sitting inside my clean house with the doors and windows 

Love Thy Neighbor?

One year ago my neighbors behind me decided to join the Urban Chicken movement and bought seven hens. I was very excited about this news because I always joked with many of my friends that I wanted to own an exotic chicken. 

When they began this little experiment they had a custom coop built. It was about three feet high and four feet wide. It was painted in a classic yellow with white trim. They stored it behind the their house near the door to the garage... it was so in sync with the backyard and (might I add) perfectly blocked by the large maple tree on our property line... perfect. 

A month later, they began to clear the area along the back of the property. They cut down and pulled out many trees. I was a little sad to see the natural border cleared and quickly disappearing; but I adjusted, telling myself that it was good to have some of the dead wood and weed trees out of the way. 

chicken coop shanty

Then, about three months later (right before my garden party), they moved the yellow and white coop back against the cleared property line and they built two chain-link pens onto it... one large... one medium. Together they measure about 12 feet wide by 6 feet high. Now, I can make the best out of a lot of situations, but I have not been able to get beyond this eye soar. As the seasons began to change, pieces of wood board, tarps, and stacks of hay started to appear. the more that were added, the more the leaves on the trees and the color that helped camouflage them began to disappear.

So here I am, Spring 2011, looking out my back window every morning, trying to imagine how I can disguise the view. Some of the ideas I have so far are either adding fast growing pines or building a trellis of sorts. If anyone has additional thoughts, I would love to hear what solutions you might have. It is a mostly shady area and sits between a really large cherry tree and an even larger shaggy maple... thoughts?