We've got WORMS!

Have you thought of composting at home, but didn't know where to start?
Well, here's an easy in-home composting solution that may be what you're looking for.

The following is a guest post written by my other half, Cody, who has
done all the research and came up with a method that works for us.
He is the handiest man I know and can build just about anything,
although this can also work for the handyman challenged, too.

For a while Jessica and I have expressed an interest in composting but have not actually got around to starting one. After looking through several different designs and actually considering a big forced-air, self-stirring composting beast, I came across this awesome and easy vermicomposter.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Worm_bin_bag_for_indoor_vermicomposting_and_easy_s/

It uses worms to digest food scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, and shredded paper into nutrient and microbial rich dirt. You’d think that something like this would smell, but this doesn’t seem to be a problem unless it gets unbalanced. The simple antidote is more shredded paper. Towards the end of this Instructable, others have posted pictures of their own variations. Check out the one built into the pantry that is regularly tended by the four-year-old. That’s my favorite.

I built the frame for our vermicomposter out of poplar. These were some leftover pickets from a previous job. I like to hold on to things for later, when I figure out what to do with them. The fabric I used is the same as instructed (Ecospun felt, made from recycled bottles.) I found it at wally world for just under 4 bucks. Be sure to check the widths of the felt. I assumed it would be 72 inches wide and it turned out to be 58 inches. I had to go back to get a little more. I picked up some bola style cinches and already had some parachute cord on hand for the drawstrings. I recommend using a sewing machine unless you’re just really fast at sewing. It took me all day.

I started out thinking that I’d just dig up the worms. I went out in the backyard with a trowel and found some soft areas. Nothing. I thought, Oh, it’s just cold, let me dig a little deeper. Not a single worm. I looked online again and realized I needed to walk over to the barn and check the stalls for manure. I don’t know when animals last used that barn, but I know they left their mark. However, the next day it snowed, and about the same time I realized that I was going to need about 1000 worms. I figured I’d be pretty lucky to come up with even a hundred worms on a nice day much less a thousand in the freezing cold. So I ordered worms. I searched and compared different worm growers and went with triplegwormfarm.com. They sell a pound of worms for $22.50 with free shipping and are only a state away from us, which helps lower the real costs of shipping. I liked that they kept in touch with me by e-mail until my order had shipped.

The worms came packaged with bedding enclosed in cheesecloth and insulated with shredded newspaper. I first put a handful of shredded newspaper in the composter. Then I dumped in the worms with their bedding. I cut up an old apple and squash, putting the pieces on top along with some coffee grounds and a teabag. I covered everything with more shredded newspaper and sprayed with water.

Here is a slideshow, click on the photo itself to go to the next one.
Wanna go back? Clicking on the thumbnails will take you there.



A big thank you to Cody for taking the time to share your experience with everyone.
Who knows, maybe he'll be back sometime to do another guest post!?!?

If you remember, it was only a few weeks ago that composting was on our
"5 things we could do to be more green" list, and now it has been put in place!
Now, we will reduce the amount of food waste that goes to the landfill where it turns
into methane, a greenhouse gas that is harmful to the environment. According to others
who use this form of in-home composting, worm composting does not create a stench.......
I suppose we'll soon find out for ourselves!

If you have any questions for Cody,
you can leave them in the comment section or
send me an email, and I will forward it to him.

Posted in Thrifty Green Thursday
& It's Real Life

Recycle those Pill Bottles

I've collected these for some time now, but have yet to do anything with them.
I decided to find info on possible uses since they can't be recycled.

*Before reusing any empty prescription bottles you should remove the labels.
This will safegaurd your personal information and allow you to throughly santitize the bottles. *


Here's what I came up with:

Storage

• Store seeds inside the bottles and label them according to the type of seed kept inside.
• Store buttons, beads and other small craft items.
• Anything loose that never seems to have a place - Store thumb tacks, paperclips, toothpicks, small nails, screws, nuts and bolts.
• Perhaps you need a coin holder to place in your purse or car, if so, store your loose change in the prescription bottles. This may come in very handy if you have to pay tolls.
• Use them to neatly store plastic bags in your purse in case you frequently forget your reusable shopping bags.

Emergency

• A mini-homemade sewing kit would come in handy. Some prescription bottles are big enough to store needles and thread, if not more.
• A tiny emergency kit to clean a cut or scrape will fit in a prescription bottle: band-aids, cotton balls, q-tips and alcohol wipes.

Donation

• Donate your empty prescription bottles to your local vet or animal shelters. Some places will take prescription bottles and reuse them to fill prescriptions for the animals. Most pharmacies will not take the bottles, but you could call to double check.
• If you live in Canada you can contact PHARM-ECOLOGICAL online. They work with pharmacies to recycle plastics including prescription bottles. (I haven't read all of the details.)

Those few suggestions only scratch the surface of what they could be used for.
I bet you've got some great ideas for uses that aren't listed here, care to share?!

Speaking of sharing ideas.....
I've got a "GREEN" giveaway going on right now that you may be interested in.
Details about how to enter can be found, HERE.

I would also like to add that, the conditions of the giveaway aren't to torture you for a seemingly measly prize. My intention is to create an opportunity for us to share and maybe learn something new from others in the process. I've already gotten some great ideas from the green gals currently participating. Although it's more than just trying to raise awareness about our environment, I'm also trying to raise awareness about one another. I'm certain that we can work as a unit on issues that affect us all, not just to win "stuff", but to show others how we commit to make the world a better place. The "stuff" is just a small incentive to do that. And because I just like to send packages!

I know that this giveaway isn't for everyone, but if you are interested in meeting like-minded bloggers or learning tips on being green from others who care about the environment, then I urge you to participate in the "Green Giveaway"!

Reduce.Reuse.Recycle.

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Handmade Book

Here is the cover I made for a 4 x 6 mini-book.
I scanned in our Smoky Mountain map for the background, and added the text in photoshop.

I have wanted to do a little scrapbook of our trip to Tennessee,
and finally found this quick and easy tutorial on how to do so using very basic supplies.

For weeks I have been scouring the internet in search of an easy way to bind my own books.
I have found some decent tutorials, but I wasn't ready to devote the time required.
Until I found this tutorial, it's not new, I saw it a while ago.....
but I forgot about it.



I don't really do scrapbook pages,
so I thought that this would be perfect to put all of our trip details,
photos, & other misc. paraphernalia I tend to pick up when I'm away from home.
I'm still working on the inside pages at the moment, but when it's done,
I'll probably share it with you.


What do you usually do with your trip/vacation memorabilia?

~Love Notes~

Here is the first photo I told you about in the last post, which talked about me experimenting with photoshop.
The idea spawned from the background I used for the ArtCard shown below in this post.
The paper reads Je t'aime, which as some of you may know, means "I Love You" in French.

I knew I wanted those words merged with a photo.
Although I didn't know which photo they would work with, but after a little searching, I found one.
By itself, the photo was uninteresting.
After the additions, or let me rephrase that in photoshop talk, the layers really added a lot of interest to the TtV photo - in my opinion.
I really am in love with this photo now........hence the title "Love Notes".....

Update: This week has been somewhat of a blur........
I'll go ahead and confess now, instead of waiting until the end of the month......not just one, but two days this week went by without me taking a photo.
My first excuse being, I reminded myself before I started getting ready for bed, but somewhere during the brush my teeth, hair, yada yada drill......I forgot :(

The second excuse........yesterday was very rough and stressful for me......I'll spare you the details, but when I got home, I had a headache and was just exhausted! I passed out on the couch as I was resting my eyes around 6:30........I woke up somewhere around 7:30 and moved to the bed.......Cody woke me up at 9:45 to eat dinner......I stayed up till 11, then went back to bed.........Strangely enough......I woke up tired!?!?! I very rarely come home and go to sleep, my problem is usually going to bed too late. Last night was probably my body's way of saying, "Slow down, take it easy!".......

I'm so happy that tomorrow is Friday!! And am looking forward to some quality R & R this weekend. Sleeping out in the woods would be ideal.......we've been thinking about going camping. Who knows, we'll see, maybe the forecast will cooperate?






There is a pretty clear theme running through this post.
I'll let you decide what it may mean to you.
But I'll tell you how it started for me........
Do you remember me telling you about my new prompt for making ArtCards?
The Fortune Cookie Affirmation?
Maybe?!
Well, on top of amassing the cookie fortunes, I started saving the tabs from my yogi tea bags to put in the pot as well.
So that's why the piece of paper on the back of the card, is not rectangular like a fortune cookie fortune - in case you were wondering.
So this was my interpretation of the affirmation I pulled.
I know it's very Valentine's Day-ish, but that's just how it all came together in the end.





Shall we compare our hearts to a garden -
with beautiful blooms, straggling weeds,
swooping birds and sunshine, rain -
and most importantly, seeds.

~Grey Livingston~

Fortune Cookie Affirmations

View Large On Black
Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.


It's been some time since I've made an Art Card, mostly because the lack of motivation to do so has overwhelmed me. That was until I came up with a better idea of prompting myself when I feel like creating one. For a little over a month, maybe longer, we've been saving our fortune cookie messages on a window sill in the kitchen.

Initially, I wanted to save them to use as a background on an Art Card, but that quickly changed. After gathering a handful, I picked one out, and thought, "This is a good message", then thought, "Now, what can I do with it?". Which is why I decided to make an attempt at interpreting the 'fortune'.

Upon reading the message for the first time, I immediately thought, cha-ching!, and dollar signs came to mind. Of course, that's how I would like to be rewarded, with lots of monies!!! But then, I said to myself, come up with something that isn't shallow, and dig a little deeper. So I did.

This is how I interpreted the random fortune I drew from our growing pile of mini messages.



It sort of pairs with the little message I wrote to go along with the last photo I posted in "Window to the World". Holding on to a belief that if you work hard enough, and keep trying, you will get to where you want to be. My aspirations are running wild, and deep, but picking a place to start is the tricky part. Although there are a few things going on right now that I'm excited about, although I'm not yet ready to spill the beans - I don't want to jinx it!

I sincerely hope that you all have a fantastic weekend. And more California vacation adventure posts are in the works, but for now, I am slightly burned out on them so I decided to share something new.
-WW

It's Easy to be GREEN..........

BRAZILIAN RAINFOREST

(From Conservation International)

So far, I've only had 12 requests to plant trees with the Nature Conservancy in honor of Earth Day. My intention is to match the total request, each request being $1.00, right now the total donation would be 24 trees. If you have yet to leave a comment on "Where's Your Green?!", you may do so now. I don't plan to donate until this evening, so there is still time!!

Start by making small changes.
Today, implement one change that will help the environment.

Start with the grocery store:
Look for products with minimal packaging, and while you're at it, take a reusable canvas tote instead of answering the all encompassing question of, "Paper or Plastic".

More than 380 million plastic bags are thrown away in the United States every year, and those plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills. And while paper bags do eventually biodegrade, an estimated 14 million trees a year have to be cut down to make 10 billion paper bags.

At home:
Instead of buying individually packaged bottles of water, why not upgrade to a water filter, and fill up a reusable container. Any plastic container, that has the numbers - 2,4, or 5 is safe. You can find this number by checking the bottom of the bottle in the middle of the recycling triangle logo.

Eliminate plastic utensils and paper plates/cups in the kitchen, these items most likely can not be reused.

Get rid of the junk.......CATALOGS......I suffer from receiving unwanted catalogs on a constant basis. No matter how many times I've called to be removed from the mailing list, I continue to receive them month after month! I read about this new and FREE service the other night called: catalogchoice.org A quick sign up allows you to search, select, and decline those unsolicited catalogs you don't really need.

Not only does junk mail clog up your mailbox, it also requires an estimated 100 million trees and 20 billion gallons of water every year.

And of course:
Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) use four times less energy than incandescent ones. If every American family substituted five CFL bulbs for incandescent, it would be equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road for a year. Ball says "They cost a little more up front, but they last up to 15 times longer."

REDUCE.REUSE.REPURPOSE.RECYCLE.