Book Review: “Farewell, My Subaru”

Several years ago, journalist Doug Fine purchased a New Mexico ranch and moved there to start a new, “green” life. He documented his efforts in a book, “Farewell, My Subaru.” He attempted to reduce his carbon footprint by eating locally and reducing his direct petroleum consumption, all without giving up his laptop or sub-woofers. Fine was not looking to be a green monk, just to reduce his environmental impact.

The author localized his diet by raising goats for milk, chickens for eggs, and vegetables for eating. I don't want to ruin the book for any potential readers, but his obstacles included predators, disease, Mother Nature, and firearms mishaps. Petroleum saving projects included a biofuel truck conversion and solar power installation for hot water heating and electricity.

Fine handled adversity with sarcasm and a good attitude. He has some lessons for the rest of us who cannot or will not pack up our belongings and move to rural America to live off the land. He found his green life “more manual” as he managed his water collection and animal containment on a daily or hourly basis. He found instances of necessary hypocrisy when he used toxic sealant to assemble his solar powered water pump. Overall, he recommended steady progress and regular attention to daily activities if you choose to reduce your carbon footprint. No one can eliminate their environmental impact tomorrow but we can all take steps to progressively get closer.

-Chris, Green

Give Your Home More Curb Appeal... Go Green

Riding my bike through town today I noticed that there are many homes for sale. I started to think about what sells a house these days and how greening-up the home is a definitely a key differentiator.

Prepare your home for sale with some of these environmentally-friendly ideas:

• Since some parts of the country will require an energy audit before one closes on a sale; get one if necessary.
• Install a programmable thermostat.
• Some of us need to de-clutter. Doing so makes a room feel larger so get rid of the junk you have stored. Avoid simply dumping the items and instead look for ways to renew, reuse or recycle them. For example, a friend had many canning jars in her basement that she brought to new life by decorating them with nice old ribbon. She gave the beautiful storage jars away as gifts.
• Other folks need to perk up areas of their home. Instead of buying new things, look for gently used, good quality things to give the room some new life.
• If things are broken, repair or re-cover it vs. buying something new.
• Throw a few new coats of low or no VOC paint on the walls. This will cut down on toxic gases inside the home which is another selling point.
• One of the easiest ways to improve your home's green appearance is to replace all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). You can re-lamp all lights in your home. Doing so will also be visual reminder to prospective homebuyers of your efforts to incorporate energy savings into your home.
• Replace the showerhead with a water-efficient model and install water-saving aerators on all of your faucets.
• Grab a wrench and fix that leaky faucet.
• If the house is in need of new appliances, look for Energy Star appliances.

After all these efforts, make sure the changes you've made are visually obvious by putting the energy-efficiency upgrades in all listing materials.

Some folks even display their utility bills to show potential buyers how their home has become more efficient.

Tread Lighter adding green marketability to your home,
-Phyllis, Green Expert

The Last Carrot

It's getting cold out there. As night time temperatures dip into the 20Fs, it's time to harvest what you can from the garden. Although the soil is warmer than the air this time of year, soon it will get even too cold for root crops. It's time to act like Bugs Bunny and dig them up.

Carrots, parsnips, beets, and turnips are some of the most common root crops you may still have growing in your garden. When the temperatures dip into the low 20Fs, you have two choices. Either dig up all the remaining roots or protect them. To dig up your carrots and other roots, use an iron fork or shovel. Moisten the soil before digging if it's not already wet. Work around the bed to loosen the soil. Once the soil is loose, the roots will pull out easier. Avoid digging too close to the root crops or you may break them.

Once harvested, clean the roots well and store them in plastic bags in the refrigerator crisper. They will last up to a month in the refrigerator. If you have a root cellar or basement that stays just above freezing, you can store them in wooden boxes filled with slightly moist sawdust or peat moss. Some roots can last for months under proper storage conditions.

If you don't want to dig all the roots at once, mulch them heavily with hay or straw. Bury the bed in a 6- to 8-inch deep pile of mulch. This will prevent the soil from freezing, creating an "in-ground" root cellar where you can harvest roots throughout the winter by digging through the mulch.

-Charlie, Lawn & Garden

Let's Do the Tree Wrap

No, I'm not asking you to break out into song, although your plants probably would like it. Tree wraps are used to protect young trees in winter from damage. Hungry mice and voles love to hide in mulch and snow around the base of trees. They can munch on the tender bark all winter without you even knowing it. The result is a girdled tree in spring that will be weakened and may actually die.

To prevent the damage, place a simple tree wrap around the base of the tree. Tree wraps come in many forms. Some are like a flexible tape, others are plastic, and some are simply wire mesh cylinders. The key is to bury the wrap about 1- to 2-inches into the soil around the tree and wrap up as high as the usual snow line. When in doubt go higher. Sometimes mice will girdle trees right below the snow line and, depending on the winter, that can be a few feet up the trunk.

Another protective practice is to whitewash young tree bark with a white outdoor latex paint. This can help prevent bark cracking in winter. On a cold, clear day the sun will heat up the bark and it will expand. Once the sun sets, the bark contracts quickly in the cold air and can crack. Whitewashing prevents the bark from absorbing so much heat and prevents the cracking. Use the whitewash above the tree wrap to protect the whole trunk. There's no need to paint the branches.

-Charlie, Lawn & Garden

Green Goes Universal

Sometimes do you feel like you are alone on this journey to tread lighter?

I know I do. Ok, maybe not alone but it feels a bit under-populated. Thus, I was pleased to see that the execs at NBC are pushing some pro-environmental messages. On five of its prime-time shows, they will be threading in 'go greener' ideas in their scripts.

Sustainable practices are happening behind the scenes as well such as removing water bottles in favor of water filters and using chemical-free cleaning products. Some shows are renting hybrid vehicles to transport its actors and crew members as part of the third year of the company's 'Green Is Universal' campaign.

News and information programs will be reporting on environmental issues, plus environmental themes were added to the scripts of many of NBC's hot shows such as “30 Rock”, The Biggest Loser", “The Office", “Heroes", and “Community".

It is good to see many of the topics we discuss week in and week out and act on daily on main stream TV. Things like recycling, buying organic produce and using renewable vs. disposable products.

The US is moving forward to make sustainable practices mainstream. In other countries they are a bit further down the path then we are. In Ireland, for example, the government imposed a 15 cent per bag tax at check out lines. It resulted in a 90% drop in use of plastic bags and brought $10 million the first year, ear marked for environmental initiatives.

As some aim for serious deep energy retrofits (seeking to reduce an existing home's energy usage by 50-90%) and others just begin the journey, we will all be knee deep in it sooner rather than later. The universal green theme will be old school. It will be natural to have super insulation, tight air barriers, humidity controls and careful ventilation to reduce our home's energy usage. Everyone will be renewing, reusing and recycling.

I am looking forward to those times.

Tread Lighter,
-Phyllis, Green Expert

Ocean Dump

We don't get many commenters around here (hint, hint) but I assume you either read this blog because you're interested in home projects or you stumbled here through a web search for a green topic. I'm a pretty positive, constructive guy. I like to point out ways for each of us to reduce our environmental impact around the house, individually or collectively.

All that said, the recent New York Times article on the Pacific Ocean garbage patch really affected me. The garbage, covering an area twice the size of Texas and growing, contains all types of trash created by human activity. Light bulbs, packaging, fishing debris, barrels, and pretty much any other non-biodegradable item could end up in our oceans (often via rivers) if carried by the wind or washed down the storm sewer. If you're interested in learning more about these garbage flotillas, Alan Weisman's “The World Without Us” contains an extended discussion.

The presence of garbage in areas thousands of miles from any human activity reminds me of the rationale behind the “reuse-reuse-recycle” slogans. The single serving fruit cups are convenient for my kid's lunch, but that plastic ends up somewhere. Keep checking this space and we'll try to reduce our environmental impacts together.

-Chris, Green

Protecting Roses from Winter

For gardeners in cold climates (USDA zones 6 and colder), hybrid tea and floribunda roses can be harmed by winter's cold. The cold winds and temperatures can cause the canes to die back to the ground. Most hybrid roses have been grafted. The graft union is where the variety you're growing has been grafted onto a rootstock variety with strong vigor or hardiness. If the union dies the rose that grows up from the ground in spring will be the rootstock variety and not the variety you planted. So, it's important to protect the graft union. For most heirloom, landscape, or own-root roses, you don't have to worry about this. They are either very hardy, or the roots are the same variety as the shoots, so if they die back the rose that sprouts will be the one you want.

To protect your roses, you'll need to cover them. You can buy rose cones and place them over the rose canes, but a cheaper and easier method is to bury the rose graft unions with bark mulch or straw. Shredded bark mulch or straw is coarse enough to let air freely circulate around the rose canes so they don't rot in winter. However, it still protects the canes from cold winds and fluctuating winter temperatures. Pile on a 1- to 2-foot deep mound of bark mulch over each plant or create a wire cylinder filled with straw. Don't worry about the canes that are sticking out of the mulch. They can be pruned in spring. Wait until early December to apply the mulch. By then most mice and voles will have found other places to spend the winter. If you mulch too soon, they will take up winter residence in your mulch pile and potentially gnaw at the rose canes all winter.

In spring remove the mulch at the first sign of the rose buds swelling. Prune back your hybrid roses to the 3 to 5 strongest canes and remove any canes that are winter injured.

-Charlie, Lawn & Garden

Frosted Windowpanes

In my cottage house, there are two big problems with the main floor bathroom: 1) it faces the front of the house, which means if the wind blows the curtains away and I am…say, just getting out of the shower…anyone passing by can get a pretty easy look at me in my birthday suit, and 2) the windows in the entire house are in desperate need of being replaced, and even though the government has issued a nice tax credit if you get energy efficient windows, it doesn't offset the enormous cost of replacing them. Consequently, no new windows at our house this year. sigh!

Plus, now that my son is getting to be super tall, he feels like the world has potentially too much access to him in the bathroom, but what could we do? Obviously a new frosted window is out of the questions—see paragraph one regarding cost!

We have a good friend who randomly said to me the other day, “I wanted to see about adding my house numbers to my screen door, so I went to look for number decals, but instead I found this awesome frost spray, and now my door looks really great. I then went and did both my bathroom windows, too, and they also look great!” The product is Rust-oleum Specialty Frosted Glass spray.

Here's what I have discovered about myself — I must have zero curiosity or desire to problem solve. I think it might never have dawned on me that there is a lot of gray area between exposed window and new window, and no doubt a lot of products that are made for said gray area. Oh dear—must work on that!

He brought over his extra cans, and I read the directions. Like all spray can paints, you need to shake them until you are pretty sure your arm is going to fall off. Here's what I pondered about 45 seconds into the “shake can vigorously for 2 minutes” of shaking…does it really only need 1 minute, but they know Americans are so impatient that they make the time longer in the hopes that we will actually reach the needed 1 minute time? And all that wasted thought was BEFORE I started spraying in a decidedly un-ventilated area! I really must learn to read directions before beginning projects—another thing to work on!

I taped up the windows—hence the lack of ventilation. I do, by the way, recommend against that as the smell is pretty intense, and I felt sorry for all the little brain cells that were dying an agonizing death from the fumes. I sprayed three coats about 2 minutes apart, and it was super easy. Unlike paint, you don't really have to even be careful about how you spray as long as every part gets equal layers.

Long and winding story short, I am really happy with the look of the window. It has not blocked any light coming in, and now we can all romp around in whatever state of dress we so choose in the bathroom without the dreaded fear of the neighbors gawking at our audacity. At least I have that going for me!

-Dayna Del Val

Stop Reading This and Go To The Bathroom

I usually don't say this but stop reading this and go into your bathroom. Grab a bag and empty all your cosmetics, toiletries, personal care products inside and then come back to your computer with the bag and read on.

I say this because I went to a talk on safety and personal care products and the information so was so surprising; I have to share it with you. Even those already treading lighter have more to learn.

The same ingredients that are strongly suspected of causing illnesses are sickening Mother Nature. So what can we do? Buy less of them and use them more sparingly.

As always, you don't want to be greenwashed so don't trust the claims on the packaging, read the ingredients! Believe it or not they find lead in lipsticks, cancer causing chemicals in baby products, and a host of toxic chemicals in nail polish, polish removers and artificial nail products. Plus, cleaners with bleach create dioxin, a known carcinogen.

It is flu season and hand "cleansers" are being sold everywhere. Be aware that these contain Triclosan and Triclocarban, which are EPA registered pesticides. This cant be good for you or the earth.

Since fragrance is considered a trade secret, and companies don't have to list the often dozens or even hundreds of synthetic chemical compounds it contains, you may want to reconsider products with fragrance as well.

The good news is that there are two valuable websites that can help you determine what products in your bathroom are safer than others. One is all about safe cosmetics. Then there is the cosmetic database where you can search for a product, ingredient, or company in your quest to find safe cosmetics and personal care products

Since 60% of the products you put on your body get absorbed, you can only imagine what it is doing to our water systems and the nature around us. Protect yourselves, your family and Mother Nature.

Tread Lighter,
-Phyllis, Green Expert

Getting the Mower Ready for Winter

Lawn grasses have pretty much stopped growing for the season. Even though we may be getting some sunny, warm, late fall days, because the days are so short and nights cold, the grasses are going into dormancy. If you haven't already, it's always good to do one last mowing of the season. By mowing one more time you'll keep the lawn grasses short going into winter. If the grass is tall, it may be more likely to be infected with diseases next spring.

Once you've done your last mowing of the season, don't forget about the mower. While battery powered mowers are gaining in popularity because they don't pollute as much as gas mowers, are quieter, less smelly, and lighter in weight, most home owners still use gas powered mowers. Before you just bury the mower in the corner of your garage or shed, there are some maintenance chores that should be done. Doing a little work now will ready the mower for next spring.

• Clean the Deck. Clean the underside of the mowing deck removing all old grass and leaves. Rotting organic matter left under the deck can lead to the metal rusting.
• Tune Up the Engine. Change the spark plugs, air filter, and any other warn parts.
• Sharpen the Blades. Sharpen the blades now. Sharp blades are critical to fast, easy, efficient grass cutting. Dull blades tear the grass sometimes leading to disease problems and a ragged looking lawn.
• Change the Oil. Change the oil now in your lawn mower so next spring you're mower will be ready to go.
• Drain the Gas. If you're storing your mower in a cold area, either add a gas additive to prevent water buildup, or drain the gas. Water in the gas line can prevent the engine from turning over in spring.
• Send it to the Shop. If you don't want to do any of these chores yourself, send your mower off to the maintenance shop this fall. Spring tends to be busy. Mower maintenance shops often have 1 to 2 week waits for mower repairs and tune ups. Beat the rush by sending your mower off now to be repaired and tuned up. 

-Charlie, Lawn & Garden