Conserving At Home

Heating and Air Conditioning
Why You Insulate
Wood Burning
Homemade Solar Heater
Steps To Save Natural Gas
Fuel Oil Bill Assistance

Saving Gasoline
Become A Hyper-miler
Green Car Information
Bio Fuel and Other Information

Holidays and Special Occasions
A Green Halloween
Green Weddings
Green Christmas

Electric Savings
LED Solar Chandalier Project
Electronic Vampires
Reduce Your Home's Electric Use
WSJ Article on Energy Star Appliances
Drying Your Clothes
Refrigerator Madness

Reduce Your Water Needs
Irrigation Conservation
Greywater Use - will be expanded upon

Reducing Your Footprint and Bills
Don't Buy Bottled Water
Stop Using Fabric Softener
Non-Clay Kitty Litter Reviews
NYS Locavore Information
Compost!
Paper Towels
Green Cleaning
Recycling VHS Tapes
Protect Your Pollinators
Quit Using Air Freshners

Teaching The Kids

Gardens At School

Apple Tree Planting Time

Chenango Strawberry

How many people remember the song "Apple Blossom Time" by the Andrew Sisters? WWII song - I'll be with you, at apple blossom time.

Anyway, rather than spring time when it's apple blossom time, fall is apple planting time.

I've ordered 3 new apple trees. I'm so excited! We have 4 trees between the two adjacent properties - all of which are nearing the end of their normal life span. That's just sad! But - by getting 3 new ones now, and maybe a few more next fall, we'll have no disruption in our apple production.

I'm getting Chenango Strawberry - an heirloom variety found right around here, a Criterion and a York Imperial - an heirloom found down near York PA.

Criterion
Everything I've read about planting apple trees says fall is the absolute best time. So - ok!

I got the first hole dug today. The area the trees are going in is very poor soil, so am having to do a lot of work on it NOW to put the trees in and hopefully will get it built up as rapidly as they grow. We can hope.

I have to find a source of spoiled hay. Apparently that's the best mulch for apple trees. We've got enough farms and such around here that I should be able to find some. We'll see. But, for now, I've filled the hole in with the grass/roots in the bottom, compost in the next layer, pine mulch (needles that are pretty well composted) next, and then some cut apples on top with a layer of the crap soil that was in the bottom of the hole covering it so the deer don't eat the apples.

Worm food. One guy I read from back in '73 said you want about 5000 worms per hole when you put a new tree in. Right. LOL - Like I'm going to BUY or DIG that many up. I will put as many as I can in the hole and give them all sorts of good stuff to eat - like cut apples from one of the existing trees. So, all of the stuff that's in there is a worm's dream come true, and should multiply incredibly well over the coming year.

I'm getting semi-dwarf trees - they're best for the home gardener, are hardier than standard trees and take up far less space. All good things! Plus, I'm short enough that these will make it so I don't have to climb a ladder to pick. I may need my apple-picker-basket-on-a-stick, but that's fine.

York Imperial

I'm going over to our local Cider Mill in hopes of them saying, "Yes, we'd love to give you the pressings from the cider. We have no where to put them and need them taken away." LOL - I'm doubting that'll happen, but I'd be pretty happy about it if it did. I'd go over every day with my dad's truck and bring a load home, putting them all around the latest transplants AND over the rest of that area in preparation of next year's planting.

Then get a load of wood chips to cover that with and life would be pretty snazzy.

Non-Clay Kitty Litter

It's time to let the cat out of the bag about the icky stuff in your cat's litter box. (No, not that stuff.) If you're using clay-based kitty litter, you could be making a mess of the environment -- and your health.
Most conventional cat litter is made from natural clay, or sodium bentonite, which is formed into pellets and dried. The clay is strip mined from the earth in a destructive process that seems quite silly when you think about what happens to it once it hits the litter box: It is shat upon and then tossed in the landfill, where it will remain for a long, long time. In fact, over the average lifespan of a cat (15 years), you could be dumping almost 2,000 pounds of the stuff.
But what's potentially more distressing is that the dust generated when the sodium bentonite is disturbed -- by a digging cat or a poop-scooping human -- contains silicon particles that are a known carcinogen. Fortunately for both felines and their friends, there are an increasing number of clay-alternatives on pet-store shelves. They fall into several categories: wood-based (pine, cedar), plant-based (wheat, corn, grass fibers), and paper-based (newsprint, recycled newspaper). Unlike clay, most of these litters are biodegradable -- especially if disposed of in a paper or corn-based bag -- and flushable, though there is some debate as to whether this is advisable, especially in coastal areas.
But which of these alternative litters is the cat's meow? Here's the scoop.

Feline Pine$2.99 / 4.1 lbs.
Ingredients: Renewable yellow pine and natural guar bean gum
Flushable: Yes
Biodegradable: Yes
My cat Bella prefers softer litter, so I got the scoopable version of Feline Pine instead of the large-pelleted original. That was my first mistake. The scoopable Feline Pine is essentially tiny flakes of pine -- like sawdust, or the cedar shavings you might see in a gerbil tank. Because it's so light and flaky, it doesn't sift easily through a slotted litter spoon. It also sticks to cat fur, which means it slowly starts to appear everywhere -- on my couch, on my pile of clean clothes, on my bathroom rug, anywhere the cat hangs out.

Swheat Scoop
$9.95 / 14 lbs.
Ingredients: Naturally processed wheat
Flushable: Yes
Biodegradable: Yes

The Swheat Scoop packaging claims that natural wheat enzymes help neutralize odor and clump with urine. I can attest to the former -- the litter box maintained a pleasant-ish oatmeal scent -- but as to the clumping power, I found that a lot of the urine clumps stuck to the bottom of the litter box, which proved a pain when cleaning.

World's Best Cat Litter
$10.95 / 7 lbs.
Ingredients: Whole kernel corn
Flushable: Yes
Biodegradable: Yes

I like that these guys go ahead out on a limb and call this the "world's best cat litter." I don't know that I'd go that far, but this stuff does clump well -- it actually ends up looking like a Nutty Buddy (those ice-cream cones covered in peanuts) and scoops well. It doesn't quite cover the poop though, and did end up smelling more than clay litters I've used.

Good Mews
$6.99 / 8 lbs.
Ingredients: Recycled paper fiber
Flushable: Yes
Biodegradable: Yes

These black pellets smell strongly of newsprint, and that is the first thing I noticed when I poured them into the litter box. I'm pretty sure Bella also took notice of this, as she refused to use the box and ended up pooping on my cushy comforter (probably the surface in my apartment most resembling a litter box) while I was away that day.

Fresh Step Crystals
$12.99 / 8 lbs.
Ingredients: Silica gel (sodium silicate)
Flushable: No
Biodegradable: No

After the Unfortunate Comforter Incident of '08 (see above), I ran out to one of the few stores still open that night and grabbed the only non-clay litter I could find: these blindingly bright blue and white crystals. It wasn't until later that I learned that this silica-based litter is readily inhaled by both humans and felines and has been linked to respiratory problems like lung cancer, bronchitis, and in some cats, a fatal form of tuberculosis. Good thing I wouldn't have recommended it anyway -- the crystals have a strong perfume-y smell and were quite noticeably crunchy (read: loud!) whenever Bella used the box.

Cat Country Elite (Finicky Feline Formula)
$5.95 / 8 lbs.
Ingredients: Organic wheatgrass fibers
Flushable: Yes
Biodegradable: Yes

The Cat Country Elite formula is supposedly a smaller-pelleted version of the more common Cat Country litter. Because this stuff is made from wheatgrass, I thought Bella would totally dig the smell -- but it actually made her sneeze quite a bit when I first introduced it to the litter box. She did start using it though, and it seemed to perform just fine -- but I'm not a fan of the intense farm-y smell

Blogger's Note - If you have allergies to any foods - please make note that there're Wheat and Corn products being used here. Wheat is a huge trigger for asthma and corn can trigger migraines, asthma and IBS, just to name a few...

Corn
Wheat

Plastics Linked To Human Health Risks

I'm shocked - shocked I say!

WASHINGTON (Sept. 16) - With scientists at odds about the risks of a chemical found in plastic baby bottles, metal cans and other food packaging, the government on Tuesday gave consumers some tips on how to reduce their exposure to BPA even as it said the substance is safe.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee met as a major study linked bisphenol A to possible risks of heart disease and diabetes. The scientific debate could drag on for years.

"Right now, our tentative conclusion is that it's safe, so we're not recommending any change in habits," said Laura Tarantino, head of the FDA's office of food additive safety. But she acknowledged, "there are a number of things people can do to lower their exposure."

For example, consumers can avoid plastic containers imprinted with the recycling number '7,' as many of those contain BPA. Or, Tarantino said, they can avoid warming food in such containers, as heat helps to release the chemical.

More than 90 percent of Americans have traces of BPA in their bodies, but the FDA says the levels of exposure are too low to pose a health risk, even for infants and children. Other scientists, however, say BPA has been shown to affect the human body even at very low levels.

And Tuesday a study released by the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a new concern about BPA. Using a health survey of nearly 1,500 adults, the study found that those exposed to higher amounts of BPA were more likely to report having heart disease and diabetes. Because of the possible public health implications, the results "deserve scientific follow-up," its authors said.

The study is preliminary, far from proof that the chemical caused the health problems. Two Dartmouth College analysts of medical research said it raises questions but provides no answers about whether the ubiquitous chemical is harmful.

FDA officials said they are not dismissing such findings. "We recognize the need to resolve the concerning questions that have been raised," said Tarantino, acknowledging that more research is needed. But the FDA is also arguing that the studies with rats and mice it relied on for its assessment are more thorough than some of the human research that has raised doubts.

The agency has asked an outside scientific panel for a second opinion on BPA's safety, and the medical journal article was released to coincide with the advisers' hearing. The FDA has the power to ban or limit use of BPA in food containers and medical devices.

Past animal studies have suggested reproductive and hormone-related problems from BPA. The JAMA study is the largest to examine possible BPA effects in people and the first suggesting a direct link to heart disease, said scientists Frederick vom Saal and John Peterson Myers, both longtime critics of the chemical.

Still, they said more rigorous studies are needed to confirm the results.

Vom Saal is a biological sciences professor at University of Missouri who has served as an expert witness and consultant on BPA litigation. Myers is chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, a Charlottesville, Va., nonprofit group. They wrote an editorial accompanying the JAMA study.

BPA is used in hardened plastics and in a wide range of consumer goods, including the lining of metal cans, eyeglass lenses and compact discs. Many scientists believe it can act like the hormone estrogen, and animal studies have linked it with breast, prostate and reproductive system problems and some cancers.

Researchers from Britain and the University of Iowa examined a U.S. government health survey of 1,455 American adults who gave urine samples in 2003-04 and reported whether they had any of several common diseases.

Participants were divided into four groups based on BPA urine amounts; more than 90 percent had detectable BPA in their urine.

A total of 79 had heart attacks, chest pain or other types of cardiovascular disease and 136 had diabetes. There were more than twice as many people with heart disease or diabetes in the highest BPA group than in the lowest BPA group. The study showed no connection between BPA and other ailments, including cancer.

No one in the study had BPA urine amounts showing higher than recommended exposure levels, said co-author Dr. David Melzer, a University of Exeter researcher.

Drs. Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice said the study presents no clear information about what might have caused participants' heart disease and diabetes.

"Measuring who has disease and high BPA levels at a single point in time cannot tell you which comes first," Schwartz said.

The study authors acknowledge that it's impossible to rule out that people who already have heart disease or diabetes are somehow more vulnerable to having BPA show up in their urine.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, said the study is flawed, has substantial limitations and proves nothing.

But Dr. Ana Soto of Tufts University said the study raises enough concerns to warrant government action to limit BPA exposure.

"We shouldn't wait until further studies are done in order to act in protecting humans," said Soto, who has called for more restrictions in the past.

An earlier lab experiment with human fat tissue found that BPA can interfere with a hormone involved in protecting against diabetes, heart disease and obesity. That study appeared online last month in Environmental Health Perspectives, a monthly journal published by the National Institutes of Health.

One of the FDA's outside advisers was skeptical of the JAMA study. "For diabetes, I really don't see it," said Dr. Garret FitzGerald of the University of Pennsylvania.

Toxicology experts from another government agency have studied BPA and recently completed their own report. They found no strong evidence of health hazards from BPA, but unlike the FDA, said there was "some concern" about possible effects on the brain in fetuses, infants and children.

Several states are considering restricting BPA use, some manufacturers have begun promoting BPA-free baby bottles, and some stores are phasing out baby products containing the chemical. The European Union has said BPA-containing products are safe, but Canada's government has proposed banning the sale of baby bottles with BPA as a precaution.

The FDA advisory panel is expected to make its recommendations to the FDA late next month.
Government toxicologists report: http://tinyurl.com/5jq2uv

More info

About a third of the way down

Maine Newspaper On BPA
BPA was originally used as a synthetic hormone. Today it is mostly used to make polycarbonate plastic, which is used in hard plastic products, including baby bottles and some of popular water bottles. Remarkably, BPA is also used to make coatings that line food cans.

Australian Drought

From Sidney News

AFTER years of claims and counter-claims, new figures show cotton became the thirstiest crop in the whole Murray-Darling Basin two years ago, guzzling 20 per cent of all the water used for agriculture in region.

A groundbreaking report on the Murray-Darling by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals cotton was "consistently the crop with the highest water consumption" from 2000-01 to 2005-06, followed by dairy farming, growing pasture for livestock and rice.

And in key districts such as the Gwydir River in northern NSW, cotton used a whopping 87 per cent of the agricultural water in 2006. The numbers from the Border Rivers catchment, covering southern Queensland, reveal a similar story, with cotton using more than 80 per cent of agricultural water from that system.

The head of Cotton Australia, Adam Kay, said the figures on water use by the cotton industry reflected a choice by farmers in those years to use their water allocations to grow the most profitable crops. But as the drought deepened and farmers' water allocations dropped, cotton production fell and last year saw the smallest crop in 30 years.

"This year wheat is almost as competitive as cotton," Mr Kay said yesterday.
The new report comes as the political fight intensified over how to save the vital region that holds almost 40 per cent of Australia's farms, produces all its rice crop, half its wheat and apples, almost all its oranges, most of its pigs and a large number of dairy cattle.

Yesterday the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, wound up the pressure, saying that anyone illegally diverting water in the Murray-Darling during the crisis, was engaging in "terrorism".

Mr Rann said he would ask the next meeting of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, which includes representatives from the state and federal governments, to impose jail sentences for large-scale water theft. "It is a criminal offence, and anyone siphoning water off illegally, in my view, should be locked up, rather than the fines that I am told are currently in place."

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is battling claims that Queensland has seriously added to the basin's water crisis and is being bailed out by his Government, which is planning to step up the buyback of water entitlements from heavy using irrigators.

At Thursday's cabinet meeting in Adelaide Mr Rudd said he would hasten his planned $400 million water buyback in an effort to get more water flowing from Queensland and NSW to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia, where the Lower Lakes and the world-famous wetlands of the Coorong are in crisis.

He bowed to pressure from the independent senator Nick Xenophon for an independent audit of water in the struggling Murray-Darling system that flows from Queensland to South Australia, but is largely in NSW.

The plan to step up buybacks was called a "knee-jerk reaction driven by loud minority groups" by the Irrigators Council. So far, the buybacks have largely been on paper as there is little water to buy because of the drought and low dam levels.

Mr Rudd is examining, with state governments, buying big properties with high water use.
Environmental groups have welcomed the buybacks and the independent water audit.

The National Farmers Federation backed the plan but stressed there was little water to buy back. "People must understand there simply is no water available to pump into ailing systems," said Laurie Arthur, who chairs the federation's water taskforce.

Newest Monsanto Crop in US

That's exactly what Flint Michigan residents Kathleen Kirby and Mark Fisher are banking on: their power to influence change. They're participating in a nationwide consumer boycott of Kellogg's Co. instigated by the Organic Consumers Association. By boycotting the world's largest cereal company, they hope to pressure Kellogg's into rejecting the use of sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets and to spark widespread market rejection in products ranging from cereal to baby food to candy.

As you may know, Roundup Ready sugar beets are genetically altered to resist Monsanto's toxic weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. But here's the scary truth about these beets:

When the USDA first approved GE sugar beets for commercial planting in 1998, the EPA also increased the maximum allowable residues of glyphosate on sugar beet roots from just 0.2 parts per million to 10ppm. That's a staggering 5,000 percent increase of allowable toxins on beet roots. And, it's little surprise that EPA made this policy change at the request of Monsanto.

Currently, only four major GE crops are sold commercially -- corn, cotton, soy, and canola. Most of these are engineered to withstand repeated, large doses of herbicides. For the most part, these crops and their byproducts are largely fed to animals with the exception of some minor food ingredients and oils. GE beet sugar breaks with this tradition in that it could become the first major GE ingredient added to almost all processed foods on our grocery store shelves.

Last week, Hershey's in Brazil announced that it would not source ingredients from Cargill, one of the world's largest food providers, because the company could not guarantee that soy, lecithin, and oils were not GE. This successful public pressure campaign, led by Greenpeace, influenced the company to reject GE beet sugar. It also demonstrates how individuals who care about food safety can mobilize collectively to make a difference.

Like Hershey's, Kellogg's is only one of thousands of companies that may soon be using GE sugar -- perhaps without even knowing that they are doing so! That could be the case unless, of course, consumer pressure forces the market to reject GE beet sugar.

Kirby and Fisher know that as a market leader, Kellogg's could lead the charge in rejecting GE beet sugar and influence other companies to follow suit.

They also know that although they are just two people living in a small, Midwestern city north of Detroit, and with the Internet at their disposal, they are on their way to changing the world, one e-mail message at a time.

One of the comments posted:

World agriculture is increasingly becoming dependent upon a single tool for weed control -- the weedkiller glyphosate, Monsanto's Roundup in particular. This situation is largely attributable to the rapid spread of GM, Roundup Ready (RR) crops, which is also driving the expansion of glyphosate-resistant weeds. Since Roundup is becoming less and less effective in killing weeds, farmers are turning to the use of more toxic and persistent herbicides, such as atrazine and 2,4-D, to eliminate those same weeds that formerly succumbed to Roundup.

Contrary to claims that Roundup adversely affects only plants, studies have shown that the weedkiller is toxic to amphibians, frogs, and earthworms. Studies suggest that Roundup is a potential hormone disruptor and it may be correlated with increased rates of birth defects and cell division dysfunction. At least one study has shown that children of glyphosate applicators experience higher rates of behavioral disorders than non-exposed populations.

So, there's ample cause for concern not only that more Roundup is being sprayed on sugar beets, but also that more residues - a 5,000% increase since 1998 - are being allowed on sugar beet roots!

Let's start with manure. A vote for high-intensity livestock production is a vote for huge manure lagoons created in animal factories housing thousands of cattle, pigs, and poultry crowded into confined animal feeding operations or CAFOs. These manure lagoons sicken rural people with their stench and often leak into surface waters or breech their containers, contaminating local streams with a flood of fecal matter, causing massive fish kills.

At CAFOs, cattle are force-fed corn that they were never meant to eat, creating unnaturally acidic conditions in their guts that foster development of deadly E. coli 0157:H7. The source of pathogenic E. coli is animal factories, not organic agriculture. Organic farmers use cover crops that fix nitrogen and spread safely COMPOSTED manure in their fields.

Once organic farming systems are established, their yields are close or equal to that of the destructive "high-intensity" agriculture systems that you recommend. Organic farmers produce high yields without using massive doses of nitrogen fertilizer that have numerous adverse side effects including huge emissions of nitrous oxides (potent global warming gases) and the creation of ever-expanding dead zones such as the one found in the Gulf of Mexico. Dead zones are caused by hypoxia, a lack of oxygen due to nitrogen fertilizer-induced overgrowth of marine plants that suck all the oxygen (life) out of the water and then die.

I am also worried about habitat destruction, but I guess you haven't heard that practices such as ripping out riparian habitats and farmland vegetation are currently being touted as the solution to combat E. coli 0157:H7. This is a big mistake and so is misleading people to think that high-intensity agriculture will solve our food safety problems when, actually, it's the root cause.

Lisa J. Bunin
Campaigns Coordinator Center for Food Safety and Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow
by Lisa J. Bunin

Worms Gone Bad

I know. What?
Well, about 3 years ago, my aunt and I both exclaimed about how the worms have become super worms. They shoot out of the mulch/grass/soil like coming out of a cannon, are *strong* and BIG.
This one in my hand is a medium one.

This year, I had a free couple of hours, so started re-edging a flower bed and the grass was just pulling up like an area rug. You can see this by the second picture.
Under this, are dozens of this worms. No grubs. No mealy bugs. I found 2 grubs in about 100 sf of soil - I even dug, looking for them. None. But, the more worms I find, the worse the grass damage.


The original edge of this flower bed was about 3" from hose lying there. As you can see, I was able to pull a full foot of grass - and I could have pulled more, but chose not to.

And a flower bed I just made this year, which has very few of these Worms Gone Bad has absolutely no turf damage.

Any ideas?

At Least 10 Uses for Bubble Wrap

One of mine -
Place on windows you don't look out of often. Tape in place. Ditto for doors.
Directions For a Greenhouse or Windows
Directions and Formulas For Savings

All From Bubblewrap Shop.
http://www.bubblewrap-shop.com/3.html

Prevent toilet-tank condensation
If your toilet tank sweats in warm, humid weather, bubble pack could be just the right antiperspirant. Lining the inside of the tank with bubble pack will keep the outside of the tank from getting cold and causing condensation when it comes in contact with warm, moist air. To line the tank, shut off the supply valve under the tank and flush to drain the tank. Then wipe the inside walls clean and dry. Use silicone sealant to glue appropriate-sized pieces of bubble pack to the major flat surfaces.

Protect patio plants
Keep your outdoor container plants warm and protected from winter frost damage. Wrap each container with bubble pack and use duct tape or string to hold the wrap in place. Make sure the wrap extends a couple of inches above the lip of the container. The added insulation will keep the soil warm all winter long.

Keep cola cold
Wrap soft-drink cans with bubble pack to keep beverages refreshingly cold on hot summer days. Do the same for packages of frozen or chilled picnic foods. Wrap ice cream just before you leave for the picnic to help keep it firm en route.

Protect produce in the fridge
Line your refrigerator's crisper drawer with bubble pack to prevent bruises to fruit and other produce. Cleanup will be easier, too -- when the lining gets dirty, just throw it out and replace it with fresh bubble pack.

Make a bedtime buffer
Keep cold air from creeping into your bed on a chilly night by placing a large sheet of bubble pack between your bedspread or quilt and your top sheet. You'll be surprised at how effective it is in keeping warm air in and cold air out.

Cushion your work surface
When repairing delicate glass or china, cover the work surface with bubble pack to help prevent breakage.

Protect tools
Reduce wear and tear on your good-quality tools and extend their lives. Line your toolbox with bubble pack. Use duct tape to hold it in place.

Sleep on air while camping
Get a better night's sleep on your next camping trip: Carry a 6-foot (2-meter) roll of wide bubble pack to use as a mat under your sleeping bag. No sleeping bag? Just fold a 12-foot-long (3.6-meter-long) piece of wide bubble pack in half, bubble side out, and duct-tape the edges. Then slip in and enjoy a restful night in your makeshift padded slumber bag.

Cushion bleachers and benches
Take some bubble pack out to the ballgame with you to soften those hard stadium seats or benches. Or stretch a length along a picnic bench for more comfy dining.

Burning Wood

It's not liking burning the midnight oil. To me, this is far more gratifying.
Let me give you an idea...
This is what it looked like this spring...
The trailer was my brother's idea. He bought it at an auction, got it road-worthy, filled it with wood from his property and brought it down for us to take wood out of rather than multiple small loads and stacking.
I prefer the latter way of doing it than having it parked by our garage. It's like we had the gypsies living with us.

Then there's the Leaning Tower of Maple that needed to be brought down:












This has been leaning more and more every year since the butternut it started growing by was taken down. Gorgeous red maple, but sadly, it came down this spring, leaving a pile of logs:


Thankfully, my brother came down with his big chain saws, cut it up and then split it!




I just got it stacked, along with the wood that was in the trailer - which was done back in May...









So this weekend, my sister came into town. She loves power tools as much as I! Together, we cut up some smaller logs that have been curing for a year, and then cut down 3 small trees that were leaning worse than the red maple, and in the same spot as the red maple. A couple of hickory and a birch. This is her, working with some pruners my grandfather made, lopping off the smaller branches:












I'm actually quite excited about it since this area of the property hasn't been looking like anything more than trailer trash central for about a year. It's actually starting to get far neater! It's a miracle!

And, from a heating perspective, I'm excited because I'm starting to recognize the different woods by their leaves/bark and just read an article in an old Organic Gardening magazine. This is from March 1973 and was written by Jeff Cox.

Determining How Much Wood You'll Need To Heat For One Heating Season
He gives the formula for determining the amount of wood you will need for your house per heating season.
You have to know your insulation - poor, average, excellent. For a poorly insulated house, you'd choose a higher number - 45 being the highest (the number of btu's per house needed to heat 1 square foot). For a well-insulated home, you'd choose the lowest number 28. So, if you have an average insulation level, go for a middle number 35.
You have to know the square feet of heated space for your home. Obviously, you're not counting crawl spaces or attic or garage - unless you plan on heating them directly.
You also have to know your "degree days". This is a bit out there for me, so I'll quote him directly:
"Degree days are the average number of degrees of temperature below 70. For instance, if the average temperature on Jan. 15 is 38, you subtract 38 from 70 to get the degree days - 32 degree days in this instance." (But rather than calculating per day like that, look at your utility bill for the average temperature of each month you wish to be heating. NYSEG puts it on the bill so you can average the number of therms per day to compare to last year's volume to temperature use)
He gives his total as 5800.
Now you have to know what kind of wood you will be burning. He gives the coolest table to help figure that out.
These are all BTU's per full cord:
Hickory - 24.6 million
White Oak - 22.7 million
Beech - 21.8 million
Sugar Maple - 21.3 million
Red Oak - ditto
Birch - ditto
Ash - 20 million
Red Maple - 18.6 million
Elm - 17.2 million
Yellow Pine - 18.5 million
White Pine - 13.3 million
Aspen - 12.5 million
(The definition of a cord - 4'x4'x8')

Now that you know all of the factors, it's time to know the formula

square feet of house X your heating factor X degree days
divided by
number of btu's per cord
equals
number of cords you will need per heating season

What I've learned over the years is never use green wood - you get a big build-up of soot in your chimney and it won't burn nearly as hot. Don't burn evergreens as the sap will cause a big build-up of soot in your chimney as well, and generally don't burn very hot for the work put into cutting it down and splitting it.

A gent named Sam Ogden is quoted in the article:

"Elm - Not desirable - the wood's too soft and is hard to split" (also mostly dead now)
"Apple - One of the best - it burns clean and hot, and gives off a delightful fragrance
Pear - similar to apple
White Birch - is ok but it's oily bark burns with explosive violence
Yellow or Black Birch - a superior fuel
Hard Maple - Good all-round burning characteristics
Red or Soft Maple - Not as BTU-packed as hard maple
Black Cherry - burns hot but pops and sparks
Ash - same as black cherry
Beech - one of the very best firewoods
Oak - if you're burning white oak, your burning the best
Willow - avoid this softwood. BTU content is low, it erupts and sparks as it burns.
This holds for other softwoods such as pine, poplar, hemlock, etc."

Our House
1000X37X6000 (not well insulated yet)
divided by
19 million (some is better, some is worse)
equals
12 cords
Thankfully, we only use the wood to augment our heating system, and don't rely on it exclusively! We'd be very cold this winter if we didn't have another heat source...

Bees Dying From Pesticide By Bayer

Bayer on defensive in bee deaths
German authorities look into allegation that RTP maker's pesticide harms environment

Critics claim that clothianidin is to blame for devastated bee colonies.

Sabine Vollmer, Staff Writer

Bayer CropScience is facing scrutiny because of the effect one of its best-selling pesticides has had on honeybees. A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer's chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment.

The investigation was triggered by an Aug. 13 complaint filed by German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates, a Coalition against Bayer Dangers spokesman, Philipp Mimkes, said Monday.

The complaint is part of efforts by groups on both sides of the Atlantic to determine how much Bayer CropScience knows about the part that clothianidin may have played in the death of millions of honeybees.

Bayer CropScience, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, said field studies have shown that bees' exposure to the pesticide is minimal or nonexistent if the chemical is used properly.

Clothianidin and related pesticides generated about $1 billion of Bayer CropScience's $8.6 billion in global sales last year. The coalition is demanding that the company withdraw all of the pesticides.

"We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants," said Harro Schultze, the coalition's attorney. "Bayer's ... management has to be called to account, since the risks ... have now been known for more than 10 years."

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Natural Resources Defense Council is pressing for research information on clothianidin.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the pesticide in 2003 under the condition that Bayer submit additional data. A lawsuit, which the environmental group filed Aug. 19 in federal court in Washington, accuses the EPA of hiding the honeybee data.

The group thinks the data might show what role chlothianidine played in the loss of millions of U.S. honeybee colonies. Researchers have been puzzled by what is causing the bees to disappear at what is considered an alarming rate. The phenomenon, known as colony collapse disorder, threatens a $15 billion portion of the U.S. food supply.

In the U.S. diet, about one in three mouthfuls comes from crops that bees pollinate.

Scientists are looking at viruses, parasites and stresses that might compromise bees' immune system. In the past two years, Congress has earmarked about $20 million to boost research.

Clothianidin, sold under the brand name Poncho, is used to coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and protect them from pests. A nerve toxin that has the potential to be toxic for bees, it gets into all parts of the plant that grows from the coated seeds.

In 1999, French regulators banned an older relative of Poncho and subsequently declined approval for clothianidin. French researchers found that bees were a lot more sensitive to the pesticides than Bayer CropScience studies had shown.

Three months ago, German regulators suspended sales of chlothianidine and related chemicals after the family of pesticides was blamed for the destruction of more than 11,000 bee colonies.

The Julius Institute, a state-run crop research institute in Germany, collected samples of dead honeybees and determined that clothianidin caused the deaths.

Bayer CropScience blamed defective seed corn batches.

The company said that the coating came off as the seeds were sown, which allowed unusually high amounts of toxic dust to spread to adjacent areas where bees collected pollen and nectar.

Bayer paid about $3 million in damages, Mimkes said.

Apple Sauce

I think making applesauce is my absolute favorite of all preserves.

It all started last Sunday when I was walking my cat. Yes, I walk my cat. Twice a day even.

We were taking our normal route, when I noticed a squirrel had discovered the MacIntosh tree! Ooo - this means war! I hadn't planned on picking that day, but obviously plans changed.

I got my trusty new apple picker,

a couple of boxes and my garden cart to proceed with the apple picking..

I picked about a bushel and a half of apples from the tree - missing one branch entirely. Ooo! That makes me so mad!

Since the picking itself got my vertigo up, I chose to wait a day or so before making the applesauce. I mean, if an apple can be stored for months, it can wait another few days.

The next morning, after our walk, I was sitting on the deck with my cat, enjoying my coffee and the birds singing while they ate their breakfast, when I noticed a squirrel coming across the roof of our garage. He came right to the front left corner - closest to the house, and just stared down. There are no trees around it. So I *know* he's staring at me, and at the apples. LOL I was getting the tink eye from a squirrel!

What I'm finding even more funny is the fact that he hasn't gone back to the tree - to find out there's a branch FULL of fruit! I'll be going for that next.

So - back to the applesauce. Put some duct tape on my index finger of my knife hand and get to work. Wash the apples, cut the apples away from the core, throw them in a big sauce pan with some water so it doesn't scorch and cut them hot and fast.

Put through the foley food mill and hope it doesn't splop on you. Repeat until your done.

23 pints the first day, 27 pints the second day.

Trust me, if you ever make your own applesauce, you will never eat store-bought again. It has no flavor. Sugar is cheaper than fruit, so what you get is mushy sugar water. And probably corn syrup at that. Making your own allows you to use as much or as little sugar as you want, and it can all be pure cane sugar. It can be brown sugar, it can be molasses. I wouldn't advise honey, even with it being canned. I wouldn't trust that would kill all of the enzymes, unless you used a pressure cooker.

So, we now have virtually enough to have a pint a week for the entire year.

And if I go back for that final branch, we will have enough!

And normally when I make sauce, I like using at least 2 different types of apples, but this year we haven't had frost yet and this was my one opportunity to make it.

Every School Needs A Garden

Second in a series from old Organic Gardening Magazines.

My father was cleaning out his night stand and found a stack of 1973 OG magazines. Knowing I was into that sort of thing, gave them to me to read. Now, it takes me quite some time to get through them, but I'll get there!

Here are links associated with similar programs - from around the world. Very few such programs exist in the US. How sad is that?

Ireland
Canada

Here In The US
Rhode Island
Also a good resource for starting a school gardening program
California
Arizona
Oregon

Since this article is so long, I’ve edited some of the examples. But no content was changed, just omitted for space.

Every School Needs A Garden
Join the 1973 effort to put a garden into every schoolyard - starting with the one in your own neighborhood
By Jerome Goldstein

Last spring, students at the Helen Keller Junior High in Royal Oak, Michigan, planned and planted a 20x25 foot garden in the school courtyard after a series of organic gardening sessions. With the help of teacher Ronald Canton, they planted radishes, lettuce, peas, gourds and pumpkins.

Environmental education specialists Bud Souders and Tom Fegely of East Penn School District in Emmaus PA, used the nearby Organic Gardening Experimental Farm as an outdoor classroom to get youngsters personally involved in compost-making and gardening.

"Contact the school district in your hometown... Explain how important it is, and how educational 0 for children to work with nature to produce something useful, and how a lifetime habit of gardening can begin now." The last count showed almost 500,000 leaflets were sent out to schools, teachers and individuals around the country. The schools mentioned above illustrate some ways the material was put to use.

And yet, the School Garden Campaign is just getting underway! In 1973 we know that there are going to be more gardens on school property and more students gardening both in school and at home than ever before!

Teaching students to garden is by no means a new idea. Back in 1914, the Children's Vegetable Garden of Brooklyn, NY, Botanic Garden was laid out. Frances M. Miner writes in Plants and Gardens that "over the years, children seem instinctively to prefer vegetables."

School Science Projects
10 years ago, my oldest daughter did a school science project showing how food scraps change to compost. Today, several Emmaus High School students have taken on the task of composting some of the school's cafeteria garbage. Right now, my youngest daughter is planning a project with earthworms and recycling.

Earthworm projects, composting as well as many soil experiments are fully described in 2 separate manuals authored by Albert and Vivian Schatz - Teaching Science with Garbage and Teaching Science with Soil.

The science projects with garbage and leaves and other organic wastes are great, but only a garden ties everything together - food becomes alive and meaningful when cared for from seed. The land ethic and environmental awareness are just so many words in a book or on a blackboard. But they have real meaning in a garden. "In our work, we encourage schools to develop on-lot gardens by the students similar to the program which is carried out in Cleveland," says Bruce N. Singer of Blue Bell, PA. "I am sure that your materials will be helpful to a number of schools."

Organic Living Courses

About 4 years ago, Charles Kuntzleman and John Haberern of Rodale's Fitness For Living magazine and Clay Myers, National YNCA Physical Fitness Director, developed the YMCA-Fitness Finders program.

Out of the original program has come an even more ambitious effort to teach and motivate people of all ages "into patterns of living which would help delay the onset of degenerative diseases." Editor Haberern calls it an Organic Living curriculum. This month, a special pilot program with these objectives goes into effect for the fifth and sixth grades of five San Diego City schools. In the "back to nature" unit, for example, students will get a thorough knowledge of organic gardening methods - from taking a soil profile to making a compost pile. They will learn how to find their way in the woods, attract birds to the backyard, tell a good bug from a pest, sprout seeds, read a food label - learning activities never offered in the traditional health and physical education program.

With the aid of a garden plan drawn up by OG editors and volunteer help from local organic gardeners, 14 Appalachia youth aged 12 to 16 began preparing and planting their gardens. Within a matter of weeks after the decision to go ahead with the project, over 100 tomato plants went into the ground, followed closely by the planting of squash, cucumbers, corn, beans, potatoes, peas, onions, flowers, herbs and even popcorn. "The kids sometimes took some of the vegetables home with them, or if the had enough to sell, they sold them at the stand in front of the Y." Davis pointed out.

Nutritious School lunches Naturally Follow School Gardens

Out in Bloomington IN, high school students have formed a Brown Baggers for Health to publicize the low nutritional value of standard school lunches. Students hope to have a fresh-food line set up that would feature fruits, some organically grown foods and home made breads.

Actually, a teacher has been introducing good nutritional concepts to her 9 and 10 year old students since her term began last September (1972), and she’s noticed a difference in the kind of lunches her students now bring.

This community effort by organic gardeners will be most constructive. From your own organic gardens, you have already gotten many municipal officials to learn about composting leaves, for example, instead of burning them. And now, from your own organic gardens, you can extend your impact to local educational quality just as you have to local environmental quality.

Some NYS Information

I've been seeing a bunch of different ads for websites regarding farms, farming, organic produce, locavores, etc. and thought it would be nice to start actually looking at some of them as well as sharing them. If you find any you'd like added, please contact me.

Farm Broome
This site is still in its early stages, but appears very well thought out and I believe it will expand rapidly.
If you'd like to start a farm, have a farm that you'd like to have people know about, want to get into agri-tourism or just want the schedule for the local farmer's markets, this seems to be a good site to visit.

Buy From The Back Yard
This was started by both Cornell Cooperative Extension and a NYS Senator - Tom Libous. Again, it's kind of thin on content, but you can see how much agriculture is actually occuring in the Broome, Chenango, Tioga county area. Very interesting.
And if you have a small agricultural business, you can start a blog on this site in order to let folks know what products you sell and when they'll be available.
Trust me, it's worth it to get a little free advertising.

NY Farms
I've not looked at this one extensively - I only have so much eye-power per day to scan websites. Very rich and in depth. If someone else can review this one, I'd appreciate it!

Pride of NY
LOL - No, not a gay rights site. Pride in agriculture in NYS. Again, haven't review it. Will soon.

Crapper of a Week

Not that I'm going to bother with them today, BUT - 11 tomatoe plants that are 6' high and probably 50-100# each with fruit act as a pretty good sail when a 30 mph gust hits them broadside.

They pulled one of the 2x4's - the one I *thought* was stronger - right out of the ground.

So, there they lay - right on the ground. Am going to have to cut them free of their line and lay them neatly on the ground, rather than the crumpled heap they are now.

I was planning on changing stuff around next spring anyway - use 4x4's rather than the 2x4's - they bend under the weight after a 2 day rain (evidenced by the picture). I was also going to add a support every 4 plants since extension cord does indeed stretch - which I didn't think it would. So now I'll be putting 4x4's in, at least 3' deep, with 2x4 supports and probably more than one level of line so the tomatoes can't pivot the support from the top.

But not today. Tomorrow in the rain. LOL

On the brighter side of life - I have a new toad and he's discovered THE perfect toad pool. So now he and the birds will be duking it out as to who gets to bathe in it.

It's the top of our fish pond. Very shallow concave rock that holds 1 bird at a time - with others being able to sit on the edge and wait their turn.

Or - 1 medium to small toad.

Shopping For A Pellet Stove

I'm shopping for a pellet stove.

I didn't want to this year, but because the Solar Heater BROKE, I have to have some form of heat out in the work shed. I can't let that machine sit idle another year. It was way too pricey to just collect dust.

So anyway, the solar heater was supposed to get us through the beginning and ends of the heating seasons, and hopefully through it all, eliminating the need for any other heat source. With it being trashed for at least this year due to my autumn vertigo starting up, I need another heat source.

Sigh.

So, I stopped at a local HVAC place that sells all sorts of stoves - nat gas, wood, coal, pellet. They have a single pellet stove. Breckwell The Big E. Never mind that it would heat 2 of our houses, much less the 300 sf of the shed, it's the only one they sell. I'd prefer a bit more selection.

And then, I get the numbers. Meow wow. Forget how much it burns per day that would be completely wasted. 800 to install? 325 for the most basic hearth pad? 2600 for the stove itself?

I started shopping elsewhere.

I didn't find any good reviews of this particular stove, so am not inclined to buy it anyway. But if I were, I'd be buying it online. I found it for 1950, with free shipping. All of the stuff that goes with it - thermostat and pipes, I found for far less than the combined difference in price plus their install. The only thing that was nearly identical in price was the hearth pad.

So I've emailed a second "local" store. Not one I can just drive to and look around and drive home without getting dizzy for a week, but close enough. They have a huge selection. Plus, steered me to two different makes that would work well. I checked them out, found reviews, and have pretty much made up my mind which one. It's a Dansons Glow Boy. It has a much smaller maximum btu hourly rate, and a lower starting btu rate. That's good. Far less waste.

Now all we have to do is get down there to buy it. That'll have to wait until my sister comes up to visit the middle of this month. If I wait for Mom, she'll procrastinate until they're all sold out. She wants something else. What else, no one really knows - including here. But because it wasn't her idea, she doesn't want the pellet stove. Too bad. I'm buying, so I'm choosing. And I'm the one who will be maintaining, so I'm choosing.

I've decided - The Dansons Glow Boy. More good reviews.

The Livestock Feed Idea That Stops Flies

The first in a series of articles I've "discovered". My dad was sorting through some of his old papers and came across a stack of Organing Gardening magazines from 1973.


This article is from October, 1973, pp 114, 115.


By Marion Wilbur


"How do you manage to keep all these animals in such a small area and not be bothered with flies and odors?" This question had been asked many times by visitors to our Casa Yerba, CA "mini-farm", and I'm sure it is a problem encountered by many organic farmers.


Now we've been up in Days Creek OR, for a few months with a bit more room - 56 acres to be exact. But for years on our little 5/8 acre organic "farm", with a big sprawling house, a huge assortment of fruit, nut and citrus trees and gardens, we managed quite a "family". Led by 2 horses, it consisted of also 4-6 Nubian goats and their occasional offspring, 7 Hampshire sheep and their spring lambs, the ducks, our prize-winning New Zealand rabbits, the cavy colony (from 60-80 guinea pigs, our flock of Araucanas (Easter egg chickens) consisting of about 50 adult layers and from 3 to 5 pens of chicks of varying ages, plus 3 cats and 2 dogs.


Numerous plantings of herbs in the garden and throughout the landscaping - tansy, pennyroyal, rue, wormwood, basil, garlic, chives, shoofly plant, and many others - are effective foilers against flies and insect pests around the house and in the garden. But there is no place to grow them in the animal pens, so we had to find other means of effective fly control there.


I had heard that diatomite, or diatomaceous earth, could be fed to the chickens as a means of fly control - flies attracted to the droppings would be killed - but little information was available, and I was reluctant to feed an insecticide (even though non-toxic) to my flock. Encouraged by some friends, though, I added a small amount to the feed for the mature hens, and not seeing any adverse results, began gradually adding a bit to the feed of the other animals and household pets as well.


Its effectiveness increased after a period of continued use. The animal droppings no longer seemed to attract flies, and odors very noticeably diminished. My experiment with the baby chicks was most convincing. As the little ones hatch, I put them in a small brooder in our family room. Like an overprotective mother hen, I like to keep a close eye on them for a few days. Each day the brooder is cleaned and fresh papers sprinkled with clean, sharp white sand are put in for the chicks. By evening, it becomes very apparent there are chicks in the house.


With one group of chicks, diatomaceous earth was mixed with the sand for their litter and also added to the feed. They were kept in the family-room brooder for 8 days before moving to a larger pen outside, and during this time, the litter and papers were not changed, even once! There was no odor at any time, and the chicks seemed to thrive better than previous groups.


Now, I used this method for all the animals. Starting with a clean pen, diatomite is sprinkled on the floor, then the bedding or litter is added - hay, shavings or sawdust - and this is topped with another sprinkling. Chicken roosts are also dusted with this white powder to discourage mites. It is added to the feed of chickens, livestock, horses, dogs and cats - approximately 1% by weight.


Droppings from all the animals getting diatomaceous earth lose their offensive odor and no longer attract flies. Pens require cleaning less often and remaining free of odor and flies as long as they are fairly dry. It made life in our small quarters a little easier for all.


Diatomaceous earth, or diatomite, is a white powdery substance - the fossil remains of microscopic one-celled marine algae called diatoms - and is used extensively as a filtering agent. Harmless to humans animals and the environment, the tiny particles of the earth contain razor-sharp projections of silica which scratch insects coming in contact with the dust, causing them to dehydrate and die.


From here, I'll depart from the article. I can't be sure the businesses listed are still in operation. However, I know it can be purchased for swimming pool filters - as we purchased it for years, until we dismantled our pool.


If you do a search on diatomaceous earth, you'll get many results for where you can buy the stuff. I'm not researching or advocating any particular business or group - that's for you to do!

It's cheap enough that I would think it would be worth a try.


If you do, please write back with your results. Would love to have any yea's or nay's regarding the use of DE