Saturday, May 29, 2010

Where does your Milk come from?

After posting the last post about the abuse at a dairy farm, I really wanted to know where the milk we use comes from.  Because "milk" does not agree with either Firefly or myself, we don't drink it.  We do however eat products that contain dairy.


Here are the dairy products that we use: 
  1. Tillamook Colby-Jack cheese (www.tillamookcheese.com)
  2. WINCO deli swiss cheese  (www.wincofoods.com)
  3. Stella Parmesan cheese (www.Saputo.com)
  4. Nancy's vanilla yogurt (www.nancysyogurt.com)  Springfield Creamery Eugene, Oregon
  5.  Athenos Feta cheese (www.athenos.com)
  6. Breyers All natural Rocky Road (www.breyers.com)
 I will do some research on each of these and let you know what I find out!

What dairy products do you use?

How the Top Kill works

The BBC has a good step-by-step walk through of how the "top kill" operation will stop the oil flow.  Check it out here

Friday, May 28, 2010

Is this where your milk comes from?

I found this video at treehugger this morning.  Watching this video made me sick.  I am glad we don't eat beef or drink milk.  I am going to have to do more research on where the milk in our cheese and yogurt comes from.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Getting Closer...

Would you donate your hair to clean up oil spills?

This is a repost of a Q & A over at Grist.org


Q. Dear Umbra,

I’ve heard that
people are donating their hair to help the oil cleanup of the Gulf Coast. I’m
an old-school hair farmer, and I want to know if it’s harvest time for a good
cause. What do you think?


If it’s a good
idea, then to whom do I send my bountiful harvest?


Hair Today, Gone
Tomorrow (to a good cause)
Seattle


A. Dearest
HTGT,

Props to
you for your willingness to donate your locks for this hairy situation. And
have I got the organization for you: Matter of Trust.

The
organization, known for its oil spill hair mats, is collecting
nylons, human hair, and animal fur to create hair booms to place in the water
to collect oil. Here’s a great article from The Washington Post explaining the
effort and its progress.

It’s
important to note, though, that the oil spill has gotten way too massive to think
that this approach can necessarily fix everything, but the grassroots effort
has finally gotten BP’s notice—the company contacted Matter of Trust last week.

You can
donate your own hair, animal fur, and nylons by signing up for Matter of
Trust’s Excess Access database and then
following the instructions for sending in
your hair harvest.

Thanks
again, HTGT. Every little bit helps.

Shornly,
Umbra

Monday, May 17, 2010

Support Your Local Theater

 Firefly and I just finished our last off broadway show at our local theater, The Pioneer Center. Last spring we saved up our pennys and bought season tickets which was 5 shows for $600 total.  While it was a little stretch to come up with the money up front, I am very happy that we did because come fall we had 5 guaranteed prepaid date nights! I loved that we did have to try and come up with the money for each show.

We decided to buy the season tickets again this year and we are looking forward to this year's shows.  This year we will be seeing:
  1. Beauty and the Beast
  2. Legally Blonde
  3. A Chorus Line
  4. Fiddler on the Roof 
  5. Riverdance
We think it would be great if we could get our friends and family to buy tickets with us so that we could have a large group of people for each show.  If you live in Reno and want to buy season tickets you can either check out their website PioneerCenter.com or call 775.686.6609  

You can buy season tickets for as low as $160 if you buy just the 4 show package.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Emergency Plan video

 Do you have a plan?

The Chicken Run phase 1



I finally got the frame of the chicken run started, much to Firefly's delight, I'm sure.  The run stands 6' tall and is 8' wide.  The run only has 3 sides because the 4th side is the chicken coop itself.  I still need to build/hang a gate, paint it, level the trench, attach the chicken wire and finally put it into place and attach it to the coop.

Monday, May 10, 2010

April showers bring May flowers...

I don't know how the weather has been were you live but it's been crazy here.  One day will will have beautiful, sunny, warm weather and the next a huge windstorm will come blowing through with gust over 100mph and tip over 30 foot tall trees like they were a house of cards. 

We had really nice weather this weekend and then today it dumps a lot of rain and then we have a 30 minute blizzard.  Right now I'm looking out the window and I see bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds right next to mean looking dark gray clouds.  Oh well, what can we do?

I'm happy to report that the chicks are doing great and are growing bigger each day.  Their food intake has increased ten fold and they love to fly to the top of the box when we lift the lid.  Thelma is by far the most social of the four birds.  I have no doubt that she would be perfectly happy sitting on a shoulder all day long.

We've been able to spend a fair amount of time outside and Firefly has lots of veggie starts growing in the office.

Here are a few pictures from the last few days.  I'll try to be better about blogging but spring is calling 






Friday, May 7, 2010

Buses in New York


Are you Producing or Buying your life?

"Radical Homemakers are aware of the misplaced priority on increasing the bottom line. Quite often their incomes are significantly below the norm. But that is because they have learned that there are two ways to make a living. In one method, the convention of our culture, substantial money is earned and then spent on purchasing life's necessities. In the other method, significantly less money is earned, and basic necessities are produced or otherwise procured. Packages from the mall, plastic-wrapped food, designer labels and television sets are seldom seen inside these households. Rather, they are filled with books, simmering pots, some dirty dishes, musical instruments, seedlings, wood shavings, maybe some hammers or drills, sewing machines, knitting baskets, canned peaches and tomato sauce, jars of sauerkraut, freezers with hunted or locally raised meat, and potted herbs. Outside the door there are no multiple new cars or manicured lawns. Whether in the country or the city, one is likely to find a garden plot or potted tomatoes, fruit trees, bicycles, probably a used car, shovels, spades, compost bins, chickens, maybe a wandering goat or some other livestock, and laundry blowing in the breeze. These people are producing their life, not buying it."
~Radical Homemakers,p. 208 


Thanks to Amber at Unstuffed for sharing this quote.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Green Phone Booth and The Green Hour

The title of this post sounds like the title to an awesome children's book.  If you haven't checked out the blog www.greenphonebooth.com then you're missing out.  The blog description states:
Where Ordinary Women Become Eco-Heroes 
If you have a few moments, I suggest reading the review on the book The Green Hour. I was going to borrow or buy a copy but I actually just won a free copy via The Green Phone Booth!  

Go check out the blog and the book and have a great day!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The size of the oil spill



click here for larger image
The numbers of this chart are simply crazy...I cannot believe how much oil is leaking into the ocean.  There has got to be a better way to get energy then pumping oil out from the ground.  
Thanks to Good.is for the article and the graphics.