How to help Refugees in 3 Steps

Step one: Move to Canada

Step two: Read this post  from Good

Step three: Make it happen captain!

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?

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

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.

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!

Earth Hour photos

Check out a short slide show here from around the world.

The Story of Bottled Water

The story of bottled water by the folks at the storyofstuff.org is out.  Everyone should head over to http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/ and check it out.

The video has lots of good information as does the website itself.  Check out the story of stuff while you're there too!

Robin Hood Tax

I support the Robin Hood Tax, how about you?

Miles driven

For a while now, I have been wanting to keep track of how many miles I drive, both for work and personal use.  Why? Because I am curious about Carbon Offset and how much it would cost to balance out my driving.  A while ago I posted that if everyone lived like I do, it would take 2.75 Earths to sustain us all.  While we can't make a few more Earths, I can reduce my impact on the one we have.

The plan is to enter in how many miles I drive daily into a GoogleDocs form I made. (I can walk you through it if you'd like)  When I pull it up on my phone it looks like this:

All I have to do is select one of the four preset vehicles I drive the most (or other if borrowing/renting a car) enter in the millage and hit submit.  The information is then automatically sent to a spreadsheet which I have posted above. (I am going to be making a button on the homepage for this soon)  At the end of every month, I will sort the raw data into total millage per vehicle and post the results.  I am still looking for good data about the amount of carbon produced for each vehicle and once I find that, I will share it as well.

I am going to try and get work to buy carbon offsets (or many plant enough trees) to offset the amount of carbon released by just one employee over the course of a month or year.

If you would like to do something like this as well, let me know and I can post your information as well.  I can make you the same spreadsheet or you can just post/email me how many miles you drive a month and what kind of vehicle you drive.

You can find out your Ecological Footprint here: www.myfootprint.org

Barter and Trade

What happened to the good ol' days of barter and trade?

Well, that depends on who you ask.  Some people might say that it was to loose of a system and thankfully was replaced by our current monetary system where we all agree on the value of the form of payment.  Others might say that it is a system we need to return to so that the individual is not required to give a portion of said payment to the Federal Government.

There is however a third group of people who instead of just talking about returning to a barter and trade system, have actually done so.  These people include members of time banks and the teachers and students at the Trade School.

Time banks are so simple but they are changing communities all around the world.  You can find them in 22 countries and on six continents.  Once you are a member of a time bank, every hour that you spend helping someone else earns you an hour of help from another member.

The Trade School idea is another very unique system.  At this school, the students and teachers trade items and/or services for education.  So if you want to take a class on composting, maybe you would bring the teacher a loaf of homemade bread.

Check it out, bring it home, change the system, and save the world

Packaging Free Grocery Store

How great would it be if there was a grocery store right down the street that straight up refused to sell packaged items? What if you could just walk in with your own bags and containers and buy just the right amount of whatever you needed and not have to worry about the rest going bad?
 
Good news: You can!
Bad news: You have to live in London...

The store is called Unpackaged and you should check out their site here.

I first read about Unpackaged this morning here at Good.is

Cob House

I want to build a Cob house.  I'm not saying that I want to build it anytime soon, but one day, I think I would really like to build a house like this and living in it.  Maybe we can start small and build a office/getaway in the backyard first.

What is a cob house you ask? Good old Wiki describes Cob as:

Cob or cobb is a building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth, similar to adobe. Cob is fireproof, resistant to seismic activity, and inexpensive. It can be used to create artistic, sculptural forms and has been revived in recent years by the natural building and sustainability movements.

Here are some link to check out to learn a bit more about Cob houses

• http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/12/natural-building-101-building-an-eco-friendly-cob-house/
• http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/  (This is a good blog with lots of resources and pictures)
  
• http://www.well.com/~les/naturalbuilding.html
  

You can also use straw:

• http://simondale.net/house/build.htm 
• http://simondale.net/house/straw.htm
  
• http://www.thatroundhouse.info/
  

Or even tires:

• http://www.makingthishome.com/2009/05/27/earthship-tour-aka-tire-house-tour/

What do you think?  Would you ever live in a house like this or want to build one?  How about as a earthy office/shop in the middle of your homestead?

You can even add a green roof to these as well!

Kiva hits $100 Million Dollars in Loans

I've talked about Kiva.org here on the blog before but now there is even more good news!  In the 4.5 years Kiva.org has been lending money, they have just reached $100 Million dollars in loans.  I read about this story here, and here.

Kiva's website says that the first loans made in March of 2005 total $3,500.  From $3,500 to $100,000,000 in just over 4 years!  I think this really shows how much good one or two people can do in the world.

We were told about Kiva about 2 years ago and this year started loaning out money.  Right now we have lent $50 and once it is paid back, we will lend it out again along with another $50.  I figure if we keep added and reloaning then in a few years, we might be able to fully support someone.  The way Kiva typically works is to combine our $50 with your $50 and our neighbors $10 and your aunts $200 until the total loan amount is reached.

Click here to check out all the loan requests and see if there is anyone that you want to help.  Our first loan was on behalf of my Dad for his birthday.  Maybe I'll check it out for Chirstmas this year as well.

This is the family that we are supporting right now.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

Coffee Labels

A little bit ago, I posted a little note about coffee labels and how overwhelming they all can be.  After some research and soul-searching (seriously) I've decided to only drink Fair Trade, Organic, Shade Grown coffee.  These three labels will ensure a good life for the coffee farmer and their community, that I am drinking coffee and not pesticides, and that my morning joe is not killing the rain forest.

We started with the can on the left (just finished it) and tomorrow I will open the can on the right.  Once that can is gone, we will go local as well.  I've heard rumors of a local coffee grinding place so I want to look into that.  Then we can help support the small local guy and bring in our own reusable container.

Pumpkin Carving Contest

One of the things I enjoy about fall is carving pumpkins with friends every year.  Firefly gets WAY more into it then I do and as a result, each year she turns her pumpkin into something artsy-fartsy.  This year, with the help of her new drill, Firefly made a porcupine!  She was also going to turn two pumpkins into one scene of a bird sitting in a tree but as it turned out, the other two pumpkins were solid steel...steel that someone tricksy person painted orange and passed off as pumpkins!

Here is your chance to win some Apple Butter!  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with a link to your carved pumpkin.  You'll also want to make sure to leave your email or a link to your blog/contact information.  This Friday I'll post a poll and let people vote.

Friday is also our Godson's first birthday party!  Anyone have any good gift ideas for Mom and Dad...we've spoiled our Godson all year long!

HOA vs. Clotheslines

Here is another reason I love living in an old house.  Old house tend to be found in old neighborhoods and old neighborhoods don't tend to have HOAs!  If you however are not so lucky and are subject to the rules of your HOA, good news might be coming your way. 

It seems that some communities have been able to get laws passed in their state to force HOAs to allow the use of clotheslines.

Check out the story from the Reno News and Review by clicking here.

Pumpkin Carving Party

 

 

It's time to carve up some pumpkins!  This will be the fourth year in a row that we have gone to a pumpkin carving party at our friend's house.  Two years ago my wife spent 2-3 hours carving her phoenix pumpking and the plane/wild things picture was from last year.

This year I am thinking of carving a helicopter and something with bees...I think the wife is going to go pretty artsy this year.

I want to invite all of you to join in on the fun this year by email me a picture of your carved pumpkin.  I'll post all the one I receive at the end of the month for everyone to see.  Once all the pumpkins are up, I'll post a poll so that people can vote and the winner will get a prize!

email to: TonyR.stillmorningair@gmail.com

Holiday Challange from Crunchy Chicken

So... I am challenging you all to a challenge that I have been challeged to via the blog Crunchy Chicken

Here's the info:

Well, the goal of the challenge is to have you do one or more of the following:

hand-make your gifts

buy your gifts that are handmade by someone else (like from Etsy or a local craftsperson)

buy it used either at a thrift store, yard sale, Craigslist or Freecycle, etc.

barter for your gifts

Giving you all these choices allows that you can still get products for gifts if you don't know necessarily what to make, but you aren't contributing to new purchases and all the environmental impact associated with that. Now, I know this is a HUGE chunk to bite off, so I'm going to let you be flexible about it. Some of you might try to shoot for 100% Buy Hand and some will choose to buy certain objects they know they can't get away with otherwise.

If you want to take the challenge, cruise on over to Crunchy Chicken and sign up in the comments.  You can also click on the banner I have on the side bar or just leave me a comment and I'll pass along your infomation.

Good luck!

Aim Air

In case you didn't know, Morgan and I both want to work in Africa. If we could work at or run an orphanage, we would be very happy people. We got a little down last night because it seems like this is still going to be a little ways off since we both want to finish our various schooling before we go.

Morgan has another year left with Nursing school and then I will need about a year to finish flight school. We were talking about Africa last night and I remember that I have stumbled on to a Missionary Company - AIM AIR - that works in Africa and is all about flying! Please visit their website here and read stories from various missionaries that are living and working in Africa.

You can also read a great story about Serving Orphans here.

You can also visit Aim Air's flickr site here