More From Our Yard

3 baby chickadess but we couldn't get a picture.



A blue jay.



Lots of finches.







More eastern towhees.



A blue bird.



Maybe a tufted titmouse? Not sure about this one. It doesn't clearly match any of the birds in our bird book.



And, lots of doves, crows, and cardinals.

Fresh From Our Garden

My Other New Toy

I just videotaped the backyard with my new mino HD flip camera that plugs right into the computer for easy downloading. I scared the birds away but you can hear them chirping. Can you identify them?

Another treat in the yard

A lovely bluejay!

Two Eastern Towhee In the Yard!

Spent An Hour Rescuing Ducklings From Pool

The new picture on our homepage shows them before they started to drown.

Fortunately, I finally got them all out and they hustled away from the big scary woman who was trying desperately to save them.

In Our Garden

We released lots of ladybugs in our garden to serve as good pests.



In addition, we are growing our own mushrooms!



And, lots of other stuff. Can you identify it?

In Our Yard

It is freezing right now but this weekend we saw this in our yard:

Snow

A few pics from yesterday morning's snow walk.

Maybe This Congress Will Go Green

Today, protestors are challenging the presence of a coal-fired power plant on Capitol Hill. Maybe this Congress will recognize that coal is not clean! Read about today's demonstration here.

CO2 Hunter

Read about this amazing project and check out the graph in the article that indicates CO2 levels over the past 10 years.

Sad news though as of this afternoon.

Alaska is Disappearing

Read this article about what is happening to Alaska, then think about what you can do to address global warming.

Signed: Your friendly green advocates

Get Ready for Earth Hour - 8:30PM Saturday 28 March 2009

To find out more about Earth Hour 2009 and what you can do, click on link above.



This is a great overview of what can happen when a few people turn off their lights!

Great Backyard Bird Count

10:00-11:00 Sunday AM

1 robin
3 blue gray gnatcatchers
2 rusty blackbirds
6 mallard ducks
2 white ducks (don't know the name of them)
4 herring gulls
2 chipping sparrows

Will try to get pictures next time.

You can still count until Feb. 16 or enter your data here after that.

Happy Valentine's Day

Unusual mating rituals.

What insects do.

What Slums Can Teach Us

Click above and read the article. Important food for thought.

Really Cool School

We just read about this school built of recyled materials.

Some New, Some Old, Some Different Green Ideas for the New Year

In 2008, we tried to be more green. We installed 2 rain barrels, installed recycled wood flooring in the house, purchased and used an indoor composter, installed dual flush toilets and tankless water heaters in our home, stopped purchasing plastic water bottles, purchased glass containers and eliminated all plastice in the kitchen, purchased banto boxes to use for travelling and lunches instead of plastic baggies, switched to compostable garbage bags, switched to recycled toothbrushes and razors, switched to using only recycled paper notebooks, joined freecycle, and donated to carbonfund.org to offset our airplane travel and energy consumption to make us carbon neutral.

We have made a commitment to be more green again in 2009. In addition to following through by using some of our Christmas gifts such as reusable produce bags, reusable drycleaning bags, and a dry cleaning rack for towels (which we use a lot at this house), we want to be better activists for the environment. So, we're starting by sharing some ideas for a Green 2009.

1. Stop using ALL plastic bags (grocery, department stores, produce, laundrymat,sandwich bags, etc). You can even get reusable vegetable bags here and biodegradable trash bags here.
2. Recycle number 5 plastic by sending it here.
3. Recycle your Brita filter here.
4. Send your wine corks (not the plastic ones) here.
5. Compost at home by using this.
6. Freecycle rather than throwing things away.
7. Replace your paper towels with these.
8. Save your Christmas cards and reuse them next year by pasting a label over this year's text (we are still working on this project for our 08 Xmas cards).
9. Get a rain barrel and use the captured water in your garden.
10. Recycle your shoes here.
11. Find out what other things you can recycle here.
12. Buy recycled and recyclable toothbrushes and razors here.
13. Stop using plastic at the drycleaners, by getting reusable drycleaning bags here.
14. Buy ecofriendly products ranging from toilet paper and detergents to eye glasses to clothing and paper made from poop.

Green Building

We are all fascinated by green building. For the girls it started a few years ago with a project on sustainable architecture. They designed their own green homes and did scale drawings and models of them. Then, we bought a solar home kit and did some of the hundred or so projects that came with it. I'm not sure when D and I first became interested but we are. Anyway, I've collected some interesting pictures and articles. Check out these houses. And, these. And this roof. And how about living in one of these? Awesome, eh?

And, we just saw a clip on these houses -- want one?

Composting

We set up our new composter last night.

We have to prime it so that it will work properly so, here are some pics of the start up process:






Unfortunately, waste in the world is still increasing due to rising personal consumption and population growth. Although food and paper decompose by themselves in nature they are the two largest components in landfills. They account for nearly 50% of all municipal solid waste. You might be surprised to learn that there is more food and paper in landfills than diapers, styrofoam, and tires. In fact, the EPA has found that food waste is the least recycled material. Biodegradable waste like food will remained embalmed in landfills for centuries because no oxygen can penetrate to help such waste decompose. Furthermore, we are running out of landfill space that is reasonably close to population centers. Escalating landfill costs will mean higher fees and taxes for everyone.

We decided to do something about this. We got an in-home composter. A computer controls the temperature, air flow, moisture, and mixing to accelerate the decomposition process. Everything is contained in a modern container. Just a few square feet of floor space is required and it plugs into a standard electrical outlet. You don't even have to handle and transport the rotting material!

Natural microscopic compost cultures eat organic waste material, converting most of the material to water vapor. Roughly 25% of the material remains in a highly nutrient rich form which re-enters the food chain as a natural organic fertilizer called compost. We'll put ours in our garden!

Written by T and H posted by C