Archives

Is it really junk

Jul10

Today I saw an old, discarded office chair out beside the road, waiting for the garbage truck to come and pick it up and haul it away. You could tell by the way that it tilted to one side that it was broken in some way, and probably not worth fixing. Normally I wouldn’t even give something like that a second look, or even a second thought.

But for some crazy reason I find myself thinking about that chair now, wondering if there was some way that the individual parts of the chair could be repurposed in some way. For example, the casters on the bottom of the chair – perhaps they could be put on the legs of a heavy table to make it easier to move around. The base of the chair – I don’t know what it is called, but it is where the casters normally are attached, but it reminds me of the blade of a fan, with a little bit of imagination, it could become the most important part of a decorative mobile or windchime.

At bare minimum I would imagine that if someone were to haul it to the metal recycling business that the company would pay a little bit of money for the metal in the chair.

Wind Power

Jun27

On my trips cross country I’ve always been amazed and impressed with the massive wind turbines that are lining the hilltops. You can see them from miles away and yet they are completely silent. I just love the idea of harnessing the sun and the wind to produce our energy.

If you are interested in promoting alternative energy sources in America, you can find out a lot by reading what T. Boone Pickens has been trying to do.

Cali Wind turbines

A green twist added to our kids’ playroom

May31

Guest post written by Meredith Carter

Our kids’ playroom isn’t all that impressive, so I decided to add a couple of really neat things to it so that they’d actually spend more time in there like I wish they would. I mean, I put hard work into decorating it, so I want that work to actually go to good use! But it is a little dull looking in there even though I put a lot of work redesigning it. So I’m going to add a few extra things in there, that are also green, to make the playroom more appealing to our kids.

I went online to find a few ways to be green about the new additions and while I was online I found a website with energy plans on it and decided to sign up for one of them.

I got the idea to paint the top of this old table with chalkboard paint that I put in the playroom for them to do art projects on. I thought that would be really fun, being able to draw directly onto the table and keeping it there to show it off!

Serious About the Garden

May14

Have you ever seen rain chains? They are a very artistic and green way to conserve water for your garden or to fill a water basin for birds and pets. Whenever it rains, the water from the rain runs down the house or outbuilding roof and finds the rain chain, which then directs the flow of water down the chain to the ground – or to a rain barrel or basin that collects the water.

I saw this beautiful double lotus copper and brass rain chain attached to the gutter of a small boutique in Clifton this morning. At first I didn’t know what it was, so of course I asked the owner and she was delighted that I had noticed.

lotus chain

There are dozens, if not hundreds of styles of chain links and styles of chains rain guides. There are a much more beautiful way to direct rain rather than a plain aluminum gutter spout, don’t you think? I’ve seen other funnels and cups that look like bells, and some look like fish or even acorns. I love this idea and really want to get one or two for my house. I’m so serious about my garden this summer, I want to add some whimsey and flare to make it even more interesting and attractive.

Saving the Rain

May8

Several of my good friends in Texas are having serious problems with the lack of rain out there. The wildfires have been going on for over a month now and ranchers are having to sell off their livestock because they can’t protect them from the fires and they have no feed for them. The fires have burned tens of thousands of acres of farmland and destroyed thousands of homes and barns. It breaks my heart.

When they got a little bit of rain over the weekend, my friend Karen says that they were barely able to fill the rain barrels and that they need a lot more rain. There is no rain in the forecast for the rest of this week, but I sure hope they get some good storms soon.

Karen is the one who told me about rain harvesting and how they use rain barrels stationed all around the house and the barn to collect the runoff from the roofs. I had seen the barrels when I was out there, but they didn’t strike me as unusual and they were actually an attractive part of the landscape, blending in and looking very natural.

There is a greaat web site with rain barrels for sale if you are interested. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and some even look like flower planters. It’s one more kindness we can d for Mother Nature – reuse the rain that she gives us for free.