Choosing Voluntary Simplicity » Green Living

Energy Efficient Countertop Ovens

Shirley — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:55:10 +0000

We recently purchased a countertop oven. It has turned out to be one of the best decisions we have ever made. A countertop oven is NOT a toaster oven. They might look somewhat similar, but a countertop oven is more powerful and has a much larger cooking capacity. The countertop oven we chose is a commercial grade oven, and it is large enough to roast a turkey. It is also large enough to accommodate multiple racks of regular sized bakeware.

Produce and Pesticide Residue — the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15

Shirley — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:09:04 +0000

The Environmental Working Group has updated its "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean 15" lists for those fruits and vegetables with the most and least pesticide residue. According to the EWG, if you buy organic for the twelve fruits and vegetables on the Dirty Dozen list, you can reduce your pesticide exposure by almost ninety-two percent. If you can't buy all organic, they suggest prioritizing your purchases by buying organic where it counts the most.

Digging Eight Quarts of Dandelions

Shirley — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:42:08 +0000

Every afternoon for the last four days we've taken an eight-quart kettle and two knives and gone out to our meadow to "dig dandelions." And yes, I'm talking about the common weed. In New England, we call it "digging," but the dandelion isn't really dug... we use the knife to cut the entire plant off just below the surface of the soil. We're lucky to have a large meadow just filled with dandelions. In a couple of weeks when the plants we leave are in blossom, the meadow will be a field of brilliant yellow... and next year there will again be as many dandelions growing there as we will want to dig.

9 Simple Things We Do To Protect Our Environment

Shirley — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:13:46 +0000

We have installed ceiling fans in every room. They circulate the heat downward from the ceiling in winter and keep the rooms cool in summer. We have not figured savings, but we definitely use less heat each winter and we don't even own an air conditioner.

Another Green Cleaning Solution That Really Works

Shirley — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:36:48 +0000

Reader question... "My husband and I are both heavy tea drinkers. Many of our teacups and mugs are badly stained and the stains don't come off no matter how hard I scrub them. Do you know of a natural non chemical way of removing the brown stain from the cups?" --Annette

It’s Almost Time To Plant the Tomatoes

Shirley — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:54:54 +0000

I just finished paring down a seed order for tomatoes (if I had the space, I'd get one of each!), and I think I have finally made my choices. I'm ordering heirloom seeds and one or two hybrids. This order is only for the smaller, "novelty" tomato varieties. I'll be ordering the seeds for larger tomatoes from another company.

Some Thoughts About Raising Free Range Chickens

Shirley — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:16:09 +0000

We have had week after week of near-zero temperatures during the day and considerably below-zero temperatures during the night. We have also had an unusually large number of snowstorms and the snow on the ground is very deep.

So it is incomprehensible to me that until one day last week, two families in this area were leaving their chickens outside in this cold and snow... day and night... without any access to shelter of any kind.

My Winter Herb Garden

Shirley — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:38:21 +0000

All I can see from my kitchen windows is snow, snow, and more snow. The winters are very long here, and spring is still several months away... this is a time when I absolutely yearn to see something growing and GREEN, so I really enjoy the herbs that make up my little kitchen garden.

An Amazing Natural Wood Stove Cleaner and Polisher

Shirley — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:49:45 +0000

A few weeks ago, before it started to get really cold here, we spent the better part of one day taking the stove pipes apart and cleaning them. We also did a really thorough cleaning of the outside chimney as well as all the heat channels inside the stove, and we intended to finish off by polishing all the nickel trim on the outside of the stove. We have always used the recommended product for this polishing... a strong-smelling paste that needs to be rubbed on, left until it turns white, and then polished off. It's not a job I like, but a necessary one because the nickel trim on this stove is only beautiful when it is kept polished and shining.

What Our Finished Compost Looks Like

Shirley — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:57:49 +0000

This year, for the first time ever in all my years of gardening, I have had more compost available than I could use. It has been WONDERFUL... I have put thick mulches of compost on all the gardens, around all the hostas, and mixed it in with the soil when we have planted anything... and there is still more compost left in the 2-year-old pile. This particular compost started life as a combination of grass clippings and weeds from the garden, vegetable peelings, shredded leaves, goat manure, and the wood shavings we use as the goat's bedding.