Healthy Green Heating! Part 1

Living in the city of Vancouver is a wonderful experience, but your housing dollars don't go very far when you are looking for square footage.  When the city boasts the highest housing prices in the country it can certainly be a double edged sword!

My husband and I have been lamenting the use of a chunk of our basement space by a furnace, hot water heater, and the left over bottom section of a chimney stack that was never removed.  We have been scheming to get rid of these items to open up that space that is smack dab in the middle of the floorplan. 

The chimney stack?...easy  Sledge hammer was the first thing that came to mind

The Hot water heater? Also seems to be a no brainer with an inline Hot water heating system

The Furnace?  This has been our mental block... but no more!

I have to introduce you to the perfectly green and healthy option that I have happened upon that is more energy efficient and actually therapeutic to boot.

I've got a bunch on my plate today, and want to say more, so I'll follow up on this post tomorrow.  But if you are totally curious and need to know now, check out this website that I found:

Smart Portable Heaters

Until Tomorrow

Sherri 

Pretty Edible Gardens

Here are some great ideas for including edibles in your garden without it looking like a Vegetable garden:

Houzz Edible gardens

Green at home

I am so very happy to be back home in Vancouver, Canada after being overseas for the past year and a half!  It is quite a relief to be here, and I am enjoying the natural green spaces and the organic and green options that are available.... Like Cycling to the grocery store and filling my saddle bags for the ride home.  When shopping can be merged with a good workout where can you go wrong!

I have noticed much to my delight that many residents have taken the liberty of claiming city greenspace for their gardening adventures in feeding themselves.  Being on the eastside, my neighborhood is full of many Italians who plant their back yards every year, but I am seeing them expand their territory to include the space outside their fences.  What better way to combat the rising prices of fresh produce than to grow it yourself and decrease the retail demand, while gaining fresh plant ripened fresh organic produce that could not be better for you.

I plan to begin planting edibles in our garden this spring, and maybe claim a bit of city greenspace as others have.  The thought excites me!

 If you live in Vancouver, I have found some interesting sources for local organic produce that may interest you:

NowBC (nowbc.ca) is an online organics store where you can source local organic produce, amongst other items, and receive them on a weekly schedule.  They are dropped at a location in your area that you can pick up that evening.

Innercity Farm Urban Harvest Share (www.innercityfarms.com) -  These guys have it taken urban farming to the next level.  You can purchase an annual share in their crops.  From what I understand homeowners who have a patch of property to spare can (Donate?) their space to these guys who will 'tll the earth' and grow crops on that space.  This is as local as you can get, and all oraganic.  If you don't want to purchase a season share, you can purchase a weekly share at NowBC above.

More to come on living green
Cheers
Sherri

Green is Health

Food Matters - you are what you eat

Medicine????.. I mean Pesticides!

Have I mentioned that we've been living in India for the better part of a year?

We live in a great little gated community of about 45 homes.  The 'Community' is stellar, lots of kids to play, some pretty good spaces to hang out in.  The POOL a tropical requirement, fitness instructors of all sorts who come to teach you Yoga, Tae Kwon Do, Bollywood dance, swimming,  weight training and the like.

One would think that this is paradise, but the plan is to move.  Why you ask?  A little thing that they call 'Medicine'.  Namely Organozone.  Sounds fine doesn't it.  Kind of has a derivative of 'Organic' in the name...Right?  Medicine for your plants!?  DEATH for your bugs.... or most of them anyway.

...And for our Kids... what does it mean?

Well according to the online research I've done, this Neurotoxin is known to increase the chance of ADHD, among other neurological problems.

For adults, among other things Parkinsons seems to be the one that stands out.

For our furry friends with their  noses to the ground?  I have been told by another resident that her small dog's eyes exploded after sniffing about the stuff!

For our garden.... it has spelled death.  No really, a pesticide dependent garden with an infestation that is killing it.

You see Pesticides don't kill all bugs.  It only kills the ones susceptible that cannot adapt to the poison.  Those we can call the predator bugs - those that eat other bugs and create a properly functioning ecosystem, and pollenators - those that keep your garden green and growing, Those are the ones that die.

What lives and adapts?  The almighty ant for one, and in our case the wolly aphid (Mealey bug).

To be fair, the ant is a predator, and they really do have a taste for wolly aphid larvae, but the problem is that ants don't like to 'dine out'... they usually do 'take out' because they like to eat at home with their queen.  The problems is that they usually drop some along the way.  Spreading their aphids all over the place.

The result?  Lots and lots of dead and dying trees choked by our little fuzzy friends.

One would think that if the medicine don't work that you look for another solution.  But unfortunately there are some really hard headed people in control here who don't want to listen to the logic of a change.

My Biggest beef is that our gardeners don't understand that what they are spraying is TOXIC.  I don't know how they rationalize the giant headaches and dizziness that they get from being so close to it.  But they also think that it is ok to go around spraying it all over our kids while they are playing.

This stuff smells like rotten cauliflower, thank goodness, so that when they decide it is coat the garden day, I can quarantine my kids in the house for the day with all doors and windows closed.

Maybe they could give some advanced warning?!


Before and after pictures spanning a year:

Before:

AFTER:

I think a picture is worth a thousand words....
Sherri

Did you Know? #1

Did you know that ants will run away from a sprinkling of Tumeric across their path into your house?

Quite true.  They hate the stuff.  When the weather gets dry this summer and you find the little pests gaining access to your house , just sprinkle some across their entry point.

A much more environmentally friendly alternative to the giant can of ant spray.

Bottled Water - Good or Bad?

Bottled water seems to find itself in the news periodically from time to time.  I've recently gotten wind that it is currently in the news with regard to transparency, water purity, and bottle safety.

Invariably there are people out there who 'Pooh Pooh' the idea of bottles harming the environment and praising bottled water as the economical way for a family to have clean water.  But how clean is the water really?

Though transparency has always been an issue... we are all I am sure aware of 'certain brands' who are basically bottling tap water.  Many first world nations have plenty of clean drinking water as near as their own kitchen faucet.  The problem is - we don't know it.

When have you ever seen your municipal government advertise the safety and purity of your tap water?

Do you know if your Municipality adds flouride to your drinking water?

How come we don't know?

I remember back in the mid 80's when I visited family in Mississauga, Ontario.  My aunt would hook up the water purifier to the tap each evening before bed.  It would reap us about 4 litres of clean water over the course of the night!  And that was back in the 80's

I guess the tap water was bad back then...  can you imagine what it is today?

I believe our lack of knowledge in the quality of our drinking water opens the door wide to the bottled water companies who, in many cases misleadingly, advertise the purity of their water and the guaranteed safety.  Unfortunately they don't post their water quality charts either.

It is we who are fooled and taken advantage of.

Having lived in a 3rd world country for the better part of a year now, I can honestly say that the water bottle issue poses a problem far greater than is imaginable.

At least in the First world water bottles are one of the few plastics that we put in our 'recycle bin' that actually get recycled, but many countries don't have a municipal garbage disposal program, much less a recycling program.

In these 3rd world countries where the average annual income is less than the monthly salary of the 1st world, people do not buy in bulk... they buy in Individual packets.  Bottles included, everything wrapped in the wonderous plastic.  Where recycle means to refill and drink from until the bottle gets old and then toss it on the side of the road.

Is it less costly to buy bottled water than to buy a filtration system for your home?
Lets do the math.

For a counter top water filter  (ie Minimal installation costs) you are looking at about $175 US

If you have a water delivery service you will pay approximately $10 per week for a small family or $120 US annually.

If you buy bottles of water retail and you buy even 1 bottle per day you are spending about $1.50 daily.  Or $390 annually and that is considering purchasing 1 500 ml bottle 5 days per week.

So where is the savings.  Bottled water costs you double the cost of a filter system annually, and you only buy your filter system once, and sometimes you need to buy a filter cartridge.

lets reduce as best we can
Sherri