My Garden Green

We've spent the last two years, tearing up turf and creating our own little secret garden.  The best part about it is that it needs little watering.  We've planted mostly perennials & native plants that go with the flow and hardly ever need a drink from us. Hopefully we will be installing our homemade water barrel this weekend. Talk about your water conservation!

And to top it off - the birdbath & chair are rescued from the trashman. 

More to come on the homemade water barrel!

Save Water! Shower with a Friend!

Water conservation always starts at home.  Each minute you spend in the shower uses 5-10 gallons of water.  So here are some tips to help green up your clean up time!

1. Shower with a friend! The little ladies and I usually all shower together. We try to keep it under 15 minutes and I think that's pretty good when you divide it by three.  Someone rinses while someone soaps and the preschooler usually just plays in the bottom with her water toys.

2.  If you are up to it, try a "navy shower." Talk about your water saver! The concept is simple: hop in, get wet, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water back on, rinse off, turn the water back off. I think that it's a perfect way to shower in the heat of summer, but in the thick of winter, I'll take a steady stream!  Which ties into #3...

3. When taking a regular shower, use a bucket to collect the water running as you wait for it to heat up. We all do it - let the water run until it reaches a nice hot temp and then (and only then!) hop on in the shower.  You can then use this water to fill the toilet tank, water plants, wash dishes, etc.

4. Upgrade your shower head to a low-flow model. You should be able to find one for under $40.

5. And lastly - take shorter showers.  A four minute shower uses approximately 20-40 gallons of water.  A 20 minute shower uses up to 200 gallons of water! Yikes!

Kudos to the Great Green Wolf!

Since I have a winter birthday, we go away to an indoor waterpark, Great Wolf Lodge, for the weekend every year.  It's not too far, and we only stay one night, but it's perfectly sized for the little ladies and so much fun!

Every year I'm more and more impressed with where we stay! Great Wolf has been doing some serious "greening up" of the hotel and water park.  I love walking into a hotel that has recycling stations for paper, plastic, glass, and cans all around the levels and in the rooms, as well.  They ask you to reuse linens and bath towels, and to turn the lights off and the a/c if you aren't in the room.
In fact, they are the first and only hotel chain to have all it's U.S. properties "Green Seal Certified ~ Silver."

So, hooray for Great Wolf Lodge!!

One mini-vacation that truly leaves you feeling environmentally refreshed! To read more about this great hotel & water park's green policies, click HERE!

Our Top 5 Ways to Save Water

As we found ourselves in a snowglobe sort of snowfall this past week, I found a really cool site on snowflakes. The big fat, fluffy kind that you can catch on your tongue and see on your coat.

During this period of incessant snowfall, the weather man was warning kids not to eat the snow as it most likely was laden with chemicals and other pollutants. How sad is that? But it opened up a discussion for the girls & I on ways we can save water around our house and ways that our water use can have less of an impact on our environment.

So here's what we came up with and I think it's a pretty good, pretty doable start to the year.

1) "Save water, shower with a friend." My dad had this shirt when I was growing up and I loved it.  So shorter showers and shallower baths - and not daily!

2) Use organic soap/shampoos/washes/detergents.  Anything that's going down the drain should be free of chemicals and pollutants.

3) Use a rainbarrel.  We bought one at the end of summer and will be installing it come spring.  Our "secret" garden behind the garage is far away from any hose.  We are putting the barrel there to use to water our flowers and veggies. (hopefully the mama deer will leave us some this year!)

4) Ban the Bottle, plastic that is!  3 of the 4 people in our household don't buy bottled water.  It is our goal to get the 4th to abandon his water bottle addiction.  Even with a fresh pitcher of filtered tap water, he will go for the bottle.  I console myself with the fact that at least he recycles them.

5)  Make more gardens in our yard with native plants, so that there is less watering of the lawn. Dad likes his grass green, green, green in the summertime!

And here's 95 more ways to conserve water.  Cheers!

Water Water Everywhere

Our household resolution this year is all about water conservation.  Since we live so close the lake and many small streams and rivers, we see what happens to them when we aren't recycling and aren't being diligent about what goes down our drains.

To kick off our resolution, we donated to Katie Spotz's www.rowforwater.com.  We are going to follow Katie's journey as she rows solo across the Atlantic in an attempt to bring awareness to the cause. Amazing!My girls have now provided clean and safe drinking water to one person for their entire life.  And hopefully throughout the year we will be able to continue to raise money to help the clean water campaign.

So raise your canteen and toast the New Year with us as we start our water saving journey today!