MOM’s Organic Market’s ER Blog

This month is one of the busiest of the year, marked by a multitude of December holidays. While out looking for that perfect something to get for a loved one or perhaps a gift donation, consider a green approach. There are a number of stores, organizations and nonprofits that offer gift-giving ideas that benefit the environment, and in some cases, people of different nations. Gifts can come in many different forms, whether it be a donation made in the recipients name or a pass to the opera. Here is a list of some green gift ideas to get you started:

* Think about a donation of animals to a family in another part of the world, to help nourish, enrich and support their lives. You can donate a flock of chicks on up to a water buffalo at www.heifer.org.

* Consider giving a gift of an experience, such as tickets to the theater, a concert, a football game, or even a pass to the national parks. Not only will you not be adding to your loved ones’ pile of possessions, but you’ll also save some trees from all the wrapping paper you’ll be saving.

* Certificates good for backrubs, trips to the movies, weeding a garden or a home cooked meal can be some of the most beloved gifts to give!

* Give some home-canned fruits, chutneys, jams or veggies to share that organic produce love.

* There are plenty of gifts out there to help keep your friends and family green and informed - try subscriptions to magazines such as Plenty or Utne, or go for a movie subscription service that caters to small filmmakers like www.filmmovement.com. Nothing says happy holidays like some organic wine, a homemade bag of mulling spices, organic cheeses and a selection of crackers!

* If you choose to wrap what you give, try to use reusable wrappings - bandanas, fancy cloth napkins or scarves can all lead double lives as gift coverings.

Weather proofing your home, I’m sure, seems like a common theme. We’ve talked about setting your thermostats and preparing your home for the summer, but what about the winter? With the price of energy always going up, and more homes and businesses entering the grid, now is the time to think about energy conservation and how we can best tackle the issue. Here are a few ideas to get you started in the right direction, that will not only save you money, but also keep you warm in these coming months.

* Seal your doors and windows with weather stripping to help prevent drafts and the loss of precious heat.

* Be sure to check your furnace, filters and ducts to make sure that they put out top performance.

* Install a programmable thermostat and be sure that it is turned down to at least 65 degrees when you are away.

* Closing your blinds or curtains on cold overcast days or at night will help insulate your home. Opening them back up on sunny days will help heat your home naturally.

* If you have storm doors and windows for your home, don’t leave them lying around your basement collecting dust. Installing them will be a snap and you’ll feel the difference.

* If you’re cold, put on a warm sweater or a pair of sweatpants. The air between the layers of clothes will heat up and stay insulated.

* Throw another blanket on your bed or have some handy near the couch to snuggle up with.

If there was ever a time to get outside to enjoy the sights, scenes and smells, it would be right now. The fall is the most beautiful time of year when the leaves are all changing colors, anywhere from a vibrant golden yellow to a bright firey red.

So many times are we trapped inside our homes weathering the cold or confined in the walls of our jobs. Find a window, spend your lunch outside, go for a walk, find any excuse to get outside. Even if just for a minute, because one day you’ll turn around and all those beautiful leaves flapping in the wind will be gone and blown away. You’ll have to wait a whole year to see it again.

Now, I know, it sounds like I’m really putting the pressure on, but why wouldn’t I? The fall is my favorite season and I could spend all day every day outside cold, warm, raining or sunny. I feel like, as a society, we spend too much time wrapped up indoors. We need to get outside and reconnect with the environment, as it provides us with just about everything we need to live. Maybe, and this is just a thought, if we all went outside to enjoy the day, if even for a few minutes, we might appreciate it more and want to do more to protect the environment.

You know, I was talking to one of friends the other day who lives in an older home and somewhere in there he mentioned half jokingly that he wasn’t sure whether or not his refrigerator was even running properly, as items inside were expiring much sooner then they should have. I agreed with him here. It’s time that he took a closer look at his refrigerator and see if it is something that can be fixed or something that he’ll need to replace.

This seems to be a common problem, with many things, that minor problems are overlooked until it is sometimes to late. There are steps you can take to help ensure that your refrigerator is doing it’s job with ease and efficiency.

* Make sure you know what you are going in for before opening the refrigerator door. Open it as infrequently and as quickly as possible to keep the cold air in.
* Try to keep your refrigerator loaded with lots of tasty treats and beverages, as the mass will help keep in the cold.
* Be sure to wrap up and cover your food, as it is able to release moisture and make your compressor work overtime.
* Clean the coils and gaskets of your refrigerator a couple times per year. A lot of stuff can build up and prevent the release of heat.
* If frost builds up in your freezer, chip it away and defrost. This will help keep up the efficiency.
* Do you really need that second refrigerator in your garage?
* Make sure the temperature on the refrigerator is properly set at around 40 degrees.
* Check the seal on your fridge doors. In general, if you can slide a dollar bill into the fridge with the door closed, replace the gaskets. Replacement will not only save energy, but also save money in your pocket book.

Yesterday, as you all might have noticed if you live in the DC area, was a brillant, sun filled day. I don’t know if it was that it had rained all day Saturday or planets were in alignment or I got too few hours of sleep, but everything looked fresh and crisp. The edges of cars, sidewalks, trees and even blades of grass glistened and shined.

Seeing this as I walked down the sidewalk to get a scone from the corner bakery, I decided that today was the day to visit a pumpkin patch and corn maze. I jumped on the web to check to see which would be my best and closest option. Key elements for me were local farms, short distance, fall activities and organic. What I came up with was a farm in Virginia called the Corn Maze in the Plains. Its about thirty miles from DC that not only was local, but also prided itself on the organic corn maze and activities for children. Sounds like just my cup of tea!

I grabbed a few of my roommates to come along and we set voyage for what promised to be a spectacular maze, filled with lots of turns and dead ends. The view from above showed the maze was cut in the shape of some bats flitting around the moon… that’s some talented corn mowing right there. I am not sure if you have ever been in a corn maze, but you basically wander through a bunch of trails and stare at a view like this for about 40 minutes while trying to track down your friends and giggling with surprised little kids along the way. And let me tell you - it is FUN, especially when you know that you aren’t walking through fields filled with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers!

So, if enjoying the fall harvest organically with local growers sounds good to you, make sure to look up the Corn Maze at the Plains. They boast the first organically grown corn maze in the country, and clearly one of the best.

All last night as the rain fell down, it ran down our roof, into our gutters and down our driveway. I could faintly hear what sounded like an overflowing bucket, but dismissed it. What I had forgotten was the fact that our household had recently set up a rain barrel to catch the rain coming from the gutters.

“What are rain barrels?” one might ask. Rain barrels are containers that catch falling rain, and then you can store the water to use to water your garden, wash your car, or whatever your outdoor watering needs might be. The rain barrels are especially helpful in the hot dry months when you might not see a rain storm for weeks at a time.

With the rising price of water, increase in droughts, more instances of water pollution, and our population explosion, we need to conserve this precious resource. I’m sure that I’ve mentioned this on many blog entries, but we need water to live. Water is essential. If everyone were to change the way they looked at their daily habits, they might find that there is some room for change. The smallest changes can make all the difference. Even with something as minor as a rain barrel, that can hold up to 75 gallons of water. That is 75 more gallons that you aren’t drawing out of your pipes.

The next time you hear the drips from a rain storm, take a look out your window or step outside and imagine all of that water running down the sidewalks and into the gutter put to good use in your garden.

Have you ever wondered about the magic of the stapler? You have? Fantastic, me too. In my quest for more information on stapleless staplers, and the purchasing of said item, I came across the true history of the stapler.

As I’m sure you know, mankind has been binding, publishing, writing things and journaling since the beginning of time. So, how did they keep their pages together? Until around roughly 1860 they were using anything from glue to needles and thread to keep their pages together. They were sometimes tied together or even bound with wax drippings from a candle. These practices seem both clever and time consuming.

Around 1900 the very first patent on a stapler was filed. From there the popularity of the stapler exploded and the design of the device changed with the times. You literally went from a twenty minute binding project to a two second step that did the same job, maybe even better.

Well, with the changing of the times, and the call for more environmentally friendly products on the market, the stapleless stapler was born. This fantastic new stapler is like a hole punch, but the difference is that it has a mechanism that will punch, fold and weave the paper into a bind. This new device is good for stapling up to five pages together.

Even though a staple doesn’t seem like much, when you are using hundreds of them a day, they can really add up. This is why MOMs now uses the stapleless staplers at each of our cash registers, to help make a positive impact on the environment.

For months I’ve been watching the city work up and down the streets, tearing out asphalt and sidewalks, refitting the area with copper instead of lead pipes. But what about pipes going from the street and into homes? After stopping to talk to one worker, we discovered that they stop at your property line, and any further in will cost us $100 a foot. That’s pretty pricey, but I suppose its hard to put a value on something like clean water!

It looks like our street will be next to have the water pipes replaced, but what can we do in the mean time? Relying on bottled water means creating waste, even if it’s going to be recycled when I’m done with it. My house’s solution is the TerraFlo water filter - it’s much cheaper than buying bottled water, and TerraFlo even has a filter recycling program when it comes time to switch it out. The filter sits on the counter top with an elevated spout, so I can fill up my reusable water bottle right to the brim without tipping. Now if only there was an earth-friendly way to block out the sounds of jackhammers…

Have you ever noticed in your neighborhood that when someone cleans out their cluttered basement or moves out, a large mound of unwanted furniture, appliances and stuffed animals winds up on the curb? After being picked through by neighbors the pile usually sits around, rainwater-logged and tattered, for long after it probably should. Their intentions are probably meant for curb side trash pick-up, but what ever happened to reusing something?

Instead of kicking something to the curb, so to speak, it’s time to start being resourceful and helping out the local collection agency or the neighborhood college kid. You can reupholster a couch or wash that dust ball stuffed bear to prepare your things for a second life. If you really get into it, you can post your items on websites such as Craigslist or Freecycle, which are like a giant bulletin board to post ideas, things you want to sell or give away, or look for something specific, such as a room to rent or tickets to a sold out concert.

Recently, my house decided to “get rid” of one of our living room couches. Instead of spending money to have it hauled away or spending the time and fuel to pitch it into a landfill, we decided on something better - recycling. A few minutes to post on Craig’s List, with the condition that the couch be picked up, and a day later we know our couch has found a happy home.
The next time you’re cleaning out that basement or spare room, remember that recycling isn’t just for mixed paper and aluminum cans. You can recycle and reuse furniture too!

Freecycle near College Park

Freecycle Rockville

Freecycle DC

Freecycle Alexandria

Craig’s List DC

*Freecycle groups require signing up for a Yahoo Group, but it’s worth the trouble!

I’ve been thinking more and more about how my household can reduce the waste that leaves on the truck, headed for a landfill, every Thursday morning at 730am. If you take a walk down any grocery store aisle, they are packed with products that are packages within packages. Not only that, but the serving size of these items are small, and are most likely to be used up in one or two uses. So, ideas?

The single serving products are handy, but what about households such as mine that hold around six people, with friends and family coming to dinner almost nightly? The answer here: buying in bulk. Large “family size” containers of things, such as rice, pasta or granola, require less packaging. Not only that, but, in general, will save you money.

Buying in bulk has really started to work in our house. We figure out how much we think that we will consume within a month, factor in space, and buy a variety of things by pound. Of course, we make sure the bulk items we buy have a good shelf life, like dried beans, spices, tofu and rice. What we don’t buy in bulk we buy fresh, such as fruits and vegetables. We generally aim for items that are unpackaged or things that we can buy in concentrate, such as juice. There are some stores, such as MOMs, that offers discounts on certain bulk purchases. It’s worth looking into.

The next time you are making a grocery shopping list, think about the things that you buy week after week and look into purchasing these things in bulk. Not only will it save you a trip to the store, but it will also save you money and space in a landfill.