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By Mom Unplugged, July 5, 2007 11:10 am

A really neat project to get kids involved with nature (and help wildlife) is to certify your yard as a Wildlife Habitat. The National Wildlife Federation has a certification program that is fun to do with kids. So far there are over 70,000 certified backyard habitats.

You do not need a big, fancy yard to get certified. What you do need however, are four basic habitat elements: food, water, cover, and places to raise young. Click on the links to each element for examples, as well as projects for incorporating these elements into your yard.

Sit down with your kids and evaluate your yard. Decide together what you can do to make sure that the four elements are present. Create a plan and carry it out. When you are done, complete the online certification questionnaire.

If you are still lacking in any area, the website will tell you what you need to improve. If you have the basic elements, then you will get a certification number. You will also get a one-year membership to the National Wildlife Federation which includes a subscription to National Wildlife magazine. They will send you a certificate and a press-release for your local paper to help spread the word about this program. Plus, you can order ($25) a cool, weather-proof sign like mine in the photo to really let the world know about the importance of gardening for wildlife.

Here are some examples of each element from our yard:

Bird feeders are an obvious choice for FOOD. Include many different varieties of seeds (sunflower is the favorite here, but we also have millet, thistle, and cracked corn), suets, and a hummingbird feeder of sugar water. We put peanuts out for the squirrels and chipmunks too (although quite a few birds enjoy the peanuts as well). Also, diversify your feeder types. Some birds like perches, some prefer to cling, some like platform feeders like the one on the left. We also have a birdseed block on the ground for ground feeders.

Other, less obvious FOOD sources are native plants, bushes with berries, and flowers that produce dried seed heads such as these Purple Coneflowers:

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a pond or other natural water source on your property, birdbaths are essential for providing WATER. This is one of our three bird baths. One of them is heated so water is available in the winter also. Even the squirrels drink out of them! This photo also shows a FOOD source: the Cosmos flowers around the birdbath produce nice seeds.

This birdbath is near a tree so drinking birds have an easy escape if necessary. Our birdseed block is in the foreground.

Examples of COVER in our yard:

PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG can be man made such as nest boxes or bird houses, or natural: trees, shrubs, dead trees. Even a woodpile, like our messy one above, provides great nesting opportunities for chipmunks and other small rodents.

We are fortunate enough to have this lightning damaged, partially dead tree (a “snag“) behind the house which, as you can see from the photo below, has become a bird condo! In fact there is a very noisy family of Lewis’ Woodpeckers currently nesting in one of those holes.

We hung some roosting pockets under the eaves (near a window so we could watch the action), but there have been no interested birds so far.

Here are some book suggestions to help you too. The Backyard Naturalistis a wonderful book and has helped me a lot, but you will only find it used.

This one is a great guide to native plant species in my region. Obviously, if you don’t have a high elevation western garden it won’t do for you. But check your library, bookstore, or Amazon for similar regional guides to get native plant ideas.

I don’t have this one, but I think I will order it. It looks like a really good one too, with lots of ideas for projects.

The National Wildlife Federation also has an online gardening bookstore that you might want to look at as well.

This post is part of The Sunday Garden Tour at A Wrung Sponge. Head over there to find more participants, or to add your own garden-related post. Happy Sunday!

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By Mom Unplugged, June 28, 2007 8:34 pm

When I was an exchange student to France in 1983-1984 bottled water was simply not “done” in the US. Other than Perrier, which was “fancy water,” I had never seen such a thing.

My French host family bought 6-packs of liter-sized bottles of water at the local “hypermarket” (also new to me then, similar to today’s Super Walmart, but nothing like that existed in the US at the time). This is what we drank at home. We never drank out of a tap. The thought of such a thing horrified them! I think I really confirmed their belief that Americans were culinary barbarians when I confessed that tap water was the only kind we drank in my home.

The French were very particular about their water. Each person had their favorite, and disliked the others. My French family bought Volvic. I thought they were all kind of crazy to think that water actually had a flavor until, by the end of the year, I could tell the difference too! Rather like wine, I now realize that not all water is the same.

I confess to being a Volvic person myself. I think that Evian is an acceptable substitute, but that Vittel (another popular brand in France) tastes like chalk. I really think that I could successfully identify at least these three, maybe more, in a blind tasting.

Here, I drink tap water. If I am out and about and have no water with me, I buy a bottle of whatever is cheapest at the gas station. Why don’t I use a drinking fountain, or ask for a cup (or better yet, keep a reusable cup in my car) and fill it at the sink? I don’t know. I guess I have succumbed to the brainwashing that bottled water is pure and somehow better. It even looks better in those pretty blue tinted bottles with cool and refreshing little droplets depicted on the label. Really, I think it is simply the convenience. But why has filling a cup suddenly become “inconvenient?”

Tonight I learned something new (I love it when that happens). The two leading brands of bottled water in the US (the two combined make up 24% of the US market), Dasani (Coke) and Aquafina (Pepsi), actually “purify” local tap water and bottle it locally so as to save on shipping costs. Local tap water across the US is really pretty pure already. I know that there are those who would argue with that statement, but I wonder how much of a difference you would find in a chemical analysis of local tap water and local Dasani?

Anyhow, when we buy Dasani or Aquafina, we are buying tap water like the kind we get from our tap for free (or almost free depending on where you live). I guess we can credit Coke and Pepsi with reducing their carbon footprint by not bothering to ship water across the country or around the world, but I suspect that their motivation was more their profit margin that their “greenness.”

I learned this in an NPR interview (Bottled Water: A Symbol of US Commerce, Culture) with Charles Fishman, author of an article published in Fast Company magazine about the bottled water industry. His article is entitled “Message in a Bottle.”

In his article, Mr. Fishman calls bottled water “the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel.”

Other interesting stats from the interview:

- Bottled water was introduced to the US from France in the 1980′s by Perrier and Evian.

- Americans spent $15 billion last year on bottled water.

- Americans buy about 1 billion bottles of water per week.

- Think about the fossil fuels that are used in transporting all that very heavy water!

- Although the plastic bottles are recyclable, over 70% of water bottles are not recycled.

I found this story fascinating, and quite timely for me personally. I recently experimented with buying these cute little half-pint bottles of water to throw in the car for the kids if we were on our way somewhere. Well, unfortunately the cute little bottles were way more of a hit than I had intended. What happened was that the children helped themselves to the little bottles and I found them everywhere, indoors and out, usually with just one or two sips gone.

Bye-bye cute little bottles of water! They are potentially handy, but I find that they are wasteful, promote littering, encourage laziness (on the part of the kids and myself), and send a message that disposability is fine.

Who knew that there was so much to be said about something as simple as drinking water!

Listen to the interview here. Read the article here.

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer ostephy for this photo.

Comments (4)

By Mom Unplugged, June 21, 2007 6:59 am

I am always on the look-out for good books of activities that I don’t have time to do with my kids. One day…when the baby is a little older…not that I am wishing her precious babyhood away! But, I digress.

I stumbled upon this one at Amazon and I really like it! It is Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children by Carol Petrash. Here is a quote from the back cover: “This book is “filled with hands-on nature crafts and seasonal activities to enhance environmental awareness. The activities are carefully written and beautifully illustrated. Children play with the elements of earth, air, and water. They develop a respect for nature, for the earth and for all living creatures. they experience the awe and wonder of the world around them.”

While this may be quite an ambitious description of the book, I can tell you from a Mom’s (rather than a publisher’s) perspective, that it is a really cool book. Will it instantly turn my children into little green protectors of Mother Earth? Maybe not. But I do firmly believe that the more children learn about nature, the more respect they will have for it. Teaching children early on to appreciate the beauty of life and nature can only help the planet in the long run.

One of the things I really like about this book, and what sets it apart from other similar books that I have seen, is that the chapters are organized by season. Plus, each season has subsections: The Whole Earth Home and Classroom, Bringing Nature In: The Season’s Garden, Bringing Nature In: Seasonal Crafts, and Supplying the Missing Links. This makes it easy to find projects that are seasonally appropriate.

The “Supplying the Missing Links” idea is another feature which sets this book apart from other “nature crafts” books. The introduction describes this as providing “activities that will allow the children to connect a product which they often use and usually purchase in a store with the source and process from which it comes. The aim is that they will then have a subtle understanding of their strong connections with and dependence on the Earth and an experience of making things for themselves.”

I love this concept! My children are always asking me where things come from, and these projects can actually teach them a little bit about some of it. One of the more ambitious projects in this category is: “From Wheat to Bread” (no, Mom doesn’t go to Safeway for a bag of flour, the kids thresh and grind wheat themselves, then bake their homemade flour into bread).

Wow! I thought I was being “crunchy-frontier-mom” when I, on very rare occasion, bake bread from scratch without my machine. Now the bar is raised! If we do this experiment (not that wheat on the stalk will be easy to come by where I live - especially for a non A-lister like me), will the kids expect me to make my own flour every time I feel domestic enough to make bread? Hmm…could be a dangerous precedent to set, but cool idea nonetheless!

There is a similar project with Indian Corn (we can probably get that here): string necklaces of corn kernels, grind the corn and make corn bread, use the husks to make corn husk dolls, then grate the cobs to make a corn cob powder for play cooking. How about learning about wool, apples, pumpkins, and butter?

If you don’t have the time or ambition to make your own flour, then you will be happy to find other, more manageable projects here too. Some examples: FALL - leaf banners, leaf crowns, nature’s people, lanterns. WINTER - pine cone bird feeders, tissue paper transparencies, finger knitting, yarn dolls. SPRING - wind wands, pinwheels, kites, dish gardens, pressed flower cards. SUMMER - shooting star streamer balls, walnut boats, butterfly crowns, parachute people, paper birds.

I really love this book. Anyone who wants to unplug their children and tune them into nature needs this book. I know that any Waldorf or homeschooling family would love it too. Please check it out, I think you will be pleased!

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, April 22, 2007 10:54 am

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day seems like a great day for my final gDiapers, flushable diapers, post. In case you haven’t been enthusiastically following this series of posts (why wouldn’t you??), click on the “Great Diaper Challenge” label in the right sidebar to read about our experiences using flushable diapers.

FINAL UPDATE: The baby’s diaper rash cleared up and we returned to the gDiapers. They are great, but for my very sensitive-bottomed baby (I can’t even use any brand of wipes, just a wet washcloth), we needed to add an extra morning and an extra afternoon change to our schedule. At night I use a disposable because I know her bottom can handle it for that long. In my opinion, two extra changes per day is a small price to pay for helping the environment!

My biggest worry was the flushing issue. But, so far, so good. All the poopy ones have flushed without problem. My compost pile is enjoying the added nitrogen from the wet gDiapers. My septic tank has not overflowed into my yard. My plumber remains unbothered by any agitated calls for help from me. All is well with the world.

ABOUT gDIAPERS:
gDiapers seems to be a very friendly company with lots of support options. The starter kit instructions list an “800″ number where they say they will happily talk you through an actual diapering! There is also a helpful Yahoo User Group of 816 “gMums” and Dads at www.flushability.com. Jason Graham-Nye, the CEO of gDiapers, has an amusing blog gDiapers: the early years, where you can get the latest news. Incidentally, Jason somehow “found” me (isn’t the internet amazing?) and left a very nice comment to my first post - True Confessions.

According to Jason, you can also read about gDiapers in John Kerry & Teresa Heinz Kerry’s book This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future. I have not read it yet, but it is on my list. (Maybe next week when I do less blogging for The TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge?)

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTS:
I will close this post with some disposable diaper facts from the gDiapers website:

• “A disposable diaper takes 500 years to biodegrade”
• “Last year alone, 18-23 billion diapers went into landfills across America. That works out to be approximately 38,000 every minute and adds up to about 3.5 million tons of waste.”
• “Conventional disposable diapers are the third largest contributors to landfills in the world and yet only five percent of the population uses them.

If you are currently using cloth diapers, I think you will LOVE these! If you are using disposables there will be a slightly bigger learning curve with a few extra diaper steps (see my “technical” post). But it is worth it.

Try these diapers. You might like them, and I promise that you will feel good about using them! Click here to find out availability in your area, or here to order online.

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, April 9, 2007 11:01 am

We have been doing pretty well with the gDiapers. So far they have all flushed without incident and the wet ones are going in our compost bin. I am getting used to the process of assembly and diapering. It would be a bit easier to do up those velcro fasteners in the back if I didn’t have such a squirmy baby to contend with, but she resists lying still no matter what sort of diaper we are using!

The only problem we have encountered so far is diaper rash. Perhaps my baby is not the ideal test subject since she has always had very sensitive skin. I have never even been able to use baby wipes on her as even the most gentle varieties cause an immediate rash (we have to use a wash cloth). So, whether she is sensitive to the actual substance that the flushable liner is made of, or whether they just don’t “breath” quite as well as disposables, I don’t know. Hopefully it is simply a matter of more frequent changes.

We are taking a break from the gDiapers at the moment until her bottom improves. Then, we will try again with more frequent changes and see if that helps. But overall, I am very impressed with the performance and flushability of the diapers.

Today I post photos of the contents of the starter kit as well as the assembly process. With the starter kit you get two pairs of “little g” pants, two nylon liners, 10 flushable inserts, a “swish stick,” a suction cup to hang the swishstick near the toilet, and an instruction booklet.

First you snap a nylon liner into the pants (see close-up of snap). Then, you place an absorbent pad into the liner, smoothing it into place and creating a u-shape. Lastly, the whole thing goes on baby and the velcro fastens at the back (away from curious little hands that might like to undo it!).

If you live in a less remote area than I do, you can apparently buy the gDiapers at Wild Oats or Whole Foods, plus some other natural foods stores (see online store guide). Unfortunately I have to order mine, which of course means paying shipping. But, if we can get over the rash issue, then I intend to continue with them despite having to order them.

Finally, I have been asked a question about sizing. Small pants are for 6 to 12 lbs, medium are for 13 to 26 lbs, and large fit 27 to 35 lbs. My little girl weighed in at 22 lbs at her 12 month check-up (3 months ago) so I ordered medium. I am not sure about her weight right now (we will soon have the 15 month check-up and find out), but I would say that she will be moving up to the large size pretty soon. You don’t want the pants to be too big, otherwise they will be prone to leaks, however those velcro tabs are seeming a little short right now. If you have a very large child, then I suppose it would be possible to outgrow even the large size before toilet training occurs. If there is a need, perhaps they will eventually make an extra-large size.