21,000 New Friends

Our three hives. As moving a photo I’ve taken since we first wandered the land quite a while ago.

Today we got our bees.

We set the alarm for seven o’clock and were on the freeway by eight. The morning was cold and rainy. Pooling and streaming water in the yard had me worried. As did my freakishly busy week. It was only Tuesday morning and already my head spun. Getting up and out into the real world of commuters wasn’t helping anything. I’ve grown accustomed to finite band of existence that does not involve having to deal with the real world on a daily basis, let alone rush hour traffic.

By time we made it to the Lorain county line though, the rain had stopped. I parked the truck. The wife and I walked over to the bee shop, and the air inside the garage was filled with a fair number of bees. Though it was nothing like last year’s delivery day. A warm sunny day. On that day the air, everywhere, was saturated with beating wings of bees. Last year was a freak show of fear – a line of newbies, waiting nervously to pick up their new bees. I can remember carrying our single package of bees, cover with bees inside and out, to the car and being as nervous as I think I ever had been before.

Today though we stepped inside with no fanfare; picking up a few provisions. The store wasn’t crowded at all. After paying, we stepped outside to the garage, handed our receipt and received our two, three-pound packages of bees. This year they slapped some fondant on the outside of one of the boxed packages. The recommendation being that the fondant will last longer than stuffing a marshmallow in the queen’s cell, giving the hive more time to acclimate to her. See, the queen’s cell has a cork in the opening. We remove the cork and plug the opening with fondant, or marshmallow in the past, so she can eat her way out.

As I walked out, holding two pine and mesh boxes, I read a hand written sign telling us to “check our package for a queen and healthy bees. 10,500 lives are depending on you”. No pressure.

Me, decidedly less freaked out this year despite holding twice the number of bees. (okay yes I’m a bit uncomfortable, holding the bees away from my body, grimacing as I wait for a bee to sting me.)

Once home we put the bees in the garage. We can’t dump them in the hive until late afternoon, when it was likelier going to be warmer, and the bees would be inclined to stay in the hive for the night.

Checking in on our bees. They acclimate in the garage for several hours, waiting for late afternoon to be dumped into their new hives.

Two 3# packages of bees. Wood, mesh, a tin can with sugar water and 21,000 humming wonders of nature waiting to get out.

As soon as the bees were home, I had to bolt to goto a work networking lunch. The speaker was no other than internet sensation Chief Oliver from the Brimfield PD. He seems like an awesome guy and his story was inspiring. Pretty cool for a Tuesday.

I made it home in time to work the afternoon away doing my design work. By four o’clock though the time had come to drop the bees in the new hives. We took hives No. 2 and No. 3 out back, as well as our bees. Our oldest helped, decked out in his bee outfit. I spent most of the time taking photographs and video in lieu of helping much.

It was very touching, making memories.

As for the bee install, here’s what you basically do… Set up the bottom board and a “deep” hive box. Take out five of the ten frames. Pick up one of the package boxes, slam it down on the ground, or box or wheelbarrow, so all the bees fall to the bottom. Then pull out the tin can in the package, releasing the bees. The air instantly fills with bees, which is rather unsettling, even though you have a suit on. Then fish out the queen’s cage and set it aside. Take the package and dump it upside down into the hive, where you took out the five frames.

Shake, shake, shake.

Freak out ’cause you have 10,499 pissed off bees everywhere.

Lean the package against the hive stand. Likely there are still a thousand bees inside the package box. They’ll get out on their own accord. If you want, place a stick in there so the lazy ones can crawl out, up and into the hive. After they chill out, you can replace the five frames.

Take the queen cage and a gob of fondant. Deftly remove the cork keeping her in the cage, with a pointy tool like a jewelers screw driver. Make sure she doesn’t get out. Our queens didn’t have attendants in with them this year, so no need to worry about bees besides her. Then squish fondant, plugging the opening. Hang her cage in the middle. “They” say point the plugged opening up and the screen of her cage towards the center. Well the metal hanger on our cages meant I could only really hang her cage with the plug down. The space between frames meant her cage could only face the side instead of the center of the hive.

She’ll be fine. I promise.

Next put some pollen substitute on top of the frames so the bees can eat, since the hive is empty. On top of that place the inner cover, using a brush to sweep your exploring bees off the top of the hive so they don’t get squished. On top of that goes the outer cover.

Christine came back out later today and installed a medium box with a top hive feeder filled with sugar water, on each of the two new hives.

The install of the bees went smoothly for the most part. Initially the wife encountered brain lapse after brain lapse so I had to tell her to quit it, take a deep breath and get her shit together: this was her show. The second hive was a piece of cake, and our guy got to help out pretty much with every step of the process.

Like I said, it was nice to see him and his mom sharing this experience. A new beekeeper, but already she is passing along an important life lesson to the next generation. Of all the experiences I can think of a kid having, I’m not sure I can think of one more important than what his mom gifted him today, and all the days here on out when it comes to raising these bees.

So now we have three hives. All in a row. It’s magical just seeing them there. At one time just an idea, but now reality.

Three hives will do wonders for our flowers and veggies. And our neighbors plants as well for miles around. They won’t even know why their gardens look so goo this year.

But it’s more than flowers. Or food. Or helping bees. Or helping the world we live in.

It’s mostly about experiences and memories I suspect.

Plus, who wouldn’t want 21,000 new friends.

After the bees settle for a couple minutes, the frames are replaced in the hive.

The queen, placed in the hive. It’s debatable which way to orient her cell. What’s not debatable is my apathy towards whatever others have to say about the topic. This is how I did it.

The bees of hive No.2 becoming acclimated in the warm sun shine before the inner cover goes on.

You can see the 3# package sitting relatively empty at the base of hive No.2.

Spanish Pipedream

As you know I like John Prine. I’m draggin’ the wife to go see him in May for our wedding anniversary, when he comes to town. Well while listening to music as I worked tonight I finally listed to the lyrics of ‘Spanish Pipedream’. It made me smile, ’cause it sort of reminds me of this little endeavor of ours; especially in light of our new peach tree acquisition this week. It’s a fun little song, about a guy and a stripper. While I didn’t marry a stripper, the chorus kind of sums things up around here:

 

“Blow up your T.V. throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own”

 

-John Prine ‘Spanish Pipedream’

 

Now that we have the trees I’m suddenly keying in on every peach song I hear on Pandora or wherever. And they seem to be country oriented and relatively happy.

Maybe my brass ring was a peach tree all along.

Pregnant Doe

While taking a break this morning to watch the deer eat the clover in our yard, I noticed the one doe has a distinct bulge in her midsection that the other deer don’t have.

She must be pregnant.

So with a little luck we’ll have a one or two new fawns dancing in the yard before Summer comes.

Our pregnant doe in the foreground.

I’m no scientist, so I don’t know for sure but the other two deer very well could be her fawns from last year.

Having clover in the yard means the deer do some of the mowing chores for me.

Peach Blossom

With great anticipation I kept checking the peach blossoms today. The weather is sunny and not too cold, in the 50’s and 60’s. The wind is calm. So I was hoping the honey bees would find the peach orchard, and they did.

It was exhilarating to watch one of Christine’s bees go from flower to flower pollinating them. While this by no means guarantees we’ll have peaches in August, this at least assures that we’re on the right track; peaches should start growing once the flowers drop.

It really was incredible.

To watch the process first hand. How magnificent the nature works. We take so much for granted, in this age of factory farming and buying all our food at a grocery store. To connect with the natural process – a process that is simple, yet fraught with opportunities for failure – there was something fundamental and spiritual about the whole ordeal. I felt special witnessing it first hand. In a fast paced world where we never find the time to “smell the roses” let alone watch our food being made.

It’s a really special experience and I’m fortunate to be able to witness it right in our back yard.

A honey bee pollinating a peach blossom in our orchard today.

Daisy getting into trouble again.

 

Peaches

Red Haven Semi-Dwarf Peach tree blossoms.

I’m pretty sure we have an addiction that may be borderline unhealthy. Well I know I have several of those, but what I’m specifically speaking about is our addiction to plants, namely trees. Okay, I swear we’re done….for now. It’s just that a certain little blond kid wanted a peach tree when we were at Lowe’s getting the Red Oak tree for Earth Day. Well we rushed out without getting one. Friday was Arbor Day, so what a perfect time to go plant some more trees. Except the weather was crappy. Today we ran out after my Saturday work meetings; took the trailer up to Lowe’s and selected three peach trees.

Now we have an unplanned peach orchard in our back yard.

In theory we’ve got a lot going on self-sustaining-wise. Bees = honey and wax, apples, black berries, raspberries, blue berries, choke berries, various herbs and vegetables, and now peaches.

In reality we haven’t had anything “grow” enough to harvest anything of note. Other than the cucumbers and zucchini last year; and maybe a few herbs.

 

The new peach orchard. Three trees if you’re counting; next to the raspberry bushes and garden.

 

I planted two varieties of peaches: Red Haven and Belle of Georgia. Here’s some Georgia peach history (click here). Both are semi-dwarf varieties which means they should be about 10′-20′ in each direction. Home growers should stick to dwarf or semi-dwarf trees because they are easier to manage and produce fruit earlier in the lifespan of the tree. Peach trees hate wind. Don’t we all? We determined that there’s an alcove between the playground and veggie garden that gets lots of sun and the wind isn’t as strong as everywhere else. The land slopes in the area too, so cold air should pool elsewhere. See, cold frosty air runs over land much like water does, pooling in the low-lying areas. Keep your orchard trees out of the low-lying areas, in the sun and out of the wind and you should be fine.

I spaced our peach trees about 10′-11′ apart in a triangle. According to the cards that came with the trees, they are hardy to -10 to -20 degrees which should be fine. Unlike our apples, the peach trees are self-pollinating, but having two varieties should increase our yield. I will say it may be a moot point because it looks like the Red Haven’s are blossoming earlier than the Belle. I guess we’ll see. Regardless, the flowers are ready for the bees. We just need a little less wind, and the bees to discover the new trees. Then we should have peaches as early as this August if all goes exceedingly well.

Only other things of note: we took a box of junk to the e-recycling event in the park this morning. Of course they wouldn’t take our broken blender which kind of irritated me quite frankly. I took it home and it was easier to take apart than any other electronic device I’ve encountered lately. And voila it had a motor and circuit board – things I would think could be recycled. But “no” big bad e-recycler people don’t want blenders. Whatever. I took it apart, my kid will play with the part and then I’ll dump it all in the next e-recycling box. Except the housing and motor – those will go in a landfill and we all can blame the recycling guys who hate the planet.

Also I fixed the drawer on the wife’s Kohler bathroom cabinet. For whatever reason the wheel started falling out of the track. I bent the track back into place, cleaned the construction debris throughout the track areas and lubricated the wheels on the drawer with some WD-40. Seems better.

And as inspired by my fellow blogger at ’40 Is Like The New 30′, I will share a song to go with this post: none other than ‘Peaches’ by The Presidents of the United States of America.

The new peach orchard. You can see the apple orchard just beyond the two rows of berries to the left.

The broken drawer track. I bent the tab back into place and lubricated the roller wheels on the drawer.

This photo gives you some perspective on how close the deer get at night. My cat enjoys watching them in the yard, as we all do.

Broken blender motor.

Inside of the blender.

 

Quercus Rubra

For Earth Day this year we went to Lowe’s to buy a tree. Christine spied a tall red oak that had a nice trunk caliper. I referenced our landscape master plan and sure enough, it called for two red oaks just east of what was supposed to be the wine garden; which is now our apple orchard.

As we paid for the tree I wasn’t sure if it’d even fit in the RAV4. I told the cashier I may be bringing the tree back. With as much dexterity as two adults and two kids could muster, we delicately put the tree into the Toyota, pointy bits first. I stacked up several bags of stone I had bought for the new bee hive stand, off to one side of the trunk. Propping the root ball end up on the stone pile, I beckoned the wife to come on back – we needed her to sit in the back and hold the tree in place all the way home.

But the tree did fit.

Once home I eyeballed where I thought the plan called for our new leafy friend to go. And I actually was pretty darn close. I dug a hole, added some top soil from the nearby stock pile and our new tree was in place. Judging by the location, someday this oak will tower over the orchard, and actually shade it too much in the morning, but by time it reaches 80′ tall and 50′ wide I’ll be nothing but dust underneath it.

Red Oaks are magnificent trees. I had previously planted several red oak saplings, but alas I don’t think any survive any more. They can live to be 500 years old. Eventually the tree will bear acorns, that the animals will like.

Christine’s oak will look over us for years to come and nurture our land, just as she nurtures our family.

Beyond planting the oak, I also installed stones around the base of the last bee hive stand. Our bees will be ready for pick up in the next couple days, so it’s imperative that we are ready for them.

I also tried to kill some ants at the base of a red bud tree with water and vinegar, as well as cornmeal. Not much luck so far.

The sandbox is under way, but wait for the next post for my over view of that project.

Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Four bags of stone, placed over the tar paper and under the pavers to provide some stability and drainage for the bee hive stand. Also keep the tar paper from flying away.

Every night the deer wander through the yard, only about 15′ from the dining room windows. It’s like living at a zoo. They love the clover in our yard.

I tried killing an ant hill at the base of our red bud tree with a mixture of vinegar and water from a spray bottle. And I poured corn meal around the base as well.

Setting the 4×4 posts for the sandbox with cement.

My jeep made it out of the garage after six long months in the hibernation.

The house as viewed from our country lane.

My Garage Organization Project

Over Easter weekend I tackled a project that I had been looking forward since we moved in: organizing the garage. And while it’s not 100% all good, it’s a huge improvement. I’m loving it.

I rummaged around the garage and came up with a few hollow bi-fold doors that would make perfect shelves. I also had a couple of pieces of 2’x4′ pegboard that I brought from the old house. I supplemented those items with 12′ worth of Gladiator brand organization track, and accessories, as well as premade metal shelf brackets from Lowe’s (~$125 worth of stuff).

First up was putting up a shelf and pegboard above the gardening area. I located the studs at 16″ on center in that area. There is an electrical box and a window in the way so I had to scratch my head a little bit as to where I wanted to mount the shelf brackets. Also I didn’t want to lose vertical height; mounting the shelf brackets above the pegboard, so I decided to mount the brackets ON TOP OF the pegboard.

Pegboard requires 1×2 furring strips so the panel stands off of the wall, allowing the peg hooks to have clearance and work properly. I cut the strips and mounted them over each stud location using my favorite screws: SPAX #8 2-1/2″ wood to wood screws.

1×2 furring strips where each stud lies behind the drywall. I will attach peg boards to the strips, notching it for the windows.

I then mounted the pegboard panel, which I had to notch to clear the window, using smaller 1-1/2″ SPAX screws. On top of the pegboard I then fastened the metal shelf brackets using 2-1/2″ screws, through the bracket, pegboard, furring strip, drywall and into the wood stud.

I mounted the brackets over the pegboard and drywall, where the wall studs are.

Once that was done I was ready for the shelf. Like I said I reused some old hollow bi-fold door panels that were about 6′ x 12″ for the shelf. I had to cut the one end down, at a 45 degree angle to fit, and to make sure we didn’t hit our head as we came and went through the garage man door.  Because the door is hollow, the cut end looks weird but form follows function, and the door, er, shelf material was free after all. I used 1-1/2″ deck / drywall screws to attach the bottom of the shelf to the metal brackets. I also ran a 2-1/2″ screw through the top of the shelf into the top of the furring strips – the doors have solid would all along the perimeter so by running a screw through there where I could was an added measure of security.

Lining up the 45 degree cut on the hollow bi-fold door. Measure 12 inches up on both sides of the square along the same edge.

The door are hollow and my SPAX screws proved to aggressive to attach the bottom of the bracket to the shelf. So I used some small deck / drywall screws that worked just right.

Here you can see the 45 degree angle I cut on the end of the hollow bi-fold door that is now my garage shelf.

Well we’re a little more organized now.

Here you can see I added another piece of pegboard and shelf to the other side.

It was nice to have the added organization space above the garden work area and my work bench. I mirrored the set up on the other side of the window and was good to go.

Next up I quickly added a 1/2″ plywood shelf over the toy area per the wife’s request. I used up some scrap material and mounted that to three simpler metal brackets.

I added this quick simple shelf, made of 1/2″ plywood and store bought brackets.

Over to the far end of the garage I had a pile of yard tools leaning up in a pile in the corner. My plan was to put a Gladiator brand track up, then a bi-fold door shelf above that, and then way up high use a couple hooks I had lying around to hang up the extension ladder.

It took some time but I decided to run all 12′ of track in one line, even with the bottom of the window. The stud layout worked out perfectly – I didn’t have to cut any of the tracks. I decided not to temp fate though, and I predrilled all the tracks, in prep for using more 2-1/2″ wood screws to mount the them to the wall. I used a level, marked my studs and the tracks went up without any cause for concern.

Drilling pilot holes in the Gladiator track before mounting them to the wall.

A detail of the Gladiator track installed. I used 2-1/2″ long SPAX screws.

I then mounted shelf brackets above the track, the door shelf to the brackets and eventually the ladder hooks way up high. I intentionally tried to stagger how much I was screwing into each stud to try to keep the load distributed across the wall. The track goes into every stud obviously. Shelf brackets, I mounted those higher and tried to skip a few studs. Then the ladder hooks higher up on lesser used studs.

In addition to the Gladiator track I added another hollow bi-fold door shelf and even hung up the extension ladder way up high, out-of-the-way.

I spent some time noodling over the Gladiator accessories I had purchased, but eventually got a set up I liked. Just above the electric trimmer I mounted the battery charger, using my favorite wall anchors and screws.  The charger is conveniently located near an outlet.

I mounted the charger for the trimmer just above the track, near the trimmer and an outlet.

Now our garage is organized. For the most part. And I can start enjoying it. I can’t wait to work in the garden, or make bird boxes, with all our tools, and supplies easily accessible. The best part is I was able to use many materials that we had on hand, so it kept costs down.

Have any questions?

Know any tips or tricks?

Share in the comments below.

Ranking Movies My Kids Watch – Part 2

Lorax. photo from IMDB.com screenshot.

Well the wife and I never connected to arrive at a consensus on the top ten list, so I’ll take a stab at it with my thoughts. I’m not sure I can rank them in order, so consider this our top ten (plus some more) animated movies that our kids (and we watch) but not necessarily in this order. Because they’re all kind of different, I’m not sure we could rank them anyway; sort of like comparing apples and oranges. Besides, even if we’re on a deserted island, we could grab more than one DVD for entertainment, I bet.

Drum roll please….

The Lorax – We saw this gem at the theater while on vacation with our oldest. I believe I liked it then but the wife luke-warm. For whatever reason we bought it on DVD and it grew on us. I love the environmental message. For the non-tree hugging crew there are plenty of great songs and the Dr. Suess inspired story line is fast paced, cohesive and illustrated very nicely. If it’s not our number one, it’s definitely in the top five.

Despicable Me – I didn’t know what to expect when we first saw the movie, but turns out it’s one of our favorites. It’s hilarious, heart warming and there are plenty of one-liners, memorable moments and subtle distractions to keep you coming back for repeat viewings. The animation is artfully fantastic.

Despicable Me 2 – The sequel is nearly as good as the original, and in our top ten regardless. New characters, new story but the same great animation, humor and action to keep the whole family engaged.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs – I suspect this might be Christine’s favorite set of movies. Cloudy does a nice job, despite a departed mom, of keeping things upbeat. The movie is a cornucopia of visual delights and requite subtle dialogue details that we seemingly see or hear something new every time we watch.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 – Another sequel makes our list. It’s more of what we love, including all of our favorite characters. Probably the only reason I might like this one less than the first is a couple of the new characters, but all in all the movie comes through with more visual delights and snappy one-liners.

Tangled – This newer classic is my favorite Disney movie of all time. ‘I’ve Got A Dream’ is the best song in any animated movie, ever. Bar none. There’s more to love than just one song though: a good story, funny characters and even a cute little chameleon make for a wonderfully good time.

Turbo – We had no interest in ‘Turbo when we saw the previews. I’m not even sure what prompted us to rent it. But we’re glad we did. It’s a really cute upbeat movie, which is important with any kid movie that you’re likely to watch over and over again. The action is non-stop.

Hotel Transylvania – Another movie that we didn’t pay much attention to. And another one that delights the whole way through, from start to finish. Once again there’s a missing mom, but that doesn’t bring us down as the movie is humorous and the animation is fantastic. Well worth checking out.

Ratatouille – Who would have thought a movie about rats would be good? Well turns out this one is more than just good. A Disney / Pixar combo means the animation is top-notch. The story line stands out and is heart warming. One of my personal favorites.

Cars – I have a love hate relationship with cars. The animation is great and our one son watches Cars…..actually Cars 2, all the time, so it deserves a showing in our top ten. It’s an emotional roller coaster with funny moments, sad moments and heart-felt moments. At some point I probably well up every time I watch, even to this day. I have issue with the fact that cars don’t have arms and hands so how do they take care of themselves in a decidedly human centric world, devoid of actual humans. Regardless, ‘Cars’ earns it’s spot.

Honorable mentions (or the movies beyond the top ten)

Rio – we just saw this gem about a blue parrot a few weeks ago when it was on TV for free. For me, I have it a 9 right out of the gate, in fact I’d put it in my top 5 quite possibly. It’s upbeat, cute, and has a fun story. And it stays away from being too annoying at times, when it easily could have been. After ten minutes, I was smitten.

How To Train Your Dragon – I don’t know how this isn’t in the top ten. It’s a delightful movie. Though yet again, the mom is missing – what the hell is it with people who write these kids movies. Anyway, the main dragon reminds me of my black kitty which that alone earns it extra points. The animation is good, and the story packs plenty of interest and top-notch animation.

Cars 2 – It’s been on almost every day for the year. I’ve never actually watched it start to finish, but have seen it all. Same great animation, car crashes, and some new characters.

Ice Age 1 & 2 – The first two installments, of this four part series are likely the best in terms of music and one-liners. The other two are okay, but the return on investment dwindles with every subsequent installment.

There you have it, our top ten plus list of animated movies for our kids.

What movies would you add to the list?

What’s your favorite?

Share in the comments below.

 

My Earth Day 2014 Post – Household Eco-Tips

A deer feeds on clover on Earth Day this year. In the background are the tupelo trees we planted last year on Earth Day.

First things first, this is not the as promised conclusion to ‘Ranking Movies My Kid’s Watch’ as I promised in my last post. Normally I’d keep putting it off and not write about anything else, but because this is Earth Day I felt compelled to leap-frog and write a post today. I’m trying to include my wife in on the movie decision process, but the votes are not in yet; we are still evaluating.

One more aside, as I write this she just texted me that she had a tick on her forehead, so tick season is officially underway. I’m sure I’ll be under strict orders to build a guinea fowl house this weekend. I’m not proud, I will freely accept donations of time, money or materials to rid our land of ticks. She isn’t even outside, she’s working. The tick must’ve come from my car or something. Ugh I don’t have the capacity to deal with all of this.

Okay, back to Earth Day. It’s a special day because it marks the 2nd anniversary of our moving into our home. It was merely a coincidence but I like that the house move anniversary falls on this day because of all the environmentally sustainable things we did in building the house and landscape.

We’re planning on going out and buying a small tree to plant to mark the occasion later today. I’ll share that adventure in a future post. I’m thinking something with nuts so we can attract more squirrels. Of course any tree we buy will be tiny – thus any nuts, and subsequent squirrels will come roughly forty years after I’m dead. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts right.

I’ve been super busy in the garage and outside working on the sand box, so I’ll have upcoming posts on those activities as well (hopefully I’ll have some useful tips and tricks for the DIY’er inside of you or in your household).  But I will wait to post those after posting part 2 of the movie ratings, as promised.

Household Eco Tips

For Earth Day, here are my informal tips for making your home more eco-friendly.

Recycle – Think of everything that comes through your house as raw materials, many of which can be recycled. What you can recycle and how it’s recycled varies by community so check around, with your waste hauler or community website, so learn specific details that apply to your household. Generally speaking paper, plastics (#1 & #2 especially), and metals can all be easily recycled. We have a container in our kitchen for plastic and metal. I collect everything paper – clean food boxes, office paper and corrugated boxes – and have a pile in my studio. Every other week or so I haul it all up to a Paper Retriever location. Did you know that many recycling facilities can even recycle milk and juice containers? Check with your waste hauler to see what they take

As for electronics, there should be local companies or even community events to take your used computers, batteries, cords and whatnot to get recycled. Either erase computer hard drives or take make sure the recycling company will erase the contents. Also check to make sure they’re not sending your waste overseas to China or India – it’s not uncommon for the U.S. to send e-waste overseas for disassembly in less than socially or environmentally responsible ways.

Food can be recycled by starting a compost pile in your yard. There are plenty of sources on the web and at your local garden center to help you on the path of composting.

In the end if you recycle most of what comes into your house, the actual amount of garbage you’re putting on the curb should diminish significantly. Remember, everything you throw in the garbage is something you paid good money for but has no value in your life, so you’re just throwing it away. Seems like a waste

Reduce – And on that note, throwing away stuff that you paid good money for, think about reducing the amount of stuff you bring into your home. Work to buy things that are durable or can be repaired. This is hard to do with kids, trust me I know – often times you can’t control what comes into the house in the form of gifts, impulse buys or gifts of appeasement. If you need something, do your homework and be an informed consumer. Read reviews, understand your needs and vote with your money. Buy from companies that are working to preserve the environment and social well-being. Support their bottom line and reward their initiative with your dollars. I’m a believer in capitalistic free-market karma.

LED Light Bulbs – Do yourself a favor, start buying LED light bulbs from now on. The price has come down significantly, they last over 20,000 hours in some cases, and they pay for themselves in energy savings in a matter of just a couple of years. Since they last so long, they also reduce your maintenance workload which means more time golfing and less time running up to Lowe’s. Plus lowering your electricity bills every month means more money to spend on golf balls. LED’s are available in a wide range of color temperatures from cool to warm, as well as various shapes for every application in your home.

Eliminate Plastic Grocery Bags – No. 4 Plastic bags, like those you get at the grocery store are impossible to recycle with other plastics. Do not place these in your recycling bin. Instead gather them, and other clean No. 4 plastic bags, and recycle them at the grocery store. Better yet, try to eliminate them all together by using reusable cloth bags to get your groceries. The cloth bags are great because you can load them up with more items than plastic or paper bags, which means fewer trips from the car to your kitchen.

Make Your Yard Nature Friendly – There are all kinds of things you can do outside to make your yard more nature and family friendly. Use natural fertilizers and stop using harmful petroleum-based fertilizers. You ever notice the little “keep kids and pets off” signs those landscapers put up after fertilizing people’s lawns? Why would you want something on your lawn that could kill your kid, just so you can have grass that is greener than your neighbors? We need to stop having perfect grass as the universal symbol of happiness in our residential world. There are plenty of organic ways to encourage grass to grow. And while you’re at it, plant grasses that require less maintenance and water. Additionally clover is a great plant for your yard. Bees and deer love clover, and it stays green year round.

Set up a rain barrel to collect free rain water from your gutters that can be used in your garden or yard for irrigation.

Plant native trees, plants and flowers. Not only will the bees and birds love them, they also require less watering (if any watering at all) and are naturally tolerant of your locale which means less maintenance (and more time golfing).

Speaking of wildlife, create habitat for them to live and raise their young. Plant milkweed for monarch butterflies. Native wildflowers and clover for bees. A brush pile for small mammals. An overturned pot with a “door” for toads. Build and mount a bat house, or box for nesting owls, ducks or birds.

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These are just some ideas I had off the top of my head. One of these days I’ll find the time to do some hardcore research and give you a laundry list of resources. The main thing you should take away is that environmental sustainability:

– often saves you money in the long run, or at least asks that you start paying the real cost of life’s necessities

– often saves you time in the long run, or makes life easier if you’re lazy like me

– can be a lot of fun and personally rewarding, as well as a great way to include the whole family and community

What tips do you have to save time, money and help the environment in your household?

Share in the comments below.

 

 

 

Ranking Movies My Kid’s Watch – Part I

Screen shot from the Disney ‘Tangled’ website – used without permission because I’m a bad person. Visit them at http://movies.disney.com/tangled

As any parent knows, once you have kids in this day and age, you tend to watch a lot of animated movies. You can be as idealistic as you want but there’s no way around it. We always have something on in the background. And if we like a movie (we rate them on a scale from 1-10), we’ll bestow the greatest of honors upon it: we’ll buy it on DVD. Yes, I know you can see most of this stuff for free through streaming video, but really it’s just easier to put a physical disc in the player. We are old-fashioned I guess. Heck we even have quite a few VHS tapes as well.

I love movies. I love going to the theater or watching them at home. It’s probably one of my most favorite things in the world to do. Call me an escapist I guess. But with two small children in the house I, my wife as well, get to watch very few grown-up movies. I can count on one hand the number of dramatic, scary, violent movies I’ve seen in the last several years. Maybe if we’re “lucky” we sneak in a romantic comedy on a rainy Saturday afternoon. If I do want to watch something R-rated, or even PG-13 I have to wait until after the kids are in bed. By then it’s usually 10pm and I’m exhausted from watching my wife raise the kids all day long.

So when life give you lemons, make lemonade. In fact there are plenty of kids’ movies that we throughly enjoy. Could be that I’d even watch one or two in my studio by myself if I was painting or needed background noise.

Over dinner last night the wife and I made a list of our favorite animated kid movies. We then listed the qualities we would use to rank the movies. In this post I’ll go over our not-scientific-at-all criteria as well as the list of nominees. In the next post I’ll share our rankings for the our top ten (maybe twenty if I’m feeling frisky).

Our Criteria For Liking A Kid’s Movie

Music – Off the top of my head I think all these kids’ movies have music, either songs written specifically for the movie, like that non-sense they keep playing from ‘Frozen’ on the radio, or regular songs such as ‘Send Me On My Way’ by Rusted Root in ‘Ice Age’. If there is at least one catchy tune, and not too many bad ones, rest assured it will increase our chances of liking it.

One Liners – Witty, clever, memorable dialogue can make a kid flick stand out. If we watch the same movie forty-two times in a row and we still chuckle at the same line every time, then that movie definitely “Snailed it”.

Plausibility – Ok, this is mostly my criteria and it’s hard to explain. See, most…okay all of these movies are not realistic compared to the real world. And I don’t have a problem with that. Fast snails, talking birds, monsters going to school…I’m down with all of that. What I’m not down with is a world made up solely of ‘Cars’, where everyone has very human like qualities and needs. They don’t have opposable thumbs…how do they manage doing anything remotely human without actual humans or even small helper robots. How do they apply their rear bumper ointment? Do other cars have to do that for them?  Gross. Usually in sequels and whatnot the producers will back off a little and start to apply fixes for this sort of thing, such as a fork lift that can mix drinks, after they realize the insanity of their ways. How do they pick up a martini glass though…

Animation – This is the eye candy part. Technology has gotten to the point where everything is essentially photo realistic. Regardless though, the look, style and quality play into how well we enjoy a movie. Back in the old days, like when ‘Bugs Life’ came out, animation was pretty good. Movies like ‘Open Season’ lose out because the animation isn’t our cup of tea. We need to be immersed in another world, and balance tech wizardry with cuteness and plausibility. Pixar is likely the gold standard for animation, but now days almost everyone has got their act together, unless they’re trying to be edgy or arty.

Feel Good – It goes without saying, the story has to make us feel good and be happy. If I want to be depressed I’d pay Disney to animate my life story. We didn’t even bother watching ‘Toy Story 3‘. And ‘Up!‘ may as well have come with a bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of Jack. Look, I’m likely to cry even during a happy movie, I don’t need to bring an entire box of Kleenex with me. Beware of movies that transcend generations or time periods – death is unavoidable.

Storyline – As with any movie a good storyline is a must. All the other stuff doesn’t matter if the story isn’t engaging. We need a start, middle, ending. We need good characters, heroes, bad-guys, and preferably a cute sidekick or animal. Bonus points for a car crash.

Who’s Dead Or Dying – No one should be dead or dying, but if someone must, we’ll factor that in subconsciously. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, like when Paul Newman died between ‘Cars’ and ‘Cars 2’ they had to knock off his character but it was handled nicely – the kids would never pick up on that, just us old farts who miss the actor. Other times they knock off a character, usually a wife or mother, much to the chagrin of my wife. Usually dad’s are okay in kids movies.

Kid Friendly – Some animated movies seem kid friendly but if we feel uncomfortable watching them for fear we may have to explain something messy, like death, to our kids; or if the animation is scary, we likely will stop the movie or at least not watch it again. I think we watched ‘Frankenweenie’ and I spent the whole movie asking myself what have I done as my kids watched in mild horror.

Watch-ability Over And Over – After all, my kid is likely going to want to watch the movie a few thousand times. Which means we’ll have to listen to it over and over again while we hide in the other room. I’ve never actually sat down and watched ‘Cars 2’ from start to finish, but I’ve seen it 37,659 times already.

Previews – One other note, a movie trailer or the name of the studio making the film will sway our decision to watch it or not initially. Some movies got good reviews but we’re just not interested. Others we felt that way and stumbled upon them for free on TV and loved them.

There you have it, those are the general criteria we use. Below is the list we compiled of contenders for our rankings. If movie isn’t here then we don’t even consider it to be close to the top ten for the reasons stated above, or we simply haven’t seen it.

Add your favorites in the comments below!

Also, parents, what’s your criteria for evaluating kids’ movies?

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The List Of Nominees For Our Top Ten (maybe twenty)

Turbo

Tangled

Despicable Me

Despicable Me 2

Lorax

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2

Frozen

Finding Nemo

Over The Hedge

Ice Age

Ice Age 2

Ice Age 3

Ice Age 4

Toy Story

Toy Story 2

Rio

Horton Hears A Who

Cars

Cars 2

Ratatouille

Hotel Transylvania

Megamind

Monsters vs. Aliens

Monsters Inc.

Monsters University

Meet The Robinsons

Brave

How To Train Your Dragon

Wall•E

A Bugs Life

Planes

The Incredibles

Bolt