Beauty Farming Life

What in the heck are these? Closeup of compost turner and how it works No, they are not the latest in zombie killing tools from an upcoming episode of  The Walking Dead TV show.  No, they are a pair of "Compost Turners" that I bought when we got our bins last month.  They were out at the time and I went ahead and bought them and just picked them up the other day. Here is how they work: Compost Turner by Orbis You push it down into the compost pile, and as it goes in, the hinged end closes so it travels downward into the compost.  Then when you pull up on it, the hinged head opens up and creates resistance so that it mixes the compost, or turns it, as you pull up.  You simply do this several times up and down.  We bought two because we figured we might spend half our time walking back and forth to each compost bin as we forget the turner...plus if one fails, we'll at least have a backup. Compost Turners at Amazon These...

We have not started our compost pile yet, hope to do that soon, but I've been doing some research so that I can learn more about it ahead of time and I thought I'd share that in a series of articles about composting. When you get ready to start, there are decisions that need to be made when you get ready to throw away trash.  Does it just go to the regular trash?  Or the recycle bin?  Or, can you put it in your compost pile? I would think that most of the time it will be fairly obvious, but since I'm going to be new to composting, I wondered what should NOT go into the the soon to be compost bin?  I found the following information to be very helpful: Typical Home Compost Bin Breads - All types of bread products, including cakes, pasta and baked goods, should not go into the pile because they can attract pests. Cooking Oils  - Another kitchen item that should go into the trash bin instead of the compost ...

T-Shirts as Cleaning Cloths This weekend, 2nd Man and I realized that it was time for some new T-shirts since we both wear them everyday under our work shirts and the previous ones were pushing a couple years old.  So we ran down to our  favorite store  and bought new ones.  Since we strive, in our own little ways, to be as green as we can, we decided the farmhouse could use some cleaning cloths. So we washed a load of whites with just the old T-shirts, folded them, and found this really cool basket to keep them in.  They are now located in the "farm holding room" (formally known as the "guest room") at the city house, waiting to go out to their new home the mudroom at the farm. T-shirts make great rags to use for cleaning.  They are 100% cotton, lint free, soft (usually very soft after having been worn and washed a hundred times), and they work for all sorts of projects.  You can clean windows with them, counters, wa...

Green Farm Living EcoSMART Ant and Roach Killer We stumbled across this a few weeks ago while shopping.  We figured it was good to have something under the sink at the farm in case we ran across a bug of some sort.  It IS a farm after all, ha. Side note:  I'm not the type to just kill all bugs.  I've been known to trap a spider in a cup and release it outside.  Many spiders can actually be beneficial.  But roaches, ants, and other things like that, yeah, they pretty much need to go.  So we got some bug spray.   Wanting to start this farmhouse from as green a standpoint as possible, we saw this and decided to give it a try.  Oh my gosh, we LOVE this stuff.  We encountered a roach, one of those big flying kinds (by the way, if you don't have those wherever you are, count yourself lucky). We sprayed it and it worked like a charm.  What's the best part of all of this?  The spray itself is no...

Occasionally, I want to send you to a neat website that I found either on my own or one of you great readers found and I got hooked on. In this case today, it was one of you that directed me there.  The other day, I was visiting Dani's wonderful blog, Eco Footprint South Africa, CLICK HERE  to visit her website, and she had posted a link to a really cool website and I'm sharing that with you here. It's a website that has pictures, hundreds and hundreds, of interesting and amazing ways that people have re purposed, or reused everyday products. The website is http://www.recyclart.org/ . As she did at her site, here are a few of my favorite ideas: Cork Plant Label - I am SO doing this, time to start saving corks Old Rolling Pin Wall Hooks - I could do this with some old rolling pins we have Cheese Grater Wall Storage - I could see MANY uses for something like this Now, they don't give you instructions, it's more just for inspiration, but wow, w...

Here is a very cool website I recently discovered.  It's caled Local Harvest, and is an AWESOME online resource for eating and shopping for food locally.  In you aren't sure what that is or what that means, essentially it's a movement that is trying to get people to eat food from local suppliers.  That means you will get the best food, the freshest food, and best of all, you will support your local farmers, and that's always an important thing. CLICK HERE TO VISIT LOCALHARVEST.ORG  At their WEBSITE , they have this awesome map that is interactive, meaning you can click and zoom down to where you live and see what's around you.  All those dots on the map are farms, farmer's markets, co ops, meat processors, even restaurants serving it, that are local to the area you are in. Did you know that when you buy food at the grocery store, only 18 cents of your dollar goes to the actual farmer/grower and the other 82 cents goes to vario...

Now that the garden area is planned and clearing should begin soon, I need to move ahead with some other stuff for Spring plans.  With the new year here, and time for resolutions  goals, I'm going to make this one of the must do things on the list: Did you know that a 1000 square foot roof, with just 1/2 inch of rain, can provide you with 300 HUNDRED gallons of water?  With Houston's record breaking drought still ongoing, and worries it might persist into next year, we are strongly leaning toward getting a rain barrel, or perhaps even several.  As you can see in this photo, this is the back corner (one of them anyway) of our house and we think it's the perfect spot to collect all the "free water" that falls from the sky. Rain Barrel location? The first thing we need to do is have gutters put on the house.  It's never had them.  Setting aside the water conservation advantages, since we just had the foundation repaired earlier this s...

We got an email from the City of Houston, saying that because of the recent heavy rains and the cooler weather, they have lifted the water restrictions.   That's good news of course, though my guess is that it's short lived.  They are talking about the drought continuing into next Summer, so any rains we get until then will just replenish what we lost and not even get us back to the pre-drought levels.  But still, it's good and welcome news.   In their email, they asked people to voluntarily continue to conserve water and seeing that it's such a precious commodity, I agree 100%.  They sent out a list of tips on water conservation and so I thought I would share. Every drop is precious   Ways to use water wisely: Keep showers under five minutes.  Water save: 2 to 5 gallons per minute Remember to turn off water while brushing your teeth Wash only full loads of dishes or clothes Replace older model shower heads and faucet aerators with new low-flow ...

We found a really nice stainless trashcan on sale the other day and that was something that we didn't have for the farm just yet.   It's really nice, a good size (13 gallon), and has a removable inner bin to keep things clean. It's funny how finding a location for something so important as a trash can is not very easy in a hew home.  We tried the mudroom first.  Then we moved it around the kitchen about three more times before we found its permanent home.  This is still in the kitchen, but close enough to the guest room, the master bedroom and the living room to be a great central location.   We also found these awesome new (new to us anyway!) trash bags made by Hefty brand.  They are made with 65% recycled plastic and we love that. It helps us keep things "green" at the farm. Slowly but surely, things are falling into place.

 EQUAL PARTS: Several of you asked about the Fire Ant killer I used, it's a simple mixture of lemon juice and vinegar poured over the ant mound.  It's all natural and has worked well for us. I poured about 2 cups total over the large mound we had.  Hope it helps!

Beeswax Lubricating Compound Have you all ever used this stuff?  I just discovered it the other day at a local hardware store (mom and pop type store, not the big box type). I used it on some wood screws and they screwed into the wood perfectly without even drilling a pilot hole first.  I'm going to try it next on a drawer on a piece of furniture that is constantly sticking.  It looks like it has a long list of uses, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.  I like that it's all 100% natural, no chemicals, nothing that will hurt you or the environment. If you can find some, you should try it, it's pretty neat. It would be even neater if we could sometime get this from our own hives!

 EQUAL PARTS: Several of you asked about the Fire Ant killer I used, it's a simple mixture of lemon juice and vinegar poured over the ant mound.  It's all natural and has worked well for us. I poured about 2 cups total over the large mound we had.  Hope it helps!

So today, the City of Houston had a really neat sale.  This group goes around the country and they come up with a deal for the various cities and then sell rain barrels and compost bins at discounted prices to residents. Above are the two items they had, we got this flyer in our water bill a couple of weeks ago.  We debated on the rain barrel but a) we don't have gutters on the farm house yet and b) I'd really like to make our own. So we opted for compost bins.  Two of them! Rain barrel and compost bin sale Houston So, on an overcast cool morning in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers, people started  showing up. I got there about 15 minutes before the sale started... Standing room only ...and this was already the line... People in line for the rain barrel sale ...and it continued down and around the block.  Hundreds of people.  It was really kind of nice to see actually, all these people taking home rain barrels an...

This is the compost bin that we got at the recent City of Houston sale I blogged about last week.  It is the EARTH MACHINE , which is also sold at many retailers.  We were able to get it via the city for a steeply discounted price and we bought two of them so we could double our fun, ha. They came packaged like this, the top half inside the bottom half, along with a manual and some earth anchor screws. It was pretty easy to assemble.  You line up the arrows on the top half with the bottom half and then the tabs snap into place.  All that's left is to snap the door into place and find a spot for it to go. Once you pick the spot, there are four of these long plastic screws that they call 'earth anchors'.  The are just screwed into the ground and surprisingly, they work really well to stabilize it. This is where we put them, one in each corner of the back side of the garden area.  They are inside...