Category: Home and Garden

Natural Products and ideas for your home

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Making a small drying rack from an old bike tire

I’ve go a project/anecdote for you!  My friend Tammy showed me how to make a drying rack for clothes from an old bike wheel and it is amazing.

All you need is:

  • an old bike wheel (try freecycle or just ask around)
  • three zip ties (optional but helpful)
  • ~36 clothespins
  • some rope
  • a carabiner clip or similar (see the anecdote below)
  1. Spray and scrub down the old bike wheel. It doesn’t have to be spotless, but anything dirt on the wheel may end up on your drying items!
  2. Attach the three zip ties equidistant around the wheel, loosely (larger zip ties are best)!
  3. Use three same-size lengths of rope to the zip ties and together (for this, I deconstructed a topsy-turvy tomato grower and used some of the metal hanging wires).
  4. Optional – attach three lengths to the carabiner rather than tie together
  5.  Tie more rope to the three lengths/carabiner; use enough to be able to hang from a tree or whatever you can find.
  6. Finally, attach the clothespins and you have your drying contraption!

This works GREAT for small kitchens cloths but especially for cloth tissues, like the ones I showed you in a previous email. This is something you can easily make and use in a small backyard and even inside if you have the space!

And now for the anecdote… Tuesday I did a bunch of laundry without paying attention to the weather (note to self: that wasn’t smart). When the sky darkened I ran out and carried in my drying racks and took down the clothes from the lines but it was already sprinkling and I didn’t want to take each individual tissue and cloth off of the bike wheel rack, so I did the next best thing… I covered the whole thing in a poncho! It worked! Two hours later I returned and everything was no more damp than it had been before the rain! Now I think I should install a clip so I can remove this drying rack before this happens again but in case I don’t get to it, at least I know the poncho trick works!

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Homemade tissues can help break our reliance on single-use products

Sometimes breaking our reliance on single-use products can be difficult. Here is one easy way to start! For years, we have been using our own tissues at home rather than buying a box after box of paper tissues from the store. Cloth tissues are easy to make and care for. To make your own cloth tissues, you simply need a piece of flannel cloth. I like to use ripped sheets, but if I don’t have any I will run to a thrift store and look for a flannel sheet to buy. If you want to start small, a pillowcase will make quite a few!

Cut your flannel sheet into squares. I like mine to be about 8 inches square but have them in many different sizes because I didn’t want any leftover fabric. After cutting, you’re done if you want! Fold your tissues and store in a container around the house. You can also choose to bind the edges by surging or folding over and sewing. I don’t do that anymore; it takes more time and my kids prefer quantity over quality when they’ve got colds. Eventually the flannel unravels, but that’s generally about the time they’re getting stained or holey and they end up in the compost pile.
To care for your tissues; simply throw into the wash with your other laundry!

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Plastic-free and Low-plastic Products

Plastic-free July with Koofie's Natural Living photos of products

Plastic-free July is in full swing and for those of you looking to lower your plastic use, I’ve made a list of our nearly plastic-free and low-plastic products!

“Nearly plastic-free” products will generally only have a thin plastic film label, with no other plastic in the product packaging (or product!).

“Low plastic” products will have a glass container with a plastic top, or some other small use of plastic

Please also CONTACT US if you’re interested in other products in a low plastic or nearly plastic-free packaging; most of our products can be stored in different packaging. All of the plastic used in shipping has been re-used (except for tape) but we are happy to ship without the use of airbags or bubble wrap if you prefer.

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Real Life Math

Today, Ari’s math didn’t come from a book or a worksheet. Instead she budgeted for a shopping trip and made the purchases for our family! It was a busy afternoon; we planned to go to the library (free!) and then we needed to visit the farmer’s market, BJ’s, Michaels, the grocery store and a local farm store. Before we left we made a list of the items we needed and I estimated what I thought each cost. Then, we built some money into the budget because I inevitably forget a lot on the lists!

It started off well as she noticed a sign for $.05 off gas on Thursdays just as my tank was about to hit “empty”. She calculated it out and we saved $.42 due to her “eagle eyes”.

After our weekly visit to the library, we decided to go to Michael’s first.  This is the place we can spend the most money AND it was the furthest, so I decided to test Ari’s budget skills! She passed with flying colors, though I did insist we buy something on “one-day-only” sale.

BJ’s went just as well (darn, we forgot bananas from the list too), and we carried on to the farmer’s market. Our budgeting was a bit trickier here because some of the needed items were not what I regularly buy and I had to estimate. Ari kept us on track and as we figured out what we could spend to have enough for other items, she made sure we weren’t going overboard. I was not allowed to buy a second dozen eggs “just in case” or any shitake mushrooms that were a surprise (she hates mushrooms) and she reasoned with me that we needed to buy some milk and chicken, which I had forgotten on the list… sigh.

We worked in a bit of math with Abby too, as she was given $1 to spend and we informed her honey sticks (her favorite) were 4/$1 at the farmer’s market or 5/$1 at the farm store. She resisted the immediate temptation and saved her money for later.

Ari reasoned we needed to go to the grocery store next so we knew just how much we had left for the farm store, where we obtain our milk and meat. We ended up with enough left to buy our milk, chicken and some fruit with a tiny bit extra! As a thank you for a great job Ari and Abby were each given $2 to spend (black cherry soda and chocolate milk respectively) and adorably, they switched drinks halfway through the ride home.

Ari was really proud of herself for not only sticking to a budget but also not losing the money(!). I can’t imagine why I didn’t do this before and I’m pretty sure this will become our weekly ritual.

But I just remembered I forgot to get something we need at BJ’s 🙁

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MENF Wrap-up: A Homesteader’s Hindsight

The second session I attended at the Mother Earth News Fair on Saturday was “A Homesteader’s Hindsight: 20 great ideas and 20 not-so-great ideas” presented by Philip Ackerman-Leist, author of the book Up Tunket Road and professor of Environmental Studies at Green Mountain College. The idea of learning from someone else’s mistakes is perfect; who better to tell you what to do and what not to do then someone who has done it all already?

The session started off when he told the audience to first pick a realist for a partner – check! –  and to be very clear in your wedding vows (buy me a farm in the mountains) – I missed this one. He said the burnout potential for homesteaders is very high, and many relationships don’t survive it. Some of his advice was pretty common sense, but would be easy to overlook in your desire for property:

  • If you have a spot that wants to be a pond, make a pond
  • If you have a road that wants to be a river, don’t buy the property or you will be walking in and out of your homestead
  • Build a house on a firm foundation with a shaped basement (square) – heat rises
  • If you are building in the north, don’t build a house on sono-tubes like they do in the south – what works in one place may not work in another
  • Build a garage or tool shed first (it gives you a place to store tools so you don’t have sharp objects hanging around your living space
  • Build an outhouse with a view
  • Build it right the first time
  • Search out your neighbors – the will be a great source of information
  • Right of way – it is best not to share a driveway because you may not always agree on what needs to be done
  • Always remember to check township rules and local ordinances before you buy!
  • Take a chain saw safety class
  • You may not need a sawmill (but try sawmillexchange.com if you do)
  • Live on the site for a year or more before you build
  • If you can, live in a state with good health insurance
  • Don’t get kicked by a cow (whether you have good health insurance or not)
  • Your community can save you/ homesteading is all about interdependence despite the “doing it on your own” hype
  • Live the questions – put your values to work
  • Don’t assume new always means good or old always means sustainable
  • Animals and gardens will become the center of your day
  • The homestead can become a constraint
  • Visit other homesteads to get ideas and if you can, ask about finances – it’s the topic no one talks about that everyone needs to! – see below
  • When you visit a homestead, remember you are seeing it at only one point in time. How long did it take to get there? 5 years, 20 years?
  • Be clear in what type of homesteader you are
  • Look for these books: New Pioneers: The Back-to-the-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future by Jeffrey Jacob and At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America by Rebecca Kneale Gould
  • Don’t set yourself up to be a superhero
  • Begin as a homestead and then segue into a farm if that is the direction you would like to go.
  • Farming might take away from the homestead; for instance the home garden may not get as much care as your focus shifts
  • Farming takes you from producing to marketing
  • Thrift stores are a great way to get what you need for cheap
  • BUT… you don’t want to buy someone else’s problem
  • Homeschooling -> comes out of teaching to the test
  • It might be a good idea if, for instance, your kids would have to spend 1.5 hours or more just getting to and from the bus stop
  • Homeschooling also:
    • makes you tighter as a family unit
    • kids get more exercise (school has very few outside activities)
    • you get “stolen lessons” – those things kids learn just by being there
  • A lot of homesteaders have an off-the-homestead job to provide income that is re-invested in the farm
  • The trade-off is the person who works off-homestead becomes more distant from the family
  • If you feel good about what you are doing, share it!
  • “You can judge a person by the integrity of their compromises”

Answers to audience questions:

  • Solar panels on his farm – 800w system
  • Grid tie in is better than stand-alone
  • Solar Water pays off quicker than a solar electric system, so that is usually the best investment
  • His house has a 24×36 basement + 2 levels and an open attic and a separate entrance for bedrooms so they can be rented
  • Finances:
    • $50k / year from job
    • house was $140k to build
    • they bought more land with an inheritance
    • to prepare for college, it is better to have $ invested in land than in the bank
    • pay off mortgage ASAP

The above tips were what I gleaned from the presentation, which was peppered with stories about life on his homestead. It was a wonderful, entertaining session and while the information he gave is above (to the best of my abilities), actually being there was fun! He also answered questions from the audience, and you can see the answers above.