Category: Product Reviews

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MENF Wrap-up: Overview

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, PA. This is my second year attending and I am hooked! If you haven’t heard of it, the fair is sponsored by Mother Earth News Magazine, my FAVORITE magazine hand’s down.  Please head over to visit because they have a huge number of online articles as resources. It is the first place I look for information! I discovered the magazine a few years ago when I picked up a few back issues from Freecycle.

Mother Earth News Fair logo

The fair has a wealth of information; hour-long sessions with experts and authors in that field and exhibitors for just about anything you would need to live sustainably. Here is the “about” for the fair from the website:

MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIRS are fun-filled, family-oriented sustainable lifestyle events. FAIRS feature practical, hands-on demos and workshops:

  • Renewable energy
  • Small-scale agriculture
  • Livestock
  • Gardening
  • Green building
  • Green transportation
  • Natural health and more

We hand-select local and national exhibitors to bring you the best in:

  • Organic food and drink
  • Books and magazines
  • Tools and seeds
  • Green contractors
  • Handmade soaps
  • Animal fiber
  • Clothing and more

This year the fair was organized in 1.5 block increments; each block included one-hour session and a half-hour to travel and find a seat in the next session. This seems like it was a response to the problems last year where each session was 50 minutes and you only had ten minutes to travel. Both years the fair had more visitors than expected. I believe they were totally caught off-guard last year with the crowds. This year the fair was a bit more relaxed; neither the guests nor the speakers seemed to be as rushed. There was more time to visit the exhibitors. The only down side was that this year when I skipped a session for lunch with my family I felt like I really missed a lot and even though I only skipped two sessions on Saturday and one on Sunday I managed to visit all of the exhibitors at least once and many several times. This is good for the exhibitors but not so good for me! There were not too many things I could or needed to purchase and I felt like I had a lot of downtime.

Why do I love the fair? It is one of the few places I feel like I belong! I walked around eating my red pepper whole, like an apple, and I actually didn’t get too many “looks”. I don’t usually do this in public because it seems so odd to people that they stare and while I am pretty comfortable with myself, I eat them that way because they taste good not because I want attention! I can also go to most workshops and LEARN. At the basic workshops available around me I feel like I am advanced in a sea of beginners (not that I am all-knowing, but most workshops are for beginners and once you have read a lot and tried a lot you just need more than an overview and introduction). Finally, it reminds me of my goal of living sustainability. It is only too easy to get off-track and caught up in life at home and school once September begins. The MENF starts that sustainable fire burning again!

Here was my schedule for the weekend:

Saturday:

Beechnut Turkey and Oaknut Hogs(Cancelled) When Technology Fails: Self-reliance and surviving the long emergency

A Homesteader’s Hindsight: 20 great ideas and 20 not-so-great ideas

Lunch

Folks, This Ain’t Normal

Break

The Need Fire: How kindling community ignites a farm

Sunday:

The Traditional Home Dairy

Retooling for Tomorrow: Tools and technologies for the modern homestead

Lunch

Beginning Deer Hunting for Food

Food as Medicine: Healing chronic diseases

 

I will write up a summary of what I learned at each for those of you who didn’t get to go to the Fair. Perhaps I will see you there next year!

 

 

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Makin’ Dirt

Composting is a great way to make dirt naturally and is an unseen but essential practice in organic gardening. Even while trying to garden in an environmentally-friendly manner, it is often easy to be lured into buying the latest must-have tool. For two years I have been using a plastic bin provided by my county after I took a class on composting. The bin was sufficient, but I found it hard to use because it was small and I couldn’t easily turn the pile without removing the entire bin.  In the last six months, I was not able to get anything out because the contents were compacted and there was little aeration. After looking into various options I decided I wanted a multiple bin system. Although I really wanted three bins, space limitations and the disproportionate size of the bin to my yard made me select a two bin system. This would allow two bins to make compost in varying stages at a time, or one working bin and a second to hold finished compost.

While at first we had thought we’d build our own, the reality of building a bin and purchasing the materials and cedar wood we had decided on was that we’d spend almost as much as if we bought a bin ready to assemble. I searched online and found a bin made by Master Garden Products that met most of my requirements. I was happy to find a statement on their website declaring “Trees are selectively harvested, with no clear cutting, and more trees are planted than we harvest.”  The two bins measured 36x36x36 each, and the separating wall between the two bins was removable as were the fronts, to provide easy access. This seemed perfect!

Two bin compost system

When the bin arrived I was immediately impressed with the quality and look of the panels. However I noticed one thing was missing Continue reading “Makin’ Dirt”

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Lip Service

Product Review of Bubble Goddess Bath Company’s Mint Intention Lip Balm

Winter is a hard time of year for people with dry skin. I’m always on the lookout for natural products to keep my skin moisturized. One part of your body that is particularly hard to cover up outside in the cold is your lips. Mine are often chapped, even when I try to keep hydrated. This is why I was extremely happy to receive a package in the mail a few weeks ago.

The package contained a number of products made by a natural company called Bubble Goddess Bath Company.  I was contacted by a company consultant who offered to send me some samples to try. One of the first things I tried was the lip balm – called Mint Intention Lip Balm – and I loved it! It had a fresh mint scent that didn’t burn when I applied it, and it felt smooth.

lipbalm

Continue reading “Lip Service”

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Review of Fabkins Cloth Napkins

I have used cloth napkins exclusively for over a year now. We started with napkins my mom gave me; lots of yellow, orange and green styles made of polyester. They are serviceable, but hardly the best-looking napkins especially since they are older than me (although hardly used in the last 20 – 30 years)! Still, they are much more eco-friendly than paper napkins, and since I throw them in with the towels and other kitchen laundry, it doesn’t really affect our water consumption to use them.

VeraN-napkin

One of our cuter napkins, a vintage Vera Neumann pattern

All last year, I sent Ari to school with a cloth napkin in her lunch.She never complained about using her napkins; in fact some of her classmates liked them! I know she wasn’t crazy about the days I sent her in with some of the not so cute napkins, but she never said a negative word about them. Fast forward to this summer. I was looking through some of the blogs I follow and came across a giveaway for Fabkins cloth napkins for kids on Over Coffee: The Green Edition. I left a comment, and moved on to reading my next blog.

Continue reading “Review of Fabkins Cloth Napkins”

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Help Save A Tree – Use a Kindle!

This is a guest post by my father, aka Pop. He is the bearded guy you see in the coffee shop reading his Kindle.

Kindle

I’ve owned a Kindle for about a year and a half now, so I’ve had plenty of time to judge its strengths…and weaknesses. Since many consider ebooks to be kind to the environment, Koofie asked me to share my opinions of the Kindle – and since she’s my daughter I couldn’t refuse.

When the Kindle was introduced I was attracted to it because I read a lot of books and I like to keep and reread them later. I also like to read more than one book at a time, mixing fiction and non-fiction as my mood dictates. The fact that I could store hundreds of books on a light paperback book-sized device and have every one of them available whenever I wanted really excited me. I also reasoned that buying a Kindle could save me money, money that would offset some of the initial cost. First, I wouldn’t have to buy more bookshelves as my library grew, and second, books for the Kindle are significantly cheaper than the hard-copy books I had been buying. Continue reading “Help Save A Tree – Use a Kindle!”