Category Archives: stewardship

Gardening Time Is Here – But you need the right tools

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I put off starting the annual gardening meditation because I could not believe that on March 20th Winter was really done. Actually we planted some spinach and peas at the beginning of March but we half expected them to die eventually from frost, an ice storm or snow. But now it is pretty clear that global warming is here so what better way to celibrate then to plant potatoes and onion sets. Here is a nifty new wheel barrow.

http://www.wagle.com/gardening/containerscarts/flexi-yard-cart-economy-wheel-barrow

One of the drawbacks associated with traditional wheelbarrows is time consuming lifting, shoveling and scooping that takes its toll on your back. Designed to reduce stress on the upper body and make the arduous chore of moving yard debris a snap, the innovative Flexi Yard Carts put the main bucket area on the ground where the load is! Used just like a dustpan, you can roll, push, or rake all manner of material quickly and easily while also being able to haul heavy items more efficiently. Nimble and highly maneuverable, both models feature a lightweight, collapsible design for compact storage after each use. Features and Benefits

Features and Benefits

  • Minimizes back breaking work with an ergonomic design that allows you to rake, roll and slide debris directly into the cart.
  • Multi-use, the cart is perfect for gardening, yard clean up and a variety of hauling and transport tasks.
  • Tear proof, extra durable blue Duralite fabric forms the main body.
  • High quality, powder coated steel framework ensures strength.
  • 13 diameter by 3wide front tire makes for easy handling, even over rough terrain.
  • Low center of gravity (50% lower than most wheelbarrows) and self-leveling design allows the Wheel Easy to cradle and stabilize awkward or large loads.
  • Drops flat to the ground allowing loads to be rolled, dragged, pushed or raked directly onto the body of the cart.
  • Rapid release mechanism unclips the cart for simple hose or wipe down cleaning.
  • Cart can be folded flat for compact storage .
  • Holds up to 3 cubic feet of material.
  • Only 21 lbs. but capable of hauling loads over 350 lbs.

Specifications

  • Size Dimensions: 46 L
  • Capacity: 3 cu.ft. and 150 lbs
  • Weight: 12 lbs
  • Composition: Tear proof, extra durable blue Duralite fabric surrounding a high quality, powder coated steel framework to ensure strength.
  • Usage: multi-purpose transport of goods, surpassing the
  • limited functionality of traditional wheelbarrows.
  • Key Features: ground-level loading; light weight; ergonomic design; compact storage
  • Warranty: Manufacturer warranties item for 2 years against defects in materials or workmanship.

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Gotta go mow. Go there and find many more tools. More tomorrow.

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The Green Economy – It can start with how we farm

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Between the nitrogin that they hose around the environment and the methane they spew, we have to change farming if we are going to change the world.

http://www.farmingfirst.org/green-economy/

THIS IS THE STORY OF
AGRICULTURE GREEN ECONOMY
We need to make the global economy green. Agriculture provides significant opportunities for growth, investment and jobs to help make this happen.
Everyone needs agriculture. Agriculture feeds our entire population and produces fibre for clothing, feed for livestock and bioenergy. Particularly in the developing world, agriculture contributes significantly to GDP growth, leads the way in poverty reduction and accounts for the lion’s share of employment opportunities, especially for women. Agriculture also has one of the highest potentials for reducing carbon emissions and helping vulnerable people adapt to climate change.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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The Green Economy – In 2010 it looked a lot easier and more rational

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Now if you listen to the Republicans green anythings is BAD. Of course so are Women, Contraception, Peace, Government, Unions and just about anything that are good for us commoners.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=all

Building a Green Economy

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 7, 2010

If you listen to climate scientists — and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should — it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use of fossil fuels, coal above all.

But is it possible to make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions without destroying our economy?

Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades.

In what follows, I will offer a brief survey of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change. I’ll try to lay out the areas of broad agreement as well as those that remain in major dispute. First, though, a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Utilities Go Trenchless – And cut costs

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This is great news for the safety of the industry.

http://trenchlessinternational.com/news/advances_in_utility_location/004594/

Advances in utility location

Jo Parker

Trenchless International — October 2009

Advances in underground utility location could mean enormous savings – in economic, environmental and social terms. Here Jo Parker from Watershed Associates discusses some of the latest technological research and development emerging from the UK.

There are over four million kilometres of buried assets in the UK. At present, utilities make information about their buried assets available in a variety of methods including via websites, through telephone or written application, with a paper plan sent in response, or by marking out the location onsite. Collating these records can be a time consuming exercise and often the information has to be transferred by hand to another CAD system.

Even when a utility company uses the latest techniques to map its new assets, information on legacy services – which may have been installed decades earlier by a predecessor organisation – may be inaccurate or even non-existent. Pipes in older cities may be over 150 years old. Poor mapping techniques used at the time of installation and the practice of recording the pipe’s location relative to a physical feature that may no longer exist means the exact location of many of today’s networks are unknown. Although current surface location and detection techniques have improved in recent years, they are still of limited use, being both unreliable and slow to operate. As a result the only way to reliably identify the accurate position of any buried service is to excavate a trial hole.

Economic disruption

The direct cost of trenching and reinstatement work of UK highways for utilities is in excess of £1.5 billion per year. Part of this is attributable to holes excavated in the wrong location and damage to third party assets, which is estimated to be as high as £150 million. Although direct costs are high they are significantly lower than the societal costs, such as delays to road users, disruption to businesses and environmental damage which may be as high as £5 billion per year.

Article continues below…

 

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Go there and read boatloads. More tomorrow.

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Being Frugal Can Be Funny – Or so it seems from this blog

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This Blog on frugality is pretty funny and maybe not for the Joe Sixpack crowd. Things like Retiring In Panama may miss them. But the post about living on food stamps was pretty informative and funny.

http://www.debtfreebythirty.net/2012/02/festival-of-frugality-superheroes-are.html

Festival of Frugality: Superheroes Are Frugal Too Edition

Hello and welcome to the 325th edition of the Festival of Frugality. The Festival of Frugality highlights personal finance posts that deal with how to pinch those pennies or save that dollar.

I am a sucker for a theme for my festivals or carnivals and while I was tempted to do a leap year facts edition it just wasn’t exciting enough for my blood. So superheroes it is. Because what’s more exciting than superheroes? It also occurred to me that superheroes are quite frugal and who hasn’t sometimes thought that superpowers are needed to stay on the path of frugality.

Editor’s Super Picks

Smart Family Finance has pretty convincing financial reasons to get rid of your junk. There are so may reasons to get rid of your “junk”. It’s nice to have one that will put cash in your wallet too.

Annabelle from Shopping Detox gives her city a frugal audit. This really has me thinking about my own town.

A. Blinkin from Funancials entertains us as usual with how do you judge value?

 

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Go there and read about Wolverine and Batman at least. More next week.

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Frugality Amounts To Paring Your Life Back – To improve the quality

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I say frugality is not giving up, it is getting back to what you want. Here the poster asks what is most important too you not what do you want now.

http://almostfrugal.com/

What Do You Want Most?

by Kelly

I found this quote on a fitness website (MyFitnessPal): “The reason most people fail instead of succeed is that they trade what they want the MOST for what they want at the MOMENT.”*

I’ve often fallen into that trap. I’m hungry, so even though I want to stay on my diet, I go through the drive through. I’m feeling down, so I go shopping for a new shirt, even though I want to stay on a budget. I’m tired, so instead of doing my consulting work, I read a book on my Kindle (or maybe even buy a new book instead of reading one of the many I already have).

In fact, figuring out what I want most, I think is one of the hardest things about goal setting. I know, intellectually, that I want to do/act/be a certain way, but I often feel like I have a hard time owning that feeling in a way that will help me commit to following through on the commitment over a long period of time.

My life is in transition here, both at Almost Frugal-land and abroad. I’ve been going through some growing and moving and changing for the past few months, and it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride. Things are good- no need to worry- but finding this quote today has helped me to sum things up.

I’m working on discovering what I want to happen most, not just what I want to happen in the moment.

What do you want to happen most?

*I don’t know to whom I should credit the quote- if you know, please leave the information in the comments.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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The Frugality of Tin Foil – And so much more

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To create tin foil takes tons of energy, so reusing it as many times as you can is the only thing that makes sense.

http://www.frugalvillage.com/2011/07/23/reuse-aluminum-foil/

Reuse aluminum foil

Frugal people sometimes get teased for reusing items. For example, you might save aluminum foil to reuse later. While some may find that idea silly, frugal people know there are plenty of ways to put foil to good use.
How have you reused aluminum foil? Here are a few suggestions.

DRYER BALLS:

Wad foil into balls that are approximately 3 inches in diameter and use them to reduce static in your dryer. You can wrap a tennis ball in foil, too.

POT SCRUBBER:

If you don’t like the dryer ball idea, you can wad the foil into a ball and use it to scrub pots and pans instead. One reader, Roxanne from West Virginia, shares: “That wadded-up foil will clean the barbecue grill, or at least take the bigger stuff off so you can clean the rack easier.” You can use the foil balls for cat toys or to scrub rust from chrome, too.

REMOVE WRINKLES:

A flat piece can be used on your ironing board under the fabric cover to reflect heat. This will make your ironing faster because both sides of your fabric will benefit from the heat.

PREVENT RUST ON STEEL WOOL PADS:

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Sustainablity Has To Start Somewhere – Why not with your hair

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That is right. I know this is an energy conservation blog. It is an environmental blog and an energy industry blog as well. But for awhile this is going to be a frugality blog. Think about it. At one level frugality and sustainable living start by “doing for yourself”. What is more easier and immediate than cutting your own hair. This site is much more than that but it is the first article.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/02/26/reader-story-home-haircuts/

Reader Story: Home Haircuts Can Save Time and Money

Sunday, 26th February 2012 (by J.D. Roth)

This guest post from Shannon D is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes.

My wonderful husband likes to keep his hair short and precise. He works outdoors but dislikes hats, so keeping his hair looking proper is important to him. We live in a rural area without a major chain hair cut shop. While we do have a small barber shop, their hours are very limited. This usually meant that for a monthly haircut we would drive 25 miles to the nearest mall to get his hair cut in the evenings or on weekends at a chain store.

While we usually tried to combine his trip for a haircut with other errands in town, we typically just made it into a dinner evening. So on top of the other costs, we often had an extra dinner out that we not have otherwise enjoyed.

We estimate our costs to have been the following:

  • $25 per trip in mileage
  • $18 haircut – including the tip
  • A solid two hours spent getting a haircut

With this happening once monthly, we were spending $516 per year — not including dinners — and 24 hours of time getting his hair cut.

Note: My own hair expenses are not cheap — not factoring in fuel since I get my hair cut while in town for work — and cost us about $300 per year.

We decided to try something different, not because of the money so much as the time and convenience lost making the commute just for a haircut. After my husband asking me several times, I finally got the confidence to try cutting his hair. I am no cosmetologist. My haircutting experience includes buzzing my brother’s hair — at his request — in high school and shaving my long-haired dog during the summer. And I should mention that my husband’s haircut is not a simple buzz. It made me nervous.

 

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Go there and read as much as you can take. More tomorrow.

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Saving Energy Can Save Peace Of Mind – I mean it saves money too

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I know this and the following posts may seem off topic. What does simplicity or frugality have to do with home energy conservation. Well to use an extreme example, what if you simplified your life by using no generated electricity. So much in your life would change. No computer, no telephone, and no lights at night. While that would be thought of as extreme by some and it would only save my household a couple of thousand dollars a year, it is still an interesting concept. This blog here makes a good place to start.

http://www.word-works.com/simple/

Choose Simplicity
Thoughts on Voluntary Simplicity

Welcome to Clay and Judy
Woods’ homepage.

Many simplicity gurus urge us to become “tightwads” as the true path to a simple life. But voluntary simplicity and frugality are not really the same thing. To be sure, frugality is a vehicle for achieving simplicity, but the driving force is a vision, a philosophy, a world view.

If life were a poem, simplicity would be the poet, frugality the line and meter.

If life were a painting, simplicity would be the artist, frugality the paint and brushes.

If life were a building, simplicity would be the architect, frugality the hammer and boards.

Voluntary simplicity is about freedom. It’s about owning your own life. Frugality is living with less of what money can buy. Voluntary simplicity is wanting less.

Soon after beginning our partnership more than 35 years ago, we made a revolutionary discovery. It changed our lives then and it continues to make us “different” now. You’ve heard it before: “time is money.” What we discovered is that’s not true – time is better than money!

This revelation has allowed us to be content in our work or to change that work when it no longer satisfies. It has permitted us to spend less time acquiring things and more time acquiring experiences, insights, and relationships. It has encouraged us to lend a helping hand in our community, whenever the need arises, because we can make the time to do it. It has given us freedom and control of our lives.

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Go there and read in much larger print. More tomorrow.

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Climate Change Professor’s New Book Shows The World The Length That Deniers Will Stoop To, To Smear Someone Speaking The Truth

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While this book is interesting in its presentation of the Climatological Facts, I think the most telling details are how viciously the deniers attack people through the web.

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Long live the hockey stick! Climate science fights back.

Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy.

Repeat something a sufficient number of times and, eventually, people will believe it, no matter whether it is true or not. It is one of the most effective tricks of propaganda and it has been used more than once against science, for instance in the demonization of the “Limits to Growth” study. During the past few years, it has been applied repeatedly, even obsessively, against the “hockey stick,” the reconstruction of past temperatures on which Michael Mann and coworkers had been working from the 1990s.

It is rare in the history of science that a single piece of experimental evidence has been the object of so many attempts of demolition. Yet, all the serious reviews of the original data have basically confirmed the initial results. Being unsuccessful in demolishing the science, the attacks have moved against the scientist, Michael Mann himself, who has been subjected to an unbelievable denigration campaign, defamed, insulted, and even physically threatened. Recently, the campaign against Mann has targeted his new book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”, with a large number of negative reviews and derogatory remarks which appeared in the reviews of the book on the Amazon site. Most of these seem to be the work of web identities created expressly for this purpose, i.e. “sock puppets“.

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Go there and read. The interview after the text is excellent. More tomorrow.

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