Cool News!

Today, we appeared in Alberta Venture magazine in their annual list of the 50 most influential people in Alberta. This is a really big honor for us to be considered one of the most influential people in Alberta and we thank Alberta Venture for considering us.

Here is what the magazine said:

Craig and Layla Baird
Eco Bloggers
Ecologically speaking, Craig and Layla Baird know little things make the difference – especially after spending a year performing one environmentally conscious deed a day. As part of the commitment, the Stony Plain-area writers told of coffee-ground body scrubs and clothes washed with shower water in their blog Our Green Year, garnering a global readership. The year may be over, but the project isn’t. On Day 365, the Bairds vowed to turn the experiment into a lifestyle.

Day 365 of our Green Year: Going Green....For Life

We have finally made it. Day 365 of going green. A long undertaking but well-worth it in more ways than we can count. Over the past year, we have met a lot of great people and changed our own lives by going green with 365 different green things. From the first day when we began to put out green tips to now, we have covered the gambit of different green tips that everyone can do. We have had difficulty at times, but it has been something we really enjoyed doing.

So, what do we do for Our Green Year's last day? Well, the best thing we can do and that is to continue going green for the rest of our lives. Stopping going green now? Why would we do that? We need to continue going green because that is the commitment we have made for ourselves with Our Green Year.

Our decision today to go green is to keep that message going.

This past year as been an amazing one for us. We have learned a great deal about the environment, both through research and through talking to people about it and hearing from people who come to the blog. We have received a lot of support from the people who come to our blog and while some have called us self-righteous, many many more have told us they support us in what we are doing.

When we started Our Green Year we did it with the only goal of educating ourselves and the environment. We didn't do it for money, for press or anything else. We started it knowing that not everyone could do everything we did, and not everyone would agree with all the posts that we put up. However, by doing 365 things, we knew that we would appeal to a broad spectrum of people and that two very different types of people could take at least 10 tips from our blog to use in their own lives.

Yes, some of our blogs were a bit out of the box for tips, but when you are doing 365 things that is just the way it goes. We supported environmental charities, donated to other causes, signed petitions and used click to donate buttons. These may not have been something everyone does or even thinks helps, but they all serve their purpose in helping the environment.

What comes next for Our Green Year? Do we stop now and go back to the way we were before? No, not at all. We started this blog so that we could change our lives and live green for the rest of our lives. The decisions we have made here will continue in our lives, and we will not fall back on anything.

Day 365 is not the end of Our Green Year, it is only the end of the first phase of something that is very important to Layla and myself and that is going green, educating ourselves, learning from others and helping to spread a green message to those who want to hear it.

Thank you to everyone who has come out to our blog this past year, and we hope you will keep coming after Day 365.

Day 361 of our Green Year: Celebrating Earth Day and Spreading The Green Message

The countdown continues to the end of the year! Four days to go! Today we went to the Farmer's Market and picked up some organic honey from a local supplier. It tastes great in the coffee. It was also refreshing to see so many local people selling food that is organic and preservatives free!

As for today, we are going green by celebrating Earth Day. In fact, we are celebrating Earth Day a few times this next week and a half!

On Monday, we are attending a Earth Day Thrift Fashion Show, where we will have a display of the things we have done this year. We are going to be talking with people who come by and spreading our own bit of environmental wisdom (as little as there may be) from the past year.

Then, that following Sunday we are going to the big Earth Day event in Edmonton. We are not speaking or have anything on display, but we are going to go and see others who are celebrating the Earth, learn more about what we can do to help and maybe make some new friends.

Then, on April 28, we are going to the Youth Center to talk to the kids about environmental issues, answer their questions and spread some more information about going green. We are really looking forward to this because our main goal with Our Green Year has been to help others learn about going green, and help them go green as well.

Only a few days till Earth Day everyone! What are you planning on doing?

Day 360 of our Green Year: Picking Wild Berries

Well, five days left! We are counting down and are amazed that the entire year is almost over.

Now, as for today's blog, it comes to us courtesy of Jenni who made a good suggestion about ways that we can have some great berries, but without the CO2 to get us the berries, or the plastic packaging that comes with those berries.

It involves picking berries, and before we go any further it is very important that you ONLY PICK BERRIES THAT YOU CAN IDENTIFY AS GOOD NOT POISONOUS. Don't be stupid and just grab a handful of berries that you find in the forest. If you don't know what the berry is, then don't eat it!


Now, in Rossland we had wild huckleberries growing all around us and when we would go on hikes we would pick them. They made great and healthy snacks for both us and the bears who frequented the area.

Now, where we are in Alberta, there are actually plenty of berries that we can eat, especially close to us along the banks of the North Saskatchewan (about two km away from us). As well, on our property there are even raspberry bushes growing! This is great because Layla and I are big fans of raspberries, and to find out we have some growing on this property was a great bit of good news.

So, instead of buying strawberries and other berries at the store and dealing with the travel CO2 and the packaging of those berries, we will instead pick them from the wild here to eat. We will only pick those we can identify as safe (as should everyone else) and we will only pick enough for a pie or a dish, never more than we should have lest we rob local wildlife of this wonderful delicacy.

A cool bit of news. Layla and I were getting a lunch at the organic cafe here and we saw a poster for the Earth Day event we are attending with an exhibit of Our Green Year. It was actually really cool because when we looked on the poster, we saw that we were labeled as special guests, which we thought was a really cool honor and something we were not expecting at all! Thanks Jennifer!

If you are in Stony Plain on April 20, come out and support this wonderful event at the Stony Plain Community Hall from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. It helps the local Youth Center and will have many great things to come out and check out! While you are there, drop by our table and say hi!

Day 356 of our Green Year: Banning Leather

A long time ago, way back in the summer, Layla and I banned beef in our lives because the livestock industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Well, today we are banning leather in our lives because of its effect on the environment.

First of all, the practice of getting leather is not at all green or nice for the animals whose skin makes up that leather. We have heard about a video that shows a cow being skinned alive for its hide. That alone is reason enough for us not to buy leather. It should be noted that those companies that use those types of practices are the minority rather than the majority.

Second, the tanning industry in large scale terms uses a lot of energy, and as we all know, energy means CO2 production usually, and that means greenhouse gases being put into the atmosphere.

To understand the effect of the tanning industry on the environment, here is the process.

1. The hides are prepared by using salt.
2. The hides are soaked with perfectly good water to remove all that salt.
3. The hides are then treated with one or more of the following chemicals to get rid of the hair: sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide, sodium hydrosulfite, arsenic sulfide, calcium hydrosulfide, dimethyl amine, sodium suphydrate
4. Once the hair is gone, the hides are put through another salt and suphuric acid treatment.
5. The hides are soaked in water again
6. The actual tanning is performed with chromium sulfate.

Instead, Layla and I will stick with our commitment to buy green clothes only when we need them, and from now on leather is out of the question for us.

Day 353 of our Green Year: Local Flowers

Layla and I have an upcoming anniversary and that means giving gifts for each other, although its not really required. Typically, I like to give Layla a bouquet of flowers on our anniversary (cliche I know) and I have thought about that and how to make sure it is green this year. Last year, Layla gave me a pot with a flower seed in it for my birthday, and I wanted to do something a bit different, so I am going to get her another bouquet of flowers, but will do it in a green way.

First, I am going to get flowers that are native to the area of Alberta, or at the very least Western Canada. Second, I am going to get them from a greenhouse that is here and which grows it here. This is because I want to lower the carbon footprint associated with those flowers. The less those flowers have to travel the better. Since I also want to get flowers native to Western Canada, even the seeds won't take long to travel here.

Lastly, this helps to support the local economy, which is very important in these trying economic times.

In addition to the flowers, we will also try and plant some trees, give money to an environmental cause and, as luck would have it, on our anniversary we are speaking to some kids about the environment at a youth club. That means for this anniversary, we are using sustainable flowers as gifts, planting trees and teaching kids about why they should care about the environment.

Sure we could not buy each other gifts, but our anniversary is about showing love and nothing is as lovely as flowers and the environment :)

Day 346 of our Green Year: Greening Our Easter

Well next week is Easter and as Layla and I have done for Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day, we are going to green it up.

There are several great ways that you can green Easter, without sacrificing those precious memories of chocolate that we all have for the holiday.

First of all, you can look at the basket that you are using to collect eggs and choose one that you can reuse. You can reuse baskets for gathering flowers, vegetables, or to hold things in the living room like magazines. They can also make great holders of fruits in your kitchen.

Second, instead of buying the fake plastic type grass that comes in baskets that you find in stores, use real grass.

Next, you can choose not to use real eggs but papier-mache eggs that can be reused over and over again through the years. This makes a great option if you don't want to use eggs. If you decide to use eggs, use eggs that come from grain fed, free range chickens.

If you choose to use real eggs, then use natural dyes instead of dyes that come from chemicals. Your local organic store should have some natural dyes that you can use.

Fourth, don't buy any of those small chocolate eggs wrapped in foil. There are dozens of these eggs per plastic bag and that means a lot of foil wrapping. Instead of buying those eggs, give gifts to your children that they can reuse.

On that same point, remember it is the experience that makes Easter fun, not the toys or candy.

Speaking of candy, if you decide to give chocolate, please choose organic and fair trade chocolate. Fair trade chocolate is chocolate that comes from farmers who got the cocoa in conditions that are not borderline slavery, and all the farmers who sell fair trade cocoa are paid what they should be paid.

Enjoy your Easter everyone!

Day 344 of our Green Year: No Polyester

Layla and I have tried to green our wardrobe through a number of methods during Our Green Year. We have limited our clothing purchases to only when we need clothes. We try and only buy our items from thrift stores so we are not buying new clothes. If we do buy new, we look for clothes that are made from organic cotton and from hemp. Today, we go another step further and ban polyester clothes in our home.

Polyester is often thought of in terms of the polyester suits that existed in the 1970s. These clothes were not attractive yet they sold like hot cakes during that decade. These days, many clothes are made from polyester rather than cotton. However, polyester is made from a nonrenewable crude oil that is a heavy producer of pollution due to mining and manufacturing of it.

While it may seem pointless to ban polyester since we only buy second-hand and natural fiber items, there are several other items that are made from polyester. Polyester fabrics are used in bed sheets, curtains and draperies. In addition, it is used in rope, and serves as stuffing for comforters and cushions.

So for us, polyester is banned in our household in all its various forms.

Day 326 of our Green Year: Avoid Hotel Toiletries

Sometimes we all need to travel, and when we travel we usually stay in hotels, motels, or inns. In hotels, we use towels and they are washed after one use (although not in all hotels), we sleep once in beds and the linens are cleaned, and generally the overall process is quite wasteful. That is not even considering those little shampoos, soaps and more that are individually wrapped. As well, glasses are wrapped individually in plastic.

This is a big waste.

As a result, when Layla and I have to travel and stay in a hotel, we will not only bring our own towels, but we will bring our own toiletries. This way, we do not use what the hotel provides, we do not waste plastic, and we use what we already have and which is environmentally friendly because we try and buy only green toiletries.

Day 321 of our Green Year: Coconut Oil Uses

Do you use coconut oil in your home? Chances are you may not, but don't feel bad, before today we did not use coconut oil either. However, after learning about the uses of coconut oil, which is all-natural, in the home.

First, you can use coconut oil on your skin as a moisturizer. It works great on dry and aging skin and it leaves you refreshed after you put it on. It also helps to reduce wrinkles and other skin problems including psoriasis, dermatitis and eczema.

Second, if you are having a stressful day, you can apply coconut oil to your head in a circular massaging motion. The aroma of the oil will sooth you, as will the massaging.

Third, if you are having problems with your digestion, you can take coconut oil. Coconut oil has saturated fats in it that have anti-bacterial properties that will control parasites and fungus that can cause you problem with your digestion. Apparently, it can also help relieve irritable bowel syndrome as well.

Fourth, coconut oil can stimulate not only your metabolism, but your thyroid as well to help you decrease unwanted fat by upping your energy level.

There you have it, four great uses from coconut oil. Layla and I will be picking up some soon to help feel better and healthier.

Day 320 of our Green Year: Cooking Over An Open Fire

Well, here we are with 45 more days to go. Seems like we have been doing this forever but we are happy to do it. Over the course of the previous 320 days, our lives have changed quite a bit. We feel healthier with what we are eating, as well we feel good about all the things we are doing to help the planet. More than that, it is great to get e-mails from everyone telling us about what they are doing to go green as well.

However, enough of all that, let's get to the blog for today.

At the ranch, we have a fire pit in the front yard where we can sit and relax during the summer evenings. Well, this summer that fire pit is going to serve another purpose beyond just providing us heat. We will be cooking on it.

Layla and I love to go backpacking, and when you backpack, you have to cook your meals on a fire. There is nothing like it and we decided that this year, we will cook more food on the fire and less in the kitchen.

There are a lot of trees in the area, and some have fallen down. As a result, we will be using that wood (as long as it is not serving as a habitat for something) for our firewood. We are also getting our firewood from a sustainable source. Then we can cook our food over the fire, rather than in the kitchen on the stove.

It is not perfect, but it is just another solution that we can use to go green in our cooking, no different than how we use the fireplace inside to heat the house up so we don't use the furnace as much.

Day 315 of our Green Year: The Animal Rescue Site

Put your hand up if you love animals.
Most likely a bunch of you have now put your hands up. Not surprising, we all love animals and we generally all want to help them out.
Layla and I are big supporters for animals and have given to the WWF, Greenpeace, SPCA and more through Our Green Year.
Today, we bring up another site. This site helps to rescue animals who need our help, ironically because of how they have been treated by other humans.

It is the Animal Rescue Site

This site is where you can go to click a button so that sponsors can donate to a worthy cause. Your clicking makes sponsors pay to provide food to some of the 27,000,000 unwanted animals who are in shelters across the United States. This is important because 10,000,000 animals are put to death because they have been abandoned.

Day 303 of our Green Year: Visit National Parks

If there is one thing Layla and I enjoy doing, it is hiking and snowshoeing. There is something about being out in the wild, being a part of nature and listening to the sound of silence wafting through the trees. We love nature, hence the reason why we are trying to do our part to save it with Our Green Year.

Today, we are asking that if you want to do something to help nature, you can visit a national park. Here in Alberta, there are plenty of national parks and we are going to be visiting several of them this year (including on our proposed two week hike from Jasper to Banff this year!). The reason visiting a national park is green is that not only does it help you learn more about the nature that we all seem to be somewhat removed from, it is also because you pay money to be in the national park. That money then goes to help keep the national park going, helping it expand and helping to keep the animals (some of them endangered) safe in their national park home.

Recently, Layla and I, plus two of our friends went snowshoeing on a trail in Elk Island National Park. The money we pay helps that park, and by extension helps nature.

Day 290 of our Green Year: Damn Fruit Flies!

Anyone who leaves fruit out finds that fruit flies can become a problem. These little guys will lay as much as 500 eggs at a time, and they can quickly overwhelm your house and become a serious annoyance. Since we are coming up to spring, this will become a problem but there are plenty of natural ways to keep fruit flies from becoming a problem.

First, at our house we will be covering our fruit and eating the fruit before it can become appetizing to fruit flies. Old fruit is a haven for these flies so it is best just to eat it before it gets old and then you don't develop fruit flies.

In extreme cases, where the flies have become a serious problem, we will resort to more drastic means to deal with them. One such way is one we from UrbanGreenGirl.

To eliminate fruit flies, you will need the following:

1. A little bowl
   
2. Apple cider vinegar
   
3. Reused plastic wrap or a small plastic bag.
   

Instructions:

1. Fill the little bowl with apple cider vinegar so that the depth is approximately 1in/2.5cm.
2. Cover with reused plastic wrap or plastic bag.
3. Take a tooth pick and punch a bunch of holes in the plastic wrap. Make sure that the opening is big enough for them to get in, but small enough that they cannot get out. Do not put them around the edge.
4. Place the bowl(s) on your kitchen countertop or under the sink; where ever they accumulate.

Thank you to Kelly at KBS Radio, who was nice enough to give us a call today and do an interview with us for Our Green Year! :D

Day 289 of our Green Year: Using Neem Oil

A few weeks ago, Layla and I talked about how you can keep some pests away from your garden plants. Well, there is another way that you can protect your and it involves using a pesticide.
Well, that is not completely true to call it a pesticide. It does keep pests away, but it is not a chemical pesticide like you normally find in some gardens.

The pesticide is Neem Oil, and it is a completely botanical way to keep pests away from your plants in the garden. made from a plant in Southeast Asia, it does not affect humans, mammals or even bugs that are beneficial to the growing of a garden plant. This wonderful natural oil keeps away aphids, white flies, mildew, mosquitoes and lice from your garden plants.

Many gardeners and farmers are now using Neem Oil because it is an organic substitute for herbicides and pesticides that are dangerous and carcinogenic. Neem oil does not poison vegetables in any way, so you can eat them right out of the garden. On top of that, butterflies, earthworms and bees are not bothered by this oil and that allows the plants to absorb nutrients from these beneficial insects, as well as helping them pollinate.

We are going to give Neem Oil a try in part of our garden this year to see how well it works for us :) Gardening season is only a few months away!

Day 286 of our Green Year: EcoFont

While Layla and I use recycled paper, print only when we really need to and recycle everything we print (that is not mailed in re-used envelopes), there is something else we can do to be green with our office and it comes in the form of the font we use.

EcoFont is a new font that can actually help you save energy on your printing and save toner because of its innovative style.

This great font comes from a Dutch company called SPRANQ, and it is touted to use 20 percent less toner or ink than other types of fonts. By having small circles in the lettering to reduce the amount of ink needed, it saves energy and saves you from having to buy more ink. The font is completely readable, but amazingly innovative.

It is also free to download from here.

Day 281 of our Green Year: Making Our Own Cereal

Due to our banned companies list, most of the companies that make well-known brands of cereal are banned in our house. This means that we do not eat too much cereal as a result, and sometimes when we have to work in our home office, we have to make breakfast that may not be as simple as a bowl of cereal and goat's milk.

Thankfully, it is very easy to make your own cereal by following several recipes on the net. Which is exactly what we will be doing here at our ranch.
We were going to put up some of the recipes, but sadly our internet is in and out, but you can find one of the recipes at this location.

Thank you to Wandering Coyote who provided us with a great list of green things you can do located here.

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Do you have a tip for us?
Do you have a picture of yourself going green?
Tell us your story about going green!
E-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com

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We need your help! Our blog has been nominated for two different awards and we need you (if you want to of course) to vote for us to help raise our profile and spread the message of going green. You can vote here and here :) Thanks!

Day 266 of our Green Year: Sponsoring Animals

Throughout Our Green Year, we have donated to wildlife funds, raised awareness about them and more. Today, we are sponsoring wild animals. When you sponsor an animal, you are not sponsoring a specific animal, but you are giving money towards preserving the species that you are sponsoring.

One of the best places to do this is WWF, which allows you to sponsor a caribou, polar bear, orangutan, snow leopard, arctic fox, emperor penguin, grizzly bear, tiger, giant panda, asian elephant, cod, leopard frog, monarch butterfly, sea turtle and an owl. You can sponsor all, or just one, and it does not cost much.

You get to know that the money you gave is going to a specific species, and you know that you are making a difference with the environment. You can sponsor as we are by visiting the World Wild Life Fund.

When you sponsor an animal with the World Wild Life Fund, you get a cuddly toy, reusable gift bag made from recycled plastic, personalized adoption certificate, letter that identifies you as a gift giver and a report that shows you how your symbolic adoption will support the wildlife.

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Do you have a tip for us?
Do you have a picture of yourself going green?
Tell us your story about going green!
E-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com

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We need your help! Our blog has been nominated for two different awards and we need you (if you want to of course) to vote for us to help raise our profile and spread the message of going green.

Day 263 of our Green Year: Cool Showers

So far this year we have committed to taking navy showers for a portion of our showers each week, showering every two days, limiting showers to five minutes, using a low-flow showerhead and collecting our grey shower water. Today, we are doing another shower item. This time we are committing to taking cool showers.

Now, this does not mean we are going to shower in freezing cold water. In fact, it means that while nice hot showers are very nice, we will have to settle with lukewarm showers instead. They will be a mild warm, but not overly warm. They will be a bit on the cool side.

The reason is that when you run your hot water, it takes energy to warm that water for the water heater. The more warm water you use, the more energy it takes. Therefore, by taking cool showers you can greatly reduce the energy needed for your shower.

Warm showers are gone for us now, and while we are not ready for freezing cold showers, we will meet it half way with cool showers.

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Do you have a tip for us?
Do you have a picture of yourself going green?
Tell us your story about going green!
E-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com

--
We need your help! Our blog has been nominated for two different awards and we need you (if you want to of course) to vote for us to help raise our profile and spread the message of going green.

Day 254 of our Green Year: Improving Air Purity

When most people want to purify the air in their homes, they will purchase an air purifier. This device is made to clean the air and make it smell nice and fresh. In our home, we generally use plants to do this, but there is something else you can do if you don't want plants in your home. All you have to do is open windows.

Opening windows may not always seem like it is something you can do to go green, but it is a much better alternative to clearing their without using the energy of an air purifier. As well, some air purifiers don't remove various pollutants, and some even produce gases like formeldahyde, which is banned in our home.

Even in winter you can open your windows, albeit only for a short time, to help clear the air. Keep your furnace turned low of course, put on a scarf and toque and open the window for a fresh blast of cool air coming into the home. The air will feel pure, you will feel refreshed and you didn't waste any energy with an air purifier.

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Do you have a tip for us?
Do you have a picture of yourself going green?
Tell us your story about going green!
E-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com

--
We need your help! Our blog has been nominated for two different awards and we need you (if you want to of course) to vote for us to help raise our profile and spread the message of going green.