Be a responsible dog owner – scoop up that poop!
Signs to this effect are scattered all over the place. After all, who likes stepping on dog excrement? More than that, though, waste left around can spread bacteria and even leak to the ground water, especially if you walk your dog in the park. Be extra diligent in cleaning up after your mutt!

Consider biodegradable cat litter.
The clay-based dumping litters that are popular nowadays can be convenient BUT the material used in them is usually from strip mines: HARMFUL to the environment. More so, the clay does not decompose easily. Not convinced yet? Well, the average cat litter box contains silica dust which is carcinogenic. Would you want this dust to be inhaled by your precious feline pet?

Be more discriminatory when buying pet food.
Choose the healthy kind, the kind which makes use of natural meat. Read the labels and try to purchase pet food that was produced in a sustainable manner. Even better, why not consider making your own pet food? If you think that this route is more expensive, consider the fact that healthier pet food translates to a healthier pet, which in turns means fewer visits to the vet –fewer expenses!

This is not as impossible as you may think, even if you live in the city. If you have a plot of ground in the backyard, you’re good. If you don’t, then get yourself some plastic containers which you can use as your “garden.” . If you are using a container, make sure that you punch holes at the bottom. This will allow the excess water to drain.

An important thing is that you place your garden in a location which has full access to the sun. Make sure that you garden has access to at least 6 hours of sunshine everyday. You also have to make sure that you have enough rich soil to plant your vegetables in. You can go to your local gardening center to get some.

When you have your plot ready, you can go ahead and plant your vegetables. Of course, before you do this, you have to know which vegetables you are going to plant. Some ideas for this summer are peppers, corn, squash, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, and all sorts of different beans.

With a vegetable garden of your own – whatever its size – you can save some money and lessen your carbon footprint as well!

Remember that awful pet food poisoning scare a couple of years ago? Luckily, none of our pets (5 dogs, 7 cats) were victims of the poisoning, but many people I knew lost their beloved pets because of it. One good thing to come of the tragedy though, was that organic and natural pet food sales rose as more people decided to switch.

I am one of those people, and though I often wondered what was in the usual brands like Alpo, Pedigree or Whiskas, I never really bothered to really look. Well, according to Newman’s Own Organics, whose organic pet products I love and use (and their people products too!),it’s pretty disturbing, such as poultry “by products”:

“Ground, rendered, cleaned slaughtered poultry carcass parts such as necks, feet, lymph nodes, undeveloped eggs and intestines (and a small amount of feathers). The quality is very inconsistent between batches. Note: By product meals are often derived from 4-D meat sources – defined as food animals that have been rejected for human consumption because they were presented to the meat packing plant as “Dead, Dying, Disabled or Diseased”.

Ugh. Would you honestly feed this stuff to your cat or dog? If your pets are considered part of the family, as ours are, it makes total sense to put as much thought in their food as you do yours. Yes, it can cost much more to buy organic or holistic pet food, but there is an alternative. Make it yourself. Here’s a great book I found, The Natural Pet Cookbook (pictured above), which will help get you started. Not only will you be happy in the knowledge that you are feeding your pets healthy, natural food, but you’ll also notice the change – healthier, happier pets!

My husband is a BIG coffee drinker, so we always have a lot of used coffee grounds at the end of the day, which would normally be chucked in the bin. That was before I found out that used coffee grounds are an excellent recycling product!

I actually first discovered this at my local Starbucks, where I saw they were giving away used grounds in cute bags labeled “Grounds For Your Garden” (okay, I’m a sucker for packaging).

“..Coffee grounds can provide a valuable source of nutrition for your garden. The proper amount to be used depends on the condition of your soil and what you are growing…”

Thank you, Starbucks! So since then, I’ve been using the black stuff in my garden, yielding excellent results, although I admit that I haven’t gone as far as to use them for vermi-posting (worm composting), but I really should, once I get over my squeamishness with the little crawlers.

There are a whole host of other things you can do with used coffee grounds, some of which I wouldn’t really recommend, like putting it on your face as a mask/exfoliant (wouldn’t it stain?) or on your pets as a deodorizer, grooming aid or even for fleas (I read somewhere that it the caffeine could be toxic to animals).

But here are the things worth trying:

1. Touching up scratches on wooden furniture – use a q-tip to scrub it on.

2. Use as an insect repellent - sprinkle on areas to keep ants and other garden pests away.

3. Use as a natural dye (not on your face!) on fabric or paper (I actually used this when making treasure maps and “olde” invitations for my kids’ pirate party)

4. Use as a fridge or closet deodorizer (some suggest filling an old nylon stocking – but I find that a bit strange)

5. Use it in your fireplace as a dust guard when cleaning.

The Romantic Dinner
Staying home and cooking a romantic candlelight dinner for your sweetheart is the obvious Earth-friendly choice, not only because you can choose organic ingredients and get creative like this delicious looking vegetarian ravioli dish pictured above, but energy is also saved by not needing the car and of course, turning the lights down. But if you have young kids like us, a quiet romantic dinner at home is a near impossibility, so we have no choice but to brave the Valentines crowds and go out. Yes, you can make some good choices here to by not travelling too far, and choosing an eco-friendly restaurant (try and google it – you’ll be surprised how many there are!). Failing that, try and find a restaurant which serves organic produce, recycles, uses energy efficient lighting and so on. Oh, and and make sure you toast with organic bubbly too.

Sweets (and other gifts) For Your Sweet
Organic, fair trade chocolates are the way to go here, and the choices are huge. For more serious presents of the “girls best friend” variety, the green minded can go for vintage jewelry, which really just means recycled! Perhaps Grandma has some pieces you could revamp? Conflict-free diamonds is another good option, and the Canadians are doing it pretty well (no sign of Leonardo di Caprio here). Brilliant Earth, for example, is one company with a conscience who manufactures and sells diamonds with the mission of improving the lives of struggling communities in the diamond trade.

You really know something is wrong with the environment when things affect you first hand. Take the latest news about the rapid bee decline seen in the world today. Scary, yes. But even scarier when you try to buy honey from your local bee keepers, and they say that sorry, there just isn’t any.

Actually, it was my Mother who went to the local bee farm over the weekend to buy the delicious virgin honey that she has been buying for years. Well, last Sunday the bee keeper bleakly told her that there simply wasn’t any. The bees just didn’t make them. Were they leaving? or worse, were they dying? Are the culprits really pesticides?

So if the bees were indeed dying out, wouldn’t it mean that we wouldn’t have so many of the fresh produce we enjoy today? Like apples? And worse, if there weren’t bees pollinating our plants, how would nature survive?

Entomology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. John Burand recently had a lecture called “Colony Collapse Disorder in Honey Bees: The Tip of the Iceberg.” in which he explains the dire facts:

So what is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)? A beekeeper in Pennsylvania first reported CCD in 2006. The symptoms include fewer or no adult bees, but the hive has plenty of larvae and honey. Surviving bees do not want to touch the food, though, nor do predators that would normally gorge on an empty hive. Historically there have been many large die-outs, but the extent of commercial migration of bees to pollinate different crops has spread the disease all around the country, with more than 30 states reporting heavy losses; some experts predict one-third of all honey bees have died since 2006. Some commercial operations have even lost all of their bees.

There’s no easy answer to what causes CCD, but Professor Burand suggested four main areas that are probably factors. First, stress on the bees from migration and other factors weakens the bees’ immune systems. Secondly, parasitic mites, which live off of, and eventually kill, the bees are a major factor, though these pests are nothing new. Next, pesticides on crops and in people’ yards harm the bees. Finally, these factors all lead to pathogens, like bacteria, fungi and viruses, killing off bees that would otherwise be able to fight off these diseases.

So is there any thing we can do to help these poor bees? Yes. Support organic farming. Buy organic. Its that simple.

For more information on the plight of bees today, check out these links:

Bee Crisis Hits Apple festival

French Blame Pesticide For Bee Decline

Mass Loss of Bees Threatens Our Ecosystem

Perhaps the first and easiest step you can take in going green at home is to eat organic food. Depending on where you live, finding organic produce is not that difficult, and in major cities around the world, the choices for organic food are astounding!

But first, lets get our facts straight.  What exactly is organic food?

“Organic means that it’s grown without the use of herbicides, pesticides. It’s not genetically modified; it’s not irradiated….Organic farming protects the planet, so it’s a win-win. It’s healthier for us, and it’s healthier for the planet.”

Says Sophie Ulanio, green guru and writer of Gorgeously Green.  So how to start? Sophie says that you should start with what you use the most, or who in the family needs it most.  In our case, we have an 8 month-old-baby, and since he started eating solids at 6 months, its been organic vegetables and cereal all the way.  Since I already buy all our vegetables at our local organic market, getting organic baby food ready was easy, almost as easy as buying the jars from Earth’s Best, which I also do.

My two other kids also enjoy Earth Best’s other products, namely the Sesame Street line (no surprise here), which includes biscuits, juice and even frozen waffles. There’s a whole slew of products out there for the kids.  Organic milk and yogurt should be at the top of your list, then the vegetables and fruit (although you can use a natural fruit and veggie wash for non-organic produce), then eggs, meat and poultry. My kids, who are pasta snobs, have even found an organic brand which they love – Garofalo, which is made in Italy.

It may cost a little more, but if you take the time to read the packaging and compare them to the other packaged kids products at the supermarket (with all the rubbish they add in), you’ll be convinced.

Welcome to Yurto, the blog about eco-friendly living in the home. Inspired by the yurt, an ancient circular dwelling place built in tune with nature, we hope to explore the ways we can all make a change for the better in the world that we live in – beginning from our homes.

Why is it so important to go green? Al Gore, who woke up the world with his now-famous documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, puts it succinctly:

“…Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point of no return, beyond which it’s much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future…”

10 years??? Now that’s a scary thought.  If you have children like me, that’s enough reason to stop procrastinating and do something about NOW.

So from plastic to canvas, wasting to conserving,  lets find ways to care for the earth while we can and live healthier, happier lives.