BUCKY FULLER challenges you to be a planet saver"If success or failure of the planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do ... How would I be? What would I do?" Buckminster Fuller
1.) USE EVERYTHING TO BETTER THE SOIL. All bio-garbage goes into ground outside back door, in the ground. Save it in a big bowl near sink, when it's full, keep shovel out in yard near your composting area. it does not smell or draw flies. Get the FISH MONGER to give you fish trash, spines, bones, skin and bury it there. Keep moving your spot so the worms don't get overloaded. They turn it into finest HUMUS SOIL.
2) CONFINE THE USELESS TRASH! RECYCLE all coke bottles and cans in the back of the car, visible to all. I note that keeping them visible in my hatchback cuts down on traffic tickets. No cop will give a ticket to someone so poor they collect cans! Re-use all plastic bags that arrive holding your fresh groceries, (*for winter clothing storage, bulbs and corms from the garden, seasonal Shoe storage. sweater storage with some lavendar or moth balls in warm weather,) so the bags never end up in trash. Well, they will eventually but you got multi uses out of them first. .
3.) USE THE EARTH! Green lawns take up way more water than vegie gardens. Compost lawn in divots, upside down with manure, get your local chicken farmer to sell you ten buckets of bird dung. In a few months you'll have a magnificently fertile garden. Then visit. http://www.masterjules.net/gindinex.htm and learn the art of sowing, growing, hoeing, mulching and then eating home grown produce and organic soil gives plants impervious to bugs, cuts down on pesticides stored in your body
4.) USE THE CAT! Old fashioned cat litter is full of urea, best amendment for clay soil, makes it loose, friable. NOT CLUMPING LITTER! Remove turds with hand in plastic bag (We're reusing bags, right? ) They go into trashcan, bagged. LITTER goes into garden, gets dug in and watered well.
5.) WATER and TOILET PAPER CONSERVATION- Silly rock singer Cheryl Crowe was wrong about using less toilet paper.. Six squares of toilet paper is a better butt patter than her ONE as then you do not have to wash your hands so well! (Which wastes water)
6.) All GOOD GARBAGE goes to ANIMAL LIFE! Fruit and vegie wastes that look almost edible go into the area where your possums are. Mine is a huge huge redwood fence made into a chin high woodpile. POSSUMS love nightly donation and replicate. The little marsupials love snails. I have not had to bag up my hand and with flashlight pick up a lb of snails every single night since my possums multiplied. When WWIII hits, I've got MARSUPIAL, the OTHER WHITE MEAT! And as they eat all my chicken bones they are going to be FAT and tasty!
SWISS chard is too generous with me, so I cook it nightly, the stems get 5 min, the leaves 1, then I use the fat off cat's chickens, as butter, plate it up. Slide plate into the woodpile, in those spaces where I see possums crawling. Morning, it's gone.I see my cats seated their backs to me, watching the woodpile for hours at midnight. Reality TV. THE POSSUM SHOW no more boring than all those OTHER reality shows!
7). SHARE THE CAT FAT - Chicken is always on sale somewhere. It ends up being way cheaper than pet food. If you boil up chickens for your cat crew, you skim the broth serve the meat, throw broth into fridge in a saucepan. After it's fridged overnight, you will get a thick layer of hard fat. Save in coffee can. Twenty coffee cans of chicken fat every six months is my norm. Put an ad in Craigs list 'SOAPMAKERS come get your free TALLOW" Kept fridged fresh and cold. This is two times frugal: Cheap cat food, Free soap!
8.) AC's are expensive. Grow trees around house, on four sides. Wake up, it's 95? Spray trees, up to 40 feet high, every leaf wet. It's a refrigeration grid, chills air instantly. Then turn on AC for a few minutes, that's doubly chilled in house. Never spray trees after 6:30pm as they may not dry and darkness would make every leaf on them MOLD, on certain varieties, Lost an apricot tree that way. Damp at dinner, by MORNING it was GRAY
toast!9). EVEN SHMUTZ HAS A USE! Vacuum up that mixture of soil, dust, cathair? Great compost! Stick it
out in garden. GO FISHING and get thousands of dollars worth of the world's freshest, best fish, but you also get COMPOST. Fillet the fishies, put the FILLET in plastic wrap wi. lemon juice in the freezer. Then those Fish wastes, fish scales? Bury with shovel. SQUANTO KNOW HEAP WELL HOW TO GROW CORN!10 A.) ALL WASTE WATER GOES ON flowers in YARD. Before you step out of the bath tub, take the hose tip from window, pull IN the hose, affix to the FAUCET, turn cold water on full force. Outside in the garden, that water is LOWER than the tub level and starts a 'suck' going. Put hose quickly in the tub water. Tub empties in to garden. B.) MOP with ammonia water? Best fertilizer. DUMPIT OUTSIDE! Squeeze mop dry over the soil beds. Rinse again in bucket and toss that too. C.) Wash dishes in two sinks, use two plastic square tubs exact size of sink. Finished rinsing? Pick them both up dump on garden outside kitchen. Dishwasher machine wastes electricity and tons of water unless you hook up the empty-hose to garden which is an idea. D.) RAIN GUTTERS, send the water to the right part of garden.
11.) Don't waste money on flea sprays for your cats. Vet bills for cancer will go thru the roof. USE THE BABY KITTENS as flea vacuums. Daily, pick the little guy up, sink in water to his neck, use the soap to suds him a bit, fleas come up to 'top side of the craft.' and you pick them off into water. Then towel him, carry into sun, set on white towel surface, got your specs? IN SUNLIGHT, the fleas shine copper bright, can't move in wet fur, pick off. Towel for a sec in sun, return him to his mother smelling of Irish Spring. A very fine tooth flea comb works for adults. Stand them on sink, two tubs of water full, comb, pick fleas off comb. Wet his chops, nose, forehead, THE TOPDECK main place fleas love and they rise to tip of fur. Comb them off.
12.) FRUIT FALL GETS USED! In L.A's interior valley we can pick up every kind of citrus free, off lawns, alleys. Owners tell me to take what's on the tree but I prefer what fell on ground as I know it's ripe. I juice it and throw into a plastic bottle in fridge.. If soft drinks are on sale or on the bent rack, I'll buy and fridge a can. Slosh some soda a glass, add fresh squeezed citrus, put a bottle cap over the CAN so flies can't get in,in case there's a fly in my fridge. Hey, it's been known to happen. That SINGLE CAN OF SODA lasts me three days as I ethically will not let myself have soft drinks without the addition of FRESH FRUIT FALL juice. I love the carbonation, the hit of ice cold that the soft drink gives, which raw juice doesn't, so I rationalize with that combo recipe there. My Armenian neighbor has a yellow fig tree. Rather cloying flavor done up as jam but if one adds LEMON ZEST AND JUICE as one makes the jam, it is very tasty. So my lemon fruit fall allows me to use my fig fruitfall!
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