What did you do for Earth Day?

And so passes another Earth Day. I wanted to look up stuff to do with Ajay - artsy crafty type stuff, but didn't. Bad me. However, we did do stuff today that I'm sure Mother Nature would approve of.

First off, we've been putting Alex in sposies (disposable diapers) lately. For awhile, it was because he needed special creams on his rash and I didn't want to ruin the cloth diapers. Then we visited my family and I was lazy and didn't want to do diaper laundry in a strange washer and dryer. Now he's in sposies because I don't have a good laundry detergent to use for them. You have to be careful with what you use or you could cause detergent buildup on the dipes, which leads to funky smells or repellency issues (the pee rolls right off the diaper instead of being absorbed). As I was throwing away the sposie this morning, the start of Earth Day, I thought to myself "why am I using sposies when I have cloth diapers just waiting to be used??" - so I've put Alex back in his cloth diapers, and that will force me to find a good detergent in the next two days!

I did some housework today, and I cleaned using vinegar and water. I used my spray bottle with half water/half vinegar and used an old newspaper to wash some windows. I then used the same spray bottle to wet my kitchen and bathroom floors. After a few minutes I used a washcloth to wipe it up. All the yuck (thank you, children!) came up very easily. The recipe (found here) said 1/4 cup of vinegar to a gallon of water, but I'd used up the last of my vinegar yesterday killing off the weeds on our brick patio. I don't think using a stronger solution hurt our tile any.

I washed three loads of laundry today and I used my homemade laundry detergent. I must say that I'm not entirely thrilled with the recipe (ivory soap, baking soda, water to which I added a few drops of lavender oil) - so I'm going to use a different recipe that uses Ivory soap, Washing Soda, Borax and water (and probably put more lavender oil in that batch, too!). I hung two loads of laundry out on the line, but went ahead and used the dryer for the 3rd load (c'mon, they were the whites, so all of the tiny laundry, like socks, and not-for-neighbors-to-see items, like undies!!)

This year, we're putting in a garden. We're going to make our garden organic - this is our first year of doing a garden, so it's not like we have to re-train our thinking. But we do have a lot of research to do as far as how to grow food, how to keep weeds at bay, how to keep pests away. So far we've planted peas, onions (white and purple) and a few kernels of corn. As we were out I saw one of our resident bunnies eyeing us. I told Biju it was watching where we were planting so it could have a snack. We'll have to come up with some way to keep those rabbits out! (Squirrels, too) Any ideas?? Ajay LOVES to garden and asks everyday if he can go out and work in the garden. If he's this excited now, just wait until it's time to actually eat what has been grown! Here are some photos of the gardening process. I didn't get any shots of him watering today, or planting the onions, but Biju got a couple shots of him helping me with the peas last Sunday.