Repurpose It! Acorns and Cheese Packaging

It's been a while since I got my craft on.  I have been so busy with school for the past year that I haven't had the time to channel my crafty side.  And while I've previously extolled the virtues of living in a small house, one thing that has suffered is my access (or lack there of) to a crafting corner.  My yarn, cloth, paints, rick-rack and baubles are inconveniently stuffed in various out-of-the-way corners in my bedroom, making it very hard to find what I need when I need it.

This morning it hit me that I was short two kids for the day, my youngest was off playing by himself no less, and I had no school work (thank God for Christmas break)!  I made a mad dash to gather supplies, amazingly was able to find what I needed, and set to work!

First up: a large, fuzzy Burr Oak acorn found during a family walk about a month ago.  This one ended up on my desk. Unfortunately its sisters place in a bag and stored at the top of my closet ended up getting a bit of mold on them and had to be trashed.  Next year I will be sure to let them dry completely before putting them in storage.  I believe these were collected the day after a rain, hence the ensuing mold.

The second I saw these they screamed "Santa!" to me.  So I set about putting a face to my idea.  The finished product is nothing spectacular, but it was fun to work on a quick little re-purposing project.  Next time I'll drill a hole in the top and put a string in it for a cute little ornament.

And second: Brie holder-cum-Christmas gift packaging.  As I was searching the fridge for breakfast this morning, it hit me that this would make a cute box of sorts to hold a small gift for my daughter.  I painted it, glued to the top an ornament I made last year out of old holiday cards and glitter, and used the shiny gold outer lining of the Brie packaging to wrap around the gift inside!  I think it turned out pretty cute.

It felt great to be crafting something home-made again.  Now I just need to buy Christmas gifts to fill the box!  Way behind on that.  Only a few days left - wish me luck! -Carrie

Re-purposing a used Chicken

Well the inevitable happened. One of our chickens, the brown leghorn, went broody about 5 months ago. After several attempts to rehabilitate her, we made the decision to part ways with her. Here are the options we discussed.

1. Throw her in the trash. (Complete loss of a resource. We felt like the chicken might have opposition to this idea also.)

2. Compost her. (Partial loss of a resource. We felt like the chicken might have opposition to this idea also.)

3. Dinner. (Complete recapture of a resource though messy. We felt like the chicken might have opposition to this idea also.)

4. Let her sit on fertile eggs we buy for her. (We already have 26 chicks in the garage, not viable for us but the chicken loved the idea.)

5. Let her sit on fertile eggs for someone else. (Partial loss of a resource. Chicken loved the idea!)

A quick listing on Craigslist.org, four offers to do business with people in third world countries to relocate their cars and/or complete a business transaction, and two offers for a broody chicken later, we shipped Swoope off to live with another family where she will hopefully be the proud mother of a clutch of Plymouth Rocks. We recouped half the expense for this hen this way and all parties including Swoope made out in the deal. Oh how I love to repourpose things. - Jason

A Better use for Beer Bottles- Recycled Glass Paving

Last semester I was on a field trip to a new constructions site for a drainage class. They were pouring the walkways with a new material. Well, sort of. The material is recycled glass. I was happy to see that they were finding a new purpose for this glass. Unfortunately, the glass had to come from one state over, but the silver lining is that it was commercially feasible. Better yet, it looks great when it's installed!

As a bonus to the environment, this recycled glass walk is permeable. The easiest way to explain this is to think of the way a rice/marshmallow treat is put together. To understand why permeable materials are important check out this post from a few months ago on storm water management, Houston Sustainable Design Competition. -Jason

Recycled glass will take the shape of its container, in this case, a styrofoam cup 

I found which a construction worker used during his lunch.

Here we see the pieces before the epoxy is added to them.

This video demonstrates the porousness of the material.

I've Been at it Again....

I just got home from taking a load of things over to the Salvation Army. I rewarded myself for paring down some items by taking a swing through our old neighborhood and scouring the parkways because, you guessed it - it's bulk trash pickup week! And wouldn't you know it, I feel like I hit the lottery! After only one street I came across these -

No, not the plastic! What is under the plastic! Are you ready for the big reveal???

Discarded Halloween decorations! Three wonderful, huge bales of hay/straw (I naively have no idea of the difference). I couldn't be happier! Great for the garden beds and the coop, these puppies cost between $10-$15 per bale at the local Feed Store. Needless to say I am quite pleased with the find. These will easily last us through the winter. -Carrie

Lovin' Up on Bulk Trash Pickup Day!

It seems like there is always a neighborhood around here preparing for bulk trash pick up day. For those of you unfamiliar with this (as I was when I first moved here), Dallas has neighborhood bulk trash pickup once a month. Homeowners can leave brush, downed limbs, entire trees, furniture, appliances, etc., on the parkway. The city collects it and takes it to the dump.

People put out the darndest things! I seriously would encourage anyone who lives in a city that does this to take advantage of this free way to find some awesome, completely usable, and sometimes amazing, items. It may feel a little bit odd at first - stopping on the side of the road and going through someone's castoffs - but in time those feelings fade. They are replaced by feelings of resourcefulness (can this be used in a different way instead of putting it in a landfill?) and the thrill of the find. I have never driven around systematically hitting neighborhoods looking for items, but if I come across something while on my daily travels that may look promising, I often stop. The following is a pictorial of some of the better things we've found.

Jason literally spent 10 minutes tinkering with this Dyson Vacuum before he got it to work. This was a great find! We've used it for two years now.

Other than a few minor scratches, this chair is in good condition. I had to fix the bottom of the seat cushion - I ended up just using safety pins to save time! The chair is also missing feet. However, I think unless it was specifically pointed out no one would notice. I originally bought rounded fence post toppers for $4 each from Home Depot to use as feet, but the proportions were a bit off so I returned them. Now I'm just keeping an eye out for chairs or couches set out for bulk trash whose feet I could use on this.

I came across this awesome piece of art about two weeks ago. I couldn't believe my luck! From a distance I first thought it was part of the interior spring system of a mattress, but upon further inspection I realized it was an honest to goodness piece of artsy metalwork!
Set to go to the dump no less! It's about 4' x 18" and really cool.
I plan on putting it on the wall in the next few days.

Metal garden trellis - pretty much self-explanatory

10+ Tomato Cages & Numerous Bamboo Stakes

Some other items we've picked up that are not pictured here include:

• 7 foot tall Wisteria Vines, used to decorate the corner of a room
• Indoor pet gate
• Small Dog Carrier (to be used for the chickens if we ever need to transport them!)
• North Face bookbag
• The beginning materials for what I hope will be our next chicken housing project - a chicken tractor! More on that in a later post...
  

And let's not forget some items we've already written about in this blog, including:

• Square Compost Bin - pictures in this post
• Set of old windows to be used for a mini greenhouse or cold frame, detailed here
• Most of Materials used to make our coop
  

So here's the lesson for the day - someone else's trash can truly be your treasure. Don't disregard it out of hand. I think the vast majority of people would prefer someone be able to re-use their cast offs than just having them go to the dump. So go give it a try! Let us know what diamonds in the rough you discover! -Carrie

Repurpose It...New Uses for Old Tires

We spotted this little beaut behind a building on St. Jo’s town square. Talk about country ingenuity! While not really my style I think it definitely has its place – and is certainly a perfect example of the reuse mentality.

In the same vain, I took this picture a few months ago during a chicken coop tour here in Dallas. I imagine a see-saw such as this may be a fairly common thing in the country, but having never seen one before I felt it was fairly inventive.

Other than the more common plain tire planter or basic swing, are there other uses for tires which you’d like to enlighten us with? - Carrie

11/28/2010 - Just came across this picture of a tire chair! Check it out!

Two Peas in a Pod

I was coming home at sundown the other night and made a short detour down a street I never take. That’s when I spotted them – beautiful, original (1930s?), and in perfect condition. A homeowner replacing windows on his newly purchased abode had left the old ones on the parkway atop a large pile of brush. I thought the windows would be perfect made into cold frames for some beds in the backyard. I knew bulk trash pickup would be the next day, plus it was almost dark, so I had to move fast. Seeing as how I was only about 300 feet from our house, I figured I would stop there first and make sure Jason wanted them, too. We’re trying to de-clutter, both inside and out, and since I wouldn’t be making the frames for a few months I didn’t want to get them if he wasn’t up for it. So – I bounce into the house, with a little glimmer in my eyes and a smile on my face and say “You’re never going to guess what I just found!” He smiles too and replies “Go look in the back of the van…” And wouldn’t you know it – there were 4 windows - beautiful, original, and in perfect condition. We headed out and grabbed 4 more. How awesome that we are both on this journey with the same “frame” of mind. We were meant for each other! - Carrie

Repurpose It….The “Clampett Coop”

For more than a year we considered getting a few chickens for egg production. We finally “bit the bullet” in mid May and purchased three older pullets. We are now the proud owners of Charlotte, a Barred Rock; Nellie, a Black Sex-Link; and Swoope, a Brown Leg Horn (all named in honor of Virgina cities). In constructing their coop we wanted to keep costs down much as possible while also reusing anything we could find that was destined for the landfill. What we came up with is meant to function as a temporary coop (under one year) because we plan on building a bigger one off a yet-to-be-competed shed and getting a few more chickens!

We had a few scraps of wood left over from another project, but it was not enough. Over the course of a few days we kept our eyes open for possible materials – all from the side of the road! Dallas has neighborhood bulk trash pickup once a month. Homeowners can leave brush, downed limbs, entire trees, furniture, appliances, etc., etc. on the parkway. The city collects it and takes it to the dump. This is both a blessing (re-use, free stuff!) and a curse (useable items fill up the dump, neighborhood eyesore the week prior to pickup). The curse part of it is probably a post in and of itself, but I’m going to focus on the blessing part here today.

We decided on a Wednesday that we were going to get the chickens that Saturday. This didn’t leave us much time to scavenge (or build for that matter)! We were able to gather some great items that I wanted to showcase here. We started construction with screws, some wood, and some wire – all left over from a previous home renovation. Everything else we found – thanks to the people of North Oak Cliff! Repurposed items include the nesting boxes (college-type plastic storage bins), roosting perches (ladder from a bunkbed), and numerous things that help to form the overall structure of the coop including an old sawhorse, a garage work table for the base of their elevated sleeping area, a shutter used as a door to get to the nesting boxes, and more wood.

When first completed I liked it so much but just couldn’t stop laughing. It looks so ugly & sad! But that’s also where the beauty lies. The chickens are clueless and couldn’t be happier. The coop provides them shelter from the weather, safety from predators, we provide the food and water – they’re set! Same can be said for babies – they have no idea if they are sleeping on a $1000 designer crib or a $10 one from a thrift shop. Just give them the basics – food, shelter, clothes, and love. Of course we don’t dress our chickens, but you get the idea. When all was said and done we ended up spending about $6 on hinges. We did buy one small roll of chicken wire but that was with a gift card we already had and we still have plenty of wire left over for anther project. We do let the chickens free range for a few hours daily to help reduce the amount of feed we need to purchase, and therefore, lower holding costs. No doubt, we could improve the look of the coop if we painted it. But I’ve become quite fond of our “Clampett Coop” – it is a constant reminder of our recent push to tread lighter on the land – and I’m OK with that. - Carrie

Pigs don't know...

It's 95 degrees outside as I write these words. It is June 5th and we are entering the dog days of summer. The chickens pant like dogs trying to cool their little bodies. A warm dry breeze flows through the window which I sit next to, powered by the whole house fan which I installed one week ago. We still haven't turned our A/C on yet. It's going to be a long summer.

If you had told me three years ago that I would be writing a blog about living greener in the middle of a city, I would have laughed. Then I would have asked what a blog is... Three years ago we lived in a 3000 sq/ft duplex, while running a landscape company out of our garage. Life was good, we thought. Our youngest son, Kieran, was just born. Jobs were flowing in. Our customer base was expanding. Then one day that year, overnight almost, business dried up. With no explanation past what was happening on Wall St., the calls stopped coming in and the wheels of business came grinding to a halt. I was stuck with two employees, two trucks, two trailers, and slew of commercial equipment. Expensive equipment.

There's something magical about a recession. It forces you to trim the fat. You begin to examine your life and what's truly important to you and what you can simply do without. In the midst of this crisis, my wife and I did what every red blooded American does when the going gets tough. I went back to school. To upgrade my landscape company, it was decided that I would use my GI Bill and complete a degree in Landscape Architecture!

Fast forward to the Fall of '08. We moved from Dallas to Arlington to be closer to school, sold one truck (the expensive one but kept the death trap), two trailers, kept half the equipment, and rented our house in Dallas. Still no environmental conscience. Universities have a way of exposing you to new ways of thinking. No one ever thumped me with an eco-bible. I don't remember going to meetings on campus to abolish plastic flatware from the cafeteria or censure professors who don't turn lights off after leaving a classroom. I just became aware.

Someone once told me that Landscape Architecture has the best of what science and art have to offer. We have one foot in each world, so to speak. I was made aware of environmental issues which LAs are working to solve. Suddenly, I saw myself as part of the problem. Like I said, I became aware. In a former life, I used to be part of a multi-level marketing business. This business system was an efficient one which had educational tapes and seminars. One tape spoke on how the average person goes through life without a clue, happy and content to live a life of mediocrity. They are content to live this life because they don't know any better. The name of the tape you ask? Pigs don't know pigs stink.

In this blog, I will attempt to entertain and educate with our story of how we got to where we are now and keep you up to date on pertinent happenings. -Jason