Green As You Can Be

Green As You Can Be is sponsoring an Earth Day celebration on April 25 and we are still looking for “green” vendors.  The celebration will take place at the Shoppes of Brasstown Village in Brasstown, NC. I would love to find some more local vendors from the building trades.If you are interested, please leave a comment and I will get in touch.

It’s going to be a fun filled day with music, food, green vendors and arts and crafts. Mark you calendars and come to Brasstown for the day.

Jax

We got our electric bill today. I had been looking forward to it, this time. Last month we added extra insulation, plugged up holes, closed off the uptairs, put up flannel curtains on windows that leaked cold air, used the wood burning stove to keep the great room heated  and some things I know I’m forgetting. Did it pay off???? You bet it did. We saved $77. That’s BIG to me. Gives me more incentive to do even more. I know Winter is almost over (please???) but there is always next year.

Spring cannot come soon enough for me. I’m tired of cold weather. This part of North Carolina is mild compared to some places. We don’t get a lot of ice and snow but the cold seems to go on forever.

The daffodils have poked their heads out of the ground so there is hope. The birds have begun to sing so Spring IS on the way.

My friend Dan has started thinking ahead. He had some scrap lumber laying around and some branches he gathered in the woods and came up with some really neat homes for the birds this Spring.  Any bird would be proud to call them home.

Reuse, recycle, renew and re-purpose.

Jax

I am a huge tea drinker. I hate heating up the stove every time I need a cup. I don’t like to make it in the microwave. I was OK with it when I had a gas stove but when we moved to the new house I was back to electric and wasting energy. On a trip to a big city (2 1/2 hours away) I discovered this hot water kettle. I LOVE red. ( I love Ohio State football) I love this kettle. I can heat  enough water , just to the boiling point and then it shuts itself off. No wasted energy.  So even though I love red, I love being green more.

Jax

We finally got our first video up and ready. In this episode Jackie takes us on a tour of her new house that isn’t very “green”. In future shows we will follow Jackie as she transforms her home and surrounding land into a eco friendly environment.

You can see our videos by clicking “Watch Our Videos” under “Pages” on the right hand sidebar.
To go directly to this video CLICK HERE.

There are many places cold air can sneak in. Your wall sockets are one of the sneaker ones. We bought a box of insulators to take care of the problem For less than $5  we sealed all the outlets that were on outside walls.

Maybe by the time Winter is over, we will be “weather proof”

Jax

As we know, heat rises. When we went to turn on the ceiling fan we discovered, like everything else in this place, the fan did not work properly. First of all, the pull chain was missing. We fixed that, then we noticed that the fan wobbled. After much swearing, my favorite handyman got it balanced. After cleaning years of dust off the blades it worked. Now we can pull the warm air down from the ceiling and keep our room toasty warm.

What have you done this winter to save energy???

Jax

There is not one window in this house that does not need to be sealed. (Can you buy caulk by the pallet) Finding the right color of caulk posed a problem. But we lucked out and we went right to work. We ran out but at least we did the north and west sides. Most of our cold weather comes in from the west.  On the next trip into town we’ll buy some more . It’s been raining for days so we can’t do much outside anyway. The weather is warm right now but we may have snow later in the week so I must get moving on making my “Winter” curtains. I’ll post them when the are done.

Jax

I needed to start the New Year right with my green pledge, so I dragged my not so green husband down to home improvement store and bought some insulating materials. My electric bill at the new place is horrendous and I am out to fix all the leaks and other problems.

We  put insulation on the pipes exposed to the weather.

More soon.

Jax

Hope everyone made a New Year’s resolution to be “Green and YOU can be” this year. I know I did.

Send me all the new ways you will be green this year. I would love to know what others are doing.

My first green issue will be adding more insulation to this old house and have my heating system checked so it will run more efficiently.

I’m going to use my crock-pot more and my oven less.

Good green news in “downtown” Brasstown, NC. We have a new shop called “Vital Vittles” It’s a food co-op, featuring only organic foods. They plan to have a market every Wednesday starting in the spring where fresh organic food can be purchased. Can’t wait.

Jax