Eco-Living: the second step

Well, at the start of this blog I wrote "Eco-Living: the first step" So now I am going to write its sequel.

The path that is followed for  living ecologically is a straight and narrow one. You don't just live in quaint  little houses and be a bit, well weird. you actually do stuff, and, by the way, your weirdness level is totally up to you!

The truth is,you can live however you want and incorporate healthy things such as:

Eating less or no meat.

Buying organically grown veggies.

Donating and/or joining good causes.

Protecting natural areas.

Keeping your land clean and healthy.

Doing all sorts of humanitarian things.

Camping.

These are all good and healthy things that you could do all on your own, and in some cases, helpful to those around and far away from you.

The reason that this blog was started after all, was to give out ideas and raise environmental awareness for everyone. 

Things You can Do

There are many smart things that you can do to reduce your own carbon footprint. Here are some good ones:


1. Stop eating cow, I mean in 2006, there was at least 2 studies done that said that rearing cattle caused                       more greenhouse gasses than cars. Plus, lamb tastes  better.

2. Carpool whenever possible, why not spend a little extra time if it helps the environment?

3. If the heating doesn't  really need to be on, then don't have it on and vise versa (for AC as well).

Do some of these as well as other things just to be good to the earth.

What is Saving the Environment Really About?

Today's post gives us a vital question: "What is all the work that we put into the environment really for?"

I mean, we spend so much time on spreading the word. Reducing our carbon footprint, donating to environmental fundraisers. I believe that we do it for multiple reasons.


We do it because we care, because we love the beautiful outdoors.
Who wants in a few decades to be faced with the responsibility of having to admit to the children of tomorrow that the reason that they cannot go outside is because we didn't try hard enough to save the planet from looking like this?:

That is why we do all this work to protect the planet, it's population, and all that reside here.

So, I ask you all to join me in its protection, and our own.

What are your ideas?

I have been given you lots of different things about the outdoors, but I would also immensely enjoy hearing your own ideas. Please give me lots of ideas, and the ones that I think would do the most good and/or be the most popular will be published in a post later on.

I will also set up a post solely for making votes on which ideas to use and which not to.

Why Fast Food restraunts are bad

We all know that fast food restraunts are bad, but do we know why?

Well, for instance, we now that the stuff that is in sausages and hot dogs are bad, but why? well there is all the bad stuff in them, the intestines, the butt of, as with most hot dogs and sausages, a pig. Gross right? there is a hole lot of that and stuff thats worse.

Guess what is in a chicken nugget? The hole chicken, and I mean everything all of it is just  ground together into something called pink slime, it is crawling with bacteria, so they wash it with ammonia and then it tastes and smells absolutely horrid. So they flavor it and disguise its smell and all that so that it is presentable.

And of course, the Hamburger. It is only 2%-14% meat normally, and the rest is all the bad stuff, the cartilage and the rest.

That is why you should cook at home and not go to a restraunt.

After you have established your shelter...

Once you have constructed your shelter, some things that may prove to be vital are:

A Bow, to be explained later.

Fishhooks.

And a hole lot more!!!




Okay, what is it with fishhooks? I can't smelt metal and make fishhooks! Your right. You can't make metal fishhooks, but, you can make them many different ways and types. One easy way is: find a thorny plant that has small to medium sized thorns. Cut of a piece and take it back to your camp. Then cut off a section of it with a stem and single thorn, make sure that the barb's sharp tip is pointing up the stem. than fix your string to the stem in the most effective way that you can do, (I say it this way because the way you do depends on who you are)  you now have your fishing hook. I would advise you to make more than one at a time as you may lose one or to and it would be no fun to return empty handed.

There are many different ways and styles of making bows and I cannot explain them all, but I will tell a simple one:
first select a piece of supple wood and mark out where your hand will go. Next, hack down to arms to about halfway down. Then taper the ends and remove the rest of the bark. Then, carve the notches for the string to be looped onto and attach the string and you are done.


TO MAKE ARROWS...

by this point, you have made your bow, but have no arrows for hunting with.

To make arrows, you need to simply find some big feathers and a few straight sticks. slice the feathers in half with a knife and trim them into triangles. Then,  tie them to the arrow leaving at least half an inch at the back. Then sharpen the tip and put a notch in the bak and it in ready.

Outdoor Survival

Have you ever wondered what it would be like instead of going camping in a tent and cabin to actually rough it?

To only take matches or even better a flint and steel? String, you will need string. And dental floss? Dental floss is perfect, use it as string and then cover your oral hygiene after eating the fish that you caught with it.

Here are some things that I would make sure to do:

The big three in survival=food, water, shelter

The rule of thumb is that you can survive for three weeks without food, while only three days without water. So make water your priority.

You will need shelter to rough the elements. There are many different styles of constructing or finding shelters. Here are some of the best:

1. Find a nature shelter. Go for the cave. But sing while you enter it so you won't surprise a large four-legged friend.

2. Lean-to is a good and easy one to make, but not as awesome as the former.

3. I really do enjoy building small forts outside, and I've been trying to get to the point I can build a treehouse fort on a survival show. That fort would be the way to go if you happened to have the supplies. So if you are carrying power chord around with you or a lot of fishing line you could make a go at it.

4. Then there is a debris structure. This one makes you feel like you are really safe and living like a furred one.

5. And Just because my mom is crazy about geodesic domes, I have to include this one for those wilderness junkies like myself who would like some architectural flair in their survival zone.

These photos are really good structural examples for survival. My tow favorite are the geodesic and the treehouse.

And just to mention something on survival. Sometimes people think we need to save ourselves from the wolves or the wildfires when we are out in nature. For me survival is escaping from the crazy boo hoo of modernized life. These places are ways to escape the craziness of requirements and no bird song. Happy building.

Outdoor Resources

My mom recently bought me a book called the Trapper's Bible. It has a lot of traps including my favorite, the no kill deer trap. The same principle can be used for moose, elk, reindeer, and fox.

It has cool survival traps that can be triggered without you being there to shoot. And many other traps.

I, myself, am not interested in traps that kill things, but I think it is really cool to make traps that don't kill things.

That is why I have recently bought a no kill mouse trap. My mom is really environmentally friendly, but I had to convince her on the no kill traps for the mice running around the kitchen.

It never caught anything, but very shortly after we set it up we never saw mice again.

The Earth's Cycle

We are all used to the constant, unending cycle  of the earth: Spring, Summer, Fall and of course, my favorite, Winter.

We all know what happens in spring:

the flowers bloom, deer get their antlers back, bigger than the ones they had the year before. Happiness all around. Summer. Hot.

Perfect time for the pool, time to go camping. all that fun stuff. Fall.

Well, the leaves fall making the fertilizer for the next year with their decomposition that will help heal the earth and help the plant and animal growth. Winter.

 The snow comes in much of the upper and lower parts of the planet, the earth rests and the cycle begins anew again.

Did you catch that part about leaves decomposing and leaving fertilizer for the next year (totally free fertilizer! and you don't even have to have it shipped in)?

I mean, isn't that a much better scenario than having people come and paying them a lot of money to blow the leaves off and then getting them to douse some grass green in a bottle to make your lawn look healthy, although it is not healthy.

You aren't even allowed to go and play in it, it is so not healthy.

Now, if you add it all up. It is a huge number. With all of the people having their lawns blown, all of the CO2 produced by those leaf blowers. And then all of the people who are working this back breaking job and getting menial pay. They could be planting trees instead, planting gardens, growing vegetables in greenhouses for the long cozy winter. They could be collecting acorns for pancakes or collecting seeds from all of the pods instead of walking around blowing those leaves.

I think this is a better idea. Here are some images about the decomposition cycle of leaves.

You see those mushrooms? Don't pick them and eat them, but they are literally a form of fungi. They, like worms, digest and eat the leaves and broken limbs. Once it is all eaten then disappear and so has all of the dead leaves. Think of it. If leaves didn't disappear on their own all of our wild forest lands would have 5,000 feet of leaves. But all they have is barely last year's cover. No green grass douse. Just leaves.

Great business operation.

Instead of paying money to the leaf blowers this year, spend it on seedlings and starting gardens. It might not be good for 3-4 months, but in a year or two you will be getting a good deal of your food from your garden. AND the leaves that fall from these trees will make your grass beautiful naturally.

This is my favorite nursery to order trees from. They are incredible, and have a giant variety of edible landscape options. Why just plant a tree when you can plant a tree that makes you dinner?

Oikos Tree Crops!

Fun things to do outside

I myself love spending time outside, and some fun things that I enjoy are:

Camping. This is a great family thing to do, but, it can be done alone as well.

Setting and Building Traps. ever wondered what fun it would be to catch pets? this is a great way to do it.

Playing. There are many different things that are enjoyable in the Great Outdoors.

Building Bows. and other original weapons.

Even if you are not a camper, or the idea of spending time on traps just doesn't appeal to you you, there is something in this world that will, I have not put down even a speck of sand in comparison to all that there is to do outside and encourage you to be creative and enjoy your time outside. I hope that the Great Outdoors is as as appealing to you as it is to me, and that you enjoyment of it never ends.

Sound Pollution

We've all sat in our cars blasting music as along as we can, never thinking about the sort of consequences that can be caused to the environment.

Imagine that you are in your car sitting in a woodland setting. Your windows rolled down to let in the cool breeze, blasting music. So what happens there?

For one, you scare away the squirrels from gathering food. The birds will fly the un-coop. The deer will take another path. All in all, you are driving away insects, animals, changing the biosphere.

But none of this is really what I want to talk about, because I like to play the radio loud too, sometimes that is.

Have you ever heard that sharp, piercing squeal? I have. That is what some types of tech will sometimes do, if that hurts us, then imagine what that would do to animals with more sensitive hearing,  I like my tech, how about you? lets find out just what causes that and how to fix that together. 

Things to do that are especially helpful in your area

Volunteer for cleaning up the parks and for tree planting

Engage in environmentally supportive conversations with friends. Say things that you see need to happen in your own community that would make the area a healthier, more beautiful, and happier place to live

Do what you talked about in those conversations

Change the laws through local action that are undermining a healthy place to live

Protect the areas that are already beautiful (you may have to look for them as they are around you every day you may not realize how incredible they are) such as guarding woodlands from logging, littering, or other means of injuring its beauty. Yesterday, for example, I was out with a friend and we were playing in a spot by a stream that we go to often. We forgot to take our water bottles in. Today I will fix that and take a bag along with me to grab any other trash. The rain has been coming down and so I might get some trash that flows to us from upstream.