MetaChat - Do anything for Earth Day?

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22 April 2007

Do anything for Earth Day? →[More:]
I swapped out all the light bulbs in my apartment with new compact fluorescents. Unfortunately, that's about the extent of what I can do to my place to make it greener.

Hopefully the CFLs will offset the extra power consumed by the new 450W power supply I just put in my computer - whoops!

post by: backseatpilot at: 16:09 | 26 comments

Watched TV all day long. Yaaaay.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 22 April | 16:11

I mowed the lawn with my electric mower. Jeez, I hate the extension cord.

Not because I'm green, though. Because the gas mower is acting up as usual. I am so not mechanical.

posted by stilicho 22 April | 17:18

Here in Astoria, it's Greek Independence Day and the locals are all marching around in flags and stuf.

posted by jonmc 22 April | 17:23

We woke up early, got the daughter out of bed, and went to work on landscaping at a neglected DC elementary school. Afterwards, we went by a big nursery, talked to llamas, and bought a bunch of herbs and vegetable plants. Ain't we the good hippies?

posted by mrmoonpie 22 April | 17:33

Mr.Moonpie, that is so nice.

I went to an art festival today, visited my parents, and went to Wal-mart for haircuts for the kids. I bought two prints. This piece, framed. It's a watercolor print of sea grape leaves. I also bought a photograph print. It's of a beautiful landscape near Kingsley Plantation in Florida. It was a good time, there were a couple good bands and fresh-squeezed lemonade.

I saw your CFL at HomeDepot post bsp. We have them in our house. Everything seemed so dim at first. So dim in fact, that the first year after they were installed I would switch them out if people were coming over for dinner. You need actual light to play cards and to see your food. :) Maybe they weren't dimmer, but it seemed that way. Now I'm used to them.

posted by LoriFLA 22 April | 17:37

I attended an apple pruning workshop. But it wasn't an Earth Day event. I helped organize it through the Vermont Master Gardeners and the place where I am on the Board, Justin Morrill Homestead.

I got a little sun burned. Hard to believe it snowed last week.

posted by terrapin 22 April | 17:46

The sun has finally gone down enough to turn the lights on, and to be honest I can't tell much of a difference. I did replace some 75W incandescents with 60W equivalent CFLs, so it might be a little dimmer in here. The floor lamp near my desk doesn't seem any different, though.

I remember about ten years ago my grandmother had one or two in her house, and they were pretty bad back then. Took forever to warm up and the light was this ugly green color. The ones I bought seem pretty good though, barely a flicker when the turn on.

posted by backseatpilot 22 April | 18:05

We went to the local farmer's market and took part in the packed house. It was actually pretty cool. This is a nickel-mining town, and about 15 years back there was a big ruckus when the then-mayor voted to spend X amount of dollars on the local library, cos, c'mon, who needs a library? We gots roads to fix up!

So, yeah, seeing the market packed with people interested in Earth Day stuff was kinda nice.

We also heard some amazing live music from a guy and his two buddies. Now, I'm no hippy, but I loved these guys. They reminded me of CSN, but with better guitar playing. Made an interesting companion-piece to the other music I've been digging in the last week - Stiff Little Fingers. Somehow in my love of old-school punk, I missed them, and Uncut Magazine referring the them as the "Irish Clash" made me perk up my ears.

posted by richat 22 April | 18:31

I took out the recycling, refused grocery bags when offered them at the store, then sat in the dark and watched the Discovery Channel series on cute little animals that sometimes get eaten by things with sharp teeth.

posted by mudpuppie 22 April | 18:32

We walked over to the natural history museum to see a new exhibit on raptors. I misread the schedule & thought there was going to be some live birds there but that's not until May. Still, there were some pretty damn cool stuffed ones, and some cool video cams of peregrine falcons breeding in Minneapolis. Plus we got to be all nerdy and tell them about the kestrels that have returned to nest next to our house again this year.

We've had pig-tail fluorescents in all our lamps for at least 3 years now. Only complaint is that they are slightly longer than conventional incandescents, so they whack into the harps or glass on some fixtures.

posted by chewatadistance 22 April | 18:38

And if my post wasn't clear, I obviously didn't do anything earthy for Earth Day. Everyday is Earth Day. ; )

The park down the street had it's annual Earth Day celebration. I went last year and the DJ was playing Ratt and Metallica, and there was a petting zoo with hot, tired animals. There was tons of kids. It would have been much nicer to play Jack Johnson or something, not Round and Round by Ratt.

The marine science center in my town was releasing a rehabbed sea turtle back into the ocean, but I skipped that too. I've seen it before and I didn't feel like battling the crowds.

posted by LoriFLA 22 April | 19:04

I also just had phone conversations with my 3-year-old cousin (about chewing gum; she can't blow bubbles, but she says my mom blows really good ones) and my 90-year-old grandmother (about flowers and her healing hip). These aren't particularly earthy things, except that the earth, it keeps on turning, and that reminder was probably more poignant than any festival in a park that I could have attended.

That's what it's about, not nature documentaries.

posted by mudpuppie 22 April | 19:13

I didn't do anything intentionally since I didn't know today was Earth Day until now. However, this one paper making technique I am practicing is 100% paper recycling. I took the process one step further than written and added a step to filter the waste water for any residual pulp.

Also, I figured out a way to custom make those preformed packaging inserts to protect fragile items for shipment. That was pretty thrilling when it worked the very first time.

posted by mischief 22 April | 19:28

We didn't do anything particularly green today, we're green almost all the time. Everything that can recycle gets recycled (Abbotsford has a good recycling system going). We'll eventually switch over to CFLs but I hate the damn things. They are dim and I can hear them. We mow with an electric mower but are considering getting a non-power mower (can't remember what the dang things are called). Both yards are fairly small and flat and the exercise is good.

posted by deborah 22 April | 20:15

deborah, "reel" mowers are amazing. Yeah, they are better on flatter terrain, but wow, they cut the grass in a much better manner. We don't have one yet, but once I redo the turf in our yard (it's insanely bumpy) I'll be getting one. Lee Valley sells a few models, and the sharpening kits.

posted by richat 22 April | 20:29

We was on the TV! Channel 9 in DC was at the event, and took some shots of us. I was flipping through the channels earlier and caught the tail end of the segment, and saw myself stuffing leaves in a bag, and a distant shot of the LittleMissMoonPie.

We're usually pretty green on a daily basis, as well. We grow a bunch of our own food, organically, and we have two(TWO) compost bins, one made out of a recycled 55-gallon plastic barrel. And all this is in our tiny DC yard. I don't much like CFLs, though we do use a reel mower on what little grass we have.

posted by mrmoonpie 22 April | 20:50

Free on my curb: 1 reel mower, featuring pre-dulled blades.

that thing is a frackin' pain in the backside.

posted by Triode 22 April | 20:53

Another hate-the-reel-mower hater here.

On the other hand, I LOVE my electric mower with the flip handle. Without the flip handle, I can see where electric mowers (with extension cords, anyway) would be a total PITA. But with the flip handle, I lurves 'em.

posted by mudpuppie 22 April | 21:00

I fixed my dishwasher which was so very exciting. After unbolting and removing 15 different parts from the thing, I found part of a plastic fork stuck in the pump blade. Then I put it all back together and did the dishes. My life is an adventure always.

posted by octothorpe 22 April | 21:13

Did Garden clean-up day at my job, got together with the Community Garden group to clean up our entire garden area, pick up litter around the park, etc. Exhchanged seeds, had a potluck lunch. The sun was out. It was great.

posted by Miko 22 April | 22:01

I didn't know today was Earth Day so I spent it making making soup stock just like yesterday. Today was beef, and veg. Yesterday was chicken and turkey. 23 liters all told.

posted by arse_hat 22 April | 22:56

Caught a spider indoors and set it free.

Oh, and I rode my motorcycle to save gas.

posted by Eideteker 23 April | 07:43

Burned a bunch of tires. Actually I helped clean up a park, but I did it for the people, not the earth.

posted by Divine_Wino 23 April | 09:19

I missed meeting up with the exotic-bird-rescuer co-worker and his missus by, oh, two minutes or so -- they had hours of fun while I was all like, WTF?

posted by PaxDigita 23 April | 10:02

Reel mowers. Thanks, richat! Both the mister and I have used them before and find them easy enough to use. Too bad we can't pick up Triode's.

posted by deborah 23 April | 10:10

We were on Fox 5 news, too, apparently--they have the video online. That's me stuffing leaves into a bag near the beginning. You can see my daughter's hands planting, and my wife in the background of another shot. Can't see any of our faces, though.

posted by mrmoonpie 24 April | 10:10

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