It’s that time of year when the leaves jump off the trees and hit the ground. 
Really.  I’ve seen it happen.  I’ve yet to hear any screaming, though.

This past weekend I raked my leaves and scooped them into an empty trash can. 
After each scoop I stomped down on them with my foot to pack them in tighter AND
break them into smaller pieces.  If you don’t have long legs (or an enormous foot), use the rake handle to
stir the leaves.  When the can is full, pour them onto the flower bed you’ve already
sprayed with the hose.  After spreading them around the plants, spray the leaves with
the hose so they’ll be less likely to blow away in the wind.

Leaves are a great mulch that will hold the moisture for your plants plus they’re full
of nutrients for your soil.

When you mulch with leaves:
1) you keep stuff out of the landfill
2) you don’t use a plastic bag that ends up in landfill
3) you feed and protect your plants over the winter months
4) you add fall color to your beds (at least for a little while!)                                                                                                                                                   

Seeing as it’s Halloween and all I considered writing about recycling treats for the little witches and goblins.  You know the recycling I refer to: you’re all out of goodies because someone wouldn’t stop eating, but the doorbell keeps ringing so you dash into the pantry in frantic search of something, anything, to ward off the TP Avengers.  And you spot those granola bars at the back of the shelf plus a few packages of Top Ramen, so you grab those and a couple honey sticks on the way back to the front door in hopes you won’t arrive there to find a burning bag of dog doo.

But you already know the drill.

So let’s talk toilets.  Briefly.

Get yourself a big bucket to keep in your bathroom.  Put it under the tub faucet so it catches the water when you’re warming it up for your bath or shower:

Then use that water to flush your toilet:

Also, we have a plastic bottle filled with water (blue cap at Left) and a plastic container with rocks (next to ball at Right) in the tank.  These displace water so not as much water is needed to refill the tank after each flush.  Just make sure your displacement items don’t interfere with the flushing mechanism.  (If you already have low-flush toilets, I don’t think there’s room for displacement items but you can still use the bucket to refill the tank).

I had the idea of designating one day per week for sharing ways my family tries to reduce our impact on the environment.  I’m going to call it WASTE-NOT WEDNESDAY and I’d be thrilled if anyone else would like to join in and share ideas from their households, too.  I’m at about the halfway point of my life expectancy but Wildebeest and Zebu and all your children have a lot of years ahead of them on this planet, and whatever we can do to protect the resources for them and their children (and their children’s children and so on), is well worth the effort.

So I hope you join me now and again in sharing some tips for helping out Mother Earth.

As you can see, my washing machine has a big jug of white vinegar sitting on top.  That’s because each time I wash a load of laundry, I pour white vinegar into the fabric softener dispenser at the top of the agitator-thingy.  We live in Colorado where it’s extremely dry which results in lots of static cling.  I mean LOTS.  However, the vinegar prevents that icky, clingy feeling plus keeps the laundry soft.  Believe me, if it works here vinegar will work in your climate, too.

Why not just use that fancy-smelling blue stuff?  Well, I don’t like liquid fabric softener or dryer sheets because I’m hypersensitive to strong odors.  When I’m taking a walk in my neighborhood, I can smell when someone’s running a dryer with one of those sheets inside and the smell hurts my lungs. 

While writing this post I just did a little googling and found out there’s a good reason why my lungs hurt when I smell that stuff:  nasty chemicals!

Do your wallet and the planet a favor by giving up the fabric softener.  Reach for the white vinegar instead.