Globio: online paradise for nature-loving kids

Fostering a love of nature is one of the goals of our Outdoor Kids feature. Yet, as the weather changes it's not so easy to go outside and explore the wonders of nature. That's where Globio comes in. Globio/Glossopedia is a non-profit Portland-based Web site chockfull of photos, videos and descriptions that help grade-school age kids safely explore nature online: earth and space, habitats, wildlife, you name it. The info on Globio's site is written just for kids, has no advertising, no off-site links, and it is free. Enjoy!!

Making apple butter

Renee and I and our friend, April, came together Sunday afternoon for a good old-fashioned apple butter-making party. There is nothing, I mean nothing, like spreading homemade apple butter on a slice of warm toast in the morning or swirling it into a steaming bowl of oatmeal. Mmm. With the holidays approaching (egad) it never hurts to have a few jars of homemade preserves on hand for gifts of gratitude. So, armed with peelers, jars, canning equipment and 30 pounds of Mt. Hood Fuji apples, we got to work.

I had never canned before, but Renee and April had, so it was a great learning experience for me. I don't think I would have had the guts to do it on my own (I have a vague memory of a jar of freshly canned tomato sauce exploding in the kitchen of my childhood). The classic recipe came from the red gingham-covered Better Homes & Gardens cookbook that called for basic ingredients: sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, apple cider and apples. We sat around my old red dinette table, peeling, coring, slicing, drinking wine, noshing and gabbing (nothin' like it).

Seven hours later...we had 48 half-pint jars of creamy apple goodness. Yep, it took awhile (good thing we like one another). Most of the time we just sat around waiting for either the apples to boil down and soften or the mixture to simmer and thicken. The actual canning part went pretty quickly. In assembly line fashion, one of us filled the jars, one wipe them clean and pulled freshly-sterilized jars from the dish washer, and one put on the lids. Five minutes in the hot-water bath, et voila, homemade apple butter.

I think altogether we spent $40 on ingredients and extra jars, which comes out to about 83 cents a jar. Money savings aside, it was a wonderful way to preserve some of the bounty of Oregon, stock our cabinets and gift bags with a tasty spread, and enjoy the company of good friends.

Win a set of fabulous Fabkins!

If you've been wanting to reduce your usage of paper napkins, here's a good incentive: enter to win a set of five Fabkins! Fabkins are kid-sized, kid-themed cloth napkins that are perfect for lunchboxes and little laps. They are made of 100% cotton, measure 13 inches square and have a little label for writing in your child's name. The company was started by two moms and best friends (gotta love that), and they manufacture the napkins in San Francisco.

So, how do you win? Send us an email -- enviromompdx [at] gmail [dot] com -- and give us a KidTip! Something you do (big or small) to help teach your kids about caring for the environment. It could be something we've already talked about here, or something different that others could benefit from learning about. We'll share all of these ideas in a future post. The deadline is this Friday, November 2 at noon, and we'll pick the winner at random! The winner gets to choose which Fabkins designs they want. Good luck!

The natural way to flush

This cold season is killing me. I've had a cold every other week, and I'm in the throes of sinus nastiness right now. I haven't weaned myself off -- nor do I intend to anytime soon -- Sudafed (now only available with a prescription) or antibiotics. A bad experience being treated by a naturopathic student about 15 years ago has left me leery of most natural cold remedies. Perhaps it's time to get over it?

The one natural remedy I have embraced, however, is the sinus flush. When your sinuses are all stuffed up, flushing them out with salt water cleanses the sinus cavity and prevents mucus from sitting there getting all infected. That's where the Neti Pot comes in (pronounced like 'netty'). The pot is small (as compared to the coffee mug) so it's really easy to handle. You whip up a small batch of salt water (I think it's about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt to one cup warm water and stir to dissolve), pour it into the Neti Pot, lean way over a bathroom sink, put the spout into one nostril and tilt your head to the opposite side until you feel the water running through your sinuses and out the other nostril. Really! Here comes the gross part; after you've let it run through a few seconds, you blow out all the goo. There's a lot and it's disgusting, but then you can breathe again! Repeat it with the other nostril and do it as often as you need to.

I bought mine years ago at Wild Oats (when it was called Nature's) for around $20, and I'm pretty sure they carry them at New Seasons and Whole Foods. Do you Neti? Do you love it? Have you ever used it with your kids?

The power of role modeling

You'll find this hard to believe but sometimes I am at a loss for words. Like the time I was having a deep pro-environment discussion with a friend who then floored me by saying she can't be bothered to bring an empty disposable water bottle home with her for recycling: it was just so much easier to throw it away in the nearest trash can.  (My thought bubble would have read something like this: Is that empty bottle so heavy that you can't be bothered to lug it around? Now that it's 16-ounces lighter after you consumed the water?) Really. I was speechless.

But then, I guess speechlessness can be a good thing. Most people can't stand a know-it-all, and won't abide being preached at. I figure enough of my cohorts know I write this blog with Heather, and if they want to hear what I'm talking about, they'll tune in. Otherwise, I try to keep my mouth shut, but keep doing what I've learned to do: compost, use durable goods, precycle/resist consumption, etc.

And sometimes role modeling seems to make an impression on people you thought might be unreachable: the friend who starts using durable grocery bags after a lifetime of seemingly stockpiling the plastic ones like there was no tomorrow; or the friend who asks out of the blue how we compost because she's thinking her family might start. Sometimes it feels like all the baby steps and tiny changes don't really make a difference when all around there is still so much denial, consumption and waste. Then there are these little glimmers of hope. Keep doing the green things, because some people are noticing and impressed enough by your efforts to make a change in their own lives.

KidTip: a simple vocabulary change

My daughter came home from school one day and told me that after they finish eating lunch it's time for recycling. I haven't had lunch with her yet, but I'm guessing that the cafeteria must have a recycling bin for milk cartons. I was impressed that whomever relays these instructions uses the word recycling instead of saying throw away your trash. It seems like such a small thing, but you can change a child's way of thinking about waste by changing your vocabulary to words like composting and recycling. I'm trying to say, "please recycle that paper," instead of, "please throw that paper in the recycling bin." By using recycle as an action verb, you eliminate the whole suggestion of throwing something away.

Renee's suggestion for replacing household trash cans with recycling cans and my recent addition of recycling cans in the bathrooms also support this kind of messaging. Children hear the words, they see and participate in the activity of recycling and then they build an awareness of the cycle of waste. Now, hopefully they will start understanding how to avoid it in the first place (a work in progress for us all)!

Baby step: switch to stove top or air-popped popcorn

Popcorn is high in fiber, which makes it a fairly healthy snack. Well, let's just say it's a good alternative to salty favorites like chips. And anyone who's ever worked in an office knows all too well the intoxicating scent of microwaved popcorn in the air. Resistance is futile. But microwaved popcorn isn't actually the most healthy, environmentally-friendly snack. To wit:

1) Here's what Newman's Own Organic Light Butter Microwaved Popcorn lists as its ingredients: organic popcorn, organic palm oil, natural butter flavor (contains milk), salt, annatto (for color), vitamin E, and contains soy and peanuts. Even the 94% fat free version contains 'natural flavor.' Natural flavor? Hmm, just because it's natural (and they are not required to disclose the ingredients) doesn't mean it's healthy. (The Newman's Own Web site does not disclose these 'natural' ingredients.) And what about that palm oil? It's a really cheap cooking oil, high in saturated fats, that is used by most commercial food processors. Then there's Orville Redenbacher's Smart Pop popcorn, which contains the food additive/carcinogen TBHQ (also used in perfume and varnish - yum!). Bleh.

2) There's been a lot of press around the butter-flavor ingredient diacetyl causing lung cancer in people who work in microwave popcorn factories. The evidence has caused big manufacturers to phase out usage of diacetyl. Now there's concern that people who are frequently exposed to the odor of microwaved popcorn containing diacetyl could be at risk. Bleh.

3) And then there's that lovely popcorn bag, which absolutely cannot be recycled. Bleh.

Buying a bag of popcorn and popping it in olive (sorry, just learned that olive oil should not be heated this hot -- it will burn and break down) or canola oil or in a hot-air popper takes about as long as microwaved. You know exactly what you and your kids are eating, plus there's no bag to throw away. I recently started popping corn on the stove top as an after-school snack. We make a giant pot of it, eat some then bag it up and munch on it throughout the week. The kids just love it, I actually enjoy the ritual of popping it, I like knowing what we're eating and it's a whole lot cheaper than microwaved. Give it a try.

Updates on past posts, and other assorted tidbits

I'm long overdue to update on a few past posts, so will do so today:

• I finally got around to conducting the "de-stink Pinky" test. I spritzed Pinky with a half/half mix of vinegar/water and PH12.6. PH12.6 worked instantly and left no residual smell. The vinegar water worked but left a residual smell for a while, but then dissipated. This is also one instance where procrastination worked in my favor as untreated areas seem to have lost the campfire smell just from airing out over time.
• I made the soft butter using a hand-mixer instead of a stand-mixer with no problems and thumbs up from the family. I am not a kitchen whiz, but this was very easy, and no one seems to note any difference in taste from the store-bought in-a-throwaway-plastic-container version. Yay! There's one less plastic item I need to recycle!
• This whole thing about reuse of "disposable" baby wipes is beyond cool. Sometimes when I write a post, I'm mostly just trying to be funny and then end up learning something amazing like this. I don't use a lot of baby wipes, but still have enough around, and am thrilled to be tossing them into the hamper for a wash now instead of in the trash. I even made sure during a family discussion last night that everyone understood I was throwing these in the hamper with a purpose, and for them not to think ol' mom has really lost it and is throwing garbage in the hamper.
• Cheap-o-Dad continues to ride his bike to work. His new goal is to not gas-up again until Thanksgiving. I am trying not to freak about the horrific recent spate of bike v. truck fatalities in Portland. If there's any good in it, it's that some real discussion has been going on regarding making the roads safer for bike riders.
• OPB will feature a special on The Silence of the Bees this Sunday on Nature from 8-9pm. Looks very interesting and worth viewing or taping. Did you know honeybees are responsible for every third bite we eat?

Storing local apples

My 3-year old, who has never been fond of fruit, has begun a love affair with apples. It's like someone turned on a switch, and it's all he wants. Sometimes just plain apples sliced up, sometimes slathered in peanut butter. I could not be happier. We're smack into apple season right now, and I just bought loads of Hood River Fuji apples to make apple butter. (Oregon's apple season ends in early November.) Now I'm thinking about buying loads more to store for the winter. Until a few months ago I didn't pay that much attention to food origins, so I can't remember whether the grocery stores carry Oregon apples through the winter. It seems like they might carry Washington apples.

I bought my Hood River apples out at The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island for 59 cents a pound, which seems like a fantastic price (though they weren't organic). There were some organic varieties at the farmers market for $1.50/pound last week. I've been doing some research on apple storage and have come up with a couple of different storage suggestions:

Backwoods Home Magazine suggests wrapping each individual apple in newspaper and storing them in a cardboard box in a cool spot, like an unheated garage or enclosed porch. The apples need to be in perfect condition -- no bruises or holes -- and should keep for 3-4 months. A number of other sites suggested this storage technique.

eHow says to store perfect apples in a plastic bag in the crisper compartment of the refrigerator, but they will only keep for 6 weeks.

Have you ever successfully stored apples for 3-4 months? Any tips and techniques to share? Gotta keep my boy in apples, and I'd love it if they were local!

Organic, locally grown jack-o-lanterns

Heather often teases me for being the Cliff Claven-type. Always wanting to chime in with trivial bits of info that I've just come across and am dying to share...

So in that vein... The origin of the jack-o-lantern. Does anyone know? Really, now. Why would anyone in their right mind want to carve a face into a squash rendering it inedible? It just seems so wasteful. And especially with mean or scary looking faces. Then to try and burn the house down by sticking a candle inside. So this is what got me to Google-ing "origin of the jack o lantern." And, thank you Google, the 84,000 links you provided will give me sufficient blog fodder for today. Well, the story of the jack-o-lantern is a little too wordy and weird for me, and apparently we have the Irish to thank for it. I was hoping to find a cute little jaunty tale I could share with my children, but given the references to the devil, heaven and hell - I think I'll keep all this Cliff Claven Halloween trivia to myself for a few more years. But I will note that the first jack-o-lanterns were carved out of turnips and potatoes. So Heather could probably share a few potatoes with you if you haven't gotten your pumpkins yet...

So let's turn our attention to organic, locally grown pumpkins. And other fun and yummy goings-on:

• The Great Pumpkin Event -- Saturday, October 27, 8:30am to 2pm, Portland Farmers Market in the South Park Blocks -- will feature a pumpkin carving contest, samples, and a kids' costume parade.
• Hillsdale Farmers Market -- Sunday, October 28, 10am to 2pm, pumpkin decorating tips.
• Fall Forest Festival -- Saturday and Sunday, October 27-28, Tillamook Forest Center, 10am to 4pm -- Vote for the best pumpkin, make a Halloween craft or bat house, and storytelling about spooky forest creatures.