It’s been about two months since I started my compost bin. I have wonderful news! It’s working! It’s so amazing, I’m in love with the hole-punched plastic container, dirt, worms and decomposing food stuffs!

      To catch up since my first post at the end of June, I’ve added worms, a little bit of dirt and water when it started to dry enough to pull away from the sides. I got the worms from my parents house. (Thanks Dad!) I got some of the dirt there and also used some of my co-op bought organic compost (mostly broken down with wormie poo) to layer between the composting material. I now also have a compost poker, a two pronged thingy normally used for bbqing, which I used first a couple of weeks ago to check on the progress of my heap. Amazingly, after about a month and a half, most of the food stuff had broken down. The only remaining thing were some “biodegradable” plastic that hadn’t changed, perhaps one banana peal added recently and egg shells. The rest was gorgeous, lumpy looking dirt – also known as dead food and worm poop. I’ve never been so excited for poop! Sorry couldn’t resist. I am still about age 10 at heart.
      So, since I’ve discovered that the stuff had turned to dirt, and was taking up a lot less space, and because I was impatient and didn’t think first about maybe taking some out so I could use it – I started tossing in more compostable stuff. So perhaps by mid-September I’ll have some more dirt.

My discoveries/notes for the beginning composter, and so I don’t forget:

Also, if using worms, make sure the container drains well, otherwise you can drown the wormies.

      I shall leave you with these lovely appealing compost pictures that I’m sure you were dying to see.

Compost Pile - Month Two

Compost Pile

AND! Full view!

Compost Pile - Useful Worm Farm

     I was reading just a little while ago about not using shampoo. A friend of mine rarely shampoos her hair. Earlier this week she was pretty sure that it had been a month and a half since she shampooed her hair. The amazing thing is her hair isn’t gross. It’s just fine. It does awesome things. It’s short and super cute and all she really has to do is sleep on damp hair and she’ll have this awesome chic shaggy do. I’ve been wanting to do something like that. Besides it probably being better for my hair, I love the idea of not having to buy shampoo. I’m fairly happy with my hippy shampoo. And I don’t shampoo every day. In fact, I was down to every four days. Until this last week or so. But it is still really appealing to never have to spend $9 on a little bottle of shampoo.
     Our road trip turned into an accidental experiment. There was only one day we could use a real shower. The rest of the time it was just sponge bathes. Old fashion bathing. Cold water and a little castile soap with lots of shrieking. Well, not that much, but when the wind kicked up in the middle of two of my “bathes” I did squeal a little. It was cold. Well, colder than the 85 degrees I was used to. I acclimate to dry heat super fast.

     The two days that we had sponge bathes all I did was run a little water through my hair and try to distribute my natural oils all the way to the tips of my hair. It felt amazing. Not much oil at all. My hair was light yet malleable like there was a high quality product in my hair. The two days that I couldn’t shower due to much cooler weather, less time and mosquitoes, my hair didn’t get oily. It continued to shine and do awesome things. It didn’t tangle, or stick to my scalp. It was so well behaved! The crazy thing was, the bottle of premixed essential oils and witch hazel that I used every day for the last few months to prevent oily scalp had broken and spilled all over a bag. I should have turned into a horrible greasy creature(this had happened before). But I didn’t! In fact it seemed to be better without it.
     Once we got home I did wash my hair – after I had passed the four day mark. Even then it didn’t seem horribly oily. I used shampoo and rinsed with apple cider vinegar to help get out the smokey smell so I didn’t have to wash my hair more than about once – maybe twice. I could still feel a little natural oil when I was done, but nothing nasty. Then for the next week I only rinsed my hair in the water. Massaging my scalp and gently pulling the oil throughout my hair. I went a whole week without washing! It didn’t feel or look oily once. When I finally decided that it was time for a cleansing, I decided it was time to experiment with No ‘Poo.
     No ‘Poo is using baking soda and apple cider to cleanse one’s hair naturally and chemical free. I think I’ve mentioned before that what goes on your skin gets into your body and your body has to process it out. In today’s world it’s fairly easy for your body to overwhelmed with toxins from makeup, cleansing products, feminine products, pesticides in food and air pollution just to name a few. Toxins that aren’t supposed to be harmful or even get into your body are showing up in tests. It’s why I switched away from them. It was hurting my body, in some cases burning my skin. But why switch away from hippy, natural shampoo? Well, it’s not a natural thing to have your body oils rinsed completely away once or more a day. Your body makes oil for a purpose, to clean and protect you from the outside world. As wonderful and luxurious as it is to have thick soap suds running through your fingers and hair, it’s just not what your body knows how to deal with. Of course I understand if you don’t want to, or feel you can’t give it up. It’s a personal choice. For me though, the idea of No ‘Pooing seemed to offer a freedom.
     I’ve always felt like my super oily skin/scalp was restricting. Camping without showers wasn’t pleasant. I didn’t want to feel nasty and uncomfortable, my greasy hair sticking to my greasy face or back. I want an out. I want to feel less greasy. I want to feel a healthy natural something. There is a very strong drive to continually improve myself, how I feel and think. And changing my beauty habits is a huge step in what feels like the right direction for me.
     So, before I get side tracked again. Let me explain No ‘Pooing. You are supposed to use baking soda and water to make a paste, which you apply only to your scalp. Leave it in for about a minute. From what I’ve read, you are supposed to massage your scalp as usual with the baking soda mix still in. Then rinse after you have thoroughly massaged. Then pour a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water over your hair and let it sit for a minute and then rinse again.
     I’ve tried this once so far. In a few days when I feel like I need to cleanse again I’ll try again. But somethings I’ve noticed were: it’s hard to keep the baking soda paste on just your scalp if you have shorter hair. It just seems to naturally end up in the ends of my bob. Baking soda is also a very, very good, almost too good, exfoliant. It seems like it might be too hard on my fingers and perhaps my scalp to massage too much. I’ve actually got tiny cuts in my fingers when using it to clean. (It’s a wonderful scrubbing agent, but you should wear gloves.) Massage in general is great for scalp health, but what if the baking soda creates tiny little cuts all over? That’s not a good thing.
     Rinsing it out is fairly easy. The next step of apple cider vinegar is fine. The only thing is, there is chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar because one is alkaline and one acidic. I don’t feel like that is a beneficial thing to happen on your head. In my opinion, be careful to rinse out all the baking soda before adding the vinegar rinse. It might be perfectly safe, but until I understand it fully, I’m going to exercise and suggest caution.
For more information on this check out these two posts:
The No Shampoo Alternative – No Poo
No ‘Poo for Dreadlockshttp://theorganicsister.com/2009/08/no-poo-for-dreadlocks/

Hair experiments
Hair experiments: Part 2

     A few months ago, there was yet another development in my cycle. It started getting longer, much, much longer. At first it was only a couple of days. No big deal for me. Pre-birth control, I had irregular periods in times of stress. Well, basically they got more irregular during times of stress. Complete predictability didn’t occur.
     Then they(the period gods or whatever) started adding more days. The funny thing is, it’s predictable, it starts almost like clock work. The middle of the month I start “spotting”. Barely anything, but I wear a small pad just in case. This goes on for a week. Some days there is no spotting on the pad, just a smig on the toilet paper. During this week I’m irritable, a tiny bit bloated, sleepy, foggy headed, and my “girls” (yes, I call my breasts “the girls”) get a little tender.
     Then right around the 23-26 I get crampy and Aunt Flow officially arrives. Then I swell up like I’m pregnant or something – only for a couple of days. For the remaining week, I progressively feel better until finally it’s all over. Then I have two weeks – yes, two weeks – until it starts all over again.

     What in the world is going on and what the hell am I supposed to do about it? The easy answer is to talk to a doctor, preferably a naturopathic doctor. However, I don’t have health insurance and don’t have enough cash to see a doctor. I am lucky enough to know someone going through nutritional counseling at the moment, and I’ve met an awesome Ayurvedic consultant and bought a couple of her ebooks. I’ll be writing about her in the near future. And then there is the internet. Of course not everything you read on the internet is true or tried. However, it is possible to weed through the crap and find lovely bits of truth.

     From my nutritional counselor I’ve been suggested to do a colon and liver cleanse. The idea is that if either are overloaded then your whole body is affected negatively, including hormones. I believe this is especially true for the liver. I don’t know all the details but I’m reading and learning. It is also a good idea to take bad things out and put good things in. So, at the moment, as boring as it might be, I don’t drink alcohol. I eat almost entirely organic foods and drink lots of filtered water. I’ve added probiotics, green powder(barley greens and sea veggies), and digestive enzymes. All in the hopes to support my body to find it’s natural balance as it cleans it’s self out.
It was also suggested that my girly hormones are not balanced. I had done a small amount of reading just before the wonderful Ayurveda woman mentioned that I might have too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. I’ll be adding extracts and herbs one at a time to see how I feel.

     I’m also planning to get off my bum a bit more. It’s well know that exercise helps to regulate your body. Since my poor sleep has been improving(thank goodness for acupuncture!) and because I was able to get away on vacation, I am feeling much better. I have a little more energy to be more active. My goal is to do 20 minutes of exercise daily. This week hasn’t been completely successful, but it’s a work in progress.

I’ll keep you updated! I’m excited to feel the positive changes in my body and life!

For other related posts, check out the list below.

Aunt Flow – Part 1
Aunt Flow Part 2 – Feminine Products
Raspberry Leaf Tea – A Woman’s Tonic
Moon Time meet Aunt Flow
Accessories for Aunt Flow

     So how the hell does one figure out if the company or product of interest is actually eco-friendly? Since the eco-friendly craze started, there has been the expected bastardization of said term. It’s called “greenwashing”. For a long winded description, please read it’s Wiki page. Basically, it’s a deceptive marketing technique to make a product appear eco-friendly, without actually taking the steps to achieve it.

     Unfortunately, a company’s eco-friendly status can change at any given time. For instance, Tom’s of Maine and Burt’s Bees were sold and are now owned by Colgate and Clorox respectively. Back in the day, Tom’s and Burt’s both had wonderful reputations, and still do, sort of. The owning companies do not however. Neither of these companies seems to care much for the environment or animal rights and welfare. So buying those brands that are “eco-friendly” or “hippy” is really making two huge conglomerate company that don’t benefit the environment, more rich. Plus, who is to say that the practices of the smaller companies remained the same after the ownership change?
     For more information check out this post on AlterNet. It’s shocking what companies we’ve believed are good small family owned businesses with ethical practices in mind are owned by huge companies that care more about making money that what they are doing to farmers, the environment, animals or consumers.

     I actually have a post about Tom’s of Maine, which I’m going to have to revise. I learned about the ownership after I wrote the post. Like I said, you never know, things can change whenever. Bleh.

     So, are these companies “greenwashed”. I’m not sure. I don’t know if their practices have been tainted by the parent company. Or even if being owned by a huge, non-eco-friendly company makes the first smaller company “greenwashed”. I’m too unsure of it to recommend either of them to anyone.
     Aside from that I want to address another company that has actually been making commercials about how they are becoming more eco-friendly. SC Johnson has been changing labeling on some products, so you know which ones are more “safe”. And they have been telling us through commercials etc, that they are using green power, the methane from landfills to power their plants or wind power. While I’m glad they are using it, I don’t think they are using it to be good. It’s cheap as far as I know. And it’s a great thing to do for advertising. Greenwashing anyone? Also, let’s remember that many of SC Johnson’s products for skin or baby contain mineral oil and/or parabens, all of which have no place in healthy, eco-friendly body products. Is the picture becoming more clear?

     This really makes my life difficult, not know whom to trust, whom not to trust. In the end all I can do is research or rely on journalists research.
     My suggestions to you would be make what you can, i.e. lotions, butters, soaps. Try to choose the lesser of the evils out there if you don’t have a huge selection from which to pick. Pay attention to see if anyone has bought out anyone else. Whatever you do, follow your ethics or principles.

     Since I feel like throwing in the towel at the moment(and using cliches left and right), I thought I’d have a chat about stress and stress management. I might end up talking typing my way into being more Zen.

     Stress does bad things to your body if you don’t know how to manage it. Long term stress, even if you do know how to manage it well, will do bad things also. Muscles tighten, digestion slows or speeds up, sleep gets longer, less, or interrupted in some way. (Hence why I’ve started this post at 6:30 a.m.) Depending on many different things, it can negatively impact relationships, or draw you and whomever closer together.

     So what the %@&*!!! does one do to better manage stress? Well, it doesn’t come easy and it takes some experimenting. Think about what you enjoy doing. This can be your starting point. I love reading, writing, art, gardening, nature, learning how to take better pictures with my gorgeous new camera, etc.

Managing stress part one

     One needs to be able to identify that there is a problem before a solution(or experiment) can be reached. What the hell is stressing you out? To use me as an example, I’ve always had trouble sleeping. So I’ve always been tired. The “older” I get, the worse, or more tired I get. The less ability I have to deal with bullshit. I had found a solution to the problem of my sleeping/nightmares in acupuncture. It works! It’s brilliant! Now I just have to build my energy back up by sleeping well for a longer period of time. Though I’ll never really be able to make up for all that poor sleeping for 25+ years, or so they say.
     Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to wear me out. After a day with a horrible migraine, two nights of not sleeping more than 4.5 hours each night, I was unable to fully deal with a business challenge, along with working a ton, getting up early and not being able to nap, two extra-whiny-needy pets, and not having a lot of down time to recover, among other things. The last straw was a speeding ticket on my way to work. Within a few minutes, I started bawling. There was no way I could do any sort of body work that day. Luckily, the people I work with are very understanding. They know that sometimes you just can’t work.
     See, I identified a bunch of problems. Part one completed.

What I could have done differently.
     Really, the migraine should have tipped me off. But I thought it was just a fluke, nothing horrible, just a crazy thing happening by chance. I also should have paid closer attention to the stresses I was feeling due to the business stuff I was having to deal with for the last week or so. It was more intense that I was used to. Something that would have possibly helped was remembering to pull out my aromatherapy, talking about it more, doing some deep diaphragmatic breathing, taking a walk, etc.
     I tend to be one of those people whom holds everything inside, which isn’t healthy because it has to come out eventually. So talking, for me is a good thing, if I can start. Even if I end up talking about something that is different, but still bothers me, it can help relieve the “exploding” feeling I get sometimes.

     Blogging can also help, which is why I started this post very early this morning.(It’s no longer in the a.m. at the moment.) Unfortunately, I didn’t let myself cry then, which may have helped prevent a bawling session that cost me some work hours.

Managing stress part two

     Pick something you enjoy doing, or that you know helps you to decompress, or that you just read about. Start somewhere! Try breathing techniques. If you need an idea as to how to do that, read here. Try drinking a cup of tea. Go for a walk. We have all heard that moderate exercise increases endorphins, which make us happy and helps us to de-stress. Try something. If you don’t feel better, try something else. Remember that it can’t last forever, there has to be an end eventually.

     Of course you can argue that looking back I can say anything. You are right about that. I can’t change what happened, all I can do it try to learn from it and do better next time. No one should expect you to be perfect and “on” all the time. Mistakes happen, life happens, shit happens. Sometimes the thing to do, is to just cry it out, pick yourself back up and try again.

Eave-side porch garden

      It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post just on apartment gardening. I’ve done a lot of it in the last couple of years. Lots of things grew nicely. Lots more things died because I didn’t have the right conditions.

      I was reading over the last and first only post of my apartment gardening posts. Oh the mistakes in it! It’s appalling. Letters missing, grammar sadly lacking, it’s embarrassing. In my defense, I have a horrible time seeing my own mistakes. My super-fast-awesome-reading-skills skim right over them. That’s right , my super-power ability is actually a weakness.

      Anyway, I’m doing a ton of apartment gardening, inside and out. At the moment I have an aloe plant in my kitchen window. There is a garlic experiment right outside the front door. And my porch garden is growing wonderfully, both in quantity of plants and well, the plants actually growing.

      This time around I feel like I have a better hold on apartment gardening. I’m remembering to think long term a little more, considering the elements I have to deal with, and how large said plants will get.

      I’m lucky enough to have a porch that gets close to full sun after about 11 am. It has a divider and a wall of trees that keeps the wind down on stormy days. There is plenty of space out in the open for plants that love or don’t mind rain. It also has a decent amount of room under the eaves for those plants that don’t like their leaves to get wet, such as tomatoes. At my front door I have some room for those plants that don’t need mostly full sun, but just a little morning direct sun and indirect sun the rest of the time. My windows provide much of the same, though, since Milo loves his window sills, I’m trying to figure out what to do to keep those plants that need to be inside in the winter, close enough to light, but safe enough from being knocked over because of kitty frustration. I still have yet to get a grow light. I think that it has become a need, for the plants and for me, because it provide UV light, unless I’m mistaken. And we all need that during the grey winter, sometimes fall,spring and summer months.

My goals for my apartment gardening/porch gardening

      Of course I have to have goals for this fun adventure. Without some planning everything will die and I’ll be left feeling wasteful and selfish.

• Use of organic soils so that which I grow to eat is safest and best to eat
• Grow edible things more than plants just for show, i.e. herbs and tomatoes
• Grow things that will last a few months, even years and produce things I’ll actually use
• Have lots of fun and learn a lot
• Share my extras, I can always use work on sharing
• Practice gardening so I can be better prepared when I have an actual backyard and garden
• Create something of which to take pictures
• Dry or preserve things grown to be used in winter time so I don’t have to spend so much money on herbs for cooking(also a reason I have an herb garden at my parents house)
• Give in to the urge to pretend to be Laura Ingals of Little House on the Prairie more often, I can never be too old for that
• With luck(sunny weather) and practice, take pictures of my apartment porch garden that won’t look washed out.

      We’ll see how many of them I’ll actually achieve. So far I’m doing fairly well on keeping things edible and practical. And yes, I will consider my recent eucalyptus purchases practical. They discourage insects. They just happen to be pretty. Yup, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself. It is partially true.

The Modern Hippy

Homemade Apartment Compost Bin

      I’ve been thinking about composting for a long time. Often the only positive I could think of about owning a house (the idea of home owning makes me feel claustrophobic/tied down) was that I could build a huge, brilliant, gorgeous compost pile – all scientifically done and everything.

      Well, due to many things, we have yet to be even just renting a house, thus no composting. But moving here to our little Bellingham apartment, there seem to be none of the negatives that kept me from apartment composting before. We have a huge porch-deck-thingy. Our neighbors are awesome and a few of them are apartment gardeners themselves. This is not an oppressive, everything must look uniform, apartment complex. I have time and a little more energy now. Oh yeah, and I’m no longer worrying about Rick dying, so that helps.

      I’ve done it! I’ve started a compost “bin”! I’m only about three weeks into the process, but it’s going fantastically – as far as I can tell. I am madly in love with a pile of decomposing fruits, veggies, dirt, worms, and a plastic garbage can! It’s such an amazing things to watch! Gosh that sounds so weird.

      Stay tune to your computer screen over the next few months for updates, suggestions, failures, and much, much more!

The Modern Hippy

      In the last couple of months of making kombucha I’ve discovered a few things.

• Black tea with osmathus flowers is my favorite tea base!
• Kombucha that has gone bad due to contamination or a general mistake tastes like rotting veggies, puke, and vinegar
• Green tea based kombucha fermented for a month is too strong for me, almost starts to taste like vinegar
• Green tea fermented for about two weeks tastes almost like slightly fermented white grape juice.
• Kombucha is a diuretic and I should drink more water to counteract it. Didn’t occur to me right away that kombucha is still a caffeinated tea and thus is a diuretic
• It’s a great thing to take to work and not have to worry about refrigerating it
• Lots of people have never heard or it or are very interested and didn’t know you could make it yourself!

      At the moment I have three restarted, all with the black tea and osmanthus flower blend. Those batches harvested green tea that I let ferment too long. I’m not a huge fan of month long fermented green tea kombucha, now might be a good time to start making blends with fruits.

      I used part of my fourth gallon to give someone a kombucha baby and starter. That was at the beginning of the week. I had forgotten about the remaining kombucha and the mother. Well, she’s busy growing another baby. I might leave them growing as an experiment to see if it can be grown again, without a new batch of tea and sugar.

      On a final note, I saw the co-op has stopped carrying raw kombucha for an undetermined time. Something about a production problem. I hope that it doesn’t blow up in the companies face. It would be horrible if they were forced to pasteurize their kombucha. (Think Adwala juice just a few years ago.) I would like to say, about the kombucha left on the shelves that isn’t raw, it’s not the same thing. It’s not live. All that is good for you in kombucha is killed with higher heat applications/processes such as pasteurization. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that other non-raw stuff is just as beneficial. This whole thing makes me very glad that I make my own. I have control and no one can take it away from me just because a batch was contaminated. I love feeling independent!

The Modern Hippy

Green Tea Kombucha with Eucalyptus

Raw Kefir

      Since I make kombucha, it only seems natural that I would make kefir as well right? Well, I think so. I bought starter and raw Jersey milk from the Cordata branch of the Community Co-op and dove in. My first batch, pictured above turned out perfectly! It was so exciting! Second batch was fine. My third batch turned out horribly because I didn’t put enough starter in when I doubled the “recipe”. That was a $6 mistake I’m trying to avoid again.

      But why take all the trouble to make kefir anyway? It’s available at stores. Plus, isn’t it just runny yogurt. Nope. Kefir is actually better for you than yogurt. It contains more “probiotics” and nutrients than yogurt. Especially if it is raw. You can’t buy raw kefir in our health food stores. I’m not even sure if there is a company that makes and sells raw kefir.

      From what I’ve been reading in the last few months I’ve been learning that raw is usually the best option. Cooked things loose a lot of nutrients. I am also learning that you should eat like your ancestors, but that’s another blog post – after I do more research.

      Don’t freak out when I mention raw. Doctors have been telling us to eat more raw fruits and veggies for quite a while(Often only one of the few truly intellegent things they say). I’m not giving up making chicken soup. I have some broth in the fridge right now. But I want to start incorporating more raw things in my diet. With truly raw things comes so many more nutrients. This applies to kefir. Most milk is pasteurized in the United States. In some states it’s actually illegal to sell raw milk and raw milk products. When I get around to doing a post on milk and pasteurization, you’ll be shocked that it’s used at all. It doesn’t do good things to the milk.

      Anyway, since most milk is pasteurized, most milk products are as well. So that kefir in the dairy section is pasteurized. It’s not as alive as it should be. Sure it’s had beneficial bacteria added to it, and it’s alive-ish. But it’s missing so much more. All of the digestive enzymes, that are in the milk to make it easier for baby cows – and now us – to digest it, are killed off in the process.

      Buying raw milk and kefir starter is the only thing that makes sense to me. Then I get all the nutrients and enzymes and the beneficial bacteria, and none of the negatives I’ll tell you about later. Think phlegm. Bleh. Puss. Eek!
      So once again, I’m making something for us, that is much better than anything I could find in the store. It’s better for the environment because raw milk has to be from graded dairies where cows must have access to grass – the way they were meant to live. No nasty mega dairy with sad sick cows and nutritionally inferior milk. It’s wonderful! One more step forward for this Modern Hippy!