Columnists

While it’s relatively cool on Canada’s west coast, those of us in the central and east part of the country are feeling the heat. Smog is air pollution, that, according to the Toronto Environmental Alliance, is made up of ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and sulphates. Smog days are starting to stack up, making life less healthy for, well, everyone, but particularly for those with asthma.

How can you be part of the smog solution? Here are a few ideas.

Smog fighting tips provided by renewable energy supplier Bullfrog Power, the Asthma Society of Canada and Canadian Physicians for the Environment:
1. Leave the car at home and take public transit
2. Buy local, sustainable food to help reduce transportation-related emissions
3. If you live in Ontario, send a letter to your local paper or MPP supporting Ontario’s coal power phase-out
4. Support renewable energy with Bullfrog Power

And here are a few ideas from me:
5. Use your bike or your own two feet to do errands. Try commuting to work on your bike, but route through paths and side roads rather than major streets.
6. Try starting a carpool group at work. This tip saves money, too!
7. Consider making your next car an electric vehicle (EV). A few models should be for sale in Canada this fall.
8. Reconsider the camp fire. Sure, they’re romantic, but do you really need a fire on a hot summer night?
9. Retire you gas-powered lawn mower, power washer, leaf blower or trimmer. Electric models do a great job, and people-powered options offer a little character-building exercise!
10. Cut your power consumption to eliminate need for coal-fired plants (if you aren’t using renewable electricity and green natural gas). Right now that means avoiding using air conditioning, ensuring you have an efficient fridge and other major appliances, having faster, cooler showers and making more cold meals, such as salads.

When a smog day is announced:
- Stay indoors
- Exercise indoors or much later in the day
- Breathe through your nose if you are outside during high smog situations
- If you have asthma, monitor your asthma symptoms closely and talking to your doctor about having a written Asthma Action Plan that you can use if you start to have asthma symptoms.

Are you bothered by smog?

Looking for a zero-waste, guilt free way to water your plants? I was. And finally, after having the gear to do it for months, my partner and I installed a drip irrigation system this past weekend. It’s fed straight from one of our rain barrels. If I sound smug it’s really just because I’m relieved. I find it stressful when we’ve gone more than a week without rain. I’ve planted a fairly drought-tolerant garden, but I know that my black-eyed Susans, wild bergamot, coreopsis and other native plants, not to mention the few cute annuals I’ve planted, will be much happier after a good soak.

You’ll need a few things in order to install a rain barrel-fed drip irrigation system.
1. A rain barrel. Duh. I recommend a big one – a few steady hours of rain fills a barrel to the brim. I bought this 190 litre barrel from Canadian Tire (shown above).
2. Some eavestrough elbows so you can redirect water from your downspout to your rain barrel.
3. Some stones or pavers, or some other means of elevating your rain barrel. You need to raise up your barrel in order to create water pressure.
4. Some screening. Your water will be nicer if you can keep stuff – leaves, mosquitoes, pollen – out of it. Put layers of screen over your barrel and under your downspout so you can remove it and clean it periodically.
5. A low-pressure irrigation system! I used this one from Lee Valley. It’s easy to set up.
6. An irrigation plan. Decide where to route your irrigation hose such that the water never needs to run uphill. That should ensure all of your plants get watered.

It took about 45 minutes to set up our system, and within moments of opening the rain barrel spigot my garden was being watered. I like that the slow-drip system will absorb well into the soil instead of flooding the area, washing away soil and nutrients.

Most of these plants are getting watered by the hose.

A close-up of a drip spike.

Have you tried ways of using rain water or water conservation techniques on your garden?

Lakes, rivers and streams are Canada’s original transportation routes. What better way to explore our beautiful country than by the steam of your own paddle? Here are just 10 of Canada’s unbelievably long list of spectacular paddling destinations.

1. Desolation Sound Marine Park, British Columbia. This sea kayaking destination is located inside Here’s a link to one company that offers rentals, tours and lessons.
2. Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve, Eastern Ontario. Click here for maps, outfitters and descriptions about paddling along the beautiful inland lakes of Charleston Lake Provincial Park and paddling routes on the St. Lawrence River’s Thousand Islands.
3. The Thelon Heritage River, Nunavut. According to the territory’s website, which notes outfitters in the area, this is one of the most famous, least strenuous routes in Nunavut.

Canoeing on Moraine Lake

4. Moraine Lake, Alberta. A trip to the Rocky Mountains isn’t complete without a canoe trip on idyllic Moraine Lake! Take photos of the beautiful Valley of the Ten Peaks as you enjoy a couple of hours of dip, dip and swing.

5. Wabakimi Lake, near Thunder Bay, Ontario. Remote but ruggedly beautiful.  Click here for the local outfitter.

6. Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area. This is a vast area, with some open water areas. Here’s a beautiful video showcasing the rugged landscapes and wildlife created by three students from Lakehead University. I love hearing about the students’ love for the lake and its ecology.

7. Hayes River, Manitoba. View the remains of early fur trading posts and travel along original First Nations routes on this historic river. This route is for experienced paddlers with whitewater skills. Begin from the community of Norway House or York Factory. Click here for more information.

8. Caddy Lake, Manitoba. This route features interesting rock tunnels. For photos and maps, click here. For more great Manitoba paddling options, look here.

9. Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, Newfoundland. Take in some beautiful waterfalls and keep your eye out for whales! Also visit this link for information about Iceberg Alley multi-day trips.

10. Green Gables Shore, PEI. Take in the beautiful red cliffs and get your fill of birdwatching. Click here to peruse area outfitters.

Is there anything more Canadian than paddling? And please share your favourite place to paddle!

The common reed, or phragmites australis, is taking over wetlands, water courses and roadsides in Ontario, Quebec and beyond. This invasive aquatic species is crowding out native plants and thus removing important habitat, as shown in this Universite Laval study. Since the common reed is invasive and not from Canada, birds, animals and insects that are habituated to our environment aren’t supported by this troublesome grass.What does it look like? The common read has a dense, broom-like flower head, with a feathery sweep when it’s mature.

I mention it because gardening with tall, sweeping grasses is a popular phenomenon. If you’re going to plant a tall grass in your garden this year, check that you’re buying a native species using a tool such as the Evergreen Native Plants Database, linked here.

As an alternative to common reed, why not try Sorghastrum Nutans, or “Indian Grass.” Isn’t it pretty?

Sorghastrum Nutans

Do you think garden centres and seed stores should be prohibited from selling invasive species?

TD Bank is celebrating Earth Day today, April 21st. If you are wishing there was one little thing you could do to celebrate the day and support a good cause, they have a solution. TD Friends of the Environment Foundation (TD FEF) has set up a “text to donate” function for your cell phone. You can make a one-time contribution of $5 by texting GREEN to 45678 (the $5 will be added to your mobile bill). To celebrate Earth Day, TD Bank Group will match every donation made to the Foundation on April 21st. The foundation supports local green initiatives in communities across Canada; the projects are all funded by donations, while the administration fees are covered by TD.

“Thanks to the support of our generous donors, we’ve provided more than $54 million to 19,500 environment and wildlife projects across Canada since 1990 – and we’re excited to launch the text to donate function to make it even easier for Canadians wanting to contribute,” says Mary Desjardins, Executive Director, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. “With everyone thinking green for Earth Day, there is no better time to match donations made to the Foundation so that we can help Canadians make an even greater impact to the environment this year.”

Here’s how the TD FEF works, according to a release:
“One hundred per cent of every dollar donated to TD FEF goes directly to funding local projects in the community where the donation was made.  When non-profit organizations and schools apply for funding, the local TD FEF Advisory Board recommends which projects to support in its area.  Donations can range from less than $1,000 to more than $20,000 based on the scope of the project and how well the project meets funding criteria. There are 93 TD FEF chapters across Canada staffed by over 800 volunteers. TD FEF provided more than $3.5 million in funding to 970 grassroots projects across Canada in 2010.” So, chances are, FEF is doing something helfpul in your community.

Could donating to a good cause get any easier? I just hit “send.”

Female cardinal wants in!

I caught a bad cold at the end of my vacation last week, so today I’m working from home instead of spreading my germs around the office. It turns out I’m not alone here – lots of birds are hanging out in my backyard today, enjoying my bird feeder and bird bath, and a couple even seem to want to get inside the house. I’m worried they’ll get hurt trying.

It’s clearly nesting season – on the weekend male cardinals, that beautiful bright red bird, were thu-thu-thuing, looking for mates. Little house sparrows couldn’t decide between eating and nest building, so they were hanging out on my feeder with dried up plant stems in their beaks. By the end of the weekend, I had two pairs of cardinals making my yard home.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal and friends

I noticed last night that one of the pair of cardinals was looking curiously at my sunroom, then both the male and female would swoop at it, and hit the glass with their feet. The male gave up quickly, but the female would try over and over again, or perch on one side and bang the glass with her beak as I rushed out there to shoo her away. The female must think that the storage shed area of my glass sunroom looks like a perfect nesting spot – perhaps my bike handlebars look like good solid nest footings.

I’m not sure if she’s thick or just persistent.

She was stressing me out – I’m really glad to have some native bird species in my city yard, but the last thing I want is to be semi-responsible for a dead cardinal. So I leaned things against the glass to help the little red birds see that there was something solid there.

This morning Lady Cardinal was at it again. I took some paper and tape outside and applied it to the glass. All day I’ve been keeping an eye out for her between working on Homemakers magazine’s upcoming June and Summer issues.
Success for about an hour, then she was at it again.

I put bits of tape on the window to try to show her where the glass was. No joy.

Remembering my grandma’s picture window, I next found about a dozen bits of shiny ribbon, saved from various gifts over the past couple of years. I taped these to the outside of the windows, and they’re out there billowing around. (I’m sure my neighbour is thinking that I’ve put up some pretty tacky decorations.)

Ribbon on the window

Now it seems she can tell that there’s a barrier there, and she isn’t flying around kicking the glass anymore, but she still wants in to that nice protected spot. Fortunately she has stopped for a bite to eat and a splash in the birdbath, but I expect that when I get up and gaze into the backyard tomorrow morning, that female cardinal will be looking back in at me, scoping out a spot for her nest.

Have you had any wildlife taking over your balcony or yard this spring?

With Japan’s tragic nuclear power incidents unfolding right now as a result of the earthquake and tsunami, it’s no wonder that a lot of people are asking questions about the safety of nuclear energy. Regardless of how safe the system, if an incident does happen, and radiation exposure becomes an issue, we don’t really have a way to deal with it.

The energy needs of wealthy countries are vast, and critics of renewable energy say that sources such as hydro, solar and wind can never meet all of our needs. But I’m glad that some people are becoming more conservation minded, and that new sources for that renewable energy are coming online.

As I blogged about earlier, Bullfrog Power, a renewable energy supplier that, to date, has offered customers wind, solar and hydro power through the main energy grid in several provinces, is now offering green natural gas, which is being collected from landfill methane sources, capturing it for our use instead of letting it rise into the atmosphere.

A new poll recently conducted for Bullfrog Power shows that more than 68 per cent of Canadians don’t know that the conventional natural gas used in their homes adds to Canada’s overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions footprint. According to Statistics Canada, however, natural gas use is a major contributor, releasing at least 32,000 kilotonnes of GHG emissions annually.

I’d like to know: do you think we can power our future with better sources of energy?
To encourage your answers, I have a fabulous prize pack from Bullfrog Power to offer.

The prize pack includes $150 worth of green and energy conservation products:
· Brita pitcher
· Bullfrog T-shirt
· Honeywell programmable thermostat
· RBC Blue Water Project water bottle
· Burt’s Bees lip balm
· Rocky Mountain Soap Company bath salt and soap
· Nature Clean shampoo and conditioner
· The Green Line toilet bowl cleaner
· Nature Clean laundry liquid
· Eco-Jot note pad
· A certificate for up to $50 off the purchase of green electricity and green natural gas

UPDATE: CONTEST CLOSED!. CONGRATULATIONS to Stephanie, winner of the Bullfrog Power prize pack!!

Muffins made from a Red Fife muffin base

I had to try it. Heritage grain mixes from Grainstorm were offered through my organic food box delivery, and I couldn’t resist ordering the Red Fife Muffin Base. Sure, it’s Canada Organic certified, yes, the organic, heritage wheat is grown in Ontario (supporting organic farmers), and they even sounded healthy. But would these muffins be delicious?

When I received the package, I realized that the muffin base was vacuum packed in a foil bag. I found out that the company mills the wheat themselves, then quickly mixes it with other ingredients (for various mixes, including pancake mix, bread mix and more) and then immediately vacuum seals the mix for freshness. Here’s a terrible snapshot I took:

The recipe sounded unusual to me, although I admit I don’t bake often. (That’s why an easy mix is so appealing to me in the first place.) You combine eggs, butter, olive oil and a fair bit of plain yogurt, then mix in the muffin base. The base itself is low in sugar, and contains a lot of flecks of – you guessed it – Red Fife wheat. It’s certainly very unusual looking compared to a refined flour base. But would it feel gritty?

I actually had more muffin mix than the 12 muffins the package indicated, so I could have made a couple more. It took a few minutes longer to bake than the cooking time noted, but every oven is different. In spite of these variations, I have to say that, after enjoying a big bite of a muffin still warm from the oven (one of life’s simple pleasures, I’d say), the muffins are tasty and have a good texture.

When I make them again, I’d probably add some dried apple, nuts or cranberries to the mix, just to add a bit more flavour. But Grainstorm suggests such additions on their recipe page.

Will I make them again? Yes. Aside from the fact that the muffins are delicious, I’m keen to support farmers of organic Red Fife wheat, Canada’s original wheat and the genetic base of todays’ varieties, dating back to 1842. The wheat variety is apparently good at adapting to a variety of environmental conditions, and can be sown in spring or winter. Red Fife was originally grown in Peterborough, Ont., by David Fife and likely has European roots, as shown in this Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada document. Red Fife is so popular once again, for its taste, texture and suitability for baking, it even has its own Facebook page!

Where can you get Grainstorm products? You can order them online, or look for them in grocery stores that support organic food producers.

Do you like this kind of packaged, convenient organic fare?

Concerned about the rising cost of energy? Worried about the climate change and other environmental impacts of using that energy to heat, cool and power your home or your business? Curious about what technologies are our best options for more efficient, less expensive, lower-carbon-footprint energy?

Pollution Probe, an independent Canadian environmental organization, today released a comprehensive primer on Canada’s energy sources and offers detailed explanations of better technologies for our homes and beyond. The primer offers a very thorough look at where our energy currently comes from, showcases plenty of helpful energy options in an easy to understand manner and provides case studies as well.

To read the document, click here to download it from the Pollution Probe site.

What are the expiry dates?

Milk goes bad. Cheese goes bad. So those of us who want safe, healthy beauty supplies made with natural ingredient should expect that they may go bad too. (Heck, even those with chemical preservatives can go bad.) From moisturizer to mascara, you would think that, given the risk of bacterial infection from contaminated products, manufacturers should need to print an expiry date, or a product’s lifespan from the date you open it, on the package.

Not so, unfortunately. While a few manufacturers do this voluntarily, when it comes to most beauty supplies, you’re on your in figuring out when they’re no longer safe to use.

Here are six suggestions for maximizing the life your beauty products – and knowing when to say goodbye to them.

1. Wash your hands. Wash your hands before dipping them in that pot of moisturizer to avoid leaving bacteria and other contaminants behind. These microbes would spoil the product.

2. Wash your brushes. Good makeup brushes can be washed over and over again, using soap and water. Wash them and let the brushes fully dry before you use them on a new product. You’ll prevent bacteria from transferring from the old product to the new product.

3. Keep your beauty products in a cool, dry place. Yes, you’re right in thinking that the bathroom is not that place. I suggest keeping your gear in a makeup bag. I do keep a few things in the bathroom, but I store a lot of my stuff in a makeup case that I store in my bedroom, away from the window (to avoid the sun). You may even consider keeping your pots of face cream in the fridge. They’ll last longer and feel cool and fresh going on!

4. Look for changes. Has your favourite product changed in smell, consistency or texture since you opened it? This may be a sign that bacteria have taken over.

5. Don’t dilute. Water supports bacterial growth, so while you may hope to make a liquid soap last longer by adding some water, in fact it may shorten its usable life.

6. Record the open date. Keep a permanent marker in your makeup case, and note the date you open a product so you can keep track of how long you’ve been using it. When a product is six months old, start looking for the changes noted above, particularly in pots of cream, mascara, stick-applied make up and other products that come in more direct contact with your skin.

Now, to hunt down those old lipsticks I have hanging around…

Do you find you keep makeup for longer than you probably should?