Daytona Beach Earth Day Fest: Monday, April 22 at Cinematique

Earth Day is Monday April 22nd! Please join Aquarian Bath at this community event with demonstrations, vendors, open mic and free beverages. See you there from 3 - 9 PM. Aquarian Bath will be bringing our most popular ecofriendly items for sale. Brought to you by Permaculture Daytona! BYOC (bring your own cup)! Go green- Carpool, bike, walk, or bus!

You can RSVP at the Facebook event page. 

Find me at Access to Organic's Earth Day Celebration and Seed Swap this Saturday in Daytona Beach

This Saturday from 12 to 4:30 Access to Organics will be hosting an Earth Day Celebration with Workshops, Vendors, a Seed Swap and Free Seedling with purchase while supplies last. I hope you will join us if you are able. I'll be bringing my Musk Melon, Luffa, Dotted Horsemint, Brocolli, Candlebush and Amaranth seeds to swap. I will also bring body products including a limited amount of soaps, probably just the salt soaps and the Easter Soaps in order to protect my inventory from the heat. If there are other soaps or shampoo bars that you would like to pick up from me on Saturday, please send me an email at aquarianbath @ gmail.com and I will have them ready for you during the event.

April 23 Earth Day Celebration and Seed Swap. Noon to 4:30. Free Tree

seedling with purchase while they last,

Demonstrations, Seed Swap, special deals. Come have Fun!

Phone: 386.236.9447 Fax: 386.236.9717

347 Mason Ave.

Daytona Beach, FL 32117

Fun Kid's Activity for Earth Day: Pine Cone Bird Feeders

This year my daughter's birthday coincides with lots of Earth Day happenings. We are having her birthday party at the Fair Share Garden in Daytona. Everyone is welcome for the "Earth Day's Birthday Celebration" which starts at the garden at 11.

Moira and her friends will be getting at head start at her party making pine cone bird feeders. We practiced making on earlier last week to see how it would go. We used the basic recipe from enviro-explorers.com This is a fun activity for kids and is a nice take home party favor; more healthy than candy favors and more eco-friendly than small plastic toy favors.

What you need:
1 large pine cone
2-3 feet of hemp cord
1/2 cup suet, lard, or peanut butter (avoid peanut butter for people with allergies). Some recipes suggest vegetable shortening, but I prefer to use less processed oils.
1/2 cup corn meal
Handful or 2 of bird seed

Method:
Tie the hemp cord to the top of the pine cone. This is what you will hang your feeder from. Mix 1/2 cup corn meal with 1/2 cup fat; I would leave that job to adults or kids maybe over the age of 7. Moira had a hard time mixing the cornmeal and fat together. Spread the cornmeal/fat mixture evenly over the pine cone. Next roll the cone in bird seed

Your bird feeder is ready to hang! Try to hang it in front of a window or at least somewhere out of easy reach from cats.

Earth Day Computing Spotlight: SolarNetOne

I don't usually make posts about technology on this blog, but I am making an exception, because today is Earth Day and my husband, Scott Johnson, has invented a remarkable eco-friendly Solar powered computing system. The name of the system is SolarNetOne. The following is a short interview I did with Scott to introduce my blog followers to this project.

Cory: What is SolarNetOne?

Scott: SolarNetOne is a system we developed that combines a photovoltaic solar power source with some of the most energy efficient computing hardware available to yield a total package that is perfect for sites off the grid.

Cory: How is this solar powered computing solution significant to Earth day and reducing carbon footprint?

Scott: As the internet and the number of internet users grows, so does the global "power bill" for computing in general. Our system represents a big step forward in lowering and greening the total energy consumption of Information Technology. For example, a computer lab with five modern PC's would draw in the neighborhood of 2 kilowatts, while the Solar Net One, even with all its additional features, draws only slightly more than a 100 Watt light bulb.

Cory: What were the most important factors in choosing an Earth-friendly computer network design?

Scott: I would have to say a) power consumption and b) longevity of the equipment. The former reduced the load on the power grid or alternative energy system, and the latter keeps the electronics out of the landfills for as long as possible.

Cory: Is open source software and linux a significant factor into creating sustainable computer networks?

Scott: Absolutely. Our open development method means that many eyes see our code. I may write 100 lines of code to do a given job. If we were a proprietary software house, that would be the end of it. Instead, another programmer may know a trick I don't and bring the lines of code down to 50. Now the computer only has to work half as hard, with the processor using half the electricity to perform the instructions. Later, another programmer trims it down to 10 lines of code. Now we are using 10% of the energy to perform the same task. Expand this to cover millions of lines of code, and it adds up significantly. On a side note, this is why our software also runs significantly faster on the same hardware.

Cory: What is the best solution for someone that would like to have a green computing system for the home or office?

Scott: SolarNetOne or a variant thereof! Seriously, on a smaller scale, an energy efficient laptop can provide all the computing most individuals need, and can easily be run on solar power.

Cory: I know you have done a lot of computer hardware recycling in the past. Do you have advice for people who are throwing out computers that are too slow or are broken? Do you have any creative upgrading, recycling or reusing ideas to share?

Scott: FreeGeek.org is the champion of open source recycling. with many more chapters opening up, they are becoming a powerful force in computer
recycling.

Celebrating Earth Day with my Daughter

I'm having a quiet day at home with my daughter Moira today Celebrating Earth Day. I do whatever I can to encourage her in the way of organic gardening, so that she can learn to grow food thereby cutting down on our carbon foot print from importing foods. We just made a stepping stone for our garden project today. Large stones are great in the garden. They are fun to move every once in a while in the company of our resident chickens, who love to feast on the insects hiding beneath them. Part of our organic gardening learning process has been through our volunteer work at the Fair Share Garden in Daytona, where Joel Tippens has started an urban garden to grow food for low income families in need and teaching people how to grow food for themselves. At five years old Moira now knows that peanut shells and banana peels don't go in the trash, she will take them and put them in the compost pile. She is already a teacher, explaining to neighbors that the raised bed we built is for growing plants. When it comes to foraging, although she herself prefers the taste of the omega rich weed Purslane for a garden snack, she is still able to direct her best friend, a 6 year old girl, to a fresh leafy snack from the protein, vitamin and mineral rich Moringa trees that are just coming back from the winter freeze.

This weekend Moira received two new baby hens for her birthday, so we are also spending time with these little peeps today. These two hens will be added to our small flock of 3 hens. Our chickens are an important part of our garden, providing a rich source of nutrients for our compost pile. I'm so happy that Moira has learned the process of raising chickens; she received our first baby chicks last year for her fourth birthday and even as a very active energetic child she was able to care for them successfully. For me as an adult it took a few years of dreaming and building up the courage to give chicken raising a try. I trust for Moira it will be very simple for her as an adult to raise hens if she wishes and teach others to do so. She is a great helper for collecting eggs. The new little peeps are a really neat new hybrid breed called Black Stars. They are progeny from crosses of Rhode Island or New Hampshire Red Roosters with Barred Rock hens. This specific cross generates chicks that are easily identifiable by their foliage, so there is no danger of ending up with a rooster instead of a hen. This is a really important trait when choosing chickens for children if roosters are not desired. These hens are also good layers of dark brown eggs.

Moira and I also pulled out one of our cooperative educational games today too. The name of the game is "A Beautiful Place" and it teaches children 4 years old and up important concepts about taking care of the earth and good deeds, for example turning off lights and water, throwing away trash, planting a garden, and recycling. We got this game from ProgressiveKid.com, where it is actually on sale right now for 50% off. Progressive Kid has a number of games for teaching Earth friendly concepts.

If you are in the Volusia County area, why not join us at our Earth Day Celebration at the Fair Share Garden on Saturday April 25th from 9-1:30. We will have a number of free gardening workshops for adults, and I will be teaching an introduction to gardening class for children. For more information and to register fro the class visit my etsy shop.