Green Home Guide

Green homes come in all shapes and sizes, with energy efficiency often the common household practice across domains.

Current technology allows for multiple consumer choices that provide cost saving, practical solutions for reducing energy use and slowing emissions of gasses, such as carbon dioxide, that contribute to a changing climate.

Learning to read the energy guide label on modern appliances shows that the most climate friendly appliances also provide the best long term energy cost savings.

Household lighting also contributes to a home's monthly energy use. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs and Holiday LED Lights are two options available for any household to drastically reduce home lighting energy consumption. LED technology continues to improve, offering the potential for large scale solar power lighting projects.

Consumer choice of energy efficient home heating options has also expanded, with wood stoves being one good choice among many. Today's high tech Pellet Stoves burn climate friendly fuels. Proper maintenance with other wood heating options such as Fireplaces and Woodstoves reduces some of their environmentally harmful side effects.

Winter often means snow and ice on the sidewalks and driveways. Consider using CMA: An Organic Deicer, as the most environmentally friendly deicer choice on the market.

Lawn Care

The green lawn and yard tips provided here emphasize a minimizing theme. Minimizing a household's energy use is both a money saving and environmental savings choice.

Minimizing pesticide use, to the point of eliminating it from the landscape helps keep the family pets protected and promotes increased visits from birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

Household activities such as Composting, for example, helps recycle food and yard wastes, turing it into tomorrow's healthy backyard soil.

When it comes to lawn care, today's Push Lawn Mowers work wonders, and emit neither noise nor greenhouse gasses.

Likewise, the most recent generation of Cordless Line Trimmers work double time, effectively trimming edges and wacking weeds, all without emitting greenhouse gasses.

Of course, most yard work is marked by seasonality, and the following articles address a variety of seasonal and regional topics.

Fall is Bulb Planting Season
Fall Lawn Care
Natural Pest Control With Cedar Mulch
Organic Lawn Care Tips: Dandelions
Summer Lawn Care Tips
Types of Weeds

Tree Care Tips: Cooley Spruce Galls
Left unchecked they can quickly multiply, turning an otherwise stately looking tree into a brown, unsightly mess

Wondering about the trees on your property? Try the Leaf Identification Quiz

Additional articles, at least tangentially related to environmental issues around the home are presented below.

A Day on the McKenzie
A review of outdoor recreation opportunities on and around the McKenzie River.

Bottled Water Facts
Fast facts to encourage a merger between the health conscious generation and the environmentally conscious generation.

Crab Salad Recipes
Everyone has a favorite crab salad recipe.

Drying Cherries
Drying cherries extends their shelf life up to a year.

Drying Mushrooms
Drying mushrooms extends their shelf life.

Eco-labels
Eco-labels are more commonly being used as marketing tools today.

Environmental Issues at Western Ski Resorts
Learn about the environmental friendliness of some ski resorts.

Hollywood Goes Green: Environment at the Movies
One of the newest waves in Hollywood, the environment movie.

Nature and Flower Clip Art
The clip art section provides images of animals, birds, insects and more.

Pumpkin Pictures
The Halloween section offers pumpkin pictures and related seasonal information.

Think Clothing and Sunscreens for Summer Safety
Proper clothing and sunscreen choices help prevent skin exposure to the dangerous rays of the sun.

Top Ten Cut Flowers
Which flowers in your vase make the top ten cup flowers list?.

Wind-up Gadgets: Eco-toys to Eco-trash
A review of some popular wind-up gadgets on the market today.