Jennifer Paulson

You might be interested to learn about Local Color Farm and Fiber in Puyallup. https://localcolorfarmandfiber.com/

Corrie Snell wrote:Ok, "Head Tester," any results to report on?

YES! It works great! I harvested 12 pounds last year which made enough for about 100 loads. This year I harvested 22 lbs, kind of accidentally as I thought I was matching last year's amount, and have been gifting it to friends and family. Here is my post about it from last year.

Summer Newcomb wrote:

I bought our current set of 2 dozen napkins for our wedding back in January. I brought my Fiestaware collection for our guests to use, and I rented what I didn't have at home so we didn't need any single-use items. Just throwing that in because I'm proud of it and the picture is pretty.

I loved reading you had a Reusable Reception! We did too, though it didn't occur to me to call it something so catchy. A local emergency household thrift shop type place lent us all the mugs and extra flatware we needed. A friend randomly had 100 cloth napkins, which was perfect. Many people brought their own plate, but we supplied them for those that didn't. Everyone came with a dish too. My mom and best friend's mom did all the dishes at the end in the make shift bus bin three compartment "sink" I put together as we had it outside in a campground.

Anyway, I wish more people did that too!

This is my first BB submission! I recently sewed fresh napkins for December/Christmas and now that it's time to put those away, the old ones were looking rather sad well loved, so I made several more for the new year. The older hemp ones with holes developing will be layered and turned into Zokin cleaning cloths. All these new napkins are made from cotton I was gifted from a quilter who was down sizing to better match their project list with the time they have left here. Each one is different, so it's easier to keep track of which one we're (re)using.

Clean napkins are stored in the kitchen drawer closest to the table, along with our painter's tape labeling supplies.
There are only three adults living here, with Covid and our at risk multigenerational house hold, guests are really an aspiration for our future. We're not real rough on the napkins. Mom keeps hers on the table where she sits, I keep mine in a special slot in the drawer next to the clean napkins *gasp!* and my husband uses his socks (so he keeps them with him all the time - convenient!), or borrows mine when I give him the eye and slowly slide it across the table to him. We probably use them for an average of five days before placing them in the wooden built-in laundry hamper across from the washing machine.  If they get wet for some reason, they go out on a collapsible drying rack to dry. It's winter now, so the rack lives in the attached garage and moves outside during warmer months.

When we're "peopling" again, I may use a labeled basket for dirty napkins, or my preferred method.... having everyone chuck their napkin at me and try to make it in the apron "basket" I'm wearing. Bawah hahah. So much more interactive.

Napkins are washed with other lightly soiled towels, rags, or clothes. We add them in whenever we need to top off a load of something else. We wash on cold with homemade liquid soap, or horse chestnut tea. In warmer months, they will be washed outside (in an auxiliary machine I just scored off Buy Nothing) with horse chestnut tea where the gray water can help to water our budding food forest.

Nicole Alderman wrote:
Didn't even try planting the seeds. It was such a cool, long, wet "spring," It was late-winter weather until July 5, and I had no hopes for watermellon!

Speaking of a wet spring... I found the dandelions did quite well bawahaha (attaching picture to use as my profile). Most of the rest of my gardening attempts were very much enjoyed by the slugs. The Magnolia Tendrils behind me did quite well though (the Sugar Ann snap peas in the garden proper - not so much)!

2023 is the year of the rabbit chicken! At least over here. My prey driven dog seems to be oddly disinterested in chickens. My neighbor sells us chicken eggs for a great price, so I thought I'd start with ducks, but the dog came first & I could really use a hand in removing grass and building fertile soil both in and out of the garden - so chickens it is! I've been mulling over the idea all last year, but for Christmas my father-in-law sent cash and said, "Buy a chicken." Who am I to argue? There is a local breeder I already know I will support. I'm thinking of starting with 2 pairs of 3 varieties, in a little chicken tractor (with a coop/run home base) that we can equip with a video camera to start bringing interest to/monetizing our little shpadoinkle we're creating. I'm looking forward to a pair of Skånsk Blommehöna aka Swedish Flower Hens.

Another big change I'm hoping for us a deer exclusion fence around the garden that is coupled with a chicken moat. I think with those two improvements I could have my first decent garden here! Fingers crossed.

Jennie Little wrote:What did you do that changed how much you discarded? What was the most effective change?

Well, I feel like a phony, which will be evident by the end of this, but here goes!
When we were ready to "up our game," so to speak, my husband and I decided to weigh our garbage (destined for the landfill) for the entire year of 2018. We already had a lower than average amout of waste, which I expect is the case for most frequenting this site, so our goal at the end of the year was to have generated 12lbs or less of waste, 1 pound of each month.

Each time I took the trash out, I would weigh the bin and also keep track of the year to date running total. Just the thought of adding up this total curbed so many potentially bad purchasing decisions! I would also dump it all out on the floor and do a trash audit. You think you know what your trash looks like, but when it's all out in front of you, you are able to see things you wouldn't have before (at least that was my experience).

Our 2018 year end total was just over 13 pounds. We didn't make our lofty goal, but we did really well compared to undocumented years prior. We were really starting to get into the groove with this, so we decided we were ready to increase the challenge. The goal for 2019 was to half our 2018 total, so about 6.5lbs.

I dug around Instagram to try to find some photo evidence of our journey.

<b>June 27, 2018 - picture of over flowing garbage bins -</b>
Garbage pick up is in the morning. Four apartments and nine people share these bins. Trash and recycling are picked up every week, compost every other. It's a good thing my partner and I don't have anything to contribute this week because there is no room!

Garbage is hauled away out of sight but it is not out of mind for me. There is no "away." All the plastic ever created is still with us. It wasn't until 1934 that the Supreme Court banned municipal waste from being dumped in the ocean, which was the preferred method at the time. The amount of packaging produced and disposed of increased 67% after WWll and there has been no looking back since.

We try to live "towards zero waste" and reduce, reuse, go without, compost and recycle but felt we could be doing better, so on my partners suggestion I began weighing our garbage.
Our year to date that has gone to the landfill is 6lbs 7.5oz. I know we can do better and already the thought of adding to that number has changed our buying patterns and curbed some impulses, but we're doing pretty well compared to the average American. That is a pretty low bar to compare ones self to though... I'm just glad to be on this journey - besides, there is no room in the bin even if we did have garbage to contribute!

<b> April 5, 2019 picture of an espresso drink in an upcycled container</b>
I have this personal thing that I can't get a coffee while out unless I have the time to sit and drink it out of mug or I bring a travel mug. My idea to pack an 8oz jelly jar (on a recent trip) was foiled when no one would severe me coffee in glass "because it will explode!" Enter my local co-op. I found a 4oz supplement container in the bin and the Batista was happy to make me a cappuccino! It's good to be home.  

<b>May 10, 2019 picture of my trash can</b>
Year to date: 15.5 ounces of garbage to the landfill. On our way to our goal of halving 2018s total of just over 13 pounds.

<b>July 19, 2019 Trash Audit</b>
Trash audit! I took out the trash for the third time this year, so I guess I can't complain much about that chore. Last year around this time we had 7lbs 8.4oz for a year to date. Our goal was to half our end of year total. Right now our year to date is 1lb 6.8 oz so we are right on track to meet our goal - allowing for some heavy misc like water filters and one offs like Christmas.
What did I learn? We got LAZY! Lots of failed dinners. Annie's Mac and cheese? Ice cream sandwiches?Really? I also am super bummed about a few teas that ended up having foil lining. Please print that on that outside, gah! I also dislike all the produce twist-ties 🤦🏽‍♀️
Then there are the decisions I tried so hard on and still failed, like the tortilla bag I thought was paper but was lined with plastic : (

[side note: a take away I noticed from looking at these picture again - after doing this trash audit I noticed those several mylar bags that had crackers in them. I learned how to make sourdough crackers soon after, and am still making them today!]

By the end of 2019 I had taken out the trash a mere five times and our year-to-date weight was just 2lb 11.7oz (our goal had been 6.5lbs)! Feeling like it would be difficult to improve much upon that, we decided to try anyway but no longer document it, instead we would weigh our recycling and get that better under control. One thing we noticed was film plastic bags of english muffins, so my husband figured out how to make them. How am I a phony? Well... the pandemic happened. Walking to the food co-op with reusable and refillable containers stopped, asking and giving the most random used items within my Buy Nothing Project community stopped, and online ordering started. We bought a house with acreage (yay permies dream!) AND combined households. I know we are still doing better than the average American (but isn't that too low of a bar to compare yourself to?), by choice we do not have garbage or recycling pick up at our new place. However, there have been trips to the dump with over 500lbs of nasty carpet and 50+ year old carpet padding and linoleum we found under some of said nasty carpet. There are new tools to be purchased and so.much. unnecessary styrofoam!  Then we got a dog, and Amazon Prime, the waste just keeps increasing. Meanwhile I'm making twine from sewing scraps like it's making a difference [Wahhh! Booo! Sob..]

[ending on a positive note] At least we have a decent foundation, and something to strive to get back to. AND we have our own soil to improve with our own compost, rather than having to tote much of it away. Hooray!

Peter Chan wrote:

WOW!  thanks for sharing those beautiful photos!  Your property is gorgeous.  Could you share more detail on the process?  what method do you use them to roughly chop them?  also, do you feel that they need to be further ground in a food processor to work well?  have you tried simply chopping them to see if that works just as well?

when you say you made enough for two loads of laundry for a year, do you mean 2 loads per week?  thank you.

Hi Peter, yes - that's right, I calculated it to be enough for two loads a week for 52 weeks.  I stepped on the horse chestnuts and popped them out of the husk with my shoe. Then I cut them in fourths with a big chef's knife. You can use them fresh, I've heard, just like that, but I opted to process them for long term storage. I did use a food processor next. It got it into the coarse meal texture I was looking for pretty quickly. I hope you'll give it a try!

Thanks for planting the seed a few years ago, Shaz (see what I did there?)! Last fall I collected 12lbs of Horse Chestnuts and dehydrated for soap. I've been very happy with it! I made enough for two loads of laundry for a year, but I had other homemade laundry soap to use up so have not been using it weekly. Recently I experimented with more soiled loads. Up to that point I was only washing sheets, bath towels etc. I decided to test out the Horse Chestnut soap on my used-to-be-white-until-we-got-a-black-dog-who-loves-the-mud duvet cover. It worked beautifully, came out white! I've since moved on to my forever property and am very pleased that there is a mature horse chestnut tree offering shade over the backyard and the promise of a life time's worth of laundry soap. I've been giving saplings away to neighbors so they can have the same : )

After roughly chopping the nuts, I had good success grinding them to a meal using the food processor.

I think I talked the walk before taking a step. I've deleted my comment to rescind my interest. Best of luck finding a good home!