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Today is a holiday here in Canada (hrmm only in parts of Canada, it seems) Ontario? Err well sort of — apparently most of Ontario celebrates it as various things including Simcoe Day in Toronto, James Cockburn Day in Cobourg, and Peter Robinson Day in Peterborough… Okay, well then what about Ottawa? Bingo! While it’s celebrated for various reasons all over Canada, here in Ottawa I’ve just discovered that it is Colonel By Day.

Lieutenant-Colonel John By (1779 – 1836) was an English military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and, in the process, founding what would become the city of Ottawa.

So now you know! I will be returning regular posting as of tomorrow, but for today my eco-friends, you should know that while most shopping centers and grocery stores are open for holiday business, recycling and garbage will be post-poned today for the holiday, as usual, and will return tomorrow but will be delayed by a day for the rest of the week.

So get out there and enjoy the holiday! But be sure to put out your garbage on the right day

This dessert and snack dish is not exactly candy, I suppose, but it is odd and I like LOVE it. Who doesn’t like grapes? And to be honest, the recipe calls for walnuts but I’m really not a huge fan of walnuts, myself, and I can vouch that the recipe does just fine without them if you happen to have nut allergies or – like me – can’t stand walnuts.

This dish is one of my absolute favourites, I hope you enjoy it!

It provides 6 regular-sized portions or you can divide it up into smaller pieces.

Grape Crisp

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of seedless organic grapes, any color
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1 teaspoon grated or ground ginger
• 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 Cup fast-cooking oats
• 1/2 Cup packed light brown sugar or natural organic honey
• 1 Cup butter, melted on stovetop or in microwave

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Use a bit of butter/margarine to coat an 8-inch square glass baking dish.
3. In a large mixing bowl, place the grapes, walnuts, orange peel, and ginger and toss together briefly. Then pour the mix into the baking dish.
4. Mix the flour, oats, and light brown sugar together in the same mixing bowl as used before. Blend thoroughly.
5. Take this bowl of topping mix and sprinkle the contents over the grape mix; then, drizzle the melted butter evenly across the topping.
6. Bake 30 – 40 minutes, until the topping is crisp and medium brown in appearance. Cool, cut, and serve!

Whoa! I’m having some odd problems on BambiGoesGreen — sorry folks!

I’ve been working all weekend to try and figure out what the problem is and I’m hoping — given that the site is actually, sort-of, running right now — that I’m on the right track. Keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, keep up to date with me via Twitter.

I could have guessed that this cool solar lawnmowing robot would have been the most popular post this week! Who doesn’t love robots?

Joanne writes:

This is awesome! Kinda like a roomba for your lawn! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba

Thanks for the comment Joanne!

So, my question is: How soon do you think we’ll see this things? I mean, plenty of people have Roombas now — I want a robot lawnmower!

Garbage or trash is a major form of environment pollution these days. Each person produces about 4.3 pounds of trash a day.  Do you know where all your garbage goes? Many types of garbage take hundreds of years to properly decompose when thrown away.

Here are some facts about trash that’ll really make you think!

1. Banana peel decomposes in 2 to 10 days.
2. Sugarcane waste takes 30 to 60 days for decomposition.
3. Thread decomposes within 3 to 14 months.
4. Cotton decomposes within a month to 5 months.
5. Paper carry bags decompose in 2 to 5 months.
6. Rope takes 3 to 14 months for decomposition.
7. Orange peel decomposes within 6 months.
8. Cigarette takes a year to 12 years for decomposition.
9. Milk packet (Tetra) covers and cool drink packets decompose in 5 years.
10. Leather shoes decompose in 25 to 40 years.
11. Nylon clothes take 30 to 40 years for decomposition.
12. Plastic carry bags decompose in 15 to 1000 years.
13. Aluminum cans decompose in 80 to 100 years.
14. Sanitary napkins and children’s diapers take 500 to 800 years for decomposition.
15. Glass bottles decompose in 1,000,000 years.
16. Plastic bottles and cans never decompose.
17. About 90% of the contents of our bins could be reused or recycled. Think twice before throwing the trash into dustbin. You can reduce the use of some items, can reuse some of them like paper and cardboard and take some of them (cans, plastic, bottles etc) to recycle bin.

Recycling is important as it reduces the amount of waste sent to landfill sites.

In doing a bit of research online, I discovered this: In the UK in 2007/08 it is estimated that 25.3 million tonnes of household waste was collected and of that 16.6 million tonnes is sent to landfill sites. Not only are existing landfill sites filling up, they produce dangerous levels of methane gas – contributing to the Greenhouse effect.

The government has put in place targets to reduce landfill, but to reach these targets; it is essential that we all do our bit and help the environment.

1. Reduce he amount of rubbish, only buy the things that you need
2. Look for items with less packaging
3. Instead of throwing things away see if you can give them away or sell them
4. Try and reuse as much as possible
5. Make recycling bins easy to get too, some people buy separate recycling bins for the kitchen

It’s strawberry season and this smoothie offers a stellar combination of flavours. The addition of nut butter helps to keep you satiated all day long.

Ingredients:

Method

Wash and hull strawberries. Blend all ingredients together until smooth.

Yields 2 servings.

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Alright, so I’ve established that Fridays be ‘Organic Recipe Friday’s and Saturdays should ‘Saturday Recap’s — but what about Thursdays?

What would you like to see? How-tos? Videos? Picture of the day? Jokes? Comics?

Let me know! I’m more than willing to consider some creative ideas!

Soil remains to be one of the most important aspects of growing your very own organic garden. Its basic structure provides the nourishment necessary for your plants to thrive. Usually, soil consists of clay, sand, silt, limestone, and peat. Here’s an introduction to the benefits and negatives of each soil type.

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Recently I tried out Green Beaver’s “Rejuvenating Cranberry Shampoo and Conditioner for dry, damaged or colour-treated hair” (two separate bottles, to be clear). Picked these up from Topia Greenstop (Clyde and Woodward) right here in Ottawa, Ontario. These products are 100% natural, biodegradable, vegan and gluten-free. They do not contain: Paraben or hydantoin preservatives, sulfate detergents, artificial aromas, fragrances or dyes, phthalates, quaternium, EDTA, propylene glycol or petrolatum. All kinds of awesome, especially considering my hair colour.

I dye my hair regularly. But I don’t use just any hair dye — my hair, as many of you have noted — is quite a bright, fluorescent, unnatural red. Most over-the-counter pharmacy/grocery store shampoos and conditioners cause my hair colour to bleed out significantly. Because of this I usually limit myself to one good shampoo/conditioning per week. This plan works well, but isn’t ideal as by the end of the week my hair is getting oily enough that I can’t wear it the ways I would like to because it’s heavy and unmanageable.

I gave Green Beaver a shot because I figured that maybe, just maybe, the chemicals in ‘normal’ shampoo/conditioner are what strips the colour from my hair.

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