There is no flavour I love more in the world than dill. Really. Cucumbers, however, as much as I like them, cause me much pain and grief, thanks to my diverticulitis. Do you suffer from the same? Try cutting all of the skin off the cucumber. It helps, trust me.

These sandwiches go perfectly with a nice hot cup of jasmin tea — great flavour combination!

Ingredients:

• 2 small (preferably seedless) cucumbers
• 2 teaspoons of kosher salt
• 1/4 cup organic cane sugar
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon of fresh dill chopped
• 6 slices of rye or whole-wheat bread
• 8 oz of semi-soft cheese or cream cheese

Method:

Slice cucumbers crosswise into 1/8 – inch – thick slices. Place cucumber slices in a medium bowl and toss with salt. Let cucumbers stand 15 minutes. Rinse and drain cucumbers. Pat dry with paper or tea towels (using tea towels saves the paper waste!).

In another bowl whisk together, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and dill until sugar is dissolved. Stir in cucumber and let stand a minimum of 5 minutes — it thickens!

Spread cheese on 6 slices of bread in a thin layer. Layer cucumber slices on top of 3 slices of bread in a thin layer. Top with remaining bread and remove crusts. Cut sandwiches into halves, quarters, or triangles.

When I was a kid I remember reading Charlotte’s Web and daydreaming about owning a ‘magnificent’ pet pig. But did I buy my parents for one? Certainly not. That being said, I definitely don’t understand this current trend, but I’ve also – admittedly – not seen/read any of the Harry Potter series.

Apparently kids and parents alike — Harry Potter fans of all varieties are buying up Snowy Owls to be like the main character. So much so, apparently, that an animal santuary in Isle of Wight in the U.K. has just opened up for the sole purpose of housing abandoned, unwanted owls.

People just don’t realize how difficult it can be to take care of an owl.

Animal expert and founder of Newport Owl and Monkey Sanctuary says:

“They might look great in the Harry Potter films, but it takes years to train them. Children read the books and see the films and say to their mums and dads they want one and parents don’t realise how much care it takes to look after them.”

What a ridiculous trend!

[via]

I love looking at design blogs. Not house design or fashion, but more innovative, conceptual design — architecture, technology, gadgets, that sort of thing.

Today I happened across “The Source Project” by Oliver Craig.

Oliver has come up with a really innovative concept that aims at getting the public to give up commercial bottled water in favour of tap water. How does he plan on doing that? (Hey, even I don’t like tap water.) By offering people tap water… with cool, futuristic and esthetically pleasing style.

The way Oliver Craig envisions doing this is with reusable (and neato futurisicly designed) water bottles that you could purchase and then top up for free at water dispensers around the city. And what’s better? Each time you fill up you earn credits/points that are redeemable at participating stores. Cool concept, right? It looks so sci-fi to me, like something right out of Tank Girl (one of my all-time favourite movies, of course).

Kudos, Oliver!

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I know, I know — the title makes it sound a little alarmist. Like your garbage can will become a ticking time bomb or the garbage bags will transform into monsters at the curb… but that’s definitely not what I mean. (But that would make oatmeal pretty cool, wouldn’t it?)

The Daily Green has posted an article discussing 12 Surprising Uses for Leftover Oatmeal — and it really is surprising!

My favourites include:

• Odor absorbtion – put a container in your fridge! Line your ashtrays (yes, really – ha!)
• 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of uncooked oatmeal and a tablespoon of honey in a luke warm bath apparently works to moisturize and rejuvenate your skin! (And you’d look like my breakfast.)
• Non-toxic crafting clay!

Check out the website for more cool oatmeal uses.

Putting pesicides on your lawn is bad because… pesticides are bad, right? I’ve known this for a long time because I remember seeing a ‘Keep off the Lawn!” pesticides warning on a neighbours lawn and asking my mother about it. All she could tell me, really, was that pesticides were poison. I remember being quite confused as to how pesticides could hurt me but not the plants/grass. Well, here’s some interesting little bit sized facts about lawn pesticides:

• Children who live in homes where lawn pesticides are used are twice as likely to develop brain cancer than children with pesticide-free yards. (via)
• People who work with pesticides (including pesticides used on lawns and in gardens) have an increased risk of fertility problems, such as an increase in spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as well as increased risk of having a baby with birth defects (such as cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, limb anomalies). (via)
• Workers exposed over a long period to pesticides have shown problems with information (ie. confusion) and have increased risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.(via)
• In the womb and into early infancy is linked to increased risks of some cancers (particularly leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and neuroblastoma) and birth defects. (via)

So if all these terrible things are possible with pesticide use, why on earth do people use them? Is having a healthy lawn worth all the poison and risk?

Stay tuned to BambiGoesGreen for tips on how to keep your lawn healthy and happy naturally!

According to The Daily Mail;

Tesco is sending 5,000 tons of leftover meat a year to be burned to generate electricity for homes, it emerged yesterday.
The supermarket disposes of enough meat that has passed its sell-by date to power 600 homes for a year through the National Grid.

Other major supermarkets plan to follow suit. But animal rights campaigners yesterday said many homeowners would be ‘horrified’ to learn that their electricity was generated by the ‘macabre’ recycling scheme.

Tesco has hailed the scheme as part of a ‘green’ drive which had enabled it to stop sending any of the waste it produces to environmentally damaging landfill sites.

You know, I read this article and wasn’t really sure what to think. On one hand, where would this meat go otherwise? Would it just be burried or worse — incinerated with no purpose but to destroy it? What a waste, both of the animal’s live and of fuel. I think that’s where I might stand on the issue — why not? It’s just going to go to waste otherwise. But I think there’s also a bigger issue to consider here: why are there 5,000 tons of meat leftover every year? As an ex-butcher, I can tell you that that’s a significant amount. Maybe they should be cutting back on production and trying to pinpoint demand a bit better.

But I think, overall, that using the excess meat as fuel – while a bit macabre indeed – isn’t a terrible use for it. But maybe I’m missing something? Do let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

For the rest of the article, check out The Daily Mail (UK).