Non-Toxic Deodorants - Do They Work?

Yes, but not for long.  Most don't reduce perspiration and don't kill the bacteria that is the main reason we wear deodorant or antiperspirant, so they are a short-term solution.

I'm not going to go into the many reasons why some people fear using aluminum-based antiperspirants.  You can read more about those concerns here and elsewhere.  Let's just assume that if you're reading this blog, you're inclined to believe that the all natural route is the best route.  So, you bathe daily and clean your clothing after every use - but what do you do if you really don't want to wear that industrial-strength deodorant or antiperspirant?  What are some effective and natural solutions?

Some people swear by a dusting of baking soda or cornstarch to handle perspiration.  Others like a particular brand of all natural deodorant to handle minor odor.  But the key to really managing odor is to kill the bacteria on a regular basis.  A quick swab of rubbing alcohol, witch hazel or white vinegar under each arm morning (after showering and before deodorant) and night will do the trick.  (You can also use white vinegar in your laundry to eliminate body odor from clothing.)

Note: one reader strongly recommended this brand:

Homemade Lemonade

Lemonade is one of the only beverages my older son will drink.  He likes the tartness.

He prefers one particular brand.  This past week, the store was sold out of it so I offered to make him some homemade lemonade.  "The beauty of it," I told him, "is that I can adjust it if you think it's too tart, or too weak, or too sweet.  We can tinker until it's just the way you like it."

Well, he liked it. And the nice fringe benefit? It's very inexpensive.  I just went to Costco and bought a big bag of lemons and a bag of organic sugar.

Here's my recipe:

• the juice of four lemons, strained to remove all pulp and seeds
• eight cups of filtered water
• one half cup of organic granulated sugar

The result is somewhat strong, so we then water it down to suit the taste of the various members of the household. I think it's easier to start with something strong and dilute it than to work in the opposite direction.

Enjoy!

Environmentally Friendly Way to Get Rid of Webworms

The webworms are here.  What worms?  These worms:

They show up in trees and shrubs, spinning unsightly nests that can span three feet.  In previous years, I've seen entire trees shrouded with them. 

Inside the nests, caterpillars of the white moth are busy eating away at the leaves.  If you look up close, you can see a pile of them wiggling and squirming. 

While they typically appear in Fall, I'm beginning to see them now.  I see them in the neighbor's trees behind our house.  And I saw this small nest in a tree in our front yard.  Typically, they aren't disastrous for established trees.  But they are definitely an eyesore and after my bagworm experience, my pain threshold is pretty low.  So they had to go.

My extremely environmentally friendly method of grappling with them?  I cut the nest out of the tree with my garden shears (the leaves on those tiny branches were toast anyway), threw it on the ground and stamped on it until I felt better.

And I did feel better.

Square Foot Garden - Why Cucumbers Are Sometimes Bitter

I was very excited to pluck from my garden my first two New Mexico Big Jim chile peppers and my first cucumber!

While I have to figure out what to do with the chiles, the kids and I wanted to taste that cucumber right away.

So, I peeled it, sliced it and put a bit of salt on the slices (the way my parents served it to me as a kid).  I popped the first slice into my mouth and promptly spit it out.  BITTER!  Ugh!  My older son kindly and dutifully ate his slice without complaint.  The younger one handed it back to me without tasting it.

I took out my gardening books and investigated.  What can make cucumbers bitter?  STRESS.  Lack of regular water, extreme heat or lack of proper nutrients in the soil can cause stress, rendering the cucumbers practically inedible.

I've been watering regularly with drip hoses and have been supplementing the garden with compost, but we've been grappling with 100 degree weather for a week - the very week when the cucumber bulked up - so I have my answer.  To help my garden with the heat, I'll layer in some extra compost and see if that helps.

Square Foot Garden Update - Mad Dogs, Englishmen and EcoMeg

It's 103 degrees F here in north Texas and it is humid.  Five minutes standing still outside and I'm sweating through my clothes.  Of course, that did not stop me from transferring the finished contents of my composter into my veggie patch.  My garden needed a pick me up.

I was delighted to find that my compost is lovely, dark and sweet-smelling, just as I had hoped.  After picking out some items that needed to cook some more, such as these onions that had actually grown rather than broken down,

I churned it up with my shovel, wet it down into a sort of a slurry and spread it over my veggie garden, tucking it in close to the stalks of all of my plants.  I could almost hear them sigh with appreciation.

Next, I inspected my plants, plucking off dead leaves and keeping an eye out for insects.  Things looked good.  I looked up and saw this:

My first cucumber!  A sight for sore eyes.

I finished my few moments in the heat by deliberately zipping this bee into my enclosure.  I need some pollination and don't feel like getting out my paint brush and playing bee myself.

Stay cool!

Warren Buffett And The Pork Chop Show

I had a dream last night that I was flying around a dinner party (literally flying), holding a raw pork chop in each hand, singing a big band song about the merits of lean meat.  It was Warren Buffett's dinner party, but it was suddenly in a theater and he was in a front row mezzanine seat, the sort where Kennedy Center Honor recipients sit (but no groovy rainbow ribbon for the Oracle of Omaha).

The tune of the song was "American Bandstand" but instead of the words American Bandstand, the words were You Gotta Eat Lean Meat.  Occasionally I would clap the raw pork chops together in beat to the music. Yes, really.  It was quite a show. And Warren Buffett liked it.

So here's how I try to tie something quirky from my life into some sort of eco lesson.  Because the blog is called EcoMeg, not RandomThoughtsMeg.

I've been reading a lot lately about the merits of grass fed beef - I assume this was where the lean meat part of the dream came from (I've no idea how Warren Buffett got in there).  So I'll share with you a link to the very informative website Eat Wild by Jo Robinson, New York Times best selling author of the book Why Grassfed Is Best!.  There are many health benefits from eating grass fed rather than grain fed.  For instance, beyond being lower in fat and calories, meat from grass fed animals has far more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain fed animals (omega-3s are called "good fats" that benefit our heart and brain).  

Check out her website and her book, too.  
And don't eat pizza before bed unless you want to dream of flying with pork chops.

EcoMeg Versus The Black Widow Spider

What can I say? I have two small boys, so everything is about super heroes versus villains.

Yesterday, while enjoying some backyard swimming with my kids, I discovered a spider had built a web under one of our chaises.  At first, I only saw the seemingly abandoned, raggedy web hanging beneath the chair, collecting leaves.  As I tried to pry it loose I found it was amazingly strong - as if it were industrially made.  The alarm went off in my brain.  I'd read certain nasty spiders built untidy webs.  So I turned the chair over to give it a thorough cleaning and there it was: a black widow spider, likely a female given its size, markings and the proportion of its body to legs.

I called the boys over for a look, snapped a photo, then dispatched the spider to its maker.  As much as I respect nature, there is no place in my house or yard for poisonous critters, especially with children around.

I was surprised to find this here for two reasons: 1. I keep my house, garage and yard clean and tidy, and yet this managed to evade me for long enough to set up shop, and 2. black widows usually like dark places, yet here it was living on my pool deck.  We've had some unusually rainy weather, though, so my guess is that it migrated to higher ground.  The good news is that black widows are not typically aggressive.  When you come across one, it tends to run away rather than attack.  Just don't put your hand or foot near one or you may need to make a trip to the ER.

The Facebook Page "Boycott BP"

A while back, as the weeks dragged on with the oil spill in the Gulf, I "liked" the Facebook page Boycott BP.  It's proven to be a good source of information I might otherwise have to really hunt for.  Granted, it's also a place where people rant about BP.  If you can tolerate reading a lot of swear words, make a visit.

Today they posted a picture of a partially burned and clearly dead baby whale, which got me spewing a few curse words myself.  So, not only has this driven fishermen out of work, destroyed economies along the coast, killed countless fish, birds and other aquatic life, and possibly spread toxic rain along the coast, but now they're burning whales (and, I've read, turtles).  And the very act of burning the oil releases more toxins into our air, later to come down as toxic rain elsewhere, further spreading the havoc.

Boycott BP.  Check it out.

Daily Photo: My New Visitor

My three-year-old pointed out at the bird feeder this morning and shouted something about Nemesis Squirrel.  He has trouble with the word "Nemesis" so it comes out like "Nemenisis," which is very cute.

So I take a look out the window and see that for the second time in a row, Nemesis Squirrel has opened the bird feeder, pulled out the big cake of bird seed/nuts/dried fruit and dumped it on the ground below.

Grrr.   Which immediately had me thinking, "I've gotta get a pair of cat handcuffs and I gotta get 'em right away."  Ok, I'm dating myself here.  Anyway, I need to find one of those squirrel-proof feeders before the Cardinals and Blue Jays abandon us.

I step outside to confront Nemesis, only to find that most of the cake is gone and the only critter still munching away is a cute bunny rabbit.  Almost made me forget how mad I am at Nemesis Squirrel.  Almost.

Cherry Vanilla Muffins

Every Friday afternoon during the summer, I host a playgroup at our house for my sons and all of their Montessori classmates (they're in the same class). It's really not as crazy as it sounds. Not every child attends every playgroup, and I encourage the parents to stay and attend, too, so there is lots of supervision.

Today I decided to make some muffins for the playgroup's afternoon snack. I didn't have any fresh fruit left but I had plenty of frozen fruit. So I selected some lovely cherries from our freezer and modified my blueberry muffin recipe to accommodate the different fruit.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup sifted white whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup thawed, pitted, quartered cherries (plus the juice from the thawing process)

Directions:
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar over the cherries and toss them so they are covered, then let sit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

I use a stand mixer for all of my baking, which makes very quick work of it. Cream the butter and sugar. Add milk and egg and beat until smooth. While the mixer is running, add baking powder, vanilla and salt. Add the flour. Mix until moistened. Fold the cherries (with juice) into the batter. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake at 375F degrees for 15 minutes. Don’t overcook!

Tip:
You can tuck a 1/4 cup of ground flaxseed into each batch of muffins to add fiber and Omega-3 - add an additional 1/4 cup milk to balance it out.