My Green City Life

Testing for Helix

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:51:48 +0000

This is a short post.

This is a test post that has a long title & an ampersand

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:26:46 +0000

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur eu est risus, a molestie mi. Vivamus tristique ipsum neque, at ultrices nunc. Pellentesque ac urna libero, sit amet sagittis libero.

Happy Car Free Day!

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:30:51 +0000

Today is Car Free Day! Are there Car Free activities going on where you live? Here in Montreal, part of downtown will be blocked off to cars for part of the day. The area is bounded by but doesn’t include some major streets, and the hours are after morning rush hour and before afternoon rush hour, so the street closure is perhaps more symbolic than trying to affect real change. However, having lived most of my life in a city with public transportation that can be described as poor at best, I still appreciate the gesture.

Yes poo

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:36:09 +0000

My shampoo boycott has come to an end… or at least had a hiccup. I decided this weekend that I just couldn’t stand the constantly dirty head feeling anymore, so the shampoo made an appearance in the shower. I don’t think this has to be the end of my No Poo experiment, though, and I definitely learned about my hair and its behavior when unshampooed over the last six or so weeks. Shampoo is not the only way to wash your hair. I recommend experimenting with alternatives or at least decreasing your use of shampoo. Your head doesn’t need to be covered in thick bubbles to get clean!

Gettin’ there

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:07:57 +0000

I just found out that next week marks the start of Montreal’s weekly green waste pick-up program. Now Montrealers will be able to put their yard waste out at the curb for composting, just like recycling and trash pick-up. Unfortunately, this doesn’t affect me since I don’t have a yard and therefore don’t generate yard waste. At first I got really excited, thinking this was all organic waste, but no, just grass clippings, leaves, and the like. I hope this will expand to include kitchen scraps too.

Food Box Haul

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:54:10 +0000

Last week we got our second Good Food Box. What a haul! I love it! If you’re in Montreal or somewhere else with a Good Food Box program, I totally recommend it. Here’s what we got this time around:

1 lb red grapes
4 pears
big head of broccoli
2 green peppers
big bunch of celery
3 big cucumbers
6 ears of corn
head of iceberg lettuce
1 leek
1.5 lbs tomatoes
2 lbs yellow onions

Everything is from Quebec except the grapes and pears which are from the US. Not bad for $10. It’s certainly better than I could have done with $10 at the grocery store or the farmers’ market. Yumyum!

No poo!

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:44:48 +0000

It’s the great no poo experiment! The “poo” in this case is shampoo, not poop. Going “no poo” means washing your hair without shampoo. For me, the ultimate goal is to get my scalp to regulate its oil output such that I can simply rinse my hair with water in the shower and not look like a greaseball. I’ve been transitioning to this rinse-only method by using baking soda and apple cider vinegar. The first week I washed my hair with a solution of three teaspoons of baking soda to about a cup of water. Then I rinsed with the same ratio of apple cider vinegar to water. (There was a complete water rinse between each solution — no volcanoes on my head!) Each week I reduced the baking soda/vinegar by one teaspoon.

I’ve now finished my fourth week of no poo-ing. It was my first full week of just rinsing with water. I’m not sure I’m happy with the results yet. The first two weeks, my hair seemed just like normal. Once I hit the one teaspoon week, I started feeling greasier even just out of the shower. Maybe I need to give my head a bit longer to adjust. Maybe I just need to get used to not being as super squeaky clean as I used to be with all the harsh chemicals in shampoo that were stripping my hair of all traces of oil. My hair doesn’t look bad, mind you. I just feel a bit greasy.

I will post another no poo update in a few weeks. If you are interested in going no poo, give it a search. There’s lots of info out there about why and how to do it. Personally, I’m doing it to be rid of chemical-laden shampoo and packaging. Also, it’s an experiment, and I like experiments. I think it will be cool if my head can learn to regulate its oil production without outside influence; in theory, it should. We’ll see if that amount of natural oil production is something I like or not. If not, I may consider going back to the baking soda/vinegar treatment, which seemed to work very well for me. Or I may make some shampoo soap bars. I have made them in the past, and they dried my hair out. However, plain baking soda did that too, but the vinegar rinse softened my hair back out, so maybe that is something to try.

My kingdom for a compost pile!

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:57:17 +0000

OK, so I don’t have a kingdom to trade for a compost pile, but it would be really nice to have one. Or access to one very nearby would be great. Or curbside organic matter pick-up would be fantastic. (This last one is supposed to be coming to Montreal… sometime.) This is one of the downfalls of living in an apartment: no yard for a compost pile.

This week I am not collecting my organic matter for my worms. They didn’t seem to be eating as fast as I was feeding them, so I’m giving them a week off. Even when I do feed them, though, there are many compostable things that end up in the trash. My worms can only eat so much! Nearly all of Matt’s coffee grounds end up in the trash. Banana peels go in there. Most of the egg shells too. Anything that is too hard or too big (and unable to be reduced in size) or too protein-y (like beans) or too seedy or too slow to break down ends up in the trash. It makes me sad because I know that it would all happily decompose and turn into beautiful compost if only given a chance.

If you have a yard and are able to have a compost pile, please do so. It’s very low-maintenance, and I bet you will be surprised at how much your garbage is reduced. You can put your yard waste in there too. And you will end up with lovely compost to use on your lovely yard!

Market Report: 28 July 2008

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:35:29 +0000

It’s been a while since I did a market report, but then it’s been a while since I’ve been to the market. The real market, I mean. The J-T. I did go to the Atwater market a couple times because it’s so much closer, and I was desperate for strawberries.

I guess I have really been out of the loop because I was somewhat amazed at what all is in season now! Perhaps it’s because the last time I was there, it was all strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus. Now it’s everything season, it seems! Tomatoes, eggplant, beans, potatoes, corn, peaches, onions, greens, herbs… I even saw some Quebec cabbage, which made me a little sad, cabbage being winter food in my eyes. I’m not ready for summer to be gone yet! No use dwelling on that, though, when there is such an abundance of tasty local summer food available.

I bought what will most likely be my last basket of strawberries for the season. There are fewer people selling them now (although still a lot) and the price seems to be climbing a bit, so I’m guessing they are on their way out. I intend to enjoy these fresh instead of freezing them, as I did with the last batch I bought. Six pints of strawberries in the freezer will make for some tasty smoothies over the winter.

As I said, I wasn’t prepared for all the summer food to be ready already, so I didn’t take full advantage. Next time, you can bet that I will be coming home with corn, peaches, and tomatoes a-plenty! Yumyum! Oh, and okra! I will keep a sharp eye out for okra. I am determined to find it this year.

Water water everywhere

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:46:26 +0000

Three water-related things to report today:

1. Finally, finally, finally, after months of waiting, the leak in our bathroom has finally been fixed! Oh happy day! The background story is that the cold water has been leaking from the bathtub faucet for many months, progressively getting worse. For the last few months, we’ve had the cold water turned off, only turning it on when needed. As you can imagine, turning the water on and off has been a hassle. It is therefore extremely exciting for me to be able to adjust the temperature of the water while washing my hands! Or brush my teeth with cold water! Or not worry about wasting water when we forget to turn the cold water back off! Yay!

2. A waterspout was seen in the St. Lawrence river yesterday down at the Old Port. Apparently, this never happens. See a picture here.

3. There is still unmelted snow from this winter’s record-breaking snowfalls! Mmmm, dirty six-month-old snow. Sounds awesome. Read more here.