Squash & Windows

A few of my yellow squash got away from me:

Oops.

The front garden is going gang-busters.  I dug up a 5-gallon bucket of potatoes recently and tonight we'll have the gorgeous head of broccoli that is looking perfect.

Last weekend I spent many hours refurbishing one of the original double-hung sash windows in our 1924 Craftsmen home.  It's not done yet - I still have to replace the glass and paint the frame - but it's now 100% functional.  That's more than I can for any other window in our entire house.  Most of the other windows can open a little but not all the way.  My next project will be to get them all to 100%.

Should you ever wish to tackle such a project, I highly recommend the book "Working Windows" by Terry Meany.  (Disclaimer: Mr. Meany doesn't know who I am nor do I get a dime for endorsing the book.)

I'll post pics as soon as we can locate the battery charger for the camera.  I know I saw it around somewhere...

Plastic bags

My dish drying rack looks like a jelly fish.  Or maybe a micro version of the Giant Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean.

My parents were horrified when they found out that we wash and reuse our baggies.  We don't do it because we're poor, or cheap (though, admittedly, we are quite frugal people).  We do it because plastic bags can be used more than once and they cannot be recycled without the recycle logo on them. 

Why not reuse them until they're good and dead?

The 3 Rs of more sustainable living are Reduce Reuse... and then finally Recycle.  In that order.

We've moved into the Reuse part and are working our way into the Reduce mode when it comes to food bags.  I'm confident that we about 90% into Reduce for shopping bags with only the occasional plastic shopping bag coming home from anywhere.

Our goal is to use no plastic shopping bags at all.  We rarely get bags at the grocery store for anything, unless it's something like grapes where you need a bag.  I recently bought the fabric to make reusable produce bags like these.  I'll show them to you when I get off my butt and actually make them.  I don't mind spending a few extra pennies for the little bit of added weight of a cloth bag compared to a plastic one.

There are lots of products on the market to use as alternatives to plastic bags:

• Insulated cotton/wool coolers
• Wrap-n-mat
• Things on etsy (which make me just want to make my own)

Do you use an alternative to plastic zipper bags?  What are your thoughts?  Some of the challenges are weight (glass) or microwave-ability (metal or resin).  How do you overcome these obstacles?