“Child hunger in the world’s wealthiest nation is not morally unacceptable, it costs the U.S. economy at least $28 billion per year because poorly-nourished children perform less well in school.”-Joel Berg, NYCCAH

Did you know that 81,000 Vermonters, or 12% of all households lack access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources? Over 12,000 Vermont children depend on food shelves each month. Students who don’t have enough food are at greater risk for poor health, obesity, developmental delays, poor academic achievement, depression, aggressive and hyperactive behavior. (VT Campaign To End Childhood Hunger)

One of our core beliefs from the beginning has been to participate in what Vermonter Stephen Kiernan calls “authentic patriotism”. Our authentic patriotism grows from our awareness that there are thousands of people, even in a small state like Vermont, who are cold and hungry every day and every night. This affects not only quality of life, the health of our community but survival.

Vermont Foodbank is a top-shelf organization that supports thousands of hungry Vermonters every day. LoveEarthAlways has begun a partnership with Vermont Foodbank and will donate $5 from the sale of every Smart Strip advanced power strip in Vermont. That’s almost enough food to feed a family family of four for a day. Although we won’t make much of a profit selling power strips, we will be helping cold and hungry people.

If you are interested in conserving energy in your home and saving money in your pocket, please consider buying Smart Strips from LoveEarthAlways. You will be doing something about hunger in Vermont. Buy Smart Strips at this link: http://loveearthalways.com/products/smart-strip.html . Thank you from LoveEarthAlways, Vermont Foodbank and many hungry Vermonters.

Another Lovely Vegan Recipe

Nothing will get to your heart like these soft, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon rolls. And like all of our recipes they are low fat, low sugar and healthy. I have eaten cinnamon rolls, glazed over with sugar, made from white flour, loaded with empty calories, and practically blacked out afterwards from the sugar crash. I grew tired of those yucky things quickly. By contrast, my cinnamon rolls, well, I don’t want to brag, but they say ‘I love you’ and leave you wanting more. These cinnamon rolls have been known to be responsible for people falling in love!

I usually make mine with leftover pizza crust. After rolling out my crust I simply take the leftover dough and make rolls. It’s always nice to know that after we enjoy an award-winning pizza, the next morning (or that evening if we can’t resist) we have wonderful cinnamon rolls for breakfast to look forward to. Organic ingredients go without saying here, you will taste the difference.

The Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup stone ground whole wheat flour

1 yeast packet

1 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp olive or safflower oil

1/2 tbsp salt

6 tbsp fresh ground cinnamon

2 tbsp maple syrup or honey

The Dough:

Mix one cup and a half of warm water with 2 tablespoons of dry yeast, a teaspoon of honey, a couple shakes of salt, two tablespoons of olive oil and let it sit until you see bubbles of yeast colonies rising (5 minutes or less).

When the yeast becomes active and rises to the top, then add a cup of white flour and stir to mix. Add more flour until the dough ball becomes powdery on the outside and it will be hard to mix in flour. Now, let the dough rise near heat until it doubles. It needs warm (not hot) heat. This can take 15 minutes to half hour. I turn on the oven (500 degrees) and the dough rises on the stove. When the dough has risen, roll it out on a clean counter on whole wheat flour, and work the whole wheat flour into the dough until it barely stops sticking to your hands or the counter. Roll into a log and flatten out on your bread board or counter top. Sprinkle with half and half sugar-cinnamon mixture. Brown sugar will give it extra flavor. Then I sprinkle liberally with ground fresh cinnamon. Bulk fresh cinnamon will offer deeper, richer flavor and more of the health benefits of cinnamon.

Slice the dough into strips lengthwise with a butter knife, then roll up the individual strips and place in a vegetable-oiled bread pan.

Let the rolls rise on or near your range as the oven heats. Usually they double in size with adequate warm heat. Before they go in the oven, drizzle two tablespoons of maple syrup over the top of the rolls. Cook for 15 minutes at 300 degrees.

If these are not the yummiest healthy cinnamon rolls you have ever tasted, I want to know! Actually I also want to know if you find success with yours too! If you like this recipe be sure to check out our other recipes in our Foodies category and buy our products for living gently!

Photo: 350.0rg, flickr

On 10/10/10, the planet is getting to work on climate change with more than 1600 events in more than 135 countries.

Circle 10/10/10 on your calendar. That’s the date. The place is wherever you live. And the point is to do something that will help deal with global warming in your city or community.

We’re calling it a Global Work Party, with emphasis on both ‘work’ and ‘party’. In Auckland, New Zealand, they’re having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In the Maldives, they’re putting up solar panels on the President’s office.  In Kampala, Uganda, they’re going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they’re installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic.

Since we’ve already worked hard to call, email, petition, and protest to get politicians to move, and they haven’t moved fast enough,  now it’s time to show that we really do have the tools we need to get serious about the climate crisis.

On 10/10/10 we’ll show that we the people can do this–but we need bold energy policies from our political leaders to do it on a scale that truly matters.  The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you can get to work too–on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run. (From Bill McKibben at 350.org)

You can sign up to host a local event at www.350.org/oct10

Video: 350org, youtube

Photo by Glenn Fay at Catamount Family Center, Williston, VT.

Anyone who has thrilled to the buzzing and swooping of a hummingbird appreciates their incredible uniqueness. There is a reason they can get our attention! Okay, a lot of reasons.

A hummingbird beats its wings up to 200 times a second and has a heat rate of up to 20 beats per second! The one above is a female, with a white throat, while males have a bright ruby red throat. These tiny birds fly at average speeds of 20-30 mph although they can reach 60!  Some can fly 500 miles non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico. There is even a myth that hummingbirds can hitch a ride on larger birds!

The hummingbird can rotate its wings in a circle, they are the only bird that can fly forwards, backwards, up, down ,sideways and  hover in mid air. The female lays two pea-sized eggs in a walnut-sized nest and incubates them for 12-16 days. There are 163 different species in Ecuador, although there is only one species in Vermont, or anywhere east of the Mississippi River.

Yet almost 10 percent of hummingbirds worldwide are facing extinction. As pollution, our changing climate and development puts more pressure on birds and their habitat this will continue to be a concern. They also play a role in the ecosystem that would  be difficult to replace. According to the Annenberg Project “By flying from flower to flower, the hummingbird pollinates the plants it feeds on. Some plants can only reproduce because of hummingbird pollination. Some insects are eaten by hummingbirds, which in turn have been eaten by small predators, including large insects, some fish, and small hawks..” These are amazingly unusual and beautiful birds.  You can attract and support hummingbirds with a feeder in your yard.

Video: handfeeder, youtube

Check out an awesome book on hummingbirds and hummingbird feeders here:

Last night’s Letterman interview a success

Vermonter Bill McKibben from Middlebury College gave David Letterman a short course on climate change last night and according to McKibben, the future doesn’t look pretty. Letterman had apparently read his book, Eaarth, and was well-informed on climate change. There were not any chuckles during the exchange and it the end, Letterman remarked to McKibben, “Thanks for scaring the crap out of me.”

Video: 350.org, youtube

Check out McKibben’s new book, Eaarth here:

Power up and light up any time any where, safely and surely!

When I was a Boy Scout one night I was pumping up a liquid fuel lantern in a cabin with my troop near the peak of Mount Mansfield. Then WHOOSH!!! Somehow pressurized lantern fuel spewed out onto the wood table and erupted into flames! Quick thinking put the fire out but not before I saw my life flash before my eyes! It was a moment I will never forget. Luckily only my pride was burned. Back in those days everyone used liquid fuel lanterns. The only alternative were heavy battery lights that no one wanted to carry and they didn’t last very long. Our high tech products today are very different!

But still, my survey showed that 95% of adults admit to picking up a light and having dead batteries. And when this happens during a storm, disaster, camping or other situation it can not only make your life miserable but dangerous too. And sometimes kids even use flammable liquid fuel lanterns out on the trail, at camp or at home. As a father I know the last thing I want to have happen to our kids is to unnecessarily get burned or not have light or a cell phone charge! We have a simple and elegant solution.

The sturdy EcoCharge Mini Lantern delivers bright light when you need it, and will quickly charge your cell phone too using winding action. You can charge it up in three ways: using a wall outlet adapter, using the winding crank or using an included car adapter! The mini lantern is lightweight, sturdy and ready when you are for backyard fun, camping expeditions and emergencies. It is one piece of overnight gear that should be in every scout’s backpack and every home’s emergency drawer.

The early reviews are in and our customers and field testers are raving about the EcoCharge.  One of our field tester packed one up on the Long Trail on a three day hike. His comment was, “The EcoCharge is the lightest, brightest, safest lantern I have ever used. And to top it off, it charged my cell phone!” The EcoCharge Mini is simply the smartest little torch charger you can buy. Check out the one minute video and buy them here. If you are not completely satisfied with the EcoCharge mini lantern after 30 days, please return it to us undamaged and we will gladly refund your money!

Image: Greenpeace, flickr

Remember sponges from the phylum Porifera in biology class? If you were a science geek like me you remember the collar cells with the flagella pulling water in and filtering it as it passes through the sponge! What a marvelous invention to naturally clean the water for many varieties of tropical fish and other organisms. And now scientists are reporting that huge sponges are coming back and getting the job done even as coral reefs die.

The decline in coral reefs along the reef tracts of the Caribbean and the Florida Keys has resulted in a competition between barrel sponges and macroalgaes (seaweed).  Although the seaweed is food for some fish it doesn’t live long. However, the barrel sponges, some the size of 50 gallon drums, filter out about 100 times their own volume every hour according to researchers in the Florida Keys. That is some serious water cleaning and that improves the environment for the underwater ecosystem..

The Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, owned by NOAA off Key Largo regularly houses scientists for 10 days at a time, 60 feet below the surface. There they can measure activity for long periods of time and observe what is happening to the reef. The barrel sponges start out about the size of thimbles and grow into large barrel- type organisms.

This is encouraging news. even though reefs are declining, for unknown or not fully understood reasons, the healthy sponge colony and the sponge’s filter-feeding seem to be improving the water quality for the fisheries around the reefs.

Great Blue Heron- A Powerbird

The tall, long-legged great blue heron is the most common and largest of North American herons.

I first became familiar with Great Blue Herons when I moved to the Champlain Islands of Vermont. We soon noticed large, prehistoric-looking birds, with long necks cocked back, flying past in the wind several times a day. Although ungainly looking in the air the birds are magnificent to watch on the ground. Great Blue Herons are waders, typically seen along coastlines, in marshes, or near the shores of ponds or streams and they are expert fishers. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently my summer came home during spring break. There were lots of adventures to report that’s another story! Anyway, like most college kids, he is on a very different schedule than the grown ups… Anyone living under the same roof with the college sub-species knows what I am talking about. They stay up late, texting, playing soccer and hoops, gaming, and of course eating.

What does this have to do with my sustainable living blog? We have become accustomed to switching off the power strips on the TVs, sound systems, computers, and other appliances in the house when he is away at school. This is done not only to keep carbon out of the air by reducing our electricity load but it also saves about $20 a month on our electric bill! But when Joe College is home, and he is gaming, online and watching bad TV, all of those electronic devices are still pulling power, into the wee hours. Since the adults are early risers, there is not much down time, even if he switches off the power strips when e finally goes to bed for the night.

My somewhat obsessive subconscious was lamenting this conundrum and then it dawned on me: What if we plugged our electronics into “Smart Strips”? Smart Strips are the kind of power strips that automatically shut off energy hog appliances that are continually drawing power, while allowing some appliances that need continuous power, such as the house phone, to stay “on”? Now THAT would allow electronics to turn on when needed, and automatically off when not in use. AND the Smart Strip would pay for itself in a month or two! As utility rates continue to rise, Smart Strips will be everywhere.

Is that enough reason to buy smart strips for your house? If not, here are is one more reason. We are giving $5 from the sale of every Smart Strip power strip sold in Vermont to the Vermont Foodbank to help support cold and hungry people!

Excuse me, I need to go now and order a bunch of those Smart Strips from my wholesaler. We are having a run on them! By the way, you can buy Smart Strips right here! Do you have Smart Strips in your house and if so, how do you like them?

I spotted this monarch in late August warming in the sun on a misty morning in a meadow.

Monarch butterflies fly 2500 miles to migrate out of the cold. The milkweed leaves they eat as caterpillars have a chemical that builds up in their bodies and the butterflies are poisonous to predators like frogs, birds, mice and lizards. Increasing development has led to destruction of milkweeds and lack of habitat for monarchs. Conservationists are trying to restore monarch milkweek habitat before it’s too late. The males and females look alike except for dots that the males have over veins on the wing. The dots secrete pheromones to attract girlfriends. Can you tell which sex this one is?

Monarch Butterfly Migration 2006, PenOpticon, youtube

More information is available here. If you enjoy the outdoors be sure and check out our outdoors products. We offer the very best green products and we support cold and hungry people. Find our products like solar chargers, wind up lights, green coffee makers and nature games here.

Check out a great book on Monarchs here:

Read the rest of this entry »

This Ain’t No Ordinary Cup A Joe! And it’s green!

Are you a coffee lover? Listen to this:

“The AeroPress coffee maker is the best coffee maker I’ve ever owned.” Another user says, “It makes the best cup of coffee I’ve tasted in my entire life.”  and  still another commendation: “I have achieved coffee nirvana.” And the citations go on and on! The AeroPress is greener because it only needs energy to heat the water, it uses tiny filters which compost easily, and it uses very little water for cleanup. When we heard this portable little coffee and espresso maker was so popular we had to buy one and do our own review.

Donna found it easy to use, green, easy to clean up and best of all, it produced incredible coffee. We will use this in our kitchen, in the shop, at the office and on the trail. It even comes with it’s own carrying pouch! Check out our homegrown video to see how it works and then buy one here at LoveEarthAlways! Best of all, get 25% off during our summer sale through August 31st. Use coupon code Summer2010 at checkout.

Video: LoveEarthAlways, youtube