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Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto

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You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle / Living Green

The elephants – natural water filtration

October 5, 2008 by Tricia

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Earlier in the week I told you that Chris and I and our dog Midnight went for a walk in Taylor Creek park here in Toronto …

Remember those muddy dog pictures? (you’ve got to see the pics if you haven’t already, I’ve never seen a dog that well coated in mud!) Well. this city park has these big structures beside the highway (the Don Valley 404) that we’ve always called the elephants … well, because they do kind of look like elephants.

IMG_4964

See what I mean?

Anyway .. these “elephants” are actually natural water filters. I guess the rain water is supposed to filter down from the tallest structure to the shortest one and by the time it’s been through all three filters the water is totally clean.

IMG_4967

The filters are huge. I stood beside them taking pictures and I’d say they are 30 or more feet tall. They seem to be made out of concrete, but there’s probably some other type of material in them as I think the materials used to make concrete would leach into the water.

The area of the park closest to “the Elephants” was the most colorful.

IMG_4982

Most of our trees here in Toronto seem to be holding onto their green leaves, but the weathers been fairly cool all week so I’m sure that will change in an instant.

As you can see in the last picture the Sumacs have started to turn that lovely brilliant red. A clear sign of Autumn around here! The bull rushes (Cat Tails) beside them were starting to break up too, spreading their fluffy seed heads all over the place.

It’s supposed to rain this afternoon but if it doesn’t we might try to go to the park with Midnight again … if not maybe we’ll go on Monday. Maybe the forest will be a little more colorful this time round and I’ll come back with some pretty Fall pictures.

Have the leaves started to turn in your area yet?





Filed Under: Green Thumb Sunday, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Photography, Recreation, Shopping, Toronto, Web and Technology, Wildlife and Nature Tagged With: 404, autumn, bullrushes, cat_tails, Don_valley, fall, filter, Green_Thumb_Sunday, GTS, highway, leaves, natural_filter, park, pictures, rain, rain_water, Red, structures, sumac, sumac_trees, Taylor_Creek, the_elephants, water, water_filters, wild_flowers

Strangers at the door – do you let them in?

June 6, 2008 by Tricia

A few minutes ago a man knocked on our door. We have a number of solicitors around here so I often ignore knocks at the door, but this man knocked so hard that the dog started barking and I decided to go to the door to find out who it was.

Well it was this man working for a company that I think was called Living Green. I stood in the enclosed front porch to talk with him as Midnight mostly watched from the screen door inside the house.

He asked me how old our water heater was. Honestly I don’t know. It’s a rented heater and it was here when we moved into the house. At the very least it’s more than 7 years old. Apparently our government is giving a rebate on water heaters that are older than 5 years. We can apparently have it replaced free of charge.

My first thought was ok well we’re renting our hot water tank in the first place so I could probably just call the company and have them replace it free of charge anyway …

He made it sound like if I didn’t let him in so that he could check the serial number and age of our hot water heater we’d lose out on the rebate.

I know our government is giving all kinds of rebates to those who upgrade their furnaces to more energy efficient models as well as those who work on their home to reduce energy usage such as improving insulation, replacing windows and yes replacing water heaters. So I wasn’t buying his pitch.

I’d had a gas company rep at the door a few days ago trying to get me to buy into a lower rate gas program too. Our house is oil heated (the tank was just filled up a few days ago at a cost of almost $800) so I wasn’t interested in his gas company pitch either.

I figure if these people that come to the door with sales or rebate offers are legit I should be able to get a pamphlet from them so that I can read the details of the offer on my own and also talk with my husband about whatever being offered.

Chris and I rarely let anyone that comes to our door with a sales pitch in the house. Particularly if we are alone in the home. You just never know if they are legitimate or not.

I’m not paranoid or anything. I’m just being safe. Plus … once you let a salesperson into your home, how the heck do you get them out? Also once you let a sales person into your home it’s a lot harder to turn down the offer – not impossible, but harder.

When I came back in the house I noticed that the TV was now set to closed captioning. Midnight must have hit the remote and turned it on somehow. I have no idea, but it took me a few minutes to try and figure out how to turn the closed captioning off again! I think she chewed on the remote as she would have had to press a few buttons to turn it on!

Puppies. You can turn your back on them for a second!

Filed Under: Appliances and Accessories, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Money, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: company rep, energy, energy rebate, energy usage, front porch, furnaces, government, home invasions, hot water heater, hot water tank, hot water tank replacement, insulation, Living Green, Midnight, models, offer, pamphlet, puppies, rebates, replacing windows, representative, sales people, sales pitch, salesman, salesperson, serial number, solicitors, stranger at the door, strangers, water heaters

Getting ready to open your pool? learn more about chemical free pool systems

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

Now that spring has arrived I’m sure many of you have taken some time to enjoy the nice weather. Perhaps the weather’s nice enough in some areas that you’re even starting to think about how you’ll enjoy your summer?

We don’t have a pool. Heck, with our small yard we don’t even have room for a pond. However, some of our friends have pools and they are already starting to talk about preparing their pool for the upcoming hot days of summer.

Do you already have a pool? Perhaps your big landscaping project this year will be the addition of a pool or spa? If so, I’m envious!

If you already have a pool or if you’ve been thinking of installing a pool have you thought about what kind of treatment you will use to maintain the pools water quality?

I know if we were lucky enough to have a pool I’d want to try to use an environmentally friendly pool treatment system. You see, we have an organic garden. We don’t use any chemicals on our land to get rid of pests or to fertilize our plants, so it only makes sense that we’d try to maintain a pool or pond with the same chemical free standards.

If you’re interested in learning more about environmentally friendly pool treatments you should visit Ecosmartepool.com. They specialize in chlorine free pools and spas.

I think everyone knows that Chlorine treated pool systems aren’t the best. Certainly chlorine isn’t very good for the environment.

Now you might be thinking that salt water pools are a safe alternative? I know I did before I read some of the articles at Ecosmartepool.com.

Salt water pools actually use chlorine generators to keep the water clean. Chlorine generators can make it easier to maintain your pool, but they require a lot of maintenance and one type of Chlorine generator makes a byproduct that is messy and not easily disposed.

Wouldn’t it be much better overall if you could use a system that was 100% chemical free?

EcoSmarte specializes in chlorine, salt water and hazardous chemical free pool systems, spa systems, and pond systems. They also carry EcoSmart filter glass media which is used for pool treatment systems.

The EcoSmarte pool systems use natural oxygen to maintain clean pool water. There systems are easier to use than chlorine based systems and safer than ozone. The natural oxygen system is also much more effective than bromine or bacquacil.

The people behind EcoSmarte believe in protecting the environment and are in fact against Salt water and chlorine based pool systems. They even donate 5% of their profits to environmental charities.

You’ll save money by using the EcoSmarte pool system too. Think about it. You won’t be purchasing chemicals regularly to maintain your pool system. Plus, the EcoSmarte pool system is energy efficient. It costs less than $1 a month to operate.

With all of those benefits it’s certainly worth considering isn’t it?

EcoSmarte offers a 60 day satisfaction guarantee and a 5 year warranty on all purchases. Visit their site to compare their pool treatment system to several other types of treatment systems, then if you’re interested in learning more about their product you can contact them for more information and a product brochure and a free quote.

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Recreation, Services, Sports Tagged With: 5 year warranty, 60 day satisfaction guarantee, articles, brochure, chemical free, chlorine, chlorine free, Chlorine generator, clean water, eco friendly, eco pool, EcoSmart pool treatment, EcoSmarte, effective, environmentally friendly, filter glass, messy byproduct, natural oxygen, no hazardous chemicals, one dollar a month, pond treatment system, pool treatment system, profit donation, quote, safe, salt water, save money, spa treatment system

The old way of drying your clothes

January 26, 2008 by Tricia

Grab the Photo Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Visit participants.

This weeks theme is Old Fashioned

Blue clothes line covered in frost, ice and snow

We do have a dryer, it came with the house when we bought it (it’s 30 years old and probably qualifies for this photo hunt theme too!), but we sometimes dry our clothes the old fashioned way on a clothes line in the backyard.

I don’t think that there as many people using clothes lines these days as there used to be. I grew up with my parents using a clothes line or later one of those odd large metal umbrella looking things in our backyard and when we moved into this neighborhood we noticed that most of our neighbors (all the closest are in their 80’s) used clothes lines.

Our house had a clothes line but it wasn’t in good shape. The actual line was sagging and the wheel was rusted. We got a new set up and one of our neighbors showed us how to tighten up the line properly.

We rarely dry anything on the line in the winter. Well not unless I want a stiff frozen piece of laundry! I think I have used it in the winter once or twice though when it’s been unseasonably warm. Mostly the clothes line is just a great place for the birds to hang out in the winter.

Frosted clothes line

In the summer we use the clothes line quite a bit. Unlike some of our neighbors we don’t dry our under garments on the line. No one needs to see those! We tend not to dry towels or sheets on the line either as they aren’t as soft when dried on the line as they are when they’re dried in a dryer. We do dry all of our cotton clothes on the line though and that makes up the bulk of most of our laundry during the summer.

The clothes smell so fresh and clean when they are dried outside! Oh and did you know that the sun is a great way to keep white clothes bright and clean? It naturally bleaches the clothes.

Since our dryer is ancient and I’m sure its an energy hog we also save a lot of money by drying a good portion of our clothing on the line during the warmer months. In the winter I often hang clothes in the basement to dry instead of using the dryer for everything.

Filed Under: Canada, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Photo Hunters, Photography, Recreation, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: backyard, basement, bird, bright, clothes line, clothing, dry clothes, dryer, fresh and clean, hang clothes, house, Living Green, neighbor, neighbors, old dryer, Old fashioned, parents, photo, photo hunt, photo hunter, photohunt, photohunter, photos, save money, scent, smell, snow, Summer, sun bleached, whites, winter

Some of my solar lights aren’t working

August 21, 2007 by Tricia

I think I’ve got to get some new solar lights for my garden. We actually bought some new ones this year and they’ve got a switch on them so that you can activate them, but a couple of them don’t seem to be working.

I’ll have to go out in the garden at night and figure out which ones aren’t on. It could be that the batteries just aren’t recharging in the sunlight, or there might be something wrong with the light fixtures, or for all I know maybe we simply didn’t turn on that little switch that activates the light.

I guess I should check them before I think about buying new ones huh?

I’m just disappointed. We have a fair amount of solar lights spread out throughout the garden, but when a few areas aren’t lighting up properly at night it looks funny to me.

I’m the only one bothered by it since they’re in the backyard … but still … I want the things that I buy to work.

Filed Under: Decor, Great Sites, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Home Decor, Living Green, Recreation, Shopping, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: backyard, batteries, buy, buying, garden, light, light fixture, lights, night, plants, solar lights, sunlight, turn on, work

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