When my dog died, it changed the way I thought about chemicals
(Note: the picture is of my new dog Kona on my chemical free lawn!) A couple years ago I really started thinking about all of the chemicals we use around the house. From the multiple bottles in the shower, on the bathroom counter and under the sink. Couple that with what you have in the garage and any seasonally professional bug spraying and you have quite the chemistry experiment going on.
What really hit home for me was that the second dog I have ever owned, “Bud” was diagnosed with the one of the same ailments that my first dog “Tanner” died from the year before, it was a tumor on his spleen. It’s not a very fun way to die. Typically, you bleed internally off and on until you die. Tanner and Bud would have good days and bad days, sometimes not eating or drinking for days. When that became more frequent, we put them down. It was sad, but they lived long and great lives and we took them everywhere. They were both almost 12 when they passed. Tanner was our ring-bearer in our wedding. Yes, he was that good!
When Bud passed it really disturbed me that he died of some of the same things Tanner did. I kept wondering if we had something to do with it. Were their chemicals around the house that when mixed contributed to it? I don’t know and I am definitely one of those people that scream conspiracy and shut myself from the outside world. We did however have a 2 year old at the time and I thought we could do better.
We have been stepping into this new idea over the past year and the first thing we did was stop the professional bug spraying and moved to a more organic approach to the backyard. I have been putting coffee grounds on my yard for a few months and it seems to be really helping to green the lawn. I just go get the coffee grounds from the local Starbucks and dump them on the ground. The idea here is to bring as much nitrogen to your lawn and improve your soil. It turns out that worms love coffee too! Worms help your lawn tremendously because their “castings” are excellent food for your lawn. Look for a follow up article about how I am going organic in my backyard.
In my current campaign to use less chemicals and save in “twenty-ten” I ran across this article today that shows you How to Make Your Own Cleaning Products. I have been looking for a complete list like this for awhile. It pretty much covers all the bases, except I would like to know a few more things to do outside. I really like the dishwasher liquid and disinfectant spray,
“To make your own dishwasher liquid use water with lemon juice. All you need is ¼ cup of lemon juice and ¾ cup of warm water.”
“To make a disinfectant spray mix a ½ cup of borax with 1 gallon of hot water”
I am definitely going to try these out and see how they work. Let me know if you guys try this out, how they work. Here is the link again, How to Make Your Own Cleaning Products