Category: environment

Weekend Vibes..

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, family, homeschooling, mom life, nature8 Comments

We had a fantastic long weekend together – it was a nice combo of lazy and active. Lots of reading, sitting around, playing games, but also exploring – and even some socially distanced social time!

On Saturday a few friends and I got together for some 6-8 feet away drinks and conversation. I put on a dress, my new necklace, slipped on sandals and off I went. We even all brought our own beverages and glasses so that we didn’t touch things others had touched – and so Kelly didn’t have to wash a glass. It was so nice to just see their faces – and I was so relaxed, watching the birds. And this was the very first time I had been away from Wyatt since March 12. I probably could have curled up on the outdoor couch and taken a nap, I became so comfy. I have taken to naming my friend’s homes lately (I blame all that British tv), and I have decided Kelly’s house should be called Refuge.

Then Sunday and Monday we spent pond dipping, as part of our homeschooling for the week! This week is all about ponds and frogs so we were hoping to catch some minibeasts in our catch and release beach aquarium. We only managed to find an aquatic snail in the water, but we did spot a Northern Water Snake, two turtles, a Great Blue Heron, a ton of Red-Winged Blackbirds, heard a bullfrog, and a little American toad! We brought the toad home as our guest for a few weeks, then we will let her go. Wyatt has named her Uh-Oh. the funny part is my brother found a toad yesterday and brought it in as a pet for my niece (who named hers Cupcake). But it all started with Kelly who found one last week and brought it in to avoid the cold snap. Her toad is a beast! They named her Theodora.

Later Monday evening my brother invited us, my mom, and my sister-in-law’s mother over for a socially distanced bonfire. It was so very nice to be near my family again, even though I itched to hug them all! Again, we all brought our own drinks and cups. What a strange new world we live in. Regardless, it was so fantastic to see their faces and talk to them, and not through a screen! Wyatt was so happy too, and just kept pointing to everyone and saying “Wow”. It was his first time seeing his family in months, and even though we were apart, it was wonderful to be sitting and talking together.

It was nice to be back exploring and seeing people again, no matter how we had to do it.

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1000 Hours Outside Challenge

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, family, nature, Uncategorized18 Comments

We love to be outdoors – we always did, but since we had Wyatt, we have increased the amount of time that we are outside. We learned that it is so good for your brain and vision and just your whole health and body and healing to be in nature, and we were determined to take every available route to aid him in his journey. Sometime last year I learned about the 1000 hours outside challenge, but it was too late for us to attempt to make the 1000 hours. So, this year we are trying. I don’t think we will get there – we have our own challenges that we have workarounds for. But, I am curious as to how much time we WILL spend outdoors. I think just by trying we will achieve more outdoor time than if we hadn’t attempted this challenge.

The 1000 Hours Outside Challenge was the brainchild of a couple, Josh and Ginny, from the state of Michigan, actually even my own part of the state. We love the outdoors here in Michigan! They had read that the average child spends 1200 hours a year on a screen, which is crazy when you think about it. They hope to balance some of that screen time with time outside, and aim for about twenty hours a week. Right now, we are nowhere near that, but we hope to increase our time as the weather improves.

So this January, we were off and running, and have done three different hikes, and a small little walk in the snow. Our time spent isn’t much added all up, but the time spent meant more than just the minutes themselves – we had all that time together, soaking up the fresh air, the snow, the birds and trees, and all the goodness that lives outside. And all that family time!

We hiked through a lonely, cold marsh, where we were the only humans. When we stood silently, we could hear the wind rattling the bones of these marsh grasses and trees, and the din of the waterbirds, which lined the rails of the decking and dotted the gray waters. We were surprised to see no real ice, it was all open water pretty much still – it’s been such a mild winter!

We took a quick snowy walk around our neighborhood, and then another short jaunt through another marshy area. The pond here was just starting to gain a skim of ice, but it was utterly silent there, except for the lapping of the water onto the shoreline. This is where I found my turtle shell!

Then this past weekend we visited yet another more marshy type spot, which was weirdly snowy, icy, and muddy. We tried to be more observant of the small things we could spot here, and I found some air-breathing freshwater snails, while Billy spotted some bits of green and icy swirls. There is something to be said for being the only people in a cold woods – everything feels different, the quiet is just so big!

So, while we have not racked up lots of actual time on the clock, we have had many family adventures already. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the year takes us! And, it looks like my son is ready for whatever it brings!

Earth Day Reads

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, family9 Comments

We are all about nature at our house. We love to be in it, we love to celebrate it, we love to read about it. It is very important to me that Wyatt loves the earth and the outdoors as much as we do, and by exposing him to it through being outside, cherishing all our creatures great and small, and learning by reading as well, we can nourish that ingrained sense of love toward our world and all of its inhabitants. I have a few books that I have put aside just for Earth Day next week – some are old favorites, some are new to us. And here they are, one for each day next week and then a bonus one for fun!

The Earth Book – This one has been in rotation here for a while! Wyatt loves it, so do I. It’s a quick easy read, and has great colorful illustrations.

Me… Jane– This is a great read for kids, to introduce them to Jane Goodall- and to show them that a dream you have as a kid can become reality! We read this one together surrounded by every monkey toy that Wyatt has.

Blackout – This one is a favorite of mine. It is about a citywide blackout that causes families to leave their technology behind and venture out into the community. I love it to pieces and is a good book to use to talk about energy conservation and time without tech.

Fancy Nancy Every Day is Earth Day – It is important to me to make Wyatt aware that our choices for a better planet are an every day thing, not just on earth day!

Biscuit’s Earth Day Celebration – I thought this was a cute look at a few things kids can do to participate in keeping our planet alive and healthy.

It’s Earth Day! – I love Mercer Mayer! Little Critter was a favorite of mine as a kid and I can’t wait to read this one with Wyatt. This is a new one to both of us!

The Lorax – No list about Earth Day books would be complete without the Lorax…I think we might make some truffula trees even!

Bug Hotel – My son loves bugs. We bought a bug house last year but this year I want to really expand on it and do a few other things as well.

And a few books for you!

Two books that I love, and one that is on my list! Meadowland and John Lewis Stempel started a whole new way of how I look at the world around me. The Nature Fix took that a few more steps. I highly recommend them both. And Common Ground just intrigues me! I have it on hold at the library and it’s a waiting game.. (If you like nature narratives I read about one a month, check back for more!)

What about you? Do you have any good earth day/environmental reading suggestions? I would love to hear them!

A Bird’s Eye View

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn day in the life, environment, family, family friendly, nature, Uncategorized5 Comments

2019-03-25Saturday was a warm, bright, sunny day – the perfect spring day really.

Good thing we waited until Sunday when it was chilly, cloudy and gray for our family hike! Lol. Oh well. We dressed warmly and headed out – we usually try not to let weather stop us, unless it is extreme weather, of course.

So we headed out, braving the overcast skies and the cold air. We had a purpose to our walk this time too – to try out our new Kelty Kid’s hiking backpack carrier. We didn’t have a ton of time either, which ended up being perfect because we found a new cool place to hike when we want just a short little saunter in the outdoors. It is close to our home, and in a wetland area, which we normally don’t hike in for some reason, even though we live in the Great Lakes State!

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The trail was short but we saw so much during our adventure! We heard the whistle of the red-winged blackbirds, back in town after their winter away; we saw sparrows and chickadees, flickering about, singing and chittering to us from their perches high up in the still bare branches. We saw a plethora of waterfowl, from swans to mallards to ring-neck ducks to buffleheads (I love that name!) We even saw a beaver quickly duck under the surface of the water just a few feet in front of us! This was pretty cool, since beaver have just really recently returned to our area after 150 years – a very good sign regarding the ecological state of our waterways!

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As I said, we had a mission Sunday, to try out the Kelty. I was so impatient to get out and get going honestly, the excitement to see how it was going to work for our family was making me antsy! For us, it is not just a convenience but world-changing. As Wyatt has cerebral palsy, and is making progress every day with his walking, but we still need a way to get outdoors and take longer hikes right now. In our lives before becoming parents, this was something Billy and I did regularly and for vacations. Trips to walk the Appalachian Trail, trails “Up North” in Michigan, those are fun good times to us. It is so important for us to continue this, and share this passion with our son. We have so many national parks we want to visit – we just need to be creative! As Wyatt is getting longer and bigger (not necessarily heavier lol!) carrying him just in our arms isn’t cutting it. And honestly, it’s not cutting it for him anymore either. He needs to be able to experience the woods and trees and the birds and everything a little differently too – this way, in the pack, he can see looking straight ahead of him, see as we see, a whole new perspective! He can also reach up and out to touch things, learning and experiencing the outdoors in a new way.  He even got to use his own binoculars to look for birds! We loved it, and so did he!! He had such a great time, riding around on his dad’s back. He didn’t want to get out honestly, and wanted us to keep going! And we would have had we had the time. However, much longer adventures are now in our future!

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As we walked, I could swear I heard the hooting of an owl somewhere, although Billy missed it so I could have imagined it. I didn’t imagine however, the Bald Eagle that soared overhead. They really are such majestic creatures. It was a perfect ending to our walk, one that signifies more freedom for our family, with a visit from a Bald Eagle.

This journey began with a bear..

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn books and reading, environment, nature, nature7 Comments

A Pooh Bear, to be specific.

My first introduction to the hills and dales and woods of England had to be Winnie the Pooh and his gang of friends. I read books, listened to records, watched the show, as they cavorted around the 100 Acre Woods, getting into scrapes, helping each other out, teaching me about friendship. I soaked it up, every bit, like Pooh and his precious honey.

Later, my mom gave me a set of James Herriot books one Christmas. This was probably the time I fell in love with the natural world of England. I read this series cover to cover, and although I did not always understand everything that was happening as I was kind of young still, I knew that there was something special happening. My suburban eyes were opened to another time, another world. a completely different way of life, that of a large animal country vet. I always loved animals, and these books made me laugh, but they also made me cry. Herriot’s love for his Yorkshire Dales made me love them too. These became books that I reread still to this day. Incidentally, my grandfather was born almost exactly to the day, one year before James Herriot, in the very same town of Sunderland, England. I like to think about them possibly being strolled about on the same sidewalks and into the same shops.

Later, I found Watership Down, not quite a book about the English countryside or woods, but nevertheless, these rabbits braved their way across many a hill and forest until they reached Watership Down. And is still my very favorite book today.

Somewhere in all this, I gave my heart to British nature writing – something I didn’t even realize I was completely avid about until a year or so ago, when I stumbled upon Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel. His poetic observations captured my imaginings, and my love of nature. Like Herriot, his love of his homeland and surroundings is quite evident in his descriptions, the beautiful imagery and words. Stempel describes himself in The Wood as a country writer, writing what he says he knows best. In Meadowland, the Private Life of an English Field, Stempel shares his field study in diary form of the life and death happenings that occur there, the flora, the fauna- the wildflowers, the foxes who seem to recognize him from his rambles, the hedgehogs and birds, to the smallest little insects.

Since then I have read The Glorious Life of the Oak, which is about exactly what you would think, the Oak, its significance to England’s history, folklore and poetry. I learned more than I thought I could ever learn about the Oak tree, which is quite alright, as our family holds acorns and oaks symbolically, as symbols of hope and strength. This Christmas, my husband gifted me The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood, and I have been savoring it, reading it slowly, but still I am almost done with this foray into an English wood.

As a nature lover, I was stunned to learn that the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary decided to drop about forty words, all pertaining to nature. They deemed these words not essential, not used enough by children to warrant their place in the dictionary, and were replaced by tech words like blog, cut and paste, voicemail. The list of lost words included so many of my favorites things! Dandelion, acorn, bluebell, fern, magpie, otter, willow- all gone from the dictionary, but hopefully not from the minds of the people who use it. Author Robert MacFarlane and illustrator Jackie Morris have created their own book, a place for these words to live on, called The Lost Words. This book is amazingly beautiful, with gorgeous full page artwork illustrations, and poems designed to capture the readers mind and imagination, to keep the words and what they represent alive. It is one of my favorite books, and I love getting it out and looking through it with my son.

I imagine I will keep this up, reading more of Lewis-Stempel and MacFarlane and whoever else I run into on the way. They are amazing tributes to our natural world and inspirational, encouraging me in their way to get outside sometimes and enjoy the wonders of nature, away from my phone and my computer and television. To look and listen and watch and be a part of that world too. And maybe one day I’ll even get to England!

In Pursuit of the Perfect Shampoo Bar

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, mom life, product review7 Comments

Last summer, our family made the decision to reduce our plastic use. It has been a slow transition, but one we work at and think about every time we make a purchase. The one change that has been the hardest for me is finding that perfect shampoo bar! I made the switch to bar soap for the rest of me fairly easily – I have found a few companies that I really like. But the shampoo bar is elusive. There are some I have liked, but none have been quite perfect.

I have thick, wavy hair, that has a tendency to frizz big time in humidity (yay for Michigan summers!) I am looking for something that will not leave my hair feeling like I haven’t rinsed it well enough, and that helps control my hair’s tendency to become a giant poufball. I am also pretty much a wash and go woman – I don’t spend a lot of time styling my hair (I’m not very good at it), and I don’t wear makeup unless it’s a special occasion. So, the shampoo I use has to do a good job because I really rely on it to help control my mane. So, hence my search.

The first one I tried was Terra Mia Organics Raw Goat Milk Lime and Coconut bar. One thing I really love about shampoo bars is their longevity! This bar lasted me three months, two of them summer months. We also went on vacation after I started using shampoo bars, and it was so much easier to pack my toiletries! This particular shampoo bar was pretty good – it smelled nice, controlled my frizz nicely during summer, but it never felt like I rinsed it out well enough to me. It always felt like there was a bit of a film left even after I rinsed my hair thoroughly. My husband thought this one was ok – he missed the thick lather you get from regular shampoo. I learned recently though that the lather is from sulfates, which are actually not good for you, as they disrupt your personal biome. (This switch has been a whole new journey for me, learning all new things!)

Which brings me to my next bar – the Lush Copperhead shampoo bar. I slipped this bar from the brown, recyclable packaging, and was overcome by the smell of marijuana, weirdly. It wasn’t of course, but yeah, it was weird smell at first. It had a weird smell on arrival, but it soon dissipated and smelled wonderful. For a while, I thought this was my clear winner. Thick lather, rinsed easily, left my hair soft, controlled the frizz, and smelled divine. But then to my sadness, I learned that the lather we loved was from the sulfates. And I figured I am all in now, might as well be all natural too, right? So I moved on – although I am reserving the right to go back to this bar if I can’t find another that works as well.

Yesterday I just received my third attempt. It is the Starry Night bar from Skipping Stones, and so far, I am in love. It is absolutely beautiful, smells amazing, and came in all recyclable packaging. However, I haven’t used it yet. I don’t wash my hair everyday, but tonight is the night. I will update here once I have used it. I have high hopes though, from the reviews! UPDATE: I used this and while the lather is pretty minimal as I expected, my hair feels soft and dried really nicely, with no filmy feeling on it. My husband actually commented on how nice my hair looked!

To recap:

Terra Mia – Smelled great, controlled the frizz, but didn’t leave my hair feeling like it was totally rinsed out, was sulfate free though however

Lush Copperhead – Smelled great, left my hair soft, controlled the frizz – but had sulfates.

Starry Night – Smells great, no sulfates, not a ton of lather, but did leave my hair soft and wavy. A definite keeper!

If you are considering the switch, I say go for it! Keep those plastic bottles out of our landfills and oceans! You also end up saving money, as these bars last a long time if you treat them right, by storing them on a soap dish that allows for drainage, or out of the spray of water. I made the switch and have been happy despite my search for “the one”.

Trying to be environmental

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, UncategorizedLeave a comment

So I’m sure you’ve seen the images of seas and beaches filled with plastic, and read about the animals literally suffocating from it, or starving because they ate it, or the countless ways it is harming our world. The idea of floating islands of plastic and garbage appalls and sickens me. What are we doing to our planet and these animals we share it with? And I love sea turtles and birds and whales, all these animals suffering.

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I try hard to be conscious of the environment, but to be honest, I get lazy. And that makes me sad. I was a kid raised on the whole Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute campaign, and I believe it. But with plastic free July, I really made a promise to myself to make some serious changes, slowly and hopefully really changing our lifestyle and consumption. And as a parent of a child with a disability, I completely understand where these parents are coming from with the straws. I feel like at that point, it is not just a straw but medical equipment, honestly. Personally, our family does not need them, so we are getting ready to use paper biodegradeable straws. I have been looking for them locally so that I am not ordering them from somewhere far off and adding to our carbon footprint and then generating more garbage in packaging, but I have not been successful yet. But it is in the works!

One thing I have done that was pretty simple is switch from our regular bath products of shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner in their plastic bottles to regular old soap bars and radically in my opinion, a shampoo bar.

I have super sensitive skin. I have to use gentle stuff on myself or it’s bad news. So I was a little nervous to switch. But then I realized, by buying something that is organic and natural, I would probably be better off anyway. So I purchased Horse O’Peace Oatmeal Honey goat milk soap and crossed my fingers it would all be ok.

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I absolutely love this soap! It doesn’t have a scent, since I started with something that I thought would be ok with my sensitive skin, but my skin feels so clean, soft, smooth, and just looks brighter! I am in love with this brand. I think that next time I will get one that is scented, since there is not any chemicals in this 100% natural soap. I am a convert!! I will say that the first time I used it, my skin was tight and squidgy feeling in the shower, and I was like oh no – this is awful! But after I dried off all was well – soft and smooth and clean.

Now the shampoo bar, it is a different story! It definitely takes some adjusting. I have crazy hair. Thick, wavy, hard to tame. In the summer humidity it takes off, leaving me with a giant frizz ball. So I was particularly nervous to try this. It says right on the packaging to not apply directly to your hair, but to lather your hands and run it through that way. Of course, I paid this no heed and put it in my hair anyway. And my hair was super gross. It left a gross soapy film and my hair felt so dirty and icky. I learned my lesson though, and I am also learning how to use this product! I really want it to work out, since annually 552 shampoo bottles are tossed out a year!! That is crazy. I think that the shampoo bar is a work in progress, and requires some patience and trial and error. I’m not going to give up though! The bar I have is this one, Lime in Coconut by Terra Mia Organics. I bought it for that cute goat illustration, plus, you know..the song. Lol.

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I think it will work out ok, once I learn how to use it right. 🙂

Besides the bars, I am being more mindful in taking my own bags to the store to shop. I didn’t make any huge changes, but for us, change is slow. I think slow is better than not at all though! I feel every little bit helps. 🙂

How about you guys? Anyone else making some changes? Or having any hints/tips/suggestions? I am open to them all!