G Whiz

I have a review blog, but I thought this would go better here - no one's giving me anything to write this (heck, they don't even know I exist), and it IS a product that's touted as being "green".

~The Product: gDiapers

~The Hype (stolen from their own website): "The most eco-friendly diaper available, gDiapers provides parents with a diapering solution that is good for babies, parents and the planet. You can have the flexibility of a disposable diaper with a 100% biodegradable gRefill, or opt for reusability with super soft and trim-fitting gCloth inserts. gDiapers are plastic-free, elemental chlorine free, latex free, and perfume free.

Use a biodegradable gRefill or re-usable gCloth inside our newborn tiny gPants and our cotton little gPants. All materials are breathable, just like sports clothing, so babies are far less likely to get diaper rash. And did we mention they're cute? Babies can flaunt their eco-friendly diapers in a rainbow of adorable colors. Because green diapers don't need to be bland.

No landfill required.

50 million diapers get tossed each day and each one takes up to 500 years to biodegrade. Ick. Home compost, toss, or flush the biodegradable gRefill for the smallest footprint on earth. gDiapers break down in 50-150 days...You can also compost the wet ones or simply toss the soiled refill. It will break down in the landfill a lot faster than the 500 years for a conventional disposable diaper. Or learn more about re-useable gCloth."

~The Price: Variable, but Diapers.com and Babies-R-EverywhereUs were pretty close. Prices quoted here are from Diapers.com.

$17.99 for one pant.nappy, no refills (gPant and plastic liner only).
$14.99 for one pack of 40 biodegradable/disposable refills.
$20.00 for six plastic liners.
$29.99 for 6 cloth refills.
$79.99 for a six-pack of the pants only.
$129.99 for a "Sweet Bundle" with 6 pants (3 orange, 3 green) and 4 packs of biodegradable refills.
$135.99 for a "Sweet Bundle" with 12 cloth refills.
$149.99 for a "gBaby bundle" with 6 pants, 80 biodegradable refills, and 6 tinygPants (sized for newborns).

In other words, not cheap (especially when you realize they come in sizes, so you have to purchase pants and liners more than once as your baby grows), but at about $20 for 60 disposable newborn nappies, it's comparable...and over time it may even be cheaper if you're using the cloth inserts.

~Our Thoughts: We were lucky - several friends were kind enough to gift us with both gPants and refills. Ours came in two-packs (two pants, four plastic liners, and a spatula looking thing called a Swish Stick)(you'll find out what the spatula looking thing is for in a minute). The plastic liners snap in, so if one gets schmutzed or deteriorates, it can be cleaned or replaced. Replacement liners are also available online. We received both cloth and disposable refills - this was the prime reason I was interested in gPants; we travel/camp several times a year, and hauling soiled cloth nappies about with us did not seem like fun...but I didn't want to use conventional disposables, either. gPants seems like a nice middle way.

The pants come in a variety of colors with cute names like Guppy Green and Grubby Knees Grey. We have Goddess Pink, Guppy Green, Gooseberry Purple, and Golly Molly Pink. Check out their website for more color info. The pants have Velcro tab closures, so no pins, awkward buttons, or snaps. Thank you, NASA, for Velcro! The tabs take a little getting used to - where a traditional disposable has tabs that go back to front, gPants have tabs that go front to back (so baby can't get to 'em, remove 'em, and use soiled nappies for painting the walls with)(not that THAT ever happens). They're soft, with lovely knit cuffs so little legs don't chafe, and (because the plastic liner is removable) machine washable. They aren't as bulky as some cloth nappies, either, which I like.

We tried to use them from the start, but the waist-band irritated Sprout's umbilical stump and she hollered about it - dear Goddess, did she holler about it - so we used regular disposables with the little cut-out until the stump fell off and she was fully healed.

We have both cloth and biodegradable refills. I like the cloth ones for home/short trip use and the biodegradable ones for longer trips away from home.

The instructions with the cloth liners called for 6 hot water washings (no soap, no other laundry), then a hot dry before use. I don't know how earth-friendly that is...even though we had 4 sets of 6 refills (2 small, 2 medium), it hardly made a load, and even though our washer has an adjustable water level...that's a lot of hot water! All the washing serves a purpose, though - the liners we got are felted hemp (yay, hemp!!) and needed shrinking before using. Better to pre-shrink, yes? Yes!

The cloth liners are soft...nice for baby's bottom. Sprout likes 'em, anyway. They don't hold as much soil/liquid as a disposable nappy, so you'll need several packs of 'em if you want to use 'em exclusively. We haven't had a poop with one of the cloth refills*, yet, so I can't tell you how easily they come clean...

The biodegradable liners are nifty, but as with the cloth they don't hold as much so you really have to be on top of nappy changes. Sprout lets us know when she needs a change if we slack a bit - little miss does NOT like to be damp or soiled! There are several ways of disposing of these refills - trash 'em, flush 'em, or compost 'em.

Trashing 'em may seem contrary to being green, but they are supposed to break down faster than traditional disposable nappies, and there is definitely less waste. It's certainly the easiest of options, especially when they're poopy.

Flushing 'em requires some dexterity, and isn't a good option if you're squeamish, it's heavily soiled, or you're holding a baby (because it really takes two hands) - first you have to scrape off solid waste with the spatula thing, then tear down the sides of the refill and dump the inner core into the toilet. Swish with the spatula thing to break up clumps, flush, and while it's flushing, drop the outer part on top. Down it goes. Not very useful if you're in a public restroom, but not too difficult at home. I haven't had a poopy one to flush, yet*, so I can't relate the mess factor on that score...but the wet ones haven't been too awful.

Composting was another of the reasons I wanted to try these. They don't suggest you compost poopy ones, but according to their directions wet ones can go into the pile just fine. We haven't had a go at this, yet - in all honesty, we're a little leery of putting them in our garden compost pile, so we're going to start a separate heap for them...just as soon as we get a little more time in the day. Who knew new babies were so much work? Oh, wait...we did...

Some online reviews complained about leaking, but we haven't had an issue with that...yet. I won't be surprised by it, though - in my experience, all nappies leak, even disposables. Usually when you've got the baby all dressed up, or forgot a change of clothes for her, or have just run out of wipes.

~In Summary: I like 'em enough to keep using 'em, although I do think they're on the pricey side. They are a nice alternative to disposables, and while they aren't as budget friendly as I'd like (What can I say? I'm notoriousle cheap!), they do fit into a mainstream green lifestyle.

Check it out:

Sprout, stylin' in her Goddess Pink Little gPants.

*Not that the baby doesn't poop, because then I'd be at the doctor's office, not writing a blog...but we used regular disposables at night until we ran out of 'em, and she seems to like pooping when she wakes up, so the gPants haven't had much of a workout on that front.



Disclaimer - no one at Casa de Crazy was asked to write, nor recevied compensation for writing, this post. gPants, Diapers.com and Babies-R-EverywhereUs don't know we exist and probably wouldn't care if they did know who we were. All opinions offered here are as biased as they come, because we write what we think.

Gardening, Casa de Crazy Style

Spring is being coy here at Casa de Crazy, showing us glimpses of her color and warmth and then withdrawing, only to tease us again another day. We've had our fill of Winter and decided to try starting some plants. You can read about some of that here.

We're trying to be as green as possible around here, and we've gotten pretty good at it in our own way - we make less than one bag of trash a week. The rest we recycle, re-purpose, compost or burn.

We worry about another kind of green, too - money is tight, the economy sucks, and everything we can do to save the Endangered Greenback around here is important.

We checked out little peat-pot greenhouses...but at six and seven bucks a pop, they were well beyond what we wanted to spend...after all, that's six or seven packs of seeds if you know where to shop! The refills for those greenhouses run about two dollars for twenty or so...much better. Now we needed to find a way to get 'em warm and keep 'em moist.

Hey, wait...didn't Someone see some empty Sterlite bins in the garage?

And we have some Chinese take-out containers hanging around, too.

Nifty - they fit nicely in our available window space, help contain heat and moisture (especially with a borrowed heating pad underneath) and they're portable, so we can put them out on the front stoop when the weather's fine, bring 'em in at night.

They work quite well, I think.

What we have in the Sterlites are cucumbers, eggplant, and one or two million tomatoes. We put several seeds in each peat pot, and wouldn't you know most of 'em sprouted...so Someone use some leftover potting soil and Dixie cups to spread 'em out a bit.

In the take-out container are some catnip seeds...have to take care of the furbabies, too! The sort of upper left one is actually sprouting, and you can see it if you look closely.

Because we'll need somewhere to put all these little darling when they're grown, we spent some time preparing a garden bed out front, today.

First, Someone cut sod squares. Rather than just throw them in the compost heap or the woods, I moved most of them to the other side of the driveway, where rain, cars, and a dearth of sunlight made ruts and mud and a sad state of affairs over the Winter.

The sod clods have a chance to take root and amend all that.

I used the opportunity to talk to Bird about sod houses and whatnot...but I think he found the worms more interesting.

Oh, yeah, worms. Lots of them. We rescued as many as we could, because we knew there'd be tilling going on in a bit, and figured the squirmy fellows would rather be transplanted than pureed.

Later, if we want, we can always take up worm farming - the worms are wonderful for the soil and make fine bait, too, for an afternoon's fishing.

Once the grass was removed, Someone had to chop out a few roots before tilling.

It's not all that easy when you mostly have trusty old hand tools to work with.

Luckily, a kind-hearted ex-mother-in-law loaned us her tiller a while back, so the turning of the soil went well enough.

Someone got to thinking about what else we might plant out here...and melons came to mind.

Now why would melons make a man smile?

We all had a hand in the new bed...even Bird got dirty, not that getting dirty is a chore for a seven-year-old.
We're red clay all the way, here...
...so we'll need to till in some soil amendment to get the best growing conditions...compost sure does come in handy!

After tilling, Someone raked the loose soil to even the bed a little.
Now we just have to wait for those seedlings to grow a bit more before putting them out - we don't plant before Ostara/Easter around here because that's right around when we have last frost.

In another post, I'll show you some more of our garden fun - we have things growing indoors, too, both to help feed us and as a sort of science project for Bird!

Have you started your garden, yet? How's it going?

Have You Seen This?

I was wandering in the Blue Nowhere and found a solar assisted heat pump!

I have an old heat pump. It sounds like a jet engine when it turns on or off. I am certain I will have to replace it soon. Sigh.

It sure would be nice to replace the old unit with the solar assisted one. I haven't found info on the cost, yet...but I'm betting it's a wee outside my budget of "Free, or better yet, pay ME to use it!"

Kudos to Lennox for getting into the game.

And hey, Lennox? If you'd like someone to test your product, feel free to e-mail me.

Ah-Shoe!

I'm staying at a friend's place this weekend, helping her with her booth at the Ren Fest. She got a package, and inside?

Green (as in Earth friendly) shoes! Her husband ordered them, and they're awesome!! Go check them out...Simple Shoes. I have to say E (my friend's husband) looks pretty snazzy in his.

Let Me Sleep On It

Last year, T and I (mostly I) decided that we needed a new mattress. We shopped around, weighed our options, and came to the conclusion that we would get one just as soon as we won the lottery. Mattresses - good mattresses - are expensive!

Fast forward to last weekend. The tax refund came in, and we decided to go a-mattressing. We chose a locally produced mattress and box-spring to be delivered, a set that should last us a good twenty years or so unless we each put on weight equivalent to a baby elephant...and I'm losing, not gaining, so there!

Ahem.

Only after we made our purchase did I think about how "green" our mattress might be, and wondered if there was a better choice. A little slow on the uptake, maybe? Maybe - but it was locally produced, and that should count for something, right?

Well, just so you don't make the same mistake, here are several websites that market to the green bedding crowd: Keetsa, Ecochoices, and Lifekind.

I am eyeballing some organic cotton bedding, in case I win the lottery next week...I have a friend or three who can help me dye it any color/s I want...as soon as I find environmentally friendly dyes...