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Water Conservation Tips for Kids: Get them involved!

Water Conservation Tips for Kids

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, small actions can carry a big impact- especially over time. Here at Dalby Farm, we aspire to help children think about the environment with every step they take. You can help enforce our lessons at home by involving your kids in simple practices. Remember, water conservation tips for kids can easily be applied to adults too!

Make it A Game

Before we get into specific ways to help your kids conserve water, consider your approach. Experience has taught us that children are more likely to participate in chore-like activities when it is presented in a fun way.

Design some kind of score card or poster with their names, and spaces for each day of the week (to check off or put a sticker when completed). On the side column, make a list of different simple ways to conserve water. Come up with a small reward system- whether it be ice cream for dessert at the end of the week, or getting to stay up an extra half hour- for each week of completed activity.

This is a great way to instill environmentally friendly life practices with a touch of fun and personal reward!

Look for Leaks

Once a month, send your little one in and around the house to look at all of the faucets and shower heads. You can save a lot of water over time if you catch every leak as quick as possible. Sometimes it’s a simple explanation, other times a plumber may be needed.

Not to mention it serves as early education as to what homeownership is like!

Dishes

If your children alternate on dish duty- make sure they know to avoid letting the faucet run! Younger kids may enjoy seeing their favorite rubber ducky float with them in the full sink. Getting creative and including unique symbols of green habits can mold the mind in great ways as they grow older.

Brown Grass and Pet Baths

Assuming you have children who you put in charge of washing the dog- take a look at your lawn first! If you see a patch of the yard that could use some nourishment, set them up for the bath there. Drag the hose and the dog to that spot and get a 2 for 1! A clean dog and a watered lawn!

On a hot day, set up the sprinkler before or after to help your kids cool down, water the lawn and get the dog ready for soaping!

Designated Drinking Glass or Bottle

Have your little one pick out a cute drinking glass or bottle, and assign it to them as the only thing they can drink water out of! Doing so will teach them to avoid wanting bottled water, and/or wasting multiple glasses throughout the day. They’ll learn to cut down unnecessary waste! Not only will they save landfills from more damaging plastic, but they’ll conserve the water it’d take to wash all the glasses they’d have otherwise dirtied.

Check back for more ways to help your kids learn to conserve at home!

Intro: How you can help save the bee population

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Help Save The Bee Population: Intro

Over the coming weeks we look forward to sharing helpful information on ways you can help save the bee population. Members of our family, including myself, recently joined the local Beekeepers association. We will be attending “Bee School” with hopes of starting our own hives/colonies.

As a rare breeds farm, we are all too familiar with the concept of endangered animals. That being said, our environment can technically afford to lose certain bloodlines over others. This is not the case for bees, however. The steady decline in our bee population is cause for severe concern. If we loose too many more, it could cost every one of us our lives as we know them if we don’t act fast.

What has caused the decline in bee population?

Insecticides are arguably the biggest global killer of bees out there, alongside big agriculture and global warming. The health of honey bees and wild pollinators are especially affected by destruction of habitat, and lack of forage due to toxic pesticides. Big agriculture and the effects of their irresponsible chemical spraying has resulted in a clear, direct negative impact on both the individual bee as well as their entire colony world-wide.

The effects of global warming are also taking out huge numbers of bees. Freezing cold winters that last into spring have decimated colonies up to 70%, like in 2014 in Iowa for example. In the last 5 years 30% of our nations bee population disappeared. In the same about of time, nearly a third of the colonies have died. We are facing a serious crisis that cannot be ignored for another minute.

Beekeepers have noted this steady decline since 2006. Without insect pollination, 1/3 of the crops we eat would be affected. We would be forced to figure out a different way to pollinate them. Apples, strawberries, almonds and and tomatoes in particular would be most greatly affected. An article in the September 2016 edition of Newsweek reported that bees pollinated somewhere around $40 billion worth of our nations agricultural produce each year.

There’s a lot to talk about

We are only tapping the surface of this extremely disturbing situation and will be bringing much more information to you each week. There are so many ways you can help save the bee population that we will go over in heavy detail. In the meantime, do your best to shop locally grown produce, don’t use pesticides in your yard, and consider bee-friendly plants in your gardens this coming spring.

Can’t wait for more updates? Read this detailed description of the declining bee population.

Support our educational efforts and all of the rare breeds on our farm by making a purchase from our country store!

General Water Conservation Tips: To Get You Started

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Water Conservation Tips

There are hundreds of ways to conserve water. As we’ve mentioned in other posts, every little thing you can do to conserve your natural resources will make a difference. It’s all about having a big picture mentality. When people envision themselves cutting back or changing their ways, they imagine it being more difficult than it will be. Consider the following water conservation tips to get you started on more eco-friendly routines:

In the Kitchen

Believe it or not, dishwashers are more efficient when it comes to washing dishes than the sink is. These days with Energy Star and the like- these machines are designed to use less water and energy. Nevertheless, avoid running it when it’s not filled.
If you don’t own a dishwasher, you can conserve water by not leaving the faucet running. Make use of both sides of the sink, filling one side with soap water and the other for rinsing.

Collect the water you use to rinse fruits and vegetables and use it to water your house plants!

Soak pots and pans instead of trying to scrub them with running water.

Even keeping a pitcher of drinking water in the fridge will help ensure every drop gets drunk!

For the Bathroom

Set a timer to 5 minutes for your showers- it may not sound like it but that’s plenty of time! Doing so will save 1,000 gallons of water per month.

Test your toilet once a year to see if there are leaks. Simply put food coloring in the tank and watch to see if it comes into the bowl. As soon as you fix it you’ll save gallons and gallons of water.

Avoid baths as possible- some tubs take up to 70 gallons of water when full! That’s a lot of water!

Not everyone enjoys this motto but it is effective- “If it’s yellow, let it mellow…”

Did you know one second of dripping water amounts to five gallons a day? Check faucets and showerheads for any leaks.

Overall Lifestyle

Be observant! If you’re in a position where you cannot fix a leak you notice- reach out to someone who can- Whether it be at a friends house or in a school or business.

Play games and give rewards to your children/family as they learn and demonstrate their own water conservation efforts. Make it fun!

Monitor your water bill to make sure you are up to speed with your consumption trends. Make it a goal to see all the numbers go down while not compromising your wellbeing.

Consider speaking with the people you work with to see if you can put together company incentives to limit water waste.

Encourage your local community, schools and government to support, educate and practice water conscious routines.

We will have many more water conservation tips for you over the coming weeks, stay tuned! Do not let these changes intimidate you, they’re easier to implement than you think. Like anything worth doing, it just takes time to get adjusted. It’s amazing how a little goes such a long way when it comes to living more green. Soon you won’t remember it ever being any other way!

Winter Water Conservation Tips

Over the coming weeks we will have many tips and tricks to conserving water. We wanted to start the series by mentioning some important ways to save water specifically during the cold winter months. Below are a few assorted winter water conservation tips- in no order of importance!

If your home tends to run cold no matter how much you try to keep it warm, or you have outdoor buildings- you may want to drip your faucets where pipes may freeze. Doing so can help prevent a pipe from bursting. To get the most of your efforts stick a bucket underneath the pipe as to collect the water to use for house plants.
Do you notice your shower takes longer to heat up in the winter than other times of the year? That’s because the pipes are cold. Instead of running the water much longer than normal waiting for warm water- call a plumber to price out the cost of getting your pipes insulated. You can be saving gallons of water!
Alternatively you could consider a new, more efficient water heater if yours has been around a long time.
A more general note toward shower water conservation, low-flow showerheads are ‘old school’, yes- but they’re the hero of this story. Save those 3,000 gallons by making the switch!
Keep up with the temperatures. As you likely already know, the changes in temperate from day to night can wreak havoc on your plumbing. The pipes will expand and contract depending on what temperatures they are exposed to. Leaks are far more likely to develop during the winter.
Be sure to have a plumber inspect the lines as soon as you suspect a problem, or when the cold is coming to a close.
You can purchase water leak detection systems if that’s your thing.
The winter season usually means a massive increase in dinner parties, get togethers and baking. Try to avoid the massive pile of dishes in the sink by utilizing dishwasher safe dishes, mixing bowls and cutlery.
Know where your water shut off is. In the event of any severe, catastrophic leaks you’ll want to be able to stop water flow immediately. Don’t be in a position where you waste tons of time (and water) while searching for it.