Try using vinegar to remove grease. A 1:2 mix of vinegar and water put in a spraying can and sprayed onto glass and window surfaces is a very good grease remover. Spray onto the glass, then use old newspapers to rub dry. You can use the white chemical vinegar which is much cheaper than natural vinegars.

Calling all Carers - mothers and others

This site is from a homemaker and a hearthcarer to all the others out there, who care.

What we do in our homes affects what happens on earth. We care so much about our children's healths, their careers, should we not care about the world that they are going to live in, the one that they will inherit from us?

I intend to share with other hearth and earth carers my ideas, readings and impressions on my ways to care for the home and the earth. I believe cleaning the first should not pollute the second, savings in the home should translate into savings on the earth. And in the process I welcome ideas from all who care for their homes and for the earth.

In the globalised, commercialised and advertised world we live in 'green' is a fad, a selling point and sometimes a belief. Let's remember what we do today to the earth is what our children and our children's children will have to live with.

How much does the soap you use pollute the river. How best can we reduce our use of plastics - that horrible, unsightly stuff that litter the city and the countryside, that floats in the canal and the river.

Us homecarers believe in budgets, few of us can ignore rising prices. We need to get the most from our money and the most form the things we buy. Efficient running of the home, good food on the table, comfort and convenience for all - this is what we do and what we do well.

Consider how you housekeep, how you reduce wastage, how you make decisions as buyers. Then share these ideas with each other. Small ideas, little changes, a nip here and a tuck there can add up to bigger changes, make the earth a little cleaner, the air more breathable and the river with fewer plastics and pollutants in it.

We cannot halt global warming but we can share our hearth and earthcare ideas. Perhaps our children will then have a better earth; perhaps there will be time for someone to come up with a bigger solution.
For if we don't care for the future of the children who will? And there is nowhere else for to go.

Welcome

Home is where the hearth is.
From the beginnings, since we discovered fire the hearth has been the centre of the home. The hearth fire protected us from wild animals, cooked our foods and warmed us. Caring for the hearth was caring for the home.

Homes were built around hearths. And the words home and hearth were used together for a long time.

The Earth is our larger home - our only home. Early man worshipped her as a Goddess, ancient cultures still do.

Much of human existence was spent in controlling Nature and wresting a living from her. With today's technology we are not dependent on her as our forefathers were. We are proud of that. But the new ways of living with its technological successes allow us to wrest Nature's resources as never before.

But Nature takes only so much and the reactions are setting in. In a changing climate, in global warming, in the destruction of the earth's biodiversity.

Life in our cities and technological success makes us forget that we are part of this web - that all things are connected and what happens to the plants or animals today may happen to us in the coming years. Earth will adjust its balance give or take a million years. Evolution will probably let new species emerge.

But where will our children be in all this upheaval? Will our children survive? As carers of the hearth and home we need to become carers of the earth. We need to move from hearthcare to earthcare.