Yes, yes! Changing light bulbs, fabric totes, and turning off the water while brushing your teeth is very important........BUT!

More then those, stop throwing away those plastic diapers and nasty kotex and tampex in your trash can as if they disappear from there! Think it is too gross to rinse out your own mess and reuse fabric items? Think how gross that mess is gathering, by the millions per day, in land fills!! Using reusable fabric will help the Environment waaaaay more then just that little light bulb you changed or the water you turn off while brushing your teeth that are feeling so good about!

There are many jobs an animal can help with around your property. A horse, donkey, goat, llama or other grazers will help keep the place cut and trim. Deron and I have not mowed or trimmed since we left MO in 1999. The animals are great fun and quite helpful. You can also use a well trained dog or goat or pony or even a horse to move items and food around for you. We are planning to break out a couple of our horses to pull a travios to help Deron bring items in across the prairie when we are stuck here in blizzards and the ATV gets bogged down and won't work for us. Deron and I have several websites with information for training your animals to help you around your place, check them out in the sister site menu.

If you are building the home you will be living in do not skimp on insulation. It will save you a lot of money and you will be far more comfortable not just in the winter but all year long. Learn to open your window in the morning, but to shut them and the curtains when the hot sun is on that side of your home. Add reflective curtains under your regular curtains so that the sun does not heat your home in the summer. In the winter, use black polar fleece window under curtains to absorb the heat to help warm your home. You will be surprised how much this will save you, all year long, on heating and cooling your home.

Using cloth reusable shopping bags is an important way not only stop using plastic, having them pile up in your home or worse, go into your trash can. I used to have totes I made in different sizes and prints. When I went to the grocery store (and packed my own groceries), certain items went into certain totes. When I was loading into the vehicle or unloading at home, I knew where everything was, saved time and bread never got squished by accident. After you unload the totes put them back into a clean area of your vehicle so that you will not forget them the next time you are out shopping.

Remember when people used to take drives just for the fun of it, or for a date? Why waste gas? Why spend money to go out on a date? Or pay a gym to exercise there? Why pay a trainer to train your animals? Why do all that when you can have all of that by working together with your partner with animals you own?

Training animals is not rocket science. There are many good books on the market that will not only tell you how to train certain species of animals to a task but will teach you how to do it safely. Most animal training, as well as most marriages, are not that hard, it is a matter of quality time spent.

When your animals are trained to pull or pack, they can not only help around the farm or ranch, but also be a great deal of fun and recreation....while not only the animals, but yourselves as well get the needed amount of sun and exorcise to stay healthy and strong.