Little miss green’s Birthday present
Add article to favourites
Our Birthday Girl - Little miss Green
Our favourite little eco warrior turned 9 last week and we’ve managed to avoid the plastic tat that usually accompanies Birthdays with the cutest little zero waste present you ever did see.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, our dog and three cats since leaving for furry heaven have left a huge gaping hole in our lives.
You might be amazed to know that Mr Green doesn’t actually like cats; he tolerated my three because they were part of a package deal. i.e. when I moved in a few years ago I came complete with three cats and he had to take the lot of us or none of us at all.
I didn’t really want another dog because to be honest I like walking around with bare feet in my back garden and dog poop combined with muddy paw prints across my floor just don’t fill me with joy any more.
We very nearly agreed on both a cat AND a dog, but when I said the dog would be his sole responsibility which basically meant shovelling shit and paying for what goes in its other end, he declined.
Little Miss Green has desperately been missing something cute and fluffy to smother love and I have to admit for me a house isn’t a home without a loving four legged something or other to take care of.
So after a lot of deliberation, discussion, and me trying to get my own way on another cat, Sunrise has entered our lives.
Like a beautiful sunny morning, she’s here to brighten our lives with her little bob-tailed ways:
Sunrise - our new baby bunny
We managed to get a second hand hutch, which came complete with bowls, bottles and some hay. Our local shop stocks sawdust which comes in a huge paper sack and being around farming land we’ll soon find a decent hay bale or two. Vegetarian pets bedding is perfect for the compost heap and she’ll even eat some of our vegetable peelings. She has created one dustbin demon already, but we’ll be able to deal with that in a typical ‘The Greens won’t take any messin” kinda way no doubt. You’ll read more about that later in the week.
So from now on you’ll be hearing all about the adventures of Sunrise as she makes her unique ways known to us. She’s very timid at the moment and currently living in the dining room because she is too small to survive outdoors – bless. All this means is lots of excuses for cuddles, which we don’t mind in the least.
I put together party bags which were made from drawstring jute pouches and they were filled with little wooden toys. The Birthday cake was home made of course and LMG asked for a “tree climbing and barbecue” party which meant burgers, sausages and bread bought form our local butcher in our own containers. It also meant muddy children playing in the garden, which for me, is what childhood is all about.
A belated Happy Birthday week to Maisie and Sarah too; two of our loyal readers and commenters! We hope you had a great day.
Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:
Don’t throw it away… That's rubbish, just throw it away ... How many times have you heard that or said…
Results: One dress, one week! Come and take a peek at my pics!
Layla made zero waste chocolate – from scratch! I've been writing about some wonderful people doing wonderful things this week. But this story really…
About Us Welcome to My Zero waste! A blog about how we as a family reduced waste and…
Zero waste Birthday presents I'm proud to announce the giving of two zero waste Birthday presents last week! Little Miss…
Belated Happy Birthday LMG, and welcome to Sunrise. I’m glad she had such a good party (and lucky with the weather too). DD1 would love a rabbit, but as we already have an extensive menagerie, that’s not happening until I know she’ll be doing all the looking after! Better not let her see this page…
I would have been interested to see your zero waste solutions to a dog or cat. We have both.
Their food bags are recyclable (we buy in bulk, so they’re polythene or paper), we tend to make the dog biscuits/treats, avoiding those foil pouches and although my homemade dog loo (bin from a skip, and I use bokashi juice instead of septic tank starter now) has slowed down in the cold weather, it seems to be coping with the garden dog poo. I’m hoping in the summer to use organic veg bags (the biodegradable ones from Sainsburys etc) to scoop the poop when we’re out and put it in the Dog Loo, rather than the Council bins as we do at the moment (though the council bags are supposedly biodegradable).
My dilemma is still the cat litter. We have 3 cats, who are out most of the day, but in every evening/night, so they need a litter tray (or 2). I can’t find a way of avoiding putting the contents in the landfill. It really bugs me; anyone got an answer??!!
Ohhh, she is SO cute! Bunnies always melt my heart. Happy birthday to LMG!
Happy belated Birthday to LMG!
For the cats – we use Feline Pine – which is untreated pine pellets, that once the solid waste is removed (flushed) the remaining saw dust can be composted. They claim this litter is dustless – and while better then clay litters – it is not completely dustless.
Happy Birthday Little Miss Green! You inspire my 9 yr old daughter in so many ways. Take care of that cute fuzzy bunny!
Awwwww! Sunrise is lovely! Happy birthday LMG 🙂
How precious – that’s both Little Miss Green and Sunrise. Kids grow up so fast, and bunnies even faster. Time is precious. Enjoy hugs from both while they’re little.
Aww!! Sunrise is soo cute!! And Little Miss Green too!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 🙂
Rabbits are wonderful pets! I hope LMG and Sunrise have lots of fun together!
P.S. Our guinea pigs really do help eat up excess veggies.
Happy birthday, Little Miss G! Oh, what a sweet looking bunny!
Happy Birthday to Little Miss Green! Sunrise is so cute.
@Deb from Boston:
Thanks Deb.
Of course! I’d been thinking I couldn’t compost it because of the poo, but I guess once that’s gone, there’s no reason why I couldn’t. I think I’d put it in the council collection though- their composters get hot enough to decompose bone, so any stray pathogens should get zapped!
I’d almost decided the only solution was to get a separate wormery, but I don’t actually have any area where the planting is purely ornamental. Everywhere has herbs in too, so I’d be making compost I couldn’t use.
Thank you!
Happy Birthday LMG! What a lovely present.
We are doing well so far on ds’s birthday, he’ll be 7 in a fortnight. We bought a 2nd hand bike off Ebay from the town where my husband works so he collected it on his way home from work. DS is growing so fast there was no point spending loads and it is in really good condition. We’ve also picked up a 2nd hand digital camera because he doesn’t need a flash all singing all dancing one, just one that takes good pictures. So no fancy plastic packaging for either.
And he’s having a party at the local Laser Quest including a meal cooked and served on the premises, so proper plates and cutlery. I just have to do the cake 🙂 Help me out with a Star Wars one anyone?!
@LJayne: I’d strongly recommend Chewbacca! Traybake/sheet cake, cut out in his shape (doesn’t have to be exact!), covered with chocolate butter icing, use a fork to make hair lines. Liquorice or raisins would make his eyes and nose, and a paper sash/belt thingy. Simples!
All my cakes have butter icing on them- I don’t worry about precise details and go for the gist! The children never mind, although they were all amazed when DS’s space shuttle used marzipan and fondant icing! That was fairly straight forward too- just shapes of sponge ‘glued’ with jam, so maybe the Millenium Falcon?
The very easiest solution would be a landscape cake (maybe the desert of Luke’s’ planet- butter icing (yea!) sprinkled with soft brown sugar) with any Star Wars figures of your sons on it.
Good luck, and have a lovely party!
Happry Birthday LMG, Sunrise looks so cute……enjoy……
Rabbits are so adorable, but being a country girl, I can only see them as potential dinners. (Don’t tell LMG.) We keep a dog of our own, and our housemate has a dog. I am dreading the backyard cleanup after a long winter. I plan to lime it after digging a hole for the waste. Lime was the old method for cleansing a field after animals had been on it, if planting mustard is impractical (and it is.) This is farming country, so we should be able to find lime easily! Then I think dogs are going to be limited to a corner, where I can clean up daily and deposit into a dog loo.
My Plain austere ways are that we don’t keep animals that don’t earn their keep. My dog was a sheep herding dog; the companion dog, a beautiful golden retriever/border collie mix, is a watchdog for a lady who lived alone. However, having said that, I love animals, and would have a rescue farm, time and circumstances allowing. And I recognize the benefits to the well-being of humans from having pets. I just made “pets” out of lambs and hens, as well as the sheepdog and the barn cat (back when I had a barn.)
Thanks Hazel! My son is a Luke although not named after Skywalker!
Sunrise is brillant, a belated Happy Birthday LMG
Aw how cute!!!! We have a bunny, they are fun. 🙂
What a cute photo. Glad you had a lovely birthday LMG and hooray for being 9. Lots of love x
I hope LMG had a great birthday. A rabbit is an excellent present. I got a cat once, but she was kind of crazy and liked climbing curtains and swinging off the lamp shades, not to mention hiding on the stairs to munch on unsuspecting feet. From my experience, about one in every ten cats is mildly demonic (tortoiseshells more than others!), but ten out of ten are cute and fluffy. Maybe rabbits are a safer choice all round.
@magdalena: I’d forgot about those dog toilets, I presume you mean the half buried ones you put their waste in with some powder? (What was in that powder anyway?!). I remember my mother buying one when I was little for our dog, and I told her she was being very silly, the dog would never use it.