Product Review: Gorilla Silicone Storage Bags

You all know I have been on the reduce waste, especially plastic waste, kick for a while.

A while back I bought a set of glass storage containers, which had silicone seals. I thought to myself, is silicone really any better than "regular" plastic? The answer is "Yes." Plastic is made from oil; silicone is made of silicon (a naturally occurring element), oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. However, it does take a lot of heat to extract silicon from quartz, so there is still some fossil fuel used there.

Silicone is less toxic than plastic, a great thing when storing food. And you can wash and reuse the silicone many times.

I have been debating for a while buying some silicone storage bags. They are pretty pricy. But I finally worked up the nerve to order a set of Gorilla Sandwich Storage Bags from Amazon to try out. As you can see, they are not cheap. With the coupon applied and Amazon Prime, they come to about $4 each, so they had better last a long time.

Aside from the cost, they are great. I have been using them for leftovers. A small bag holds 4 blueberry muffins, 4-5 oatmeal pancakes, or two large packages of blueberries, which I froze. The slide closures were a little stiff the first time I used them, but they slide on and off easily after that. The bags are heavy duty and the slides are also sturdy.

My only complaint? Each bag is wrapped in plastic and then all of them are put together and wrapped in plastic again. Getting rid of plastic is why I bought these in the first place. I plan to make a comment to the manufacturer and see if they can change that.

The bags came through the dishwasher fine and are ready to go again. I plan to buy some more at some point.

Book Review: How Plants Work

A few months ago, Princeton University Press was nice enough to send me a copy of How Plants Work: Form, Diversity, Survival, by Stephen Blackmore. I paged through the book quickly and was immediately drawn in by the beautiful pictures. I thought to myself, "I am going to enjoy reading this book."

Well......you know the saying about the best-laid plans, right? I received the book in the middle of the workday, so I set it aside. With one thing and another, I lost track of the book (which is not an easy thing, since the book is not small--a full 8.5 x 11 and 386 pages). My husband is redoing my office. He relocated everything from the supply closets and one half of the office to the other side, while he tore up the carpet to lay tile and got ready to paint. Get the picture? It's not pretty.

I have looked everywhere for this book. Multiple times. I "thought" I put it on one of my bookshelves with my other nature books, but didn't. I looked everywhere, or so I thought. Recently, I was once again in my office, trying to clear out the piles in my office so my husband can do the other half and lo and behold, there was the book. Buried under a pile of stuff my hubby moved. So I am not complete airhead; I was just not very fast about tackling the piles.

It didn't take long for this book to provide a welcome distraction from the office cleaning chore. I was a biology major in college but had only one class in botany. Although I found the subject interesting, I can't say it was my favorite class. The book was dry and the instructor almost as much so. I love to garden and I have houseplants, so I find plants interesting. Dr. Estes from Midwestern State University is a lecturer for our local Texas Master Naturalist training course and is always fascinating--why couldn't I have had an instructor like him many years ago? Anyway, back to the book.

This is not a botany text. The book provides just enough information on a subject to arouse your curiosity to explore the subject more. Even if you don't, you're bound to be even more awed by the plants that surround us.

When you first look at the book, you may be intimidated by the size and think the book is dense. It's not. You can easily thumb through and read the short topics in a few minutes here and there. The 400 color illustrations are beautiful and helpful to understanding.

A number of well known and less well known topics are addressed. I never thought about pollination of plants under water for example, but there is a discussion of that topic in the book. And who has heard of "accessory" fruits versus true fruits? (A strawberry and many other common fruits we love are accessory fruits--I'll let you look up the difference in the definitions.) The discussion of orchid seeds is fascinating.

For the gardeners among us, the discussion of the rhizosphere and root pests is not only interesting but important to nurturing our soil and garden. I could go on, but you get my point. This book is interesting and fun if you're a nature geek.

The book is not cheap at $35, but well worth the cost. The many beautiful illustrations and interesting information will have you returning to the book more than once and the hardcover means it will last. I did look it up on Amazon, and you can purchase it for $26.93 there.

New Year, New Blog

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

I have not done well maintaining this blog. I have defaulted to the Facebook page, as it is easier to repost than to actually write something, and at present at least, it has more people who read it.

However, this year I've decided to get back on the blog as there are often things that need to be said that a Facebook post really doesn't do justice to. Also, believe it or not, there are a lot of people who are not on Facebook, so using that format excludes people interested in the topic. Therefore, I am going to make an effort to post here, at least for items worthy of more discussion and then share these posts to the Facebook page. We'll see how it goes.

I have a list of items I want to discuss--if you have an issue or idea for Wichita Falls, send it to me at green.wichitafalls@gmail.com and it might just show up. Or if you would like to write a guest post, get with me. I am open to it, but I do want well-written items with civil discourse. Not to say you can't have a strong opinion on something, but I don't see the value of being uncivil.

Right now, I am enjoying a quiet day, since most of the area is closed down due to weather. There are not enough days like this.

Did you make any New Year's resolutions relating to a more sustainable lifestyle this year? I have a couple of them. First is to revitalize and maintain this blog. The other concerns my garden and yard. I have been adding perennials and edible plants to my yard every year and have done some gardening, but I am going up the effort in these areas this year. I do well at making food from scratch instead of using processed foods, but this year, I am going to increase my efforts to further reduce the amount of waste I am generating--whether food or packaging. That should keep me busy enough, with the other things I have going on. And if we all did one thing, even a small thing, it could make a difference.

Feedback and comments welcome!