Environmental Policy

Turtle Rock Farm is committed to protecting the environment, the health and safety of our employees, guests, and volunteers and the community in which we conduct our business. It is our policy to seek improvements throughout our business operations to lessen our impact on the local and global environment by conserving energy, water, and other natural resources; reducing waste generation; recycling and purchasing recycled products; and reducing our use of toxic materials. We are committed to pollution prevention, continual improvement and meeting or exceeding all environmental regulatory requirements. Some of the specific ways include:

Use food we raise organically or buy locally (through the Oklahoma Food Coop and Farmers Markets) as much as possible.

Recycle glass, plastic, paper, cardboard, aluminum and tin. Use large pieces of cardboard under straw or leaves in the garden to control weeds, keep ground temperature cooler, and save on water.

Hang clothes out to dry both inside and outside unless there are time issues.

Have solar panels and wood burning stoves to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. Use programmable thermostats set at 85° during the summer and 68° in winter during the day and 60º at night, opening the windows when appropriate.

Use water from shower in toilets. One composting toilet. Have low-flow shower heads, one low-flow toilet. Solar shower in summer. Washing machine - one front-load and energy star. Gas hot water heaters, one energy star. One on-demand hot water heater. Dishwasher is energy star.

Compost and vermi-compost.

Use compostable trash bags. Take our own bags when we go shopping.

Use LED and compact fluorescent bulbs.

Use organic and shade grown coffee.

Use electric LSV car for short trips around the farm.

Use natural cleaning supplies.

Collect and use rain water.

Use water from the pond for outside watering.

Plant xeriscape plants.

Encourage employees and guests to turn all lights off when they leave a room.
 
 

h WELCOME h

LAY OF THE LAND

at Turtle Rock Farm

We compost. That means you will see a kind of disgusting jar of decaying matter on the countertop near the sink at the farmhouse and in the hermitage and a green-lidded tub near the island in the pond house. Please keep our red wiggler worms and our Oklahoma clay soil happy by stashing your kitchen scraps (BUT NOT MEAT or cheese - you may share it outside with the cats and dogs) in the jars. The composters are blue barrels outside both houses (west of farmhouse; north of pondhouse.)

We recycle. That means that in the utility room at the farmhouse, in blue boxes in the kitchen of the pond house and a box under the sink in the hermitage, there are containers for you to put your recyclable trash. May seem a bit untidy, but we think Earth doesn’t care so much about that.

We grow our vegetables organically, without herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizer. They may not look like commercially-grown vegetables, but we know they are healthy, for humans and Earth.

We use compostable trash bags when we can. That means you may get frustrated with the soft-as-silk but not-Flex-Strong bags. But remember, your grandchildren will thank you. By the way, we order our compostable products from www.worldcentric.org.

“Regular polytheylene-based plastic bags can take over 100 years to degrade and are not compostable. Less than 2 percent of all plastic bags ever get recycled. Studies indicate that 100,000 marine animals and 2 million birds die every year from ingesting or being caught up in plastic debris. Some manufacturers are blending additives to polyethylene to produce “degradable” bags. Unfortunately, this process fragments the bags into pieces of plastic debris that do not meet the ASTM D6400 standard for bio-degradable and compostable plastic. BioBag products are based on starch, vegetable oil and other renewable resources. No polyethylene is used in the production process. BioBags are fully certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute to be 100 percent biodegradable and 100 percent compostable.”

We also use canvas and mesh bags for shopping at the grocery, pharmacy, etc. The mesh ones come from www.ecobags.com.

We use some LED and compact fluorescent bulbs. That means the lights may seem different. But remember, we’ll have lights longer!

PLEASE TURN OFF LIGHTS WHEN YOU LEAVE A ROOM.

In the farm house, in the master bathroom, there is a leak in the tub faucet that to repair would require tearing into a wall. So. We keep a watering can there and when it fills up, we water plants and animals with it. And we’d appreciate you doing the same.

 We have solar panels and wood burning stoves to use less fossil fuel. In the winter our thermostats are set at 65 or 68. We have blankets. We have sweaters and shawls. And socks. In the summer, they’re set at 80. We use ceiling fans and floor fans as well. Ask us if you need anything to help keep you comfortable.

We use organic, shade-grown, fair trade coffee. We buy ours from the Oklahoma Food Coop or Equal Exchange. www.equalexchange.com This is an organization that works with farmer-owned cooperatives so that coffee growers are paid a fair price for their products.

We are members and purchase food monthly from the Oklahoma Food Coop (www.oklahomafood.coop) We order our food online and pick it up in Lowe’s parking lot in Enid once a month. Oklahoma producers get their products to the Oklahoma Food Coop warehouse in Norman and volunteers drive our orders to various Oklahoma towns for pickup. There’s a $50 one-time membership fee. Supporting the food coop supports local growers, assures the quality and growing conditions of the food you purchase (you can read about the producers online) and cuts down on fossil fuel usage since peaches don’t have to be brought across several states, or countries.

A BIT ABOUT WATER

In the pond house, there is filtered water at the kitchen sink. Use the thin, taller spigot. The water out of the regular faucet is soft, salted water; don’t drink it.

We use gray water (not to drink!) That means you will see jugs or buckets of water sitting near the toilets. This is what we do: We put the plug in the bathtub during showers and then scoop the water up into buckets and reused milk cartons and pour them into the toilet tank when we flush it.

We try not to flush the toilets every time.

If you are interested in participating in this saving of water: when you are ready to flush the toilet, take off the tank lid and have your bucket of water ready. When the rubber stopper closes, pour in the bucket or jug of water.

We can save up to 10 gallons of water a day doing this – with just one person in the house!

The hermitage has a gray water system built in. PLEASE USE OUR SOAPS AND SHAMPOOS OR YOUR OWN ONLY IF THEY ARE BIODEGRADABLE.

COMPOSTING TOILET

The hermitage has a composting toilet. There is a bucket of wood shavings on the floor next to it. Just put a small pan full of shavings into the toilet each time you use it.

WE DRY OUR CLOTHES OUTSIDE

If the towels seem rough, that’s because most of the time, we hang up our clothes outside to dry.