“I knew I would like you instantly when I saw that you were wearing a zebra print shirt under your lab coat.”
i got another one up at the ‘pin!
(Source: thehairpin)
I am currently living with an older couple… maybe I should say, I am temporarily here until I move into my apartment (with some cool new roommates) on Feb 1 here in Charleston. When I arrived, this older, conservative, tea-party member couple (ok, I have to be fair, only the Mrs., not the Mr. is a nutter… I mean tea-party member) was going though 3-4 trash bags a day in the kitchen. EVERYTHING went in the trash. So I started putting my recyclables in my (reusable) grocery bag, and told my host I would find a way to recycle it. She said, oh we have recycling, I just don’t use the bin.
*SHOCK*
So I have started to get her to use the recycle bin.
*SCORE!*
She now puts her numerous wine bottles, and the newspapers, in the bin, rather than the trash can.
I think I even got her to agree to a compost pile today!! I have already started putting my veggie scraps in a pile in the woods behind her house. No sense in putting them in the garbage! She even put her eggshells in the compost this morning.
*Another Score!!*
Possibly, by the time I leave here, I will have made it old habit for them to recycle and compost. Here’s hoping.
#recycle #compost #sustainable
I believe Laura says it all:
I have so much love for this Tumblr, I don’t even know what to do about it.
Chickens in the Little River Garden in #Miami. My CSA (community supported agriculture) starts in just 2 weeks and I couldn’t be more excited!! Not only will I get fresh, seasonal produce grown in the heart of urban Miami (in Little Haiti!), but I am also highly looking forward to buying fresh eggs from these little ladies every week! They will lay brown and blue eggs, which I’m sure will be absolutely delicious! When I told my father about the chickens at the farm, and the color of their eggs, he was dumbfounded that eggs are more than white and brown. I told him they can be all kinds of colors, including pink and green, to which he replied (to me, the vegetarian): well, you can’t eat the green ones! And I asked, why not? And he said, because to eat them you would have to have green eggs and ham!
Very Cool!!!!!
Check out Evocative! Ecovative GROWS compostable packaging. Mushrooms are the new plastic!
And lastly, rosemary, in addition to other herbs, in the planters in downtown Indy. This is next to the new Indy Bike Hub, where I rented a bike all afternoon and rode around in this (actually, who knew?) very friendly bike city! I could actually live here! But who knows how tomorrow’s audition will go. It’s nice to know, however, that there are cities here in the US that are striving to become more… European (?) in their bike cultures, and making it easier for bike commuters, and just weekend cyclists, to get around, safe from cars, buses, and other usual city obstacles.
Hot peppers in the planters outside city market in downtown Indy! Very, very cool :)
Thyme and parsley in a planter outside City Market in downtown Indianapolis.
Here’s a great link to a project idea to use reclaimed wood for a compost bin- the best of 2 worlds! Not only do you keep old wood from going into the landfill, but once you build it, you keep all your food scraps and yard waste from going in as well!
I spent this morning working in the Little River Garden here in Miami. I’m going to volunteer as much as possible, so I can learn about organic farming from a first-hand perspective. Today was mainly menial labor, laying out mulch over cardboard that was already down on the grass (the cardboard and mulch kill weeds because the weeds don’t get sunlight). This task was followed by a nice sit down with some water, as it was HOT out by 10 am. Afterward, we sifted compost that was done composting, collecting the super fine dirt to place in barrels. The larger pieces, sticks and such, were put in the garden.
The sifting helps find the pieces of plastic as well. I was amazed at how many pieces of plastic we found in the compost- and not only plastic, but a huge number of produce stickers. I’m sure that many of those came from New World- I often see people put food scraps in our bins with the stickers still on. I try to take off the ones I can, but can’t get all of them. We even found a tiny, single-serving Tobasco bottle, about an inch and a half in size.
My final task of the day was cutting down the Sun Hemp, a cover crop, so it was only shoulder height. Some of it was getting out of hand, well over 6 feet, or closer to 7. The sun hemp is a great cover crop. You plant it before you want to plant your food items. It’s a nitrogen-rich crop, so it returns some much needed nitrogen to the soil before the actual planting. This particular crop will grow for another month or so before being cut down (and left on the ground to decay- more nitrogen!) and the rows planted with the actual food crop. My arms are still shaking from being help up at shoulder level and using pruning shears to cut the sun hemp, but I had a blast! I love learning about organic gardening. One day I will use all this stored up knowledge and build my own garden.
