A home made tumbling composter.
I'm not a flowers girl, flowers die.
I'm not a jewelry girl, I wear a simple gold band, and when I'm dressed up I put my diamond on, and maybe my DS awareness bracelet.
I am a chocolate girl, but that can fall into the "too much of a good thing" category.
I am an environmental geek. I get all flushed in the face when I see my Chief tilling my garden for me. I get all sweaty and faint when he brings home manure for me, and when he develops plans to make me a tumbling composter , oh, dear heavens, I could strip down naked and do a pole dance for him.
Just wait till he pulls weeds with me on a hot July day.....
Showing posts with label environmental geek girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental geek girl. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Fisical Fitness
My incredibly fit husband has decided to run the 5/3 River Bank Run. I have no intentions of running 25 k ever unless there is a rather enormous bear with excellent endurance behind me, but yet I'm not one to be easily outdone.
Alas, I am back on the fitness bandwagon after a couple years of laziness. Going back to my uber-healthy cooking style of days gone by, and doing pilates and indoor exercise on the bike Millie loaned my until the spring sunshine is warm enough to bring little Schmoozer out on the real deal or swing through the neighborhood for a walk/jog.
Another new tag on the blog for all my fisically fit friends.
Alas, I am back on the fitness bandwagon after a couple years of laziness. Going back to my uber-healthy cooking style of days gone by, and doing pilates and indoor exercise on the bike Millie loaned my until the spring sunshine is warm enough to bring little Schmoozer out on the real deal or swing through the neighborhood for a walk/jog.
Another new tag on the blog for all my fisically fit friends.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
GAR-DEN-ING
I am so excited for my garden this year! SO STINKIN' EXCITED!!!! I'm starting broccoli seeds this week, cabbage and celery next week, then my peppers and tomatoes. I plan to have different kinds of squash, rhubarb, lettuce and spinach, of course pumpkins and melons and a few big ole sunflowers for the kids.
Bert will be in school for most of the summer as his school is transitioning to year 'round, so that will free up so much of my time, and Beaner plans to be my garden helper.
Last year was utter chaos, so I left my garden largely untended, but this year, baby, I'm on it!
Bert will be in school for most of the summer as his school is transitioning to year 'round, so that will free up so much of my time, and Beaner plans to be my garden helper.
Last year was utter chaos, so I left my garden largely untended, but this year, baby, I'm on it!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Quasi Crunchy
I don't blog my crunchy side much, but it's certainly there. Here are a few crunchy thoughts for after Thanksgiving.
Have you ever showered with your same sex child? In the interest of saving time, hot water, etc, we sometimes hop in with one of the kids with the same 'parts' as us. Now you may think that I got off easy since Rockstar is too old, and Beaner would appear to be easier to shower with than Bert or Schmoozer, but you would be dead wrong. Now there are many unspoken bonuses to showering in tandem. There is a certain body acceptance that is implied in being willing to cleanse your parts in front of each other, and there is a venue to interesting conversation. That's where the Chief gets off easy, showering with the nonverbal kids. Beaner has in incredible curiosity. I delight in it, feed it, and get extraordinarily annoyed by it. Here is a sample of shower conversation:
It was after the fact that I realized how much one shower can do for sex ed, body confidence, and overall education. You may think I'm a crunchy freak, but I think my Beaner will be a more confident, comfortable, overall well-adjusted kid for showers like this. We'll see.
Have I ever mentioned cloth diapers? I don't think I've ever addressed that issue, but I heart my cloth diapers. With Schmoozer's surgery and the resulting plethora of poopy diapees, the cloth diapers paid for themselves in about 6-8 weeks. (He was using about as many diapers as a newborn.) In my experience, with regular poopy blowouts, the cloth diapers contain the gynormous poops better, and are not much harder to manage. The odor of the diaper pail is easily managed with essential oils, and other than about 2-3 more loads of very easy laundry a week, its not any more work. If you are on the bubble about cloth diapers, go for it! If you have never thought about it, give it some thought. It's easier than it sounds, and so nice for our beautiful planet!
I have more crunch for the future, but my children are trying to take over the house, so I will have to save it.
Have you ever showered with your same sex child? In the interest of saving time, hot water, etc, we sometimes hop in with one of the kids with the same 'parts' as us. Now you may think that I got off easy since Rockstar is too old, and Beaner would appear to be easier to shower with than Bert or Schmoozer, but you would be dead wrong. Now there are many unspoken bonuses to showering in tandem. There is a certain body acceptance that is implied in being willing to cleanse your parts in front of each other, and there is a venue to interesting conversation. That's where the Chief gets off easy, showering with the nonverbal kids. Beaner has in incredible curiosity. I delight in it, feed it, and get extraordinarily annoyed by it. Here is a sample of shower conversation:
Beaner: What's that"
Me: The scar from my appendectomy.
Beaner: Appen-what?
Me: Appendectomy, that's a surgery they do to take out your appendix.
Beaner: What's your appendix, and why did they take it out?
Me: (full explanation given, not necessary here)
Beaner: Oh, cool, where is the scar from when they cut Bert out of you?
Me: Right here (drawing a line across my lower abdomen).
Bean: WOW, it goes way further on this side than over here, how come?
Me: Cuz your crazy brother had his head stuck against my illeac crest, which is a hip bone. They had to hurry to get him out because they were afraid he would die, so they just made the cut bigger instead of taking the time to try and turn him.
Bean: WOW, I'm glad they did that!
Me: Me too.
Beaner: So how does milk come out of nipples?
Me; Well, it's hard to see, but there are a bunch of tiny holes, ducts, that go to glands that make milk after you have a baby.
Bean: Really, how do they make milk?
Me: They are glands that God gave us to feed a baby, he knew just what a baby would need to eat, so he created our bodies to make the best baby food ever.
Bean: That's weird to suck milk out of your boobs.
Me: Well, if you decided to try to do that today, it would certainly seem very weird, but when a baby comes out of your tummy, your body is all set to give them the milk they need, and it feels nice and warm and cozy and perfect.
Bean: Does it hurt.
Me: Yep, it does at first, I got blisters and my boobs got big and hard and sore, and sometimes it was hard to help you and Bert understand what you needed to do to eat, but since I knew that's the best food, I really wanted you to have it, so I stuck with it, and in the end I really loved to feed you that way.
Bean: Why didn't you feed Ben that way.
Me: Well,since he came out of a different mama's tummy, it would have been hard to get my body ready to nurse him, but I could have done it, especially since I already nursed you and Bert. I wish I would have, but now it's too late.
Beaner: Bummer. Boobs are cool!
It was after the fact that I realized how much one shower can do for sex ed, body confidence, and overall education. You may think I'm a crunchy freak, but I think my Beaner will be a more confident, comfortable, overall well-adjusted kid for showers like this. We'll see.
Have I ever mentioned cloth diapers? I don't think I've ever addressed that issue, but I heart my cloth diapers. With Schmoozer's surgery and the resulting plethora of poopy diapees, the cloth diapers paid for themselves in about 6-8 weeks. (He was using about as many diapers as a newborn.) In my experience, with regular poopy blowouts, the cloth diapers contain the gynormous poops better, and are not much harder to manage. The odor of the diaper pail is easily managed with essential oils, and other than about 2-3 more loads of very easy laundry a week, its not any more work. If you are on the bubble about cloth diapers, go for it! If you have never thought about it, give it some thought. It's easier than it sounds, and so nice for our beautiful planet!
I have more crunch for the future, but my children are trying to take over the house, so I will have to save it.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Blog Action Day
I was hoping to do a bit of research and really pull this off nicely. Instead, I'm researching Schmoozer's test results right now.
Anywho, blog action day means I'm supposed to kick you in the rear to remind you to take care of this amazing planet that God plopped us onto.
I have nothing intellegent or elloquent to add to that, just do it!
Anywho, blog action day means I'm supposed to kick you in the rear to remind you to take care of this amazing planet that God plopped us onto.
I have nothing intellegent or elloquent to add to that, just do it!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Recycle This
Ahem, (tap tap tap) is this thing on?
Yep, you got it, this is a lecture, a sermonette, whatever you want to call it, my soap box is out.
I think of this often, but haven't posted on it because family issues often trump my other passions. But Stewardship, is a biggie for me.
Wikpedia gives this definition to Environmental Stewardship: [edit] Environmental stewardship
Environmental stewardship is the responsibility to take care of our natural resources to ensure that they are sustainably managed for current and future generations. Stewardship of the environment can include recycling, conservation, regeneration, and restoration. Stewardship is an ethic whereby citizens participate in the careful and responsible management of air, land, water and biodiversity to ensure healthy ecosystems for present and future generations.[1]
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies cooperative planning and management of environmental resources with organizations, communities and others to actively engage in the prevention of loss of habitat and facilitate its recovery in the interest of long-term sustainability (Fisheries and Oceans Canada - 'Stewardship in Action' program)
Environmental stewardship may have a religious connotation for some people, as in the Christian suggestion that people should be "stewards of God's earth, and it is in their duty to respect His creatures."
And that is what I'm addressing here and now.
We are so busy in our daily lives, and we need so many things that it's easy to forget that we were given a commission when plopped here on this planet. The commission was to take good care of the planet, and really, we are failing miserably.
At this point, it seems rather overwhelming, and one often wonders why bother? I know I do. What can I do to stop ground water pollution and global warming. Dontcha know I have a house full of kiddos and need to live my life. I'm reasonably careful, why do I have to go the extra mile when I'm not the one who caused this mess in the first place?
But then I go for a walk through my neighborhood on a Sunday evening. The whole cul-de-sac is lined up with trash cans. They are filled to overflowing and rancid and rank. I see cardboard poking out, I see and smell foodstuff. There are all kinds of plastics and metals.
I wonder, really if every neighborhood in my state does this, every state in the union, every country on God's green earth, how long can this be sustained?
I drive by a couple of different land fills in my weekly routine. Smelly, nasty things with litter strewn all around when the wind blows it before it can get buried.
There are oogles of statistics out there about how long a chunk of lettuce or a piece of newspaper can exist virtually intact in a land fill. I am not going to post them, because, quite frankly, do we even need to go there?
Is it not enough that these things even exist, that we keep piling things into them week after week. That we're too lazy to make the trip to the recycle bins or to compost, even crudely, our natural waste. You don't have to make garden quality compost to throw your fruit and veggie waste out into the back 40.
Just think about it. Here I am to prick the conscience. Are you doing everything you can? Are you carpooling, saving your trips up so you don't burn gas for every minor errand? How long has it been since you've recycled or composted, or both? How overflowing is your trash can? Are you finding creative ways to reuse containers or other items?
Once it becomes a habit, you don't notice the effort. Run the recycling on your way through the daily errands, take an extra few minutes to create a compost pile or can. Look at what you're tossing and think of how it could be reused. Call your friends and see if they need something when you run out to get that item you forgot at the store, save them a trip and the gas, and they'll do the same for you next week.
Yep, you got it, this is a lecture, a sermonette, whatever you want to call it, my soap box is out.
I think of this often, but haven't posted on it because family issues often trump my other passions. But Stewardship, is a biggie for me.
Wikpedia gives this definition to Environmental Stewardship: [edit] Environmental stewardship
Environmental stewardship is the responsibility to take care of our natural resources to ensure that they are sustainably managed for current and future generations. Stewardship of the environment can include recycling, conservation, regeneration, and restoration. Stewardship is an ethic whereby citizens participate in the careful and responsible management of air, land, water and biodiversity to ensure healthy ecosystems for present and future generations.[1]
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies cooperative planning and management of environmental resources with organizations, communities and others to actively engage in the prevention of loss of habitat and facilitate its recovery in the interest of long-term sustainability (Fisheries and Oceans Canada - 'Stewardship in Action' program)
Environmental stewardship may have a religious connotation for some people, as in the Christian suggestion that people should be "stewards of God's earth, and it is in their duty to respect His creatures."
And that is what I'm addressing here and now.
We are so busy in our daily lives, and we need so many things that it's easy to forget that we were given a commission when plopped here on this planet. The commission was to take good care of the planet, and really, we are failing miserably.
At this point, it seems rather overwhelming, and one often wonders why bother? I know I do. What can I do to stop ground water pollution and global warming. Dontcha know I have a house full of kiddos and need to live my life. I'm reasonably careful, why do I have to go the extra mile when I'm not the one who caused this mess in the first place?
But then I go for a walk through my neighborhood on a Sunday evening. The whole cul-de-sac is lined up with trash cans. They are filled to overflowing and rancid and rank. I see cardboard poking out, I see and smell foodstuff. There are all kinds of plastics and metals.
I wonder, really if every neighborhood in my state does this, every state in the union, every country on God's green earth, how long can this be sustained?
I drive by a couple of different land fills in my weekly routine. Smelly, nasty things with litter strewn all around when the wind blows it before it can get buried.
There are oogles of statistics out there about how long a chunk of lettuce or a piece of newspaper can exist virtually intact in a land fill. I am not going to post them, because, quite frankly, do we even need to go there?
Is it not enough that these things even exist, that we keep piling things into them week after week. That we're too lazy to make the trip to the recycle bins or to compost, even crudely, our natural waste. You don't have to make garden quality compost to throw your fruit and veggie waste out into the back 40.
Just think about it. Here I am to prick the conscience. Are you doing everything you can? Are you carpooling, saving your trips up so you don't burn gas for every minor errand? How long has it been since you've recycled or composted, or both? How overflowing is your trash can? Are you finding creative ways to reuse containers or other items?
Once it becomes a habit, you don't notice the effort. Run the recycling on your way through the daily errands, take an extra few minutes to create a compost pile or can. Look at what you're tossing and think of how it could be reused. Call your friends and see if they need something when you run out to get that item you forgot at the store, save them a trip and the gas, and they'll do the same for you next week.
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