Ok, so, maybe my silly idea a few weeks ago of playing an online vocabulary game and donating small amounts of rice to feed the hungry is not enough for Earth Day.  Then how about this: Start a compost pile this year! 

Hay and straw Houseplants Leaves Nut shells Sawdust Tea bags Yard trimmings Hair and fur Cotton

Animal manure – No pet litter Cardboard rolls Clean paper Coffee grounds and filters Eggshells Wood fire ashes Fruits and vegetables Grass clippings Shredded newspaper – with soy based inks

Almost 30% of the garbage we throw out each week can go into the compost pile. Cutting domestic waste generation means a longer life for landfill sites and less trash bills for some of us. But it also makes good sense to give back some of the nourishment that is taken from the earth.  Maybe your living situation does not allow you to compost outside.  In that case you can try vermi-composting - using a small containing in your house or basement and let the red wigglers decompose your table scraps. 

Composting is nature’s recycling system. Micro-organisms and fungi break down weeds and leaves, and various other organic wastes and turn them into a soil conditioner that is richer than anything you can buy. Black Gold is what some gardeners call it. Why throw away the raw material which generates something so valuable?   Read up on it at Composting 101.

Once your compost is finished, you can use it on your lawn, garden and house plants. They will love you for it. Compost gradually releases a variety of nutrients and feeds the growing plants. Insects and diseases flounder where the soil is enriched with plenty of compost, a.k.a. organic matter. The dark compost draws the sun’s heat to warm the garden soil. Soil that is rich with compost acts like a sponge soaking up water when it rains and releasing it in dry spells. Compost improves the structure of both sand and clay soils, protecting them against drought and erosion.

To avoid critters and smelly compost, remember to turn it often and keep it moist. And remember the rule:

No Meat – No Bones – No Fats

Earth Day – Get Smart and Feed the Hungry all at the Same Time.

Yes – you heard me right.  The pace of our society is speeding up so much that some may find it difficult to give a full day to do charity. So, I have what I believe to be an original solution for the dilemma of modern Earth Day, how about you learn a whole new vocabulary as you feed hungry people rice. 

If the gamut of your  lexicon is already honorificabilitudinitatibic like mine, then how about quiz yourself on geography or the periodic chart?  Sounds crazy right? You can learn that Pyongyang is capital of North Korea while you are donating rice to feed people.  This is the perfect multi-tasking activity for our very busy population on Earth Day. There is no excuse not to participate now. To play visit FreeRice.com

FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. Their partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. FreeRice has two goals: Provide education to everyone for free and to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

To learn more or play visit FreeRice.com

Happy Earth Day

Did you ever watch Star Trek?  All their food was synthesized in a computerized machine.  It was neat and tidy; no grocery shopping to do. Captain Kirk didn’t have to wash dishes or consider who was a vegan. No grocery shopping for Mr. Sulu and Uhura didn’t fuss with what wine to serve with fish. And talk about efficiency, what a time saver. The whole meal process took about ten minutes. 

I am not sure what star date it is today but we must be getting close to Roddenberry’s vision. Dietary supplements are a million dollar business. Sadly, I hate swallowing pills.  I don’t mind an aspirin now and then but the thought of swallowing football size supplements makes me gag. Every few years after hearing about whatever is the next best thing for the immune system, energy, joints, skin, memory, muscles, blood pressure, etc., I convince myself that, this time, I will swallow all those pills till they’re gone. I spend a small fortune at the health food store and start on my path to better health and vigor.  About three weeks later I then convince myself that the way I felt before is preferable to the way I feel now – indigestion and burping for hours at a time. 

The other day while in a drug store and it struck me: Everything that was naturally good for us is now is reconstituted or imitated and in a bottle. Unfortunately, what we have lost is a hard pill for me to swallow. I miss the days where friends cooked a fabulous meal together and conversed for hours over a glass of wine. And I never have difficulty swallowing grilled fish or veggies and cinnamon cranberry scones.

This is the follow-up, as promised, to a previous blog titled, The Huddled Masses.  Recently I volunteered some of my time and expertise helping with One Love Learning Foundation, a non-profit growing food for poor children in an orphanage and a grade school in Anchovy near Montego Bay, Jamaica. 

A small group of wonderful people who also donated their time and expenses to help came together to help expand the organization.  We toured the Anchovy School and The Garland House and met many of the children.  We brought donations of school supplies, shoes, snacks and candy, and baskets of food grown in the organic gardens.  However, I am certain those children gave me more than we did them. Stella isn’t the only one who got her groove back in Jamaica. I returned with a renewed vigor for life and commitment to continue to give of myself. Here are some photos of my trip.

     

It’s that time of year to think about what you want to grow in your garden.  A few seed catalogs have arrived already to piqué my interest, not that I need any help.  Last year I went a little nutty and started my tomato seeds in mid February which is way too early.  Don’t do that!  I should have started them a full month later to transplant outside in late May.  That’s the typical last frost date in our area which is Plant Hardiness Zone 6.  Find your Zone here.  So instead I had these giant plants towering over their pots sitting scattered on window sills through several offices at work.  It was a blast watching people do double takes as they walked by; they looked like marijuana plants.   Some people questioned me, others just stared, some come back around again rubbernecking like they’re looking at an accident.  Am I the only person who grows veggies at work? I doubt it.

To avoid the plants becoming root-bound, I had to plant early. It was the first week of May which seemed fine when it was 85 degrees.  But it quickly turned cold and we had many frost warnings all the way ‘till June.  There were way too many trips to the garden to cover the plants with Agribon row covers to keep my little babies alive and thriving.  It’s kinda like having a pet – keeping plants healthy. Maybe before someone is allowed to buy a pet they should prove they can successfully start, plant and harvest tomatoes, just like they do when people want to have a baby they recommend that they keep a puppy for a year first. 

So heed my advice:  check you hardiness zone; buy seeds and starts intended for your particular zone and follow the directions unless you like racing to your garden in the cold nights to cover your plants.  Be sure to buy some heirloom seeds.  It is very important that we support biodiversity of plant species. Read why here. Many catalogs sell them, like Amishland Heirloom Seeds, Johnny’s Seeds, Fedco Seeds, Heirloom Tomatoes, and more. Grow your own and have fun with it. If you are actually eating vegetables in August, maybe next year you can have a pet.

The scale of the destruction, desperation and death in Haiti right now is mind-boggling. From a green perspective, I am so frustrated to learn that there were no building codes in a country that almost sits on top of a huge fault line.  The growing global phenomenon of concentrating masses of people in cities, instead of remaining in rural towns and villages, is part of the problem. If more people remained in their villages and retained the skills that passed down for generations, skills like farming, weaving, carpentry, fishing, natural healers, etc., they would have a greater chance of surviving disaster than the huddled masses in the cities.  Let me be clear: I am not a survivalist or anti-city.  I just hope that when they – WE – rebuild Haiti that we set up smaller villages and build a more sustainable local economy. It’s not just Haiti that needs to do this; the United States desperately needs this as well.  I know that is not a quick or simple fix with many vested interests in keeping it as is.  And it is easier to build tent cities, hand out food and water than it is to shift a paradigm.  But this worldwide push for unexamined, unsustainable, and often tax-payer supported, voracious development has to stop.

I am volunteering for an organization called One Love Learning Foundation (OLLF). This non-profit is growing organic food for a poor school in Jamaica and also teaching children about nutrition, cooking, health, and gardening.  OLLF recently built a kitchen so they could prepare lunch for the children.  I know we don’t all have the time or money to go to Haiti or Jamaica to volunteer and that there are endless causes here in the states.  I hope to duplicate this gardening model for a school in Scranton when I return.  I’ll take photos and report back.

I don’t usually make New Year resolutions but I think this year I will. Although this blog is about being green my resolution is not necessary about being green. For my new year, god willing, I want to laugh more.  I want to be lighter and worry less.  I know we can’t be free of all stress but I want to sift thru the worries that keep me up at night and strain out most of them, like through a coffee filter rather than a big colander.  I watch to catch most of it before it is in my delicious cup up coffee and in my head!

Basically, I have really good life full of blessings and plenty.   All of my basic needs are met and most of my wants and desires are fulfilled too.  I have a warm home in the winter, friends, family, a good job, clothes and food.  What is missing is a little more laughter and lightness.  A dose of silliness and spontaneity once in a while is sorely needed in my life.  I’d like to test out the unbearable lightness of being, (good book and movie). I want to see if I could bear it.

All the news about the wars, health insurance costs, climate change, the economy, sickness, getting older……it all starts to get heavy and I want this year to rise above it. I want to because good things are happening too.  There’s got to be some shades of green that are sheer fun and amazement about life. We never know how long we have to experience this life so my resolution is to get busy having some fun. 

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and I mean Happy!

One never knows what lies ahead.  I had high hopes of making my holidays about spending quality time with friends and family rather than racing around shopping, wrapping; I wanted to slow down and enjoy the people, the moments, enjoy the quiet of a winter evening.  Life has its own ideas though.  Instead, I got sick two days after Thanksgiving with a fever and cough which knocked me out for about ten days.  I missed some work and way too many fun events.  I recovered only to get sick again with the same thing.   So the third week into this illness, I missed many more social engagements and our fun company Christmas party – but NOT the COUNTRY CLUB LUNCHEON.

I was selected to receive the award for community service by a local non-profit organization, Women’s Resource Center. On the very morning I was to attend this fancy luncheon at The Country Club, I spent several hours shivering with fever in the waiting room of doctor’s office. I felt like a junkie waiting for my prescriptions, except I was all dressed up with too many places to go.  From work, to the doctor, to the country club, “Thank you for the award”, to the drugstore, to work, back to the drugstore, then home.  I just couldn’t miss that luncheon in the Country Club and it did me in.  Two more days of work missed with a cough that tore chards of bone from my ribs. 

So the holidays this year for me were about quality time, except I spent most of it alone, on a couch watching sappy Hallmark movies instead of wearing the lampshade or preparing fabulous meals for friends.  However, all not lost - I can see my shiny crystal award on the table beside me -  I finally made it to The County Club!

It is for me. The face is cracked and I cannot see anything on the screen although it still works. Thankfully a friend loaned me one of her old ones to use until my contract allows me get another. It got me thinking about what to do with the broken one.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), less than 20% of all cell phones are recycled each year. They’re full of precious metals, copper, and plastics* and unfortunately it all goes to the landfill. Just think of all the energy it takes to manufacture and transport cell phones that often get junked in a year or two. Recycling saves energy.

So what are the options for recycling a phone?
• If you are concerned about erasing your numbers, photos and texts check out Cell Phone Data
Eraser. Here you can enter you make and model of phone and they will email you the free Data Eraser
instructions.

• After that you can start with your phone’s retailer or manufacturer. The EPA has links to most of the
major players’ drop off points or mail-in addresses. Often the store where you bought it will accept it or
will provide you with a mailing envelope.

• Hats off to Motorola, Apple, and Nokia who will accept any phone for recycling, not just the ones they
make themselves. Better yet, it is free.

• A great option is to donate the phone to a charity. Working phones can be used by an organization like
Call to Protect. Survivors of domestic violence use these phones to have access to 911. Or try Secure
the Call, which also reprograms cell phones into 911 emergency-use phones.

• Look for a drop-off site near you. Call 2 Recycle has a database of retail stores that recycle phones.
Call 2 Recycle will also help you start a collection box at your work place.

• Earth 911 has listings for both retail and municipal recycling locations.
Well, that’s what I found online when searching for what to do with my old phone.

*A ton of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold on average, whereas a ton of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounce) or more, according to a study by Yokohama Metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm.

Source: Reuters: Urban miners look for precious metals in cell phones.

That’s correct – to me it all becomes a blur, a rat race and I already feel dazed and confused.  So I am thinking more and more about how to really enjoy the holiday season and give gifts don’t eventually end up in the landfill or that I cannot really afford.

Some of the best holidays I’ve ever had were spontaneous or less orchestrated dinner parties where the conversation was full of flavor and variety just like the food and guests. It has never been just about the presents or just about the food or just about extravagant decorations.  It is about a magical mix of things that sometimes happens when you bring different kinds of people together to join your own family and people are forced outside their normal comfort zones.  When it is just your own family, it resembles watching a favorite rerun of a sitcom or drama, depending upon the family.  The regular cast of characters appear and fall into their typical roles and we chuckle a few times or argue, and nothing memorable actually happens.  Yes, the food is good and yes, you love them dearly, but nothing magical occurs.   So, to start, I vow to try to create a holiday that encourages different people to join in and have fun. 

Also, I will try even harder to shop locally and support local business owners, artisans and shops.  A group of us were out last night and a local small business owner was in was in the mix.  A jeweler by trade for about twenty years, she’s been operating her own downtown business, Duffy’s Accessories, and still struggles to keep her doors open and reach new customers.  There are local coffee roasters, candy makers, wineries and small business owners that I will support this year in buying gifts. 

Or, if you prefer to avoid the driving around town shopping, try a charitable organization that make it possible to give gifts that are life changing to people all around the world. An organization like Oxfam inquires with local communities to find out what will change peoples lives. Whether it’s a goat or school uniforms, they fund what’s needed most. Your donation will go to the people who need it, in someone else’s name, and where it will have the greatest impact in everyday lives.

Post secondary education is so very expensive today, consider giving a donation toward someone’s tuition or books or career training.

Maybe this year, I will skip buying wrapping paper and just use newspaper to wrap my gifts. I don’t care what my gifts are wrapped in.  So this is some food for thought on a greener holiday season and may you be blessed with all you need in this upcoming year.