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Hot as ever but still fun to take a walk around the prop. This is a Square Bud Primrose

My worst enemy…the dreaded posion ivy

We have bees!! I saw no lack of these guys buzzing around the Lantana and other wildflowers…a good sign

The Mexican Hats

Wow, it is hot today, the AC has been running non-stop. Supposed to be 95 tomorrow…..here we go!

I wanted to get a list started here regarding our “green”-ness, unfortunately that word is getting a little overused and stale, but if for a good cause, why not.

So, here are some things that Dean and I have been doing for quite some time now to be more friendly to our mother planet:

* Recycling - plastic (what they will take…which is NOT enough), aluminum, glass. Now, where we live, we do not have curb-side recycling, we have to take it to a place out by Nanny Pop-Pops and load and unload ourselves. So, if you have curbside recycling, are you using it?? If not, why not?? Tell me you are not also using paper plates and napkins and plastic forks like our neighbor family….ugh.

* Clothesline - I had Dean hang this for me the second we moved in. I just LOVE my clothesline! It always smells good out there with the wet clothes breezing in the wind. We live out in the country where there are no idiotic restrictions on things like clotheslines….god forbid.

* Work from home - yep, I have not been to a gas station to fill my tank in well over a month. Not only am I saving on gas, but not sitting in traffic fuming the planet up for sometimes an hour each way. And you know what? I am a significantly more effective employee since I have started working from home over a year ago…and why not?

*Composting - this would work better if we have more fruits and vegetables than we currently do (oh, it is on the list..) but nevertheless, we like to compost any matter like this. Doogs likes to sniff the pile.

* Rain-water collection - we have a 305 gallon tank in which we collect our rain water. Why in the world is this not a practice for our water supply rather than sucking it out of the reservoirs??? This makes absolutely no sense to me and really hit home after watching a doc about the guy who built the original EarthShips, who went over to Thailand after the Tsunami and built a home for them out of old tires and sand in which the center of the house was a huge cistern in which the roof collected rain water for them since the tsunami had flooded all of their wells with salt water and they did not have fresh drinking water. In a country in which they have over 200 days of rain a year, they were dependent on the water coming out of the ground rather than the sky, which was more than plentiful. So, we should all take a page out of that book and look to see how we can utilize rainwater collection to reduce the drag on the water table. We use ours only for irrigating our plants at this point, but a plan for whole house rain water usage has been brewing for some time.

Cloth grocery bags - nuff said

* SolaTube lighting- These have been incredible. We keep asking each other “who left the light on?” in the rooms that we had them installed in. Nothing is better than heatless bright natural light for free from the sun.

Here are some things that we would like to add to the list in the near future:
* Solar - come on, we live in Texas. Why would this not make sense??
* Rain water collection for the whole house
* Electric or bio-fuel VW Thing - or other vehicle

So what is on your list?

The warmth made me inspired to actually take Dean’s camera and prowl around outside in the sunshine. Look at the new growth comin up already on this Lion’s Tail! What a fabulous day.

Here is the new toy - the VW Thing. Couldn’t resist a pic under the live oak trees.

And some more pumpkin color, I do not know what it is with our house and pumpkins, but they seem to last forever!

Just look at that sky….had to bring out the ficus so it could get some sun and fresh air!

“Extra-human, extra-natural terms divide us from compassion. We have a death-dealing capacity that is without parallel; and, having to a large extent disorganized the gradual, assimilated experience which bound man to place, we have thrown events not only into the hands of unpredictable change but into the unknown capacity of mankind to keep control without appalling tyranny. We are governed by our obsession with means. We have been treating the earth with a recklessness which is no tribute to human genius. The almost total poisoning of the natural environment is only being postponed by fragmentary efforts.

The great danger in a revolutionary world that takes us with it in spreading mobility, forced communication and unprecedented speed, uncertain of the outcome, is that we will take our own risks and live out our own violence as we can. In other words, we may risk the habitable earth for the sake of mere impetus. Perhaps the awareness of disaster will prevent us from bringing on our artificial ice age which could postpone spring for ten thousand years. Perhaps we can, by conscious, continual effort, keep turning the bow aside to save the ship. We will have to try, in this one world. We have come now to the point where we meet the living earth either in terms of fundamental conflict or fundamental cooperation. All our pillaging and presumption have brought us face to face with ultimate limits. We have pushed ourselves and the rest of life on earth to a point where one step more could mean survival or extinction.”

From John Hays - The Immortal Wilderness (1987)

“We put the whole animal kingdom down as being lower than ourselves, but their travels are flexible and they have minds which work according to rhythmic consistencies and recurrences of the earth. That’s about as deep as you can get.”