Plastic Bags

Please...please look at this slideshow...it'll only take 2 minutes of your day...
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Turtle Time

After it warmed up here the turtles of Missouri were up and running. You cant drive a mile without seeing a turtle on the road. If I was able I'd pull over and set them back into the grass and head them off away from the road.Many times though it was impossible to pull over and I knew it wasnt going to end well. If you've ever seen a squished turtle its not a pretty site.

My grandkids are turtle crazy here.We have plastic turtles, cement turtles, stuffed turtles , turtle garden ornaments, turtle nightlights( that ones in my room)and even my daughter Mollys nickname is Turtle. That being said I thought it would be cool to bring home a wandering turtle for the kids to check out. So the next one I saw on the road I brought home.

We gave it a nice house in a large tote and fed it watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes and crickets.The kids thought they would help me out and feed Molly some leaves, so they stripped my wisteria vine and fed the leaves to the turtle. I named it Molly after my daughter the one thats nicknamed Turtle ( get it???) I thought it was funny. This was before I went online and found out its a male three-toed box turtle.Then it really was funny.

My parents came to visit and were telling me about my great aunt Lorraine living in a nursing home and wanting to go home. She hates it there and doesnt understand why she is there. I woke up the next morning and realized the turtle was no different than my Aunt...not understanding why it was in a box and just wanting to go home. So Morgan and I took Molly turtle to Shaw Nature Preserve by our house and set Molly turtle free.

I learned a powerful lesson about taking creatures from the wild even though I had justified it to myself by thinking the turtle was better off with us rather than being roadkill. Its better to live a short but happy life rather than longevity spent in misery.

Tubular Trash Eaters

One of our future plans is to have a compost bin for our yard and kitchen waste. Jaime is ok with this as long as it doesnt look "trashy". I plan on making one out of wood and chicken wire and it looks pretty good. Ive had the plans for it laying around since the 80s. We are packing and planning to move soon, so putting one here is out of the question. Ive seen some very nice premade plastic compost bins, and even have a link to a great one on this site, but we have no budget for such things right now. So I decided to start small scale and let worms help me compost our kitchen trash. Its killing me to put scraps into the garbage disposal when we can put them to work for us.I cut some ventilation holes in a tote I had laying around. I also cut a few holes in the bottom for drainage.Ive read where you can use torn up newspaper for bedding, but decided to use some good potting soil for the worms and bury the food on one side at a time so I can just harvest the castings along with the soil when needed. Purchasing worms at $25.00 a lb is also out of the question, so Ive been collecting worms at the house where Im helping with landscaping. I have the bin in the shade because worms like cool temps. They like the soil damp but not soaking wet.There is no odor and the worms seem pretty content for now. Hopefully Jaime will be ok with using worm poop in our garden.

Tomatoes please and hold the salmonella

Yet another outbreak of salmonella in the news...this time its tomatoes. Roma tomatoes and "big round" tomatoes. What variety is big round??? And where do they grow these "big round "tomatoes? I prefer the "small square" ones myself.... come on...
The CDC is investigating but so far no grocery chain or distributor has been found to be a common factor yet. The tomatoes were consumed raw and it hasnt been determined whether the bacteria was on the skin of the tomatoes or in the flesh itself.
At first I was going to rant about our food sources, but was wondering if our own homegrown food could become contaminated through animal feces. If salmonella bacteria lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals...can it not be "dropped" into our gardens by rabbits or mice...deer or birds??? What if we use manure in our gardens. Unless we test the horse or cows or goats or chickens whose poop we use then how are we to know for sure???
Our best defense would be to wash, wash, wash every bit of produce that goes in our mouths...even the "prewashed" salad mixes that are sold in the grocery store. I love picking cherry tomatoes , peas, berries and popping them into my mouth...maybe not such a good idea anymore...

now for the minutia...

I titled this blog Green Minutia to include both the green portion of our little adventure and the minutia which is all the rest.

Now for some minutia...Morgan and Cooper started a structured daycare yesterday which is similar to preschool. We weren't sure how it would go because they have been home for almost a year. First when Jaime had a daycare in her home and then with me when I moved here in September and took over the daycare. That is a whole other story I like to file under" Things I will NEVER do again as long as I have a breath in me" or "What was I thinking" whichever file has enough room...they're both pretty full.

Anyway it went pretty well...I was worried mostly for Morgan because she can be a little shy...she cried when we took her to the kids room at church which made Cooper start crying which lead to Jaime and I watching for their little numbers to appear on the screen at church rather than getting anything out of the service. At one point Cooper looked like he might cry if prompted, which got me misting up, but he never did turn the faucet on...yay...

When it was time to pick them up we were all going ...Jaime, her Mom Karen and me. Jaime and I rode together and Karen took her own vehicle. Jaime and I get into the car and Jaime says " Wheres Mom???" We look around and she had taken off like a bat out of hell...we tried to keep up as she took every shortcut in town...I had no idea where we were...back alleys...through parking lots...Im pretty sure Karens car had steam coming out of it . We pulled in and Karen already had Cooper in her arms...did you miss your babies Gramma??? It was hilarious...anyway all went well and they even want to go back on Friday. They are going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Ill watch them Tuesday and Thursday.

Now for the green portion of our program. I received a sweet e-mail from Amy Lamb yesterday...she works at Landmark Appraisal Co.,the company Karen owns. Jaime, Dan and their other brother Jeff all work there too. In her e-mail Amy said that she and her husband Darren were also finding ways to go green "reduce their carbon footprint" as she so well put. If we all could just do little things we are on our way. They are going to buy their food through a coop which will get them some fresh produce grown locally. With the poisoned spinach and the use of tons of gas to get our food here from across the country...even from other countries we should all look into getting our food from local growers if we cant grow it ourselves. I read a story this morning in the Missourian about a girl that went to pick out a watermelon from the bin at Wal-Mart and got stung by a scorpion. Whats next??? I found a great website for finding local food ironically titled localharvest.com They lead you to some local growers and cheese made locally as well as eggs and meat.

On that note I want to share with Amy and everyone else a few of my favorite websites...

maryjanesfarm.org

dirtdiva.com

localharvest.com

gardengirltv.com I started reading this when it was just a blog...Patti now has her own tv show on Farmers Almanac TV. She lives in the city and has an awesome garden with chickens, rabbits that she spins yarn from their fur, and one or two goats...

treehugger.com

I visit tons more websites, but these will lead you to others and you can build your own favorites. My daughter Danika doesnt like the web because she cant find anything that interests her...I have the opposite problem...one website leads me to find another which leads me to well hours online and far from where I started. Its like a giant library to me and those of you who know me know how much I love books...Angela...

On that note here are some of the magazines I find helpful

Mother Earth News...of course...I was reading this when it wasnt cool...

Backyard Poultry...had chickens back in the 80s when I was married to a farmer and want them again...stay tuned

Hobby Farms

Mary Jane Farm yay for this one

Grit

Backyard Living

Birds and Blooms

These again are a few...all of these have websites you can go to...if you have a few hours Ill name some of my fav books...just kidding Angela...

Till next post...its easy being green Kermit...it just takes baby steps...

Baby Steps

" A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Confucius

Well we have taken the first step. Jaime and I have put in a tiny garden. I did not realize the yard is made up entirely of clay. The house is new and the builders did not put down any topsoil. Jaime and I dug and dug and carted off tons...Im not exagerating...tons of clay. After two days of this we called in the big guns. Brian ran a tiller through after we emptied bag after bag of topsoil. Nothing erks me more than to pay for dirt. I dont know where they got the expression "dirt cheap" cuz its anything but.This photo was two weeks ago. We put the containers around it to keep Noodle(the dog) out. You can see her footprints in the unmulched section. Noodle decided to practice her hurdles on the potted plants and we lost round one of us vs. the critters. Round two...Jaime and I put up a small fence on Sunday and so far its worked.

We have many of our veggies and such in pots because we will be moving soon...as soon as Brian and Jaime sell the house. The idea is to move into an older home in the town we plan to buy property in. More on that later.