Oh My Garden!

Life is good. The garden is growing and flowers are in bloom. Bees are busy buzzing around, pollinating our squash blossoms and pollinating themselves. It's so funny to watch those big butted bumble bees fly out of a blossom totally covered in pollen. On their face, their feet, their butts. Silly bees! I have a frog that lives right outside my bedroom window and it just sits there all day and all night. It's a little one, maybe a few inches long. Sort of a pastel green color. There are beans growing up our window wall outside and the frog loves it there. So do the grasshoppers... they love eating the bean leaves.

Bountiful Mexican Beans cover our window and it's a jungle!

Those are squash in the front there. One of our 4 zucchini plants! There's a sidewalk at the front of the bed, so we are training the zucchini to crawl over to the side. It's amazing how quickly a plant takes the hint. It was going straight for the sidewalk and after three days of shoving the vines the other way, it caught on. We also have some delectable white patty pan squash plants. Buttery and delicious... Okay more pictures!

Reisentraube Tomatoes - they're extremely bountiful heirloom grape tomatoes

Tomatoes. Zucchini. Patty Pan. Morning Glory. Marigold. Pumpkin. Carrots. Basil. Okra. Eggplant.

Those tiny sprouts are tomatillos that Carlos just planted. Need to thin them soon.

Gourd growing up the wall. Morning glories up the patio. Pepper in front.

And a fun one from the beginnings of our gardening adventures...

Whoa. Big difference!

Most of our plants were started from seeds, many of them our own saved seeds. It's amazing to look at it and think it once fit in the palm of my hand!

Plastic Takes Over the World!

I got an email from change.org today about signing a petition that I really want to pass onto my readers. In a nut shell, the plastic industry is lobbying to make it illegal for individual towns and cities of Illinois to ban the use of plastic bags. Banning plastic will be impossible if this bill gets passed! Of course there are parts of this bill that are good, like having more plastic bag recycling locations... but recycling plastic bags is almost an oxymoron. We need to get rid of it! In the end it's up to each individual person, but when an entire city makes the decision to ban them it's a really big deal!

Here's the petition:

Change.org|Free Online Petitions

Ecocide - part 1

I have been reading and thinking, pondering and scheming... nothing new. What has got my heart tied in a knot, my brain flip flopping all around is a long tale, the story of civilization. From it's birth in Mespotamia 7000 years ago, it rages on but faster and dirtier than ever. Thinking "green" is not enough to turn this sad story around, an end to civilization and an abrupt end to all fossil fuel use seems to me the only answer. Outrageous to even think of it, I know, but what's more important - a healthy economy or a liveable planet? I'll take the latter. Two hundred species go extinct every day, using a cloth bag to throw my farm bought, organic produce in won't bring them back. Of course a healthy diet without pesticide poisoning is important, but it's not enough to change the state of the world. THe government wants to run everyone in this country to cities so the destruction of our landbase goes unnoticed. They're doing a damn good job at it. I recently saw a film called Gasland that presented some grave details about the natural gas industry. This apparent "clean" fossil fuel deserves a blog all it's own but let me just say that they are pumping some very deadly, toxic chemicals into the ground seeping into the groundwater of many peoples wherever natural gas is being drilled. These people have cancer, irreversible brain damage, flammable water that obviously should not be used for anyone.. and many of them aren't even aware. It's absolutely horendous.

Some say that violence is not the answer, that we must kill with kindness. While we are sending thoughts of love to every CEO in the country, they are making millions of dollars while murdering people, animals, and land all over the world. This is violence. This is genocide. I will not stand by and witness genocide without fighting to stop it. This is a call to action. I don't know what to do yet, but the answer will come to me and while I wait, I hope everyone else opens their eyes and admits that what is going on is murder. The corporations and governments are the murderers, but we are watching is happen.

Save Indonesia

Indonesia is made up of many small islands including Borneo and Malaysia, and account for 10% of the world's rainforest covering 260 million acres. In the past 32 years alone, 99 million acres have been destroyed. Annually an average of 6.2 million acres are being destroyed, but the number is increasing.

[www.greenthefilm.com]

Companies that support Indonesian rainforest destruction: Cargill, Lowe's, Georgia Pacific, The Home Depot, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, Cargill, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kraft, ConAgra, Johnson & Johnson, WalMart, Hershey, Kroger, Albertson's, Safeway, Costco, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald's, Estee Lauder, Sara Lee, Kellogg's, Starbucks, and MANY MORE. 

Be a conscious consumer. 

Questions to answer before you buy -
Where was it made?
How was it made?
What is it made of?
How were the workers treated?
How was the land treated?

16 Workers Die Per Day

[www.16deathsperday.com]

In America, 16 people are killed on the job every day and 160 people died today and every day from occupational illnesses. The safety and health regulations for the workplace are extremely lacking. Out of the 30 million employers that exist in the U.S.A., only 5 million of them even report to OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This is the federal agency that oversees enforcement of health and safety legislation [www.osha.gov]. On average, an employer's median fine for a worker death is $3,700, but workers rarely get taken to court at all.

As a citizen of this country, each of us has the power to do something about this. To many of us, these days it seems like the government no longer works for the people... but if we lose hope, change will never happen. Our senators and congressmen work for us, they are the voice of the mass population because we live in a democracy. There is an act that was introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy in April 2004 and it is well overdue. Contact your congressman and tell them it's time to protect America's workers.



A lot of these deaths are due to chemicals in the environment they work in. Take the salon industry for example - nail salons and hair salons use all kinds of chemicals all the time, from nail polish to hairspray to the disinfectants they use. Some of the chemicals include:

Dibutyl Phtalate
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=701929]
nail polish \  nail treatment \ cuticle treatment
causes negative reproductive outcomes (organ system toxicity), allergies, cancer, endocrine disruption, is neurotoxic, and will accumulate over time in the body

Formaldehyde
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient/706587/TOSYLAMIDE%3B%3B_FORMALDEHYDE_RESIN/]
disinfectant \ nail polish \ styling gel
causes cancer, asthma, and reproductive toxicity

Toluene aka Benzyl Alcohol
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient/700697/BENZYL_ALCOHOL/]
nail polish \ hair color \ facial moisturizer \ body wash \ mascara
causes cancer, asthma, reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, instant irritation of eyes, lungs, and skin

These three chemicals are knows as the "toxic 3" and little research has been done to find out if there are any synergistic effects of these ingredients in our bodies.

In this country, the FDA loosely regulates the food we eat and we're finding out more and more that there are many problems with our food system even with those regulations. The chemicals that are used in cosmetics, household cleaners, and body products, however, are not regulated at all. Many of the products we use every day in the shower, to do our laundry, brush our teeth, or wash our face have chemicals that can build up in our systems over time and cause an array of health problems. These chemicals can build up in our environments as well and cause an imbalance in soil, water, and air which can harm people and animals as well.

You have the power to make educated decisions about the products you use and be a healthy, informed consumer. Reading the label and finding out what all of those strange sounding ingredients are is the most important thing you can do. To be safe, if you don't know what it is - don't buy it. Your decision effects your personal health as well as the health of Mother Earth.

Impeach Obama?

All of these people are saying that we should get rid of Obama because he's getting nothing done. This is my response to that way of thinking:

If Obama got impeached, who do you think would be the next president? America doesn't vote for environmentalists. America votes for big oil. I agree that Obama hasn't lived up to anything he's said at all, he's sold out to every company with dollar sign eyes. As Americans, we cannot rely on the government and we cannot rely on companies, we can only rely on ourselves. There are tons of things each individual here and at every corner of the world can do to fight big oil. It starts with out wallets.

Buy local, especially local food. Shop at the farmers market where food is grown 30 miles away, or go to the actual farm itself. Large scale agriculture relies so heavily on oil in every sense of it from fertilization (ammonium nitrate) to pesticides to packaging (plastic=oil) to transportation. Farm to plate the average meal travels 1500 miles.

Stop using plastics. Start easy and don't use any plastic shopping bags or bottled beverages or styrofoam containers. Bring your own bag, your own bottle, your own reusable take home container. Then take a bigger step and vow to not by anything that comes in plastic. Stop using "regular" household cleaning products, haircare, lotion, etc. There are very basic ingredients that can be used to do everything around your house. Vinegar kills mold and disinfects so it pretty much cleans everything. Mix it with lots of lemon or lime juice to make it smell nice and the acidity helps remove grease, etc. too.

Most important, ride your bike walk and use public transit if it's available. Stop driving so much! If you're going 5 miles away, take your bike. Before going anywhere, ask yourself if you really need to drive. Put trips together into one big trip rather than going out 3 times a day.

Don't produce so much waste. I'm weening myself off of all city controlled waste pick up, eventually I plan on having no waste taken at all but currently I still have about a 1/2 crate of recyclables a week and one small bag of trash between the three of us in my household. Start a compost to efficiently repurpose food waste. Throw all your used paper in the compost, unless there's a lot of colored ink. If you cook from scratch, this vastly decreases packaging waste.

The possibilities are endless. It's up to us to fight against this ugly consumerism that depends so heavily on oil and coal. It isn't sustainable and we don't have to live like this.

BP Boycott

I'm doing a BP Boycott this Saturday, same day as Hands Across the Sand so hopefully I'll have a good turn out. Here is the information if you live in San Diego - it will be in Oceanside.


http://www.meetup.com/HuffPostGreen/7903/


 Little babies with oil on their feathers.



These guys are being taken somewhere to get cleaned up, but even so the birds rarely make it since they've ingested so much oil trying to preen themselves... oil is toxic.



Once a White Ibis.




The oil is everywhere and the dispersants that are being used to make a lot of the oil sink has already killed 25% of marine life below 500 feet, as a test constructed by the EPA found. What more can we do to this planet? Let's get off of oil. Natural gas is no better.

Thanks to the Huffington Post for the photographs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/gulf-oil-spill-photos-ani_n_560813.html#s98947

Tongass National Forest

Learn about the Tongass National Forest & sign petitions to help protect it. It's one of the largest remaining protected areas of Temperate Rainforest and it is in peril. While in office, George Bush outlawed the bill passed by former President Clinton - Roadless Rule Conservation Act - so we can soil more land with civilization. Let's protect what we have left.

Tongass National Forest

Posted using ShareThis