Dreaming of A Green Christmas & An Even Greener New Year!

Houston weather has been cold and rainy these past few weeks. It's made it hard for me to even want to step outside, preferring the warm glow of the Sun to the harsh stabs of the cold- at times freezing temperatures.
Yet, this past weekend, I peered out of my back windows at home and looked out to the plot of land that we used to plant the corn just a few months back and it took me to that sunny and growing time. More importantly, it got me thinking about the things that will grow out of the land once the weather is better and we can all gather together again to make growth happen- all in the spirit of self-sustainability & green goodness!

Also, came across this article about staying Green during the Holidays! Enjoy!

http://www.39online.com/lifestyle/green/sns-health-holiday-eco-friendly-green,0,5057134.story

Dreaming of a Green Holiday?

If so, try these 10 eco-friendly suggestions brought to you

by Mother Nature.
Jim Williams HealthKey.com contributor

December 2009-

"Ring, ring...Mother Nature calling, can you cut me some slack this holiday season?"

Certainly, the holidays are celebration of family and friends, a festive time filled with gift giving, decorating, tree trimming and sparkling lights. But not so much fun for the environment.

Trashing the Holidays

Americans generate 25 percent more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day than any other time of the year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The food waste, the ribbons and bows, the paper, boxes and shopping bags, all add up to an extra million tons of waste each week for five weeks.

Strange as it might sound, the holiday season is the perfect time to reduce, reuse and recycle. Here are 10 ways to be celebrate a 'green' holiday season:

1. Start a "living tradition" in your family and purchase a live Christmas tree, which you can replant after the holidays. Your local nursery will be able to suggest which kind of tree is best for replanting, as well as how to acclimate your tree from outdoors to indoors.

2. If you by a pre-cut tree, be sure to recycle it after the holidays. Call the maintenance department in your city or local recycling center for instructions.

3. Cut up and use your old holiday greetings cards for gift tags next year, or kids' craft projects. If you don't choose to reuse them, be sure to recycle the cards with mixed paper and magazines.

4. Consider not sending greeting cards at all and let your fingers do the "talking." There are great many Web sites that offer free e-cards. Oh, the trees we would save!

5. Save energy by using LED lights. LED are 90 percent more efficient than traditional lights. If people replaced their normal Christmas lights with LEDs, we'd save at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a month. That's enough energy to power 200,000 homes for a year. If everyone switched, it would amount to an incredible amount of energy savings. Also, there are many different lighting options that are more environment-friendly, including solar powered lights.

6. Use rechargeable batteries. There's a USBCELL available that recharges by plugging into your computer. Standard rechargeable batteries are also a good choice.

7. Use newspaper, old gift bags, comics and magazines for wrapping paper. They also work for padding more delicate items and recycle paper at the same time.

8. If you have your mind set on using holiday-themed wrapping paper, try to use post-consumer and chlorine-free recycled paper.

9. Buy handmade items with less packaging such as a sweaters, stuffed toys, wooden toys, puzzles, furniture, etc.

10. Consider gifts of time such as volunteering, gift certificates for favors such as helping a friend with childcare. Or make your own gift certificates that give someone a free hour of babysitting, a free dinner, house cleaning, etc.

Green Fest Videos

 

 

Community Green Fest this Saturday!

The Emile St. Community Garden/ The Last Organic Outpost was one of the first inspirations for the Original Jardin and they are doing it really big this weekend. If you have the time (or can make the time) come out and enjoy the amazing Houston weather we are having and learn about where you belong/exist in this Green World.

Details:
Last Organic Outpost & KPFT will be hosting an event on Saturday, Oct. 24th at Emile Garden in the 5th ward. This festival is focused on to promoting green living throughout the city of Houston. We will be having demonstrations, presentations, and speakers focused on how live a more sustainable lifestyle. Music- 144 Elite, Cabo, Tom Tranchilla and Buddy Allen, DJ Sunonwater, Jerome Vielman, and many more.

We will have a Raffle and Silent Auction hosted by Houston Green Scene. There will be three stages for entertainment and educational activities! There will also be lots of family fun including free petting zoo, face painting, scavenger hunt, children’s fashion show by Sama Baby, interactive puppet show with Super Happy Funland, storytelling, NIA for tots and other small children, Sack races, art stations, balloon art, gardening activities and many more!

Green Organization and Business Participating: Houston Green scene, Houston Electric Cars, Green Cleaning products, Houston Urban Farm Belt Coalition, The Young and the Restless (Children’s resale), Massage in the garden sponsored by Dentist- Houston’s Premier Green Dental Office, Joe and Pat Greer

This event will also be promoting the efforts of 350.org INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION. Check out the www.350.org for more information.

Food Provided by Radical Eats and Ruggles Green.
Yoga by Jennyoga and Devanand,
Recycling made possible by Not Trash.Houston
Featured local artist, Charles Washington will be demonstrating making art out of Recycled Material along with other works of Garden Art.
AND MUCH MUCH MORE!!!

Here are some of the demonstrations and presentations. (A schedule will be posted shortly):
• How to build a Composting Bin demonstration by Brittani Flowers of NotTrash.Houston
• How to make your own Natural, non-toxic cleaning products demonstration by Mona Metzger of Urban Green Clean
• Electric Car Showcase by Houston Electric Cars
• Environmental Art Workshop by Artist Charles Washington
• Balloon animals for kids with bio-degradable balloons by The Bug Man
• Featuring Garden Art by Recycle Artist Phil Waldrop
• Recycled Structures proudly constructed by Green Construction Company, Bright Side Construction
• Special performance by poet, performance artist and author of /Haiku2u:101 select poems on love, trial, triumph and trust /Jerome Vielman
• Special Appearance by Amanda Tullos (unsure of spelling) of Phoenix Connection Recycled Home Builder Dan Phillips
• Interactive garden games provided by United Wellness Center and Last Organic Outpost

Remember to pick-up your Holiday Green Guide featuring farm fresh recipes from the Last Organic Outpost compliments of Houston Green Scene

Impromptu Meeting

Hello helllloooooooooooooooooo>>>

If anyone is out there, we are still here! As Fall began to set in (this past tuesday September 22nd @ 4:22 pm to be exact) we began thinking of some of the goals/concerns/comments that we had for our Jardin. Last Friday 9/18, as we sat at shared some of our personal goals for the fall, and we began dialogue about the Jardin. Here are some of the notes that we took, along with a diagram of how we would like to expand our Jardin:

General Plans

• -Create beds on concrete slabs, clear around large slab to create planting space
• small beds for herbs on top of the concrete slabs (tbd)
• around concrete slabs we plan on putting larger plants, and herbs. (tbd)

Corn Space

• Take down the stalks
• re-mulch the area (to keep soil healthy for the winter/spring)

Comments on planting the 7 warriors Spring of '10:

• plant the three sisters together
• get the tree branches trimmed, in order to provide the maiz with better sunlight.
• create a timeline/schedule to be set for the Jardin, this can help us stay focused and have the ability to provide the Jardin with the maintenance required for the Jardin
• get a small fence lining for the yard

Ok, I also created a diagram of the space we have been granted permission to work in, If you can see it is color coded:

• Red- areas that are untouchable, the Casita, Driveway, A/C area, y el arbol.
• Green- Space for the Maiz: this is where we will continue to plant the maiz, and the rest of the seven sisters.
• Grey- Concrete areas, the concrete is NOT going to be removed, we are instead going to have to build on and around from those areas.
• Yellow- this is the area that we plan on building on top of concrete. we discussed some ideas on how we will go about this, more details to come once finalized.
• Blue- the are around the concrete area. we need to do TWO big things to this area. 1) Get rid of the wild vegetation growing there and 2) mulch the entire area.
• Lilac- areas that need just general cleaning

Well, there is more to come we planned a meeting/work day Saturday, OCTOBER 10th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2009 Please you have two weeks, to clear the schedule and make it happen. Please feel free to come out and join us as we begin to make further plans for this Jardin.

Peace

What the the garden brings...

From my last post, I haven't been fortunate enough to take part in much bonding with the maize due to many factors. Tonight I was offered that opportunity.

Merely walking by the maize compels the my natural urge to enter the world of our maize and enter it's beautiful rows to simply admire the stalks in a strong and green state as well some stalk's weak and fragile condition. This garden has been staring at me through the window and calling out to me. Seeing the maize grow from afar has been an interesting experience, but having the offer of entering it, and creating a bond with it is phenomenal.

This evening we went in to release the freshly de-refrigerated lady bugs to help control the maize pest problems we have been experiencing. My job for the evening was to take an inventory of the maize and take note of the condition each stalk is in, particularly looking out for which stalks we lost due to the children. At first it was overwhelming. Seeing the corn in such fragile conditions weakened my heart. I counted and looked at each stalk to get a better map and update on our stalks.

As I went row by row counting and examining each stalk, the discussions I have been involved in about building a relationship with the maize became so obvious and strong to me. As the groupo finished up our mini session we watered the maize and drenches and called it an evening. A very significant evening I believe because it showed us clearly that when unfortunate things happen, we must continue to work towards our goal and that we did.

Pictures coming soon... hopefully from someone who had a camera this evening :)
Mexica Tiahui

Sky is falling Aint no need to panick.

I'm writing on the blog, because we cant all be enlightened or informed by deecolonize all the time.

When I heard the news on Monday morning concerning the garden, I was enraged. Not the bad type where you think of revenge on the other party, the type that makes you think of all the hard work you did to get them there. All of the seeding, weeding, cleaning, watering and now ever so carefully putting every stalk that cried for help back together. Does that make sense? I thought about all of the hours they had laid on the ground unrooted and needing water. Sigh... We tried to save all of the stalks that had babies like we would with pregnant mothers, attending to them first.

It was best to work in pairs because of the delicacy that was needed to sustain every stalk. I guess you could say it was like operating on a real person. It pained me so much to see them fallen that every time I saw one I wanted to run to it and help it.

But we did as much as we could, talking and giving them love.

This was a lesson that was needed to learn along the way of our jardin. Like in life whenever we think we got shit going sometimes you get these setbacks. Its scary. However we must continue with our purpose as our jarding is to continue its purpose. And that is to live. We must continue to live and spread our seeds.

I've been thinking of a name for our garden. But I guess when we agree and decide we'll keep you posted.

peace out.

Mendings & Manifestations

Yes. All things happen for a reason. / Si. Todo tiene razon.

I likened the 3 sisters in the jardin to children recently- expressing how I felt like a parent who's child had a traumatic experience, and having that weight of just wishing there was a way to turn back time, and make it all go away. Reflecting on how many situations and ordeals i've faced where I have felt this way. Having to learn acceptance, peace, and the light and lesson to move forward.

So, as we wait out the week (ending later today) to see what stalks were able to survive the storm, I've been shifting my energies to concentrating on creating new projects and thinking about how to make the entire space into a community-friendly and open environment.

So, as of today, I'm including a small series of stalks that will not be what they ever were again & a some that are fighting the good fight...and maybe a hint of a project idea. Tlazokamati for all the good thoughts and prayers. It perks the maize in the jardin... it really does.




the fight for land and life continues - and sometimes great warriors must fall. just a part of the cycle.










still lovely











learning about loss - learning about value











........?...... :)