What's up with Elisabeth & George?: Building a green life, part 2

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Building a green life, part 2

Here are some photos of some of the stuff I've been doing.

I've been doing serious clean up. Our yard needed it badly after being neglected all last year. And that included cutting back some trees/bushes. I had all these amazing branches from that that I wanted to use, so I built Regin a garden fort. I want to eventually train some vines or something over it, maybe even edibles like peas or something, but I wanted him to enjoy it right away, so I threw a sheet over it...

It was all I could do to convince him to get in there for the photo. Then he rushed back inside to get on his new wooden tricycle that he received from his Abuela for his birthday. Oh my gosh he loves that thing!!

Isn't it cute? I love it. It's so great.

Back to gardening... So I also bought a bunch of starts for indoor/outdoor veggie gardening.

This is batch one. I have since bought batch two. At first they seemed to be loving life, even after I moved them over our fireplace (behind our projector screen) and put grow lamps in there. Now all of a sudden half of them are looking really sad. I don't know if they are getting too much light from the lamps. They are also getting natural light when I raise the screen and our blinds every day. Maybe it's overwatering, which I tend to be guilty of when I get excited about new plants (later that shifts to under-watering, or no watering at all.) Or maybe it's because I haven't made sure there was some air-circulation going on. I need to put a small fan in there.

I have also started some seeds...

It's very exciting. Most of them are purchased organic seeds, but one third, the ones on the left, are all from seeds I collected from our food. Specifically those are butternut squash on the left. I'm collecting seeds from everything we eat right now. Especially the organic stuff. If you're wondering about the red-brown powder all over, that's cinnamon. Apparently it has fungicidal properties. Sadly I needed it because my forest green thumb (that's gotta be somewhere between green and black, right?) caused there to be mold or "damping off" on these seeds. And I already lost a few swiss chard seedlings. Another natural fungicide is weak chamomile tea! Go figure!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: try organic seeds in "Genesis Seeds"

www.genesisseeds.com; 5/04/2009 8:45 AM
Allison said...: plants are sensitive to electric fields.. . . get em away from the TV (and other electronics) and they should be much happier.; 5/16/2009 2:42 AM
Elisabeth said...: This plant guy in Penang told us that snake plants are good for absorbing electric fields. Maybe I shuld put some of those nearby. :). There's no tv tho just a screen for the projector to project on. The nearest electrical devices are grow lamps. I wonder if they're too string tho.; 5/16/2009 9:45 AM

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How we're doing right now.

April 6th, 2009
Oh man, moving back home has been quite a transition! For Regin especially. It has taken him three months to return to being fully, or almost fully, potty trained. But we're home and happy to be with friends and in an environment where things are easier.

But of course, not everything is easier. George's first day back to work he learned that the company was exiting the business and he and all the other people that work on that product (including all those people he trained in Penang) were told to look for other jobs.

His last day was March 31st. No time for that cozy little 'sabbatical' though; after he finished his last day of work, his family called and told us they are coming (from Florida) for a visit on the 10th! This would be no big deal (other than being terribly exciting) if we were fully moved back in, but of course, until now, we've had VERY little motivation to fully unpack! So now we're preparing the house at warp speed!

You know, I do miss Penang. Hard to say what I miss exactly, because I know it's more than our friends there, but I feel a certain pang. And all the time we were there, other than missing family, friends, easy living, and snow, I never once actually missed 'Colorado.'

When we got back to Colorado, I expected to have a new and complete love for the place. I do appreciate some things a lot more, especially visual things. I see beauty where I didn't before. But it hasn't been the feeling of home that I expected, and I still have some of the same issues with the place. But what I do love IMMENSELY and will always love IMMENSELY is the people we have here. And it's been absolutely amazing to see how Regin has picked right back up where he left off with his loved ones here. There's no doubt in my mind that he somehow remembers them.