Clutter Begone

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. — Henry David Thoreau

In yesterday’s post I mentioned I needed to get rid of clutter. My approach to doing so is to do a little bit every day and when I get one of the recycling bins full, it goes out to the car so it can go to the recycling center, which is conveniently located on the way to Mrs. B’s Place.

Taking this approach does four things. 1) It gets the clutter out of the house. 2) Exiling the clutter as it’s gathered frees up space and makes things a little bit better. 3) I’m opening myself up to new and exciting possibilities by getting myself organized. and 4) I now have an excuse to go check the garden which is something that I need to do more frequently now that things are starting to come in and need to be picked on a more regular basis. It also helps me to ensure that I get a bit more exercise and that the veggies get watered more often.

There are times however, I wish I could utter the words “Clutter begone” and it would just disappear. But my place didn’t get cluttered over night, so it’s not going to get un-cluttered over night.

The Green of Spring

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

It is the time of year where the landscape is shifting from brown to the varied hues of green that only come with spring. Spring means renewal and growth. Spring means the world is waking up. Spring means everything is fresh and lovely as the old is replaced by new.

Spring also means working the garden, but it’s a work that I love. Cleaning out overgrown parts of the garden. Scratching through the dirt to break up clumps. Pushing seeds into the ground or sprinkling them over the surface, covering them with a thin layer of soil and gently patting them into the soil. Watering seeds so they come up through the soil covering them so the seedlings can begin the journey to either feed some of the native wildlife or end up on R’s and my plates.

But when the end of the day is near, I love taking a step back and looking at the garden. I love to see how the light plays with the leaves of the plants. I love to watch how the sunlight catches a water droplet on new plant and creates a mini sunburst. Sometimes its a time to rest, but more often than not, I find myself grabbing my camera and trying to capture what I see.

Surprises happen regularly when I shoot with the macro lens. I can’t see everything until I get it home and load it in to my computer. Thats when the stems and capillaries of the plants pop out at me. I notice the litte scallops along the edge of the lettuce plant. The bug I didn’t see when I was trying to get the macro lens to focus says “Hello” on the screen and I notice the details on its head and body. Or I see the flecks of dirt clinging to the lettuce leaf.

And all I want to do is share this wonderful, glorious world and what I find in it.

Image: Photographed in the garden with my Nikon D80 and AF Micro NIKKOR 60 mm lens. ISO 640 F4.0 Shutter speed 1/1600

Day Two – Its Everywhere! Its Everywhere!

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

GAH!!!! I feel like a total failure when it comes to plastic today. I went to the farmer’s market today despite the cold and still walked always with plastic. I was able to avoid fast food generated plastic at the Fusion Taco Truck, but I opted for it at the Houston Dairymaids’ Tent when I purchased one of the soft cheeses. It didn’t even register that I’d bought plastic until I was back at the office. I also had a similar experience with mindless plastic when I was clothes shopping this evening. I was out the store with the bag before I even thought about it.

This evening, when I was out running errands, I was faced with the litter box dilemma. Simba likes the Arm & Hammer Corn based litter. It holds down the odor quite well. However, its packaged in plastic. I had options for Fresh Step, and Swheat! but do you go for an unknown with a finnicky cat? Then there are the considerations of the mining that happens for clay litter. I opted for the arm&hammer. I know they have other kind of litter in boxes, I’m not sure why this one isn’t. Maybe I need to write them a letter.

Plastic-Free Month – Day 1

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

Last week, Rodale.com started promoting Plastic-Free Month in February. As someone who is continually battling plastic in her life, it’s annoying that it pops up everywhere. I think the thing that annoys me the most is when I have a single item, and the clerk wants to put it into a plastic t-shirt bag. When this happens to me, I look at the clerk and say “No thanks, I don’t need that bag.”

When I started going plastic free, I focused on my kitchen first because that’s where it was most obvious with the Ziplock and rubbermaid containers. But slowly I’ve become more aware of plastics and how they have infiltrated our lives. I think it really struck home when I started thinking about food and plastic. You can’t buy milk in glass bottles any more (not in Houston anyway), it’s all in paper cartons with a plastic mouth on the side or it’s in plastic. Cottage cheese and yogurt no longer come in waxed paper containers. Cooking oil. Candy Wrappers. Cookies. Breads. Microwave foods. Sour Cream. Juice. Cheese. Deli Meats. All can have some sort of plastic involved. Even with canned goods (whether they be from the store or homecanned) may have some sort of plastic involved. Even my free-range beef and chicken come encased in plastic. About the only thing that still comes in glass is booze.

Rodale.com laid out three basic laws for the challenge:

1. No buying or acquiring new plastic.

2: No cooking with plastic or storing food in plastic. (this is not my issue, but my boyfriend seems obsessed with putting things in plastic)

3: Minimize all other plastic use.

Some of the food ones I’ve figured out, but what about yogurt? Yogurt’s a staple in my diet. Is there any place in Houston that sells yogurt in something other than plastic?

I can see this is going to be an interesting adventure. Let me know here, on facebook, or on twitter if you want to join in.

Time for Another Weekend Almost

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

I’m looking forward to this weekend. I have almost everything done that’s on my list of to dos at work done. It’s going to be a beautifully clear Texas day and I’m going to be gardening this afternoon. SCORE!!!!

Tomorrow I’m going to go hang with my Photography friends for one of semi-annual Silver Screen Exhibits and see which of my pictures got picked to go into the presentation. The picture to the left is one of the images I entered into the exhibit.

Then it’s more gardening to take advantage of the sun while I have it. I’d like to get weeds under control and get garlic in the ground along with a few other things (radishes for one).

I’ll be good and tired by Sunday, which is great timing on my part, because it’s supposed to rain. So I’ll sleep in a little on Sunday and do some house work and some prep work for Frugal February.

Wore out from Gardening

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Sustainable in Houston

One of the advantages to living on the south side of Houston is that I’m firmly in Zone 9. For you poor people who live north of here, that means I get to garden pretty much all year around.

I haven’t been in my garden this year until this past weekend. After taken a trip to visit the family in Iowa, I came down with a cold and then R.’s mom got a cold and didn’t want anyone around her. Then last weekend, when I had a three day weekend, it rained. So while the plans were to start working on the garden a couple of weekends ago, it just didn’t happen. But that’s okay. I spent a good 3.5 hours Saturday afternoon weeding, harvesting broccoli and cabbage and planting peas (shelling peas YUM!!!!) My reward for all that hard work was an orange straight off of Mrs. B’s juice orange tree. Juice oranges have a rind that’s a little tougher than oranges like Clemintines. I ended up cleaning off the garden knife and chopping the orange into quarters on a fence post.

I ended up grabbing my camera and taking some pictures of said orange when I realized how great the light was from the sunshine.

I love this picture. You can see the juiciness of orange. And orange color against the background just pop and reminds me of sunshine. We need more sunshine. It’s been a rainy dreary day here today.

Local Food Producers I Like

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Sustainable in Houston

In my effort to eat more locally, I’m really thinking about what I can and cannot have in terms of food. I’m really looking for food that is grown or made within 100 mile radius of Houston. That being said, there are a few things that maybe more than 100 miles from where I am at.

I’m not foresaking flour, coffee and sugar – however, I would be eternally grateful if anyone knows of Texas grown and ground flour that’s available in the area – but things like Diet Coke and cheapo hamburgers from Wendy’s are off the list for sure.

So here’s what I have figured out for my sources of local foods:

Law Ranch Cattle Company (beef baby!)
Houston DairyMaids (I’m particularly fond of St. Maure cheese – especially with Medjool dates)
Word and Food Pimento Cheese Spread
Georgia’s – Chicken, Pork, Lamb
Atkinson Farms (A wide variety of conventionally raised veggies)
Railean Rum (can’t wait to try their blue agave spirit).
Dripping Springs Vodka
Titos Vodka
Saint Arnold’s Root Beer & Beer
Shiner (now is the time of my favorite Shiner Cheer!)
Brown Paper Chocolates (so so yummy)
Stoopes Honey
Canned Salsa and Preserves in my cupboard
Plus all the deliciousness of my garden, which hasn’t been too badly hit by the cold.

Eating Out of My Pantry

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Sustainable in Houston

I have a confession. With everything going on at work, I’ve been substituting fast food for local food. I’ve made it my goal for this month to eat out of my pantry and to eat locally. Today I was hungry because I didn’t stop for a snack at one of the numerous places to get junk food at. I’ll have to get better about making sure I have enough snacks packed with me.

The interesting part of this self-challenge will happen later this month when R. and I travel back to Iowa. We’ve already discussed cooking a roast or something before we go on the road because neither of us like the idea of eating in the chain restuarants while on the road. When we travelled to Iowa a year ago in August, we ate lunchmeat sandwichs all the way up along with cut fruit and veggies.

Janice selling some of her fabulous Pimiento Cheese Spread

This morning’s breakfast was a couple containers of yogurt that I had in the fridge. Part of my lunch was salad left over from dinner last night and Black Bean Tamales from the City Hall Farmer’s Market. Tonight’s dinner was BBQ hamburger with leftover bread from last night.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for tomorrow, but I’ll figure it out. I’ve got oatmeal in the pantry, some dates, and some cream. I think I’ll slice a couple pieces of bread for lunch tomorrow. I got a tub of Pimento Cheese Spread from Janice Schindeler of Words and Food at the market today and if I pair that with a salad, I’ll be in great shape for lunch tomorrow. I’ll post my progress on this little self adventure.

BTW, Janice’s Pimento Cheese spread is really the best stuff around and it’s totally addictive.

The String and the Chrysallis

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Sustainable in Houston

Yesterday while I was weeding, I came across a Monarch Butterfly chrysallis laying on the ground. I wanted to gather it up and put it in a jar, but my boyfriend asked me to leave it in nature. He said that the butterfly would be better off living out it’s natural life cycle. So while we were looking at it, R. had the idea of tying the chrysallis to the butterfly bushes with a piece of string. And he did just that. So for right now, I can go into my garden and watch the transformation.

Recycling Question for the City of Houston

Posted on November 6, 2010 by Sustainable in Houston

I love Houston this time of year. We have a ton of opportunities to get out and see all the great things our city has to offer.

Last night, I went to the George R. Brown Convention Center to attend the International Quilt Festival. I had a fabulous time, but as I went into the food court area, I found myself looking for a recycle bin to put my plastic bottle in after I was finished with it. With the GRB being right across the street from Discovery Green, and the city’s initiatives with the City Hall Victory Garden and the City Hall Farmer’s Markets, why aren’t they looking to our big venues and festivals as leadership opportunities for recycling? Why arent’ there options to keep all that plastic (and I’m assuming there are thousands of bottles that went into the trash) out of the Houston Waste Stream?

Where do I go to as a citizen of Houston to change this? Where do I start? Do I go to City Hall? Do I go to the festivals themselves? Do I go to the big venues? Ideas are wanted!