Trees & Turtles: 2012

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Omnivore!

via bookcoverarchive.com

My Review of Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma

I enjoyed every part of this eye opening book.
The book is so well written and inspired me with so many of it's sections of beautiful imagery.

I am envious of any successful writer because I truly wish it was a talent I possessed. One of the reasons, I write this blog is to grow better at writing. I struggled through my English classes at UGA even though I enjoy reading. I push my self to read great books in order to understand and be inspired.

Mr. Pollan breaks down our food systems and brings to light how we Americans select the very thing that sustains our life, food.

Omnivore's Dilemma was never a struggle for me to read, but I did find myself needing time to process all the information. I felt as though, in the beginning, I was outraged by how this system works and why we aren't doing more to change it and that I should start right now and change everything! This, of course, is rash and really solves nothing. I grew to understand like my change in attitude towards becoming a better environmental steward to the earth, my change in attitude towards the way I chose food would need to be similar, one step at a time.

The section of the book that I enjoyed the most is when Mr. Pollan visits the sustainable farm on the east coast. I enjoyed learning that there are still farms that are organized this way, sustainably, instead of based on monoculture system. In this section what really stuck with me is a description of how the cows are heated for the winter (standing on a warm compost of sorts) and then how the farm owner has the pigs dig for gold (alcohized corn nuggets) to turn the warm compost. It solves so many problems and both species are doing what they naturally enjoy doing.

Mr. Pollan's vivid descripition of all the landscapes he encounters are to me what was the best part of the book. There are several that are still in my mind and yearn to be painted.

All in all, I feel more enlightened, inspired and ready to continue to learn what I can do to make a difference in my food consumption and that this really goes hand in hand with the activities I have incorporated already in my quest to live more green!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Mid Week Treat No.1

A Chicken Crossed our path!

This little chicken lives in our neigborhood and we've passed this house now on several occasions and have seen two chickens out roaming around the yard. I love it! (They have a guard dog and cat keeping an eye on things).

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Patio Overhaul Part 1 & 2

PART 1:

Before this area was just a section of dirt with an old wooden wishing well on it. Our front door is to the right in this picture and the wall only goes about half way up.

Now it is a beautiful little nook to place camping chairs and hang out in the beautiful weather we can expect for Spring/ Summer!

Jesse worked very hard to level the little area by hand. We bought 1'x1' bricks for the main area and had a little room left in the back where we placed smaller bricks as edging. It's not the most professional job for sure but it works great and looks tons better then the original area. No before pictures, I always forget to take them.

PART 2: In front of our little house/ apartment there is a fairly small bit of dirt. We found out last year that the tenants before us had planted bulbs in this area. Come this spring the bulbs sprang up all over this little area making it look really ragged. We knew we wanted to do something with this area and so we contemplated over the winter.

Upon visiting GardenSphere this past Friday, we made our choices with their guidance of course. We decided to buy wild thyme and two Hellborus plants. The thyme will creep and fill in the space and produce pretty little white flowers in summer and the Hellborus will have blooms in the winter. Then we decided to add the stones to keep the area tidy and help with water drainage since it is so close to the house. Beautiful!

For Next post: Review of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Playing Catch Up!

Spring tends to bloom with tons of new blog post content. I meant to publish this one before the previous (Tulips and Grass-fed beef), but was so overjoyed by the day that I went ahead posted. Now to play a bit of catch up.

Our loot! from the Sustainability Expo in Tacoma @ the Convention Center on March 3rd 2012

We got:

Light bulbs

Sunflower seeds

water saver timer

(to use to reduce water use in the shower!)

Vegetable brush

a tote

and

tons of awesome information!

One of the best things we learned while

we were visiting was

about these little guys:

photo courtesy of city of Tacoma

Tacoma has instituted a new program where we get to put food waste into our yard waste bins. We already have a worm compost, but there are certain things that they will not eat. Items include dairy, meat, breads, fruits/ veggies and even leftovers! Though we have not received our cute little bin, I placed the first food in our large brown can.

For next post: We continue playing catch up- Patio Improvements!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Tulips & Grass-fed Beef!

Over the weekend my family and I went on quite the adventure! It started out planned for the Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon, WA and it turned into so much more fun!

Tulips have been my favorite flower for some time now. It's hard to pick a favorite flower just like it's hard to pick a favorite color there are phases for me but tulips have stayed at the top of the list.

The Plan: Go to the Tulip Festival and see as much of it as possible.
The Reality: We started out on our journey around 9am and headed to Mt. Vernon. We knew we were in the right place when we saw the line of cars waiting on the shoulder of I-5 to take the correct exit. Yikes! We proceeded to wait at least 45 mins and had barely moved closer to the exit sign. Fred, my stepdad (who hates crowds/ busy places AND knew the area) suggested we come up with another plan since it did not look like we were going to make it to the city center ie: the Festival.

The Adventure: We all pondered Fred's thought and decided to get out of wasting our day in line to see what else we could see of the area. It was a extremely bright idea. We ended up going a few more exits up the highway and going down a smaller highway that lead us to a Tulip Field!!

It was probably ONE of the smaller fields of the entire area, but it was perfect! It was not very crowded, had a ton of the colors represented and had places to park.

A few shots of the Tulips:

After walking, gazing and buying sometulips we headed to LaConner, WA for some Lunch!

In LaConner, we settled on a resturant entitled Nell Thorn. Boy were we over joyed by our choice. On our way to the table, we noticed a sign that stated that their food was local. It only makes since in a place like Skagit Valley surrounded by farm land and resources why wouldn't you use it in your resturants!

The dishes were chosen, crab cakes and half pound burger with fries for Jesse (my boyfriend) and I to enjoy, a half pound burger with salad for Fred and a wine marinated portabello mushroom with salad for Mom (Jen). The crab cake was all crab and I wish had taken a picture of the plate presentation, it was beautiful. The burger was so tender and delishous on a potato bread bun, served with herb and lemon and who knows what else seasoned fries. We asked our waitress if the burger was local and if it was grass fed beef. We felt a little like the couple from Portlandia asking, but we really wanted to know. And we were rewarded with her answer of yes to both. Success! I have finally had grass beef with the knowledge that I was eating it and in it is fantastic.

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the LaConner and enjoying the beautiful weather we were so lucky to have had that day.

Our Adventure in Skagit Valley was so simple yet an experince that I will never forget!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Spring is Here!

I have been a tad neglectful with my blog as of the start of the new year. 2012 has proven to be a very eventful and family oriented year. It had Jesse and I making several trips to Oregon to see his family and friends in addition to the normal routines.

My blog was never forgotten in my mind and I have a slew of posts and post ideas ready to be posted.

To get this blog back full of life I start with what is happening now in the middle April. We, in the PNW, have already enjoyed a handful of gorgeous days and the flowers have started to bloom!

The first Daffodil of the Season!

In our current apartment, we have a small area of dirt under our living room window that we discovered dozens of bulbs in August when we started digging around in it. Before the end of fall we made sure to replant a handful of them and it was a mystery game. What is going to pop up come spring? To our delight we started getting beautiful yellow daffodils!

Beautiful White flowers! There are trees and trees filled with these delightful white petals (followers please help identify if you can) and I have no clue what it is but they are so lovely and sweet. Jesse and I walked down to a bar and grill, Parkway Tavern, last Friday and these blooms where just one of the sights we saw. It was a really enjoyable evening walking in the fresh spring night air!