Do You Realize?

Update

Busy, busy, busy as a bee. That's me.

A few things that I have had going on:

• We're getting ready to start graduation invitations for Eldest. It took a week of online digging to find a company that offers grad invites made from recycled content paper. Although they could have stepped up with recycled content in the envelopes, I'm rather pleased that I even found these. I'd love to see a printing company step up with all-recycled-content invites and envies, printed with vegetable dyes.
• A thunderstorm night before last annihilated the gazebo we had just installed in the back yard (I am white girl extraordinaire, and sunscreen alone will NOT cut it); we hadn't yet put the bolts into the ground, and our famed North Texas wind turned the damned thing into a parachute; it flipped over our fence into our neighbor's driveway. AAAAAARRRRRRGH!
• We've finally hired someone to come take care of the rest of the digging, stump removal, and pea gravel installation around the pool. (We'd officially run out of places (legal or otherwise) to dump wheelbarrows full of dirt.) And cleaning out an irrigation pipe we've found while digging and the broken sprinkler pipes. And the sprinkler wires I may or may not have accidentally sliced with the Mantis last spring.
• I've been scrubbing grout in my tile floors. Completely gross job, with four cats and three dogs and humans traipsing on it (and if one of the dogs decides to "mark" something, those grout lines become perfect little river beds. UGH.
• I've planted our elephant ears and caladiums. Now the wait begins for weather hot enough to coax them out of the ground.

Those are the main things that have been occupying my time the last few days. What have you been up to, gardening or otherwise?

Edited to Add: The birdie who made this nest is a robin, and she has three eggs!

A Tuesday Ten--How Does Your Garden Grow? Edition

Spring has most definitely sprung here in USDA Zone Seven. We've been working diligently outdoors sporadically for a week or so and for the last two days straight outdoors, planting beds, trimming branches, shoveling dirt and rocks, getting the pool ready to open for the year. Here are ten things we've been busy doing:

1. I finished splitting and planting my hostas in the mostly-shade bed, along with new companion plants for texture and color variation. We now have 7-10 different varieties of hostas, and I'm pleased to announce that all of them have begun to grow vigorously. For companion plants we chose 2 different ferns, one tall and traditional, the other lacy and low and clump-forming. We also added some beautiful coleus. (The jasmine in the photo below is the one that was pronounced dead a couple of years ago.)

2. We've trimmed and thinned the bushes and trees out by the pool. The crepe myrtles were out of control.

3. We've arranged an electrician to come out this morning to fix two of our outdoor outlets, the poolside lights, and figure out what damage Marshmallow did here (I'm surprised the fool did not electrocute herself):

4. Hubby's trying to grow tomatoes again this year, a Brandywine plant. The first year he tried was a miserable failure. When we didn't really know for sure which was the "up" end of the tomato cage, we should have called it quits.

5. I've finished planting my new bed full of perennials. This is the first time we've planted so many; we've planted one here and one there, mixing them with annuals, but it inevitably leads to neglected perennials, so I wanted to try a bed of all perennials. There's columbine, salvia, flax, candytuft, bee balm, and a patch of transplanted speedwell groundcover, to see how it will react to being moved (before I pull it all up willy-nilly and killy-killy it all). I've added a bird feeder and birdbath, (and look at the size of the birds we've attracted! Heh.) and I will hang a matching hummingbird feeder soon.

Along the wall (in the photo), you can barely make out the foxglove and Turk's cap. (If anyone knows what the low-growing bushes are, please let me know... we've forgotten, though we love them.) I love the foxglove, but I have to admit to an odd combination of a queasy, uneasy feeling knowing they are so poisonous to humans and a slight thrill knowing I'm totally prepared if I'm sent on any spy mission that calls for poison. I know I'll be suspicious of any herbal teas hubby presents me, unbidden, for awhile. Heh. Here's a closer view of the lovely, deadly foxglove.

6. Hubby has been diligently scrubbing and vacuuming, unclogging the pool filter, scrubbing and vacuuming, unclogging the pool filter, scrubbing and vacuuming the pool. I'm glad he's got the patience. I would have drained the pool and dropped some C4 in the hole long ago.

7. We've picked out new patio furniture and patio dining sets, all in metal, so as to deter Marshmallow from making a snack of them, as she has our wicker (and our electrical cords... see #3).

8. Middle and I prepared these:

There are two of them along the same wall as the chewed electrical cord. Any ideas for filling them? This took an insanely long amount of time to prepare, and we were insanely proud of them when we were finished. We dug a foot down into the clay soil, Middle pushing the wheelbarrow out to a vacant lot for dumping*, and then we filled the cavity with pea gravel. Let me see you grow there NOW, weed bastards! MUAAAAAHAHAHA! (That's the honest-to-Pete correct spelling, according to the Genius that is RedMolly.)

9. I just purchased some pretty lemon-zesty petunias and some fuchsia bougainvilleas for hanging. I will put them in my coconut-fiber-lined hanging baskets, once I trim the damn things down to size (I trimmed one... ONE... last night, and I considered it a great fucking victory half an hour later. Just three more to go.)

10. We've arranged a sprinkler man to come out to fix our broken sprinkler heads (and the wires that I might have accidentally sliced last year with the Mantis).

So, tell me how spring has sprung in your corner of the world. Are you planting, weeding, readying a cursed (in this case, pronounced KER-sed, two syllables) swimming pool? How are you spending your spring days out-of-doors?

*No, this is probably not even close to legal, so can anyone tell me what else to do with 20 wheelbarrow-loads full of dirt? We spread about 10 loads in the 3-foot "alley" between our privacy fence and the next-door-neighbors'. It's better than the cigarette butts they throw back there.

Green in the Bathroom

Now that my temper tantrum is over (although I'm still irritated), let's get to the green stuff.

This weekend, we took a trip down to Austin, which is sort of the San Fran of Texas. (It's truly ironic that the most liberal city in Texas is the state capital, but that the rest of this freakin' state is as conservative and Republican as it gets!) After doing some Internet research on some of the products we are considering for our bathroom overhauls, we found that there is a store in Austin called Ecowise that carries a lot of it, so we planned a roadtrip. Madison's boyfriend is a freshman at UTAustin, too, so we thought we'd visit him while we were there as well.

When we found Ecowise, I must admit our first thought was, "Oh, crap... this is going to be a waste of time." It was a little hole-in-the-wall on a side street with hand painted store signs. I am ashamed to admit that we have been so conditioned to expect the slick, shiny, well-lit corporate traps that we'd forgotten what a real Mom-n-Pop place would look like. (I mean, even our tiny Green Market in town uses barcoded inventory.) Once inside, though, we were in nirvana! Hippy products of all sort, from bed linens to No Sweat sneakers, from low-VOC paint to hemp baby teethers, lined every available wall and shelf.

For our countertops, we're probably going to use Icestone, made of recycled glass and sold in slabs, like granite. It's beautiful stuff. We were hoping to see some Paperstone up close and personal, but the only dealer in Texas (who happens to be located in Austin) was closed on Saturdays except for appointments, and they never returned my call (assholes).

Our tiles will come from three different companies:  Eco-Friendly Flooring, Bedrock Industries, and Sandhill Industries. All three companies specialize in tiles made from recycled glass. We love the look and feel of them (not the flawless slick of virgin glass tiles you find elsewhere). Floors will be recycled-content ceramic tiles.

We are undecided on a color scheme for the master bath... we have two, actually.  One is very "forest-y," true greens & browns, with the Jade Snow countertop. The other is more "spa-like": more mints, sages, icy greens, with the Arctic Sage countertop. Any votes would be appreciated, as right now I am outvoted.

We thought we had more time to spare, but yesterday the pipe that's attached to the shower head broke. (Ever see The Money Pit? Totally true story, based on our house.) So, unless we want to share the kids' bathroom (we don't), we have to bust a move. (My husband is such a grand procrastinator, I've threatened to start writing random shit on the current shower tiles in Sharpie.)

P.S. Amidst all the "business" we went for, we managed to squeeze in henna tattoos on Sixth Street, an iPhone and Gap (red) purchase, and watching the Congress Street Bridge bat colony emerge for their nightly feast.

Going to Pool School

One of the most environmentally UNfriendly things we own is our swimming pool. It was here when we bought the house, and we've just used it and cleaned it without really thinking about it too much. To clarify, we've thought about it a lot, but mostly about the inconvenience of it and what the hell we were thinking when we bought a house with a pool.

When the sand filter broke sometime this winter, we thought about filling in the pool and sodding the yard instead. But, not knowing what kind of laws prevailed here regarding permits or what types of disclosures would be required from now on when selling the house, we started thinking that maybe we should keep the damned thing. Additionally, we are right around the middle of the Swimming Pool Belt (kind of like the Bible Belt, but where the swimming pool is King); one friend kindly pointed out that anyone looking in a neighborhood like ours would be looking specifically for a small yard and a pool (again, what the hell were we thinking?!?). Fine. Fix the freaking sand filter; I'll try not to pout.

Now that we are trying to be more mindful of our lifestyle, environmentally, I was trying to analyze what I know about our pool habits. If we're stuck with it, we might as well try to minimize its impact, right?

First, our pool is NOT chlorinated. We changed over to and have used a system called Baquacil both summers we've lived here. It's hydrogen peroxide-based, as opposed to chlorine. In that respect, it's safer for the environment. It also doesn't make my skin itchy, my hair brittle or dry, or smell like I've  been soaking in a big vat of Clorox.

Next up is maintenance and care. Here's the not-so-fantastic part. Thus far, we've always vacuumed "to waste," which is what the people who sold us the house suggested, meaning that all the water that gets sucked up with dirt & pebbles & stuff gets spat out into the street to go into the municipal water system. Perfectly legal, but not so nice for water conservation, since we have to run the hose into the pool to replace the water sucked out; I would estimate 50-100 gallons go at a time. So, from now on, we will be vacuuming through the filter system only. This will be an enormous improvement over our previous practices.

Last, but not least, I will address something you may not associate with a pool, but those who have a pool certainly will: our grill. We've always maintained that we like the taste of food on a good old-fashioned, standard charcoal grill best; no blasphemous gas for us. Turns out that charcoal grilling is anathema to all the green living we want to be doing; it's worse for common air pollution, not to mention that charcoal is made of... WOOD! (Gasp! You mean it doesn't grow in those bags?) Yep, sorry to disappoint, folks, but it's true... charcoal is made from the desiccated corpses of trees.

Now, here's a big dilemma. Do we put the grill on Freecycle and save the landfill space? Or, do we do our part for the trees & the atmosphere by putting it in the landfill, thereby insuring that no one else is simply replacing our pollution with their own? Does anybody have any suggestions? Discussion is encouraged here, you know...

Monday Meanderings

Howdy, folks! It is Monday, and I am, indeed, back in the blogging saddle again, after taking a week off to coincide with a week off that my husband took last week. No, we didn't do anything outstandingly fun, but we got some big house chores taken care of and got on each other's nerves, so it was at least productive, right?

Just to prove that I was actually thinking this week, there will probably be a couple of posts today. This one is just tidbits here and there, little "green" nuggets I wanted to share.

First, this month I am trying Instead Softcups (No strings! No wings! Just freedom!) during my menstrual cycle. Yes, I know, all of you are almost as excited as I am that I am a breed-worthy female with a working uterus. Yes, I know Colin is probably sick with envy that he can't try these out for his No Impact Man experience (but, hey, I wasn't handing out reproductive parts that day, Colin, sorry!). Yes, I know that 99.9985% of everyone who thinks about this switch is a little repulsed, wary, or both; include me in that percentage. But, I am willing to try it out, based on rave reviews from body-aware women everywhere (and I do mean everywhere, as I've seen all ages from late teens to pre-menopausal, and all walks of life, from triathletes to treehuggers to nudists to... well, you get the picture). If I like them, I will graduate to the Diva Cup (or another similar product) to reduce my personal waste.

Second, we decided to go ahead with carpet removal & replacement with either bamboo flooring or reclaimed hardwood flooring upstairs. We are also overhauling both of our upstairs bathrooms, and we are doing it with as many green materials as possible. They've been in need of plumbing overhauls, carpet removal (what moron decided carpet in bathrooms was cool?!?!), leak fixes, and much more for a year or more, and since we are patricians of procrastination, we've simply put quick fixes into play and ignored the water stains (oh, and that one hole, too) in the ceilings downstairs. There are some really interesting and attractive options out there now. There's Paperstone, paper-composite countertops that are equivalent to Corian; recycled glass tiles from several different companies, including one who recycled the glass light covers from all of Berkeley's traffic lights; and recycled aluminum or copper vessels. We're heading to Austin in two weeks to visit a showroom that carries a good many green options for homes.

Lastly, I must confess a probably-not-so-green decision we made this week. We signed up at Anytime Fitness, where we can go to torture our bodies... err, I mean, exercise... any time of the day or night. I know, I should get out and run (like Vanessa) or bicycle or whatever, but I don't. I don't like exercise, I don't like sweating, I don't like hurting. But, if I can plug some headphones into my own personal TV screen and watch Survivor or The Amazing Race while I do, at least I won't be so bored stiff as to render the experience completely worthless. And so, we've made one of those trade-offs I was talking about; I've traded some green points for possible motivation for personal health. That's it and that's all.

MIA?

Just popping in to let everyone know that I am NOT dead, I just feel like it! LOL!

Mark has been off work this week, and we've been working diligently to get house & yard issues in order and get on each other's nerves at the same time!

I'll try to post today or tomorrow, but don't hold me to it; it will probably be Sunday or Monday.

Don't give up on me, fair readers; I shall return (hopefully with renewed vigor, and not just exhausted)!