Saturday, August 25, 2007
The Birds Are Repurposing Our Crap
Check out this nest I found while removing brush from beside our shed. Don't worry. There were no eggs in it. As you can see, the birds that made this nest have woven in quite a bit of plastic. I'd say about half the material here is human garbage. Does the plastic keep the nest dryer? Do you think the birds know it?
Labels: birds, garbage, nest, plastic, recycling, repurposing
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
The Rattletrap
I wish I'd had my camera with tonight when we went out for pizza. Parked a couple of car-lengths ahead of our car was a motorcycle with a trailer and sidecar. I use the terms motorcycle, trailer and sidecar loosely here. Very loosely. The motorcycle was old school in a way that was dinosauric. The whole setup was cobbled together, but just barely.
Now, I'm all for recycling and the creative reuse of things, but this was danger incarnate. If you're an adult and want to risk your life on a rickety cycle that doesn't come anywhere near road safety requirements, fine. It's your life. What was horrific about the contraption was the sidecar - which appeared to be four unfinished pieces of plywood held to a metal frame by no more than chewing gum or bandaids. (I'm exaggerating about the chewing gum and bandaids, but not much.) Inside the sidecar was an infant car seat so old that it was no longer road-worthy. Actually, the sidecar looked like a mini-trailer filled with junk, which is all I'd transport in it. But, no . . . a CHILD got into it. Thankfully, he was wearing a helmet, although I'm not sure how much good that would do if the whole thing gave way. The situation makes me shudder and pray, for the child's sake, that the thing is better constructed than it looked. Honestly, when it comes down to the safety of children, get something street legal.
Now, I'm all for recycling and the creative reuse of things, but this was danger incarnate. If you're an adult and want to risk your life on a rickety cycle that doesn't come anywhere near road safety requirements, fine. It's your life. What was horrific about the contraption was the sidecar - which appeared to be four unfinished pieces of plywood held to a metal frame by no more than chewing gum or bandaids. (I'm exaggerating about the chewing gum and bandaids, but not much.) Inside the sidecar was an infant car seat so old that it was no longer road-worthy. Actually, the sidecar looked like a mini-trailer filled with junk, which is all I'd transport in it. But, no . . . a CHILD got into it. Thankfully, he was wearing a helmet, although I'm not sure how much good that would do if the whole thing gave way. The situation makes me shudder and pray, for the child's sake, that the thing is better constructed than it looked. Honestly, when it comes down to the safety of children, get something street legal.
Labels: children, creative, danger, motorcycle, pizza, recycling, safety
Monday, July 02, 2007
A Weather Update
There's a misty rain in Minnesota today. We need the rain. We've had unbelievably gorgeous weather the past couple of weeks - sunny, warm, a few humid days, but still tolerable. The grass was getting crunchy, so the rain is good. My mom said that she was told as a kid that when you look up at an oak tree in the summer, you shouldn't be able to see sky through it. This year, lots of sky can be seen through the oaks. We're wondering if it's because we're low on moisture in general, or if there's some other factor causing it.
Rain or not, my big goal for the day was to take the recycling out to the landfill. Our back porch was getting full up. With the help of my daughter and Young Son #2, we got the deed done. Such a simple thing, but such a feeling of accomplishment.
Monday is normally my writing day, and I did get a little writing done, but just a little - a few hundred words. I'm having a little trouble with direction on story nine of my series. I think it needs more thinking. I've got my main characters figured out, which is a quarter of the battle. I've got the thing started, which is another quarter. But, I don't have an idea of the ending, which is a problem because I have to get from here to . . . where? I like to have a sense of my ending, even if I veer from it by the time I'm done, because it's how I get over the hump - and there's always a hump.
Time to moodle.
Rain or not, my big goal for the day was to take the recycling out to the landfill. Our back porch was getting full up. With the help of my daughter and Young Son #2, we got the deed done. Such a simple thing, but such a feeling of accomplishment.
Monday is normally my writing day, and I did get a little writing done, but just a little - a few hundred words. I'm having a little trouble with direction on story nine of my series. I think it needs more thinking. I've got my main characters figured out, which is a quarter of the battle. I've got the thing started, which is another quarter. But, I don't have an idea of the ending, which is a problem because I have to get from here to . . . where? I like to have a sense of my ending, even if I veer from it by the time I'm done, because it's how I get over the hump - and there's always a hump.
Time to moodle.
Labels: daughter, minnesota, moodle, oak trees, rain, recycling, short story, weather, writing, young son
Saturday, April 28, 2007
In the Zone
Oh, what a glorious Minnesota spring day! I was up-and-attem, ready to go this morning. My first task was taking our pile of recycling to the landfill - no, not to dump it in with the garbage, but to put it in the recycling containers. We've found this to be much easier than waiting for the city to collect it. The city collects it every other week, but we can never remember the day and they are quite persnickety about how we prepare it, so we'd rather load it in the car once a month and go for a little drive.After the recycling, I decided I'd take on some yard work. I'm not much for gardening, but the herb garden was filled with leaves and long, scraggly, dried-up herbs and the job didn't look that strenuous, so I got to work on cleaning it out. What you seen in the photo is the end result. Turns out that herbs grow beautifully in our sandy soil, while most other veggies and flowers do not. We created this herb garden a couple of years ago using bricks left over from remodeling. (We're hoping the herbs come back. If not, it's time to replant.) The bricks are a local variety from when we had brickyards in town between the 1890s and 1920s. They are quite soft and not at all appropriate for landscaping as they flake and break easily. The one saving grace about this is that the bricks came from the ground and they're going back to the ground - another form of recycling.
While I was working in the yard, I figured I could get some thinking time in. I'm trying to imagine a character's home and belongings for a short story and thought that gardening would free my mind for the task. Not so. The more I worked, the less I thought. I slipped into a zone of no-thought, which was quite meditative. The same thing happened later, when the hubby and I hopped on the motorcycle and went for a ride. It's my first of the season. The hubby's been out a number of times already. I don't have a motorcycle endorsement, or a cycle of my own, so I'm always a passenger. It's fun to sit and let someone else handle the driving. Without having the worry of watching the road, I immediately slip into the zone, which is enhanced by the buzz of the cycle and the rushing wind. The zone is so relaxing that after being on the bike for about an hour, I have a tendency to fall asleep. This is not a good thing, for obvious reasons. Maybe, if we had a massive touring bike with armrests, I could get away with this. I have to concentrate really really hard to keep from falling asleep. If I do start nodding off, my body slips a little and I jerk myself awake. My husband jokes that I need to have bungie cords strapped around me to hold me on. I just pray that being in the zone won't cause an accident one day.
Labels: bricks, characters, garden, herbs, husband, minnesota, motorcycle, recycling, short story, sleep, writing, zone
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The IE Gremlin
I had something a little freaky happen on my computer last night. My son was closing out the program he was using and he said that the Mozilla Firefox icon was gone. In its place was an Internet Explorer (IE) icon. Strange, as the original IE icon was still on my desktop. I looked under my Start button and found the Firefox icon, but it said that the program was running in safe mode. I clicked it and got a message, which I didn't quite understand, so I cancelled it. I logged off and logged back on, thinking that would clear things up. Nope. I decided to drag the Firefox logo under the Start button onto the desktop to make a new icon. The new icon had a little number 2, which indicated it was the second one on the desktop, but the first was nowhere in sight. I dragged the new IE icon into the recycling bin. I looked in the bin and found that the IE icon had turned into a Firefox icon. I dragged it out to the desktop and it turned back into an IE icon. Back to the recycling bin, it became Firefox. Dragged it out again and it finally stayed Firefox. Does anyone know what caused this phenomenon? Is IE just messing with us?
Labels: computer, desktop, firefox, gremlin, icon, internet explorer, recycling, son, technology
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Recycled Fabric
As a fabric artist, I have often wondered what to do with those little scraps of fabric left over from a sewing project. Too small to use, too large to make me feel good about throwing them away. While we donate clothing that's still usable to the Epilepsy Foundation, I never know what to do about clothing that is ripped or has holes. Into the garbage it generally goes. Fabric recycling seems to be the answer for these fabric bits and ragged clothes, but I have yet to find a place that takes anything but the good stuff. The good news is that there IS fabric recycling for the good stuff, but it comes at a price for Africans. Did you do a double-take at that last word? Yes, our clothing recycling doesn't exactly leave a rosy picture for Africans, which I discovered in an article posted on Reddit. It's an ABC News report on what really happens to clothing Americans donate to charity. It still doesn't answer the question about what to do with the crappy stuff. (Sigh . . . .)
Labels: africa, art, charity, clothing, epilepsy foundation, fabric, garbage, recycling, reddit
Monday, October 23, 2006
I Got the Consumption, Arrrrgh!
I posted my Noble Africa blog entry on reddit.com because I thought it might be of interest to a general audience. I got one comment back through reddit and two (from the same person) to my blog. Here's what Cypherx had to say on reddit:
It is not consumerism per se that I have a problem with. Every living thing on earth, humans, animals, plants, consume. That's part of life. It's consumption for the sake of consumption, rather than for need, that bothers me. It's George W. telling us to not worry our pretty heads and just go shopping after 9/11.
I came of age with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. American consumption is ravenous and doesn't fit with the Reduce part of the equation. The more we (individually and as a country) ramp up our consumption, the more others feel they have to buy to keep up. When there are people in the world without a roof over their heads, how many immodest houses can some of us justify having? How many cars? How many baubles collecting dust in the backs of our closets? I'm as guilty as anyone in a well-off country of over-consumption. I try to curb it where I can, difficult as that is. I don't think I'll ever reach the point of owning only 55 personal items like Dan Ho.
Of course, Cypherx is right about Africa. The continent can become the equal of America through making appealing consumer products (if I need a T-shirt or tennies, I'll consider the attractive ones offered through the (RED) campaign), but a deeper, human equality does not rest on materialism. Does someone become less human because he doesn't have the proper clothing, the right car, impressive shelter? It's the inherent humanity, and the basic goodness housed within, that I wanted people to recognize about Africa.
Flightless posted two links showing another, more positive, side to Africa, specifically the country of South Africa:
A video on YouTube called Today I Woke Up in a Country. This gave me shivers. And, the website for the International Marketing Council of South Africa.
The question for today: Would you be willing to take less so that someone with less can have more?
It is not consumerism per se that I have a problem with. Every living thing on earth, humans, animals, plants, consume. That's part of life. It's consumption for the sake of consumption, rather than for need, that bothers me. It's George W. telling us to not worry our pretty heads and just go shopping after 9/11.
I came of age with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. American consumption is ravenous and doesn't fit with the Reduce part of the equation. The more we (individually and as a country) ramp up our consumption, the more others feel they have to buy to keep up. When there are people in the world without a roof over their heads, how many immodest houses can some of us justify having? How many cars? How many baubles collecting dust in the backs of our closets? I'm as guilty as anyone in a well-off country of over-consumption. I try to curb it where I can, difficult as that is. I don't think I'll ever reach the point of owning only 55 personal items like Dan Ho.
Of course, Cypherx is right about Africa. The continent can become the equal of America through making appealing consumer products (if I need a T-shirt or tennies, I'll consider the attractive ones offered through the (RED) campaign), but a deeper, human equality does not rest on materialism. Does someone become less human because he doesn't have the proper clothing, the right car, impressive shelter? It's the inherent humanity, and the basic goodness housed within, that I wanted people to recognize about Africa.
Flightless posted two links showing another, more positive, side to Africa, specifically the country of South Africa:
A video on YouTube called Today I Woke Up in a Country. This gave me shivers. And, the website for the International Marketing Council of South Africa.
The question for today: Would you be willing to take less so that someone with less can have more?
Labels: africa, clothing, consumption, recycling, red, reddit
I agree with most of the post except this silly bit:
Leave the consumers alone! They get something they want, they contribute to something good. It's the best arrangement possible and well intended anti-consumerism can only muck things up.
In fact, I think the consumerism the author loathes is also the cure for his chief complaint. Africa can become the "equal" of the rich Northern countries...if it makes lots of products that appeal to our consumers (either by style, quality or price). Until then, most of the continent will remain a sad charity case.