Now that we've dodged the hurricane bullet for another few months, I wanted to post these. I can look back at them during the 2009 season if I need some laughs.....

Gateway Farm

We've been volunteering at our CSA farm for a few weeks now. Mostly, we've helped harvest but have also prepared flats of various kinds of lettuce seeds in the greenhouse and then fed those seeds after they sprouted.

Here at 423 Grant, the tomatoes are green and still blooming and setting fruit and the okra has attracted aphids. So far, I've just been washing them off. I also just planted a pot of arugula and a pot of lemon grass that Pamela gave me last Saturday at the farm. I had never used lemon grass before and I really like it.

Bank Coupon

I thought this was a wonderful way to portray our current situation.

Obama Rally - Yes we DID!

Meant to post these pics at the time, but....

Inspiration - havin' a great life

"Inspiration enters at the border between hard
work and laziness." That suggests you've got to work hard and discipline
yourself in order to earn the right to inspiration, but often the inspiration
flows in when you're goofing off or giving yourself some slack.

says an
ancient Chinese book called *Poets' Jade Splinters,*

About Permaculture

A Brief Overview by Bill Wilson

Simply put, permaculture is really about relationship - our relationship as humans to the world around us. Will/do we work with the natural abundance and flows of our world and universe, or will/do we ignore these? Working with them will allow us to create sustainable or permanent cultures (permaculture).




Fighting them requires excess time, money and vast amounts of energy from the burning of non-renewable resources (coal, oil, gas), the very resources that all future generations are entitled to have access to, but that we are consuming in just a couple of short generations.

More specifically, permaculture explores practical ways to improve the quality of our lives by re-thinking or re-designing our relationship to:

The land around us and how we use it to provide our food and other needs.
Our homes and how we design and build them for optimum joy and use.
The energy we use - why we use it, how we use it, and how we generate it.
Our work—does it reflects who we truly are? Is our work of true service to anyone or anything?
Our relationship with each other - our families and communities.
Definition of Permaculture:

Permaculture is a creative and artful way of living, where people and nature are all preserved and enhanced by thoughtful planning, the careful use of resources and a reverent approach to life. Thus embraced, these attributes create an environment where all may thrive for untold generations.

Worm Update

The worms never settled down indoors. Then I read an article in Florida Native Gardening about how to do one outdoors in Florida. The worms only "visit" the bin. They have access to the ground underneath in order to stay cool and/or warm enough. So I moved the bin outdoors to a protected area under the balcony. I've put new kitchen scraps in twice. The second time, it appeared that the first bunch of scraps had been processed - but I also had 3 to 4 tiny frogs jump out when I removed the lid! I'm not sure what that means but Sam wants to come with me tomorrow when I put in more scraps to see if there are more frogs!