Green Rascal Design

This is an idea a friend had, and I'd like to follow up on it.

I'll be designing unique gingerbread homes for the holidays. Anybody with specific design requests can send a message on the contact page. Otherwise, I'll post some offerings up here as I develop them.

This combines two of my greatest loves: architecture and food!

It's time to molt! See Cinnamon on the far right? She's half bald, and just as it's starting to get cold out. Her sister Nutmeg, on the far left, is trailing behind in the molting process. Pepper already completed her feather renewal, and Sugar seems like she's not going to molt at all. Anyway, it looks like a brown feather tornado went through the chicken coop. We could stuff pillows with as many feathers as we got. Ok, well maybe one small pillow. It's a good thing feathers are degradable, anyway.

I've been thinking about our holiday picture this year. Last year I set the birds all in a row by the Christmas tree. This year they are older, and I doubt I'll get them to cooperate nearly as much. It seems like they freak out at the first sign of a camera these days. Plus, we have to get the kitty in on the whole holiday card deal this year. Don't ask me how.

Talking about Cinnamon's molt makes me think about business. The end of the year is approaching, and maybe it's a good time to renew some things around here. It's looking somewhat shabby now, but there are still lots of networking events going on this year. I'm trying to remain optimistic and follow daily advice by Ed Tseng. We do learn the most from failures, right? So while Cinnamon might be getting a lot of her new feathers plucked out by the other hens, she has no choice but to continue growing them, and soon I know she'll be completely renewed and soft and beautiful just like Pepper was when she molted. We have no choice but to persevere in the face of adversity. Only then will we be successful.

It's time for a SWOT analysis, and some other reflecting. Happy Holidays!

I saw this little guy on the deck when I came home from class yesterday. Well, actually he was pretty big. I've never seen a praying mantis before.

We've gotten all kinds of interesting bugs around the garden! First there was that walking stick on the kiwi plant in the spring. Then there was the giant potato worm thing. Later we found a giant potato worm thing that had been killed by a parasitic wasp which used the carcass as a nest. Now little Manty shows up.

The plan for next year's plantings is set. Our new planting bed is getting ready, too. We're using some German stick pile compost technique there. (which I can't find a link to right now) Basically, all the sticks we got from hacking down a few of the bushes from hell (viciously spiny shrubs) will become food for sweet potatoes by the spring.

I suppose it's time for some work. Have a good holiday.

of action, that is.

Yesterday I made a few suggestions to some friends for their office space, and they all loved it. It looks like they are going to move ahead with a small renovation based on some quick sketches I drew. Yay for them! I'm looking forward to walking in there and seeing a real professional space someday.

That's about the only plan of action I have going on besides a short class this afternoon. Then I'll make some renderings of my office suggestions for fun. I've also been playing around with my office management software, Collabtive. There is no user's manual, so it is trial and error. I'm using my little office "project" to figure things out.

Another thing on the schedule should be taking time out to develop a plan for mid and long term goals. I joined The Power Lunch Project this month, and so far my schedule seems doable with the exception of next Tuesday which clashes with classes.

At the same time, though, people have been making suggestions which I'm not sure how to deal with. This has the effect of me doubting my whole life, and I did enough of that when I was beginning my "transition" from my job at the engineering firm to wherever. I'd much rather just read a new book and soldier onward.

See, lots of people congratulate me for venturing out on my own. Then there are other "helpful" people saying I should apply to work at grocery stores, financial planning firms, department stores or for admission to other educational programs. As if I'm not good enough the way I am. The result of all these "helpful" ideas is I've fallen behind in my blogging, my reading and my networking.

This is not the time for this! I refuse to spend another holiday season feeling down about myself! Help!

I was just writing a post about The One-Straw Revolution, which somebody around here is reading and sharing insights from it with me. Before I rewrite everything, I just want to say you should go read it if you are into gardening.

The author was a very interesting man, and he had a lot of really neat ideas about doing less work and getting the same or better produce back. I realize now how much time I wasted staking up tomatoes and digging little holes in rows. We never got any dang carrots. And the tomatoes we got as a surprise under the apple tree did way better than the tomatoes I spent all that time on.

Those are the tomatoes that just popped up out of the compost. They're almost all perfect, and so darn cute too.

Okay, so I'm not rewriting the whole post I lost. It's just a bad technology day, and I have to live with it. Tomorrow will be better. Now it's time to go hang with the chickens.

Some weeks ago our neighbors across the street had a massive tree cut down. Chris talked to the tree service guys about getting some wood chips, but that tree had already been claimed by somebody else. Time went on, and we figured Smith Brothers had forgotten about our request for wood chips. See, they don't sell the trees they cut down for some reason. They don't even have a website! They just chop up what they can and leave the big chunks for later removal. But to my surprise when I left yesterday for class there was this big pile of wood chips in the parking area!

Here are the chickens enjoying just a little bit of the spoils. They are ecstatic! You can't tell from this angle, but they got a few bucketfuls of the chips less than an hour ago, and already there are deep holes dug in the pile. (You CAN tell how shaggy the fluffies are from their molt, though) We'll put more wood chips in the fluff cage tomorrow morning.

I'd say tonight, but it gets dark so darn early now! The chickens stopped sitting on the roof of their house for bedtime. And bedtime is now at like 6pm instead of 10:30pm. My! How the seasons change!

Anyway, we're glad they get some time to enjoy the new ground-cover today while we figure out what to do with the rest of the chips. I think we might use some chips for around the new blueberry bushes we got on sale for 5$ at Home Depot last week and all the other little bushes we planted earlier in the year. Then, I suppose we can put some chips on top of the leaves I mentioned the other day. And some can go in the compost bins to keep them from getting stinky - especially the kitty poo bin. (oh yes, we're using compostable kitty litter, and in a year or so it will be safe to use on trees, I am told.) Hopefully we'll get some fungus on the wood chips, and then when they break down it will attract worms to the garden. mmm...

Happy Friday!

We cut down most of the garden and put a nice thick layer of leaves on top. This is part of our lasagna gardening, or permaculture technique. I'm not exactly sure if the two are one in the same or distinct practices. Chris did the research on gardening techniques. I planned the space.

Anyway, there are a lot of people throwing out their leaves! It seems like such a trajedy to us because those leaves contain valuable nutrients that the trees have mined from deep under the ground for us. Why throw that away? Okay, perhaps in some municipalities the "yard waste" is collected and composted for the community to use later. But why not compost it ourselves? I have space. Then there is no need to use fossil fuels to transport the leaves back and forth.

"Yard waste" is such a sad term, too. If you call it waste, then you are destined to throw it away. It should be called something else. Call it mulch. That's a perfect name for what you would typically consider yard waste.

If you kept all your grass clippings in a compost box all summer long, and then threw that on top of your garden at the end of the growing season you would do so much better than bagging and throwing away. This is especially true if you do not use pesticides on your grass. If you're big into pesticides, then maybe it's not such a great idea. But when it comes to leaves dropped by your trees you could put that on your garden in the fall, and by spring they would have broken down enough to become part of your growing medium. I bet you don't spray pesticides on your trees unless you're a citrus farmer. So, why does everybody throw this valuable resource away? It would actually be easier in many cases to rake your leaves onto your garden beds instead of clumsily fumbling with big old bags.

This is something worth considering now if you haven't bagged your leaves already. If you have, and they're gone already, then next year think about being a bit lazier and not bagging them all up! You'll save time and money, your garden will thank you, and it will also help save the world by saving on bags and gas!

Small wonder the one time I am on my way to Princeton for something other than business I get into a car accident. The last few days have been challenging since Friday night's incident. My husband and I were going to a family function when we were rear-ended on the Route 1 northbound on-ramp from the PA turnpike. If you know the area you know what I'm talking about. This particular section of Route 1 is extremely dangerous, and it needs a lot of redesign. I hope somebody is on that. Luckily hubby and I are okay, but my car is not. As a small business person, this is quite a blow. I am so glad that my better half takes the regional rail to his job, and I can use his car for the next three weeks while mine gets repaired. I was still able to get to PhilaU and the "How To Have A Winning Mindset" presentation by Ed Tseng yesterday. I am now trying very hard to have a winning mindset about my car and occasional neck pain from the accident.

Where do even begin? There are tons of things to do, but not a lot of $$$ attached to the items on the list. I feel like its mostly okay because the projects I'm working on now will help in the future. Of course, that's not going to pay the mortgage in January!

Anywhoo, it's Friday. I built a little shelf for the cat to sit on in the window this morning. And he ignores it. It's just a little bit of wood with some brackets, and carpet is stapled to the whole thing. I think the cat got so freaked out by the stapling procedure that he won't go near the thing for days. sigh! Guess I should not have used the hammer type stapler, haha.

I stopped by a local CSA today. (It's the one on my route home from PhilaU) Now I'm all excited for spring. I can just imagine coming up with a little drawing for their future farm stand out on Henry Ave. They really need one, too. And it's not like it would be difficult to build... Whatever the case is, I hope they stay there for a good long time since they just got started.

And I was looking into the No Impact Project. I think it'd be really great to go and try to be even more of an environmental nut than we currently are. Seriously! I was looking at filling out the application earlier. The only thing I think we'd have a problem with is the transportation. It is very hilly around here, and I couldn't possibly bike my groceries home!

And of course there are more competitions to enter. Seems like I need somebody to go do all my networking for me, because I haven't gotten a single competition started! sad :( If I had any money to pay somebody to do it I would.

Oh, and I had a nice chat with an artist friend about websites the other day. I really hope she gets hers up and running so I can share her work with everyone. She really got the message of what I'm trying to accomplish with this little thing. Thank the Universe! Somebody understands! Although I'm still afraid to show her my painting I did for the living room. For some reason criticism on my architecture is fine, but on my art not so much. I guess its because I'm not really an artist.

When I get a little device to plug my camera's memory card into the new beast computer, I'll put a picture up so everybody can rip my painting to shreds. That'll make me feel better. hahaha.

For the rest of the evening though, we're going to a swanky party. So THERE!

Hello November!

It might be Monday, and close to the end of it at that, but I'm not in serious mode yet this week. Well, as far as business is concerned.

We were discussing candidates for tomorrow's election earlier. Yes, we actually do that around here. Turns out we plan to vote, whodathunkit? Up at the top of our criteria list was, you guessed it, support for environmental protection and related topics. This provided a lot of conversation. One of our state candidates actually has not only solar panels on her house, but a rain barrel and compost heap too! I'm totally voting for her.

Also, I wish we had this guy running for office around here because he's so entertaining. More power to the Rent 2 Damn High party!!

In other news, we messed around with the website a lot a few days ago. A whole bunch of pages were added to break up the monotony and help clarify what all goes on here. I'm not sure it actually does that, but it's looking a lot better. Although I am sad that our nifty headers got screwed up. Perhaps they'll get fixed sometime soon. The replacement headers are okay. Picking the best font was also quite a decision. Since we recently messed around with new fonts for business cards, it would've been awesome to find something that matches those... but alas, nothing was quite right. Another time for that too, perhaps.

Been playing around with a new project too! I am looking forward to getting a little bit of time to flesh it out.

This morning I was looking into Blender. It's a 3D modeling program... but I was looking into it because it also apparently does video editing, which is something I need but can't pay for. So open source to the rescue. However, it will have to wait until the holiday break because the UI is totally different from the programs we currently use. I am happy to see that it probably does all the stuff I would use 3ds Max for. I'm not sure about those snaps, and I don't have a numpad, but I'll not think about it for at least a month.

Frost appeared today for the first time as far as I know. The volunteer sweet potato that took up residence in the former squash patch did not like the frost in the least. I harvested as many raspberries as possible this morning. Yes, we still have raspberries coming, but that probably won't last much longer. I also picked some swiss chard, which seems unaffected by the weather. Kale is still going strong and threatening to take over the former pea patch. Whatever tomatoes we had are toast of course, but I got a bunch of tiny vine-on tomatoes on Sunday, um I mean yesterday. And we got no eggs today, so maybe the other three hens are molting finally. Pepper molted already, and she's amazingly soft. She also hasn't laid an egg in at least a month. But hey, as long as they continue to eat our leftovers it's all good. mmm, wheat bread crust and swiss chard stems. yummy. What am I saying, those are some of the most pampered chickens around.

I think that's all the topics for today. Just like our little office, it rambles around without making much sense... but hopefully it'll find its way...