Green Rascal Design

 

Happy St. Patty's

03/09/2012

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So it's March! It has been pretty warm around here, and the chickens have been laying eggs like there's no tomorrow. We weren't expecting it, but are happy to report that Pepper has laid two brown eggs in the last 3 days! This means she wasn't totally broken by last summer's heat wave that ended her season prematurely! The Marans breed isn't the best for egg production, so it would've been fine with us if she never laid another one. But I am just so happy to have a couple brown eggs!
Now we're in garden prep mode. Have been for a while. The beds are anxiously waiting the first seeds. Traditionally St Patty's Day is when you plant peas, and they're the first seeds we would be putting out. Except it has been so warm that we broadcast some white clover seeds in some bare spots around the yard already. The trick will be to keep the chickens away from them until they sprout. I was not expecting the birds to want such tiny seeds, but they do. sigh!

This weekend is the annual borough St Patty's Day parade. It's a big deal 'round these parts. I had no idea bagpipes were SO popular! And there are also a lot of little girls involved in traditional Irish dance. (forgive me for not knowing what that's called and being too lazy to look it up!) Anyway, to celebrate we hope to have a new batch of mead done. We made a strawberry mead and also an apple mead. Hopefully one will be Irish enough for the holiday. (I could just dye the apple mead green...)

Besides the St Patty's traditional pea planting and beer drinking, I've been very busy networking. Just the other day I met someone from the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. This, less than a week after hearing this talk from the founder of Double Brook Farm, and our participation in the Plymouth Whitemarsh EcoFest later that night. It has been a great week for Green!!

Oh! And this week I was featured on Eggzy's blog. They started a new series called Featured Flock Owner. Check it out!
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My Favorite Childhood Fragrance

02/14/2012

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When I was a little kid, one of my best friends had a big hedge of lilacs at her house. We played in her backyard a lot. Those were the days! I liked the lilacs so much that we tried to grow one at mom's house, but it never blossomed.

Years later, when I had my first architecture job just after high school, my boss would send me on errands around the Twin Cities. I enjoyed those trips because it got me out of the office and I got to see our project sites. Close to the office was a hedge of lilacs on a busy side street, and in the summer it was the best spot to drive through with the windows open. I took that route as often as possible.
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Eggs Over Medium

02/10/2012

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Suddenly the chickens are in full egg production mode. It seems like the little windows we put in their new house were quite appreciated on cold mornings when we've kept them inside until after breakky... and the warm weather has allowed their door to be open much earlier for most of the year so far...

In the last week of January we slowly started accumulating eggs. I think this is about a month ahead of last year! Now on the 10th day of February we have gotten 31 eggs since they started laying on 1-25-12. Our cost per egg is under $1 for the first time in two and a half months, and it seems that soon I'll have to start selling them.

By the way, if you're interested in buying:
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Things Mom Did That Made Me Go Hmmmm....

01/31/2012

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My grandparents waited a long time before my mom and dad came along. Their lives were very difficult, and most of them were long gone before Mom and Dad had me. So the theme of today's blogoff, "My grandmother always said..." strikes me a different way... My only surviving genetic grandparent was very ill when I knew him, and I don't think he spoke English at the time.

So there were things that Mom did that I thought were a bit strange.
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Small Updates

01/24/2012

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We've been making some small changes around here; I dunno if you noticed.

First there is the Drawing Board. It's something I decided to toy with after seeing it on another blogger's site. Basically it is an accountability group for gettin' stuff done. Everyone's workload is different, so no judgements!

Then there are the Rascal's friends, who we decided to add there on the right hand side for anybody who wants to know about the kind of people we scratch and peck with all the time.

We've also gone into garden arts professionally. So I'm working on how to word that and get it up in the services list. The services list needs an overhaul.

That's about all that we're working "On the business." I better get back to working "In the business," and crash on my AZ house plans. Yay!
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The Hands of Time

01/17/2012

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I feel like I'm about to step into an old Cher song or Days of Our Lives or something, but today's blogoff seemed like a worthy topic despite my serious lack of said time today. The editors simply asked "What would you change if you could turn back time?"

There are lots of things I can think of that are regrettable in my past, but when I think about going back and changing them I realize that any change I made would alter myself as I am. And I like myself as I am. (Even though I have serious flaws, my mom says everybody has always been totally impressed with me, but she's my mom.) But I would like to have been less sensitive as a young person.

Being a highly sensitive person causes a lot of problems. My family has struggled with this condition as long as I can remember, or so my mom tells me. It has lead to a lot of anguish over such insignificant things that you would probably find it laughable. If I wasn't such a sensitive person I'd laugh too! But anyway, that is the one thing I wish I could go back and change.

I would go back to when I was 6 and sitting on the steps outside my house crying because I "had no friends," or "nobody likes me," and put an arm around my shoulder and say something to make me feel better. No idea what that might sound like... But I was always upset because kids were mean and I cried easily so they found it amusing to pick on me. Of course my mom tried to help, but...

Maybe I'd have to go back farther and somehow change whatever gene controls hyper-sensitivity somehow. Being not a scientist, I'm not sure how that would work. But if that would have made the difference between being timid and normal, I think I'd do it. Now, naturally, things are better. But I could do without such things as "call reluctance," "holiday depression," "post-holiday stress disorder," low self-esteem, and being easily overwhelmed...

I wonder what everybody else would change:
Thanks for reading, and you guys rock!
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Garden Resources

01/10/2012

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We're making a small addition to the Green Rascal Design list of services. Over the weekend we went around our little borough and plastered some fliers on power poles - strategically placed where 1) lots of people pass by or 2) some edible plants would be a nice addition to a yard. Yes, we're on a mission to help people in our neighborhood grow their own food.

Everyone always says they don't have time to garden and it's so much work. Even after we've gone through the calculations to show how worthwhile it is from a financial standpoint to garden, I still get this complaint. So today I'll try and provide some resources...
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High Expectations

01/03/2012

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Happy New Year!

I haven't done a blog off post in a while, but I'm back! I'm really interested in what 2012 has in store. The Green Rascal has seen some good luck in recent weeks. Every time I talk about the work we do here I seem to win a door prize. It's awesome. Even as I write this I'm enjoying one of them. It's a massage pad with heat. I put it on my office chair, and even without the heat portion it's way warmer at my desk! I've also won a floral arrangement and a membership to Philly Barter or Barter Philly, and 1$ on a scratch-off Christmas gift.

So I expect 2012 to be awesome.

Architecture seems to be coming back a little bit. (just as I was about to post my "Missing: Profession of Architecture" flier from Coffee with an Architect) I posted my first Green Rascal flier at a local cafe where I like to meet people. And the universe seems to be smiling at anything Green Rascal related. Everyone loves the business cards. Everyone loves the idea of living greener and growing their own food, etc. Everyone loves the chickens and their eggs. I'm really hoping this keeps going!

My networking group, 422 ARCH, is having its first happy hour of the year at Rock Bottom (Brewery). There's nowhere to go but up! 422 has been doing really well for a little meetup group. We routinely get around 20 people at our events. Some are regulars and some are new. I expect this to continue. We've got lots of fun ideas for places to get together and chillax with building pros.

I haven't been teaching lately, but perhaps there are other ways to pass on knowledge. I have been thinking more and more about this, and perhaps in 2012 I'll put some of that into action!

The garden is doing awesome. We expect large amounts of fruit to harvest this year, assuming the weather is at least survivable. Everything we have planted seems to be doing really really well despite all the wackiness of 2011. We got 50+ pounds of tomatoes when our farmer at the CSA was lamenting how all their tomatoes died. That's just one example. We're thinking that we will save hundreds of dollars on certain foods this year - and well into the future also because we plan on planting even more!

Savings are up. We still haven't felt the need to turn on the oil burner. The oil company backed down and gave us a break on our monthly bill.

The only thing that isn't bright and shiny is the student loan thing. I could really use a break when it comes to the student loans. They are the only thing holding me back at this point.

But with all this other good stuff going on, I have nothing but good vibrations for the new year! Rock on!
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Fermentation Experimentation

12/30/2011

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I mentioned quite a while ago here that we harvested too many berries and had started making raspberry vodka and strawberry wine. Well we recently broke out the wine for my big birthday bash.
strawberry wine
our first real taste of the strawberry wine
For our first attempt it is not bad. It has a funny after-taste which can be attributed to a couple different things.
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Nature vs Wall St.

12/28/2011

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Today my better half, Chris, decided he wanted to share some insights about how good of an investment fruits and vegetables are. I've already shared some of these ideas, but hubby's take on things is a bit more monetary and might appeal to you if you're one of those 'show me the money' peeps.

A note on Chris; he's an IT nerd with a love for investing. With his brother he started and ran a small hedge fund for several years, investing money for their family and several friends and doing quite well until the market tanked in '08. Since then his more conservative investing has nearly made back all of what the hedge fund lost. So his understanding of ROIs is pretty good, I think. Without further adieu:

_A good return on your investment is usually between 10%-15%.  Nature laughs at these returns.  In the following paragraphs I will examine the kinds of returns on investment that investors in nature can expect these days. 
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