The World Outside

Watching birds next to the solar lights

 As I stare at the page and then out in my garden, nothing comes out. But I do see nature all around me. Trees, rain drops falling off the leaves after an evening storm, flowers bright with some color and vibrant green leaves dropping down from the weight of heavy rains. The sound of birds echo in the air, some flying down and then quickly expanding their wings to take flight.



Today I had plans to write about one topic, but as I sit here surrounded by a world in which I only play a small part, I am reminded that I spend so much time racing through the day, I don’t or in some cases am not willing to take the time to stop, look and listen.












It is in this stillness that I find inner power and creativity. It is also in this stillness that I am faced with my fears. The moment feels like a blank slate. Finding that time to be still continues to be a challenge for me. Even to stop walking and just stand there, my urge is to continuously move forward. To think of the next thing, and the next and the next.

I am just a small piece of the puzzle of life going on all around me. It envelops me and holds me close, it become a bubble. The thunder just sounded and that means more rain to come. The sky is slowly shifting blues. I must now return to my daily to day schedule of work, family and activities. I want to sit here and watch the world go on all around me. This is the place I feel connected. Empowerment is connection. Connection to your being, and then to the world around you.

My outside work space

Sustainability: The Little Things

Garbage, garbage, garbage garbage, garbage everywhere. There’s garbage on the streets and garbage in your hair. Garbage, garbage, garbage garbage, now what shall we do? Just throw it away, throw it away, throw it away...and have a nice day!

I have faint memories of my elementary school days, but I distinctly remember being in a musical on the environment. In this musical, I was one of the townspeople singing those lyrics. I don’t remember the rest of the song or even what the musical was, but those lyrics and the melody have latched on to my memory decades after the play ended.

I remember being fascinated about how trees take bad air and make it healthy air. The memory of the images of trees swallowing up dense fog implanted in my mind.

As a child I always loved nature and learning how nature can help make the environment better, long before I understood what sustainability was. As the years went by however, the importance remained in my mind, but my day to day habits were a reflection of the townsperson I played in my elementary school musical.

I never set a true intention, creating sustainability actions within my day to day was a passing forethought. If the resources and tools were available then I would use them, if not then I did not seek them out or create them.

My love of nature and aesthetics that I had as a child has reemerged. As a child, I used to watch bees and birds, insects and animals as they went about their day. I took great care to just observe how they interacted with the environment. I would walk around my grandmother's garden and soak up knowledge that I never learned in school.

Now many years later, with the intent of being aware of how I use the products of my environment, I have started to make consistent changes that help both nature but also focus on sustainability of the environment as a whole.

Like starting a diet, it began with awareness of what I was currently doing and why I was doing it. Once I became more aware, I found little things that I could begin to do to further my goals. I continue to learn and find new methods to create change in protecting the environment.

My road to the little things...
Learning to compost
Using my recycling bin
Creating a separate space in the kitchen/home for recycling
Being conscious about the vehicle I drive
Modifying my energy use
Gardening

I challenge you to look at your surroundings and think of the little things that you do to make a change to the world. If none come to mind, I welcome you to follow me through my journey, to hopefully inspire you to create your own list of “little things.”

Strong Roots

Driving down my street and looking on the internet at all the perfectly manicured gardens, I realized that emulation of perfection was not, is not who I am, nor what I want for my yard…I wanted to make something creative from my “yard reality”. So I tapped into resources from the internet and word of mouth to turn my reality into something magical…on a budget…of course. As I journey through this garden odyssey, a few helpful things that I am learning in my travels are: 1. If you can get past the perfection of Pinterest and hone in on those who make imperfection perfection, there lies a pot of gold ridden information, pictures and step by step instructions on anything you can think of trying in your yard. 2. Speaking of yard, if you can’t grow grass in your yard. DON’T TRY TO! Grow something else and fill in the rest with rocks, mulch or some other ground cover. Or better yet, build something on it if you can. I learned that my yard can’t be something its not…ok it can be if I was willing to write a large check, but seriously, that would be difficult to swallow. My yard on one side can’t grow grass…ok breathe…that’s fine…you will live…move on to Plan B.

3. A plant in the clearance section if appropriately chosen is just waiting for your loving care, in return it will bless you with a wonderful garden at a substantial savings. Case in point, the beautiful flowers that I purchased at all most next to nothing needed nothing more than simple pruning and some sunlight. Now key word is to make sure you don’t pick a dead one…dead is just dead…unless it is a perennial and then….ok lets save that for the next post.

4. Learn to ask questions, lots of them, from all gardeners and then realize that you will be told different things by different people, so it pays to verify by doing a little research of your own. I learned that as I became older I asked fewer questions. Now I realize children may be the best examples of this after all, as long as I don’t verge on annoyance, I have learned so much by just asking good questions. In some cases even off the wall questions. 5. Discount nursery’s will save you tons of cash and I have saved a lot this season using them, but they will not be your go to help desk guides, so save your pennies and go to a real nursery buy a plant or two that you love and ask them tons of questions! 6. Before planting, know how the sun moves on your property. I didn’t, and now I have a wildflower box with wildflower seeds that are slowly making their way into the world. I am waiting for the yard to get full sun so more seeds can make their glorious debut but I take joy in the small victories.

7. I am a buy and plant and then figure it out person, but now that I am working on larger sections of the yard, it really does pay off to plan your planting. Most importantly, I have learned to use my resources, the internet, friends, family, people on the street…no seriously… if you tell people you are gardening, perfect strangers off the street really do want to give you their opinions. Gardening for me has been a lesson in pivoting. The ability to take a plant, put care and work into it and watch it completely just die over a matter of weeks (ok days!). Learning how to diagnose when I can and fix the problem or when to let the plant pass on and learn or the most difficult realize I had no idea what happened and just move on. It’s those life lessons I learn through my plants that actually help give me stronger roots and grow.

Blooming Season

I had a wonderful experience exploring the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Gainesville Georgia this past weekend. Walking through each section of the garden I noticed that the designers blended the looks of wild meadows along with ornamental gardens. I personally enjoyed taking photos of the spring time growth. It reminded me that this is the time of the year when the garden is taking shape. In many parts, the look of the area had not yet revealed itself to the eye. Flowers were in mid bloom or had just begun budding. It is a time of new beginnings, a time for the flowers to flourish in the spring sun or peek their leaves out of the rich earth to begin their ascent towards the rich sunshine. Although this past week brought our area more rain that I thought my flowers could handle, it has really allowed both my garden and the garden in Gainesville to really flesh out. The rain will bear the fruit of wonderful blooms and strong plants emerging over the next week especially during the upcoming warmer week. So I have been using this time for maintenance and preparation. In my garden I have laid the basic foundation and although I have more that I could always do, I learned from the Gainesville garden that giving the garden some time to breathe and flesh itself out so that it can reveal itself to you will bring a richness to my plants. I have been doing light maintenance to ensure that the basic needs are met. I have also been stepping in for any emergencies (such as my 911 merigold fungus root rot that required immediate removal of the flowers before the infection spread) but in most cases, hands off. It requires a big lesson in patience and self control. The flowers are waiting to not only reveal their true splendor but also mine as well.