Change the World Wednesday – 30th Oct

My pineapple flower

Cloro’s dirt box is outside permanently now. She’s being a good girl.

The worst smell in the kitchen now is freshly brewed morning coffee.

My success story. I mentioned the other week that a pineapple top I had tried to grow looked dead, actually it was knocked over by Cloro. I yanked it out and threw it on the compost heap where it took root and has now the beginnings of a flower. I have grown many pineapples like this as decoration, but never had one flower before, so I am quite pleased. It may even fruit, what a bonus.

My chili peppers have had their third harvest and the jar is now full. I also picked the first of my cayenne peppers and got one full jar. All steeped in olive oil, they are ready for Christmas gifts.

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This weeks CTWW is a little different.

This week, perform a random act of green. Similar to a random act of kindness, the idea is to help the planet by looking for Eco-friendly opportunities which may present themselves as you go through your day. This could be picking up trash while you walk or helping an elderly neighbor bring their recycling bin to the curb for pickup. Maybe you turn off a light which was left on, offer to carpool to save gas, or share local produce with a friend. Perhaps buy a reusable bag or bottle for someone or invite a neighbor to share a vegan meal. The possibilities are endless!

Now that we have Coletiva Seletiva (recyclable rubbish collection) once a week, I am considering all the rubbish that I throw our and whether it is appropriate for the weekly collection. I started with my sparking mineral water bottles and glass, now I am adding cardboard and paper and other plastics. My trice-weekly ‘normal’ rubbish has been reduced a lot. I pick up the trash on the street in front of my house and the cans and other is added to mine rather than put it in the street bins around the park so that it also gets the benefit of recycled rubbish.

So while am limited by my lack of mobility, I do little bits and they all add up.

 

Change the World Wednesday – 21st Aug

I don’t need one of these, I have a bladder

*Looks at clock* 2am!

I am insane, yes this week I needed an early morning pee, earlier than normal.

One of the problems of getting old, your bladder loses it’s clock function.

So one tends be up at all hours, bladders don’t have any respect.

It’s a good thing my split days have finished, so I get to sleep in when & where. Time is again mine.

I had another sign that I am not getting any younger. Saturday night, I got dizzy lost my balance, and again more seriously on Sunday morning. My neighbours took me to a local medical centre where I got a jab in the bum and some pills and told to rest.

What’s this ‘rest’ thing? Teachers don’t just ‘rest’. If teachers just ‘rested’ whenever they wanted, the world would come to an end. I went to work Monday night, dopey but I managed to teach without falling into an undignified anamorphic heap on the floor. Although, I nearly did last night because my pill taking got out of kilter with my teaching times. Lesson learned; take pills to work.

Last week, I wrote about my modest garden and preserving. I snapped a few photos for you.

Tomatoes are ripening

Already eaten one, made two lovely salad rolls, another is in the vege stand and I am looking forward to making a little ketchup.

You can’t see them, but there are little peppers growing

Just look at all those little white flowers, each one will become a robust red cayenne pepper.

Modest at the moment

But I have already plucked and used some of my parsley.

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Let’s get on with this week’s CTWW.

Canceling Subscriptions.

Cancel magazine subscriptions. Instead, read magazines online or at the library. Have any old publications sitting around your home? Donate them to libraries, medical/dental offices or recycle them.

 

OR …

If you don’t subscribe to any publications, get your name off catalog and junk-mail lists. Check out Catalog Choice, National Do Not Mail List or contact companies and ask that they remove your name from their mailing list or ADD your name to their “do not mail” list (whichever they use).

Okay, well, this one is easy. I don’t have magazine or newspaper subscriptions. ALL my reading is via the net. I work on the basis that if it’s not on the net, it’s not worth knowing.

I don’t get junk mail from companies, that’s rare in Brazil, but we do get little fliers (A6 size stuff usually). If they are on plain paper, they get tossed on the compost as I walk past (‘ashes to ashes’ theory); if they’re glossy, they go in the rubbish; if they are bigger supermarket fliers, they go back to the supermarket.

Problem solved, challenge met!

The world still needs real books

I do like books, though. If I had access to books in English, I would buy them (secondhand). I just love the feel and the smell of paper. I have read one novel on the net, and didn’t like the experience; there is something cosy about curling up with a book in bed for that twenty minutes before lights out. Laptops, etc, just don’t cut the mustard, they’re not comforting like a real book.

Just a language note here. I mentioned “books in English”, I can read books in Portuguese and Spanish, but because they’re not my first language and I don’t have the same intimacy in the other languages despite being proficient in both.

The world does need books. Electronic means for recreational purposes is just too stark and sterile for an old romantic.

Change the World Wednesday – 14th Aug

Thought for the Day

I didn’t need a pee this week, well at least not in the middle of the night, so my CTWW post is running late.

I am still on split days, and that plays havoc with my timetable as well, not to mention my sanity.

The new stove is wonderful, able to cook real meals at last, instead of one-pot-wonders.

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On with this week’s CTWW.

This week preserve local produce. This could be large scale (e.g. canning fruits and vegetables) … or simply freezing some herbs. You might want to dehydrate fruit for healthy snacks, make a small batch of freezer jam or shell some peas for the freezer. Canning, freezing, dehydrating, curing, pickling, etc. … the choice is yours. The goal is to preserve local produce, perhaps from your own garden, for use in the winter.

 

OR …

If you are experiencing winter instead of summer and don’t have fresh produce to preserve, please prepare at least one meal this week using local foods. This might include items preserved from last summer’s harvest, canned goods sold by local farmers, etc.

This challenge is sort of a rolling one for me. I am always doing bits and pieces, whether from my humble gardening efforts or produce from the supermarket or sacolão.

I’ll soon have my own tomatoes, I noticed the first is beginning to turn orange this morning. So apart from tomatoes to cook with, I’ll have a few left over to turn into homemade ketchup; one more product that I won’t have to buy.

I have finally succeeded in getting curly-leafed parsley to grow from seed after two failed attempts. Here in Brazil they use flat-leaf parsley, which I find rather bland. But next week I’ll be able to pick my first bunch of real parsley.

Cayenne Peppers

My cayenne peppers are doing well, and I will have four bushes to pick from, so there will be lots of pepper preserved in olive oil. I bottle far more than I can use, but they make great presents for friends.

Must away, make like the pigeons and flock off. I have classes to teach.