Change the World Wednesday – 23rd Apr

Update

A month ago in my Monday Moaning I wrote of the plight of São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city.

They didn’t have water. The reservoirs that supply the city were down around the 30% mark.

Jaguari Dam – Responsible for 45% of Saõ Paulo’s water – image: Diario Central

A month later and the plight has become critical, the reservoirs have fallen to 11.9% of their capacity (last night’s news).

Now literally, they don’t have water.

The water company is pleading with people to save water, substantial discounts are being offered to those who reduce their usage by 20% from their previous average, those who use more than their previous average will be fined heavily.

Don’t say, “But that can’t happen here!” Because it is happening! NOW!

In some areas of the world the water situation has become serious, it’s up to you to see it doesn’t get worse.

Back to our regular programme…

The problem with rabbit food is that one good fart and I’m hungry again

The BIG question!

Did I go vegan for a day? The answer is no… I did two days. Nothing fancy, just simple salads and a home made garlic and herb vinaigrette.

I did it this time just to show you I could, normally I don’t plan them, they just happen, and normally they are more vegetarian than vegan; I do like eggs and cheese with my salad.

In my perambulations for last week’s post, I did fine this. Grateable and meltable vegan cheese on Bunny Kitchen. Just thought I’d say.

Without this fellow and his ilk, there wouldn’t be life on the planet

 Bees…

Yes, this week’s CTWW is about bees.

Click the banner for the full post

We’ve all heard that Bee populations are declining. Since bees pollinate the majority of our food crops, worldwide, their decline is a cause for great concern. Why are they in trouble? Research points to GMO agriculture and the use of pesticides. It’s time to take action! Here’s your challenge …

This week, take action to protect honey bees. Please choose at least one action from the following list:

• Plant at least one native, flowering plant in your yard. Avoid hybrid plants … they don’t produce enough nectar or pollen and are useless to bees and other pollinators.
• Plant a vegetable garden.
• Let pests live (natural pest controllers, like Lady Bugs, need them for food).
• Keep your lawn and garden pesticide-free.
• Eliminate chemicals in your home.
• Provide a year-round, clean source of water for bees (rainwater collection, a small garden water feature, bird bath, etc.).
• Leave some dead trees or plants in your yard … bees will nest in them. Or, place a bee house in your garden.
• Buy organic food.
• Take up beekeeping.

Well, let’s see how I stack up with that lot.

Attracts big black bees in the late afternoon. Honey bees are too small to pollinate these

My most prolific flower is the passion fruit; I currently have three that I am training along the house, fence and garage, and more in the plantling stage, three in the ground and about twenty saplings in a planter as standbys.

I have a few tomatoes and garlic around, mainly I have herbs and fruit.

The gulf fritillery caterpillars must be destroyed, or they eat the passion fruit vines to death. Other than that, insects are free to roam.

My lawn is pesticide free, in fact, my lawn is lawn free… I don’t have one.

We talked about harmful chemicals a couple of weeks ago. I am experimenting with orange and vinegar air freshener so that I have one less chemical.

Aedes aegypti plays Dengue once you’re sick, dengue twice you’re dead

Now the water feature here is a no – no.

Standing water is used by the Aedes aegypti mosquito to produce larvae, Aedes aegypti is the source of dengue fever, which is deadly, and seriously prolific here in many city areas.

Yes, lots of dead material around here, but not enough for natural beehives.

Buy organic, when I can.

Oh, the neighbours would be up in arms if I did that. My area is urban, the houses very close together. The authorities would pounce with a heavy pounce.

Well, there’s my summary.

Change the World Wednesday – 6th Nov

Running late again, it has not been a good day. Read Well, Bugger Me! to find out why.

Nothing really to add to last week’s post, and not much has happened since then.

Although this week is not a beefless week, I had a wonderful pork leg chop the size of a dinner plate for a BBQ lunch at home, BBQed the potatoes in their jackets as well.

Let’s get on with this week’s CTWW.

Click on the banner for the full post

This week invite someone to join you in a green activity. Need some ideas? Invite a friend to go for a walk … and perhaps pick up litter as you go. Ask a family member to help you plan and cook a meatless meal. Swap clothes, tools, books, etc., with a neighbor. Start a “green club” with your friends and meet occasionally to share green tips and ideas. Host an Eco-friendly cleaning party at a friend’s home. Do laundry together … or join forces to rake up leaves. Be creative and have fun. The idea, here, is to share an experience so that a green activity which you care about will become important to someone else as well.

 

OR …

If sharing an activity isn’t really your thing, then please share your passion by writing a post about a favorite green activity.

I don’t really have friends whom I could invite for this type of activity, although when my kids are over for a BBQ, I do get them to help keep the area that we use in the park tidy, and see that we don’t leave any rubbish. They know full well, my views on litter, and do help. We tend to leave the area tidier than when we arrived.

So, I am going to affirm my passion for gardening and preserving produce; that would have to be my favourite green and healthy activity, albeit in modest proportions now that I don’t have a garden as such, just many buckets and paint tins with plants.

My best year was the first in this house. I had passion fruit growing up the side of my neighbour’s house.

With beautiful big fruit.

And lovely flowers.

I also had tomatoes.

Things like chili peppers and cayenne peppers get bottled in olive oil and I now have a pot with a healthy growth of parsley, which gets used often in the kitchen. Then there are my two goiaba (guava) trees, the acerola and pineapple.

My ‘garden’ isn’t big enough to grow beetroot, onions nor cabbage, but I buy them when they are cheap and pickle them as well.

So, yes, gardening and preserves would have to be my favourite green activity.

Change the World Wednesday – 5th Dec

I still can’t do it.

CTWW is like a craving.

Small Footprints is still on her hiatus

This week, it’s just a little post, an update on my passion fruit.

Passion fruit growing alongside the house

Update: I forgot to add this text…

A bezerra (big black bee) pollinating a passion fruit flower in my yard. These bees are necessary because of their size, as they are getting the nectar, the pollen brushes off on their backs, and hence taken to the next flower where their backs rub against the stamen and deposits the pollen.

That’s it. Satisfied my craving. I know the photo is terrible, it was worse until I attacked it and altered the colours, etc.

I got dobbed

I didn’t have a post planned for here today, and I haven’t yet found anything satirish enough to make the grade.

The Sunshine Award

And, lo and behold, I awake after my customary morning nap and there in the mail box is a ray of sunshine.

I got dobbed, ah nominated for a Sunshine Award.

Our Tiny Earth, who is the culprit, ah the nominator says this, “I am nominating you for the Sunshine Award. Your blog inspires me to keep on”

I am an inspiration.

I am suitably humbled, which is inversely measured by my cynicism and stoic superciliousness. I always do this when I am faced with embarrassing situations, it’s a defence mechanism.

The acceptance of this award is, of course, binding on certain rules; tasks, if you like.

The Rules:

1. If you are nominated, you must blog a post linking back to the person/blog that nominated you.

Done √

2. You must answer some questions, nominate ten fellow bloggers and link their blogs to the post!

Done √

3. You should comment on your nominees’ blogs to let them know you’ve nominated them.

Done – sort of √

So, here are the questions:

1. Who is your favorite philosopher?

Does one have a ‘favourite’ philosopher? My life has been measured by an amalgam of philosophers, ancient and contemporary. To say that one was a ‘favourite’ would be to demean the contributions of the others. George Carlin would have to have been the bluntest; he didn’t call a spade a spade, he called it a f***ing shovel!

2. What is your favorite number?

12, because that’s the number of children that I have sired and/or raised beneath my roof and will carry my legacy into the future.

Lixo P. Cat

3. What is your favorite animal?

Cat, I was raised with one in the bassinet. Ironically, my current moggy is the mirror image of him, a ginger tabby named Lixo. Lixo is Portuguese for rubbish, I named him that after he was dumped from a car in our local praça like a piece of rubbish as a kitten. Sometimes, in moments of endearment when he does that cat-thing and stops in front of you when you are walking I called him Fluffy Nuts, simply because he has.

4. What are your Facebook and Twitter URLs?

Twitter:  @whopaysthepiper  Facebook – I don’t FB

5. What is your favorite time of the day?

Any part of the day that involves coffee, or appropriately beer (after the sun has topped the yardarm).

6. What was your favorite vacation?

The year I planned to spend in Europe in 1992. On my way to Madrid, I stopped over in Rio de Janeiro for ten days and have never left. I never got to Europe. Living for twenty years in the 3rd World has shown me that life can be a vacation; something you’ll never realise living in the 1st World.

7. What is your favorite physical activity?

Walking, although the last three years it has involved a walking stick, so I should say, a fast hobble.

8. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink?

Iced tea, or Iced coffee, followed by apple juice.

The passion fruit flower

9. What is your favourite flower?

Passion Fruit. One of the most intricate flowers that exist.

10. What is your passion?

Life and its indelible imprint.

10 Deserving Blogs.

Now this is where, I have a problem.

My reply to OTE’s comment advising me of this nomination was, “sadly I will have to think seriously about the 10 bloggers, the last time I did a meme of this nature, not one of my nominees participated leaving me disappointed and disillusioned with the practice. I vowed not to participate further. I have noted a distinct change to the nature of bloggers since I moved to WordPress; Blogspot bloggers were always guaranteed participants. But I thank you for the opportunity; it’s not my intention to demean the gesture.”

I have participated, because I think it would be priggish of me not to do so in light of the generous nature of the award.

The one bloggerette that springs to mind, one that has inspired me, and inspired the creation of this blog, Small Footprints, has already been nominated. I single her out as my inspiration to things ‘green.’ That is not to belittle the efforts of many others.

I would like to throw the award open and invite the bloggers I have linked on my side bar to consider themselves worthy of this handsome award. If I didn’t think them worthy, they wouldn’t be linked. Proof of the pudding, etc. The rules apply, of course.