Change the World Wednesday – 24th Sep

This past week I have resolved to spend more time outdoors; just being with nature. Listening to the world around us was a recent CTWW challenge. Each day I have set aside 15 -30 minutes to walk around our praça (park) and then to just sit and observe.

For example a few days ago before we had a two-day cold snap, the air was full of dragon/damsel flies (I couldn’t tell which while they were on the wing) fascinating, I have never seen a swarm like it before.

We have a beautiful tree in the middle, it was in flower.

I have no idea what sort of tree it is. It’s just nice.

Following comments, I discovered it was probably an acacia tree.

So many people today are in such a rush, their lives are stressful, they don’t have a moment to stop and enjoy what is around them. I find it so peaceful to just sit and observe.

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There isn’t a CTWW challenge this week.

Small has done a bunk.

I suspect it is for good reason. So she has left us freelance and will be back on 8th Oct.

Until then, please continue with last week’s challenge, choose a challenge from THIS PAGE, create your own challenge, or … take a break!

There’s heaps of ideas in her list of past challenges, but this week, I am not going to rummage through it. I’ll prepare something for next week.

In the meantime I am going to claim that my resolution above is my answer and post for this week. Make it a daily ritual to take time out, get off my chuff and get outside. My life is mainly sedentary, due to my need to use a walking stick for security to walk longer distances; whereas around the praça I don’t need it. I work on the basis that if I fall over, the locals know where I live and will get me home.

Nigris and makimonos

Actually, there is an extension to the freelance nature of the challenge. This week I have decided to learn how to make sushi. I love sushi, I can’t always afford sushi, so I am going to make sushi at home.

I am a chef, but sushi has not previously been a part of my repetoire.

I am quite familiar with the eating aspect of of sushi and therefore know many of the terms, but research googling over the last week has enhanced my knowledge.

Did you know that the term sushi doesn’t actually refer to the fish, it means the vinegared rice used in the art. Many people wrongly call nigris, sushi.

This morning I am going exploring. A student from last night’s group told me of a shop where the makings and accoutrement for sushi are cheaper than the locally recognised oriental supply store.

California roll

Now there are two reasons why I mention my sushi making endeavour here.

Firstly, I am looking at making more vegetarian type things, makimonos with fruit and vegetables, mostly called California rolls. California rolls generally have kani (a processed crab meat stick) in them. I don’t like that stuff, I am dubious about the contents; a bit like ‘pink slime’.

So I am going to steer away from the processed aspects of making sushi.

Secondly, I am going to look at making my sushi techniques as green as possible.

I doubt whether my first attempts will look as glamorous as these photos, but they say practice makes perfect.

So there you have it. I have two answers to the CTWW challenge this week.

See you all next week.

Change the World Wednesday – 27th Aug

The reputation

I am pleased to report, Montezuma has had his revenge and gone back to Mexico. Not sure if he’s actually from Mexico, but I have always made the connection… maybe that’s the influence of Taco Bell’s reputation.

I have been testing my water by boiling, it’s okay to drink, so I have stopped buying my water.

Birthday week BBQs planned for Friday and Saturday, trying to do it green.

So far I have homemade pickled onions and beetroot. Today looks like it will be the day (no sun) to make chimichurri and sauerkraut. Cheaper and greener than buying.

I still have serving problem for Saturday. I don’t have many plates or eating tools.

Made two jars of pickled beetroot on Monday

It’s going to be a busy week.

But it’s fun to do it once a year.

Friday BBQ at the bar, and Saturday for the family.

Onward, this week’s CTWW is about listening.

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This week, spend 15 minutes listening to the sounds in your area. You may wish to sit quietly in your home or out in nature. Perhaps you want to find out what noises you hear in a shopping mall or on a busy street. As you listen, try to hear the sounds of nature. Can you hear them or are they drowned out by man-made noise? The idea, this week, is to simply listen and identify sounds.

Our praça is not a very quiet place, we have quite a bit of traffic, and the kids playground is in front of the house, so any wildlife is scared away. There is also a casarão (big house) being built on the side street, alot of construction noise from that. I have a fox terrier, Mary Jane, on one side and another dog on the right, at times it’s dogs in stereo.

So we suffer from urban noise pollution.

A dead bat in the praça yesterday

But we do have some birds and bats.

One of them died and finished up in the rubbish collection. It’s the first time I have seen on of them apart from flitting through the trees at dusk.

The most common bird is the bem-ti-vi (great kiskadee – Pitangus sulphuratus) with it’s distinctive call, hence its name. Bem-ti-vi means nice-to-see-you.

Bem-ti-vi

Another common visitor to the praça is this little brown and white fellow.

Viuvinha – Arundicola leucocephala

Don’t know the name of this one. (see update)

We also have hummingbirds, and yesterday I heard parrots screeching overhead which is rare.

But I often sit in the praça just to observe, observing includes listening.

Very relaxing, and a pasttime that I recommend.

UPDATE

The bird is a freirinha (little nun) Arundicola leucocephala or viuvinha (little widow), goes by both names.

Having a beer at the botequim (bar) is educational.

Here’s a photo of our praça

Our praça from the playground in front of my gate

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Change the World Wednesday – 25th Jun

Goiaba branca

My first goiaba branca (white guava).

The tree only produced two, but it was late in its first season. I am hopeful for next summer.

White guava are less flavoured than the traditional pinky ones, and they have a short window between ripe and rotten.

Ate it for breakfast this morning.

As for my ‘normal’ guava, I am eating them daily as they ripen.

Exciting news!

My bricks

I have a new brick.

You may remember from a few CTWWs back that I have bricks in my kitchen, which is a bit like having bats in the belfry, but with more purpose.

I am going to try to remove some of the partitions and line them with cardboard to accommodate my knives better and prevent the cutting edge from grating against the harshness of the brick.

Most of you know, that one of my hidden talents is a chef. As a chef, I take good care of my knives and they are finely honed; it doesn’t take much to knock the edge off.

Further good news. I have only one incandescent light bulb left in the house. I changed the kitchen one yesterday (after four days of procrastinating in the dark) to a CFL. A story about that on my EIMDBPFPR post.

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So, what do we have for CTWW this week?

Discovering Nature

This week, go outside and spend some time. Perhaps take a leisurely stroll down a hiking trail or sit in a park. If you have a yard, find a comfortable spot and look at the world around you. Take your time and relish the experience. The idea, here, is to discover and appreciate the natural world around us … to see what we usually miss … to marvel at earth’s inhabitants.

Apt. A comment I made on another blog during the week, that “I don’t have a smartphone, so I am always looking up and around as I walk.”

Oblivious to his surroundings

People have become so enamored with their cellphones, iPhones, Smartphones, etc that they walk around with the eyes on their little touch screens and miss the marvels that surround them.

Up, around, down; there are marvels big and small everywhere.

People have forgotten how to appreciate nature.

Not only IT appliances, but the stress of day to day living, rushing here, rushing there, panicking because the boss wants that report before lunch; directs our attention away from nature.

The praça, park outside my gate

When I walk to the gate, I stop and look at my plants, check the acerola bush for any signs of blossom, any guava ready to be picked, is there a new shoot growing in the compost, how are my chillies ripening…

You see interesting things

Outside the gate, I look around me, I look for possible plants growing on the roadside to take home, I see insects and birds, lizards sunbathing; sometimes I stop merely to marvel at things.

Other times, I just sit in the park across from my gate, Clorinha comes with me and romps in the bushes or sits beside me on the bench for a stroke.

We need to take time out, not only to see what’s around or above us, but to de-stress.

I spend a lot of my day sitting right here, where I am now; a ten minute sit in the park with a fresh coffee and cigarette, I return with a new vigor, inspiration, enthusiasm.

Nature is the great leveler; it brings us back to earth. It stops our egos in their tracks and puts things in perspective.

It reminds us of our place in the scheme…

 

Change the World Wednesday – 19th Jun

Guilt, angst, anguish this week. I had to break one of my rules; I threw three lots of food out.

Syrian bread makes great sandwiches, tacos and rollups

I rarely do this, I try to use everything, although sometimes I throw one thing away, but three things in one week made me think seriously.

A strange smell, not nice, in the fridge and I discovered a big pork chop hidden by a bowl, it was well past being used. A pack of pre-made pancakes that I had bought on the advice of an assistant in the supermarket who recommended them instead of the Syrian bread that I wanted, they were nothing like bread, in fact they were ghastly. A half sachet of pizza paste, it had been unused for two weeks, and while it didn’t smell bad, and hadn’t started growing lurghies or a miniature rainforest, I didn’t trust it.

I am going to throw out another item this week. I am beefless this week, and yesterday I bought some chicken hamburger patties instead of my regular beef ones.

Yuck!

I had some last night. There is nothing good I can say about them. I made two double hamburgers, it was like eating tasteless cardboard; in fact cardboard would have been tastier. There is no fat in chicken patties, so they don’t cook like beef patties. I gave a raw one to Lixo, and even he wouldn’t eat it (he will eat the beef ones). So it is not only my opinion.

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On with this week’s CTWW.

This week go for a walk and pick up litter.

 

OR …

If your area is litter-free, join a group to help clean up a river or public space.

This is something I used to do regularly. Along with my Sunday morning coffee I would pick up all the rubbish in the part of the praça (park) in front of my house. I was a 20 minute exercise. But the bending down became too much for me and I haven’t done it for more than a year.

O peste, the pest from nextdoor

On Saturday, rubbish day, I did a clean up. People put their rubbish out during the day for collection at night.

My neighbour’s fox terrier has this habit of getting a bag (plastic supermarket bags) and taking it into the middle of the park to tear apart. On Saturday, it wasn’t one or two bags, it was four. He had made a terrible mess in the kids’ play area.

I cleaned it up. It was taxing, but I loved the result. I felt good.

I have now spoken to my neighbour about his dog’s habit, and he promises to keep better control… we’ll see.

Change the World Wednesday – 18th April

Time Flies - I found this on a photoshop contest, I've probably broken every copyright rule in the book, but you see more hre. http://www.freakingnews.com/Big-Ben-Pictures----1925.asp

Wow, the week has gone fast… again.

I find that as I get older times flies. It does, much faster than it used to. It seems only a short time ago that I used to comment on how fast the years went. Now I’m measuring the lightning speed of each week.

This week is weird. Monday, was normal, until the moment I put my foot out the door. Tue – Fri I have split days; yes, almost a week where I go to work twice in the same day. That’s incredibly tedious. I have already been to work, 7am start, and I have been back home for three hours. It has taken me that long to get back into my routine. If you do happen to flip back and read the Monday post, you’ll find that I have a very clever cat.

I have fish thawing for lunch. I am going to try a new idea. I have some Alaskan pollack, that I am going to poach in homemade tomato sauce with capers.

My big surprise last week. I won a prize.

Prizes just don’t normally enter my life. I have won very few and then of little value or consequence, so I was rather chuffed to win a copy of Born to Blood during the promotion week on Reduce Footprints guest post by SB Knight. Rather made my day.

I began reading it on reception. As I don’t have an eReader or a Kindle, Brian was kind enough to organise and send me a .pdf copy.

It’s the first novel that I have attempted to read via ‘the screen’ and it’s rather hard going. As an avid reader in the past, I do enjoy that ‘papery’ feel.

However, the book is worth the extra effort to concentrate. I’m a little more than half the way through, and getting to the interesting bit. I’ll keep you posted.

On with this week’s CTWW challenge:

This week take a walk and pick up trash. Then, come back here and tell us what you found (photos of what you collected would be great)!

Hmmm, great. This is something that I do as a matter of course. Especially around our local little praça (park). I hate seeing trash littering up the kids playground and the pathways. I used to make the effort on Sunday mornings, but since I have been confined to the walking stick, it’s not so frequent. I still do it occasionally. I pick up the roadside litter in front of my part of the street and wander along until I have filled a plastic shopping bag. No, not from my house, I find one somewhere in the park and use it; thereby recycling as well.

Some of the local kids in front of the praça

My camera is still having an identity crisis. Sometimes it decides it wants to be a camera, and sometimes not. At the moment it’s having an apoplectic fit and the battery cover is held in place by a rubber band. I have to get a new SD card as well, the one I have has decided it wants to be ‘read only’ and won’t let me erase images to make some room. Isn’t technology fun?

So there won’t be any pictures of me, or the rubbish. But I will give you a glimpse of the praça. The kids actually walked off and left the bottle and disposable cups on the ground, but threw them in the rubbish mumbling “velho caduco” (grumpy old man) after I drew their attention to the fact. A grumpy old man I maybe, but the praça is better for it. The photo is the view out my gate. Notice the old paralelopipado (paving stones) that make the roadway. Unfortunately they are being replaced by ashphalt as the road requires mending.

There you have it.