Thursday, May 31, 2012

Thursday, May 17, 2012

My Spring Garden Flowers

Spring is here in the Rockies.  Most of these photos were taken on 5/9/12.  
Bleeding Heart
Herb Garden before most of this years plantings with St. Francis and a planter of mint. From bottom left going clockwise - Rosemary, Oregano, Mint planter, Yarrow, Thyme and Basil. We had added Cilantro and Dill to this bed.  There is alot of volunteer Cilantro coming up from last years seeds.
Chives, Parsley and Strawberries on top level,. All these are last years and new ones from when they reseeded themselves.
Honeysuckle

Volunteer Johnny Jump Up

Deep Purple, double Lilac

Double Lilacs

Single Lilac
White Lilac

Snowball

Spirea
 Most all the bushes were here when we moved in.  The scent of the of lilacs is so strong you can smell it all the way out to the front street.

Next to do is the veggie garden and more herbs.  I have already made Chive vinegar and drying parsley!!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

"The Green Thing" - Being Green from a Seniors Point of View

 From a recent email
 

The Green Thing 

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags
 because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough
 to save our environment for future generations." 

She
 was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we 
didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We
 walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. 

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. 

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day. 

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . 

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then. 

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead
 of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a
 bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. 

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? 

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person. 
Remember: Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to tick us off

Author Unknown