What is valuable and not - added with gardening
Weekend is coming! That means couple of days in the garden. What could be better place to forget the hurry? Weekend and garden means the scent of soil, green grass and flowers. Birds (other than my heavy lovebirds) fly above and if I am very lucky I will see our friend the woodpecker.
Happy weekend for all you who enjoy it in the garden! And all the rest of you also! 
Posted in Garden.
– June 5, 2009
There are not much “environmental” that I have done in my own life during last week, but the total isn’t zero.
Awakening nro 1 - clothes dryer
I washed clothes and I didn’t dry them in a machine. The clothes dryer is so easy to use and it saves me at least (let me calculate) 20 steps from the washing machine to the clothes line and another 20 steps back when I just pick the washed clothes and lift them to the dryer and push the button.
On the other hand I noticed that the towels were fraying in the endings. That is what the dryer does. The clothes and all don’t last as long as they should when you wear them away with a machine.
Also it uses way too much energy. “The average home clothes dryer emits approximately 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of CO2 per load of laundry dried. The loss of natural habitat potential is estimated to be 1.5 square metres (16.6 square feet) per load of laundry” says Wikipedia.
Awakening nro 2 - “half of world’s food is thrown to waste”
The other thing that I did last week was that I noticed how much we waste food in our family. We do have compost and we use the new compost soil in our garden. Actually it is the most important soil improvement we use. But still it means that somewhere there is a factory which uses energy and we do throw away all that food that was made just for us.
Here is a picture of our compost. It is now hidden behind a big rock and the new flower bed. The flower bed is made with lots of compost soil and the borders are made with stones. (It is an old court and I have 10 years project in having it look like I want it to be.)
When I was a child my mother told me that “eat all you food, don’t waste it and think about all the starving children in Ethiopia (or was it Namibia?)”. I think I was supposed to become more humble and to be grateful of all we had and especially about the food. We didn’t waste much food then.
Now in many situations it is taught that “you don’t need to eat everything, leave something and you don’t get more weight”. It’s the opposite. In my case that came first from the the Weight Watchers. And I learned it well. Did I learn it a bit wrong way?
I found the finnish news article about” half the world’s food is thrown to waste”. Can you imagine? I can’t, but I think I should.
I did think about food wasting during last week and I was more careful about taking food waste to compost. Also I was more careful about what was inside our fridge. I didn’t go to shop right away when something was finished. I just planned our dinner little bit different.
Posted in Garden, environment.
– June 2, 2009
This news about people eating fried blood made some weird sense after I have read many books in the row where the vampires have the leading roles. Stephenie Meyer with twilight and other books of Bella and Edward, House of Night books by P.C.Cast and Kristen Cast and now the Nora Roberts vampire trilogy are the latest on my booklist.
What makes the perfect entertainment makes also a sad comparison between the rich and the poor countries. I don’t know what is the actual definition about “the rich” and “the poor” when it comes to a country. One could be this vampire definition: In poor country the “vampire” is a excellent source of nutrients, especially for children.
Think about that when you (and I) read the next page on vampire novel.
Posted in catgold.
– June 2, 2009
Morning comes and the family wakes up. Everybody starts to get ready for another day. Mother has her thoughts in the meeting that starts 8 am. Father is still half asleep. School kid doesn’t want to wake up and complains that it’s not weekend yet. The youngest would like to have the one sweatshirt that is alrady dirty…
There starts another day when all the family members go to different directions and the parents forget the home and the children for many hours. I don’t say that the day would have to be awful and I am not against the day care, but the work dictates what the day holds.
At work there is hurry and something is late. Call there and go somewhere, remember to cancel or reschedule another thing and take care of everything. Is this really our life? Does it really have to be like that? Sometimes it really gives good reason to want to rebel.
I have to say that once I tried to jump off that treadmill. That didn’t work, but there has to be a way. Winning the lottery is not too likely to happen, but someway there must be to balance the whole family life - and the hungry and demanding work life.
For some reason I believe that those egoistic people who wave no problem to shift the blame onto somebody else and to elbow they way up have these things easier than too emphatic ones. Perhaps the way to get things in order would be to learn how to bee more selfish. Huh, what an idea. Hope there is another way.
Posted in catgold.
– May 29, 2009
Curious as I am, I tried what google gives with words “cat gold”. Here are some results.
There is a simple game called Cat Gold Miner. Click the plus icon and it starts.
Gold and silver coins with cat picture.
Real Cat Gold news. Something to do with gold catalysis.
Fool’s gold translated into finnish is “cat’s gold”. That is where the name comes. I had some second thoughts if I should name this blog fool’s gold after all. That was the first idea I had, but then I found another blog named The fool’s gold.
So cat gold this is.
Posted in catgold.
– May 24, 2009
I came to think that I have to tell that I have nothing to be proud about in my environmental behavior so far. So there really is need for personal environmental awakening.
You can find Greendex survey at National Geographics web pages. I did that calculation for my own greendex and the result was - perhaps I should say - catastrofic. I made as good or bad as U.S. consumers. I do have many explanations… Of course I have.
There were no survey made in Finland, but if I compare to our neighbours swedish, I must be ashamed.
Posted in catgold, environment.
– May 24, 2009
Last week I attended environmental training arranged by waste disposal company. It was for the people who are responsible for a environmental things at their work.
I had looked forward to this training. I should know a lot about environment and how things must be done and I should also be able to train other people. Well I don’t like to train others if I don’t know enough to be really convincing. So, I wanted to get some new information and ideas, but I got much more.
Of course there was lots of basic things about waste sorting, but then again there was something that caught my own conscience. Most of the environmental effects are done by industry, but those couple percent that us consumers do ourselves, they really make a difference also. Countries like Finland have targets in saving environment and even if the industry has most to do, those targets are not met without us. Every single percent less environmental effects needs a hard work to come true.
Then the hard part. We do sort wastes at work, but most of us don’t care if everything goes right. It doesn’t matter that wrong kind of waste in sorting bin makes that waste much more expensive for the company and that it ruins the sorting system. Many times it’s just the nearest bin that we use. Sometimes the right bin is even ten steps further away, but many of us don’t take those steps.
How is it possible to get people care? I have no other answer for myself that to start it at home. How can I reduce waste and take care that it goes to right places. Compost is not too far away so I don’t need to put something to kitchen bin - I walk to the compost. And same to all recycling waste. It must go to recycling even if it means little more efford.
Everyone of us can reduce waste and to take better care of the waste we produce. That we can do both at home and at work.
That is the truth that I have known, but now I saw it in the new way. That is the idea that I am going to use in environmental trainings. I know that there will come many comments about “I can do so little and it is all about industry”. That is true, but also in these little things we have almost the only way to get environmental thinking to stick to the bosses too. They can have their personal environmental awakening with us all and then there comes much more positive effect.
I just have to put one picture hear. It is almost our backyard. I just love that forest. It’s too far to think that by doing this and that I take care that my children can enjoy this too. But anyway, I really love those trees and the fresh air around.
Posted in environment.
– May 24, 2009
I have one special nightmare. It happens in the garden where everything starts in the sunshine, but in the end it is night and in the night there are those awful garden gnomes everywhere. Huh. I have never understood why anyone would like to have ugly gnomes in the garden.
And now I just have to admit that these gnomes Matti and Late live in our garden. Yes, yes, I can blame 5 years old boy about this, but the truth is that anybody coming to our yard sees first these two dudes. Never say never. I hate gnomes, but for someone they are the thing that gives a smile.
– May 23, 2009
What an excuse to start a blog, but it’s true. After seeing one more Idol competition, American this time, I couldn’t help thinking of how us people do it. We all have prejudices, some of us more that the others and we let prejudices to make the world go round. Do we really?
I do have prejudices myself. I don’t want to admit it and I don’t think that I even know what all those personal prejudices are, but they are there - inside me. I hope that they don’t affect my decisions too much.
Adam Lambert is unbelievable! He is talented, he is now known and already idolized worldwide. AND HE DIDN’T WIN THE IDOL TITLE! Why? He was too different with his makeup and boyfriend. I may have some prejudices, but I would have voted for Adam, no question about that.
Even when Adams competitor Kris Allen is also talented, it’s a shame what happened. Idol competition is for some reason a show that reveals a lot about people.
It is easy to vote for or against something when it is a phone voting. Everybody can vote. Is it worth it to vote only to stop something different to happen? What if the world would have been a little bit better with that difference?
Idol is a show that lets us dream and live along with so many feelings and hopes. It’s sort of cat gold that looks, sounds and feels good. It gives a lot and I definitely admit to look every single Idol competition that I can.
Posted in catgold.
– May 22, 2009
