Greening Mother's Day

Mother's Day has always been a bit of a problem for me.

I don't want my children to feel forced into doing something nice for me just because the calendar says they are supposed to do it; they should be free to do so whenever they feel like it. I have tried over the years to do this for my own mother; thoughtful little gifts or cards at random times, helping her by running errands when she is unable, giving her hugs and telling her I love her.

Then again, let's be honest and admit that much like Valentine's Day, we often don't tell someone how we feel about them or do thoughtful things for them unless we are reminded. 

Mother's Day can cause a lot of grief for people as well. They feel the need to buy expensive gifts, jewellery, flowers and fancy cards with rhyming sentiments written by someone else. There are mothers' expectations (yes, I have them too) that are all too frequently dashed by reality, and we all know that expectations are often the root of unhappiness. 

I have always felt that the thought that went into the gift, regardless of the gift itself, is the most important part. I don't want a store bought card from my daughters. One of my interests is card making so I understand the effort that goes into making them for others. In fact, I inwardly cringe when I see one of my homemade cards get tossed to the side or even worse into the recycle bin. I keep every homemade card I receive (even if just for the inspiration to make one of my own). I don't care if my daughters' cards were printed on a computer by their teachers and they merely coloured it for me. They are excited to give it to me. 

The card I have made for my mother this year.

But I'm sure many mothers have received colossally horrible gifts for Mother's Day. I believe one year I  gave my own mother a plant from the school fair. She was very hurt when I said, "It was free Mum!" because of the off-hand manner in which I gave it to her. I wonder how many mothers will receive "World's Best Mother" mugs this year that will sit on a shelf gathering dust or "job coupons" that will be unused.

Knitted dish cloth for Mother's Day

This year my job-share partner and I taught our students how to knit so they could make dish cloths for their mother. I love how hard all of them worked on their knitting, many taking it home to work on the presents. I hope their mothers appreciate the gift, regardless of the holes and dropped stitches, because of the time that went into them. I feel good doing this activity with my students because it promotes reusing rather than disposing. Paper towels and napkins are a particular pet peeve of mine (energy in the processing, bleaching, energy in the transport, one-use product).

My Little holding the begonia she planted for me.

Two of my daughters have given me their Mother's Day gift already. My youngest planted a begonia for me at the preschool Mother's Day Tea (a much loved tradition) and my middle daughter, Banana Girl, gave me a potpourri of plants she grew in kindergarten. She was so thrilled to give it to me because she knows how much I enjoy vegetable gardening. It has beans and nasturtiums in it to name a couple. I love the idea of living plants for Mother's Day.

Beans, Nasturtiums and cat grass from my kindergartener.

I am not a fan of the family Mother's Day brunch. I prefer to spend the day with my girls and husband doing an outside activity that I enjoy. The David Suzuki Foundation has a 30x30 challenge to inspire people to spend thirty minutes a day for the month of May outside and this is perfect for Mother's Day! Last year I wanted to visit the U.B.C. Botanical Garden Greenheart Canopy Walk, but that had to wait until later in the summer. In previous years we have gone on family bike rides or to Stanley Park. This year I will be spending the morning at a gymnastics meet for my oldest daughter but if the weather permits I would like to go to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary on Westham Island in Ladner (we can actually see Westham Island from the river bank here in Steveston).

At the UBC Greenheart Canopy Walkway with my girls.

For Mother's Day this year, I hope more people try the following:

• make rather than buy
• give a living plant rather than cut flowers
• get outside and enjoy time together as a family

However you celebrate Mother's Day, have a great weekend.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's Easy Being Green

Although Kermit the Frog thinks it isn't easy being green, I think it can be simple to make ethical choices, like reusing instead of throwing away and planting something to eat.

For our belated Earth Day celebration my class harvested our classroom garden.

We grew the plants in recycled two litre plastic pop bottles. I was inspired by several Pinterest ideas for this project such as this one. We cut the pop bottles in half, turned the top opening section into the bottom half, which served as a water reservoir for our self-watering planters. As our class windows are north facing I chose a variety that grows well in cool, damp, low-light conditions and as you can see from the photos, they thrived.

My students learned about optimal growing conditions, variables that affect growth and patience. I enjoyed watching them come in each morning and head straight to their plants to check on them. 

Despite about a third of the plants not returning to school after our two week spring break we had enough to make a salad for thirty people. The students were so excited by eating something they grew that we immediately planted new seeds for the next round of our classroom garden.

One of the problems with parties and food with a class of thirty students is what to use to serve the food. Obviously I won't buy disposable plates and cutlery, and using paper towel isn't ideal either. In the past I have asked students to bring their own plates, cups and cutlery from home, but many forget.

In late 2012 I entered a contest to win reusable party supplies for the classroom at the EcoMom Alliance. I commented on our class goals to be more eco responsible and how we were studying about our connection to nature with a unit from The David Suzuki Foundation. The sponsor of the contest, Surf Sweets, generously provided everyone who commented with a Preserve pack of reusable plates, cups and cutlery. 

The Shareware they sent arrived just in time for our belated Earth Day party salad. Although I am trying to find alternatives to plastic for serving and storing food, sometimes plastic is expedient. I am impressed with the quality of the Preserve Shareware. They use recycled plastic to create #5 plastic that is completely recyclable in the end. They are BPA and melamine free, completely recyclable and use less water and energy when making their products.

We used the small plates and forks for our Earth Day party, and I love the sea of green around the room as we enjoyed our salad. Now, and for years to come, we can have class parties that will not involve creating waste, and the set can be shared with other classrooms. 

My students have seen how simple it is to grow their own food. They know how important it is to reuse what we have. It is easy to make little changes and I hope they continue on this path.

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I would like to thank Surf Sweets, Preserve and EcoMom Alliance for the gift of the Preserve Shareware for my students. 

Linky Love

I have so many posts swirling around in my head, but so little time right now to actually write any of them.

So instead I'd like to link to three blogs I enjoy reading. They have a love of homemade and connecting family with the natural world in common.


1. My Healthy Green Family:
Free Range Mama lives with her husband and three children on acreage in British Columbia where she raises free range chickens, goats and bees, and an organic garden each year. She believes in making rather than buying, buying second hand rather than new and generally making do with less. I have learned so much from her about making personal care products along with other DIY projects. Her facebook page always has fantastic links to eco and garden ideas.

Click here to see some of her DIY recipes, such as lip balm, whipped body butter, soap making, beeswax food wrap, and borax free laundry detergent.

http://myhealthygreenfamily.com/blog/wordpress/

I learned how to make natural food colouring for my daughters' 

Valentine cupcakes from My Healthy Green Family.

This lovely pink colour is made with raspberries.

2. Go Explore Nature:
Debi, who lives in the Los Angeles area, shares the adventures that she and her explorers (sons) have outdoors. I originally found her blog through the nature photos she shares on Instagram and ideas she shares on Pinterest. I love the ideas for connecting children to nature in the backyard or further afield at beaches, forests and travels. She makes her activities simple enough to help anyone connect to nature, yet often has a new twist on an old favourite.

Click here to see some of her backyard nature exploring ideas, such as imaginary play, nature crafts and rainy day activities.

http://www.goexplorenature.com/

Although I don't get outside enough with my own girls, we enjoy 

exploring and playing in natural settings like Debi does with her boys 

in Go Explore Nature. Here we are playing in the sand 

at Garry Point, Steveston after flying kites.

3. SouleMama:
Amanda Blake-Soule lives in Maine with her husband and five children who she home schools. She is the author of three books that inspire families to connect with nature and the seasons and to be creative and repurpose items. She lives on a homestead in Maine which is currently home to chickens, sheep, pigs, turkeys, bees, and a large organic garden. I love reading about her slow, simple ways to grow, preserve, sew, knit, create and share. I am particularly fascinated by her recent attempts to learn how to spin wool. She is a talented photographer and her blog is fun to visit alone for the beautiful photos she takes of her children and their farm.

I am occasionally inspired to participate in her {this moment} on Fridays where people can link up by sharing a photo of a simple, special moment from the week.

http://www.soulemama.com/

When we visited this lovely farm on Salt Spring Island last year 

I had visions of my own homestead similar to what 

Amanda Blake-Soule has created with her family in Maine.

Happy Earth Day

There's a lot in the news and on the internet to drag someone down these days. Global warming is worse than we thought? Polar ice caps melting at an accelerated rate? Oil spills in backyards? Stephen Harper pulling Canada out of international agreements? Gah! Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with information and powerless as an individual.

Personally I've had the rug pulled out from underneath me this past week and a half, with my mother in intensive care in the hospital. The only thing that has helped me to not feel overwhelmed, besides the love from my husband and daughters, has been to get outside and do some much overdue gardening.

I was looking forward to celebrating Earth Day this year with the students in my class. I had some fun activities planned, such as making a salad with the greens and herbs we grew in our classroom container garden. Unfortunately I am not at work while I deal with my mother's illness and care for my grandmother, so this will have to wait until I am back in the classroom next week.

This weekend when I was able to carve out a bit of time to power garden I realized that I was spending the Earth Day weekend how I should be spending it. I was doing something small, something personal and something real for the Earth.

I was excited to add homemade compost to my raised garden beds. We started backyard composting a year and a half ago and this was the first time I used any of it in my garden. As can be seen by the photo below, the garden beds look primed and ready for all the seedlings that are currently residing in my living room. The soil smells amazing; much better than the chicken manure I used last year before my own compost was ready. I was even more thrilled to do this because my neighbour finished building two more raised beds for me this past week, bringing my total to four.

My compost bin last fall, almost ready.

I had quite an ordeal weeding the beds and literally chopping down the kale trees that I had growing from last summer.

My kale and <ahem> garden, last October. I was still harvesting 

leaves at this point. It was probably a foot taller this weekend.

Seriously, they were huge; the stalks were about two inches wide. I would have kept the kale leaves but they had gone to seed and tasted bitter.

All the weeds and leftover garden ready to be chopped for the compost bin.

After weeding I had some pleasant surprises; there were some more beets growing, which I picked for the greens, and the potatoes I started two years ago are coming along nicely. I'm happy to see my garlic growing, although I wish I'd planted more of it last fall as some have not come up.

I am looking forward to seeing how my garlic turns out.

I finished the afternoon planting some peas directly outside, to which I will add some that I have started inside. I've cheated a bit by purchasing a few pea plants from the garden store just so I see some green in the beds.

All my baby seedlings getting ready for the garden.

I have big plans for those four garden beds!

Happy Earth Day.

Push Power

It wasn't until we moved into a single family home three years ago that I realized how much I hate lawns. We lived in a townhouse prior to this and we enjoyed having a grassy fields in the complex for our children to run around, but it was never my responsibility to look after the lawns.

Now that it is our responsibility to cut the grass at least once a week in the growing season I find lawns to be nothing but trouble. I can't believe how much work it is to have a nice, even, green lawn. Mowing, watering, trimming, blah, blah, blah. Such a waste of time, in my opinion. I would rather put all that energy into my vegetable garden. I have long term plans for adding some raised garden beds in our front yard, where most of our grass is, but for now I have to be content with the raised beds I have in the backyard (two currently, with two more being added this spring). I am inspired and motivated by the stories and photos of people who have converted their lawn into a garden.

In the meantime I have to deal with my lawn. I refuse to water it in the summer and I don't care if it turns brown. There is a pesticide ban in my community (yay!) and I refuse to weed all the dandelions because we think they are pretty (and edible). I find it funny how a lawn is such a symbol of middle class suburbia, but part of me does my best, within what I am willing to do, to keep my lawn looking half decent in order to fit the part here.

When we first moved to our home we purchased an electric rechargeable mower with which we were reasonably happy (quite quiet, no emissions). But we soon discovered that no one would service it when it broke down, so we bought a reel mower, which I had wanted for some time. I realize that they are nothing new, and many people use one, but this is generally not the case where I live. A true marker of warmer weather is the sound of lawn mower motors and the smell of gasoline.

We decided upon this reel mower *, although there are many others on the market. It has several different settings for raising and lowering the cutting blades. Modern reel mowers have come a long way; they are much easier to push now compared to the one my father used in the early 1970s. As long as the setting isn't too low for the grass height, causing it to jam and need cleaning, I am very happy with it so far.

I like how I get a workout when I cut the lawn (really - my heart rate goes up quite nicely and my thighs and buttocks are sore after). I appreciate not using electricity or gas to cut something I don't like having in the first place. Often I just leave the grass cuttings on the lawn, but if the grass has been left too long I will rake up the bulk of it, adding to my workout. Bonus - I save the cuttings for my compost bin in the backyard.

No, this photo was not taken last fall - it was a few weeks ago when I cut the grass 

for the first time this season. I'm a lazy gardener and I never raked the leaves.

On nice days my girls will join me, hatching adventures, picking dandelions, and perhaps even occasionally helping me to rake up the cuttings.

Such great helpers.

There are times when the lawn really needs cutting and I'm just too tired (or lazy) to get out there and do it, but I think that happens to people with gas powered mowers as well.

And there are those times when I've left it way too long and I have to go over the lawn a couple of times, lowering the setting each time, as I had to a few weeks ago when I cut the lawn for the first time this season. Wow was I sore and tired after that!

The grass was crazy long a few weeks ago. Oops. I had to 

cut it two more times to get it to a reasonable length.

Overall I love my reel mower. It has zero carbon emissions and sound pollution, it gives me a workout and I get to enjoy being outside.

* I purchased this product myself and have received no compensation for writing this. I just like it and wanted to share my experiences so far.

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I wrote this post over a week ago, before a family health emergency that has my family in survival mode. I realized when I came home from the hospital yesterday that my grass is almost as long as the photo above. When things settle down somewhat I'm going to have fun cutting the lawn again.

*sigh*

Dandelion Bread

I have been in a bit of a funk and feeling down. Going back to a routine after spring break, which would have been good for me, was interrupted by my daughters getting sick. As any parent knows, when one person in the family gets sick it's just a matter of time before someone else gets sick. By the time my girls were ready to go back to school it was my turn to feel sick. I felt like I was dropping the ball at work. Then the beautiful summer-like weather we had the last week of the break turned to more typical chilly spring rain. I really needed a pick-me-up by the weekend.

What is happier than flowers? I have been wanting to harvest and cook with all the dandelions that grow in my lawn for some time after all the delicious recipes I have been seeing around the interwebs. Many people use the young dandelion greens in their salads, especially in the spring, but I wanted to challenge myself to use the flowers.

Dandelions are full of calcium, iron, Vitamin C, Vitamin A and Vitamin K. They also have potassium, folic acid and magnesium. In Traditional Chinese Medicine they are used as a spring cleanse and diuretic. But that's not why I wanted to try them. I just like the idea of foraging for food and eating something people consider a weed. It makes me feel a little rebellious.

My front lawn is covered in dandelions so it is easy for me to pick them.

I had originally decided to try dandelion fritters, but changed my mind and made dandelion bread instead because I liked the look of the yellow bread in the recipe I loosely followed here. I'm glad I found the website and I am interested in checking out the blogger's book, Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager for more "wild" food I can collect in my area.

After picking off all the green leafy parts I had about 3/4 cup of dandelion petals (the original recipe calls for one cup).

Next time I think I will mix in some whole wheat flour for added texture and flavour and perhaps some ground nuts.

One of the reasons I have problems with baking is because I can't help myself; I like to add and substitute. I wasn't sure how flavourful the bread would be with just the petals so I added some grated ginger. I also don't use canola oil, so I substituted with almond oil.

Here is my first version of the recipe:

2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of dandelion petals
1/3 cup of almond oil
5 tablespoons honey
1 egg
1 1/2 cups of milk
grated ginger to taste

Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then add the wet to the dry, leaving it somewhat lumpy. Pour into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees until done.

Overall I like the bread, which has a mild flavour that increased somewhat in intensity the next day. Everyone in my house enjoyed it except for my extremely fussy five year old Banana Girl. Actually I'm not sure she dislikes it or just didn't want to eat more of it once she found out it was made with dandelion petals. In addition to some whole wheat (perhaps 1/2 cup) and nuts, next time I will add more grated ginger because I like more robust flavours.

Green Confession: I Love Disneyland

The eco part of me is ashamed to admit that I love Disneyland.

There are so many aspects about a trip to Disneyland that are hard on the Earth. It certainly doesn't fit the picture for a crunchy vacation.

First of all, there is the getting there part. Regardless of the method we chose to get there, we are belching out carbon dioxide.

Recycling is ridiculous. When we saw signs encouraging us to recycle they only referred to cans and plastic bottles. No recycling for the plastic cutlery, plastic cups and juice boxes everywhere. I certainly didn't expect composting sites for the organic matter people were tossing into the garbage bins. Never mind how easy it would be to have paper and cardboard product recycling.

Speaking of water bottles, we brought our own stainless steel bottles with the intention of filling them at water fountains. I am ashamed to admit that we ended up buying bottled water because we couldn't stand the taste of the tap water. We are very spoiled with the quality of our drinking water here in British Columbia.

Unless we had a meal in a sit-down restaurant, everything was served on styrofoam or in non-recycleable plastic cups. We purchased a few "souvenir" containers so that we weren't throwing them away, but they are plastic, which I am trying to reduce in our home.

I can't even imagine the energy it takes to power the resort and park.  I love the evening light shows and fireworks. Disney really knows how to put on a parade.

We were excited to see Carsland this time, which 

was under construction last time we visited.

I am a sucker for Disney merchandise which is everywhere and at every turn. We walked off favourite rides, like Star Tours, right smack into a gift shop. So much for reducing my consumerist urges. 

If truth be told I wanted my photo with the 

characters more than my girls did.

Don't forget the gender-typing with frilly princesses for girls and jedi fights and cars for boys (although my girls love it all).

This is from our trip two years ago when the older 

girls were still into princesses. They have passed the 

torch to my three year old who loved meeting 

the princesses in the new Fantasy Faire.

I can't believe how I have been branded by Disneyland. I went several times growing up and I have such happy memories and emotions associated with Disneyland. Two years ago we went with my parents and when we arrived at the front gates my mother and I actually got misty eyed remembering all our good times. For someone who is trying to reduce brand purchases (more expensive than making from scratch, additional packaging, additives, chemicals, etc) this is rather embarrassing.

Imagine my horror when my husband pointed out this sign to me:

I suppose this is a good thing, being forced into labelling toxic materials. Can you imagine if this was done everywhere? Then again, would people care? I'm not sure it would change the public's buying patterns because all their favourite products and brands would be included. Sorry for being so cynical. 

Despite all this, I had a fantastic time and we hope to return in a few years, because I find each age gets something different out of the park. I guess everyone has their weaknesses and Disneyland is one of mine.