Modern Daisy Hippee

Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his civil rights activism.  For this article, I would like to focus on his advocacy of peace.  That concept is quite notable and something we can all use, for major issues and for our every day lives.

Here is a quote I found on Wikipedia, which was apparently from a radio address during King’s 1959 visit with Mahatma Gandhi in India.

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.  In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

I am not talking only about being non-violent.  I am also talking about coming from a place of peace, deep in your heart.  The actions, attitudes and behaviors of others may upset, annoy or even anger you.  However, you have a choice about how you perceive things.

Keep in mind that you are only seeing what is on their surface.  You don’t know what is really behind those actions, attitudes and behaviors.  There is always another perspective.  They may have endured things you don’t know about and possibly things that you couldn’t possibly understand.  Who knows?  It could be anything really.  The point is that there is another perspective you may not see.

We are all in this world together.  Any feeling you have ever had is probably a feeling every other person has had.  At one time or another, we have all felt alone, scared, betrayed, frustrated, sad, etc.  When you recognize that every other human being has some sort of human issues and challenges to deal with, just as you do, you start to have more compassion for them.

If you can learn to have compassion for other human beings, simply because they are human beings, you can more easily find peace in your heart.  Once you begin to do that more, you will find that having a feeling of peace is not only for the benefit of others.  It is, in fact, for you.  Feeling peace in your heart is like being wrapped in a warm, cozy blanket, feeling safe and secure.

The more you share that and spread it around, the less other people feel alone, scared, betrayed, frustrated, sad, etc.  Coming from a place of peace, in your heart, is something all of us are capable of regardless of our circumstances.  It is possible to deal with anything peacefully, regardless of the opposition you face.

You may remember many, many years ago (I’m dating myself!) when plastic grocery bags first came out, the grocery bagger would ask if you wanted paper or plastic.  I recall that a lot of people didn’t really like the plastic bags.  I suppose it’s just human nature to be resistant to change…  well, for some anyway.

By my recollection, we were told that plastic was more environmentally friendly because paper bags used trees and plastic didn’t.  It sounded good at the time.  After a while, there was no question about paper or plastic.  There was no option.  It was plastic.

Now we find out that those environmentally friendly plastic bags aren’t so friendly after all.  They are using loads of our most precious, life critical resource… water.  You’ll get no argument on that from me.  I’m just wondering why they didn’t think about that when they decided plastic was such a great alternative to paper.

In addition, if you remember the switch from paper to plastic, you might also remember that they used many more plastic bags than paper.  An average shopping trip might have used two paper grocery bags.  That same trip would use ten plastic bags!  How many gallons of water is that?

Naturally, now we know the best choice is a reusable bag.  At this point, I don’t see anything bad about that option.  Even though they usually aren’t the best made bags, they certainly can be used over more times than the other options.

If you’d like to read a more in depth article about the decision between paper or plastic, here’s a good one.

Recent news has been covering a dating website for “beautiful people”.  Apparently you have to be approved based on your physical appearance.  The news story was about a bunch of members being kicked off because they gained some weight.

I say, to each their own.  It’s a dating site with a niche.  They are attracting like-minded people.  The people going to that site are obviously looking for people who have a certain external appearance.  OK, that’s fine…  for them.  If you want to find a person based on their looks, that’s your call.  You also have to realize that if you are looking for someone in a place like this, you are seeking out someone who will be interested in you based on your looks.

Personally, it wouldn’t be for me.  Not because I don’t think they would accept me.  I don’t care if they would or not.  I have no interest in seeking out someone for the most significant relationship in my life, based on something so materialistic as appearance.

If someone is willing to rule someone out completely, based only on appearance, I can guarantee I would not be interested in that person.  There is much more to a person than their looks.  In fact, looks are at the bottom of the priority list for me.  Things like personality and character are what make a person attractive (or unattractive) to me.

Yeah!  My Aerogarden starter tray replacement pods arrived!  That’s sort of my indoor “greenhouse”.  I’m using it to start my tomato and pepper plants.  This year I need to make sure I get them started early enough.  Last year I started a bit late and never got any tomatoes.  Well, essentially anyway.  I did get 2 or 3 tiny tomatoes from one plant (they were so yummy!).  Then it froze & lost them all.  In Vegas, it froze!!!  Well, it was October.  I hadn’t planted the garden until April.  That was mostly because I had to get dirt and needed to recruit some assistance with that.

You see, in Las Vegas, we don’t have growing soil on the ground.  We have clay.  It’s not optimal for growing.  That is, unless of course you want to grow weeds.  So, I had to buy dirt.  I bought it from a bulk place that several people referred me to.  I was told they have the best dirt.  Based on the results of my veggies last year, I’m not sure I totally agree.  I suppose some of that could have been me and not the dirt.  It just seems so much better to blame the dirt.

Granted last year was definitely an experiment.  The biggest reason I’ve ever wanted to start a garden was because the tomatoes taste like TOMATOES!  I was so looking forward to them.  This year will be different.

OK, so back to starting my tomatoes & peppers.  My starter pods are just spongy things that fit into this dense foam starter tray designed to go in my aerogarden.  I paid twenty bucks for what I thought was supposed to be 70 of them, so it seemed like a good deal.  It doesn’t look like there are really that many…

My bad, I just counted & there are 70.  Regardless, next time I may fashion my own starter pods.  I just had no idea how to go about it.  While I’m at it, I may come up with a better tray to put them in.  It works; just not sure I like the idea of foam.  And, actually I could probably make some other improvements.  Again, I digress.  I do that.  My mind is constantly going.

So, the first step seems to be to sanitize the tray.  I pulled out the bowl that holds the water and realized it’s a bit…  crusty?  We have really hard water here, so it’s mineralization.  The bowl is soaking in vinegar as we speak.

Meanwhile, I just looked in the Aerogarden Starter Tray manual to find out how to sanitize the starter tray.  Of course, it tells me to use bleach.  I don’t want to use bleach.  I don’t want to eat bleach.  So, instead, I’m using vinegar.  Because of that I’m soaking it longer than the suggested 2 minutes.  Guess what, foam floats.  It was bit amusing while I attempted to find something to weigh it down with.  I don’t have a brick in my kitchen… which is where I’m doing all this right now.  I filled a heavy jar with water.  It worked.

Let’s see.  While I’m waiting for that, I think I’ll get my seeds out and figure out exactly what I’m going to plant.  I’d like to do herbs also.  I’m not sure if I’ll start them in the Aerogarden though.  I have lots of tomatoes and peppers.  I have five different types of tomatoes, tomatillos and seven types of peppers.  That might fill up the tray pretty well.  These take about six weeks in the Aerogarden.  It probably would have made more sense to start the herbs earlier in the winter, since I leave them in pots inside anyway.  OK, next time I’ll know.

I remember (from seeing the instructions in the book) that last year I had to pluck out some of the spongy material from some of the grow pods to make the dip deeper.  That was a real pain in the booty.  I’m looking for my log from last year.  I did attempt to make some notes, although everything was pretty overwhelming.  I’m not sure I accurately recorded the information I need.  I’m just checking on planting depths with the grow pods and how each plant did.  I think I’ll have to go from memory for the most part.  Actually, the tomato and pepper seeds are relatively small.  I think I’ll just leave the depth on the grow pods the way it is.

Now that I recall, I only needed to make the dip larger for bigger seeds like zucchini and beans.  I’m starting those directly in the garden this time.  The ones I started inside last year died and I started new ones outside anyway.

I suppose it would be a good idea to diagram my planting layout so I know what’s what when I go to transplant.  I’d rather do it on the computer than paper.  I can keep track of it better.  I’ll have to draw something up.

Yippee!!!  I already made up a diagram last year.  I totally forgot I did that.

Now, I just need to decide how many of each thing to plant.

After reviewing last year’s results in my garden log…  and from memory (mostly from memory), I think I have an idea how to go about figuring that out.  First, I need to know what kind of yield I want for each type…

Tomatoes…  I don’t think I could have too many tomatoes.  Since I have several varieties and I still don’t really know what the yield of each plant will be, I’d like to end up with at least one of each variety.  I started two of each variety last year.  Maybe this year I’ll go with three.  If I end up with extras that are doing really well, I’ll give some away (either the plants or the tomatoes, depending on when I decide they’re doing well).

Tomatillo…  This plant got HUGE, even though it never produced.  It also attracted bees, which was actually a good thing.  I needed them so I didn’t have to hand pollinate.  I was thinking of planting this separate somehow, so I’m not right there with all the bees…  Maybe in a separate, smaller bed with asparagus, since asparagus needs three years undisturbed before it really produces.  It looks like I started two plants last year and got one.  I may just do the same.

Anaheim Chiles…  These did well.  I had two plants.  I think I’d like more, even though they did well.  They’re so easy to freeze and use all year.  I wouldn’t mind having four plants.  I guess I better make sure I’ll have room in the garden for all the plants.

I think I’ll need to build another bed.  That was really my plan anyway.  In any case, I’m really only going to have room for one or two of each plant.  So, I guess I’ll just start two inside.

I started my very first garden last year.  From the outside, it might seem like a bit of a fiasco.  At the very lease, it was chaos.  Ok, the truth is, it seemed like that from the inside too.  Oh well.  That’s how I like to learn!  Get my hands dirty.  Pun may be intended.

In any case, over the next few weeks I’ll recap that experience a bit.  Hopefully that experience will lead to much better results this year.

Don’t get me wrong, I had decent results with some things in my gardening experience.  That would be the reason I’m not just throwing in the towel.  Not that I would anyway.  I’m pretty stubborn that way.  I don’t like to give up.  You will not fail, if you don’t quit!

One of the things I learned is that timing really is important.  I started out a bit late with my planting, so some things just didn’t yield at all.  I live in the blazing hot Nevada desert, so mid summer is not ideal for many plants.  By the time my tomato plants started getting any sign of tomatoes, it was so late into the fall it actually froze a few nights in a row.  That was the end of any hope for tomatoes.

I did get lots of peppers though.  The serranos did so well, I gave some away and still didn’t pick them all.  I also had quite a bit of cayenne and green chiles.  I also planted bell, poblano, habanero and jalapeno.  I got one tiny bell pepper, a few jalapenos and none of the other two.

I also planted tomatillo, zucchini, crookneck squash, burgundy beans, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, scallions, spinach, arugula and rainbow chard.  I’ll let you know how those worked out in the next couple weeks.

I’m looking at this gardening experience as an adventure, so however it turns out, I’ll enjoy the journey.  (Besides, I’m certain I’ll get it because I want to be self-sufficient enough to grow my own food.)

I heard someone on the news this morning talking about a product…  I won’t say what it is.  That really doesn’t matter.  She claimed, more than once, that the product is “100% green”.  Maybe if she’d only said it once, I wouldn’t have given it any more thought.

She didn’t.  So, I did.  And here are is my thought…  100% Green?  What is that supposed to mean anyway?  It doesn’t really mean anything.  As far as I know, there’s no definition for 100% Green…  or any % Green, for that matter.

Oh crap!  Here’s another excuse for yet another law.  People are going to start claiming something is some % Green, so now the government is going to have to specify exactly what “Green” means.  I think most people have common sense.  Is that really necessary?  Granted, I do seem to have a super critical mind when it comes to advertising and I pick apart the logic of any claim.  Residual side effect from my overly analytic past life.

I digress.  Back to the point.  Can anything really be 100% Green?  This product appeared to have plastic.  I don’t think we would consider that 100% green.  It also uses energy, even though it uses less energy than a traditional alternative.  It’s using energy resources, so that would mean it is NOT 100% green.

I love remodeling and redecorating.  I’ve taken on lots of projects around my homes.  Even when I was a teen, I was a big Do It Yourselfer.  My taste is NOT traditional.  It’s more eclectic and artsy.  Don’t get me wrong, I like nice stuff and I like quality work.  My stuff doesn’t always turn out perfect because usually I’m doing something I haven’t done before.  Still, it gets better every time.

I’ve done tile…  on floors, on walls, even on countertops.  I know how to use a wet saw to cut it and most of it looks decent.  I installed laminate flooring throughout my entire house.  Believe it or not, that is a one person job and not difficult at all.  The cutting is much easier with a table saw and the proper blade.  I switched from a chop saw very soon after I started that project.  I’ve done lots of painting.   I don’t have a single white wall in my home.  I’ve also done painting and refinishing on cabinets and lots of other furniture.  I’ve even taken on some minor remodeling including building a couple of pony walls and a new hearth for the fireplace.  I can tell you dealing with drywall is not my favorite thing.  It’s not difficult, just messy.

There have been lots of times when my projects are not as easy as I expect them to be.  I’ve started to expect that and not overestimate how much I can get done in a given time.  There have been things that were very frustrating, however I always figure out how to get it done.

If you’ve ever thought of doing projects like this around your home, don’t be afraid to have a go at it.  Paint is a great place to start and pretty inexpensive as well.  If you or one of your friends has leftover paint from another project, you may even be able to use that.  Be creative to use extra of multiple colors.  You could do a faux wash effect by mixing them with a bit of water.  If you buy new paint, there are some eco-friendly options available.  Of course, make sure you dispose of the cans properly when you’re finished.

When it comes to home projects, I believe I can do anything.  You can do anything too!

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wondered why certain things are the way they are.  I guess that’s no different than any other kid.  You’ve probably gotten annoyed with a child asking a zillion questions about everything.  I think it’s great that kids question everything.  Somehow we seem to get trained not to do that anymore.  At least some of us do.

I’m not talking about things like, “why is the sky blue?”  I probably did ask that at one time or another though.  I’m talking about things like, “why is it rude to put your elbows on the table?”  Logically, it’s not rude.  It’s just something someone came up with that became standard etiquette.

Most of our cultural standards are things just like this.  Actually, all of them are.  Cultural standards are all things that someone came up with and others accepted them.  I’m a big fan of new perspectives.  That means I don’t necessarily accept all cultural standards just because everyone else does.

I’m sure many of these things have good reasons behind them.  Others may not.  Maybe the reasons are no longer valid.  And maybe the reasons were really never that great in the first place.

I could go on and on about this.  For now, I’ll just say, question everything.  Remember that some person came up with it and it may or may not serve you to accept it.  Evaluate it and decide for yourself.