Freecycle

I love giving things away on Freecycle! Really, how can you beat it? It's free, it's a wonderful way to recycle, and you get that good feeling of knowing you are helping someone out. In the past we've Freecycled:

a treadmill (to a Humane Society--for people *and* the animals to use)
big bags of styrofoam peanuts (part of a tactile experience for autistic kids)
truck box
used VHS tapes (to a Vo-Tech school)
women and men's clothing
2 kites
loveseat and couch cover

Today I gave 35 plastic flower pots, in various condition, to a local lady. She was so excited to get them, and I was so excited to get them out of my house (first stored in the crawl space, then in the garage for the last couple of months.) Some of them are pots we purchased plants in at our local nursery, and some are the type pots you can buy at any big box store.




By the way, my CSA gladly takes back the little flimsy four packs that I bought plants in from them, as well as the hard plastic trays. Check with your CSA, local farmers, or nursery. I bet at least one of them would be glad to reuse them and not have to put out the money that each container represents.

What's growing in my garden

Cucumber



Dill




Bell pepper



Cauliflower! This one deserves an exclamation point because I did not think it was going to happen. I've never grown it before, and the leaves just kept getting bigger and bigger, until I thought it was going to be just leaves. I was ready to cut them down and start something else. But I'm glad I waited just a wee bit longer. The husband will be having plenty of aloo gobhi, that's for sure!

I've also got zucchini and yellow squash blooming, but no pictures of those.

What's growing in your garden?

Drying rack or kitty jungle gym?

I usually use my outside clothesline but for a while we had day after day of rain, so I pulled out the drying racks for backup. Apparantly this presented a wonderful climbing opportunity for Gabby. Can't say I blame her--looks like fun to me!

Garden visitor

I love these Asiatic lilies in my backyard. There are so many that they will have to be split when the time is right. But even better is when I see hummingbirds or butterflies enjoying my flowers.

Freebies

Everyone loves freebies, including me! These are a few of the items we received at the Chicago Green Festival:




We tried hard not to take anything that we wouldn't use. The magazines will be read, then passed on to my family, and then donated to the Friends of the Library bookstore so they can be sold.

We only took food samples of items we knew we would use. Same for the coupons. The movies from Earth Cinema Circle will be watched, the makeup and sponges will be used (and since the sponges are biodegradable, they will go into the compost when they are worn out.) And of course the ChicoBag will be used!

Chicago trip report

We’ve been back from Chicago for a week now, so I guess it’s about time for a trip report. The drive up went very well. We stayed in a suburb because the hotels near the Navy Pier are way out of the price range we want to pay for a hotel. Once you got into the Chicago area, the traffic was awful. The one nice thing about that for us is that this is where the Prius really shines. We ran on battery pretty much the whole time we were stuck in traffic.

After checking in and getting Gabby settled, we headed out to Veggie Bite for some vegan fast food. My husband had a Reuben and I noshed on a burger and fries. We then followed up with milkshakes. Never mind the cold, rainy weather. We weren’t going to pass up the chance to have a vegan milkshake!

The second day was all about the Green Festival. This was our second year to attend, so we knew not to eat much breakfast, because there are so many yummy foods to choose from at the festival. (I’m sure you’re seeing a pattern here. Yes, when we go to a big city, it’s all about the food choices, and we do indulge ourselves.) We had free passes so that saved us $15 each in admittance.

The festival was packed with all sorts of vendors giving out free samples, selling products, getting you to enter free raffles, etc. There were also speakers all day both Saturday and Sunday. We attended a few of those as well. By late afternoon we were headed back to the hotel for some relaxation time.

Sunday we decided to skip the festival. While it’s a lot of fun and very informative, we felt like most of the vendors were the same as the year before, and many of the speakers were talking on subjects that didn’t interest us. We headed out to Ikea where we were delighted to see this sign:





And of course we took advantage of the special treatment! We shopped around Ikea for a while. I only had a few specific things I wanted, but it was fun just to look around all 3 floors. I came home with 6 glass storage jars, 2 dishtowels, and 2 bath mats. All things I had been wanting for a while, and no junk. And then we went to the little grocery store for the husband. He stocked up on jams that we can’t get elsewhere, and a few other grocery items.

A little Indian food for lunch, a little Whole Foods shopping for things we can’t get at home, and then it was on to Chicago Diner, THE vegetarian restaurant in Chicago. We wound up with another Reuben and country-fried “chicken” with mashed potatoes and gravy. For dessert we had a slice of cake that was chocolate to the max and a piece of cheesecake.

The next morning it was time to check out and start heading home. We drove highways for a while, until that got boring, then got on the interstate to make the trip go faster.

Oh, one more turn of events. Somehow when we were stopped in a parking lot, I managed to slam the corner of the car door into my head. I thought it was just a painful bump until the husband mentioned there was blood. My eyelid turned some nice colors for a few days, but now it’s just sore, and I think I’m going to have a small scar.

How 'bout them apples?

Yes! We have apples! They are babies of course right now, but hopefully will make it to be full-grown, delicious, honeycrisp apples.

And now, just to balance things out, here's our newest cherry tree:




Yup. It's dead. We bought it as Lowe's, and we're going to see if it's guaranteed. We'll probably be buying our fruit trees from our local nursery from now on. Lesson learned.