WATCH: 1-2-3 Done – Growing Your Own Groceries

These days a large part of our grocery bills goes towards the produce we eat and with all of the health scares, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where it’s coming from? An easy solution for this problem is to grow your own groceries. It’s easy to do and the benefits far outweigh the effort. Here are some things to consider.

First, you should consider the amount of time you have to work in your garden and your available funds. Try starting small, you can always expand later, and you would be surprised how much you can produce in a small space.

Next, decide on what you and your family enjoy, you don’t want to plant something that could go to waste. Then check out what grows well in your area at certain times of the year.

Herbs are a great way to get started in gardening. They are easy to grow in containers in small spaces and you will always have them around when you need them. They can also be moved indoors if needed. You can even freeze or dry them to use at anytime during the year.

Another great container plant is lettuce and any time you want a salad all you have to do is go outside and clip off some leaves, no need to drive to the store.

If you are tight on space think about tomatoes, they grow very well in containers. If you decide to plant tomatoes, remember that there are two different types, determinate and indeterminate.

Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain height and stop; these plants don’t take up very much space. Indeterminate tomatoes can grow to any height and will need a staking system to keep them from touching the ground.

Other produce that is easy to grow if you have space is squash, cabbage and bell peppers.

Growing your own groceries is a fun and easy way to save money, plus there’s nothing like enjoying fresh herbs and vegetables straight from the garden.

Technorati Tags: eco, food, Gardening, green living, Growing Your Own Food, inspiration, nature, Sustainability, vivid life

Path to Freedom – Homestead Growing Your Own Food Urban Garden

Growing Your Own Food

Anchor Val Zavala visits an urban farmer in Pasadena whose family-run farm allows them to harvest enough not only to feed themselves but also to sell to local restaurants.

Resources: Path to Freedom – Everything you want to know about urban homesteading, from the Dervaes Family.

Comment: Clay-pot irrigation for saving water in America’s dry regions, what an amazing idea! This idea alone makes this video-clip worth watching. As you may know, water is tomorrow’s gold, and clay-pot irrigation may well be worth a ton of gold.

Technorati Tags: eco living, green living, Green Tips, Grow Your Own Food, Home Gardening, Path to Freedom, Sustainability, the Dervaes Family

Farmin’ in the HOOD

Epic story of about 20 families that uprooted from suburbia and made their homes for good in one of the most blighted neighborhoods in the U.S. Lykins Neighborhood 64127 Inner City KCMO. And the game is changing! Together as Lykins Neighborhood we believe there is hope. Crime is dropping! 21% over the last 2 years and the adventure continues. Follow the story at TheUrbanFarmingGuys.com Featuring Aquaponics, Neighborhood Transformation, Permaculture, Urban Farming and lots of fun taking back the neighborhood.

Earthing

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.  ~John Muir

 

On August 4, 2011 I posted a blog entry called “To Hug a Tree”, emphasizing the connection we have with the Natural world and the importance of our conscious re-connection with it as an obvious and necessary extension of ourselves. Later that afternoon I walked into our local bookstore and directly into a book called, Earthing. The cover was of two, beautiful sand-colored human footprints impressed into a dark soil, and with greenery nearby. The title and cover alone drew me to pick up the book. Within moments I knew why:

In 1998, a man named Clint Ober sat on a park bench in Sedona, Arizona. As he watched the parade of people walking by, it occurred to him that almost everyone, including Clint, wore synthetic plastic or rubber soled shoes. He began to wonder if such footwear, which had increasingly replaced leather since the 1960s, could impact health.

A retired cable TV executive, who had spent 25 years participating in the rise of the cable industry and his own business, Clint Ober had understood exactly what “cable” for cable television does:  the crisp image delivered by cable is the result of “shielding” that prevents signals from leaking out and prevents outside disturbances from leaking in.  Clint Ober realized in a “lightening bolt moment” that plastic or rubber soles would insulate people from the natural electrical surface charge of the Earth.

Mr. Ober began to consider how his experience with cable TV might apply to the human body. He realized that most people wear synthetic-soled shoes that insulate their bodies from the Earth’s energy field. This seemingly simple realization inspired a scientific adventure that has resulted in what some say is perhaps the greatest health discovery of our time.

The surface of the Earth resonates with natural, subtle energies. Ongoing scientific research is discovering the details as to why people feel significantly better when they connect with these omnipresent energy fields. Earthing refers to the process of connecting by walking barefoot outside, as humans have done throughout history – or sitting, working, or sleeping grounded indoors. Earthing immediately equalizes your body to the same energy level, or potential, as the Earth, which results in synchronizing your internal biological clocks, hormonal cycles, and physiological rhythms, and suffusing your body with healing, negatively charged free electrons (a good thing) abundantly present on the surface of the Earth.

My gratitude runs deep for this wonderful person, Clint Ober, who has now spent the last decade helping people all over the world become “grounded” by something as simple as spending time barefoot, standing on the earth. “Naturally” numerous stories of whole-body healing have taken place. With his background in cable and the installation of it, he was inspired to take this “a-ha” moment many steps further, after years of research, creating additional products that aid people in improving their homes and workspace, and even sleeping areas, with items that can help to keep a human in touch with the energetic healing frequencies of the earth, even while surrounded by every nuance of the technologically advancing world.

I’ve not read Clint Ober’s book yet, and so I don’t know what he proposes with regard to how to stand, how long, and how often,  but what I’d like to offer here is that our Mother Earth is everywhere. She costs nothing and gives of herself freely, although we have cost her plenty and taken much. For those who are in deep and dire need of balancing, healing, and recovery, I invite you to immediately create a sacred time each day where you stand directly on the earth, barefoot. Find a patch of earth that doesn’t already have pesticides sprayed on the grass, even if you have to ask someone’s help in locating or creating it. Perhaps it is in a neighbor’s organic garden area. If they have an organic garden, they are someone who has already begun to awaken, and I am certain that they will help you. They probably already have a sitting area where, if you are too weak to stand, you may sit with feet on the ground at first, graduating to standing later.

If you are in hospice, or are experiencing a health crisis of any degree at this time and need assistance in connecting directly with earth, you might ask your caregiver(s) to take an hour and read up on this idea of Earthing for you, and either follow simple guidelines as to how to get you directly upon the healing Mother Earth, – lying or sitting or standing – or follow their own intuition about what it would entail to make sure that you are warm, dry, comfortable and yet nothing lies between your body and the earth that would prevent you from receiving her healing, natural energies. For all we know, this vital piece of information and this obvious reminder of “what has already been given” is here for you right now, to utilize and to benefit from, and may provide the healing miracle you have prayed for.

Should you feel drawn to find out more beyond the simple act of standing for periods of time on the earth each day, I want to guide you to follow your own intuition, and if you feel curious, please visit both of Mr. Ober’s websites, where you can listen to audio clips, read more about all aspects of the research and the results, as well as read an excerpt from his book, Earthing, which I noticed is the recipient of the Nautilus Silver Award for 2011, an award that “recognizes books that promote spiritual growth, conscious living and positive social change, while at the same time stimulating the imagination and offering the reader new possibilities for a better life, and a better world.”  As well, I observed in the product area of the Earthing website that they have a number of products which can aid in further healing by keeping a human body connected to these natural earth frequencies almost all day long, and yet I didn’t notice flash or glamour or a “sell” job for any of it. In fact, what I read while reading up on his research at a different website of his, devoted to the ongoing research and distribution of the Earthing concept, was this:

“We envision an “Earthing revolution” ahead as increasing numbers of people the world over experience the health benefits of Earthing and as more research is published.

We envision a massive demand for personal grounding products not just in homes and offices, but in clinics, hospitals, and even schools.

This expected wave of interest will create innumerable business and job opportunities to bring the calming and healing power of the Earth outside into the lives of everyone indoors so that everyone lives grounded most of each and every day.”

To visit the homepage for Earthing please go to: www.earthing.com  To visit the website devoted to further education, training, and research, please go to:  www.earthinginstitute.net

I close this entry with a prayer of thanks for this information coming my way, and your way, and the earth’s way at this time. And with, of course, a poem:

If We Are Naked

We say that we will have a Good Life.

This is a guarantee

if we are kind to one another.

If we are patient.

If, when I speak, you listen

and if when you speak, I hear you.

This is assured,

if we continue to look for one another.

If we want to find.

If, when I am here, I am seen,

and if, when you are here, I see you.

We say that this will be a Good Life.

This is a guarantee

if We are Naked with one another.

If We are clotheless.

If, when I am vulnerable,

you shelter,

and if, when you are defenseless,

I protect.

 

‘If We Are Naked’ – Em Claire – Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved

*Dedicated to the Protection of Mother Earth*

 

Technorati Tags: 2012, awakening, Clint Ober, Earthing, Em Claire, Neale Donald Walsch, Poet, Poetry, shift, spiritual, When Everything Changes Change Everything

Household Chores – Benefits & Rewards

Combine career changes, complicated renovations to the house and sprinkle in a brother-in-law-turned-renter into the mix, and you have a recipe for chaos. My house was disorganized, and trying to get the family to organize it and keep it tidy was a losing battle.

Unable to come up with a solution to our problem, I turned to the well reviewed “Organizing from the Inside Out” by Julie Morgenstern for advice.

The audio book was a quick listen but powerful in its message. Morgenstern bases her organizational system on one all Kindergarten classroom use. In the classroom, every activity has its defined place and all objects related to that activity have to be stored in that area. Her system worked to get my house organized, but I need a way to maintain the organization and get people to complete the chores needed to accomplish this goal.  Consequently, I came up with an activity inspired by the power and simplicity of Morgenstern’s system.

Like motivating a grade school class, I needed to break through the diversity of the personalities doing the work by integrating teamwork, fairness in the distribution of the chores and make the activity fun and interactive.

Everyone was expected to participate because it was time to introduce my two year old to the responsibilities of household chores.

Therefore, I chose a time of the week where I knew everyone would be home, and too groggy to put up a fight. For us, that time was 10:00 am on Sunday morning.

To prepare for the activity I did the following:

1. For the adults, I divided the house work into different chores and wrote them on to folded pieces of paper and placed the slips into a bowl.
2. My son was assigned a separate set of chores that took into account his age and attention span. I also, wanted to give him chores that were fun, built his confidence and a sense of responsibility. The chores included …
   1. brushing the dog
   2. cleaning up toys
   3. using the hand vacuum
   4. coloring a picture for mommy
3. Toddler chores were marked with an orange marker so that they were easy to pick out of the bowl.
4. For extra incentive, slips that awarded prizes were mixed in with the chores. Prizes included …
   1. gift cards
   2. prizes in lieu of work
   3. certificates that allowed people to trade up  chores  with someone else
5. My son was given slips that allowed him to win …
   1. coloring books
   2. small toys
   3. candy

The slips of paper were mixed into a bowl. People drew out chores and prizes until the bowl was empty.

Then, the fun begins.

Every week, one person is responsible to run the game and pick the prizes.

It is hard to motivate a single person and at times impossible to motivate a group of people. Sometimes, going back to basics is the best plan of action.

Set a simple goal that benefits everyone involved, find a time that does not inconvenience the group and make the process fun and interactive. The results can create a foundation where larger and more complicated goals can be achieved in the future.

If anyone else has any activities they use to get their family motivated, please tell us in the comments.

Technorati Tags: creating a chore list, getting kids to do chores, helping with chores, housework, kids and chores, motivating to do housework, Motivation, organizing

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