Hippie Hiatus

The time has come for me to take a hiatus from my Hippie blog. It's time for me to spend more time doing what makes me happy and less time writing about it. While I have enjoyed learning and writing about this crunchy green lifestyle over the last three years, I have so many other ideas to journey toward- and not all of them fit into categorization of "hippie." I am so very happy to have learned so much in the last 3 years, and I plan to continue many of these lifestyle choices; however, this will not happen in front of a computer screen! Until next time- I'll catch you on the flip side!

Candles!

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now- it's not everyday that you come across a natural alternative to a product that has no downfall whatsoever (at least none that I can come up with!). Given my penny-pincher tendencies, the most frequent downfall of the natural alternative to mainstream products is cost. Unfortuntely to choose organic foods, all-natural materials, and fair trade products costs a lot more than what you can pick up at Walmart (shudder) or other corporate stores. But... Without further ado, I would like to present a natural alternative to those wonderful Yankee Candles that we all know and love... Tranquility Base Candles! Tranquilty Base Candles is run from the home of a wonderful woman named Rita. I was lucky enough to be invited into her home to watch a candle making demonstration with our homeschool group (that is, three 3 year olds and three moms- pretty certain that the moms were much more entertained by this outing). During this demonstration, Rita informed us that Yankee candles are made of paraffin, a substance made from petroleum. Unbeknownst to me, paraffin has a multitude of known carcinogens. Burning this stuff repeatedly is just not good. Ever notice the black ring of soot on the jars of your Yankee Candles? Something about that just doesn't seem "clean." Rita uses Palm and Soy Wax to make all of her products. She is extremely dedicated to use the most sustainable sources in order to obtain her materials (so dedicated, in fact, that she changed suppliers during the holiday rush when she wasn't satisfied with how one of her suppliers obtained their palm oil). She doesn't use dyes, so all of her jar candles look similar, but they certainly smell different. She offers a wide variety of scents- I found it extremely hard to choose. And, perhaps most importantly, the cost of Tranquility Base Candles is comparable to Yankee Candles, in fact, they are cheaper. She does offer shipping to those of you who do not live locally, which does bring the cost slightly above Yankee candles, but I still think it's a good deal. Healthy, sustainable candles with all the amazing scents? I think it's safe to say I have found where I will purchase all of my future candles (I bought a bunch for gifts already!). Tranquilty Base Candles http://www.tranquilitybasecandles.com/index.php - I hope you make the change too!

Our first growing season completed

Our first growing season is now officially over. This past weekend, I pulled the last of our tomatoes off the plant (late October and still quite a few good ones- is this normal??), pulled the plant, composted most of it (NOT any seeds!), and raked the garden. Our first season of vegetable gardening is now in the books. And I am officially hooked! We already have ideas rolling through our heads for the spring. We've learned so much and are looking forward to putting that knowledge to use next year. And, having jumped right in this year, it's no surprise that we have ambitious plans for next year too- we're doing to add a second garden for our squash, zucchini, and any other gourd-like plants that might need to run wild, and I hope to try my hand at canning. Perhaps if I get good at this, we can enjoy our delicious home grown food for the whole year!

Hippie Documentary of the...year: The World According to Monsanto

I've already stayed up too late watching this French-made documentary that I just stumbled upon, but it's already too good to not pass along to fellow hippies. Like all documentaries focusing on Monsanto, I'm quite disgusted. Thus far, I have been particularly disgusted by the footage of George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle. Oh yeah, and puss milk. Definitely disgusted by the discussion about puss in cow's milk. Enjoy!!

Mystery plant revealed!

Apparently Godzilla plant is some type of gourd...

babies...

finished product?

The question remains.... is it edible?? Any of you not-so-amateur gardeners out there recognize what exactly this is?

A few amateur mistakes...

I always enjoy reporting the silly mistakes we are making in our hippie attempts. For one, sometimes they are quite funny and it's always good to share funny, and hopefully someone reading this might realize that if I can fall on my face a few times while trying out some of these endeavors, and still find some enjoyment, maybe you can try something new too!

Amateur mistake #1: composting seeds. Last season, I spoke of the rookie compost mistake we made- composting mostly green materials- and its disasterous results. This year we discovered yet another rookie composting mistake- composting seeds. We ended up with dozens and dozens of seedlings in our compost bin, and were not quite sure what exactly they were. So we decided to take a few, put them in the garden and see what they would become. A few got shocked and died off, and one took root. And is now taking over the earth. The husband and I are still trying to determine exactly what it is. Could be acorn squash, might be pumpkin, but I'm guessing it's cantaloupe. Despite numerous attempts to trim it back, it's still taking up about a quarter of our garden. This weekend we are going to see what we can do to tame it and hopefully keep it from taking over any other plants (current casualties of Godzilla plant: 2 jalapeno plants, 1 dwarf pumpkin plant.

Amateur mistake #2: Not caging the tomato plants from the get-go. I knew tomato plants needed cages, I just never got around to doing it! But with all the sun we have had lately, the tomato plant has had immense growth in the last week or so. A few days ago, it practically imploded from the weight of all the tomatoes. So it finally became do-or-die. The husband and I just spent about 45 minutes wrestling with some cages, and I think we successfully have all the tomatoes up off the ground. Phew.

Our next issue to tackle, aside from taming Godzilla plant is to figure out how to keep the friendly neighborhood ground squirrel from treating our garden like his own personal buffet.

Tomato casualties to date:

Ground squirrel: 3

Wresting tomato cages into place: 12 (d'oh!)

Two kids' curious hands: 10

And yet, we still have plenty tomatoes on the plant that will hopefully mature.

And even with all these hiccups, we are still enjoying garden fresh veggies several times a week.

Garden updates!

Our garden is flourishing! We have a handful of plants that seem to be taking over the universe. The Early Girl tomato plant has over 30 tomatoes on it currently (I lost count after 30!), and our yellow squash are giant! I'm very happy with how things are growing so far. Looks like we're going to have quite a few potatoes, onions, jalapenos, green peppers, and definitely plenty of squash and tomatoes. I think I'm going to have to find some spaghetti sauce recipes! Oh, and we're enjoying fresh garden salad at least once a week. Can't complain about that! The growing season is treating us well- not to mention the beautiful flowers that we have around the yard. Happy gardening!