It Rained

Again.   So I missed seeing the transit of Venus.  Guess I'll just have to wait until it comes around again when I'm 162.

I've also missed the last three eclipses (solar and lunar) because of rain, and several meteor showers.  Does the universe not want me to see these things?


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The rain is also keeping the salmonberries from ripening; they'll need at least three sunny days before I can pick more.  The blackberries should be okay, since they wouldn't be ripe for at least another month anyway, and July is usually nicely warm and sunny. And today I saw little teeny baby fruit on my cherry tree and my plum tree and my apple tree!


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I've been catching up (yes, still!) on the other blogs I read, and finding a lot of food for thought ...

I don't think we'll ever have a "Zero Waste Home", but every week I see a little less trash, a little less food waste, a little more making do with what we have ... baby steps.

This coming October, we'll be presented with three shiny new bins from the city: one each for garbage, recycling, and yard waste/compost/organics.  I think it's great!  The info that came in the mail says that garbage and recycling will be picked up every other week, and organics every week.  Well, as it is we don't put garbage or recycling out every week anyway, and since these new bins will be bigger we may end up only putting the garbage bin out once a month.  I'd like to get that down a lot farther, but P has a large dog and two cats, and we have two guinea pigs and are looking at a couple of kittens in August, so unless all their waste qualifies as organic it will all still have to go in the garbage.  I'll have to look into that.

Tomorrow I'll be walking over to the Post Office to see if I can stop all the unaddressed advertising we get every week.  It pretty much all goes straight from the mail slot to the recycling bin, and it's such a waste; the only things I don't toss immediately are envelopes with plain insides, which I turn inside out and make lists on.  From the P.O. I will head over to the Shaw office to see about downgrading our cable/internet/phone package  -  it's just costing us way too much for what we currently use/watch.  Then, on to the Safeway to return some deposit Coke cans and recycle this month's accumulation of plastic bags, and then to the bank to deposit my rolled coins (over $100!), and finally to the library.

No food waste in the last seven days!!  Not even the bone from Sunday night's ham  -  Dog is enjoying it out in the yard right now.  And the remains went into a huge vat of split pea soup, which we packaged up for the freezer this morning.  Carrot peelings were welcomed loudly by the guinea pigs, eggshells and onion trimmings went into the compost, and coffee grounds got scattered directly into the garden to discourage snails and slugs (I'll let you know if it works!).


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Sadly, a lot of the comments I see on other blogs are of the "One person can't possibly make any difference" variety.  I disagree.  If only one person on the planet tried to change things, to conserve, to stop waste or pollution or excessive consumption, then maybe it wouldn't matter.  But when you add up all the "one persons" working for change, even if it's only in their own homes, it can make a difference.  And I believe it has made a difference already, and will continue and snowball and grow.