Turtles and Tomatoes

I'm back from vacation -- my family and I went to South Padre Island for 5 days -- we had a great time, but I won't count the mileage because it's just too painful. While we were gone a horrible storm hit Austin, taking out some crucial parts of my garden. The squash may not make a comeback... the pole beans.... well, let's just say it's not pretty. They got completely knocked over. About 1/2 did not get up-rooted. We'll see how it goes.

What did survive without any problems were the tomatoes. Thanks to the giant cages, they didn't get hurt when the beans fell over. They are covered with fruit and on my first day back from vacation I was able to harvest 2 little tomatoes, 1 patty pan squash (hopefully this is not the only one I get) and some lettuce.

My youngest was delighted with the tomatoes and carried the harvest around the house in a little bowl. When I wanted to make a salad for lunch today, I couldn't find them, so I had to look in her room. Sure enough, she had put them in her backpack. That explains why when we left this morning she had called out "Adios tomates!"

I only wish that she would actually eat them....

Turtles
One of the days that we were in South Padre, we saw a sea turtle on the beach laying eggs. It was amazing! She was surrounded by tourists and volunteers from Sea Turtle Inc. I did not really understand why so many people were crowded around (and the volunteers were calling other people, including us, over to watch) because there were signs all over the place telling people not to disturb the sea turtles.

The next day, I took the kids to Sea Turtle Inc. for a very interesting presentation and a chance to feed the turtles in their hospital (they like romaine lettuce, apparently). The volunteer explained that the turtle is in a "trance" while she is laying eggs. The volunteers were gathering the eggs as she laid them in order to bring them to a safe place.

They also explained to the kids about the problems with plastic bags and sea turtles. When a plastic bag gets into the water, it looks an awful lot like a jelly fish, which sea turtles like to eat (probably before the lettuce?). I had heard this before, but when the volunteer held up the bag, it really did look like a jelly fish, and it finally made sense to me. The kids remembered too.

Two bags down...

Today I was going around the house, looking for things I don't need in my goal to unclutter this week. I found some random toys, a crossword puzzle book (where did this come from?), and was just about to despair when -- jackpot! -- I found a whole bag of clothes that I had ready to donate to Goodwill already. Is this cheating? Nah! They've been clogging up my closet for months now and pretty soon I'll need that space for the worms.

That's right. The worms, or at least their house, is on the way. I watched a bunch of youtube videos on worm farming last night (just to be sure that Sustainable Dave is not making it look too easy). I figured that if Dave "wimped out" as he says on the video, then so can I. We opted for a Worm Factory, and as soon as it arrives I'll get the worms because I don't want to have a bunch of worms with no place to live.

So today was a pretty good day, green-wise. Here's the progress I made :)
-Worm Factory on the way
- Planted about 1/4 of my plot in the community garden with lettuce and squash. Hope it's not too late for the lettuce. Maybe it will just be baby lettuce, which will atleast be something. This was actually a major triumph because I can't find the key to get in the garden, so I had to climb the fence and have my husband throw the compost over. I'm a mess.
-One more bag of stuff gone (that's two so far). They're big bags, too.

What I'd like to work on is driving to work. Two days out of the week I drive about 10 miles round trip to work. I can't really ride my bike because I wouldn't be back home in time to meet the kids off the schoolbus. I guess the next best thing is to ride my scooter. Next semester I'll try to plan my classes better so that I can ride my bike or take the bus.
According to fueleconomy.gov, my car gets 21 mpg in the city. That's shockingly bad. It doesn't seem like it's that low. I will have to look into that further. My scooter gets about 70 mpg. I can't find a reliable source that says exactly what the mileage is right now, but averages on various sites seem to be around 70. Obviously, the best solution here is to ride the scooter. Today was rainy and windy though, and I'm afraid I'll blow over. But after looking at the numbers, I'll be sure to ride the scooter if I won't blow over or at least combine an errand if I have to drive (as the grocery store is on my way to work).