A Different Kind of Flower
In an effort to be a little more environmentally friendly, Mr Chiot’s and I have been drying our laundry outside this summer. At first we were apprehensive since Mr Chiot’s has terrible allergies, but the outdoor drying didn’t make them any worse.
I’m going to miss this chore, it’s always such a peaceful time. I’m also going to miss all the extra colorful flowers in the gardens (the kind I don’t have to weed & water).
Am I going to hang my clothes indoors during the winter? Probably not. We don’t have space here in our little home. So I’ll be retiring my clothes line and clothes pins here pretty soon until the weather warms up a bit next spring.
Anyone else drying clothes in the gardens this summer?
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (4)Blog Action Day: Fighting Poverty
I just found out that today is Blog Action Day: Fighting Poverty.
I grew up in Colombia, South America. My parents are missionaries and they have working at fighting poverty in Colombia for over 37 years (read my dad’s blogpost about poverty and what they’ve done to help). Many people in the United States aren’t familiar with real poverty. We may know someone who can’t afford to have a car, or that needs foods stamps to help pay for their food. While that is a form of poverty, it isn’t the same depth of poverty that the majority of the world lives in.
According to the Global Rich List, Mr Chiots and I (and the majority of Americans) are in the top 1% of the world wealth-wise because of our income. Check out how you rank, I bet it will be in the top 1% as well. So what can we do as the top 1% of wealthy people in the world? Obviously we can donate money to one of the many organizations that helps with poverty relief around the world like Heifer International, Kiva, the Grameen Foundation, or Oxfam International. Mr Chiot’s and I choose to donate to pay for the education of poor children in Colombia.
We support a school in Colombia that provides a free or low cost education to the children of the very poor. Through their education they will be able to rise up out of poverty. They’ll never be able to make it into the top 1% of the world wealth-wise, simply because they don’t live in a country like the United States, but they might make it up into the top 25%. We don’t just support with money, Mr Chiots and I have traveled to the school several times to make videos for them to help raise funds. I also work to raise scholarships for a lot of the children at the school.
What else can you do to help fight poverty? You can get involved in local program like a food bank or a homeless shelter or perhaps an after school program for lower income families, or get involved in the world-wide peasant movement, or support better working conditions for farm workers. It doesn’t really matter what you do, just do something.
This is the face of poverty in a poor section of Bogota, Colombia Mr Chiot’s and I visited in February.
What does the face of poverty look like to you and what are you doing about it?
The Best Day
On Monday we headed down to the family hunting cabin to clean up from the windstorm (the one that knocked out our electric). We met up with my parents & our 2 nieces and spent the day working at clearing the lane & the field from fallen branches. Mr Chiots and my dad cut up a few trees that had uprooted and fallen against the cabin, fortunately there was no significant damage. The Chiots loves going to the cabin because she gets to run around through the woods and she especially loves playing with the nieces. She had a blast, truly the best day of the week for her!
We even managed to have a local meal for lunch: pastured beef hot dogs from our local farm, homemade buns, sliced tomatoes from our garden, some of my canned pears, potato salad with cranberry & blue tomatoes from the farmer’s market with homemade mayonnaise made from local eggs, my mom made a batch of salsa with items from her garden. The only non-local items were a few Cokes and some Pringles (haven’t figured out how to make either of those yet).
Don’t they both look like they’re having a good time?
That’s One Hot Dog!
The longer the tongue the hotter the dog!
Oh the Humanity
When I pull weeds I often leave them in a pile in the sun for a day to die. There’s just something supremely satisfying about watching them shrivel and die. Hm, maybe I should look into some therapy???
When I weed the front flowerbeds I often throw the weeds up on the front porch to dry, the next day I load them into a bucket and off to the compost pile they go. One day I noticed that the Chiots thought I had put them there to soften up the concrete for her (or maybe she was trying to help the cause by smothering them?).