Project: self-watering planter

I'm determined that living in an apartment on the third floor without so much as a fire escape won't keep me from growing food this summer. I've commandeered a patch of wall on the sunny side of the building, and so far nobody has disturbed my plants.

The latest project was a self-watering tomato pot. Plants develop root systems better if the water is coming from below, not above. Also, when I'm away for a week, the plant will suck up water happily.

The lower pot is the reservoir. It was a regular plastic pot with holes in it, so I lined it with plastic. The PVC tube is for adding water.


The second pot has wicks to draw up water from the reservoir. I used strips of towel poked through the holes in the bottom.


The soil and plant go in the upper pot, and voila:


I fill the reservoir via the tube. As the soil dries up, the towel wicks up water from the reservoir. The plant has damp soil. Hooray!

There are tons of instructions out there for building self-watering containers. They're great for the urban garden.

I have a business!

. . A very small one. In an effort to support my sewing habit, I'm going commercial.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TooWholesome

Who knew?

Speaking of things that recently got names made up for them . . .

Apparently when you
- go to Dollar-a-Pound
- buy two teeshirts (from their weight, I estimate this cost about $1.50)
- cut them up, and
- make them into a dress,

that's "upcycling"!



This is totally my plan for fixing the teeshirts-for-Africa aid debacle.

Cops and the soldiers, they nailed him in the air

I've seen those "Jesus was homeless" teeshirts. But I didn't realize the connection (though not the slogan) had been made about 60 years earlier. I just heard Woody Guthrie's rewrite of the outlaw ballad "Jesse James," rewritten as "Jesus Christ."

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
Hard-working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your goods to the poor."
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

The major problem with the song is that not much rhymes with "Judas Iscariot".

Revolution

My mom talks about how strange it is that my generation thinks it's no big deal to have people in space. Moon landings have been around for longer than we have. Because Mom remembers when the first one happened, it's still a big deal to her.

My grandmother, born in 1908, saw a lot more changes in her lifetime. She remembered when electricity came to her hometown. One change I had never thought much about, but that revolutionized people's lives in the last century, was easy access to birth control. Fifty years ago, sex usually meant babies. If you listen to old songs, you hear it everywhere.

The lyrics to the Kingston Trio's "It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song" never made much sense to me. Recently I heard Woody Guthrie's version, no doubt influenced by his time in the 1930s as a homeless dustbowl refugee trying to earn money to send back to his wife and three children. (Long distances are an unpleasant but effective method of birth control.)

Yes we got six children, and expecting several more
Kids run out like cattle when you open up the door.
Yes you single boys can ramble and can lead a rowdy life
But you'll have to take it easy when you get yourself a wife
You will have a flock of children and have others coming on
It takes a married man, boys, to sing a worried song.

Older folk songs are full of the same complaint:

When I was single, I'd sport and I'd play
Now how the cradle it stands in my way.

Loretta Lynn (who married at 13 and had four children by the age of 19) recorded a number of songs on the topic. In 1970 it was "One's on the Way," written by Shel Silverstein(!)

The girls in New York City, they all march for women's lib,
And Better Homes and Garden shows the modern way to live.
And the pill may change the world tomorrow, but meanwhile, today,
Here in Topeka the flies are a buzzin',
The dog is a barkin' and the floor needs a scrubbin'.
One needs a spankin' and one needs a huggin',
And Lord, one's on the way.
(Oh gee, I hope it ain't twins again.)

In 1972 when she recorded "The Pill", stations wouldn't play it:

You wined me and dined me
When I was your girl
Promised if I'd be your wife
You'd show me the world

But all I've seen of this old world
Is a bed and a doctor bill
I'm tearin' down your brooder house
'Cause now I've got the pill.

Matt McGinn of Scotland writes of the same wish in another part of the world:

Now they're talking o' the pill, they've filled my heart wi' hope
I'm sitting here and waiting on a signal frae the Pope
I went along to buy some at fifteen bob a tin
I hope we hae the Pope's okay before my man comes in.

It's fifty years this week since the FDA approved the first birth control pills. What a change.

A stitch in time

Working at an international aid organization, the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake has been interesting to watch.

People are riveted by suffering. Months after the quake, people are still calling to donate for that specific purpose. I gently try to steer them to a general donation. "We've raised all the money we can responsibly spend in the next 5 years. At this point, donations are really more needed in other parts of the world." This is not what they want to hear.

Haiti got $1.55 billion in aid just now, largely because it was on the news. Darfur (remember Darfur?) is not on TV. Nor is Congo. Nor is Pakistan. Nor are millions of poor people around the world whose daily lives are a disaster.

I thought this was the most brilliant thing I've ever seen on aid: Prevent Disasters

I hear people say on the phone, "I saw how bad it was, and I wanted to do something." I'm glad that they're moved to help. But Haiti needed help long before the earthquake. It wouldn't have been so awful there if people had decent housing to begin with. People need help all over the globe, and they will need it tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Not just when they're on the news.