Save the world, Green thursday: Edible flowers

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

Be adventurous with your food. Some parts of the plants you think inedible and are wasted are very delicious.

Take the pumpkin for example, you can eat the pumpkin, and the seeds. To many, the young shoots of the pumpkin make a good stir fry. Surprisingly, the flower can be deep fried into tempura pumpkin flower, an Indian Chutney or an Italian stuffed pumpkin flower.

My Thai friends tell me that you can do the same with zucchini flowers and shoots.

I am being hypocritical about this. I don't eat pumpkins, due to a deeply ingrained indoctrination against eating pumpkins. You may wonder why, and do click on this post that I wrote explaining why.
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/12/looks-like-sam-may-just-have-some-luck.html

Save the World/Green Thursday: Plant trees and native plants

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

One of the ways to enhance a sad polluted area, where broken footpaths and overflowing rubbish bins were eye sores, is to have the support of all parties involved.

The Roy Clements Treeway is one fine example. This is a patch of area owned by Mount Albert Grammar School (MAGS) where Sam currently attends, and managed by Auckland City Council. The creek is polluted and has weeds and when it rains heavily, it floods.

Now it is transformed and is a popular public walkway. I found it last year when I walked to see the different paths Sam can take to his new school.

It is used daily by many MAGS pupils to go to and from school. It has been the focus of complaints by the School and local residents. The St Lukes Environmental Protection Society have campaigned to improve this area.

The groups carried out a tree planting program, and also native plants and the regeneration of the wetland area. Now you can see ducks swimming. Landscape experts now encourage people to grow native plants as it is much kinder to the environment.

The St Lukes Environmental Protection Society (STEPS) was incorporated in 2005. Its purpose is to act as a body, giving voice and taking action to protect and enhance the environment and amenities in the St Lukes area.

http://www.meolacreek.org.nz/tag/roy-clements-treeway/

Meola Creek makeover
The banks of Meola Creek in Mt Albert have a new lease of life with over 6,000 native species being planted by enthusiastic volunteers recently.

The volunteers including several Wai Care groups, Morphum Environmental Ltd, Metrowater staff and members of local care group STEPS, planted both sides of the new boardwalk that runs through the Roy Clement’s Treeway.

The ‘treeway’ is named after Roy Clements, a retired Mt Albert Grammar School teacher, who involved students in environmental work at Meola Creek some years ago. Mr Clements participated in the planting activities and explained why he feels passionate about the revegetation and care of Meola Creek, and the importance of community and student involvement in environmental work.

As a result of Mr Clements’ work, there are already some well established native trees, including a beautiful King Fern that will help protect the newer plants.

Auckland City Wai Care Coordinator Melissa Marler says the new plants will help trap contaminants in an area that regularly floods.

“Native grasses including Carex virgata, Carex lessoniana, Cortederia fulvida (toe toe), Cyperus ustulatis were planted along the stream edge with Baumea Articulata, flax, cabbage trees, and kowhai in the wetter areas,” says Melissa.
“The new plants look great and members of the public have commented how much they are enjoying the new raised boardwalk and the plants. “I’m also encouraged to see people out picking up rubbish between the new plants’” she says.

Save the world/green Thursday: Save our children

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

As a teacher, I believe our greatest asset is our children. In order to save the world, we need to save our children, especially those from at risks sectors of our society. These children play truant, and it becomes a vicous cycle. These kids don't learn, they can't hold down jobs, and they get into trouble. I am glad Auckland city has adopted a zero tolerance to this problem.

Children are not allowed to hang around shopping malls, and schools issue children with passes should they need to buy things during school hours. My school, Pt Chevalier school is very vigilant. Children who are late are issued pink slips. By mid morning, if a child is absent and his parents have not called in, the office will call the parents to ascertain the reason for his absence.


http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/WhaHap/nm/mr/2008/apr08.asp#truancy

Zero Tolerance to Truancy in Waitakere Schools

The Waitakere community is formally taking ownership of the city's truancy issue with a Zero Tolerance to Truancy Action Plan launched at Waitakere City Council today.

"Truancy is not just an issue for schools, it's an issue for the whole community and that's why we in Waitakere have encouraged the collaboration of all the various agencies in this programme," says Margaret Campbell, the manager of Waitakere City Improving School Attendance Programme (ISAP), the initiative's umbrella organisation.

Save the World, Green Thursday: Use natural fertiliser

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html


A Hello! A handshake!
A scoop of sheep pellets.
We are now friends.

I have new neighbours,
An elderly couple from Sri Lanka,
He was busy clearing the ground.

I see his tomato and chilli plants.
I go over to say hi.
He says,"I no speak English!"

I asked if he had fertiliser for his plants.
He says, "I no speak English!"
I go back to my garden.

I show him my bag of sheep manure.
He smiles and understands.
I give him a scoop of sheep pellets.

We have become friends.
I went for a long summer holiday,
Too late to start my garden.

He calls me," daughter, you buy some potting mix."
Next, he gives me chilli plants he germinated himself.
I will have enough salsa for the rest of the year.

Spear pumps

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

Reduce Rootprints have an interesting post on water.
Monday, February 1, 2010
17 Quick Tips and Interesting Facts About Water ...


Water is a precious commodity, and during my grandfather's time, there was no piped water. Everyone, including a toddler after a bath in the river, had to carry a bucket of water back some two hundred meters from the river back to the house. It was by this training, that I have the conservation of water drilled into me.

In the early 1980s, I visited my husband's home town in West Malaysia. The water supply broke down, and only then did people value the water. Some homes have a pump, and wells drilled into the ground. People went to those witth drills to "borrow" water. There were chicken and ducks all over the place, and I didn't want to use the water. But beggers can't be choosers, I had no choice but use the water.

When I was in the GoldCoast, I saw that some of the houses have spear pumps. Spear pumps tap artesian water supplies. My brother Joseph has one, and uses the water to water his plants. He also has a tank to collect rain water.

Paradise spear pumps have been operating on the Gold Coast for over 21 years. Spear pumps can be installed in most areas on the Gold Coast. Spear pumps basically suck the water from the water table, which flows through the sand underground. Some very rocky areas are not suitable for spear pump installations and a bore would be required in those areas.

Save the world, Green Thursday:Save endangered species

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

http://www.orangutanproject.com/content.php?p=59

I have just come back from Australia and photos from my nephew Raymond and his family make me want to go again.

This time, a holiday with a difference. Couple of years ago, when I went with Sam to the Semengoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in Sarawak, I saw orang utans as a spectator. I wanted more, to be actively involved with Orang Utans.

Then I watched a documentary of the Matang centre where volunteer visitors have a hands-on experience with caring for orang utans. May be next year, I will go on this trip. Time to give back to the country of my birth.

Experience Matang Wildlife Centre. Price: US$ 1775 / US$ 2695

Orangutans are going extinct but YOU can help by volunteering in a rehabilitation centre on Borneo Island. Find out more.

To volunteer at MWC book on to our Sarawak Orangutan Volunteer Programme (4weeks) to come and be a part of what were achieving.

A rare chance to join us in Borneo, on our 2 or 4 week volunteer programme specially created for you the volunteer to come closer to the miracle of the birth of two baby orangutans at the same time, same place, but from two different mothers! Also work along side our dynamic conservation team with other animals at the centre who need immediate help such as the orangutans, sunbears, the crocodiles and monkeys.

Save the world, Thursday Green: Cleaning the lake

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

When I see lotus or water lily pads, I think of fellow blogger Kate from Kuala Lumpur. She posted beautiful photos of lotus flowers and leaves.

This is for you Kate. I pick these pads because they are different from the ones I know. They have little white flowers growing from the underside of the leaves. Tiny plantlets also grow from there. perhaps they always so, except I had not paid attention to them when I was little when my dad grew them in big salted egg jars.

These lily pads and water weeds in the Clear Island Water Bay are obnoxious weeds. Their growth entangles the propellors of the boats and the council comes to clear them from the sides of the creks. Unfortunately with the boats moored at the private jetties along the creek, inevitabily, patches of these weeds are left choking the water. Once I saw a dead eel floating among the weeds. The water is nutrient rich with ducks and Australian coots pooping in the water.

In the post I did on my other site, Sam and his cousins made a game of clearing the weeds. When I am swimming, I too do the same.http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/12/scenic-sunday-removing-weeds-and-water.html

I asked my skipper what that bouy looking like structure is. He said, it's an aeration device. The water engineer would be pleased I noticed it. I am sure he saw it when he was in the boat the time he came to the Gold Coast and my brother took him for a ride.

Save the world, Think Green: Glasses

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

This glass, looks very nice and very classy. Often, when I have visitors, I pop open a bottle of wine and serve them in these wine globes. Invariably, one always breaks, because they are so delicate.

This nice looking glass can be deadly. The term used is glassing. When I watch Chinese movies, the beer bottle becomes a lethal weapon especially when it is smashed prior to the attack, and then gripped by the remaining base of the glass or neck of the bottle with the broken shards protruding outwards. Or even when the whole bottle in plonked on someone's head. It seems very funny watching it on TV. But in reality, it is not so funny.

I have friends who are doctors and they spend weekends stitching up faces or heads of glassed victims.

In Queensland, Australia, the premier Anne Bligh had wanted to introduce a ban on using glasses in pubs and bars because the glassing problem is so bad.

A raft of Supreme Court actions over the glass ban forced the Office of Liquor Licensing to delay action on the original 41 ''high-risk'' venues.

The bans were due to come into force on December 1 but will now be delayed until early February.

More than 100 licensees have already chosen to voluntarily switch to non-regular glass, such as tempered glass or plastic cups.

People are against the ban. I am not a drinker, and I can't say if drinking from tempered glass or plastic will make the beer or alcohol less "delicious" or drinkable?

To what extend should I include this topic under my environmental issue? Yesterday, I got Sam to think about using a towel and we both were surprised how many issues there are involved in the mere action of using a towel.

On the same token, what about glass?

What is glass made off? Few years ago, the water engineer when we were in Singapore bought back some beautiful white Australian sand. We gave Sam the most beautiful sand pit in urban Singapore. Everyone commented what beautiful, soft white sand. The water engineer said it was high grade Australian sand used for making glass.

Sand is not going to last for ever.

If drinking glasses are glassed by drunks.

My year one student will tell me that the pub owner will have to buy more glasses.
My year two student will tell me that the factory will have to make more glasses.
My year three student will tell me that miners will have to mine more sand.
The seniors who are well aware of environmental issues will tell me, at this rate, soon there will be no more sand.

As for the drunks, they can rot in prison for all I care.

http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2008/11/popular-tourist-place-in-singapore.html