September in the Garden...

Fall is on the way; I love this time of year.... It's still getting hotter during the day than I would like, but I love the cool crisp mornings :) The garden is still going strong; looking great--check out the pics

The front yard; one of my sculptures by the pond :)

Another one on the other side of the pond: check out the pomps on the pompass grass!

Kitty on the fence; on the only bare spot; the rest has been taken over by cucumber vines & tiny melon vines :)

The back veggie patch; only a few sunflowers left; I've been cutting the spent plants down to get more sunlight in: next year I wont let them get quite so carried away...

Over on the wild side...

Purple morning glories have taken over the little sculpture :) And the roses that I thought I killed are finally coming back (not sure I'm happy about that)

Beans---I swear this is a magic beanstock :)

Beanstock flowers; sooo pretty :)

And the front garden patch: so much better than the lawn that used to be there....



My favorite sunflowers; I wish all of them were this color.....

Thats all for now; got more projects to work on :)

Amber

Students make CO2 footprint calculator

Two students from the Leiden-Delft MSc Industrial Ecology programme have made a carbon footprint calculator for the website www.doemaarduurzaam.nl; the website where the Dutch public broadcasting organisations collect everything broadcasted about sustainability. The carbon footprint calculator allows for the online calculation of the personal carbon footprint of Dutch citizens.Unfortunately most the calculator itself is only in Dutch.

LCA PhD position at Leiden University

Those of you that have MSc in IE or related topics can now apply for a PhD position at CML Leiden university. The PhD student will perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies of farmed aquatic products in Asia. The PhD student will also further develop and adapt the LCA methodology for application in aquaculture. This research will be done in the framework of a large EU project on sustainable trade of farmed aquatic products between Asia and the EU. This SEAT (Sustaining Ethical Aquatic Trade) project proposes to establish an evidence-based framework to support current and future stakeholder dialogues organised by third party certifiers.

Regrowing a Tropical rainforest: a Dutch success

At TED 2009, Willie Smit (Wageningen) explains how he regrew a rainforest on Borneo (Indonesia) in just a couple of years. The system thinking, the integration of local people and the managment of one of the most difficult eco-systems in the world (a rainforest) is a remarkable success! Link to the presentation.

Lots of New Listings on Etsy

Just listed a whole bunch of jewelry on Etsy; whew! It takes forever; I wish Etsy would come up with a better way to upload photos; more than just one at time.... Anyway, some cute new stuffs; some is not new; just moved from the Gallery at Hyde Park. Sadly, the gallery has closed it's doors: too bad---I think it was a nice addition to the Hyde Park neighborhood.

Anyway, check it out here: Etsy:Refinerii

Oh; and Twitter followers--sorry about all the postings; every Etsy listing was tweeted; twitterfeed malfunction....grrrrr....






Amber

Garden Surplus

This morning I plucked a bunch of veggies to take to the rescue mission here in Nampa; I have an excess of garden stuff right now, & I've already shared with the neighbors, so I thought I would take it somewhere to be put to good use.... Its a nice feeling to be able to share the harvest--I would highly recomend it :) Lots of gardeners plant an extra row or two of veggies for the hungry...if you have extra & live in Nampa, just drop it off at the Lighthouse Rescue Mission; they are happy to take it. Just drive around back & the kitchen staff will gladly help you unload.

On the Beach in CA....

This weeks adventure was a trip to LA via Salt Lake City....Kevin & I flew to Salt Lake to meet with Alysa's modeling agency; spent a day wandering about downtown, & then flew to LA early the next morning. From LAX, we took a shuttle van up the coast to Oxnard--it was a lovely drive through Venice Beach, Malibu, etc--I can see why everyone wants to be there! After a bite of breakfast, we found out that the car wouldnt be ready for hours, so we decided to take a walk about & see if we could find the beach... After walking for over an hour, we did finally arrive at a lovely sandy beach--it was foggy, but gorgeous :) After snapping a some pics, getting our feet wet, & laughing at the birds digging in the sand, Kevin got the call that the car was done (this was about 15 minutes after our arrival). So, we packed up & headed out. Yep; we walked for an hour and a half to spend 15 minutes on the beach; but it was the highlight of the trip...





After we picked up the car, we drove straight through to Boise; arriving yesterday at about 1 pm: it took about 16 hours; I'm still recovering... But, I got some nice pics of the beach :)

Geo-engineering analysed by the Royal Society

Geo-engineering, also called  Earth Systems Engineering, has been a topic of debate within the Industrial Ecology Community for a number of years now.One of the founders of the field, Braden Allenby, as well as David Keith have been working on this topic. The topic is hotly debated because it is quite scary to speculate about technologies that temper with a complex system of which we know so little. On the other hand it might be one of the few solutions we have to prevent radical climate change. Today the BBC reports about a UK Royal Society study that  evaluates different geo-engineering options and concludes that engineering proposals to reduce the impact of climate change are "technically possible".