Southeast Michigan Spring garden Irises in bloom

My spring garden is looking good.  I have most of my vegetables planted or seeded.  Irises are in bloom.  Inspirations for working harder to get the garden ready for summer.

I live in zone 5 just in case you were wondering.

I had some yellow irises that were in bloom earlier, but they were gone before I got a chance to take their pictures.  Below are various types of purple Irises that are in bloom right now.  The first one has a wonderful smell.

Tulips are in full bloom in Michigan

'It is Tulip Time in Michigan' by Zeba

Tulips are in full bloom in Michigan. Check out the tulip festival in Holland Michigan.

SALE - Dutch Boy with Tulips... Hartworks $249	Photograph - Garden Cart - ... photomcgee $15	Michigan Perennial Tulip Ear... Soareyou $12.99
Tulip Time Festival Organic ... GlindasGoatmil... $6	Vintage Michigan Postcard - ... VintagePlum $5	Tulips Through Window - 5x7 photomcgee $15
Red Tulip Stained Glass Sun... dortdesigns $15	Holland Michigan Necklace Je... DaisyMaeDesign... $29	Tulip Time Soap- Michigan Du... SherisSoapOper... $5
Mother's Day Tulips in P... kelleygirlimag... $40	Bridgman Tulip. Short Dangle... MeJImages $15	Holland Michigan Attractions... MichiganPoster... $12
Holland MI Windmill Park Pla... MaxinesOldToNe... $12	Spring Tulip Wreath WestTwinCreati... $34.5	mosaic tulip thermometer workglass $35
Big Red Holland Harbor Light... ByJenniferLeig... $12

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Michigan Weddings

A team member on Etsy created this treasury.  I think it is a very good representation of what Michigan has to offer.  I for one would love to see my daughter' wedding reception at the 'Old coast guard station'.  

Checkout Etsy to see other artists from Michigan.

  'Pure Michigan Wedding Welcome' by SallyManke

Let these fabulous Michigan artists assist with your wedding.

Bella Mode - Custom Reversib... princessdoodle... $70.00	WELCOME Home in Alphabet Pho... AlphaDogPhoto $20.00
Wedding Bridal White Feather... Amandasfinerth... $29.95	Wedding Veils Bridal Headpie... AmoreBride $29.00
Custom Initials - Love in th... photomcgee $30.00	White Wedding - Handwoven Pe... MelJoyCreation... $29.00
Understated Elegance Afghan,... H20works $135.00	White Ginger Soap pinkparchments... $5.00
Interchangeable Earrings Da... Zeba $8.50	Vintage Eyelet trim straycatfarm $3.00
Old Coast Guard Station At H... Celticcatphoto... $18.00	SPRING SALE Your Choice - An... Imagesbylynnan... $40.00
SALE - 60% OFF Saiko - OOAK ... KnitsCrochetAn... $30.00	Rustic red and white clay wa... claylady42 $25.00
Lily of the Valley 5x7 Fine ... Imagesbylynnan... $15.00	40 % Off Hand Made Tubular W... Zeba $43.80

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

My Blog is Carbon Neutral!

I received an email today that said my blog was creating carbon dioxide and asked that I click a link to learn more.  I care about the environment and you can imagine my surprise.  My first thought was this is a scam, and if I click the link I am going to download a virus or something.  But, I was curious, so I kept on reading.  It turns out that this a German company that is planting trees in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation in Plumas National Forest in Northern California for their project to neutralize the carbon footprint of blogs. For every participating blog, they plant a tree. One blog - one tree.  Sounds like a good idea, so I clicked their link http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/co2-neutral/my-blog-is-carbon-neutral/

The first thing that caught my eye was the statistic below:

an average website causes about 0.02g (0,0008oz.) of carbon dioxide for each visit. Assuming an average blog gets 15,000 visits a month, it has yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 3,6kg (8lb.). This can mainly be tracked back to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems.

I have heard how cars and manufacturing companies were creating pullutions, but I never thought of computers.  I found the information very interesting and from there I ended up at the Arbor Day Foundation site. 

Do you know that :

• Arbor day for Michigan is the Last Day of April?





• Michigan's State tree is Eastern White Pine?

Learn more about Michigan's trees at http://www.arborday.org/states/?state=MI

Learn how you can celebrate Arbor Day by going to the http://www.arborday.org/arborday/celebrate.cfm site.

This site has a lot of good ideas.  I think I try to do some of it right here on my blog.

I hope this post has inspired you to take a look at these sites and learn more about how you can save the earth, the forest and our environment.  I hope you comment back here with your findings and a link to your articles.

   

Finally, Snow in Michigan

I know the rest of the country has seen a lot more snow, but this is the first real snow in Michigan.  

This is the view from my home office window.

Apple Cider, Fall Colors

Fall is a busy time. In spite of the all the rain in October, we managed to visit the cider mills a few times, indulge on cider donuts and enjoy the fall colors in Michigan. And, I still managed to do fall garden cleanup, make new pieces of jewelry and get ready for a Black Friday weekend sale at Etsy. Now that things are winding down a little, I can write on my blog again.

I hear cider mills are mostly popular in Michigan and people from other states do not understand what the big deal is. Well, all I can tell you is that it has a different taste than apple juice. Taste wise, the difference between apple juice and cider is like the difference between store bought and fresh picked tomatoes. I found two good sources that explained the differences between apple juice and cider, the first one is on AnswerBag.com, at http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/36322and the second one is at mass.gov (the Massachusetts Department of agriculture) at http://www.mass.gov/agr/massgrown/cider_juice_difference.htm

Wildlife in Troy, Michigan

I try to take a walk everyday to the park near our house. The park is a basically the rouge riverbed enlarged. Usually, I can spot a grey heron, or a white egret amongst the ducks and the geese. I like watching the wild life and the sound of the water takes me away from worries. The other day, I noticed two swans. So today, I took my camera and took some pictures of them. Watching them in the water, with no worries, and so graceful, was the best way to start the morning. They were not even afraid of me, so I got pretty close. I enjoyed this morning so much that I had to share it. Here is a slide show of the pictures I took this morning.

Oceana County - Michigan

I love asparagus, but I never thought about where it is grown and where it comes from, until a few weeks a ago. I watched a documentary on TV called 'Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary)'. The documentary came out in 2006, directed and produced by Kirsten Kelly and Anne de Mare.


The documentary is about asparagus growers in the Oceana county, the third largest asparagus growers in the United stated, and why they are going out of business. Small farmers, where asparagus is their livelihood.

In 1991, The U.S. signed the Andean Trade Preference Act, eliminating all import tariffs on South American asparagus with the hopes of reducing the cocaine imports. The US War on Drugs program hoped to reduce the cocaine production by sending huge subsidies to Peru for their alternative crop program, asparagus. Later, NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) brought Mexican asparagus followed by China into the U.S. Now, due to cheap labor, the small farmers in Oceana county can not compete with foreign competition, and are forced to loose their farms and businesses.


Why does our government subsidies foreign farmers, and allows our own farmers go out of business? Other countries, do not have our labor laws, our regulations and standards of safety, ;therefore they can afford to produce their goods at a cheaper rate. Is cheap labor, and lower cost the only thing consumers care about?

Did the cocaine production go down? See the documentary for yourself at http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/asparagus_a_stalk_umentary/