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| A few of the painting team at the Saturday 'painting party.' |
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| Some of the gardeners |
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| Calendula keeps pests away |
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| Swiss chard - rainbow silverbeet |
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| Winter growth |
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| Camellia |
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| Under the plum tree |
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| The flaxes are growing |
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| Strawberries |
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| Broad beans |
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| A few of the worm farmers |
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| Installing our new compost bin |
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| Damp newspaper and compost-rich soil from the vegetable garden |
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| We read a book with Mrs Barker about how to look after the worms. |
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| Lots and lots of worms |
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| Adding the compost and shredded newspaper to a bed of damp leaves |
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| Then add the worms - gently. They don't like vibrations or being pushed around |
ARE YOU "GOING GREEN?"
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing'
back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in our day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles, and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized, and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.
So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable, besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown bag but we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line -- not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
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| Keen volunteers |
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| The waste audit team with Miss Dryland |
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| Sorting the rubbish into different types |
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| The staffroom rubbish bin contained lots of compostable items. |
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| Some of the items rescued from landfill |
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| Plastic had been thrown into the paper bins! |
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| Emilie and Angie |
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| Charlie and Eden. Can you see the seed above the word 'fruit trees' ? It's a photo of a sunflower seed, grown at Greenhithe. |
As part of our focus on 'Our community', the Middle School children learned about how other children around New Zealand have looked after their neighbourhoods. They then came up with the idea of walking to Wainoni Park, collecting litter on the way, and having a litter-free picnic. The children wrote letters to their parents to invite them and ask for their help. They even created tear-off reply slips for their parents to complete if they were able to come. It was surprising how much litter was on the side of the road on the way there! However, we thought the park looked quite clean.  |
| Not a food packet in sight - we aimed to make our lunchboxes packaging-free |
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| That pile of white bags in the front contains all the rubbish the children collected on the way to the park. |
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| We noticed the special pattern in each flower. |
