Hope

We "stole" a few of our plants from our old house. Let's hope they fair well.

In a way, it's confusing. White people (in general) are scared of the west end. When looking at crime for the last 6 months in my area, the only thing that shows up are a couple vandalisms.

People sit outside, they walk around. Even in the middle of the night.
A asked "why do they walk around?". I told her they weren't scared of the outdoors.

Even with all the negative music and media, their culture remains much more true and ancient.

In our first week, we know a third of the people on our block. More of them from them introducing themselves to us, then us approaching them. Our neighbors are terribly friendly.

The other night, A was jumping on the trampoline and said "You can see the stars in this part of town!" I loved it. So innocent and sweet.

I'm proud to give this cultural experience to my children. I hope it helps them realize that all people are, just that, people.

On another note. The power company has yet to shut our power off (at the pole) so B can work on it. I can't help but think "What if we lived in some really yuppie neighborhood? Would it take them this long then?"

It makes me sad, the way some put themselves on a pedestal. It's perfectly ok to dump chemicals, have sewage spills, not assist in repairing power, etc. etc. etc. because these are the "poor" people. Somehow, they deserve it.

Love for all.

Welcome to the neighborhood

It's hard to keep up with everything we've been doing. Right now things are sort of sporadic, and quick-ish.

Carpet has been removed from 3 out of 4 rooms, what are some "green" ways to dispose of, or potentially up cycle? old, gross carpet? the padding?
Below the carpet, original hardwoods! but... they've been painted on!

In any case, the most environmentally thing to do would be refinish the existing floors. They're not amazing, but they're decent. We could certainly make them work, so long as they're salvageable. So we'll have a professional out to give us his thoughts on that. If it looks as though it would be substantially cheaper and/or easier to replace them well likely put bamboo in over top of the wood.

Out back we got the yard secured enough for the chickens.

So they're happy, and handling what few kitchen scraps (being that we have no water or power) we manage to come up with until we're able to set up a compost.

Yes, we have no power. Not by choice, there's just work that needs to be done, that hasn't been done yet. Then it has to be inspected by the city (on their schedule) before that can be turned on, but we're lucky enough to have an amazing friend that's been generously sharing a bed in the a/c (with access to running water and electricity to boot!) with us so we don't have to suffer the 90+ degree nights.

Now, I'm off to post on craigslist in search of used privacy fence panels. 

Moving day

Yesterday, we closed. We paid cash, now we own our home.

Last night and today we've been moving.

We bought a new energy efficient fiberglass door yesterday. Though we have yet to install it, maybe later.

We are currently keeping it green by not having our electricity on. Solely because things have to be fixed first. (namely the meter base)
Waters on but all pipes need re ran, so were not really using water yet either.