earth day

April 22nd is my third son's birthday (happy birthday, Dave), but it is also earth day. Today I had an especially good earth day. To begin with, it was the Wednesday that I spend the morning with the grade 5 girls at the UBC farm. We weeded, planted, transplanted, seeded, watered, etc. What better way to start earth day? But it didn't end then. My farm friend partner, Charlotte, offered to give me some plants. So I drove her home, and we put together a few pots of this and that for me to take home. She gave me strawberry plants, winter jasmine, thyme, oregano, chives, lemon balm, and michaelmas daisies. She also gave me a yogurt tub full of red wiggler worms for me to start a compost box. I won the box several years ago, and used it for a few years, but eventually the worms died and nothing was happening. So, today, Frank found the box under the back porch and cleaned it out for me, and I put in a layer of strips of newsprint and potting soil and dumped in the worms. I moistened the soil a little, and now I just hope things will cook there as I add vegetable peels and eggs shells and coffee grounds. On the way home from Charlotte's, I stopped at David Hunter's Garden Centre and bought potting soil, garden gloves and a planter. By 5:30 pm, everything was planted, with Ken's help. Ken cleaned up the front garden and the "laundry tub" planters, and now the place is beginning to look like someone lives here, and cares about the place. Yup! That's what I call a good earth day.