I traveled to Cambria, California with my family this past week for our Thanksgiving celebration. It is tradition that we all meet up at my grandparents’ cabin each year. Although this year’s gathering was small, it was a nice quiet weekend together that I know we all enjoyed. Continue reading
A fun tradition that my family has for Thanksgiving is we “adopt” one of Farm Sanctuary’s turkeys. Farm Sanctuary is an organization that rescues factory farm animals and gives them the chance to live out the rest of their days in a better place. They have two locations in California and one in New York and they offer tours of their farm and various vegan events. Every year, they have about 6 turkeys that are currently living on their farms and available for “adoption” by the public. It’s called adoption, but really it’s more of a sponsorship because we don’t actually take the turkey. But you get a cute picture of it, and its nice just to support their cause.
This year, we chose Martha as our adoptee. For a turkey, she’s actually kinda cute!
As I was browsing the web I came across pictures from Farm Sanctuary’s annual Thanksgiving event. It’s a reversal of the traditional dinner in that the turkeys do the eating! There is still a dinner for the people, although it is definitely vegan and turkey-free. The pictures of the turkeys eating the salad and squash mash are pretty funny. Maybe next year we’ll go!
I don’t want to ruin everyone’s Thanksgiving here, but I just have to say that the truth of how farm animals are treated is really very sad. It’s the reason I’m a vegetarian- even though I seriously miss hot wings! So tomorrow, please be thankful for the turkey that you are eating and maybe promise to go meat-less on Monday.
My family doesn’t know this yet, but Martha will also be present at our Thanksgiving…
The idea for this came to me after seeing pictures of marigold garlands from India’s Diwali festivals on Pinterest. Diwali is a Hindu festival celebrated in fall and it signifies the victory of light over dark, good over evil. There were thousands of marigolds strung and hanging all over people’s houses for the celebration. I also saw a lot of these strands in Thailand when I went a few years ago to study-abroad. Which makes sense because Hinduism is a popular religion in Thailand.
This weekend I paid a visit home to my parents’ house. It went by really quick, but I managed to get some good dog and garden time in. Hurley and Amigo were on their best behavior…
On Saturday, we went to Roger’s Gardens. It’s this giant nursery, event, home decor shop in Newport Coast. They have tons of plants- native, holiday-themed, edible, arranged, wall-hanging. Pretty much any plant inspiration you could want, all in one place. They also go all-out for the Christmas season and so it’s a great place to find ideas for your own holiday decorating. They have giant trees covered in ornaments of every theme and color scheme you could imagine.
Hi! I’ve decided to create a new column here on StateStreetGreen where I will present my past projects. It won’t be the same format as my DIY column because I won’t be giving step-by-step instructions. Instead, its just a way to display some of the things I’ve made. I’m calling this column TBT which stands for “Throw Back Thursday”. TBT is a popular idea on social media sites- people post old pictures with the hashtag #TBT.
I chose my first TBT project because it is the background of my blog header and the first thing anyone sees when they come here. It’s actually a bench at my kitchen table.
This past weekend I finally had some free time from school and got to make something fun and crafty again!! I bought the supplies for this a while ago after seeing a similar candle on the Terrain website. I already had the mug (from one of my past camping trips-hah) and so I thought I would give it a try. And I know its not winter yet- it was 77 degrees here while I was making this candle! Continue reading
Let me start this post by saying that these are referred to as the “Ugly Cookies” in my house. But they taste good!
This recipe comes from my great-grandma and they are perfect for fall. Persimmons have a pumpkin-y flavor and are in season now!
I recently attended a talk at school about Sustainable Food Systems. It covered a complete mix of topics from the benefits of local foods, to the carbon footprint of your food, and the changing health of Americans. I think that one of the ways that we can all make a difference in the environment on a small-scale is in in our food choices. If we could support a local farmer who grew our foods in a sustainable way, we could each make a difference. (And by sustainable, I mean eating in a way today that allows our future children (and their children) to be able to make the same choices we can and eat as well (or better) than we do.) For myself, I have a great weekly farmer’s market that I have made a routine of going to. I do not get all my groceries there but I always get my bread and a couple of fruits or vegetables that I know I will eat. Lately this has been tomatoes and apples. I realize that I am very lucky to live so close to a great farmers market, but if we all made one more sustainable choice, we could improve our world just a bit more.
And now to the cookies! Continue reading
StateStreetGreen 