Gardening The Future.

I have now presented my poster to the class about my window farm. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to learn about window farming. Showing my window farm to people gives me an opportunity to educate others about creative gardening and producing/buying local organic food.

I was asked many times today about what I was going to do with window garden now that the class project is over. My garden will live on so do not worry. My window farm will be moving with me to a Boy Scout summer camp that I run. There it will hang in a window in the dinning hall. With this prime location I will have around 1500 people walk by it during the summer and I am sure that many of them will stop to take a look.

The possibility of having 1500 people learn about local food is an exciting idea that I cannot turn down. Exceptionally sense most of that 1500 will be middle school kids. Teaching kids at a young age is the easiest way to make meaning life changes.

And after camp the garden is moving with me to Chicago where I hope to expand it.

I hope that many of you are think about making your own window garden, and if you do please let me know. Here are a few things that I have learned from making my own can could help you.

First, herbs are the best to plant in a window garden because many of them do not grow to big. This style of gardening is not good for large plants. Also herbs allow you to continually harvest them without completely killing the plant.

Second, do forget to water them. The bottles themselves are not very big and with that they cannot store a lot of water. I have to water my garden every two days or it will quickly dry out. I learned this the hard way and my lettuce has not fully recovered from it yet.

Last, come up with a design of your own. You could simply build one close to mine or you could be creative. Being creative with your garden makes this project such a fun to do. A good friend of mine is now making one out of old sections of plastic plumbing of different sizes. Some of the pipes even have right angles in them so he can be even more creative with the design. He is planting wild flowers in his.

Over all this has been a fantastic project. I have truly enjoyed designing and building my garden and learning about environmental issues at the same time in class.

“My Sole Passion” Cultural. Economic. Knowledge. Activist. and Environmental Standpoint

So I am very excited to report that I have recieved a literature packett from Soles4Souls Inc. and also very excited to report that my program for the shoe drive at my dorm is currently waitng to be approved to go on at my dorm, hopefully on Tuesday March 11th. This company takes all kinds of shoes for victims of natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), people living in abject poverty (refugee camps in Uganda), or those in need of a chance for newness of life (such as women living in shelters who have escaped domestic violence and need professional work shoes for interviews). I have also completed my surveys that I hope to gain data from at least a 100 girls or women about the “consumption prowl” on shoes and society’s view of woman and shoes.
Also while I was doing research on shoe production to my surprise many books and articles came up about countries other than that of Japan, China or India. I was surprised to such places as Australia (Uggs), Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Massachusetts, New Engalnd, New Zealan, Peru, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Switzerland and Vietnam. I even found a book that was “solely” dedicated to bringing to the surface the usage of women labor in shoe production factories in Mexico. However, the library can not retrieve the book for me at this time. But I will provide that information as soon as I can. The title of the book is: Forms of production and women’s labour: gender aspects of industrialization in India and Mexico, by I.S.A Baud. I also checked out government publications which has recorded spending accounts of footwear of men, women, and children from 1965-1991. As soon as I can accurately cipher through all the numbers I can give you an accurate account of which gender has actually spent the most over the years. I also took a look at the chemicals that go into the construction of shoes. I read that there are 40 toxins in one shoe and that many are unknown. Many chemicals pollute the air while our beloved shoes are being made such as the following; dioxin, volatile organic compounds, solvents, chronium, hide waste effluent, and isocyanates. Synthetic shoe on the other hand do not use chronium and hide waste effkuent which would lessen the use of animal hides. But the other option is vinyl which creates the production of dioxin an air pollutant. An interesting fact is the afforementioned chemical isocyanates when reacting to an enzyme or anything to set a reaction to it can be harmful to living tissue, cause asthma-through inhalation, exposure and dermal contact. (contact through the skin)
Also another area of research I thought was interesting was an author saying “you have to control your inner imelda” I thought that they had actually diagnosed buying shoes as a real addiction so I looked it up to if I had it. My research led me to one of the most powerful women (at one point in history) Imelda Marcos. She is the widow to Ferdinand Marcos president of the Philippines, a very powerful and influential first-lady and political figure. Her reign is not what she is most noted for but rather her expensive and extensive shopping sprees. Anything you could dream of, she bought it. From shoes, to gowns, jewelry, million dollar buildings (Crown Building and Herald Centre), artwork by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Canaletto, and stopped at the empire state building because they wanted to charge her 750 million. Just a little tidbit I wanted to throw in. Sorry I know this was long but I had so much I wanted tell about.

"My Sole Passion": Being a consumer First Blog. (2) What one person can do.

While going over the three options we had in the instructions for blogging I chose the second of the three to complete my project: What one person can do. It’s really funny to me that I am known amongst friends and family as the “queen of kicks” and now I’m hanging them up to better socitey and the world around us.

Problem: “Too many shoes are purchased and sold in the U.S. and the abundance of shoes we have represent our consumer passion”. For myself the problem with buying shoes was done in efforts to gain a certain gratification of being validated by people looking in that I can afford to have nice things. This is probably the same problem that others face along with the aesthetic appeal of them. Also the idealistic views of women by men around the world that women are “oh so sexy” in a pair of stilletos or red pumps (every man’s dream). Also in other countries there are places where women only wear certain kinds or sizes of shoes in which their feet are bound in efforts to remain beautiful almost crippling them so they can wear tiny sizes. Just think ladies how many really love high heels while every woman’s hand is in the air please raise your hand and let everyone know who loves the way their feet feel after spending a day or night in a pair. A long with the ideal for the outside appearance of women I will illustrate the problems that consumerism brings to the eniviornment around us as well as finding a small part of the solution in the active role that I will take in “Kicking Consumerism to the Curb” I will show step-by-steps the necessary changes I have to make personally, locally, and nationally through following six areas of life.
1. Personal: Keep a cycle of about 5 pairs of tenniss shoes. Orange, Blue, Black, White and Brown. So every time I buy a new pair I must recycle the pair I had previously of that same color no matter how long or short of a period of time I have had them and if I do not want to give up the old pair then I can buy the new one.
2. Economic: Find exact figures, statistics about the consumer market in the realm of footwear. Look at the amount of natural resources that go into the production of shoes, unfit working conditions, child labour, outsourcing, and the overall margin of gain in the shoe business.
3. Knowledge: Find out if shoes can be recycled. If so what parts can be recycled? Who else in the world recycles shoes? And what are the benefits or problems with recycling or donating footwear?
4. Cultural: Illustrate the link between women and shoes. Why do women typically have shoes and where does the idea that women love diamonds, chocolate, or flowers as much as they love shoes. And look at other cultures that obsess over women’s feet and shoes or footwear around the world. Also look at the obsession of the high heel and when and where it started.
5. Activist: Set up a shoe drive here at school for gently used and new shoes for donation. Also link what I am doing here to Kansas City Kansas Community College back home with a collective shoe drive which my sister will head. Also I can look into gettin Sororities around campus to help in organizing the shoe drive.
6. Community: What I hope will be the result of this project is the opportunity to host a shoe drop-off and shoe pick-up at my church back home in Kansas City. This will give students K-12 an opprtunity to stop by and pick out a new pair (of shoes) for thier first day of school.