Floral Arrangements

Last night, Jared and I went to meet with the florist for our wedding. Obviously, we were there to discuss what kind of floral arrangements we want for our "big day." We talked and talked and looked at picture after picture of different arrangements and individual flowers. It's a little bit crazy how many options there are. It also takes a lot of imagination to decide what you will like - especially if you haven't ever really seen half of the flowers you're considering.

What has struck me this morning, though, is the reasoning behind it. We use flowers all the time for decoration. But why? There are surely hundreds, if not thousands, of nurseries around the world that grow flowers simply for the purpose of being tossed in a bouquet. I'm thinking it's not a good use of natural resources. It is wasteful. It is a misuse of the land. Is this practice Biblical, I wonder?

I don't know. I still want flowers in my wedding. They're beautiful, and despite the fact that they've been cut down and are slowly dying, I feel like they will bring more life (and color) to the ceremony. I've discovered that flowers all have "meanings," so I now want to check on the ones we picked out. If any of them have negative meanings, I'll suggest something different.

I said that using flowers in a wedding is wasteful. But, really, something I'm struggling with throughout all this wedding planning is that the whole thing is wasteful. My parents will probably put out around $5000 for a single day. Granted, it is an important day in our lives. We do want it to be special. But is it possible to do something special without it being wasteful...?

Farmer's Market

I finally got to go to a Farmer's Market! I wound up buying a couple pounds of grass-fed beef and some tomatoes and cucumbers. It turns out, I don't like cucumbers at all. I almost made it through the sandwich I put them on, but after trying to like them for so many bites, I finally quit. So I won't be buying any more cucumbers. The tomatoes were great, even though they looked pretty rough. After you see naturally grown produce, you realize what a superficial world we live in. It's no wonder so many people worry about their appearance; even our produce has to look perfect!

And then there's the beef. It looked funny to me. It was much darker than the beef I'm used to buying (although I admittedly have not bought beef for a long time - I switched to turkey because it's more lean and less expensive). I blame it on the grass. So this must be what beef is meant to look like. It was a strange surprise. I cooked with it. I should have made burgers or something so I could tell if it really tasted different like people claim, but I made spaghetti. So I'm not sure what the difference in taste was, but I definitely noticed how much leaner the meat was. It was crazy. I didn't have to drain it at all.

I would like to buy it again and cook different ways with it. It's just that is does cost a bit more and requires a special trip to a farmer's market. Right now, I'm really trying to use up what I have at my apartment before I move out, so I don't have to move food home or throw it away. But hopefully I'll remember to buy more grass-fed beef whenever I have my own place again and spend money on groceries.

Getting Creative

In partial fulfillment of my desire to do things naturally and sustainably, I've decided to sew my wedding dress and (two) bridesmaids skirts. Yes, skirts. I don't want to out-do myself! I haven't sewn anything for a couple of years since I bought my machine. And all I made back then were two pillow cases. Of course, I'm not only hoping to be natural and sustainable by doing all of this work. I also want everything to be unique to me and I want to contribute what I have to our upcoming marriage. Right now, I have time, creativity, and (apparently) a bunch of fabric. In a way, all of this work is my offering. It's my way of showing how much I care.

I realize this post isn't very much about nature or being outside, but our whole wedding is! Making the clothes allows everything to be customizable. I'll be using a lightweight cotton, for all of them, which will make the weather a good deal more bearable than if I (and my bridesmaids) were wearing something heavy, dense, and floor-length. I'm going to do my best!

Native Plants

Walking to school today, I thought again about how strange it is that there is bamboo lining the road. I think it about it most days as I walk by, but I'm only now writing about it for some reason.

Jared and I have talked about getting some land someday when we can afford it. We both dislike fences a good deal, so we've talked about some possible plant barriers. Maybe somebody thought that bamboo would be a good idea as a "natural" fence in San Marcos. But bamboo is next to impossible to get rid of, and it's not native to the area. So knowing this, I'm hoping that we'll find a native plant that might be an effective barrier. Really, we'd prefer not to build or add anything as a barrier. Let the world be free.

It's really unfortunate that trespassing is a problem, though. If it wasn't, fences wouldn't be necessary. Property lines might be blurred. But we have such a need for possession and definition of mine versus yours. In a way, I wish that could be different, but I don't quite know what that looks like...

Pond Lining

This weekend, the guys in my family are working on my grandpa's yard. They're re-doing the ponds that PawPaw put in several years ago. Their main goal for the day was to put in a pond liner. He had drained the pond because it was growing too much algae and such. Why was there overgrowth? Because there weren't any fish in it. I don't know that he thought about that. He just thought, we need to get rid of that algae. But the algae really is part of a natural system. If he had thought to really create an ecosystem out of his ponds, it might practically take care of itself.

But instead, they put down a liner and spent the whole getting sore and sunburnt. If I understand correctly, the liner is intended to not allow the soil beneath it to produce anything that would interfere with the pond. I'm trying to figure out if that's an "ethical" thing. He is intentionally smothering the soil for aesthetic purposes. I'm not sure how the pond will stay clean, even with a liner...

The whole ordeal doesn't make much sense to me. It seems like a whole lot of work for little reason.

Gardening as Therapy

Everyone has days like today, when you feel like you're dragging your feet with every step. You don't want to do anything and life feels pointless. You just want out. You want change. You want something new. You want to be happy. And then you realize you CAN be happy. You just have to allow it.

Since I've had these tomato plants on my porch for the past week or so, I've spent a couple hours taking care of them. I now know why pesticides are so popular. It takes a great deal of attention and time to keep a plant pest-free. The nice thing is that, for me, taking care of the plants and killing every little Sucker bug that is on them is somehow therapeutic. I don't have to think about much, but I can think about anything. I am helping the plants live better, and somehow it is helping me live better.

I was able to hold a real conversation while doing it. Normally I cannot hold a conversation while I am doing anything else. But this small act of gardening is like a time of meditation. It's a time of caring for the earth and giving back and being productive.

It is bearing fruit.

Natural

It's interesting to me how many random people call Jared and I "nature people" or "outdoor people." A friend that I don't remember ever really talking to about our relationship said so, and an event coordinator recognized it, too. I'm not sure what it is they observe that leads to that conclusion, but I like it.

We want to have our wedding outdoors. Indoors would be stifling and it would not suit us. The significant points in our life have happened out of doors. We must continue in that way. It is only fitting for the start of our life together to happen in nature. After all, our relationship is very natural, too.

Finding the right place has been difficult. We want it to be simple. We want trees. We want real. No fences, no railings, no plastic. Wood and greenery and sky and water.

Life. Love.

Bluebonnets

Yesterday held another geocaching adventure for Jared and I. And what perfect weather for an afternoon outside! We went to Prospect Park this time, which is where we went on our first date.

The first cache turned out to be a birdhouse. It was so obvious that I pointed it out and continued to look for the "real" cache without actually looking in it. We spent probably 15 minutes searching the area for something else before I decided to look inside it. Ta da.

Deeper in the park, there was another cache or two. I was too distracted by mosquitoes to really keep track. I know that I found one hidden in a crazy tree. The GPS had a hard time getting us close to that one because of all the tree cover.

Then we went on to find one that was labeled "Bluebonnets" in the GPS. Usually, they have names like NG1067 or something, but this one was different for some odd reason. I kept going toward the coordinates and landed in an area full of bluebonnets. An odd place to put a cache, I thought, because the bluebonnets aren't there all year long and the only other place to hide anything would be in some of the cactus. So I was poking around trying to see if there was anything there, without success.

I came back around to a spot Jared had been looking at and found an orange matchstick container. As I opened it, I saw that there was a piece of paper tucked inside. While I pulled it out and began to unfold it, I was thinking that it might be one of those caches that's part of a chain, so it would give us clues/coordinates for the next one and the next, etc. I was wrong, but no less delighted! In the middle of unfolding the paper, Jared got down on his knee and waited for me to realize what the paper said. "Will you marry me?" he asked.

Yes! Of course! YES! I love you! We're getting married!

Getting started

Angela and I spent some time brainstorming about how we could make a presentation about gardening for the class. We decided we would buy some seeds and get them started and then share them with the class.

Our plans changed.

As we drove toward Lowe's, I noticed a "Plant Sale! Fri. 10-6" sign outside of the Agriculture building on Sessoms. In a split-second decision, we pulled in, spent $5.63, and walked out with about 15 tomato plants! They were very cheap because they needed to be repotted - they were too big for the planters they were in.

Talk about saving time for us! We didn't have to wait for them to grow. We just have to wait for them to bloom. Some have already flowered. The guy selling them told us a little about what to look out for and how to take care of the plants. We decided that we should share that information with the class. We're going to bring the plants to school and let students take them home if they want to, or it will be a donation to our community garden.

Refuge

This was a really good book. It was a quick read, in my opinion, but nonetheless profound in its sentiments. Throughout, it impressed upon me how very much Westerners struggle to let nature take its course. As with the Great Salt Lake, we try to come up with our own solutions for every 'bad' thing that comes our way. Why can't any of these natural disasters just be natural? Why must we prevent them?

The difficulty is that I haven't had personally devastating experiences related to natural disasters. Or to death, for that matter. The stigma for these two things go hand in hand. So who am I to say that we should just let it happen?

I experienced death the most closely this past Thanksgiving. In Nacogdoches, at Jared's grandparents' house, we sat and stroked Jared's dog's back for hours, while he refused to eat even his favorite food. Hershey hadn't been doing well for a while. He had collapsed upon arrival in Nacogdoches.

On Thanksgiving Day, we took him to the vet to see what was wrong with him. He would hardly move, his breathing was slow and he hadn't eaten for too long. It turned out to be a liver problem. His body was attacking itself. He wouldn't make it much longer. There were a few options. 1) Do a blood transfusion that would be expensive and dangerous for a dog Hershey's age. 2) Let this disease run its course. 3) Euthanize him.

Jared's family struggled to decide that it was best to let the pain end and euthanize him. While we waited for preparations to be made and for the doctor to return, Hershey took his final breath. With a meaningful glance and a twitch, he passed away.

I felt that it was a wonderful way to die. It wasn't necessarily easy to deal with, but the family was able to be there with him in his last moments and said their goodbyes. They didn't kill him and they didn't try to prolong his life. Nature took its course. It was a dignified way to die.

That said, I think Americans could use more exposure to natural death. I think that a lot would change if we became comfortable with our mortality and allowed ourselves and our loved ones to pass on. We are so afraid of loss that we will do anything to prevent it. But by preventing it, other problems arise such as outrageous medical bills, lack of job circulation, and everything that goes along with an ever-increasing population.

In order to accept death, we must also accept that science and technology cannot save us. We must learn to look at the long-term consequences of science and technology before we allow their innovations to reign over us.

Jared and I went out on his motorcycle again today. Despite the more windy roads on the way to Wimberley, I felt much more comfortable on this ride because had I learned that I didn't have to hang on for dear life the whole time. I got to sit back and enjoy the breeze and the view.

I was very glad that Jared had downloaded geocaches into his GPS because we didn't find the "Market Day" that we wanted to go to. And I wasn't very interested in the shops "downtown." I think this was the first time I had been geocaching outside of familiar territory (although it is in the nature of geocaching that you will leave familiarity...). By following the GPS, we found a nature preserve that we would never have seen otherwise. That was my first experience really finding a new special place while geocaching.

Of course, we didn't simply follow the path set before us. We explored around the river a little bit and went past a "Private Property" sign on the waterfront. We crossed the river and found the last cache for the day hidden amongst some large rocks that enable explorers to climb up from the river level to the street level. Unfortunately, as Jared was reaching for the cache, he stepped on a stick that turn up and poked him in the eye. It was undoubtedly unpleasant, but he recovered well and we had a nice ride home back to Kyle for some amazing Mexican food and a night off.

The Mountain

Just off of 360 in Austin, there's a place I've been going to for several years. We lovingly call it "The Mountain." It's not much of a "mountain," per se, but you do have to climb to reach the top, and my grandma sure couldn't do it.

Following Jared's curiousity, we stayed at the bottom of The Mountain and went down. It turns out there is a stream there. He walked into the tunnel beneath the road until he could no longer see. It was too bad that he didn't have a flashlight and I didn't have better shoes. He came back out and we continued following the stream.

It goes a long way in! It was narrow at many points, so we were able to cross back and forth several times. We stumbled across a "discarded object," we'll say, and laughed it off. Eventually, we came to a small waterfall. Jared got himself distracted trying to move some stuff that was blocking the flow of the water in a place where it had become stagnant. I, on the other hand, climbed some things to find a good point of observation and reflection. We live our gender roles out very well in nature, I think. He being utilitarian and I being appreciative.

We took separate paths for a while. I found the "beginning" of the stream was again coming through a tunnel system. It was a challenge to meet back up with him. There was a jungle I had to master and lots of cobweb-like things in my way. I was very itchy and sweaty by the time I found Jared again, but I was having fun.

It took us quite some time to get out of there after that. We walked up toward the top of The Mountain (much easier on this hillside than on the rocky path that we usually take) and found a fence blocking our way. Rather than backtracking, we went on until we found a way through. We took our time exploring and enjoying the view of Lake Austin and eventually headed out after creating a bouquet of flowers in my hair and tying a string around my finger.

'Twas a lovely afternoon.

Sunny Days

Yesterday was a great day! The weather has become perfect in my opinion. It's still cool and breezy but the sun is out. Flowers are in blooms and the world is just pretty now (despite the construction noises). I spent several hours outside today, mostly alone, but a little bit with friends. I laid out on the lawn near the music building and read for quite some time. I went to the Den with a friend and felt like I had to coerce him a little bit into being okay with hanging out outside. He totally thought I was weird. We almost sat down in chairs at a table but I told him I really didn't feel like sitting in a chair. I really didn't. I felt like sitting in a chair was like following rules. I wanted to feel free, and that meant not sitting in a chair. I broke the rules and sat on the part of the lawn that was roped off later on. Those little things made me feel great.

Who is it that decides what we can and can't do anyway?

Let's Go For A Ride :)

I got to go out on my very first motorcycle ride today! Jared has had a motorcycle since before we got together, and I have been curious (although admittedly somewhat afraid) to ride it for quite some time. He bought me a good bike jacket for my birthday and I bought good gloves with some money I got for my birthday. And I wore my snowboarding helmet instead of spending $250 for a motorcycle helmet. After all, a helmet doesn't really serve any use until you need it -- so I was hoping I wouldn't need it today :P

We rode from my parents' house in Kyle to meet them for lunch in Austin. The experience was incredible. I never realized how differently you see things when you get out of the car. You become much more observant of the world when you are exposed to it. I saw beautiful creeks and animals and houses that I had never noticed before. And we were on a road that I've driven at least a hundred times before.

As I rode, I was thinking about how much more I was experiencing the world. I imagine the same goes for people who bicycle. I thought to myself that I might like to get a motorcycle someday both for the economy of it and for the fun. I've wanted to take up bicycling because it seems like a fun and healthy thing to do, but I haven't been in the right place to do it or had the time to train for it. Motorcycling would probably be the same way for me, but we'll see. I'll probably be happy just riding with Jared whenever I get the chance :)

Bobcat Build

This was my first year to work at Bobcat Build and I am so glad I finally got to participate! I might even sneak in and volunteer somewhere if I know when it is next year! It was a lot of fun. I had known about Ringtail Ridge for a while, but hadn't ever visited. The dirt road in was a little rough and so was parking, but well-paved roads aren't really what you're after when you're getting into nature. I was kind of annoyed to be waiting around for instruction for so long with all the tools sitting there. There was obviously work to be done. Once we got started, I joined the group that was taking logs to the back of the trail as part of the efforts to fix the runoff problem (where they later dug a ditch). I made a couple of round trips with Elizabeth and then I was done with that.

My main task for the day wound up being to pull weeds, as seen in the picture. Probably 90% of that gravelly area in the picture was overgrown with weeds. I felt like it was kind of a lame job to have to do, but once we started making progress, I realized how much pulling the weeds changed the whole appearance of the beginning of the trail. The sad part is that it won't stay that way forever. But I hope that I will return to that park and be able to tell someone, "Look - this was my doing - the trial is clear and the bench is accessible!" It gave the park a nice face lift. It was such an unusual but fun activity that I thought to myself that I might wind up pulling weeds at any place I find myself that needs some cosmetic help. It was nice to get to chat with Susan about some things. From life goals to roly polies, nothing is off limits when you're pulling weeds.