The Greening of Gavin

Thank You Readers

@ By 2 Comments

This is a big thank you to everyone who left a comment and condolences on my last post and via facebook regarding the passing of my furry friend Butch.  Even though every day since we have had a tear or two, it is getting a bit easier and we are starting to talk about the great times we had with him throughout his life.

I am still hurting inside a little, as expected, so I will not be writing much this week.  Please bare with me, as our family gets over one of life’s hurdles, and I promise I will be back stronger than ever writing about all things sustainable in the very near future. 

Gav

Goodbye My Friend

@ By 29 Comments

It is with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes that I write this post.  Our best friend and companion, Butch passed away last night.  My grumpy teddy is gone from our lives.

Here is how it panned out.  I warn you now that I leave out no detail.

Kim rang me in a panic at about 1630 at work and told me to get home because Butch had lost the function of his hind quarter  He simply collapsed due to old age.  Essentially he was paralysed from the waist down, and could not walk any more.  Kim rushed him to the vet with the assistance of our lovely neighbour Renata.  Ben came along as well because Kim believed that it was important that he was a part of what was going on.  They had to leave Holly at home by herself.

I rushed straight to the vets from the train station and was ushered into what I can only describe as a funeral parlour for pets.  Kim had Butch in her arms and both Ben and her were crying.  I started as well.  She let me know that our vet, Gloria (one of the nicest vets I know), said that there was no guarantee that he would regain the function of his legs if he underwent an operation and that it was probably best if he was put to sleep, which is vet speak for euthanasia.  Butch was 15 and half years old which was 108.5 in dog years, so the chances of him recovering were minimal indeed.  So to spare him any further pain, we had a big decision to make.  At this stage Renata took Ben home, as we thought it would be too much for him to bare.

So, after much deliberation we made the decision to have him put to sleep.  Taking full responsibility for our decision, we spent about 15 minutes talking to Butch hoping he would forgive us, we signed the release form and the vet came in and gave him a sedative to calm him down.  We gave him a final kiss and he gave us a lick each as if to tell us that it was alright.  After a further 10 minutes of tears, Gloria came in with the big green needle, and Butch passed away in my lap at 1830.  I balled my ears out and so did Kim, and we left soon afterwards.  When we got home, Holly started looking for him, and we had to comfort her as well.

He will be returned to us in about a week cremated, and we will scatter his ashes around a fruit tree in the front yard that we will plant in his honour.  He always loved to mooch around the front yard when he was around.  A fitting resting place for a wonderful pet and friend.

I haven’t stopped crying during this entire post, and the emotions are still raw.  So as a tribute to my grumpy little teddy, here is an expose of pictures throughout his lifetime.  Please indulge me.

Me and my mate when we were both a few years younger.

When Ben was a baby.  We had him for a long, long time.

Sporting his technicolour dream coat.

Pretending to be a cowboy.

Stealing my snow peas.

Watching Signs.  It was a scary movie, even for a brave dog like Butch!

Enjoying a good curry.

With his girlfriend Holly, who misses him terribly, as we all do.

Helping out with the chicken house.  He loved the chooks and looked out for them.

To finish off the post here is a wonderful poem that a friend sent us.

Goodbye my friend.  You are missed.  Until we meet again. 

Rainbow Bridge
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigour; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.
The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together…..
Author unknown.

Fixing the Greenhouse Day

@ By 2 Comments

Today was fix the greenhouse day. Here is the background. Last year I suggested to Kim that other green bloggers and many books I read mentioned that it was much cheaper to grow your own seedlings from seed than to buy the seedlings for $5 at the nursery for 6 plants. So, she went about having a look and buying a great present for her hubby from eBay, for which I thank her dearly.

I ended up with a pretty cool plastic covered greenhouse that stands about 1.8 metres and is about 70 cm square. I used it last year in August with a fair bit of sucess, however because it was out of site, it was basically out of mind, and I kept forgetting to check if the seedlings needed watering, or re-potting or even checking if it was too hot. To add to my problems, somehow the snails found their way in and ate just about any seedling that managed to break through each night. I never did get to plant any rockmelons last year like I had hoped. They were just to irresistable for the snails!

Just before May this year, we moved the greenhut to the main vegetable patch, however, because we did not secure it to anything, it blew over about 5 times due to heavy winds (you think I would have figured it out after the first time), and about the 6th time it blew over, something ripped a huge hole in the top of the plastic cover and being PVC, it became brittle. Now being the keen gardener I am, I didn’t want to throw away the greenhut because of a simple tear, so Kim decided to repair it for me today. I found her some waterproof gaffa tape, and she broke out her massive roll of bubble wrap, and low and behold, she had constructed a new roof where the tear was, and had tied it to the railing that surrounds our deck quite securely. That way, we see the hut every single day, as it is in clear view. I even had a spare thermometer that was given to me at the Sustainable Living Festival in February, and tied it to the inside of the hut with string. It was 13 degrees outside, but a nice warm 20 degrees celcius inside the plastic hut! Just the right temperature for tomatoes, chilies and capsicums to germinate before spring starts, so that I get a good head start.

It would be about now that I would insert some pictures for everyone to see, which I did take this afternoon. Unfortunately, someone who shall remain nameless deleted the pictures to take some videos of Ben running around in my Captain Planet cape and cuffs! Not to worry, because not only will we have photos of Kim’s repair work tomorrow, we will also have photos of the six tomato seedlings that are about 20 cm tall that I re-potted today from around the Mandarin tree that we have growing in a very large pot. The tomatoes self seeded, and we are pretty sure that they are of the Tommy Toe variety, because that was the only variety that wrapped itself around the tree early this year. Some of the fruit must have fallen into the mulch under the tree and germinated. The same thing has happened under the thornless Lemon tree which is the next row over (which has thorns, ouch), but we thinK that they are either the green zebra or tigerella variety because they were the closest variety to that tree’s pot.

I took it very slowly so as not to flare my back up again, and managed to extract half a 10 litre bucket of home made compost and the other half filled with my newly aquired organic coconut planting medium and mixed the two together. What a fantastic potting mix it made, with lots of nutrients and water absorbing properties! I then kneeled at the manderin tree like I was praying in church, and carefully transplanted each of the six tomato seedlings into old plastic pots that I had saved from last year. After watering them in with a weak solution of seasol and water, I placed them in the newly repaired greenhut, and then hung up the thermometer and took the photos. Like I said, you will get a treat tomorrow, and get a look at Kim’s great handy work. It even withstood the hail and thunderstorm that we received at about 4 pm this afternoon, so it must be ready for the growing season! I think we received about 2mm of rain in about 30 minutes, which was welcome by all of my plants.

We have also figured out, as hinted at previously, that we can take about 6 minutes of good quality video with our digital SLR camera. We really hadn’t tried it out before, but had some promising screeners of Ben running around this afternoon. Ben is writing a script about saving the planet (pretty good for an 8 yr old), as he is currently reading the book “True Green – For Kids”, which is written for kids in a language they can relate to. For example, you should have seen him a couple of days ago when he found out that we can feed dog pooh to compost worms. He wanted to make a new worm farm there and then. I promised that we would give it a go this weekend, as I have two plastic boxes that I found about three months ago on one of my wombling trips. As I have more than enough compost worms, we can make some bedding with the organic coconut mix and then add the worms and slowly add Butch’s daily doings. As Butch is now mainly being fed vegetables with a little bit of cooked chicken each day (he is getting old and needs the fibre), I don’t think the worms will have too much trouble with the faeces. It is better than bagging it in compostable cornstarch plastic bags and sending it to landfill. Those bags cost a fortune let alone adding them to landfill!

Anyway, we are hoping to put together a little “Save the Planet, by saving energy” video in the next few days, starring Ben of course, and the older girls if they let me. Stay tuned, because my video editing skills are a bit rusty, but it should work out fine, and as I said earlier in the post, photos tomorrow, I promise!