Happy Halloween! I know I haven't been posting much lately, but don't give up on me just yet. I have a lot of post ideas stored up, and I'm hoping to find some time to write about them very soon. In the meantime, I hope you're having a fun Halloween.



Don't forget to give your pumpkin guts and seeds to the chickens, even if they are no-good, slacker chickens who still refuse to lay any eggs.*



*And keep those pumpkin seeds out of the compost bin, unless you want your garden over-run with vines next summer.

I made this year's holiday card with my Print Gocco, a Japanese mini-screenprinting machine I got as a gift a couple of years ago. It's so fun and easy to use, and I would really like to make cards and other prints more often. They don't sell them in the U.S. anymore, but you can get one pretty easily on eBay, and Paper Source sells supplies through their website.

I hope you're all having a good time with family and friends this holiday season. Around here, we're getting some much-needed rest. It's been a busy year, and there are even more home-improvement projects, garden plans and other exciting developments coming in the New Year.

Now that the holidays are almost here, I'm getting in the mood to make the house a bit more decorative and festive. Since I'm cheap and don't like spending money on cut flowers or store-bought decorations, I find other ways to spruce things up. One of those things is forcing bulbs indoors.

This year, I've got several pots of paperwhite narcissus scattered around the house. I'm also trying some freesia bulbs for the first time, for some added color. Both paperwhite narcissus and freesia have pretty, fragrant flowers and smallish bulbs that can be packed into a houseplant pot, or any other appropriate container that might be lying around. I picked up the bulbs for both plants at my local Orchard Supply Hardware, but they're basically everywhere this time of year.

To start, I planted the bulbs in a mixture of potting soil and vermiculite. Vermiculite is a granular mineral used in gardening that helps keep soil loose and moist. It's good for planting bulbs because their roots need good drainage and consistent moisture. I also put a layer of gravel in the bottoms of my pots to keep the soil well drained so the bulbs don't rot. There are lots of sites that provide bulb forcing instructions online if you need them, including this one. But, honestly, it's really easy and hard to screw up.

For the first two weeks, I kept my planted bulbs in the basement, where it's cold and dark. This helps them establish good roots before they start sprouting up. During that time, I kept the soil mixture moist with frequent watering.

Once the roots were established, I took my pots upstairs and spread them around the house near sunny windows. They're looking good so far, and I can see some flower stems coming up on a couple of them. When they bloom, the narcissus and freesia will release a light, fresh scent that'll make the house smell great. Plus, they'll be pretty. If I can find some more planting containers, I may plant another group this weekend so that I can have flowering bulbs in the house for the whole holiday season.

After my narcissus and freesia have finished blooming, I'll cut them back and plant them in the yard. They may not come up out there unless we have a good rainy season this year, but I think it's worth the attempt. I planted some last year, and actually noticed a few green shoots coming up the other day. Technically, outdoor bulbs are supposed to bloom in the Spring, but in Southern California none of those rules seem to apply.

It's always cool to see new solar products appear on the market, and it's even better when they get cheap enough for regular people to buy. Last year, I searched around to see if I could find any solar-powered light strings to decorate the house for the holidays, but I didn't really find anything. This year, solar light strings were available all over the Internet. Delighted, I decided to try them out.

I got two 50-light strings of white lights from Plow & Hearth. They seemed to have the best price on what I wanted. When they arrived, I pulled them out of the box, let the solar panel charge for a day and then wrapped them on two plants in the front yard that grow in a bit of a cone shape.

When you set them up, you wrap your lights where you want them and then stake the small solar panel in the ground nearby.





So far, I'd say I'm fairly happy with them. The solar lights have a light sensor built in, so they turn on automatically when it gets dark. When they light up, they look nice--although not as bright as traditional plug in lights--and the solar battery life seems fairly long. They stay lit for around 4 hours.



The lights are nice, but not perfect. I have noticed two issues:

1) It takes some trial and error to find the perfect place to put the solar panel. I have had to move mine several times when the lights weren't sufficiently charged by the end of the day. And, of course, if you live in a place that actually gets gray and gloomy in the winter (as opposed to sunny Los Angeles), I'm not sure how well the panel would charge. Although, if you live somewhere with snow and sun, I imagine there would be enough reflection off the snow to charge the panel right up.

2) The light sensor is very sensitive. The street light across the street, our porch light and even my car headlights have caused the lights to turn off. I think I have the sensor turned in a way to minimize that problem, but it is a bit annoying. If you live out in the country, you wouldn't have this issue. But, in a place like Los Angeles, it's pretty hard to find a place that's completely dark.

Overall, though, I'm glad I got them. Because you don't have to plug the lights in anywhere, there are no annoying extension cords to deal with, and your light decorating options aren't limited to where your outlets are. Plus, they cost nothing to operate, and with their LED bulbs, they should last for many Christmases to come.

Now that the holidays are over, here's a wrap-up of how we made our Christmas fun a bit more environmentally friendly.

For the second year in the row, we got a living tree as our Christmas tree. Last year, we got a more traditional fir, and planted it in a corner of the back yard in January. This year, we picked up a kumquat tree. It's really great-looking, covered in tiny orange fruit and will nicely replace the old kumquat tree that didn't make it in our back yard. (I think I've learned enough about taking care of trees in the last year to make sure this one survives.) Here is our kumquat decorated for Christmas in a sunny corner of living room.



For additional decoration, I took some fallen branches, spray painted them gold and strung them with some tiny lights I got at Ikea a few years ago.



That was about the extent of our decoration, except for a wreath on the front door, which I made last year out of spray-painted zip ties, and some colored LED lights on the front porch. We kept it simple, but our house still felt festive.

Gift-wise, Dakota and I received several excellent items that will make 2008 our greenest year yet. These included some gardening and green roofing books, a log with which we can grow our own shiitake mushrooms and, most exciting, a chicken coop! I should say, a custom-made chicken coop, hand-crafted by Dakota from left-over cedar pulled from his workshop. Check out its lovely design.



Before Christmas, we had been talking about getting chickens, but hadn't really officially decided whether to get them or not. So, the coop was a complete surprise. But, a great one.

You'll be hearing a lot more about backyard chicken prep on this blog in the coming months.

In terms of gifts for friends and family, I tried to make as many as possible. I went on a knitting frenzy--mostly hats--and sent those off to various cousins and friends in colder climates. I also got a wood-burning tool, which I used to decorate wood picture frames and a cutting board. Wood burning is hard, but some of them came out okay. And then we gave donations to relatives who have all the "stuff" they could ever want. Dakota gave my mom a gift certificate to the micro-lending site Kiva.org, which has been getting tons of press coverage lately. It was actually started by some guys I know from Stanford, and it's great that they're doing so well. (I think Kiva was even on Oprah!)

Christmas is getting really close now, so I thought I'd do some holiday-related posting. First up, office gift giving.

For my coworkers, I love to give donations and other do-gooder-style gifts. I find this is a good call because:
1) I don't know everyone I work with well enough to get them the perfect personalized gift. And I don't want them to be stuck with some piece of junk they don't want.
2) It allows my co-workers to gently mock me about my tree-hugging, do-gooding ways. Good times.
3) I always get a really positive response from these types of gifts.

In the past, I have given my coworkers "animals" from Heifer International. It's kind of fun because you can give everyone a different animal, and, you know, try to pick an animal to fit their personality.

This year, I did the following:

For the assistants in my department, I got SIGG bottles. These are snazzy metal-lined reuseable water bottles with cool design. I have one that I use every day at work. I highly recommend a SIGG bottle as a gift for an office mate or for a friend who does a lot of outdoor activity. It's are a nice accessory of sorts that also elimintes the need to use disposable plastic water bottles. And, as we all know, plastic bottles are evil!

For the other executives I work with, I gave a two-part gift. First, I made a donation in their names to America's Second Harvest. Then, I extended the grocery theme by taking some cotton shopping bags and personalizing them with paint and letter stamps. I think they came out pretty cool, and people seem to like them.

Both these gifts were simple and fairly inexpensive, and both will hopefully make a long-term impact by getting my coworkers to use fewer plastic bottles and fewer plastic shopping bags. At least, that's the hope.