Sewing and Gardening

I found a great tutorial for turning old Tshirts into reusable bags and since I cleaned out my closet and had a few owly shirts that I couldn't throw away but have shrunk and miscellaneous stains. 

I have managed to plant a few things.  2 mixed species hanging baskets.  And they're doing much better than the ones last year.  Those ended up being just one plant  It looks like this years are all hanging in there (harharhar).

I also planted some tomatoes, strawberries and various herbs.  I still really want to plant a raised bed but we need to build it first.  

Bad Owl

I've been such a baaaaad blogger the past few weeks.  (sorry mom!)  I really don't have any good excuses.  Work has been busy and I've just been lazy. Apologies all around!

I really like this lamp from Target.  We have such an assortment of lamps that don't go together...they all need to be replaced with these!  (Sam would just LOVE that!)

On to Newsworthy stuff...

If you're not living under a rock, you've heard about the economic and ecological disaster happening in the Gulf of Mexico.  As I type, oil is washing up on the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and getting extremely close to Texas and Florida.  As a rehabber, the images shown on the news is devestating and heartbreaking.  I want to do something.  I have to do something.  The Alabama Wildlife Center is currently on hold, waiting for the call for help from the officials at the Theodore Oiled Bird Station near Mobile, Alabama.  I'll hopefully be attending an orientation today to visit the facility and get aquanted with it. 

Those facilities are paid for by BP, but the paraprofessionals and those with experience who have signed up to help are doing so voluntarily.  AWC must somehow find the funds to send its animal care staff and experienced volunteers in order to help.  This is especially difficult during the busy time of year when we get at least 5 animals in a day and have hundreds of baby birds and many baby raptors to feed. 

So please, donate to your local wildlife rehabilitators who desperately need the funds so that they can send those people who are experienced in dealing with wildlife.

You can search thru the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Associations website to find a local rehabber.

You can designte funding for Oil Spill Relief for AWC on the website.

This is going to be a loooong, hard, heartbreaking road that will have to be traveled for many years to come.  I hope that people won't forget about this even after some other national newsmaker hits the airwaves.

So very busy a bit of Owly Tuesday

First, I wanted to say a little something about the Gulf Coast Oil Spill.  The Center is currently on standby to send some of the staff (including me) to the Coast when needed.  Its just a horrible ecological and economic disaster.  There won't be any healthy fish for the local business and tourism is going to suffer greatly.  There won't be any healthy food for the animals to eat and therefore their young will starve.
Its going to take a while for the true effects to present, but I can guarantee its not going to be good at all.
People are so eager to help right now, but most of the help is going to be needed further down the road and I hope their enthusiasm will sustain throughout the devestation.

Now on to a few brighter things.  We've been busy on the yard the past few weeks and I've been dying to test out my green thumb.  So I've planted a few things.

This is one of 2 hanging baskets on the front porch.  Plectranthus (the green leafy stuff), Begonias (pink, white and red flowers) and Ajuga "Mahogany" (purple flowers). 

I've planted a few Oakleaf Hydrangeas from some cuttings my coworker gave me.  We'll see how they do, if they don't make it, thats ok.  They wer free!  But I really hope they do b/c I love Oakleafs.

Our wedding tree (Red Maple) we planted June 2008 is doing really well! We thought it wasn't going to make it because of all the highwinds and sitting in the pot for 2+ months.

Here it is at the wedding.  It was soooooo windy when we bought it and drove it to the reception area.  It looked sad.

But its lush and grean and has grown a lot in 2 years.

I'll be working hard on sewing a 3 each of fish, worm, mouse and sunflower seed for this weekends Wild Baby Shower!  And a few other things are also up my sleeve.  So, till next Tuesday...have a great week!