Things have been a little on the upside-down side for me lately. I moved house Friday before last, and it’s taken Telkom a week to realise that the ADSL line that they installed at my new house, wasn’t actually installed at all. So I’ve been without the internet for a week, resulting in the giveaway draw being announced late, and this week’s giveaway being postponed for a few days. I’ve also not posted a few of the posts that I’ve got ready for you, because WordPress won’t let me put pictures in my posts. I’ve tried my best, but I’m not very technically minded, so there won’t be any pretty posts with images showing up here until my hip-geek sister and partner-in-EcoStreet Nikki gets back from her trip to Israel tomorrow.

Update: Hooray, I seem to have solved the image issue, so posting will resume.

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Welcome to the 214th edition of the Carnival of the Green.

This will probably be my last Carnival of the Green post, because I’m moving away from blogging to explore other creative pursuits. So, all nostalgic, I was looking back through EcoStreet’s archives at Carnival of the Green #13 that we hosted back in February 2006. It seems so long ago, and yet the Carnival of the Green is still going strong.

Last week it was hosted by the lovely Jeffrey over at The Fun Times Guide to Living Green, and next week you’ll find it at Project Earth.

At home
While it doesn’t seem like a green post at first, Case Ernsting writes about Modernizing the Home Office, wanting us to keep one phrase in mind when redesigning : Simple. Modern designs focus on simplifying interior designs and staying natural and using eco-friendly materials are included his strategy.
For a round up of eco-gadgets and energy saving in the home, check out Ethical Superstore.
When Brenda Pike ended up with a broken thermometer and mercury all over the place, she turned to the EPA for advice on how to clean it up safely. Here’s how.
We know plastic bags are not so great for the environment. But did you know the plastic clips on bread bags can actually be lethal? Here’s a way to keep bread fresh without any plastic at all. Fake Plastic Fish gives us Bread: Buy it, store it, keep it fresh without plastic.

At the shops
Ethical Superstore challenges Fair Trade fatigue and reminds us not to give up the Fair Trade fight, just in time for Fairtrade Fortnight.

At school
Associate Degree looks at 50 Big Ways that Schools Are Going Green in the US, despite budget cuts.
Angela Martin presents Teaching Green: 100 Tips, Tools & Resources for Every Kind of Classroom.

In the garden
Natural Health Ezine takes a look at some great tips for growing your own blueberries this year..
Jess Lundie writes about Seed Saving, Garden Planning and Stupid Questions at Openly Balanced.

In the wild
The recovery plan for the endangered Santa Cruz Fox has been a success, with the fastest recovery of any endangered animal in the U.S. Read about it on http://sallykneidel.com.

Out there
Vihar Sheth discusses Planting Our Seed across the known universe.

Bye for now, folks! And may the green be with you.

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For those of you, treasured readers, who have always looked to EcoStreet for green titbits (I love that word) of the British variety, but have noticed that the flavour has been distinctly African of late, here’s a belated explanation for you.

Although I spent 13 years in England (which is where I was living when Nikki* and I started EcoStreet back in 2002), I am South African, Capetonian to be precise. It took me a while (and several holidays that included long-haul flights and associated guilt and carbon credit purchases), but I finally persuaded my dear English husband that moving our brood to sunny South Africa was the right thing for us to do. And so that’s what we did, just a little over a year ago.

We now live in Cape Town and since our arrival a year ago, we have:

• acquired a house built sometime in the first 1/3 of last century in desperate need of some TLC and retrofitting for sustainability (it also has a great view of Table Mountain, see above)
• adopted two rescue dogs of the Africanis variety
• got our kids into lovely schools (almost as difficult to do as it is in England)
• started an organic food garden (we moved in to our new house 6 weeks ago and it’s winter, so we’re not in full swing yet)
• got our bearings (thanks to the super friendly green folks we’ve met in Cape Town) and discovered organic food markets, organic veg box and CSA schemes, community gardens, restaurants, cafes and farmstalls where we can get our hands on seasonal, local and in many cases organic or biodynamic produce while we wait for our own garden to start producing as much as we can eat, and
• met a whole bunch of really fantastic green-minded folks (referred to above) who have enriched our lives more than they could probably ever know.

So here we are. EcoStreet is going strong, I’m in Cape Town and Nikki (*my sister, EcoStreet partner & the hip-geek who makes EcoStreet look beautiful and work properly) is still back in Old Blighty doing what she does best (and that includes working on a new look for EcoStreet that I’m super excited about, watch this space).

I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve been getting from me lately. There’ll be more of the same coming your way, it won’t be exclusively African, I will be keeping it green, and expect to see more about how we’re adapting to living green on this side of the equator. It promises to be an exciting journey.

Last word: thanks so much for reading what I really enjoy writing!

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