A real dome home near Tallahassee, Florida

Now, I have seen what I have been looking for in the Tallahassee, Florida area: a real dome home. Why am I so impressed, and excited about a dome home, and would like to live in one? Simple. A dome home demonstrates energy efficiency, and energy is an issue in my thoughts as well as most. Also, this is an alternative housing concept, something that breaks the yoke of conformity, and living within the status quo. Yeah, for alternative living, alternative lifestyles, and alternative housing. Yeah, for those who are back to organic gardening, and appreciating nature. The old melds with the new. Hooray!

Imagine a dome home, giving you more square footage of living area within the geometry of a dome, and a dome with three levels, with bedrooms and baths on two levels, and a loft on the upper level, which could serve as a guest room, storage room, kids room, office, or lookout.

I have talked so much about the virtues of a ranch style home, the kind of home I grew up in, but I see even better advantage with the dome home lifestyle. Keep in mind that in nature, curves, and circles are more common than squares and rectangles. A dome home fits in with nature, and is a strong, stable structure that by its shape, resists wind force. A dome home with a thick layer of cement, and a layer of foam, is a well-insulated structure. I walked in and out of this dome home, and liked everything about it.

Twitter Tip of The Day

Use Twitter, or other micro-blogging sites to practice and perfect sentence syntax. Since you have limited space for a message, within that 140 character space, style, structure and syntax can be played with perfecting a message. Twittering demands a concise, structured and organized space. Micro-blogging is blogging in smaller space than with blogging in general.

I have tried saying something in one way, found it was not effective, and tried other word combinations to perfect the message I wanted to deliver. Knowing my space limitations, that makes me less reluctant, and more enthusiastic about creating a better message.

There are so many reasons to micro-blog using Twitter or other platforms, but improving language and communication is a good reason to blog. We make better expressions of a message. We become more sensitive about how words are used and combined. Twittering is about the love of words, phrases, sentences and how they all come together in a chain of communications.

See you on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/kenfach

A week of gratitude

This has been a week of gratitude. Dad always taught me to give gratitude every day for all the good that is around. Good is everywhere, I always believe this. Good is the victor, and dominates good’s opposite, the wrongs, the evils, the injustices, the harm, the “terror that flieth by day.” Yes, I can relate to the Creator’s all-powerful goodness. I am indeed grateful, and carry with me an attitude of gratitude. 

I have taught my young son, early on, to always wake up giving gratitude for things as simple as the color green, the trees, the flowers, the air we breath, the books available for our learning, the many advantages of technology, having a computer, having a comfortable home, plenty to eat, friends, opportunities to participate in new activities, and the list goes on. 

Throughout my life, I have found that people with good attitudes of overflowing gratitude are happy people, positive people, stable people. These are the kind of people that help to reinforce my harmony as well. Good attracts good. What goes around comes around, as the saying goes. A good attitude is reflected in so many good ways, and experiences we have. 

I can say that I am grateful for the following: 

Having always lived close to nature, with a green zone, with trees, and hiking trails, behind my home.
Having lived in other countries, and experiencing the foods, perspectives, friendships in those places.
Having become fluent in another language. In my case, Spanish.
Having worked in a variety of different occupations: computers, real estate, education, translation, social services, military, mortgages.
Having had healings from life threatening situations.
Having had adequate transportation, and never being without.
Having had loving, kind parents, who went way, way out of the way for me.
Having grown successful organic gardens.
Having had all the tomatos and peppers my family wanted, from my organic garden.
Having an appreciations for natural settings, forests, trees, photosynthesis, nature, seas, rivers.
Having met a woman, who is absolutely wonderful, talented, and always inpiring.
Having had class instruction in bible studies and metaphysics.
Having completed my master’s degree, after waiting many years.  
Having hiked across a part of Paraguay, South America.
Having hiked in many mountain area of New Mexico and Colorado.

Having been in boy scouts as a youth.
Having grown up in ranch style homes, which symbolize American architecture.

The list can go on and on, and my gratitude ranges from very minute to very complex. Gratitude is gratitude, and it does not matter how small, how silly appearing, how unimportant something may seem. Gratitude is always a thank you to the Creator for His work done, and done successfully.

From the end of Genesis 1 in the King James version of the Bible it reads, “And he saw everything that he had made, and behold it was good.”

It is all good. Live each day in His goodness. It is where evil seems to be. Good is divine Love’s presence.

I reach out today, looking for more opportunties to give gratitude!!! Will you join me? The Creator will hear each thought of gratitude, and then the blessing flow.

Soil, Soil, Soil

Here in northwest Florida, we have long hot summers, and high humidity throughout much of the year. This creates optimum conditions for insect and bacteria growth, even those insect pests that irritate our gardening efforts. Therefore, we organic gardeners have to give extra care to our garden soil. Soil, soil, soil. The soil will make or break a garden. A healthy soil will produce healthy plants that will resist insect pests to a point. Other factors will also help the plants resist insect pests as well.

To care for the garden, a healthy layer of compost needs to be fed and mixed in with the earth, and other layers need to be put on the garden periodically. Some of the compost needs to be mixed in and some need to simply cover the earth like a sheet. On top of that a layer of mulch will protect and keep the compost in place and keep the water in place. Without mulch, heavy rain can wash out the compost sheet, and not provide a firm barrier from our hot sun rays tagging the land.

The compost has to have part carbon elements, such as grass, weeds, pine needles, leave, and nitrogen elements, such as kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps. The compost content is very important. I am still in the process of developing healthy content for the compost bin. I have much to learn. I know from others that a good mix of horse manure and hay is a good form of soil compost. Mushroom compost
and fish compost are great too.

Much of what we can do with our gardens is restricted b y the heavy burden of home owners associations with all their dos and don’ts.

I am learning all the time how to have a good organic garden. Your suggestions are encouraged. I also subscribe to Google Alerts on “organic gardening,” ” gardening,” “compost.”