I feel so very blessed to be able to intertwine my art with such a beautiful venue as the Gallery at Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park. Not only is it beautiful, they work very hard to support our environment. My work will be on exhibition beginning March 22 and ending July 31, 2010. There [...]

I am beginning a new painting called “Zebra Longwings” which I will be donating to the Texas Discovery Gardens for their Charity event Organic in the City Fashion Show and Auction. This event is one of the major fund raisers for the Texas Discovery Gardens. Texas Discovery Gardens is an educational organic garden facility in [...]

According to an American Indian Legend – If anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it. Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly cannot reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all. In gratitude for giving [...]

This work is a collaborative effort between Karen and I. Our inspiration, the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly and the beautifully intricate passion flower.  We have so many of these Fritillary Butterflies in our side yard, the reason we have them, is because we have several passion vines planted. These butterfly lay their eggs on the leaves [...]

I have finally finished my painting “The Painted Lady”.  The focal point of this piece is of coarse, the Painted Lady Butterfly. This is one of the most familiar butterflies in North America, as well as around the world.  If you want to attract these pretty ladies to your yard, plant thistle, hollyhocks, common sunflowers, [...]

We have a small area in our side yard that we are going to turn into a garden spot. We had a couple of tomato bushes and some onions last year, but the roses around the area did not allow for much sun. So we have moved the roses and made a space around 8 [...]

Fall seemed the appropriate time to talk about worm composting. Worm composting is a way to recycle food waste into a rich, dark, earthy-smelling soil conditioner. This type of composting is somewhat unique in that it can be done indoors, as well as outdoors, this allows for all year composting. If you live in a [...]

If you are anything like alot of people, you have probably never heard of soap nuts. I know I hadn’t, until this article I read the other day. Soap nuts, also called soapberries, washing nuts, or Ritha/Reetha (in Hindi), contain “saponins”, which have the ability to clean and wash. When in contact with water, it [...]

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the cool crisp mornings, although we haven’t had many so far this fall, more will be here soon.  This is a great time to get out the bike and take a ride. It’s also a great time to take walks. Our neighborhood has several walking [...]

We live in a suburban community, but I still really enjoy nature and the beauty that surrounds us. Most of my nature loving is in our flower garden, I love working in it, watching things grow, watching all of our many flowers bloom and observing the comings and goings of the butterflies and bees flitting [...]

Tomorrow is the beginning of National Mushroom Month, so in honor of this auspicious occasion I thought I would do a followup on my mushrooms blog a couple of weeks back.  Did you know that Mushrooms have a approximately 90 percent water content, this makes them low in calories and ideal for anyone interested in [...]

In March I blogged about our new Rose garden, we used organic soil, compost and mulch. We are so proud of how it has thrived over the past five months, I thought I would update everyone on its progress. It really has done fantastic. All the roses have grown so much and bloomed over and [...]

I thought this week I would write about the great weekend we had.  When I started to look at our life and our attempt at living green, my blogs have usually been about something green we were trying , doing , or hoping to try. However the last couple of weeks, my blogs have been [...]

“Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon, Or gather me a star, but leave the sultry passion-flowers growing where they are. I fear their somber yellow deeps, their whirling fringe of black, and he who gives a passion-flower always asks it back.” -Grace Hazard Conkling While out in our side yard the other day I [...]

This morning while taking the dogs out, I noticed an interesting development on our lawn over night, a few little toadstools had magically appeared. I guess while the frogs were singing their chorus around the Koi pond, late last night, the fairies must have been dancing.  Well, it could have had something to do with [...]

We have been using reusable shopping bags since February of this year. It is amazing how few plastic bags we now have that we have to recycle. We use to get aroung 10 to 15 plastic bags a week, from our trips to the grocery store, drug store, shopping center etc. Now that we use [...]

My husband and I have taken quite a few bike rides in the fall and spring; cruising the many biking trails available in the area.  While riding we typically listen to our iPods, kind of a serenade along the trail.  Last time we were out, about 10 minutes into the ride, my iPod went dead. [...]

As we have continued on our quest to be a greener family, I have found that it is a little more expensive to be green.  I wrote a blog last week about the eco friendly evolve plastic sandwich bags by Ziploc . We purchased those at Walmart for about 1.97 for a 50-count box.  Store [...]

I don’t know about everybody else, but we use a lot of sandwich bags, plastic storage bags, etc. I know some people wash those out and use them two, three or four times. Sorry - that’s not me, however we ran across these New Ziploc evolve bags, that are better for the environment. They are Ultra [...]

“So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.” Unknown It is a known biological fact that people breath about 20 times per minute, more than 10 million times per year, which equates to approximately 700 million breathes in a lifetime. Oxygen is a very [...]