Sophia is selling her Pet Loo

For Sale - "Used" Pet Loo - not really used which is why it is time for it to go! Sophia is just too well trained for "outdoor" pottying, which means since moving to a townhome with no yard I spent the winter out in all kinds of weather, sometimes late at night, relieving my IG. Now it's just taking up space in the garage and my inability to train my dog is your gain! Sells new for over $300 (the USA distributor for this Australian invention is in Bellingham). Basically unused, asking $200. I know that seems like a lot of money, but it is less than re-doing the floors for one small room (which we just dropped almost a thousand dollars on Marmoleum to redo our bonus room where Sophia had a training "accident" over the holidays while I was working with her to use the Loo. And the floor is not redone yet - that's a weekend project! Time and money...)

Maybe your dog is more trainable than mine. Or you are just that much more unwilling to go out in the snow at midnight. Email wendy@pensandpixels.com if you or someone you know is interested.

Visit http://thepetloo.com/us/ to learn more about this product.

Product information from web site:
The Pet Loo is a backyard in a box, for your dog! This easy to use, innovative solution is ideal for pet owners who live in apartments, condos or houses. The Pet Loo is a hygienic, convenient and environmentally friendly way to allow your pet to do its business without relying on you for an opportunity.

10 Great Benefits of The Pet Loo.
1: Fits anywhere accessible to your dog like the Patio, Balcony, Laundry, Bathroom, Garage, Backyard, Deck.
2: Eliminates stains and/or puddles on your hardwood floors, tiles or carpets.
3: No more clean-ups on your floors and carpets.
4: Forget those early morning or late night dog walks.
5: You and your dog can stay inside when it's raining, snowing or icy outside.
6: You'll have peace of mind when you're unable to get home in time to walk your dog.
7: It's hygienic for you and your dog.
8: Easy to empty and clean.
9: Doesn't wear out. Good for all breeds of dogs.
10: No assembly required, just take it out of the box and it's ready.

Are Weeds Taking Over Your Backyard?

Fresh out of the Inbox - a couple of classes in partnership with Woodland Park Zoo that may interest homeowners with yards and/or ponds!

Water Features for Wildlife
Evening class: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m.
Cost: $20

Clean, fresh water is a crucial part of any habitat. Join Woodland Park Zoo and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff in learning about the variety of ways you can provide water for urban wildlife in your own backyard. You'll see examples of different types of water features, such as ponds, birdbaths and fountains. You'll also learn about the natural history of local amphibians and how to provide habitat for these sensitive animals.

Are Weeds Taking Over Your Backyard?

Evening class: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Cost: $20

Weeds are tough invaders that can quickly dominate your backyard. These non-native, invasive plants crowd out native plants that provide habitat for wildlife and some of them can harm you and your children and even your pets.
All noxious weeds are hard to control and will only get worse if you leave them alone. Join Woodland Park Zoo and King County's Noxious Weed Control Program to learn more about the threats noxious weeds pose, as well as how to identify and eradicate some of our area's worst noxious weeds.

To register contact:

Jenny Mears, Education Programs Coordinator
Woodland Park Zoo
Education Department
601 N. 59th Street
Seattle, WA 98103
phone: 206-548-2424 ext 1516
fax: 206-547-3553
http://www.zoo.org/

Earth Day and Green Spaces 2008

Today is my "blogoversary" for greenspaces realestate.com. Hard to believe it's been a year since I kicked off this site, sharing the story of finding my soon-to-be new home and reducing my "footprint" from a real estate perspective (not carbon in this case).
We are well established and happy in our new Built Green neighborhood of High Point in West Seattle. My husband and I both are involved in our community doing different things, and we also have time to take up hobbies and new interestes (his - a wine tasting class, mine - bell ringing in a choir). I just led a tour of the development on Sunday, showing off the environmental functions of the bioswales, pervious concrete, cobblestone drives, waterfall and pond, pocket parks on every block, and the market garden green with spring veggies and brown with freshly turned earth. The weather was sunny and it was invigorating. And the comments from the visitors were how quiet it was and peaceful. There's nothing like being proud of where you live and eager to help others discover the possibility of being a part of a community such as this.

Can you see the bird here? One of my beloved Black-capped chickacdees. They visit the feeder every day.

As I begin a 2nd year writing about all things green, I can't help but feel that I have made a difference in the lives of others. 20 years ago I wrote my senior English thesis paper about the destruction of the coral reefs and the beginnings of global warming and what was going to happen to us if things didn't change. It was a radical idea then - today a much larger part of the population understands, believes, and sees a reason to change their individual behavior to create enough change to save the planet. By everyone working together, we can make a difference. Even working apart, but toward the same goal, we can still make a difference.

20 years after writing that A+ paper, I now am helping another high school senior with her "Culminating Project" and she has tackled the same subject but with a different question: "How can I change my own behavior to live a more sustainable life and influence others?" Jenny Light found my blog by Googling "Seattle sustainable". She sent me an email and she asked me to be her "Field Advisor" while she searched for answers to her question. And I have really enjoyed myself, thinking of all of the things I have questions about and creating little field trips for us to learn together. Boy, if the internet had been around when I was in high school, what a report I could have written then!

So, today's million dollar question is: If you changed just one thing in your life to help make the Earth a healthier planet, what would it be? Visit the 1 Thing Seattle web site to make your commitment to help save the Earth.

Reflections: Read Earth Day and Green Spaces 2007, the opening blog post of greenspacesrealestate.com.

Forbo Marmoleum and Me

Do you know the difference between linoleum and vinyl flooring? When I needed to cover the hideous flooring in my last house, a "farmhouse" on a 1/4 acre in West Seattle (it used to be a chicken farm long ago), I discovered Marmoleum, true linoleum made the old-fashioned way.

Who knows how old this vinyl flooring was. I assumed it was vinyl - and poorly installed. I was guessing from the 70s but who knew. All I knew is I couldn't stand it and it took 2 years to figure out what to do.

See, we intended to "blow" out the end of the kitchen and enlarge the space, and we anticipated needing to put down new subflooring. We didn't want to sink a lot of money into a fix that would let me tolerate being in my kitchen until the remodel. Marmoleum is a natural product made from linseed oil, wood flour, rosin, and jute. Not only is it environmentally friendly to produce, it ALSO composts when it goes to the landfill when you tear it out to do something new.
An ingenious fix was to just cover up the current floor with new flooring. We're not very handy, so hired an affordable contractor who used a special leveling compoung and prepared the old vinyl surface for the Marmoleum overlay. The two men who did the work (brothers) made a paper pattern cut out of the floor, and took the paper out to the patio and laid it over the linoluem we had purchased and cut it to fit exactly. I think they did a little trimming once back in the kitchen, but I have to say I was very happy with the end result.

Ultimately, we ended up selling this house last summer, and moving to a new Built Green townhome in High Point. If you read my blog regularly, you already know all about that! Remodeling our former home was just going to be to much for us since we weren't very experienced and ultimately lacked motivation to commit our lives to living in a rehab project.

Marmoleum is a topic of conversation in our home once again. The "bonus room" off of the garage, which is subterranean, has been a site of pet accidents and we have not been able to get the smell out of the carpet pad. We're ready to cut the carpet out just to get the smell out. I suggested painting the concrete floor a neat color until we were ready to put down bamboo or cork flooring. As you know, everyone's budget is tight these days and we're not ready to spend the money for the permanent fix. But we can't live with the carpet anymore, so something has to be done.

Ultimately we decided against painting the concrete floor mostly because it is a multi-step process, requires a lot of chemical preparation, and our home is open between floors and there is no way to close off this space while the floor is being prepared and painted. I did find what I think is the best paint out there for this project (DuraSoy One BioBased Paint). It is non-toxic, zero VOC, etc., but it still requires drying time and the inconvenience caused by tying up this space is a problem. My husband suggested Marmoleum again and I've been persuaded it is probably the easiest thing to do right now. Now we just have to figure out what color! The walls in this room are painted two different colors (macadamia and hosta from the Devine paint line). Of course, since I am color-blind, I can't really match it, and have to rely on my artistic husband to do that for me. But it will be something from the Neutral Color Collaborators even though I am mysteriously drawn to the reds of Sunset Boulevard. I don't think it will work in that room. I just know I am taking my paint sample sheet from Devine when we go to ecohaus or Great Floors to pick a color out. I saw an ad in last weekend's Pacific Magazine and maybe the price might be competitive with ecohaus. Stay tuned for more on this project!

More in today's Seattle PI: Read Today's linoleum flooring is a step up

This Sunday - A Walking Tour of High Point

Hello everyone!

I wanted to say a few words in advance of Sunday’s walking tour of High Point in West Seattle. (Where is High Point?)

Please RSVP or update your RSVP here so I know how many packets to prepare. I have Built Green information and I will discuss the Checklists that builders or remodelers use to qualify their construction as Built Green. I will explain this process to you.

Dress for the weather since it looks like it might be a bit iffy – we will be touring some of the major environmental features here, and I will show you how bioswales work, the pond and waterfall, and also the market garden, which is looking very green these days! If you have time we will also walk by Commons Park, a 4 acre community green space with a viewing mound, ampitheater, and community garden planned. We are all anticipating its opening weekend this Memorial Day.

We also will tour some homes for sale, so please wear shoes that are easy to get in and out of since you will be asked to remove your shoes. I will show you a darling carriage house, a townhouse, and also a single family home for sale. You will be amazed by cobblestone streets, porous sidewalks, and it smells fantastic around here, so come and enjoy Spring!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me using the button in the right panel.

Looking forward to seeing you Sunday at 12:15! We will meet indoors in the lobby area of the library. The library opens at noon, so if you are a little early you will have someplace dry to be if we are given less-than-ideal weather. See the Green Spaces Real Estate Meetup web site for complete details.

Here you can View Listings of homes for sale in High Point that might be included in the tour. Here are some other HP listings (View Listings), but they will not be on the tour this Sunday. The last group tour I did lasted about 90 minutes, so please plan accordingly.

Thank you!

Wendy Hughes- Jelen
Built Green Certified Agent and Licensed Real Estate Professional
Lane and Associates, Inc.

View Listings link will be available for 30 days.

Tips for living green

I think thousands of Seattleites got "green" up to their eyeballs this weekend at the green festival. I was disappointed to have the presentation by Cecile Andrews and the "slow life movement" cut short by an emergency alarm that forced us to evacuate. Luckily I picked up her book, "Slow Is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre" and I am sure I will enjoy it immensely. I haven't read an entire book in a long time (I am working my way thru piles of magazines at the moment).

As the PI staff points out, it's best to take on the challenge of converting to a more green lifestyle one step at a time. Read their list of 52 tips for living green.

Spring Cleaning: Because Everybody Deserves a Fresh Start

New American Dream has a great "Take Action" e-bulletin and the latest issue focuses on healthy spring cleaning. Great resources here!

E-flora latest issue is out

Tons of stuff to do for Earth Day, and also lots of learning opportunities this spring and summer. Check out the April 2008 issue of E-flora, UW Botanic Gardens Newsletter here.

Read this : Questions to ask before buying a supposedly "green" product

This is a must-read

Questions to ask before buying a supposedly "green" product

The "green collar" economy

You've probably noticed a new green term being bandied about - "green collar" jobs. Many "blue collar" jobs have been replaced by machinery and computers, and many "white collar" jobs have been shipped overseas. This morning I spent half an hour going in circles with the Macy*s credit department - a call center in India (I am not guessing, I asked, and they confirmed). Every rep I talked to (it took three phone calls) could barely hear me over the phone altho I could hear them just fine. I changed phones and it was the same and I told them to adjust their head set. The poor guy told me he was using a handset, can you imagine? Ouch. So I yelled louder and decided they couldn't really hear me because there is a very large ocean between us. It was a damn frustrating experience. I won't be shopping at Macy*s anymore.

One of the bright spots in our current economic outlook is the creation of jobs for a new generation, being referred to as "green collar" jobs. They're supposed to be recession proof and also can't be shipped overseas - face it, the need to save the Earth is not going away anytime soon, and every region has its own environmental challenges, and you can't fix a Pacific Northwest water quality or energy source problem in a call center in India. A-MEN FOR THAT.

The Bainbridge Graduate Institute has an MBA for Sustainable Business. There is a whole "Green Careers and Education" section in the 700s area of the booths at this weekend's green festival 08 at the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle. There are also a number of speakers that will touch on the greening of our economy scattered throughout the program.

South Seattle Community College also announced a certification program for Residential Energy Auditing. See the online flyer here. I called the Georgetown Campus over a week ago when I got an email from my local DON (Department of Neighborhoods) connection, but they never managed to email me the link for the flyer and I forgot about it until someone mentioned it thru one of the environmental meetup groups I am in this morning. The class starts next Tuesday evening, and runs Tue/Thu thru the end of May. If you take this class you will be a player in the forefront of our new local green economy. It's a national certification, so you can take it with you if you move, just like any other degree. More power to you!! (Pun intended...yuk yuk)

GSRE Top Picks for green festival '08

My green festival catalog is worn and tattered from six weeks of thumbing thru it trying to decide on "the perfect day" from a green real estate and lifestyle perspective. I've finally created the perfect two days and here it is:

Speakers:

Sat 11 AM Panel Discussion in Room 2: Pollution in our homes, campaigns to keep them out

Sat 1 PM Room 4: Jason McLellan - The living building: integrating technology with nature

Sat 3 PM Room 1: Stacy Malkan - The ugly side of the beauty industry

Sat 5 PM Room 1: Vicki Robin - Liberating limits: How limits to growth can free our lives

Sun 12 PM Room 2: Goldie Coughlan (of PCC Natural Markets) - Elements of ethical eating in the 21st century

Sun 1 PM Room 1: Puget Sound Energy - Energy efficiency workshop (low cost/no cost ways to save energy in your home)

Sun 2 PM Room 4: Gifford Pinchot III - Health, happiness and sustainable business (it's not every guy who has a national forest named for his family)

Sun 3 PM Room 1: Cecile Andrews - The slow life movement: Living happier with a lighter footprint

Sun 5 PM Room 1: Mark Lakeman - The City Repair Project


Community Action Center:

Sat 4 PM: How can I be toxic free?

Sun 2 PM: Growing a local food economy


Green Home Pavilion: 40 minute workshops both days, click here for full schedule.


Note: The entire festival is green, so they have asked people to bring their own eating utensils and plates for food sampling, meals, and also your own refillable water bottle since there will be water stations but no water in plastic bottles available for purchase.


Here is my personal list of must-see booths. Keep in mind I have been researching green lifestyle things for 7 years, so there are a lot of must-see booths but I am skipping some where I already know about the product or service. Others I am hitting anyway looking for product samples! There are hundreds of booths, and it can be overwhelming if you don't strategize a bit.

Name / Booth #
bgreen / 612/614
PCC Natural Markets / 914/918 (I bet they have samples and coupons!)
Simple Shoes / 518
1 Thing / 610
Body and Soul / 912
Chinook Book / 505
KMTT The Mountain / 610 (my favorite terrestrial radio station - I otherwise am a Sirius subscriber)
Mother Earth News / 915
Natural Health / 815
Natural Home / 913
Planet Green / 604/705
green 3 / 1303
Center for Cultural Interchange / 438
Ecohaus / 230 (formerly known as Environmental Home Center)
Northwest Ecobuilding Guild / 218
Dagoba Chocolate / Pavilion
Numi Tea / 617
Seattle Tilth / 212
Yaki Soba Noodles / F5 (this is lunch!!)
Plug In America / 100

I still have a PCC Natural Markets grocery receipt that offers 2-for-1 entry, so I am going to talk my husband into going and hanging out with me!

I hope you take this extraordinary opportunity to learn more about how a green lifestyle is obtainable and sustainable and doesn't have to be expensive. The incredible density and variety of offerings at this festival just makes people like me drool! I can't wait. Maybe I will see you there!

Be sure to check out the event web site to plan your perfect day!

The resident High Point Green Agent reports

Spring is in the air and people are getting itchy feet to go home shopping! I know it snowed only a week ago, but you just have to believe me. The grape hyacinths are UP in my deck garden (yeah, they survived the move!!) and there is no denying spring is here. I finally have Black capped chickadees visiting my feeder, and I put up a window bird house and am hoping that someone decides to build a nest there and I can even watch them being hatched from my living room!

I did a quick search of homes around West Seattle's High Point redevelopment, since that's my "beat", and as a Built Green Certified Agent I specialize in this kind of new construction. But there are some other townhomes "on the fringe", and you could move into new construction for as little as $269k. See the most recent list of relevant listings here. My personal favorite, of course, is the 1-bedroom carriage house ($315,950). And there are some 4x2.5 standalone "skinnies" also touting Built Green certification on 30th Ave SW that have been under construction for months that have finally been completed and are now on market for $425k. I need to stop by and preview them!

I was surprised to see a 3x2.5 townhome (about 1700 sq ft and 2-car side-by-side garage) in my floor plan has just gone on the market. There aren't very many of these built. It has a city view (my place has a view of the Cascades). Love LOVE my house. You will, too. EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT.

CALENDAR NOTE: There is another Walking Tour of High Point scheduled for April 20th thru my Green Spaces meetup group. Be sure to check it out and please join us if you can. Not only will you get a tour of a Built Green community, but we will also tour homes availalble for sale as time allows. Dress for the weather and wear shoes that are easy to take off and put back on.

Photo above is of a porous (pervious) sidewalk along 31st Avenue SW between SW Raymond and SW Graham Streets.

Catalog Choice on The Today Show

This is the original Today Show segment that inspired me to start saving my catalogs so I could start cancelling them.

Catalog Choice : A real world application

I saw a story on NBCs Today Show in January about an elementary school that held a competition to see which class could eliminate the most catalogs from their home mail boxes. The kids, along with their parents, requested to be removed from mailing lists at home, and then the kids brought the catalogs to school to put in a big bin. 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades were competing against eash other. Many used an online service that I had not heard of, called Catalog Choice.

Herb Weisbaum as "ConsumerMan" contributed an article to MSNBC.com called "Stop the Catalog Madness!". I came across that when I was trying to find the original Today Show segment to post here - which I did finally find on YouTube (see video post above), or click to see the original video created by the school kids (which I had not seen before.)

My husband and I stockpiled catalogs February-March before finally sitting down to request removal today with the help of the web site CatalogChoice.org. First we weighed the catalogs we collected. 16.8 pounds! It was a heavy pile. We then next measured how tall the pile was, and it was over 9 inches tall. Then we sat down together and Steve read me the title of each catalog and I used the Search feature on the Catalog Choice site to see if it was already listed. Most of the catalogs we have been receiving were listed on the site. And if you are receiving a catalog that is not on their list, you can suggest the catalog be added, and they will email you when the merchant has agreed to be included.

You might think this is a hard sell for merchants. Au contraire. Catalog Choice is a free service whose objective is to reduce the number of unwanted catalogs sent to American consumers, thereby helping the consumers, the environment and saving marketing costs for the merchants. With today's cost of postage, paper, and printing costs, I think some merchants are getting smart and realizing that it really is better for them to not be sending catalogs to people who are literally just going to throw them in the recycle bin without looking at them.

After inputting our catalogs we had three piles. The pile on the left is the very few (I think 5 total) catalogs we received that were not already on the CatalogChoice.org web site (we requested that they be added and we will receive notification by email when they do so we can process our request).

The pile in the middle is made up of single copy catalog titles that we requested to decline - 52 titles in all. The pile in the "round file" is duplicates of the catalogs in the center pile. So, had I already put in my requests to be removed from these catalog mailing lists, not only would I have saved trees, oil, electricity and everything else that goes into production and distribution for the middle pile, I also would never have received the catalogs in the right hand pile since they are other mailings from the same merchants.

Here is the list of catalogs I was able to request to be removed from their mailing lists:
Art.com
As We Change
CDW Solutions
Chico's
Crate & Barrel
Crutchfield Electronics
Danbury Mint
DHC
Doctors Foster & Smith
Domestications
Driving Comfort
Duncraft
Eddie Bauer
Flor
FootSmart
Great Windows
Griot's Garage
Hammacher Schlemmer
Harry and David
High Country Gardens
Home Bistro
Home Decorators Collection
Improvements
J. Jill
Johnston & Murphy
L.L. Bean
Lamps Plus
Lands' End
Macy's
Magellan's
Norm Thompson
One Spirit
Plow & Hearth
Pottery Barn
Relax The Back
Restoration Hardware
Roaman'
Shades of Light
Silhouettes
Smith & Hawken
Smith+Noble
Solutions
Spring Hill Nurseries
The Pyramid Collection
The Sharper Image
Time for Me
Tire Rack
Title Nine
Touch of Class
TravelSmith
Vermont Country Store Catalog of Goods & Wares
Woman Within

The web site notified me that four of these merchants have refused to honor requests placed thru Catalog Choice, but they provide phone numbers and web sites so you can contact the merchants directly. I got on the phone with Macy*s and spoke to Customer Service and made the request, altho I did not hear a keyboard in the background so I am skeptical that this request will be honored. I sent emails to two others thru their web sites, and Steve said he would take care of Griot's Garage by email.

Oh, and it was very interesting when we requested to be removed from Crate & Barrel. We received a notice on the screen:

All Crate and Barrel catalogues are printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and contain 10 to 30 percent post-consumer recycled material. You can learn more about our environmental Initiatives on everything from furniture to packaging materials to our energy-efficient warehouses at www.crateandbarrel.com/environment.

Upon closer inspection of the catalog itself it does tout the FSC mark and statement and other things that tell you about steps the company is taking to reduce their environmental footprint. I will continue to shop there - in fact, I have a gift card from our holiday/housewarming/anniversary party that is burning a hole in my pocket. I think I am going to get a big wooden salad bowl so I can make proper Caesar salads.

It was hard to follow-thru and request removal from some of the catalogs, like Sharper Image, Hammacher Schlemmer, and Pyramid. They are fiun catalogs and we always find things to show to each other. But who needs to waste time looking at things they don't really have the money to buy anyway?

2008 is a year of conscious reduction in our household, and getting rid of the daily temptations in the mail box is a GREAT step towards freedom.

Something else I really liked about the site is that I could tell the merchant why I was requesting to be removed from the mailing list. The options are:

* Prefer not to answer
* Prefer shopping online for these products
* No interest in products
* I want to help the environment
* Duplicate mailing
* Addressed to person not at residence
* I receive too many of this catalog
* Other - has a type-in field where you can give specific reason

Honestly on many of these catalogs, I prefer to shop in the store (e.g. J Jill, Smith & Hawken, Crate & Barrel, etc). So I selected Other and typed this into the field that pops up. I think they should make that a menu option. For catalogs I never bought from before, requested, or know how I started receiving them, I answered "I want to help the environment." Sharper Image and Land's End and catalogs like those are web sites that I have used and will continue to shop from in the future. It's silly to get a catalog in the mail when you ordered from the web site. The merchant should learn to mirror the customer. If I ordered by phone from a catalog obviously I am a catalog shopper. If I ordered from the web site, I am an online shopper. By showing up in my mailbox they are trying to entice me to the web site to shop, and I am just not going to fall for it.

One wifely concession - I let Steve keep his REI catalog.

If you are serious about getting off of these mailing lists, you will also love the Catalog Choice web site because it lets you keep Notes on the site of actions you have taken. So I documented the phone call and emails I sent today using this feature. It lets you come back and check on the status of your requests, too. It will Confirm when you have been removed from mailing lists, letting you know which ones they are.

I hope our experience and illustration of how we were able to use CatalogChoice.org might inspire you to save your catalogs for a month and do the same. You will feel better for it, and free from constant pressures to spend you hard-earned money!

And the Built Green Hammer Award goes to...

The Master Builders Association Built GreenTM Case Study for April is about an affordable housing townhome community built across the "dell" from me near the home I owned before moving to High Point. I am referring to Croft Place Townhomes, built by DNDA (Delridge Neighborhood Development Association).

In case you have ever wondered, the name of the Delridge neighborhood is derived from the dells and ridges that define this community.

Several years ago I remember going to the community meetings, held at Sanislo Elementary School, and hearing the NIMBYs. I decided a lot of people in the neighborhood had a case of "sour grapes" and felt people who are of lower income didn't deserve to live in healthy new construction. What was ironic about this situation is that the Puget Ridge neighborhood where this is located is a rather modest community and many of the people living here would have qualified for affordable housing in this new community.

The most squealing was about how much more traffic this 21- unit community would bring the neighborhood. I lived around the corner and at the very busy intersection of 18th and Myrtle and Orchard (5 streets met at the traffic circle) and just laughed because everyone and their brother already was driving thru that intersection on their way to SSCC, "cutting the corner" so to speak and avoiding the stop light and left-hand turn at SW Austin and 16th Ave SW. And they were driving fast and no one yielded properly to anyone. I don't miss that, or any other real aspect of my old residence on 18th Ave SW. What a crazy place.

More about Croft Place from the Built Green web site:

This month’s featured project is Croft Place Townhomes, a 3-Star townhome project in Seattle’s Delridge Neighborhood. Developed by the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, the 21-unit project is a model of quality, environmentally friendly affordable housing. Winner of the 2008 Built Green Hammer Award in the multi-familiy low-rise category, this project not only incorporated green design and building strategies, but also took the next step to include community residents in designing community-wide artistic elements to establishing a sense of place. Croft Place Townhomes is one of the great examples here in the Pacific Northwest that demonstrates how green building can be realistic for affordable projects.

You can see the entire case study here. Right now you can also see the townhomes from Delridge, on the east side of the street, across from Lam Bow Apartments. The trees have not leafed in and they are pretty visible. Those houses are built on STILTS!

Are you interested in native plants?

Native Plant Stewardship Program Offers Free Education and Habitat Restoration Skills

I took part in this training and volunteer program in 2001 and it is invaluable information. If you're lucky you'll come away with some really great stories - like getting your boot sucked off in an east King county bog and learning the hard way why you ALWAYS pack extra socks when going out in the field.

In the meantime, I can entertain you with photographs from a salvage event we attended in 2002.

Stephen Hughes-Jelen (my husband), and Steve Richmond (of Garden Cycles) help another salvager / homeowner claim a fallen tree stump. They intended to place it in their yard. They lived nearby. This was the Trident development area in Redmond before homes were built.


Steve and Steve plot how to pack in as many plants as possible. Note the sword ferns and other plants are packed in burlap bags that we got for free from a Gerogetown coffee roaster. You can dump water over the burlap bags and it gets them really soaked and it will keep the plant roots damp and make them more likely to survive the transplant.

GRNSTRK set up for maximum hauling capacity. The 4'x8' trailer can haul a LOT of plants. Here it is fully loaded and ready to head home.

If you are interested in salvaging native plants for your planting project or yard, contact Bob Spencer at Seattle Public Utilities. Visit the Plant Native web site for even MORE information.

I hope there are some new prospective stewards out there in Green Spaces-land! The press release is below.

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Are you interested in the native plants in your community and taking on the challenge of restoring Seattle's forested parklands? The Washington Native Plant Society is now accepting applications for the 2008 Native Plant Forest Stewardship Program. This year, as in 2007, WNPS will partner with Seattle Parks and Recreation, Cascade Land Conservancy and the Green Seattle Partnership.

In an exciting and extensive ten-week training program, you'll learn and experience first-hand how to identify native plants; the importance of soils; how to propagate, plant and care for native plants; the functions and benefits of wetlands and forests; how to remove invasive plants; tips on educating the public; which native plants work well in urban settings (and attract wildlife); how to train and lead volunteers, and how to restore and monitor a variety of habitats. Expert training is through lectures, workshops and field trips.

The 10-week program is free in exchange for a 100-hour volunteer commitment within King County-most of which will take place in a Seattle Park. Following the training, teams of stewards will be assigned 1-acre sites in identified Seattle Parks where they will fulfill their volunteer commitments through designing and implementing native plant restoration plans.

Classes will be held on Fridays from 8:30am until 4:30pm at South Seattle Community College. Classes will begin Friday, April 25, 2007 and will run until June 27th, including three all-day Saturday field trips.

All applications for this Native Plant Forest Stewardship training are due by 5pm Tuesday, April 11th to Washington Native Plant Society, 6310 NE 74th Street, Suite 215E, Seattle, WA 98115 or by emailed to npsp_KC@wnps.org. Download an application from Washington Native Plant Society at http://www.wnps.org/ or email Stewardship Coordinator, Deb Gurney at nsps_KC@wnps.org.

"This program gives stewards the tools and confidence they need to teach others about native plants and lead projects that improve our streams, lakes, parks, forests, soil and air, and make us proud to live in our neighborhoods," said Gary Smith, Chair of the Washington Native Plant Society's Stewardship Program. "We encourage all native plant enthusiasts to apply, as well as volunteers who are working on or want to start a restoration project. The more we can educate and train people to provide this type of preventive care, we're keeping the tax burden down for everyone-now and in the future-with benefits that will last well past our lifetimes."

The Grand Unveiling : custom art for my new home office

I've been in my new home office for about seven months now. It has great new furniture, a custom California Closet for office supplies and everything else, and was painted a color that was inspired by our most recent international adventure, Italy. (You can read more here.)

The big wall above the Ferrari-red wing couch called for something dramatic. And preferably sunflower-y since that is my favorite flower, and of course the flower of Tuscany, the place that has inspired my entire office decor. I found a neat painting in an art gallery in Snohomish, but it was the wrong red and not a sunflower at all. It is difficult to shop for art when you 1) are color blind, and 2) live with someone with an artistic background and heritage. It can be intimidating.

I told my husband (the art "critic") that it might take a couple of years to find the right piece. And I was prepared to wait. Waiting is part of my new persona. I would rather do without altogether than having something not right. That's the criteria I used to get rid of so much stuff when moving from our old farmhouse a mile away to our modern townhouse in High Point. Scan Design of course was the answer for almost everything that's in our new house. And is where we had obtained the only furniture we brought with us from the old house.

His solution, and he was in cahoots with his father, I call him Ron-dad, was to commission his sister, Kimry Jelen, another family artist (and horse trainer, there will be a PBS special on her soon) to paint a piece for the wall. It would be the right size, the right colors, and it would be sunflowers.

Of course I didn't find this out until it was unveiled at Xmas. She was here over Thanksgiving scoping the room out - and the bold and bright Wing Couch dominating my office.

The painting arrived just last week. We still need to frame it - we are considering a metal frame to match the rest of the hardware in the room (and throughout the house). I couldn't be more happy with what she has produced, just for me and my space. Now I just wish my desk, which is inside of an armoire, faced the same direction so I could stare at all day!

Thanks Kimry! You did a fantastic job and I couldn't love it more!

Now I have to get rid of that floor lamp. Or find a matching shade. Steve! Better get shopping.

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