Earthquakes: 2010

Since I live in California, I suppose, I pay close attention to earthquakes (no matter where on earth they occur). Year 2010 has bee very peculiar in that regard. We are only one quarter of a year into it, and we have already seen eight major earthquakes (magnitude 6 or higher) and ten if we count magnitude 5.5 or higher. That's a lot of earthquakes in such a short time period. They have been all over the world.

Of these the Haiti Earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on Jan 12th was one of the deadliest. The other major one was the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile on February 27th. There was a quake in Mexico on April 4th of magnitude 7.2 followed by 7.6 magnitude quake in Indonesia on April 6th.

I do know there is a lot of earthquake activity that happens on a daily basis. However much of this activity is either not high enough magnitude or in densely populated areas. So they go unnoticed. Hope we don't see too many of these quakes, the rest of the year!

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Happy Earth Day!!!

I want to wish all the earthlings a very happy Earth day. As a living being on the planet Earth, it is our responsibility to take good care of our planet. So this earth day I researched the web to find some useful sites on going Green!!!

1. National Graphics's Green Guide
2. Planet Green , A Discovery Company
3. The Daily Green
4. HGTV Green Home Giveaway

In the meantime we all can make some simple changes to help planet Earth:

1. Use cloth kitchen towels instead of paper towel, wherever possible.
2. Use a permanent coffee filter instead of paper filters.
3. Use filtered water instead of bottled water.
4. Bring your own reusable bag for grocery shopping.
5. Use bamboo products for cutting boards etc.
6. Use pressure cooker for cooking (saves lot of energy)
7. Try carpooling.
8. Use bicycles or walk whenever possible.
9. Minimize the use of water and electricity wherever possible.
10. Replace all the bulbs with energy efficient "CFL bulbs".
11. Use solar powered lamps for landscaping.
12. Use clothesline for drying clothes in summer.

Or maybe some big ones .....

1. Use energy star appliances.
2. Try to harvest rain water if you can.
3. Buy a hybrid car.
4. Try to use solar panels for power generation (if you can afford it).

The list goes on and on . So on this earth day and in the future, Think Green, Act Green and Go Green!

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! That's the mantra.

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The Sun, The Rain And The ....

Today we have seen the weather go from cloudy to sunny to rainy. It was changing all throughout the day. Very unpredictable. But with the unpredictability came a beautiful surprise at the end of the day.See for yourself.

I have been trying to capture the rain for a while on my camera, but didn't know how. Today I finally got the idea, when I saw the rain drops on my french door. It was a perfect shot.

It was a beautiful rainbow. My 2 year was super excited when he saw it. I don't know what it is about the rainbows, but it brings some kind of joy when you spot one, at least for me!! I'm so glad I was able to capture it on my camera.

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Spring Is In The Air

The colors of spring. Wow what a sight. It's brings so much joy to see the blossoms and bulbs and all the new life that springs from spring. Those beautiful sounds of birds chirping away. Nature at it's finest.

What's not to love about Spring, unless you are an allergy sufferer .......

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Too Cool For California

It has been really cold for the past 2 days. In fact I have some pictures to prove it. The temperature has been in the 40's. Here you can see the local temperature on my yahoo weather widget for Thursday, December 10th.



The water in the birdbath turned into ice overnight. So when I rinsed it off, the ice shattered and the pieces fell down. The white pieces next to the birdbath are all pieces of ice.

There was snow on the hill tops surrounding our home. Snow happens very rarely.

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What .... Green Thumb?

We have been living in this house for past 11 years. But when you look at our backyard it seems as though we just moved in. It hardly has any plants. All thanks to my "not so green thumb".

We had this orange tree for so many years now. We only got one edible orange out of it. If we look over our fence our neighbors seem to be growing fruit in abundance. We also planted a lime tree at the same time as orange tree and we are finally seeing some limes. This morning my daughter was so excited to pick out a fully ripened lime. I took a picture, since in our house the home grown lime is kind of like a celebrity.

Then there is this bird of paradise plant. Apparently there are different kinds in that too. When we planted it we thought we got the usual "orange and purple" variety, but no..... ours is a super special "white" bird of paradise. It hardly ever blooms. So far it bloomed only once, a couple of years ago.

Then there are these 2 hibiscus plants (yellow and orange flowers) which I purchased from my local nursery and planted them. One with orange flowers died and the yellow flowering one barely grew in so many years and gives very few flowers. The only plants that keep coming back each year without fail are the bulbs which bloom in spring. We had these for past 6 years and each year from March to April we see them flowering.

My mom on the other hand is a super green thumb. She once got a small branch of a white hibiscus plant (without a single root) from her friend and planted it in our backyard and it grew so well and all through the year it blooms and gives beautiful flowers. How do you explain that. She also planted a small sapling of an avocado plant last year and it grew into this giant tree. You should see it to believe it.

The only flowering plants I'm successful at growing are the "wild flowers". Thank God for the wild flowers, we had some color in our garden, even if it was temporary.

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