I've always been inclined to "go green" and thought it would be fun for some of you to see some of the ways I have been doing that, lately.

Recently I got three sprouting units and am growing fresh, organic sprouts on my kitchen table.  Here is a picture of my table:

Here is a close-up of the little sprouts growing inside:

And here is the mechanics of the setup:  water can for filling the reservoirs, drain hoses and jugs to drain the runoff water, a power strip to plug them in and a timer to control the times and duration of the automatic mist cycles:

Each little tray you see in the pictures grows an amount of sprouts that would cost around $8.00 in a store, and they wouldn't necessarily be organic - certainly not fresh.  I harvest the sprouts and use them the very first day they are ready.  It doesn't get any fresher than that!  The different varieties mature at different times, so the amount I harvest each day varies, but I estimate that I go through about $18.00 worth of sprouts daily.  I just juice them first thing each morning, and drink them.  If I want some to eat later in the day, I can just set some aside in the fridge, but so far I'm just drinking them.

So I'm eating "greener," saving money and eliminating the packaging completely. 

This is a ridiculously HOT autumn, for south Florida.  Today the temperature went up to 94 degrees (for you Canadians and Europeans, that is about 34.5 degrees Celsius.)  That is WILD for October!  And, the humidity has not let up as it usually does at this time of year.  We are steaming, like lobsters in a pot, here in Southwest Florida!

I went to a job today, at the home of a customer who had not been there for a week.  They had not set their a/c controls properly and the temperature inside the place was 91 degrees Farenheit (32.8 Celsius.)  Needless to say, I didn't do much in that house today!

Meanwhile, I have been hearing from people "back home" in Ontario, Canada about the weather there.  My girlfriend tells me that there was SNOW the other day.  It melted almost immediately, as the first snow always does, but it was definitely snow.  I heard another story about a guy who left his space heater on while he went away, to keep his apartment from getting too cold, and it caused a fire. 

This evening I went to my neighbours to help them celebrate their oldest son's tenth birthday.  Jorge, the birthday boy, is in the center of this picture, wearing a plaid shirt:

Here are his parents, Adan and Ere:

Here's his dad with baby brother Derek:

And Mom holding Derek:

The main menu item was panbasos.  They are sandwiches filled with crumbled chorizo sausage, mashed potatoes, lettuce, Mexican crumbling cheese, sour cream and hot green sauce.  The rolls are smeared with some spicy red sauce, then grilled on the outside, before the sandwiches are made.  Ere made a huge pan of these sandwiches:

Here is a panbaso by itself, with the usual accompaniements.  The green sauce is pretty strong.  It will burn a hole in the gut of anyone who is not used to eating really hot things:

EVERY Mexican birthday party needs to have a pinata.  Here is Jorge's:

Anbd Jorge pretending to ride it:

Adan rigged the pinata on the basketball hoop and dandled it around to keep the kids jumping while they swung at it:

This guy is the one who managed to break the pinata:

I got super lucky with this shot.  Couldn't have timed it better if I had known how to do it.  You can see the candy spilling out of the pinata as the kids pile up to grab it:

They scrounged until every last piece of candyt was gathered up:

And then Jorge wore the pinata's head for a party hat for a couple minutes:

Later, it was time for him to cut his birthday cake:

Ere made sure he got a face full of icing: