Unemployed Again

So for the 2nd time in 2 years I am laid off yet again.  There really isn't much out there for jobs that pay anywhere near a wage you can survive on.  Right now I will be looking for work in my field but I may not find anything anytime soon.  If I was a conspiracy theorist I might think the economic collapse was engineered by the government to get people into the military to fight in a war that is bullshit and most people know that.  Anyway as I am looking for work I will try to contact anyone in the woodworking industry to find scraps that they may have otherwise thrown out to make something useful out of the scraps. 

Craigslist and Freecycle

I'm a big fan of these two sites.  Instead of buying new you can check out these two sites to see if what you are looking for is available.  It's a great way to prevent some material from going into the dump and reusing what someone wanted to get rid of.  Just today I gave away a truck cap that had about another week before I was going to take it to the dump.  It made the people who took it happy and it made me happy since I knew it was out of the yard and someone was going to use it.

Garden Pests

There are a couple problem pests I am having a difficult time trying to identify.  One is a small greyish moth/fly type thing that is infesting the asters.  I've used neem oil which seems to help at least a little.

The other pest is a small black insect that is putting pinholes in the eggplant leaves.  The closest ID I found was a fungus gnat but I don't think that is it.  You can see it at the top of the picture.  Any help identifying these and treatment would be appreciated.  I've squashed quite a few of these bugs by hand and I think I've improved the situation.

Happy and Sad Day

Yesterday I had an interview.  It turned out to be an eventful day.  After the interview they drug tested me and I start on Monday.  It's been about a year and a half since I was laid off.  I was negotiating with the bank to give up the house.  So it will be a scramble to get it fully rented but it looks doable now :)  The sad part is I was a volunteer at the animal shelter taking care of the dogs which I won't be able to do anymore.  Also I'm not going to be able to hang out in the garden and spend time with my cats as much.  :(

Recycling

One thing that I have been thinking about a lot is recycling.  I am a trained cabinet maker and can do a lot of things in woodworking.  In any shop or construction job there is a lot of waste (plywood, MDF, solid wood scraps) that I think could be reused or reprocessed to make new useable materials.  Right now a lot of material is just going into the dumps.  I believe these materials can be recycled.  This is just an idea right now but I hope to make this happen.

Intro

This is my first post so I guess I will just introduce myself.  I'm a person who tries to do things naturallly.  I love to garden and will only do organic gardening.  This summer I have been spending a lot of time in the garden.  It's nice to see everything growing and all the other life around.  I think compost is about the best fertilizer out there and picked up three pickup truck loads from a local farm this summer. 

My two cats are like my kids to me.  I don't intend on having any other kids.

I also love hiking and taking pictures which I will include in posts in the future.