Living with Environmentalists

In my family, I am surrounded by environmentalists. Semahat recycles everything that is officially recyclable, meaning newspapers, magazines, mail, glass and plastic bottles and jars, plastic bags, and cardboards. Instead of throwing away old clothes, furniture, and appliances, she gives them away if she can, so someone else might use them. She stores all vegetable and fruit peels, tea leaves, etc. in a composting jar (mother’s day gift from Sheela and Chris) in the kitchen, and transfers them to a large composting bin in her garden. She stops by at the local Starbucks to collect their spent ground coffee beans for use as fertilizer in the same garden.
Semahat is a strong believer in buying locally grown food, in order to avoid the environmental impact of transporting food from far away places. She always wanted to have her own vegetable garden, but rabbits, deer, and groundhogs made it impossible. Help came in the form of our son-in-law Chris, who has been a tree, animal, and nature loving, vegetable gardening, vegetarian eating environmentalist for several years now. In the summer of 2006, Chris, with some help from Sinan, fenced in one corner of our backyard and prepared the ground by mixing in bags of top soil and cow manure for his mother-in-law’s first real garden. He showed her how to grow organic vegetables without fertilizers and pesticides, with the help of cow manure and composts. With his guidance, Semahat went to work in the garden, planting spinach, tomatoes, peppers, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, etc. in the following spring. She had her first harvest in 2007, some very fresh tasting, but very, very expensively produced organic vegetables. The following year, she felt that the garden was too small for all the vegetables she wanted to grow. So, in the summer of 2009, Chris, again with help from Sinan, doubled the size of her garden. I have no doubt that as soon as snow melts, I will be asked to haul in many bags of top soil and cow manure to get the ground ready for planting this spring.
Meanwhile, Sinan was getting concerned about all the valuable city water that was being used to water the garden. So, on mother’s day in 2009, he bought his mother a rain barrel, which when installed, could capture some of the rain water that flows from the roof into the storm sewer. Once the barrel is filled, a hose connected from its bottom could be used to water the garden. He and Chris installed the barrel in the summer of 2009, and Semahat was pleased to see that it really worked, saving valuable city water resource. Incidentally, Sinan also convinced us to replace all the incandescent bulbs in the house with compact fluorescent bulbs as an energy saving measure.
As for me, I help out whenever Semahat needs manual labor in her garden, but I haven’t made any other contributions to the environmental cause in which the rest of the family is involved. I am always reminded by Chris, Sinan, and Sheela that I waste too much water by keeping it running constantly while I am doing my dishwashing chores in the kitchen. I have not given up my bananas from Central America, mangoes from Mexico, orange juice from Florida, asparagus and broccoli from California, and wine from all over the world. I also enjoy sea food brought from the coastal areas. Of course, I am old, and as the saying goes, “you cannot teach new tricks to an old dog”.

Summer of 2006. Vegetable garden built by Chris with help from Sinan.

Summer of 2007. Semahat harvesting her vegetables with little helper Kaya.


Summer of 2009. Chris and Sinan extending Semahat's garden with moral support from Sheela.

Summer of 2009. Sinan and Chris with installed rain barrel behind them.

My Little Helper

It has been snowing again on and off for the past 36 hours. I had to clear the driveway three times yesterday. As I looked at the snow covered landscape all around this morning, I remembered how much my daughter Sheela and later my son Sinan loved to play on the snow when they were children. They used to sled down the hill in our front yard, as I stood on the street making sure that there was no traffic as they came down on the street. Sometimes, they made a snowman. They always hoped that the snow fall would be heavy enough to cause school cancellation. We still have the little shovel that they used to clear the snow from the driveway and the porch steps. As I remember those days, the person I really miss at this time is my four year old grandson Kaya, my buddy, my little helper. If he was in this house now, he would have insisted on coming out to play on the snow and helping Dadu, as he calls me following Bengali tradition. Unfortunately, he now lives far away from snow, ever since my son-in-law Chris moved the family to Dhaka, Bangladesh, accepting a teaching position in the International School there in the fall of 2008. We get to see them only for a few weeks, when they return to spend their summer vacation in this country.

If Kaya was here, he would have picked up the little shovel and help me clear up the snow. He has always been very helpful. He used to sweep the floor with a broom and try to use the vacuum cleaner when he was two years old. He loved to cut the grass, walking alongside my lawn mower with his toy mower when he was two and a half years old in the summer of 2008.

During their visit here in the summer of 2009, Kaya was very active, helping AnneAnne (Turkish way of addressing maternal grandmother) water her flower plants, and helping uncle Sinan spread the compost on the new extension to AnneAnne’s vegetable garden that his dad built. Of course he was still helping me cut the grass. I was so impressed that I decided to put him to work on a regular basis. Since he woke up early every morning, I told him that it would be his job to pick up the newspaper from the driveway and bring it in. He accepted my offer enthusiastically. The first day, he ran down the porch steps, picked up the newspaper, and handed it back to me while I waited on the porch. On the third day, he still did the job, but did not seem too thrilled about it. On the fourth day, as I reminded him about his job, he did not move. Here is how the conversation went.

“Kaya, don’t you want to do your job?”

“No Dadu, I have too many jobs already”

“You don’t have any other jobs. What do you have?”

“Well, I have to brush my teeth everyday”

“What else?”

“I have to say please and thank you”

Suppressing my laughter, I realized that I was dealing with a quick thinking smart kid. I said, “I see. I guess I have to do it myself.” It was clear to me that next year I will have to think of a job for him that is not repetitious and boring. This kid is definitely not going to be happy with a desk job when he grows up.

More Pittsburgh Winter

Punxutuwny Phil predicted last Tuesday that we will have six more weeks of winter. As if to prove him right, winter struck with its full fury Friday afternoon, hitting us with a heavy snow storm. By the time it was over Saturday afternoon, we had just under 24 inches of snow on the ground, making it the fourth biggest snow storm ever to hit this region since 1884, when the National Weather Service started keeping record. The blizzard of ‘93 was supposed to have been bigger, but this one seemed much worse to us. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headlined it as “Snowmageddon”, which is not far from truth. The entire mid-Atlantic region was completely shut down by this one. Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, all were under a heavy blanket of snow, with planes, trains, and automobiles, all grinding to a halt. The outside temperature on Sunday morning was 1 degree Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Centigrade). Semahat and I decided to start digging ourselves out of this in the early afternoon, when the temperature rose up to a balmy 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 degrees C). We had trouble figuring out how to use our snow blower effectively, because the snow was too high. Just when we got the hang of it, we realized that there was very little gasoline left. With the help of the neighborhood kid Max, who showed up with his shovel looking to make some extra money, we opened up one lane of the driveway, wide enough for Semahat to get her car out the next morning to go to work. In the evening, we got the fireplace going and watched the Super Bowl, the biggest American sporting event of the year, with the underdog New Orleans Saints beating the Indianapolis Colts in sunny and warm Miami, for their very first championship ever.

This morning, as I sipped my third cup of tea sitting at the kitchen table, the view outside was incredibly beautiful, with the sun shining brightly for a change on the glittering white snow. The deck behind the house and the pine tree in the backyard was

Our snow-covered deck and the pine tree in the backyard.

loaded down with snow. There were piles of snow on the roofs of houses, on tree branches, and on the sides of our street which was cleaned up yesterday. The birds were all on the cherry branches around the feeder, which I had restocked just before the snow started. It is nice to watch their feeding frenzy from the kitchen window. Unfortunately, another snow storm is heading our way tomorrow afternoon, so I have to drive down the hill and get some gasoline. We are definitely not done with the snow blower and the shovel yet this winter.

View of the Street from our snow-covered front porch.

Pittsburgh Winter

It has been snowing since early morning today. It’s a light snow fall, not the heavy type that accumulates several inches within a few hours, as we had during Christmas and the first three weeks of January. This one is producing just a dusting on grassy areas. Phil the groundhog stuck his head out on the 2^nd of February as part of a much publicized yearly ritual, and saw his shadow. According to his handlers in Punxutuwney, Pennsylvania, this means we will have to endure six more weeks of winter, not welcome news for my wife Semahat. She hates the winter here. Every winter she declares that she is moving to Florida. I cannot really blame her. Having grown up with harsh winters during her childhood without central heating in a town in north central Turkey, she is traumatized at the very thought of cold, snowy winters. It does not help that the sky is generally grey during this time of year, and it is dark when she leaves for work at seven in the morning, and again when she returns home after five in the evening. She makes sure that every year I order more than enough cherry wood for the fireplace to last us through the whole winter. I on the other hand endured very hot and humid summers while growing up in India. That is probably why I prefer cold weather to summer heat, as long as I have warm clothes outside and central heating inside. The fact that I am retired, with no need to go out in the bone chilling cold early in the morning, makes it that much easier for me to enjoy the winter. It looks so beautiful looking out from inside a warm house, when the ground and the trees are covered with snow, creating picturesque scenery of a winter wonderland.

We have a bird feeder hanging from the cherry tree branch outside our kitchen window. I hung the feeder high enough to keep it out of reach of deer, but barely within my reach. I keep the feeder filled with gourmet bird food consisting of various types of grains and seeds. It has become a popular gathering and feeding spot for all kinds of backyard birds that decided to stay behind and brave the winter weather here. It is interesting to watch the feeding habits of these birds. I have noticed a distinct pecking order among them. At the top of the order is a lone red-bellied woodpecker. Everyone moves out of his way when he descends on the feeder. Next are the blue jays, followed by cardinals, tufted titmouse, slate colored juncos, and the chickadees. At the bottom are the wrens, sparrows and other small birds. Once in a while, we notice a group of deer foraging for food in our backyard, especially when the ground is covered with snow everywhere. They show up mostly at dusk or after dark. The other day, when I was washing dishes after dinner at the kitchen sink, I noticed a group of deer congregating under the feeder. Two of these were desperate enough to stand on their hind legs so that their mouths were just high enough to reach the bird feeder. However, they could not stay up more than a few seconds in that position, so they would take a quick bite, come down, and go up again. Semahat and I banged on the kitchen window, trying to scare them, but they just looked at us with their big eyes and continued feeding themselves until the feeder was empty. I had to stop restocking the feeder for a few days after that, hoping that the deer would forget about the place. I have started feeding the birds again, and so far, deer have indeed stayed away. We will see how long it lasts.

Well, only a few more weeks of winter. It will be spring weather in six weeks according to Phil. In fact, the daffodils have already started sprouting. Winter will just be a memory then, and my wife will be happy again, until next winter.

Picture shows Sinan trying out his bike on our street on a cold, snowy day in early January.