Week 5: When life gives you 70 lbs of produce...

Another full week. Check out the photos and highlights of the previous week!

Fall or Summer: that is the question...

My body has been confused recently. With many interactions I've had at home, work, and church, people keep mentioning that it's getting cooler outside, and even though the temperature high has been 90 degrees, I believe them and feel it myself. I feel fall in the mornings when it's only 70 degrees and there's a cool breeze coming from the east. I can tell it's fall because I'm not drenching in sweat or feeling overheated when I go on a bike ride. Yesterday, some of us even wore jeans at a Hispanic Heritage Celebration at Literacy Connects when the temperature was 85 degrees Although it's not the same as Virginia where it's been raining and the mid-50s and the leaves are slowly changing colors. I think I might need my warm sweaters before I know it...

Monsoon Movie Night and Arundo Removal!

This past week at work, we had a Monsoon Movie Night as part of WMG's summer campaign! Although I didn't take any photos because I was busy helping out, it was still a fun event, and was super exciting to see the WMG community in its entirety. It was energizing to hear people's excitement about the work WMG does and how they continue to donate and support because they fully believe in their mission for hydro-local solutions for a resilient future.

A different job I did this week was helping one of the staff, Jim (in center photo), load up the invasive Arundo plant from the Tanque Verde river into a bin that will be sent to a green waste center. In the right photo, two of those piles were from only one workshop where volunteers carried the bundles up from the creek. From the center photo, you can see the forest of Arundo right along the riparian zone. It can often be overwhelming to see how an invasive plant dominates an ecosystem, but Jim has stayed persistent and committed to the work and knows that every effort counts for the future of the creek.

P.O.W.W.O.W. PRODUCE ON WHEELS WITH-OUT WASTE

As explained on their website: "All of the produce distributed at each our weekly markets was initially rescued by us, Borderlands. This produce comes directly from the warehouses of produce distributors, with a majority of it having been processed for the landfill simply because the distributors were unable to market it. Every season, this rescued produce, distributed through our P.O.W.W.O.W. program accounts for over 4 million healthy meal supplements!"

This was our house's first week trying it out! Jessie and I arrived at 6:20 am thinking that it would be a come-and-go, 10 minutes max, type of situation; we got there and were completely wrong. We sat in a line that was about a 1/2 mile long for about 1 hour and 30 minutes in order to get 70 lbs of produce for $15. It was definitely worth the wait and we are now stocked in our freezer with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and mangoes for quite some time! We even made tomato sauce, french onion soup, and mango smoothie, and are experimenting with sundried tomatoes!

Biking!

Jessie and I have a goal of completing a century bike ride by the spring, so we've been out and about trying out the different bike paths! I've officially biked to work again, and this morning we did a 12 miles bike ride before church. I'm excited to explore the city in a new way and bike to stay physically active!

Other fun things our house has been doing together include starting weekly pizza nights, singing acapella together, making mug brownies.....and getting the Flu and COVID-19 Booster shots!

It's been an enjoyable week!