finally four, post tour

FINALLY FOUR
finally we have four teams left in the ncaa march madness
division 1 basketball tournament
this weekend i got to watch all of the games
well they did happen during some of my nap times but
i saw enought to get the jest of how the games went
and

im sorry to say i was watching live yesterday when the louisville
player went down with that horrific injury
why did they have to show that replay of what happened
all you had to do was watch the other players both coaches and
the fans reaction to this injury

thank goodness they didnt show it anymore the rest of the game
dont think charles barkley would have made it through the
half time show

i worked with an ambulance company during college attending wrecks
and worked in the emergency room as a er doctor for several years
and that injury bothered me a lot

hope espn doesnt show the replays over and over
will be disappointed if they do

my brackets have only one team in the final four
louisville who i think will win it all next weekend
although michigan looked good in its win

my thoughts to the player kevin ware and his family
hope his recover is a good one

POST TOUR

weve done the funky chicken tour now for several years
it seemed this years selections at least the five that we saw
were better than usual

not only was there coops with chickens on the sites but there
was rainwater collection going on xeric landscaping ponds
gardening using water conserving methods
i sure enjoyed visiting with the owners and the visitors
who were my kind of  people


(www.austincooptour.org)
one site that was interesting was at an elementary school that
had the two tiered coop built up against the window of one
of the classrooms so the kids could watch the chickens as they
nested laid their eggs dusted dug around in the bedding
heck they even let a chicken run around in the classroom
sometimes
each kid gets to help with the care of the chickens
collecting eggs  cleaning out the coop
the bedding with its rich manure is placed in the compost pile
which is later used in the schools garden
what a hands on educational experience for these kids
in town near the inner city


(www.austincooptour.org)
one intriguing location whose owner is associated with
the urban patchwork organization had chickens and ducks
which provided eggs for sale and manure for the garden
a greenhouse which also grew mushrooms
and a fish pond that was used to water their rain gardens

the chickens also had a run around the large garden space which
helped cut down on insects entering the garden
(i have the same system here at the country n)

the garden beds rarely have to get watered
they use a method where the dirt is dug out down to a certain
depth then is replaced with layering of limbs and trunks and leaves
and compost and dirt
at the top the garden has a bowl like appearance so that water doesnt
run off but soaks down into the garden
it almost like a reverse ant hill garden ive written about before
its at ground level
one of their beds that is growing winter crops hasnt been watered
since october
this site we visited was worth the whole trip to this years
funky chicken tour


then there is this pretty purple flower that one of the meals on wheel clients
has in her front beds that ive been admiring now for a year
in fact last week she said why dont you dig some of them up for your place

i wanted to make sure what they were before i did it though
didnt want some invasive plant taking over my landscape

at one of the funky chicken tour sites there the plant was
i asked the owner who didnt know the name for sure but gave me
enough hints that i was able to identify this plant
as the mexican petunia or ruellia

i plan to transplant some to an isolated bed so that if it becomes invasive
i can hopefully control its growth

so yes the funky chicken tour was a success again
we plan on making it a yearly event we attend

the oganicgreen doctor