Mango Avocado Salad

While we were visiting in Philadelphia, my daughter-in-law, Amy made a wonderful Mango/Avocado Salad.  It is totally raw and totally marvelous.  We had it twice while we were up there.  The recipe calls for 2 mangoes, 1 avocado, cilantro, a little olive oil, the juice of one lime and some poppy seeds.  Since there were so many of us, we used 4 mangoes and 3 avocados. 

I recently read a book called No Impact Man by Colin Beavan.  The surprising thing he and his family learned was that the reduction of wasteful use of resources actually increased the quality of life.   There is a tipping point, he learned, where the use of less resources causes misery.  Many people around the world live below that point.  While many of us need to decrease our use of resources, there are many more people that need to use more resources in order to have a better life.  Colin Beavan found the tipping point for his family was having a way to do laundry other than stomping the clothes in the bathtub.

I'm trying to be less wasteful while doing my laundry.  I had already cut back my detergent by just using one third of the recommended amount.  I still use the Purex sheets...they come in a box instead of a plastic container...but I don't think this is the ideal solution.  But I learned from my daughter, Molly, that you can cut these strips into thirds and your clothes are just as clean and the third of a strip works fine as the dryer sheet, too.  While we were touring Amish country, I was most impressed with the laundry hanging on the lines to dry.  Maybe soon I can get some kind of clothes rack/dryer that I can set up on my upper deck to dry some of our clothes outside in the sun.  I did cut back my time to use the dryer to just 20 minutes.  Then I took them out and hung them on hangers to finish drying.  The jeans and heavy shorts I hung on the railing on the deck to finish drying.

I thought about washing my dishes by hand, but ended up running the dishwasher in the evening with 1/3 of the recommended amount of detergent.  My dishes usually aren't very dirty anyway since I don't cook very much.  I switched back to powder detergent because it is not in a plastic container.  If I decide to start washing by hand...with bar soap...I need to buy or find at a sale a dish pan and a dish drainer.

Just fourteen more days until I leave for Australia.  I am going to the Clohesy River Health Farm near Cairns  to intern with Dr. John Fielder.  The farm is totally off the grid, and I have ordered a power inverter for my laptop so that it can run on 12 volt.  I'm getting really excited about the trip.

Here is a short video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K-lGDRZOqc&feature=fvst

That's it for now.  Stay safe and be happy.