The past few weeks as the weather has begun to cool I decided
to start on some outdoor projects working with some of the kids in my community
and my nieces and nephews. It has now
been about a year since I have moved in and this old school that a year ago was
completely trashed has now become my home.
I have had so much fun with the kids coming up with different designs
and color schemes and such using recycled material (mostly bottles) found here
in my community. I hope you enjoy the
photos and see my new beautiful landscaping!
My nephew Junior after we had been collecting plastic
bottles from all around my community and filling them with water and food
coloring. It was a great activity for my
students and I made it a game over the course of a Saturday to see who could
bring me the most bottles, it also helps clean up the community a bit.
With the kids in my class on about three different occasions
we had cut glass bottles and sanded them down to make glasses but we still had
the tops left over. So I decided to
clean up the tops and paint them into a welcome sign for my house. Also a big shout out to Annie (my site mate)
who was very artistic and helpful in painting the letters on the bottles!
With all of the plastic bottles around my community I also
asked my students to bring me the many different tops found on the bottles and
we used just some fishing line and the top cut off of a 2 liter soda bottle to
make a “wind chime”. It was so fun to
see the kids working with Annie and figuring out what colors they were going to
put on their line and the spacing between them.
The students loved the project so much we are currently collecting more so
we can make some photo collages with them.
Some
of my new flower beds made with recycled plastic bottles and glass bottles as
well as my new composting area. I had
had a composting area there before but with the chickens they were constantly
spreading it all around so now they can still get in but can’t make such a
mess. It was quite a task to move all of
the rocks that were behind my house and get rid of all the weeds and other
things that had accumulated during the five years the school hadn’t been used,
but now it was all worth it!
The other glass bottle bed that goes from my bathroom just
about all the way around my garden now, still just short a few more bottles to
get it finished up.
Some of the hanging planters we made with 2 liter soda
bottles hanging from my bathroom as well as old oil containers that we used to
make a mini herb garden!
Just a view of many different things put together as someone
would see it who is coming to visit my house.
Overall these activities were a lot of fun and used materials that were
all considered “trash” and usually burned in my community to make beautiful designs. My “problem” now is I want to make many more
flower beds with the bottles but all the moms who have seen my projects are now
not letting their kids bring me bottles but rather stockpiling them at their
own houses to do, a good problem to have I guess!
Today I am just getting the final things ready to go for my biodigester workshop that I will be hosing here at my house on
Tuesday. I have about 8 other PCV’s
coming in tomorrow to help me and also learn about this great project so with
100 invitations handed out we will see how many people show up but it should be
a great day regardless, will be sure to have a blog post soon about it. I hope you all are enjoying the beautiful
weather wherever you are!
~You may not always
end up where you thought you were going, but you will always end up where you
are MEANT TO BE!~
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