living fence

Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic Moms!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic Moms!

Mother’s day breakfast prepared by the kids and myself. French toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee and tulips for decoration.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Flowers

Earth Day Poem

Written by: Attila Farkas

Narrated by: Erika Farkas

Shiny shoes and Armani suits
Fake smiles and hopeless pursuits
Ruling the Earth is an illusion
Ruining the Earth is not the solution
Global warming is not a game
There is nothing political to gain
Money and greed move the gears
Business leaders shed no tears
There is no count for the toxins we made
Flooding the waters and the food we ate
It is your job to take a step
Don’t wait for others to make a stand
There is always something you can do
Don’t wait for governments to do it for you
Grow a garden plant a tree
Thank the Lord that you are still free
Nature is still more intelligent than us
Learn from her and don’t make a fuss
We came a long way don’t turn back now
Don’t blame global warming on a cow
http://youtu.be/zN-pDUcP-bc

Never Give Up!

A story about a fat cat and the cornfield.

Written by: Attila Farkas

I live in the city of Barrie, where most people have manicured loans in front of the house and also in the backyard. My neighbors are proud of their freshly cut grass, flowers and small evergreens, organized as colorful English style gardens. No one had vegetable gardens around my house except for an older Italian lady behind my property. Planting salads, tomatoes, cucumbers cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables seemed out of place and out of style, but I didn't care. I was craving for a lush green vegetable garden. The only truly organic vegetables you can enjoy are the ones that you plant yourself. I grew up on a farm and having non-functional green grass everywhere didn't seem like a good idea. The first year my vegetable garden was so successful and beautiful that my neighbor decided to plant one herself. The tide was turning; maybe I can influence others to plant vegetables instead of just watching the grass grow. My initial success made me want even more vegetables in my garden. I have built a living fence to protect my vegetables from my German shepherd dog, Nero and behind the fence, in relative safety, I had planted a cornfield. The cornfield was 20 feet long and 5 feet wide with five rows of corn. Altogether about 300 little corn plants. That's a nice size cornfield for a city backyard. I could already see my three kids running around it and playing hide and seek just before Halloween. I have planted the corn in late April, watered them and when I checked on them the next day I could not believe my eyes. No, they did not grow overnight. They have disappeared overnight. Something dug small holes where I planted the corn and took each and every one of them. The kids used to feed chipmunks on our patio and it was obvious who the thieves were.

I always tell my kids to never ever give up on their plans and keep going no matter what happens. I also had to teach the Chipmunks a lesson. I have planted about 300 corns in the exact same place where they were before. I figured I'd play a trick on the chipmunks or squirrels or whatever it was that took my corn. After I planted my future corn field I have placed a quarter of a teaspoon of hot Cajun Pepper powder on the soil right above each kernel that was on the ground. That would've made a lot of good Hungarian goulash, but if it can protect my corn field it will be just as good. The very next day my son Peter checked the cornfield and ran back to the kitchen with a strangely excited expression on his face.

“Daddy the chipmunks like the hot peppers! They ate them all, “Peter said. It seemed like he was rooting for the enemy, but he was just excited that they were able to eat all that hot pepper and the corn at the same time.

I went out and checked to see if it was true and it was. Every single piece of corn was dug up and taken against its will which means corn-napping. That is a serious offense in my book and at that moment I have declared war on the chipmunks. I thought about trapping them or even shooting them with my pellet gun, but they are too cute to shoot or to trap. I had to find a way to beat them at their game. I have planted the cornfield again the third time because you can never ever give up and I really wanted to see a beautiful green cornfield by my fence. This time I have built a small greenhouse right on top of the cornfield and made sure that the chipmunks cannot get in. It took me several weeks to take care of the garden water the corn daily, but after about a month it was amazing to see 300 corn plants lining up in five rows just like green soldiers. It appeared that I had won the war against the chipmunks and the corn was about 4 feet tall in the middle of July when another challenge presented itself. The corn plants were very long and thin and were just getting stronger when an unusually strong storm system came through. The wind gusts were over one hundred kilometers an hour at times and even if the cornfield would have survived the storm there was another factor that I could have never calculated in. One of my neighbors owns a fat cat. A really, really fat cat. I have nothing against fat cats but this one was a bit overconfident for its size. It was over 20 pounds, just a gray mass of fur, fat and some muscle and he used to walk along my 8-foot fence. Despite the hurricane force winds, the fat cat decided to stroll along again on the top of my fence, when... The strong wind picked him up from behind, turned him into a twenty-pound hairy balling ball with a tail spinning like a propeller and aimed him right against my corn field. Let’s see how many rows of corn he can knock down in one shot. The corn plants were just like the bowling pins and the cat demolished most of them with the first try. The wind and rain took care of the rest of them.

When I came home from work that afternoon the entire family was standing in front of the sliding door to cover the view of my destroyed cornfield.

“We have some bad news,” my wife said.

“The storm destroyed the cornfield,” my son Peter said.

“The fat cat was on top of the fence today,” my daughter Erika said.

“I saw the Chipmunks again I think they came back,” announced Thomas, my youngest son.

I stood there at the sliding door looking at my cornfield; most of the plants were broken in half only two or three were standing from the 300. I put on my raincoat and went out to the garden and was standing there in front of my cornfield in disbelief. The whole thing was gone, destroyed, mutilated by the storm and the fat cat. I could feel my blood pressure rise and my heart rate quicken. I was getting really mad. I was ready to pull the first broken corn right out of the ground and then rip out all of them.

I’m going to rip the whole thing right out,” I said, not realizing that my son Peter was standing right behind me.

“But daddy, you said to never give up,” Peter said and looked at me with his big blue eyes. I was very close to giving up and he was there to witness it.

I looked up into the raining sky and let the showering raindrops calm me down.

“Can you get me some stakes from the building supply store,” asked my wife and as she was heading out I looked for strings. After she came back with the five feet long stakes I drove them into the ground with a hammer and tied up the corn, one by one. Only a third of them survived the ordeal and produced a half a dozen corn on the cub. I let them ripen and in October they turned golden yellow. My pride and promise had stayed intact and can still say that it is true: You never, ever give up on anything that is important to you.

If you ever see chipmunks around Barrie and they are constantly sneezing; it’s not a genetic mutation. The Cajun pepper finally started working on them...

How to bottle happiness

How to bottle happiness...

Written by: Attila Farkas

By the time your children become teenagers, you will forget thousands of random moments that could put a smile on your face later on in your golden years.

I used to make up bedtime stories for my kids when they were younger; most of the stories were silly and made them have a good laugh just before bedtime and I think that's the best way to go to sleep.

I often promised myself that I soon as I the kids fall asleep I will go downstairs write down some of the best stories, but like for most of us life got in the way, or rather I let life get in the way.

Your life can get in your way too if you let it and will rob you of your precious memories if you don’t write them down. I am planning to use these blogs to try to go back in time and write about some of the stories that I remember.

My advice to you is that when those special moments happen, take a few minutes the same day and write down the details, the random small moments in life with your family or friends. Some of these moments also happen in class when I am teaching. My students make me feel happy, complete and connected.

The random happy moments in your life are also gold coins that you should collect in the biggest glass jar that you can find. If you don't have a glass jar you can record your precious memories on paper or your iPhone or even napkins will work. You can even write a collection of blogs if you want to share your coins with others. Blogging is not ranting on the Internet as many people call it. Blogging is what you make it. For me, blogging is sharing my gold coins. I can even hear that unique sound they make when you drop a few of them on an old homemade wooden table. Schedule time to take some of those memories back; record them before they dissolve into unrecognizable little pieces of history. Don’t let work, overtime, household chores, headaches, always putting others first, get in the way.

Gold coin #1

The monkey bar

My wife and I have spent almost two weeks designing and building a custom tree house for our three kids when they were young. Peter was six, Erika three and Thomas just a baby when we finished the tree house. It is big enough so the three of them can fit inside, it is complete with a monkey bar, swing set, and the slide. 

It was the end of July 2007 and I was placing cages around my lush green tomatoes and tied up some overgrown vines. Every few seconds I looked over to see my son, Peter had made it up on the steps of the tree house.

He climbed up, spent about a minute inside and stepped over to the entrance and looked over at the monkey bar. No one was there to lift him up like other times so he can grab onto the bars. He was not much taller than three feet, about the same height as the floor of the tree house was off the ground. He looked down; the floor of the tree house was high enough to be a bit scary but not too high to be dangerous. He looked up at the monkey bar and raised his arms to measure the distance. He would have to jump almost a foot to reach the bars. He had jumped down from the tree house before and he knew that he would be fine, but it's different to fall when you miss your mark.

 “I can't reach it, I can't... it’s too high,” said Peter. I could barely hear his voice and he didn't realize that I was watching him. I left my tomatoes and stepped over to the tree house.

“How is it going son?” asked him with a big smile on my face.

“I can't reach it. It's too high,” he said. His big blue eyes showed some determination, but not enough confidence.

“Listen if you tell your mind that you can do it and you can picture yourself jumping for it and grabbing it, it will work. Your mind will help your body to do it,” I said.

I used simple words and made it sound like this is as simple as spreading peanut butter on bread.

He nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything. I went back to my tomatoes and noticed a honeybee collecting nectar from one of the yellow tomato flowers.  The midday sun looked at us from a clear blue sky and only an old black crow tried to ruin the moment by sounding a few doubting kraa-kraa words in crow language. I pretended to focus on my tomatoes; even turned my back for a moment and when I looked back I saw Peter swinging on the monkey bar. He was grabbing onto the wood pieces one by one and when he turned back I stepped over, hugged him and helped him onto the landing pad by the entrance.

“Good job buddy, that was amazing,” I said and gave him a high five and a hug. “So what happened?”

“I saw the picture in my head, and I told myself I can do it,” he said, his face was gleaming with pride.

“I did it,” he said.

“You did a fantastic job!” I said one more time and I went back to work with my tomatoes. When I looked back, Peter was swinging on the monkey bar again.

He is going to turn thirteen this year and had some lazy moments lately, but every time he says that something is too hard or impossible, I just have to say five words. Peter, remember the monkey bar...

If you would like another gold coin, please leave a comment.

Thank you for collecting the coins...

Thank you for spilling the garbage.

Thank you for spilling the garbage.

I am certain that you remember those special moments in your life when you had to say something breathtakingly important. Your message carried such importance that you had to make certain to make eye contact with the other person and adjusted your body language to let them know the significance of what you were about to tell them.

It was six thirty in the evening and I was driving home from work on the icy back roads of Barrie. It was the end of January and it seemed like old man winter decided to introduce himself to the city. The blizzard was blowing snow into my face as I pulled in front of my garage and as I was shaking the ice and snow off my shoes I was thinking about how I should tell my family … I opened the door walked through the hallway to say hi. I wanted to put my bag down and take off my coat so that I am more relaxed for the statement that I was about to make.

The timing was perfect. Peter, my oldest son had just come down from his room to say hi.

"Hi daddy," he said and I gave him a hug. When he stepped back I left my hands on his shoulders, looked him in the eye with all the sincerity that I could show on my face and said this:

“Peter, thank you for spilling the garbage by the front door this morning.”

"What?" He asked with the most confused look on his face that I have ever seen. What I said was silly, but the way I said it was serious. I looked over at my daughter Erika as she was sitting at the kitchen table writing a speech about German shepherds. Our dog, Nero is a two-year-old German Shepherd. He's a smart dog and she was writing about intelligent things on a piece of paper in sharp contrast to the situation that was unfolding. I didn't want to build the suspense anymore.

"Listen to this," I said and started to tell the story that was supposed to make sense of my behavior.

“I was driving to work this morning and I was about 200 yards from the Maple view exit when out of nowhere I saw a three-ton, black pickup truck started spinning out of control right in front of me. After several 360 spins in the middle lane on Route 400, the driver lost control and was unable to stop the vehicle, knocking cars left and right as it was spinning and sliding on black ice. He was swirling around in front of me destroying cars in its path. I remember thinking, that there is no way I am going to be able to stop on black ice. I had pumped the brake twice very gently as I was holding onto the steering wheel, slowing down to about 60 km an hour. The truck was still spinning in front of me but just as I was bracing for impact, it moved to the left and smashed into the guardrail. A small portal opened up in front of me and I slowed down to drive to safety. As I was driving through I looked to the side and in the rear-view mirror. I was the only one that made it through. The driver of the truck was facing the opposite direction with a bewildered look on his face still holding onto the steering wheel. Traffic halted on the 400 behind me and I slowed down, even more, to check to see if anyone needs help.  Southbound traffic completely stopped, fortunately, I didn't see any cars turned over and other than some lost front bumpers no one seemed to be hurt. I kept driving very slowly on the icy road and I reached Maple you drive and went to work.

I looked at Peter again and thanked him one more time.

“Thank you again for spilling the garbage.”

I have received the same confused look from everyone so I had to explain a bit more.

“It took about four or five seconds to pick up the leftover pasta that you have spilled out at the front door, so I started my drive a few seconds later. If you would've never spilled the garbage I could have been right next to the guy in the pickup truck and he could have knocked my car off the road. I could be in the hospital right now, those couple of seconds have saved me.

“That's cool,” said Peter and his eyes lit up. He understood, so did everybody else.

So you see something bad happened this morning but a couple of hours later I realized that it was a blessing in disguise.

“Really?” he asked and I decided to spell out the moral of the story. 

Sometimes something bad happens to you in life and you are upset about it, but later you understand that you're really lucky that it happened to you because it has prevented something much worse.

If there is an aha moment in life, that was it for them. In hindsight, I still remember the silent complaining in my head when I was picking up the cold leftover pasta from the frozen patio like why can’t they tie up the garbage bag before they put it out, what is so hard about it? Why am I always the one picking up the garbage after everybody else?  I am going to make a new rule. No one can take out the garbage until they tie up the bag…

I Think I will have those thoughts fade away and focus on the lesson that I have learned again. There are some lessons in life we have to relearn again and again and this was one of them.

Peter, thank you for spilling the garbage.

Tomato

I remember when a tomato used to be a tomato not a chemical lab experiment I just went to the backyard picked a dozen ripe tomatoes from the patch and everyone in the family had plenty to enjoy for breakfast with French toast. Delicious, nutritious, full of vitamins. If I buy tomatoes in the grocery store today I have to wonder what kind of chemical concoction the growers used to keep the bugs and the weeds away or perhaps to preserve the tomato for longer transportation. We are trying to control the microorganisms with toxic chemicals, and then ingest these toxic chemicals with the food. We forget that we also have a symbiotic relationship with microorganisms in our own body and the chemical soup  will negatively affect them. Man-made chemicals will pollute the billions of cells that form an intelligent web of life of you. The solution is to grow your organic food anyway you can, see examples on my site. Buy local, know the farmer you're buying from. Learn how to store food: Glass is always better than plastic. Keep your eyes and ears open and be responsible for your own health. Sign up to watch the 2013 tomato competition by leaving a comment.

www.enviroartist.com 

Brands

Written by: Attila Farkas

Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Hewlett-Packard, Kenmore, Frigidaire and the list goes on. Brand names and quality products, customer satisfaction, reliability, the total cost of ownership. These words used to mean something. You trusted them. Unfortunately, in this new age of global business, another list is emerging. Greed, profit ahead of customer satisfaction, lack of responsibility, the disintegration of loyalty and service, loss of transparency and honesty. I remember a time when if you have purchased a Volkswagen that was made in Germany or a Mitsubishi that was made in Japan or  Hewlett-Packard computer that was made in the USA you had a much better than average chance that the product will serve its purpose, and keep you happy for more than ten years. You enjoyed your favorite brand and bragged about it to your friends. A friend of mine recently purchased a Volkswagen was not made in Germany. Within three months he had to return it to the dealership over a dozen times because one by one everything went wrong with it. Another friend complained about a high-end electric stove that used to be a trusted brand but the new global manufacturing process rendered it obsolete in three years. It is irresponsible and unprofitable in the long-term to ruin a product's good name and quality by cutting corners and compromising quality during the manufacturing process. These practices will only allow other brands and countries to step ahead in the game of brand names. Millions of customers can share their experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. Fair warning for brand names: Keep your prices higher than the competition if you have to, but make sure you have a better quality product. Be proud of what you make and where you make it.