Starting Again…. With a Chicken Cam?

Posted on May 3, 2026 by Dorena

Start again…. Start again….

Ever been in a Vipassana retreat with Goenka? That is what his recording says at the beginning of each session – many times a day as you are sitting for eleven hours each day for ten days.

After taking a decade off from work in the world, I’m gearing up again to connect with society. Even though it feels like my ideas on what to do are fresh, as I look back on my first blog posts I can see I haven’t really changed. This lack of change, but gain in maturity is fortunate. It means I’m not starting over from scratch, just going into an expansion phase again. My interests are still the same: metabolic health, longevity, Chi Gung, energy medicine, food as medicine, using the power of the mind to change things, and our true nature.

So, I’m starting again… I am percolating ideas around providing tools to people that would like to increase their health and longevity. I primarily would like to offer the wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine which includes my favorite, Chi Gung (Qi Gong), as well as food and mental training.

While I consider what this entails, I’ve started with some small steps to get me producing YouTube content again. My husband and I have been joking for a couple years about setting up a chicken cam and this March we decided to make it happen. The timing seemed perfect. I had a broody hen sitting on wooden eggs and I was going to give her fresh store bought chicks. It was going to be fun to watch them grow via a spy camera or two.

We never did get a live stream going, like I wanted, but we did get a lot of cute chicken footage. I posted some to the TESLI YouTube Channel and found that people are very interested in about 11 seconds of cute chicks before the swipe it away. Since it’s been a decade since I added content to my channels, I used this as an opportunity to learn about the new features and what a “short” is. I’m currently working on a QiGong – A movement a day series and other more impactful content.

Medical School Update

I got the results of my MCAT last week. Still smart. I came in 94th percentile (517 score), despite bombing out on one section. More importantly, I am studying Spanish one hour each day and for the last two weeks have been practicing Chi Gung (QiGong) 2 hours a day. I feel great! The challenge of the test was an important reset for me.

I have always wanted to be a doctor. And now more than ever, I want to practice medicine so I can help people in the mainstream. However, I don’t want to use mainstream methods. While looking at medical schools I wasn’t impressed by the curriculum. And when I contacted prospective writers for my letters of recommendation, I found that many of my doctor mentors from the past had retired and I couldn’t locate them. The couple people I could find, discouraged me from entering into medicine because of how bureaucratic its become. So, I’ve officially completed my medical school career!

Preparing a Garden Bed in Arizona

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Dorena

I was recently asked if I compost. In a world were composting often means making a pile of vegetative waste, keeping it moist and turning it often, I would have to say no. I am much too lazy for that. However, I do save all my organic kitchen waste, as well as my vegetative yard waste, and I recycle it back into the soil. This post will discuss my method.

Authentic urban compost can converted from city trash cans. Only $5 at the Phoenix Dump. Choice of colors and sizes. Complete with graffiti!

I use a combination of “double-digging” and “layering” to make vegetative waste disappear in just a few months. But first, before I start digging, I usually accumulate quite a bit of waste. This I store in large converted trash cans that I purchased from the City of Phoenix. These come with holes drilled out for aeration and the bottoms cut off. Pick up yours today at the dump. Click here for more information.

Here is my method.

Click on the pictures to see them full size.

Ready to become garden.

First step is to wet the ground.

Then I scrape out the wet surface to create a basin.

Basin filled with water. The scrapings go in the wheel barrow

I fill the basin a couple of times. Once the water has soaked in I am ready to dig.

The soil is much easier to dig when moist. This shows that only a couple inches down, it is bone dry still.

Dig out soil until the hole is two feet deep

21 inches is close enough for me.

Here are some fresh weeds and dried leaves I need to get rid of.

Doesn’t matter how you put it in. Here I put the leaves in first.

Then I put some fresh weeds next.

I added fresh kitchen waste next.

Then more leaves. The dog is looking for that kitchen waste.

Now comes the dirt. I start digging the next section and put that soil on top of the compostables.

I buy mulch or compost from my local landscape supply.

The compost is the next layer

Then I alternate dirt with compost.

The first section will end up mounded. That is fine. You will pull the soil back later onto the second section.

I enjoy mixing the top layers of soil and compost together by hand. I break up clods and remove any large rocks.

When the second section is deep enough I start the process over.

Here the first and second sections are done. The next area is being scraped and getting ready to be soaked.

This is the finished bed at the end of the summer season. All that vegetable material is done rotting and often times the bed will settle and be lower than ground level. Nice basin for moisture.

I am into keeping things simple and efficient. I like to garden about an hour a day. My method is conducive to this. Wet it one day, dig some the next day, fill in the next day, dig some more the next day, etc. However, I’ve also done this at a recovery center where hard core workers dug out the entire (rock solid) bed in a couple hours. Definitely harder work than I want to do. If you are trying to remove Bermuda grass at the same time, the ground definitely needs to be moist or pieces of the rhizomes will break off and sprout later.

I’ve used this method in a variety of ways. Sometimes I just dig one big hole and slowly fill it with kitchen waste, etc. Other times I use a smaller hole to get rid of a smaller amount of kitchen waste. If I am replanting a bed, I usually do not go down as deep. The deep hole is best when you are starting a garden to maximize the aeration and nutrition of the soil.

Sweet Potatoes

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Dorena

Last year a bag of sweet potatoes started to sprout before I got around to eating them. They ended up as mulch in shaded area at the back of TESLI. Apparently they like Phoenix weather, as they have taken over. I keep having to pull them out of my shade garden and direct them towards the open space to the west.

I was surprised this morning, when I went to pull out a vine, that a couple little sprouts came up. Since the vines cover about 20 feet of ground I am curious how many pounds of potatoes are down there. I think of it as my disaster survival fund.

The Enlightenment & Simple Living Institute

Tag Archives: simple living

Starting Again…. With a Chicken Cam?

Preparing a Garden Bed in Arizona

Here is my method.

Click on the pictures to see them full size.

Sweet Potatoes