Thank you!

This project was started with a LOT of support from Kickstarter.com. It's a relatively small project, but it has not only helped financially, but also provided the motivation needed to continue and finish the project. I'd like to thank the following people for helping me through Kickstarter (in no particular order).

Tetsuya Yoshida

Mark Masutomi

Vanessa Race

Marina & Teague Vowell

Matt, Pam, & Shaun Inake

Takeuchi Ohana

Randall and Kelly Yeung

As well as all of the people who wanted to remain anonymous.

With the support given for this project, I have been able to finish this book, and hope to finish at least 2 more by the end of the year.

Book Preview - C

These are cacti from our school garden. They probably get overwatered, but still seem to weather the moisture.
I know that cacti is the more commonly used plural form of cactus, but cactuses (according to the dictionary) is also acceptable. I decided to use this form because I needed the extra syllable. I thought using cacti might be confusing, but now in hindsight, I feel I might have done a disservice to parents who might not like the term cactuses. I think of this situation with the confusion with dice and die. I hear a lot of people saying "one dice", when it should be "die", but in the end, it doesn't really hurt anyone.

Book Preview - B

This butterfly was found in our classroom garden. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what kind it is. We're used to calling these orange ones Monarchs, but I know that this isn't one. The bee photo is particularly special to me, because as you can see from the picture, it actually walked from one flower to the other.

Book Preview - A

As a countdown to the book being released hopefully in the next 30 days, here are some of my comments on the pages of the book.

The main photo is of Cosmos flowers, as is the lower photo. The photo to the right are Marigolds. Annual flowers (and plants) bloom just once in their lifetime and then die, unlike an apple tree which could give fruit each and every year for a very long time.

Annuals usually require very little nutrients in the soil. After the flowers are pollinated, they turn into seeds. You can easily get the and dry them out, or let them naturally fall to the ground. The Cosmos you see above was actually the first generation from seeds that I had purchased in 2009. Today, in 2012, there is still one Cosmos plant our garden that is an offspring of the original flowers, separated by anywhere from 3-6 generations (as they sometimes bloom all year round in Hawaii).

Here is a recent photo (3/1/2012) that I took of the surviving Cosmos.

Book Completed!

I'm sorry for not updating this earlier. Thanks to Keith who I finally contacted, everything is set. I will look over the final draft several more times before I finally submit it!

More details in the next day or two as we count down to the final version being submitted.

Thank you to all of those who have helped me on Kickstarter.com. Please be patient with your copy as I am actually nearly done with another book that I'd like to send you a proof of, assuming that they'll let me buy 15 copies of it. I'm a little afraid to say that it might be even better than the garden book.