Recently two friends of mine went on a protest demonstration against a "Family Fun Squirrel Shoot" at a local hunting club.
There are so many reasons why my friends and I think this is WRONG: 1.To teach your children to get fun from killing other creatures? 2.Expansion of guns as entertainment in our culture?
And even though in an earlier post I may have talked to you about the winter invasion of my roof by squirrels, I have no animosity towards them, and in fact, I admire their genius as problem solvers. A group of MIT inventors held a contest to see who could design a squirrel proof bird feeder. Bird feeders are especially angry with squirrels, a friend of mine is a backyard bird watcher, and her husband actually built a kitchen annex with a picture window/window seat so my friend could watch the backyard birds at the feeder and the bird bath they installed. My friend's husband spent many years trapping and removing squirrels from their yard as punishment for their depredations at the bird feeder. He is now sadly passed away but the squirrels remain. And, in case you wondered, NO, the genius inventors could not make a feeder squirrels couldn't solve.
Often I have wondered why so many of my friends and I have feelings of affection, admiration and shared consciousness with animals and others do not. In my case, perhaps it was being raised on books by Beatrix Potter, whom you may know for Peter Rabbit, but who published dozens of books about little woodland creatures besides rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs, frogs, ducks (Jemima Puddleduck to name one) and kittens and cats. Perhaps it was because I was raised with cats and dogs rescued from the mean brick canyons of South Philadelphia, my childhood home. I have always felt as though my animal companions were people in another form. I feel affection for them and treat them with respect, and I have feelings of respect for other animals I encounter in the woods or other places as well.
Once when I was hiking in the Dolly Sods, in West Virginia where my parents moved after retirement, I stopped to do some yoga stretching after a few miles. I was sitting on a rocky outcrop over a vast and beautiful overlook (for which the Dolly Sods are rightly famous). I reached down to grasp the edge of the rocks to pull myself up, and to my astonishment, I was looking into the eyes of a sunny rattlesnake! He was about a foot or two below me on his shale ledge. I simply slowly sat back down and quietly slid back several feet before I rose. I had a good book at him, before I stood though, and I took a photo of him. He watched me peacefully and sleepily and did' shake his rattles which I counted - there were nine!
I was so lucky because we were a good 4 or 5 hours into the woods and it would have taken too long for help to arrive should the snake have decided to attack, but we were both peaceful.
In fact, I have encountered a great many animals in my ramblings in the woods in West Virginia, on the Appalachian trail in New York (I met a moose), and in Acadia in Maine and other Forest Preserves. My feeling has always been of comradeship in this process of life, enjoyment of the sunshine, the fragrance of clean woods pine scent, the warmth of family and our nests and shelters. I have no doubt about their deep pleasure in a patch of sunshine on a spring day in the woods, and I have delighted to see fawns frolicking in the Pine woods around Pakim Pond. Equally, I have felt dread at the sign of armed men along the road beside Pakim Pond, waiting to kill the deer I had watched frolicking in joy in the weeks before hunting season began.
I will never comprehend joy in destruction. Once I saw a little boy walk up and kick a wooden block castle carefully and cleverly built by another little boy in nursery school. He destroyed it. And that mentality is beyond my understanding. I am a builder and appreciator not a killer or destroyer. An animal is a miracle of flesh and blood engineering, a wonder of life. To turn it into dead flesh and bone is abhorrent to me.
Well enough of that. I promised you 9 simple ways you could help the planet and here they are from the Sunday New York Times.
1. This is my favorite and the easiest: Buy and use re-usable oilcloth shopping bags. I have ten I have bought at ShopRite but you can also get them for $1 at Dollar Store. Stop the plastic which is polluting the ocean.
2.Use glass and metal jars for storage. In fact, my friends and I have taken to bringing our own glass microwaveable containers when we go out to eat, so that we can bring home the food we have left to eat later. We used to take it home in styrofoam, but that is so wasteful because you need to move the food into glass to heat it anyhow, so put it in glass in the first place!
3.Use aluminum water bottles instead of plastic ones.
4.Buy in bulk
5.Buy used items. Many of my friends and I shop at 2nd hand and vintage stores such as Urban Promise in Maple Shade. You can get good clothes, coats, sweaters, jeans, all sorts of household items there at a very reduced rate. I buy picture frames there for my paintings!
6.Recycle properly: clear glass, yoghurt containers NO BAGS - they clog the machinery at recycle plants. Your supermarket may take bags for recycling. my brother suggested using brown paper if you don't have your reusable bags with you, brown paper bags are recyclable!
7.Try to buy in cardboard containers or glass whenever you can.
8.Don't use straws. If you have dental sensitivity and need a straw you can buy reusable aluminum ones and carry it with you.
9. If you do everything else and want to go further, do your research and find out what others are doing to cut back on waste and pollution. I would like to find dog scooping bags made from something other than plastic, maybe hemp?
I love my home, my town, my country and my planet, and the creatures who are it. What I can do to live consciously and responsibly, I do, and I can do more and I will. Along with these things, I have had all my rescued animals spayed or neutered so that they don't reproduce should they ever run away (they don't - they love it here!) I wish I could feed them vegetarian but all my research to do insists they must have carnivorous diets to stay healthy. Also I donate to charitable groups helping animals as well, my favorites are: Alley Cat Allies, Best Friends Animal Shelter, and Farm Sanctuary to name just three. I also contribute to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Green Peace.
It is all part of what I think of as an ethical life, period.
Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
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