Earth Day and Spring 2022

A quote from Smithsonian Magazine, "Recognizing that their quality of life even survival depended on the same healthy environments, that non human species required, 20 million Americans nationwide participated in clean-up and tree planting and protest marches on the first Earth Day April 22, 1970." The article was about how people almost eradicated the Bald Eagle by shooting it in false assumption that it preyed upon small animals such as calves, lambs and so on. The Bald Eagle eats mainly fish.

As Earth Day once again approaches, I have been reading many books on trees and the environment including: FINDING THE MOTHER TREE, Simard, HOPE, Jane Goodall, LEGACY OF LUNA, Hill. The last mentioned book brings me to the subject of what one person can do. No doubt you have run across the plethora of articles out just now about plastic particles in -WELL EVERYTHING!!! The most recent shock was scientists finding it in our bloodstreams and wondering what kind of effects that can have on us.

This May many stores including my own ShopRite, will be banning single use plastic bags. I am so glad. If you read the articles about the plastic particulates, you will find that in landfills the bags break down into smaller and smaller pieces until they become non-biodegradeable particulates that then enter our water, our oceans, our food chain, and our bodies. So, here is one thing we can all do and that many European nations ahve already done. We can all carry re-usable shopping bags. I have quite a number by now as before the pandemic I had gone entirely to re-usable bags and then the pandemic struck and when we weren't so sure how it was spread, we all went back to single use bags, but now we know it is aerosole so we can get out our canvas, or oil cloth bags and stop using the plastics again. If like me, you re-used your plastic bags - I used them for cat litter scoopings - there are alternatives. A friend introduced me to biodegradeable bags that she bought by the case, so she gave me a bunch to try out. I just ordered them from amazon, both for my cat litter and the little rolled up dog scooping bags that I fit into a carrier on my dog leash.

Something else that I have been thinking about a lot is food waste. I don't have much food waste because I live alone and don't cook much. When I eat out, I take a glass bowl that can go in the microwave, to use for take-home left-overs. It has a spill proof lid and I have two dozen of them becaue I make soup once every two weeks and put them in the freezer, then take out one bowl at a time to microwave. The bowls are freezer and microwave safe and I bought them at Shop-Rite some years ago. They last forever and you can get replacement lids (the lids don't last forever) via amazon.

Lately, I have been recycling my clothes through a collection for the homeless run by a local man and a neighbor of his. They became involved through Cathedral Kitchen in Camden. So now when I change out my seasonal wardrobe, I take clothes that don't fit anymore to them for the homeless.

I am reminded of a wonderful Appalachian folk saying

USE IT UP

WEAR IT OUT

MAKE IT DO

DO WITHOUT.

I think I should paint that onto a plaque to hang in my house somewhere. We all have too much and I speak for myself. Another thing we can all do is buy less! Personally my drawers are stuffed to the limit with clothes. It is on my 'to do' list to go through them one drawer at a time, maybe one drawer a day, and gather up those things I don't use and give them to someone who can use them. I have already begun to limit my buying new things via strategies such as, when I stop in to Walmart - as infrequently as possible is one strategy - I do not walk through the women's department. I go straight to where the product is that I am buying and straight to check out. No browsing. My plaid shirts are a perfect example of overbuying by browsing. I love plaid and everytime I went to Walmart, I would pass the women's department and see beautiful plaids, perhaps a different color than I could remember having, so I would buy it. One day, going through a drawer, I discovered I had about two dozen plaid shirts that I NEVER wore! They just didn't fit into the lifestyle I have now which is t-shirts and sweat suits and gym outfits. Don't browse and don't buy!

Also, we can plant things to help our animal and insect friends such as milkweed for the butterflies and Rose of Sharon which I heartily recommend because it is hearty and will spread itself nicely into a pretty blooming border and which is good for the bees! I'm sure you are aware of the decline in the bees and how that will affect and is affecting all our tree and fruit crops that rely on pollinators.

Last but not least - be a little creative and step outside the box - do you really need a golf type lawn? BORING!! Already I have neighbors both in my town and in a neighboring town who have stopped being servants of convention and have rockscaped front yards with flowering plants, and total wildflower front yards, beautiful and interesting to look at. Personally, I have a woodland yard with hollies, various evergreen shrubs and trees (root ball Christmas trees from years past) and the original dozen or more deciduous trees. Just minutes ago, I was listening to the myriad bird songs from my small front porch. Please, please, don't poison the daisies! They are friendly, healthful to animals and to us, and pretty. They are much prettier than that desert of dull green that so many seem funeled into creating, you might as well have artifical plastic turf.

Well, that's enough to think about for today. Maybe you want to live on Mars, but I like this planet and just as I would like to keep my body alive and healthy as long as possible, I would like to do all I can to keep my home planet alive and healthy as long as possible.

One last obseration. I have thought about this for many years, ever since I joined the scheduled age related routine doctor visits. Why is it that the medical answer to health and fitness seemes entirely to be based on expensive testing for disease rather than on promoting health through fitness, diet, and exercise? They could be putting people on gym routines and diet plans not just stenting their clogged arteries, but they don't even seem to be aware or to care if they are aware of the connection between diet and exercise and heart health. I know, I am not naive, it isn't really about health but about business and profit and health doesn't generate profit, disease does. Show your rebel self by stepping outside the fast food, lawn service, video game corral - Get outside, go for a walk, adopt a helathy new habit each day and feel better!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann (oh yes - and plant a tree! We planted a seedling from the Salem Oak at our Woodbury Meeting a couple of weeks ago for Earth Day - what a great feeling!)