Another place to pick up a seedling for Arbor Day!

Happy Earth Day!

The First Earth Day   On April 22, 1970, more than 20 million Americans gathered on college campuses and in city squares to celebrate the first Earth Day.

Some came to spread the word, others came to learn, but all were a part of the largest organized demonstration in American history.

From a small Washington, D.C. office, Environment Teach-In, Inc. organized the first Earth Day as a coordinated teach-in involving several schools across the U.S. Denis Hayes (pictured above) ran the small activist group co-founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson. The teach-in was designed to educate Americans about growing problems with environmental pollution and overpopulation.

Thie above was from a pbs essay on American Experience

I was just walking around town with my dog, Uma, and I wass talking to a neighbor who, like me, has moved away from the onventional green grass lawn. She has a 'hardscape" rock garden and is contemplating a meadow in her side yard. I hae a woodland front yard with many trees and evergreens and shrubs such as junipers and holly, no lawn.

Some time ago, I became aware of a movement called 'permaculture' which teaches about landscaping with the future of the planet in mind. For example, over the past several years, dyed licorice mulch became popular without anyone stopping to ask if it was healthy for the ground or the water beneath the ground. Also, I have (unlike my usual conflict averse self) gotten into sseveral debates with neighbors and relatives about their poisonous war against dandelions. They dump round-up pesticide on healthful plants like dandelions which feed so many wild creatures and could feed us (my old neighbors in Phila. used to make dandelion wine!) without thinking how the poison goes into our water supply. Please, please, don't kill the daisies!"

Keep it natural, plant native species and avoid invaders like the ever present and destructive English ivy, and educate yourself on what you can do in your own yard to help the bees which are in decline and which are neessary to our crops, as well as various bird species. Let Earth Day be the day you devote yourself to one small task, learning something or planting something. You may have seen in my previous post several locations where you can find a free tree to plant. So many neighbors cut down their trees becsuse they didn't want to deal with leaves! Maybe Amerians wouldn't be so fat and unhealthy if they got out their rakes and started raking leaves again!

Anyhow at the very least, do yourself a big favor and take a walk outside and visit the local trees, enjoy the yards and flowers, and the glorious Spring weather! It is good for your heart and soul and your body!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Arbor Day - FREE TREES!!!

The New Jersey Tree Recovery Campaign partners with the New Jersey Forest Service and Arbor Day Foundation.

Here's where you can pick up free seedlings in the area:

Cherry Hill: 2-4 p.m. April 30, Croft Farm Arts Center (100 Bortons Rd.)

Collingswood: 9-11 a.m. April 29, Scottish Rite Auditorium parking lot (315 White Horse Pike)

Merchantville: 9-11:30 a.m. April 29, bike path outside the station

Waterford: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 22, Clementon Gun Club

Winslow: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 6, Duble Senior Center

Arbor Day is April 28

Local Event

Carl Woese, biologist

One of my all time favorite quotes is by biologist Carl Woese and I think it sums up life and living in a way that describes it perfectly through my experience, so I share it with you now. These are just a couple lines from a much longer paper which you can find online by googling Carl Woese's name and the first line of the quote:

Imagine a child playing in a woodland stream, poking a stick into an eddy in the flowing current, thereby disrupting it. But the eddy quickly reforms. The child disperses it again. Again it reforms, and the fascinating game goes on. There you have it! Organisms are resilient patterns in a turbulent flow—patterns in an energy flow.

Lately, I have been more aware than usual how much the weather contributes to my happiness and wellbeing and I an grateful to my dog, Uma, for making sure I get outside every day to enjoy it. In particular these days, we are enjoying both the warm weather, the invigoratijng energy of the sun, and the glorious blooming of the trees. It makes me happy to sit in my yard and look up at the tree canopy, as life creates a pattern of lace from the new leaves quietly growing and spreading across the sky.

Happy trails!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

How to mourn in a constructive way

Yesterday, my feline friend of 18 years, a beautiful sleek, sweet natured black cat named Honey died. She had been under treatment for hyperthyroid which in an old cat manifests as starvation no matter how much they eat. She had been on medication and special foods, but eventually age and her disease caught up with her and she died at home, at night, in her sleep. My sister came to help me by digging a grave and we buried her in her cat bed in a box and planted yellow daffodils and white tulips on her grave. Next, we took 3 medium sized boxes of my old paid bills of the last five years or so, to a 'shred for the shelter' event which you can see on the flyer below. All the proceeds from the event go straight to the Voorhees Animal Orphanage which is where I had adopted a dog before the one I have now, Trixie, who also died a few yers back. So this donation helped the shelter that provided me with a loyal and loving dog companion and the donation honors the memory of my beloved cat companion Honey. So if you want to help pets, you can volunteer, donate, or keep your eyes open for events like this one! Also, PLEASE if you are considering adopting, give a shelter pet a home rather than money to breeders. Shelter dogs are healthier than overbred breeder's dogs anyhow!

Happy Trails Happy Easter Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Photography and Inspiration

Recently I ran across a review of an exhibition of the photographs of Evelyn Hofer, an American/German photographer from the mid twentieth century. I had never heard of her before, but for the twentieth century that isn't too surprising. We didn't hear about a lot of women artists or photographers in those days. I looked up her work on google and I was enchanted. Her portraits are engaging and alive, and her still life work rivals the old masters. It made me think of how much I have always loved photography and particularly since I was given my first box Brownie and began to take pictures! The photo above is a recent one of the shoes of a picker at a farm here in New Jersey. It had a kind of fairy feel to me, and I could imagine the small feet slipping out of the shoes and walking in the wet cool mud of of the rows of tomatoes that hot summer day when I took the photograph. They must have been left there for some time however because the vines had grown over them.

This photo is one of my earliest and one of the few I have left. It was taken when I was around 12 in 1957 and it shows my two grandmothers on the front lawn of the new development we had just moved into from our row home in Philadelphia. It shows so much of the times, of me (because I loved those grandmothers so much) and of these two women. The one on the far right is the German ancestry paternal Grandmother, a brisk, lively, jolly woman who lived most of her adult life in Ocean City on her own, though her brother, my Uncle Yock often moved in with her when he was on the 'outs' with his wife Alma. The one on the left is my maternal grandmother Lavinia Lyons, a withdrawn, quiet, introspective woman of Irish extraction who had known many tragedies in her life from the death early on of her mother and later of her young sister and one of her own daughters. These tragedies seemed to have drawn the vitality out of her. She was an avid cleaner and her house was totally orderly and dust free always - no clutter! My paternal Grandmother, Mabel, spent her spare time making quilts. Her apartment was a bit more cosy and although she had known many tragedies in her life as well, somehow they made her stronger. She had lost her husband early on and was left to raise her children during the first World War and the depression, and she went to Ocea City to care for her mother who had suffered a catastrophic stroke that left her permanently speechless and paralyzed. My grandmother Mabel cared for her mother scrupulously for 15 years. I have that Great grandmother's sewing machine, a 150 year old heirloom and piece of history.

I keep that photograph of my grandmothers with me at all times, presently on the piano in the living room because it helps me be brave.

Happy Easter and Happy Trails to any of you who wander the internet and may find yourself here in my cuneiform. Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com