I feel that you cannot read the Bible fully unless you have some understanding of environmental principles. People have forgotten that Christianity believes in three primary relationships: humans to God, humans to humans, and humans to nature. We have come to act like humans can only act toward God and others. But when you read the stories, God brings restoration and healing not just to humans, but also to the Earth.
Image: Christian Revival Network
Last week my friend Bethe Almeras’ blog, The Grass Stain Guru, celebrated its first anniversary. Bethe is a play advocate. She whole heartedly encourages everyone, young and old, to get outside and play every day, and since meeting Bethe I’m more likely to make sure I get outside . This winter has been a little tough to do that. Snow, snow and more snow were good for a couple of days sledding and a snowman or two. Then the novelty wore off and I found myself inside, staring out the windows at the gray sky that went on for weeks.
Last weekend, I had a lot to do. I ran the book fair at the boys’ school all last week, so I had planned on spending Sunday inside writing a lot for the upcoming week since I was going to be away from my desk so much during the week. But when the when the sun finally chased away the gray and the temperatures rose into the 60′s, I heard Bethe’s voice saying, “Play outdoors. You know you want to. You know you need to.”
So I threw the boys in the car and we drove to the woods. The area we went to had a pond running through it, and many huge trees that have fallen through the years that were just begging to be climbed on. Some of the trees made their way across the pond or part way across the pond. Those were the most interesting ones to my sons.
Signs that spring is urging to break out are everywhere – so different than what the landscape looked like just two weeks ago. Enjoy the photos, and make sure to pop over to The Grass Stain Guru and find your own inspiration for getting outside even when there’s “so much to do.”
This one is for Bethe - she's nuts for squirrels.
The boys started out crossing small areas of the pond, but after a while they were out in the middle of large expanses hanging over the water and wondering if they could make it back dry. Amazingly, they always did.
Climbing high up in the top branches of a tree that had fallen. It's amazing how high a tree can get, even when its on its side.
New life springing from dead leaves.
Fungus can be beautiful, can't it?
The ultimate sign that spring here - crocus.
A blog post waiting to happen. Who does this?
Signs on the trees alerted us to look for critters.
We tried looking up in the tree for nests, but didn't spot any.
We didn't know there were freshwater clams in this pond - there were thousands of them along the edges.
Checking out the fresh water clams.
After a nice hike, a little time for contemplation. There's a lot to contemplate when you're seven.
Corey and Lynn from Celebrate Green have another fine post for us this month. St. Patrick’s Day is less than two weeks away, and this Irish girl is looking forward to celebrating and reminiscing about my trip to Ireland.
March can be a drab month–waiting for winter to end and the first signs of spring to emerge. That’s why, whether you’re Irish or not, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is a cool idea–especially if you make it eco! Here are some simple, fun, affordable ideas for you and the family that will make those not included green with envy!
1. Gather your friends and neighbors for your own St. Patrick’s Day walking parade. Whether it’s around a cul de sac or down a street or two, you’re sure to have a great time if you dress in green and wish everyone the luck ‘o the Irish as you pass by! Encourage participants to make hats out of whatever they have around the house or before the parade, ask guests to bring an old white/beige t-shirt and meet at your house. Cut shamrock shapes into potatoes and stamp on the shirts with eco-friendly fabric paints.
2. Decorate at least one room in the house with the spirit ‘o the green. Gather everything green you have lying around from books to clothing to flower pots etc., even green sheets. Set the timer for ten minutes and let the kids decorate the room. Then have a party there! Put on some Irish music, learn a jig and celebrate.
3. Skip the corned beef. It’s not really Irish anyway! (According to the History Chanel, no one in Ireland ate this except for a few royals. But when the Irish immigrated to New York’s lower East side, they were looking for a cheaper alternative to bacon and probably learned about corned beef from their Jewish neighbors.) Since one of the most Earth-friendly habits you can get into is eating less (or no) beef, focus on the veggies. Cabbage is great if people like it, but if they don’t, potatoes are usually a favorite. How about setting up a potato bar and color the taters green with pureed veggies like kale, spinach, arugula, or pea pods. Add spice with green salsa or more interesting taste with sage.
4. End a party or St. Pat’s family dinner with homemade organic oatmeal cookies and pistachio, lime or mint ice cream/sherbert/sorbet.
5. For evening entertainment, borrow or rent A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The story centers on an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the 1900′s and their young daughter’s struggle to stay positive in the midst of poverty. Better yet, choose to start reading the book of the same name on St. Patrick’s Day.
6. If you want to enjoy the occasion with a touch of beer, always a St. Paddy’s Day favorite, check out the many organic alternatives.
7. A few quick, easy, no waste games for your gathering:
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Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and co-authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, available at www.CelebrateGreen.net
Listen to this. Share it with your children. Remember it when you’re speaking with friends and family about the environment. Remember it when you’re talking about most things.
Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.
Hey all – I’ve got a request here for a friend. If you can spare a couple of bucks to help with medical bills, it would greatly be appreciated.
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Written by David Quilty:
One of our green friends needs our help, and I am hopeful you guys can chip in. Adam Shake from Twilight Earth, Jerry James Stone (from every green site on the net – the guy is a content wizard!) and myself, David Quilty from The Good Human, have started a fund for a good friend of ours and yours – Derek Markham. Derek is the writer of Natural Papa and a contributor on several other green sites, and he is always spreading great news about sustainability, natural parenting, and “doing the right thing” on Facebook and to his 10,000+ followers on Twitter. The man has got some serious fans in you guys that love what he does online – and now he needs our help!
A few weeks ago Derek had an accident that left him with a trimalleolar fracture in the ends of his right tibia and fibula. Ouch. This accident has left him laid up at home with thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills. Derek is the breadwinner for his wife and kids, and this injury has really set them back quite a bit. So we figured that with Derek being so popular with all you guys, maybe we could all help him out a little with those bills. All we are asking for is a few bucks – the cost of a cup of coffee at your favorite local coffee shop. A few bucks, or even a single buck, from many of Derek’s online friends and fans, could go a long way towards helping him and his family pay off these mounting medical bills.
We have set up a PayPal fund account that you can send donations to via the email address “savethederek@gmail.com” or you can just click on the Donate button. Please, if you are a fan of what Derek does on Natural Papa, on Twitter, or any other sites you see his writing on – could you spare a few bucks to help him out? All of our green friends can do wonders with the power of community, so let’s show Derek some love.
Derek, get better soon buddy!
In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.
— Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist
Image: OliverAlex
I got a press release last week about This is Our Moment a “new underground campaign to promote GREEN CHANGE.” Several celebrities, some I don’t recognize – others who are very recognizable – are urging us via a video to contact our Senators about a clean energy bill. It’s actually a well done video. I wondered while watching the video, though, does it have to be celebrities in the video. Does it take celebrities to get us to listen?
So I have a question for you. Do celebrity endorsements for green campaigns or lifestyles inspire you? Who or what does inspire you?
It was my boys who inspired me to start paying attention to the impact our family has on the environment. They, along with my husband, still inspire me even when they complain a lot about what their inspiration has wrought.
The Bible inspires me. Romans 1:20 says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” I believe our world is a creation and that all of the beauty God created is evidence of his existence. When our view of creation’s beauty is corrupted, so is our view of God.
You inspire me. Those of you who read this blog and try to figure out how to make small changes.
And in the interest of full disclosure, there are two celebrities that inspire me when it comes to issues – Bono and Jamie Oliver.
Your turn. Tell me what inspires you.
Image: TomJByrne
It’s been a couple of weeks since I updated you on my green home office project. Believe it or not, I’m STILL purging. It’s amazing how much paper has piled up and how difficult it is to figure out what to do with it all. Some things are obviously not needed and get shredded and/or recycled. But other things take time to figure out.
One of the actions I’m taking to stop the inflow of paper is to sign up for as much paperless billing as I possibly can. I am in charge of the bills in my household as well as all of my mother’s bills. She’s not going to be happy that I’m signing her up for paperless billing, but it’s the only way I can get this mess under control. The amount of mail that I get from her business affairs – bills, investments, bank accounts is so much more than what comes through my own family’s mail. For the longest time, I’ve gone along with all of the paper that comes my way through her because she isn’t comfortable with everything being electronic, but I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t go paperless with only my family’s stuff and keep her’s on paper. It would defeat this whole project.
Anyway, I realize that I need to do more than just sign up for paperless bills. I also needed to take the simple step of setting up to folders in my e-mail. One for paperless bills and one for bill payment confirmations. A lot of the bills I pay through my bank account, but there are a few that get paid through a specific company’s website. When I pay, I need a way to keep track of the payment confirmation e-mails.
It may seem simple to set up e-mail folders, but it’s something I’m really bad about. Even organizing my e-mail doesn’t come naturally to me. Right now, I’ve got over 3000 e-mails in my general in box! So I realize that not only do I need to get my physical space organized, I need to get my virtual space organized.
I still haven’t taken the time to find the right software to keep all of my financial statements – bank and investment statements. If anyone has any suggestions on really idiot friendly, yet extraordinarily effective financial software, please let me know.
One last thing – it looks like I will physically be moving my entire office in the next month or so. That might speed up the purgin process. We’ve decided to rearrange our entire house. My office is now in the old nursery, but I’m going to be moving down to what is the dining room and having half of it. The other half will be the boys’ study area. The dining room will move into a much smaller room that we now call the Internet Cafe. It’s the room where the boys computer is and a small table for their homework. So I suppose, my office will now be located in the new Internet Cafe. We’re doing this so each of the boys can have his own room.
The thing is, if I move my office to the first floor and I have to share the space with the boys, I really need to downsize, which is perfect for this project. Also, when I’m on the first floor, the office will be much more visible to people who come in the house so I will need to keep it tidy. Going paperless as much as possible is going to help that.
If you’ve read all the way here, thank you for putting up with my rambling. Part of the reason I’m documenting this on the blog is to have a written account to refer back to when I write my Green Home Office book.
I have mixed feelings about gardens on the grand scale. I can’t help admiring the effort, the optimism, the investment, the skill of the pépiniériste and the end results, which are often superb. … But would I want a garden like that, with its constant need to be nourished by a mulch of 500-franc notes? I don’t think so. It would be a full-time job and an endless responsibility trying to keep nature under control, and I know that nature would win; she has more stamina than I do, and never stops for lunch.
- Peter Mayle from Encore Provence
recipes. local and organic foods. gardening. groceries.
restaurant reviews. beer. and wine. lots of wine. did i mention the wine?
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.