A couple-two-three

dandelion stems 
(Wisconsin)

Usually when I hear that phrase, "a couple-two-three," I cringe.  But this morning, when the TV meteorologist (who says this regularly) said it during her weather forecast, I had to smile.  Because this Wisconsin phrase was going to be the perfect title for my post today.

I really do just have a couple-two-three little things to say today.

First, there are definitely some benefits to walking our old Beau-doggy these days.  He strolls so slowly, that I get plenty of time to look around me.  This morning I couldn't stop looking at what was left of all the dandelions (in the top photo).  We had some very powerful storms, with high winds and pounding rain, yesterday.  The dandelion seed puffs are all gone now, leaving behind these gorgeous stems.  They remind me of Edelweiss, the beautiful little Alpine flower.  Do you see it?

Alpine Edelweiss 
(Europe)

I also have had plenty of time to look at our pile of firewood, and noticed some more log ends which I find incredibly beautiful.  I love the different patterns of decay.

And the inside of the bark intrigues me as much as the outside these days, too.

aged bark, inside view

And, did you know that tomorrow's full moon is known as the supermoon?  That's because it will be closer to Earth than normal, and BIG.  You can read more about it here and here, or just do an internet search.

 supermoon

And finally, I've figured out part of the problem regarding lost blog comments on this blog.  With Blogger's new interface, some of the comments you leave here end up on my Blogger spam folder, and I haven't found out how to access them from the new Dashboard.  I am only able to find them using the old Dashboard configuration.  When I receive notification of a comment in an e-mail, I can click on "moderate comments" and then I'm able to see that there is something in my spam folder. I hope they fix this glitch soon.

So anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend and has at least a couple-two-three wonderful things come your way.

Ah, the details

As the natural world around me prepares itself for the long, cold winter ahead, I find myself focusing on the smallest details.  The muted colors.  The textures and shapes.

I'm fascinated with patterns.  The endless variations of circular and linear found in nature.

The many gorgeous differences between the end of an old, weathered log and the inner surface of  the trunk of a freshly cut tree.  So many textures, and the startling beauty of  the simple grays and browns.  Sometimes I wish I could make myself very small, so I could crawl around inside all the nooks and crannies.  I know I would find many more even smaller nooks and crannies. Smaller and smaller and smaller.

Ah, the pockmarked rust of a weathered wind chime.  I was told the symbols on the chime say "Peace" and I like to think that's true.  And that it will be possible in more parts of the world.

I'm working on two more landscapes that do not want to be traditional landscapes.  And that's OK, I'll let them guide me so they can be what they want to be.  It's good to be who you are supposed to be.

And I've been thinking a lot about this painting which I did a few years ago, which I called "Energy (1)" because I knew that some day there would be more.  I love the idea that everything is made up of energy, from the smallest seed, to all of humanity, to all the stars in the Universe.  Everything.  Everything is connected.   It's a comfort to me, to know this.

There is so much we do not know, and can't even imagine.  But I do know this.  More art will be coming soon.

"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.

And that is because,

in the last analysis,

we ourselves are part of the mystery

that we are trying to solve."

~ Max Planck

Do you ever think about food?

Sunday, October 16, is Blog Action Day 2011, and this year's topic is food.  Let me assure you, that while there will be quite a bit of bad news in this post, it will end on a serious note of hope and good news.

image from an interesting article here: 

Chicago Press Release Services

Just yesterday I saw a short but eye-opening article on news.Yahoo.com entitled "More Americans than Chinese can't put food on the table" (read it here) which I must admit shocked me.  I knew things were bad, but this was worse than I expected.  According to the article:

The number of Americans who lack access to basic necessities like food and health care is now higher than it was at the peak of the Great Recession, a survey released Thursday found. And in a finding that could worsen fears of U.S. decline, the share of Americans struggling to put food on the table is now three times as large as the share of the Chinese population in the same position.

  According to Feeding America, these are the most recent US hunger statistics:

In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households,

32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.

You can see all the statistics for yourself on the Feeding America website here.  


It is estimated that there are over 1.02 BILLION hungry people in the world.

I don't know why the US, or North America for that matter,  isn't on this chart.

You can find more of these sad statistics for yourself.  But today I want to also share just some of the promising things that people are doing to help ease this food crisis.  In Wisconsin, we are fortunate to have Will Allen, a pioneer in urban farming and the founder of Growing Power.  Growing Power aims for sustainable food production, as well as the growth of communities through the creation of local gardens.  You can see more at their website, here:  http://www.growingpower.org/index.htm

Here's Will Allen, describing his amazing work:






Will Allen and others who are reclaiming urban lots to produce food are working on just one of many potential answers to dealing with food shortages.  While his ideas are new and innovative, others are looking to the past to find answers to today's problems.  One such person is Britain's Martin Crawford, who in this next video takes you through his edible food forest garden, which is a model for resilient local food growing.





Food forests are not a new idea. Here's a short video about a 300-year old food forest in Vietnam:




And another short video about a 2000-year old food forest in Morocco:




So you see, I think there is hope.  Great hope.  But we need to work together, we need to help those who are less fortunate, and we have to stop using access to adequate food and water to keep some people down. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are enough ways to grow food and distribute it fairly, so that not one single person on the planet should die of starvation.

What kind of world of world do you want to live in?

In case you are interested, I wrote some other articles about food earlier this year on my other blog here:

http://amazingmotherearth.blogspot.com/2011/01/we-are-what-we-eat-bad-news-and-good.html

and here:

http://amazingmotherearth.blogspot.com/2011/06/farm-of-future.html

"Never doubt 

that a small group of committed people 

can change the world.

Indeed, 

it is the only thing that ever has."

~ Margaret Mead

Earth Days

This week, it's been one year since the BP oil spill and 41 years since the first Earth Day.  Last night I watched a very well-done documentary called "Earth Days" about the modern environmental movement, and the science, politics and philosophies impacting the health of our planet.

Here's the trailer:





The entire documentary is also currently available for free online here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1463378089/

The importance of water

Blog Action Day is October 15, and this year's topic is water.  Once you start doing a little research, you come to realize that it's a huge topic.   So while I'm writing about a single water topic on my earth blog, A note from your Mother, I thought this would be a good place to simply highlight a variety of facts about this essential resource.

Did you know these facts about water?

1. In some organisms, up to 90 percent of their body weight comes from water.

2. Up to 60 percent of the human body is water.

3. The human brain is composed of 70 percent water.

4. Human lungs are nearly 90 percent water.

5. About 83 percent of our blood is water, which helps digest our food, transport waste, and control body temperature.

6. Each day humans must replace 2.4 litres (81.2 ounces) of water, some through drinking and the rest taken by the body from the foods eaten.

7. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

8. Nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water.  That's one in every six people on earth.

9. Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.

10. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa.

11. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted.

12. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

12. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that's just one meal.  It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.

13. Every iPhone requires half a liter (17 ounces) of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with over 80 million active iPhones in the world, that's 40 million liters (over 10,566,882 gallons) to charge those alone.

14. That cotton t-shirt you're wearing right now took 1,514 liters (400 gallons) of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 liters (1800 gallons).

15. The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year.  And, over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.

16. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets.

17. Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. Around 90% of the developing world's waste water is still discharged untreated into local rivers and streams.

18. Water is also polluted by runoff from agriculture, as well as oil, grease and other toxic chemicals which result from urban sprawl.

19. Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year.

20. Today, 40% of America's rivers and 46% of America's lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

Many of these facts are from the Blog Action Day blog.  For more information about water, a good place to start is water.org.

Let's not take this precious resource for granted.

Eyes wide open

Sometimes, when I think back on my years in the corporate world, it seems I'm looking at someone else's life.  Who was that person? I changed so much when I traded in my power suit and briefcase for jeans and a diaper bag years ago. Now that my own babies are almost all grown up, I am finally claiming the time to focus more on my own life again.

Most of the time, I like what I see.  So I'm trying to go through the rest of my life with my eyes wide open.

"Open your eyes,

look within.

Are you satisfied

with the life you're living?"

~ Bob Marley

My old corporate self would not have noticed a nest of baby bunnies, for example.  I noticed the carefully mounded dead grasses, leaves and bits of rabbit hair about a week ago, tucked behind a bush in our garden.  When I took our dog out a few days ago, we scared the mother rabbit from her nest while the babies were uncovered.

There they were - a wriggling mass of furry short-eared cuteness!

I hurried our old Beau back into the house, took a closer peek at the little cuties, and went back into the house myself, so the mother rabbit could finish tending to her family.  Since I didn't have a chance to take a photo, I borrowed the photo above from the internet. 

I know I'll be cursing at least one of these little guys out in a few weeks, when they are munching on something in my garden, but for now they are just so darned cute.

It's very cold and rainy here today, but yesterday I was preparing part of the garden for the tomatoes and herbs I'll be planting soon.  As I was pulling up unwanted mint and grass, the tiniest frog I've ever seen hopped out.

photo from

 http://handlensandbinoculars.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

I didn't have a camera handy, but I found this photo online.  It turns out this little guy was a Northern Cricket Frog, also known as a Blanchard's Cricket Frog, and it's a species which has been endangered since the 1980s.  (More info here.)

Sad.  So sad.
 

It makes me sad that so much of our natural world is changing so rapidly - much of it through the thoughtless acts of humans.  Yesterday, when I was driving around the area, I noticed so many people spraying pesticides.  Home owners with spray bottles, men with tanks of pesticides on their backs, men with hoses attached to huge tanks filled with pesticides on trucks.  The air was filled with the horrible stench of the stuff.  I rolled up my windows and held my breath as I drove by.
'

No wonder these little creatures love our little piece of property.  Here, the dandelions are plentiful, and pesticides aren't used.
'

For some information about the danger of pesticides to humans, there's an easy-to-read fact sheet here.  Reliable information is available all over the internet, if you're interested.

"Chemicals have replaced bacteria and viruses 

as the main threat to health. 

The diseases we're beginning to see 

as the major causes of death 

in the latter part of this century 

and into the 21st century 

are diseases of chemical origin." 

-- Dick Irwin, 

toxicologist at Texas A&M Universities

Earth Day and Stuff

"One of the first conditions of happiness

is that the link

between Man and Nature

shall not be broken."

~ Leo Tolstoy

 Tomorrow is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.  That first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, about 20 million people around the US united to champion the basic human right to a clean and healthy environment.  This year, nearly 1 billion people around the world are expected to participate in Earth Day activities.

So Happy Earth Day, everybody!  Let's try to make every day an Earth Day.

If you are a consumer (and we all are, aren't we?), I found an interesting video you should watch.  It's only 21 minutes long, very fast-paced, informative and entertaining.

It's called "The Story of Stuff" and you can find it on youtube at :

http://www.youtube.com/storyofstuffproject#p/a/u/2/9GorqroigqM

You can also find out more about where most of our stuff comes from, as well as where it ends up, from "the story of stuff" website:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I recently heard of a book you might be interested in, too.  It's "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough Planet" by Bill McKibben.  Bill McKibben is a well-known environmentalist and author, and in this book he provides warnings and hope for our future and the future of our changing planet.  You can find his book at :

http://www.amazon.com/Eaarth-Making-Life-Tough-Planet/dp/0805090568

or visit his website for more information about this book, as well as his other books and articles:

http://www.billmckibben.com/index.html

"Trust in Nature,

in what is simple in Nature, 

in the small Things

that hardly anyone sees 

and that can so suddenly become huge,

immeasurable . . .

then everything will become easier for you,

more coherent

and somehow more reconciling,

not in your conscious mind perhaps,

which stays behind,

astonished,

but in your innermost awareness,

awakeness,

and knowledge."

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Not Quite Wordless/ Not Quite Wednesday - Home

"Only when the last tree has died,

and the last river has been poisoned,

and the last fish has been caught,

will we realize we cannot eat money."

~ Cree Proverb

 

"There is hope

if people will begin to awaken 

that spiritual part of themselves,

that heartfelt knowledge

that we are caretakers

of this planet."

~Brooke Medicine Eagle