Yesterday over at Bouree Musique’s site – http://boureemusique.xanga.com/ – Emily was talking about the mess we (humans) have made of our resources. (She has been speaking to that a great deal lately – articulately and well, I might add.  Wander over there and see for yourself.)  Bouree’s question is “What can we do” to stop the erosion of our natural resources and our disconnect with the natural world.  I don’t disagree that that is a valid question because each and every one of us could and should do more.  However, I would like to back it up a bit and ask, What are you already doing to preserve and protect of planet because I think we can learn from one another and maybe find things we aren’t already doing because we haven’t thought of them.  So I pose the question, What do YOU DO to make the planet healthier?  I’ll start.
1.  I switched all the light bulbs in the house to those energy efficient ones.  They last longer and shaved $10 off the electric bill.  I told the neighbors.
2.  I don’t drive the car except on weekends.  In a Village of 2 square miles I can walk or bike anywhere I need to go.  If it’s raining I walk and carry and umbrella – yup, even in a downpour, even in the winter.
3.  I have significantly cut back on the amount of plastic I use.  I wish I could say I’ve eliminated it.  I’m working on it.
4.  I don’t eat fast food.  It’s bad for me, makes me feel gross and all that styrofoam and paper – blech. 
5.  I think long and hard about where I shop and how far I have to travel to do it.  I support independent shops and stores as much as possible and don’t mind the few extra dollars it might cost because I am helping to keep a local business in business.  That matters to me.
6.  I use the library.  Really.  Not just because I work in one but because it makes good economic and resource sense.  Why buy something I am only going to read/watch/listen to once?  That’s wasteful.  Libraries are resources in their own right and must be used to be preserved.
7. Except for underwear I don’t buy new clothes.  I find wonderful and serviceable clothing and linens at thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales.  They work just fine and don’t make my children – the fashion mavens – wince.
8.  I grow a garden.  It’s great for mental and physical health; the produce tastes great; it’s pretty.  Those are my reasons.  I am sure there are others.  I also make most of what I eat from scratch.  I bake bread.  I don’t buy “prepared” foods except for the occasional box of macaroni and cheese.  I grow my own sprouts.  Easy and fun.
9.  I wait until the washer is full before I run a load through.  I wish I had a place to hang clothes.
10.  I take care of what I have.  That seems like such a silly thing.  Of course one should take care of what one has.  However this is probably the most significant change I have made in my thinking and my lifestyle.  In this, my new life,  I think very carefully about what I purchase and everything I have I like enough to live with forever if need be.  This doesn’t mean I don’t want other things, it simply means I have learned patience, and am not in a hurry to replace or buy something else. I have learned to say “Enough,” not as a punishment but as a choice. 
That’s what I am doing.  How about you?
Peace, my friends.

The weekend needs to be three days long.  Saturday is full of errands and running about.  These errands are not inconsequential as they involve buying food and other necessities.  They can’t be ignored.  Sunday is full of church and though I believe I can worship while pulling weeds in the garden or walking next to the river, community is an important component of church for me and thus my week feels incomplete if I don’t attend.  All of that being said, I need one more day: a day in which I can sit quietly in my clean house (done on Saturday) and read and wander and have no where I have to be or go; no agenda that has to be kept or juggled; no one who requires my time or attention; just a day.  I would really like to work ten hour days since I usually do that anyway, and have a three day weekend.  But alas, that is not my life and it is Monday and I have this silly thing called ethics that doesn’t allow my conscience to take Monday off, pretending to be sick, because Monday’s schedule is a little different from the norm.  Still….

The tomatoes have exploded – well, the plants have anyway.  I can’t even get to the green beans.  Oh my, will I ever plant this garden differently next year.  I think I may pull up the bean plants this evening and just let the tomatoes do their thing.  The zucchini seems happier now that I have pulled the icky one out of the garden. I visited friends Saturday night and their squash (patty pan and summer) is having the same difficulty so perhaps it is something affecting squash this year.  Hmmmm.  The tomatoes had it last year – that blight thing.

However, the zinnias and sunflowers are happy and healthy, and the marigolds I thought were goners are full and rich.

The weather has cooled here.  Only 60 degrees this morning.  I have a few moments until I have to prepare for the day at work so what am I doing sitting in front of this computer?  I am going out back to tend to growing things. 

Peace, my friends.

A huge storm blew through last night.  It was glorious to watch and listen to it roll through.  I knew there would be damage but waited until this morning to go and look.  Not as bad as I feared…Two Roma tomato plants were blown over but were relatively easy to stand back up on their feet.  The wind blew from the west so everything looks a little like the Leaning Tower of Vegetables but I think today’s sun will fix that – at least I hope so.  The worst was that a chair blew on top of my petunias on the patio table and smooshed ‘em.  They don’t appear to be broken, just kind of soggy and chair-flattened.  We’ll see what the light of day can do.
This is a learning garden for me.  Maybe every garden is a learning garden.  I’ll use tomato cages next year rather than the “cute” but essentially useless bamboo arbors that lift right out of the ground as the tomatoes grow.  Lesson learned.The zucchini are looking awful and I fear that they should all come up and I should put in another row of beans and Swiss chard or spinach and call it done.  After all, folks will be giving zucchini away for the rest of the summer.  The sunflowers that didn’t grow at all last summer are tall and beautiful and none the worse for wear, so they have found their spot.
I am looking forward to square foot gardening next year.  I read about Mel Bartholomew’s method years ago and I don’t know why I didn’t implement it when I put this garden in.  Silly me.  And….AND I am going to price fence because I think that will help keep the dreaded cats out of the garden and satisfy my need for “cute.”
And so it goes.

The good news:
Summer Reading is put away.  I mean REALLY put away.  Except for a few lingering pieces of cheap plastic crap for the children to take home, it’s all gone.  The sad little folks miss the daily programs but I have to admit cutting down to six weeks was the right decision.  I don’t feel rushed to get ready for the start of school and I won’t feel guilty about getting out of Dodge in a week or two. 
The bad news:
I had to pull up one of the zucchini plants.  It was rotting at the base and since I didn’t know what was causing it I was afraid it would infect everyone else so into the trash it went.  I didn’t even compost it.  Sigh.
The good news:
I HAVE A SUNFLOWER!  A full blown, honest to goodness sunflower.  Last year those guys wouldn’t grow for love nor money and this year I have a real one.  How cool is that.

Huh!  More good news than bad on my planet this day.  That’s really good news!

And so it goes.

The more I work with children and the more I play in my garden the more important I think it is to share with children the connection between “all creature great and small.”  Yucky Worms by Vivian French and illustrated by Jean Ahlberg is one of this year’s picture books that make that sharing easier.  First it is a story of a boy and his grandmother working in her garden.  (I love the grandmother, by the way.  She is blond and young looking and carries a coffee cup!  I have the coffee cup part down.)  When the child, as children are wont to do, finds a worm and says, “Yuk!  Throw it away!” it gives Grandma the perfect opportunity to talk about the benefits of having worms as friends.  In a different font from the story, worm facts and information sprinkle through the pages.  And Grandma talks about worm poop.  What’s not to love about a book like that!?

I am a sucker for watercolors.  I love the translucence, the movement, the softness.  Watercolors are like wrapping up in a 500-thread count sheet that has been washed a million times, like butter gliding onto toast. I adore Elisha Cooper’s newest book Beaver Is Lost because it combines two of my favorite things.  First it is almost wordless, if you count four words being “almost” and second the illustrations are breathtakingly rendered watercolors.  Beaver really is lost and he escapes a dog, a crocodile, a zoo, traffic, a sewer and who knows what all to find his way home.  Cooper builds the tension perfectly, and I found myself turning the pages faster to see if Beaver was going to make it, even though I knew he would, and I was really tired at the end because Beaver and I swam a long way.  Find this one at a library near you

The watercolor ecstasy continues with Karen Ritz’s Windows with Birds.  This is a book that made all of us a little teary and brought forth a chorus of “Awww” after each reading.  It’s a lovely 32 pages about the heartache and loneliness of moving and the joy of settling in.  Grab the book and grab a child and grab a tissue and snuggle up for a wonderful experience.  (If you have to, you can skip the child.)

Two of my favorite artists team up for City Dog, Country Frog.  Mo Willems wrote the story and Jon Muth did the illustrations in, you guessed it, WATERCOLORS!  The story follows the seasons as Dog and Frog becomes friends.  They play frog games in spring, dog games in summer and in the fall they remember.  Dog waits for frog all the long winter.  Still waiting a new friend finds City Dog and life and the seasons continue.  These are 32 pages that speak volumes, from the simplicity of the text to the play of light across the pages.  Willems dedication tells the story best, “For the seasons, and all things that change.”  Ah!  This one is magic.

And so it goes.

Summer reading ended with a bang and a whimper on Friday last.  The Ice Cream Social, the culminating event that has been a tradition for at least 12 years, was a rousing success.  Ten + gallons of ice cream were consumed by 75 folks, old and young and served by the faithful Teen Advisory Group. Sixty books were selected and taken home by readers and book lovers.  The middle school was especially happy that I had purchased some graphic novels and Percy Jackson and other popular reads that are out in paperback.  I couldn’t believe the price of graphic novels!  I try to stay under $10 per book to make the whole give-away affordable and those little gems really pushed that price window.  Harry Potter is still over $10 so the ever popular Hogwarts friends weren’t available for the give-away. The kids didn’t seem to mind.  I was excited that the Twilight mess was still too pricy because I can’t bear those books and was delighted that I didn’t have to talk myself into purchasing them.
Yours truly stayed far away from the ice cream table as I felt like death on a stale saltine and was valiantly trying not to share my germs, which brings us to the whimper part of the story.  By six o’clock when everything was cleaned up and I was waiting for the teens to return for the summer sleepover, I was sitting outside, waiting for the piza to arrive, in 80 some degrees, wrapped in a blanket trying to get warm.  Yup.  Mr. Virus had landed in earnest.  By 8 oclock the kids still weren’t there and I felt as though someone had set my face on fire and sucked all the liquid out of my joints.  There was no way I could be responsible for a library full of teenagers no matter how wonderful they are.  I made a phone call or two.  “Hey gang, I’m really sorry but I have to cancel tonight.  I am really sick.”  What I love about these kids is their compassion – no whining or moaning.  “Oh Mrs. Norman you really are sick.  Go home and get better.  We’ll have a sleepover at someone’s house.  Just get better.”  Have I mentioned that I LOVE these kids.  So I crawled home and into bed and stayed there until Sunday morning.  Yup – 24 hours in bed, sleeping a lot, sort of watching MASH from the beginning, and turning my soaking pillow and swallowing tylenol.  By Sunday morning I felt wobbly but no longer as though I was going to spontaneously combust.
I wandered out to the garden and discovered that three days of no attention leaves one with some rather large zucchini.  I grated 10 cups and stuck them int he freezer for winter zucchini bread and made two loaves for the eating.  Yum!  I also made stuffed zucchini which was a culinary success. 
Meanwhile the house looks like someone has neglected it for a week and indeed someone has.  That is next on the list for home work, while library work involves looking at final numbers, formulating the final report and getting ready for the school  year.  Happily my laptop cord arrived and I am happily ensconced typing away on my little friend.  Rain fell in the night and it was cooler this morning when I wandered out with my canine friends.
And so it goes.

Sometimes it’s good to put things off.  I don’t advocate procrastination, mind you, but sometimes you’re supposed to wait.  I have been borrowing and returning two books over and over again for months now.  I’d read a few pages and take them back.  I didn’t want to hate them.  I didn’t want to be wrong.  I’m glad I waited.

On Monday The Horn Book arrived on my desk, thick and loaded with reviews and speeches.  This moved me to look up the award winners’ speeches on line and I listened to them all.  They were funny and made me cry and laugh.  I had read most of the books but I had been borrowing and returning Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith since February 2009.  I blew it off – what didn’t I know about Charles Darwin, after all?  (It turns out there was a lot, actually.)  I’m so tired of the evolution creation thing I could scream. (You might be, but this isn’t that.)  I don’t want to read a biography written for kids and dumbed down. (Well, now, aren’t you the arrogant little twit Miss.  And what made you think it would be ‘dumbed down?’)  I was so wrong; every single one of my PREconceptions were MISconceptions and I should probably be taken out and flogged by some secret librarian society where the use dirty book tape and old pocket cards for the flogging.  Simply put this is a brilliant piece of work, new, insightful, heartfelt, and infinitely respectful of both parties and beliefs involved.  In her dedication Heiligman says, “And finally, thank you to Charles and Emma.  You two are just the best.  I am going to miss you.”  Me too.

Deborah Wiles’ Countdown arrived on my desk in May 2010.  I leafed through it, took it home, leafed through it, put it on the floor, picked it up, leafed through it, put it in the pile and then….well….I stacked other books on top of it.  After I finished Charles and Emma I needed something completely different and Countdown moved to the top of the pile.  Talk about the right book at the right time!  I loved through the sixties.  I remember duck and cover, I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy and Khrushchev and Pete Seeger and rock and roll.  This novel is not just a piece of historical fiction, although it is a brilliantly written piece of historical fiction with characters and settings that jump off the page and into your heart.  The 60s come alive in these pages through the growing of one eleven year old girl through the course of two weeks.  A lot can happen when your eleven and the world’s two superpowers have decided it’s time to play chicken with nuclear warheads and you live near Washington D.C. and your dad is an Air Force pilot and your sister is going to change the world and your best friend just isn’t anymore.  This book is not just a picture book of two weeks in one year of one decade, although it is a brilliantly executed picture book/scrapbook of two weeks in one year of one decade.  This is the perfect marriage of the two genres.  While each could stand alone each would be weaker for want of the other.  Hmmm, maybe it’s not so different from Charles and Emma after all.

And so it goes

This week sees the end of summer reading.  I am up to my eyeballs in final bits and pieces.  We end with a huge ice cream social for all and it is grand fun!  Every summer we also have a library sleepover for the members of the teen advisory group who have heped throughout the summer.  Usually that is in August, but I decided to put it on the same day as the ice cream social and get it all over with at once.  Thus when I collapse in a heap at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday I can just sleep untilI wake up and know that there is nothing else particularly strenuos on the horizon. 

Meanwhile the garden needs my attention.  Beans and zucchini are prolific and getting ahead of me.  We have had rain and cooler temperatures so everything is happy and will be happier when their gardener can pay some attention.  The gardener will be happier too.  Flowers on the eggplant.  Loads of green tomatoes. LOADS!

My laptop is waiting for a new power cord -  another reason for spotty entries.  But I’ll be back with a vengeance when this week is over.  That is both a threat and a promise.

This morning at 6:30 a.m.  I ate the first cherry tomato from my garden – standing right there in my pajamas I just popped that little devil in my mouth and laughed and laughed.

When I was in high school and college my mother would say, as I staggered out of bed at 9 or 10, “My day is half over by the time you get up!”  As it approaches 10:30 and my two youngest children still sleep soundly, my day really is half over.  I awoke at 4:00 a.m. but rolled over and went back to sleep until 6.  The dogs and I sallied forth.  Glory be!  More zucchini – 3 yesterday and another today; zinnias in glorious bloom; blossoms on the eggplant; a hint of yellow on the tomatoes; a nice first picking of green beans yesterday and fresh swiss chard for salad.  Oh my.  I am in heaven.  Still there was one more section of yard to reclaim.

The former tenants set a tree on fire.  Yup. Really.  The remaining stump is where I have set the birdbath and around which I have planted the sunflowers.  However, when the tree was chopped down, the logs were simply left to rot.  Too big to haul to the street and expect the village to pick up and too rotten for anyone who uses wood for home heating, these logs have been a dilemma.  How does one use them for decorating?  There are too many and without a chain saw they are to large to be set decoratively about.  Rats.  Now what?  They were a conundrum until a couple days ago.  The gentleman across the way has a campfire with marshmallows just about every evening in the summer.  Hmmmmm.  Burning is illegal in the Village unless one has a bag of marshmallows and a stick nearby and then it’s a cooking fire.  Go figure.  Anyway….I walked over and asked if he would like the logs in the bag yard.  “Why yes, I think I could use those.”  That night we carried what we could across the street, but still there were four HUGE ones that would require his truck.  “I have a friend that will help me load those,” he said.  And I didn’t see hide not hair of him for a few days.  But last night, across the street he drove and we loaded the logs with the help of 4th child and his buddy, and lo and behold, I had more dirt to dig.

So at 6 a.m., armed with coffee, shovel, rake and hoe I was happily digging away.  Cripes! There were more roots in that soil than I thought possible but I tugged and pulled and shoveled and hoed and after about 3 hours and numerous cups of coffee, there is a brand new clear area where once was a rubble pile.  I think next year it will be the herb garden and the wild strawberries that are creeping in from the neighbor’s yard might well take root and provide handfuls of sweetness although I am willing to leave most for the birds.  I want cone flowers and black-eyed susans and maybe some daisies.  Another neighbor has volunteered a clump of spearmint and some lilies of the valley.  I’ll put the first in tomorrow and the later when we figure out when one is supposed to dig ‘em up.  Anyone know?

Meanwhile, the children still sleep and I am ready for a nap!  “My day is half over by the time you get up.”  Yup.

And so it goes.