The Earth is our Mother, we all live on Her!

Earth from space, ain’t she beautiful?

A bit of the history of Earth Day from our friends at Care2.com: “Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970, the 20th anniversary in 1990 became a huge event thanks in part to greater television and radio coverage and a multimillion dollar budget. More than 200 million people in 141 countries participated helping to lift environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.”

May your joys be many,
may you soak in the light,
may the flowers in your garden bloom,
sweet and bright.

Happy Earth Day!
Diane T. and furfamily

Live Christmas tree or fake Christmas tree; which is better?

Here’s some information I’d like to share about the live Christmas tree vs. the fake Christmas tree debate.

We have over 20 large trees on our property already (many of which we planted, including two Christmas pines). Now that we don’t have any more room for trees, we contacted the City of Pasadena about replanting a live Christmas tree anywhere in the city. They kindly refused saying that they were concentrating on “planting only indigenous trees” so that the water consumed by the new trees would be less than non-indigenous trees (like the huge pines). We called conservation groups, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, all had run into the same restrictions. So, if we do get a live tree, where will we plant it after Christmas?

Creating a rain garden…..

From our good friends at the Water Environment Research Foundation:

“In many communities, when it storms heavily, the rainwater combines with the sewage and overwhelms the system – causing sewers to overflow into nearby streams and lakes.

Help stop these combined sewer overflows from occurring in your community.  Learn how to install a rain garden and capture that storm water for absorption into the ground.  By slowing it down and spreading it out, storm water can become a real asset to trees and wildlife in your neighborhood and your garden.”

To learn how to build a rain garden, visit http://www.werf.org/liveablecommunities/index.htm

Mother Earth News Fair held Sept 21-23 in Pennsylvania

Here’s our Green Grove news flash for this weekend…

Meet the contributors, editors and readers of Mother Earth News magazine face-to-face to learn new wiser living skills in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, at their 3rd annual Fair which will be held Sept. 21- 23rd. Join them for a fun, workshop-filled weekend!

 

For more information, go to: http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair

Green Grove Thursday….Fair Trade goods

Have you ever heard of Fair Trade Goods and wondered why it might be important to support them? Here’s a snippet of an article from Mother Earth News…..

“You see it on labels for coffee, chocolate, flowers and more, but what does it really mean? Fair Trade is a designation developed to help consumers support products that come from farms that have been certified to provide fair wages and safe working conditions (forced child labor is prohibited). In addition, producers on certified farms are paid a premium to apply to projects such as healthcare, women’s leadership initiatives and micro-finance programs, as voted on by the farmers and workers themselves.”

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2008-06-01/What-Is-Fair-Trade.aspx#ixzz25iLsCgFn

The Urban Homestead- grow your own food in the backyard

I’m lucky to live only 5 minutes from the Front Porch Farm Stand (Pasadena, CA) and buy my fruit, vegetables and bread from these wonderful, down-to-earth, friendly people. I feel blessed to know them, and am inspired to begin our own journey in self-sufficiency!

Here is an award winning video about them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IbODJiEM5A

Energetically, Diane Tegarden

May 19th is Food Revolution Day!

May 19 Is Food Revolution Day!

May 19 is Food Revolution Day, a global day of action for real food. In the United States, there are approximately 12.5 million children and adolescents who are obese. There is no denying that it is time for a change.

Take action by helping educate people about food, giving families the skills and knowledge to cook again, and motivating people to stand up for their rights to better food.

Check out this website for action you can take, and get involved: http://foodrevolutionday.com/

 

We can break the two party system, Vote GREEN!

Did you know that there are 133 Green officeholders as of Thursday, May 10, 2012?

For more information on truly alternative choices for political office visit The Green Party at: http://www.gp.org/index.php

There are two women and a Native American man running for President in 2012, so if you want to support the environment and help break the two party system, consider voting GREEN!

Energetically, Diane Tegarden

You CAN help save the bee population

You may have heard that the population of bees is diminishing rapidly, due to several environmental factors.  Since bees pollinate about 80% of the world’s food supply it is important to turn this around, and every thinking, caring person can help.

This is part of a column written by Diana Herrington on the http://www.care2.com website.

1. Insecticides (one of the leading suspects in bee deaths):
Last year, leaked documents exposed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) illegitimate approval of clothianidin, a highly-toxic pesticide that the regulatory agency knew was capable of killing off bees.

Also, a new study out of Purdue University confirmed, once again, that clothianidin is killing off bees, but also that clothianidin’s toxicity is systemic throughout the entire food chain.

2. Malnutrition:
Nutrition for bees might sound rather odd since they eat only nectar and pollen. What has happened though, is that honeybees don’t have the variety of flowers available to them because man has destroyed much of their habitat. We humans like our environment orderly so we clear the ditches of wild flowers and kill all the dandelions and clover in our lawns. To bees, these areas are now nutritional wastelands. Bees love weeds!

For the rest of the article, go to: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-ways-to-save-the-bees.html#ixzz1sUpoO7aS

Energetically, Diane Tegarden
Author of: “How to Escape a Bad Marriage-A Self Help Divorce Book for Women”; “Light Through Shuttered Window”; “Anti-Vigilante and The Rips in Time”

Crisis in the Bee Hive…..

Read the information about the bee crisis here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/28/bees-death-destroy-food-supply.aspx?e_cid=20120128_DNL_art_1

A feeling of helplessness can overwhelm people when they read about an extremely important, worldwide environmental crisis, because the issue is so big. Remember, a million small steps can get us as far as one huge step, and is easier to accomplish in one’s own life.

Here are a few small suggestions that people can use to help turn things around:

1. Stop using pesticides of any kind on one’s own lawns, flowers, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Companies will only switch to healthier alternatives if we hit them where it hurts, in the checkbook.

2. Consider supporting alternative political parties that espouse keeping our environment livable. For example, support the Green Party, whose platform revolves around safe business practices, and a healthy environment.

3. Join an online organization called Change.org and start a petition to have that fake Chinese honey banned from US stores.

4. Choose charitable organizations that fight for environmental laws, like NRDC. The money you contribute is tax deductible, and these lawyers are fighting for environmental issues such as: saving natural areas, protecting endangered species, banning bad business practices, like fracking, protecting the use of renewable energy, and much more.