Skip to main content

Spitting in the ocean.

     At the age of 56, it occurs to me that I have roughly 30 years left in my life give or take a few.  I've (sadly) never had kids.  So in some ways my newly found environmentalism might be my way of leaving some sort of lasting legacy?

    I honestly don't know.   I'm no dummy, I know that what ever I do is spitting into the ocean.  However I also feel that not doing anything is morally bankrupt.  You can make a difference in one persons life, even though you may never see that outcome.  


    For whatever reason I've been coming across a lot of info on No Mow May - which is a simple idea to let your lawn grow wild during the month of May, allowing bees and other pollinators to do their thing and help re-establish a needed but diminishing species.  I let part of my yard "go wild" last year and I'm planning on letting the same parcel go wild this year. 

    Only I'm planning on never mowing that parcel of land again.  I'm going to let it be absorbed back into the woods it came from.

    It's also one of the reasons that I'm planting native flowers and trees.  I'm debating if I want to plant one or two fruit trees like the Granny Smith Apple (overall its the apple with the highest nutrition levels - and I like the idea of some future forager finding it).  I prefer to plant the dwarf apples, because they would fruit within two or three years and I want to pick an apple from a tree that I planted.  I don't want to wait the six or seven it can take a tree to mature.  I'm not that patient a man.

    My glacially slow evolution towards a vegetarian diet continues, although that's going to be an uphill battle.   The local supermarkets do not seem to offer much in the way of variety and Sue does not seem interested my making vegan/vegetarian dishes.  I have little to no interest in learning to cook. 

    So I eat what I can, where and when I can in the hope of doing my small part to reduce the impact of meat consumption.  Again, I am spitting into the ocean.  Still though, I feel it's important to do my little bit where and when I can. 

     I find a lot of per-packaged foods, even though they are "meat free" are high in salt.  It's a common preservative but when you have heart disease running in your family like I do...you want to avoid salt.  

    Earlier I was doing a "taste test" series, I'm half tempted to return to it because if I can influence one person to try something new or encourage them along that path.   I should do that.   

    Our home improvement projects, replacing the windows and updating our kitchen will help in reducing our electric bill, saving energy and water.  Yes, it's costly in the short term, but again I'm looking long term.  That's the only way to look at things today.

    I've always been interested in Science, earning my degree in Science Education and Biology.  I fell in love with philosophy in college and have always maintained the study of it.  I was always concerned about the environment but it's only now, in my later years, that I am actually taking it "seriously."   I just hope it's not to late.  Although I know it is to late, but I'm spitting into the ocean anyway.

    Morally I feel it's my duty to spit into the ocean and leave this world a little better than it is.  I would rather have a little hope than accept that "Everything is fine" while the room burns down around me.


    The choice, of course, is always up to you.  Do you spit into the ocean?  Or let the rip tide take you under?

Labels:
Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Maybe we need to rethink invasive species???

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w
Post a Comment
Read more

Why didn't Erie, PA develop into a bigger city?

          Recently I had to travel up to Erie, PA for business.   It's about an hour north of me and is a rather small city, having just under 100 thousand people living in it.   It played an important role in the founding of America,  - where it was the headquarters for Oliver Perry's flagship Niagara during the battle of Like Erie in the war of 1812 .            It was also a important shipping center, being Pennsylvania's only access to the Great Lakes which was the easiest way to trade with parts of Canada at the time as well as move goods to the cities of Detroit and Chicago, which in the mid to early 1800's were just starting to develop.  It was also directly north from Pittsburgh which was a major industrial city at that time.     Yet Erie never really grew beyond it's humble beginnings and I wondered why.   Like any good sleuth I turned to the internet where I found mostly wrong answers.    Many people thought the port of Erie was to shallow to handle most
3 comments
Read more

Don't leave the rural areas behind.

This blog was started because I had lived most of my life as an urban dweller; I wanted to record my adventures as I tried my hands at different things and I never pictured this blog would become what it did. Country life suits me in some ways.   I'm at a point in my life where I can appreciate looking up into the night sky and seeing thousands of stars, just like I did as a kid.   I just love how the moonlight bathes my beautiful sleeping wife in a creme colored light.   Country life is more peaceful and a lot more hard work than I would have ever expected.  While my neighbors and I may not agree politically or philosophically, my new lifestyle has given me insights on how they view the world. This brings me to my main point.   Here in rural America we simply don't have public transportation, nor do we have a lot of manufacturing or diversity or hospitals or even great education...and if we are going to move forward with a brighter greener future that we all want then we canno
2 comments
Read more