The Courier-Journal, the Louisville newspaper, recently asked residents why and how did they become drawn into gardening. Me, being a gardener for over 15 years, had to answer. I was lucky enough to have my response and photo in the newspaper. The following is what I wrote on why I'm drawn to gardening:
My parents got me into gardening and I'm so glad they did. Gardening teaches you responsibility as well as the satisfaction of growing something that can be appreciated or eaten. Even in Kentucky, you can grow almost whatever you like. Gardening has been one of my favorite hobbies for years. From flowers to tomatoes, gardening has taught me a lot about nature. I recommend gardening to anyone and everyone.
You can see my response and other gardeners in the Louisville area here.
Over the years I have grown just about anything you can in Kentucky. The photo below is the last all-out garden I had a few years ago. The scarecrow was a fun little thing to add to the garden, but I’m not sure it really worked. Days after this photo was taken a family of deer wiped out my entire crop of sweet corn. I guess they needed it more than me. One of the casualties of gardening, I reckon.
I made the below video almost two years ago, but I have recently changed up the audio. This video is a culmination of facts about our environment as well as ways we can improve the environment. I think you'll learn something. I see it as the video version of the Ways2GoGreen website. Enjoy.
Earth Day is an annual holiday founded by peace activist John McConnell, who also designed the Earth Day Flag. It started as a grassroots effort to inform people to support environmental concerns and create a movement. Now there are millions in the world who celebrate Earth Day each year on April 22nd. If you haven't already, learn more about Earth Day and become involved.
The first official Earth Day was on April 22, 1970. The day was proposed by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. It marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Approximately 20 million Americans participated that year, with a goal of a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
In 1990, 200 million people in 141 countries celebrated the day and lifted the status of environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit. For 2000, Earth Day had the internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Including, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating all over the world.
The Earth Flag was designed in 1970 by Earth Day founder and pioneer John McConnell, an early leader in the international peace movement. Inspired by the striking first photographs of the whole Earth taken during America's historic Apollo 10 space mission in 1969, this symbolic creation attained immediate world-wide recognition, including a lifetime association with renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead. Dr. Mead carried what she called "the flag for all people" with her wherever she appeared from 1969 until her death in 1977.
Earth Day originally had a symbol that was a combination of the letters "E" and "O" taken from the words "Environment" and "Organism", respectively. Later a theta was used because of its historic use as a warning symbol, or the peace symbol. Theta is now associated with Earth Day.
Celebrate the planet locally or globally every day, not just on Earth Day. To find Earth Day events in your area, go to Earth Day events.
This past weekend I hiked in Jefferson Memorial Forest, which is located in southern Jefferson County in Louisville, Kentucky. I had never been there before, much less hiked there so I took the opportunity on a decent day in November for a hike. I ended up hiking the Purple Heart Trail, which is a 2 mile loop trail which is of moderate difficulty. There are definitely some literal ups and downs to this trail, but it isn’t too strenuous.
This past week the fall colors were mostly gone and understandably parts of the trails were overcome with leaves, but the trails and the grounds were otherwise clean and a great place to getaway.
Above is the Tom Wallace Lake. I would like to go back next year and explore more of the many trails at Jefferson Memorial Forest. Kentucky is a beautiful state and you can see some of its beauty at Jefferson Memorial Forest.
Do you like hiking or have you ever been to Jefferson Memorial Forest?
Let me know.
Take Only Pictures, Leave Only Footprints
Have you seen the guy at your local greeting card aisle standing there forever not able to choose which card to get? That guy is me. I hate looking for greeting cards. It takes me forever to choose between the really sappy cards, the low brow cards and the really low brow cards. It doesn't matter the occasion it is hard for me to find a card for anyone I know in less than ten minutes. With all of this time spent the last time looking for a card I noticed a few cards with a note on the back with 'This card is made from sustainably managed forests'. I, of course, have seen cards which had been printed on 100% recycled paper, but not quite this story. I wanted to find out more about what exactly are sustainably managed forests.
From the Sustainable Forests Products website:
The particular greeting card that had this 'paper from sustainably managed forests' note was a Hallmark card. I wanted to find out a little more about Hallmark and being Green. I found out Hallmark has being making eco-friendly strides for decades.
From the Hallmark corporate website:
Facts
Hallmark began recycling paper in the 1940s.
The company first introduced recycled paper into select greeting card lines and packaging in the 1970s.
Hallmark established corporate-wide energy conservation and waste reduction programs in the 1990s.
Hallmark intends to obtain 50 percent of the paper it buys for greeting cards from recycled stock and 100 percent of the paper it buys for products from sustainable sources.
In 2008, Hallmark developed a “green” icon with four arrows revolving around the Hallmark crown. The arrows represent the four areas of Hallmark’s environmental efforts – water, waste, paper and energy.
In mid-2008, the Hallmark “green” icon started appearing on greeting cards and other product lines. Products made with paper from sustainably managed forests, recycled paper content, or other eco-friendly materials will bear this special icon, along with relevant labeling.
With all of this talk of greeting cards printed on 100% recycled materials and made with paper from sustainably managed forests don't forget about the other eco-alternatives to paper greeting cards. They are hand-made cards from hand-made paper as well as e-cards. Come to think of it, e-cards would probably save me time and get me out of your way as you look for a funny card for your third cousin twice removed. Happy card hunting.
The temperatures are getting cooler and the leaves, they are changin' colors. In my corner of the world in Kentucky, I get
red from burning bushes,
green from evergreen shrubbery,
yellow is from maple trees,
golden brown from oak trees and
white from pampas grass.
Notice the Moon showing itself off in the photo below: 
Well that it for my neck of the woods for this autumn. These colors are about as peak as my colors seem to get. Do you have photos of your Fall colors?
I recently helped a friend take down an old barn similar to the one in the photo above. His goal while taking the barn
down was to salvage, reuse and recycle as much of the building materials as possible. His plan was to recycle
the metal from the roof and to reuse the wood. He would take the metal to a local recycling center and take
the wood for himself for another building project. The two best things were that this would be an eco barn buster and
that we didn't have to pay a dime for the materials.
The work was a little hard, but the process was pretty simple. As we took down parts of the barn we put
the materials in three separate categories: metal, reusable wood and one for the dumpster. We saved all of
the metal because our local recycling center even takes rusted metal. The reusable wood
were those that hadn't split, had no dry-rot and had no termite damage. What was left for the dumpster was
totally unusable wood and trash that was inside the barn.
After the dust had settled, literally, we felt it was worth the sweat and scratches. He made over $100 from the
local recycling center for the metal. He also now has enough good wood to build a rustic-looking gazebo. Due to
our recycling and reusing, we only had to throw away a fraction of the waste. The rustic-look is a trend these
days and if you want "used" building materials you can start by asking around. That's what my friend did and
quickly he found someone who was anxious to get an eyesore removed from their property.
There were two trees that were growing up against the old barn and we made it a point to not damage or have to take down
the two trees. It was touch and go many times on the "Save the Trees" campaign. Fortunately, we succeeded and they are
both left standing.
If you take on a project like this, think about the possibilities of the materials, clean up after yourself and try not to disturb anything and keep
everything else as you first found it. In our example, all is left is a dirt patch and two trees. Through
hard work maybe you can make a little money and help the environment at the same time.
