Janet

Work Less -- Save the Earth...?

Here's an interesting angle that might be worth some thought...or action...

I'll be the first on my block to try it!

Besides summer vacation is coming up...I'll try to "work" on it then!

http://grist.org/

"Now here's a theory we can get behind: workaholism is ruining the earth. "We are proudly breaking our backs to decrease the carrying capacity of the planet," says Conrad Schmidt, proponent of the 32-hour work week, who declares that overwork leads to overconsumption, pollution, and less fulfilling life experience.

If there's anyone who needs to take the message to heart, it's Americans, who work more hours than anyone else in the industrialized world -- a full 500 hours more per year than Germans. Not coincidentally, the U.S. is also the world's largest polluter and produces half the world's solid waste, and a paper issued by the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that Europeans would consume up to 30 percent more energy by 2050 if they worked like Americans. Says CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot, "Because there's no limit to what we can consume, a change of values has to take place if the planet stands a chance of survival."

http://www.alternet.org/environment/52077/

Early Morning Encounter

I've been enjoying more and more special guest appearances on my morning walks lately.

When I crossed over the Assabet River this morning, I briefly stopped to watch the fast gushing water go under the bridge just after the Damon Mill. Low lying tree branches are still dipping into the water as the banks are overflowing with water from all of last week's rains.

All of the sudden in the murky brown water I saw a little brown furry head...

It seemed much larger than a muskrat and when I saw the larger body size with a long beaver tail trailing behind...I was surprised to realize it was a beaver! I had no idea that beaver might be living that close to our place. And, it got me wondering where there might be a lodge or dam that they've built. My future walks will have to include some investigating some side roads and trails. Might have to get out a map and see the path of the river and any side streams and see what I can find.

Of course, it immediately brought to mind the memory of a previous beaver encounter that I had years ago...

(I know, I know...I can hear the knowing groans now..."Here she goes with "The Beaver Story!")

What the heck...I don't know if I've ever written it down before, so here we go...for those of you who've heard this a hundred times over the years, I guess you can stop reading now!

Years ago, after waitressing the all-night shift at one of the diners outside of Amherst where I was spending my summer break from UMass, I headed home to the log cabin in the woods that I was caretaking for one of my professors. Before heading up the mountain to the cabin I decided to stop at one of the local ponds and take a dip to clean off the sticky waitress grime that seemed to come with that job.

The sun had hardly peeked through the trees that surround this pond and the cool early morning temperature caused the whole pond to be covered with a low-lying fog that was so dense I couldn't even see to the other side of it.

I slipped into the cool, cool water and started to swim in the morning quiet with only a cardinal boldly whistling from one of the nearby treetops. As always when I swim I get into a certain rhythm that sort of lulls all the busy-ness in my brain....a meditation of sorts.

So it was in this meditative state that I looked up from my breastroke rhythmic breathing and through the fog saw a little brown furry head coming straight at me! I stopped quickly, though at that point the water was too deep to stand up, so I just tread water quietly while I assessed what was before me. Fortunately my critter friend stopped at that moment also.

We both just sat motionless observing each other. At this point I realized that I was face to face with a beaver, with only about 12-15 feet between us!

                                       

I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to swim parallel to the shore now instead of straight across the pond. To my surprise the beaver swam parallel to me, keeping the same 12-15 foot distance between us. As I swam, I peered under the water toward him and I could see his large webbed feet paddling and his long flat tail trailing behind.

Keeping a guarded eye on him, I turned in his direction and just at that moment he faced me. I got a bit nervous and thought that this time he was going to come and attack me with those enormously large teeth that they have. Instead, he slapped his tail on the surface of the water with a big THWACK! I froze still in the water and stopped swimming. He stayed right where he was so I then continued to swim in the opposite direction, again parallel to the shore. He joined me again, keeping our same distance between us.

This went on and on for about 10 minutes. I don't know why, but I didn't feel threatened now so I was enjoying the little "relationship" that we'd carved out in our short time together. Swimming together for about 50 feet, my turning, him slapping his tail, then swimming together again for about 50 feet. One way,turn, tail slap, other way, turn, tail slap...back and forth, back and forth...

Bizarre!

Once I figured out that I would be "safe" if I just kept my distance with him, I looked beyond him and noticed a large pile of sticks that was his lodge. It sat about another 25 yards behind him.

Ah! Protecting his home from me the "great predator!" I finally realized what was going on.

Eventually I stopped our laps and decided to return back to where I started from, but not before looking face to face with him one more time and thanking him for our swim.

And, that, boys and girls, is the story of the day that Janet swam with a beaver!

   

      

The Whale Plane

It's early in the morning. I'm doing my daily skim of the Boston Globe and the news of the day. The normal same old, same old ink fills the print....more dead in Iraq; the Earth needs more care; people with signs protesting the big Bio-Tech convention in town; the Republicans this, the Democrats that; Bob Dylan's summer tour dates are announced; the economy's is up...wait, it's down. On and on it goes...except for Dylan, the names and faces have changed, and somehow it strikes me, it could just as easily be the late 60's/early 70's.

I continue to haphazardly skim the news and slowly wake up (yes, my walk and Mr. Mockingbird have done a nice job waking me up to my little world, but for some reason I feel a need to take a look at and get an idea of the daily news of the world before I can really start my day).

A picture catches my eye in the middle of a story about burying another local soldier from the war, and a picture of George W. looking a little nervous as he skirts around with the Queen (perhaps he was worried that now that Blair has resigned, she'd come to scold him, or force him to do the same...or maybe even that she'd come to take the country back after all these years!) (thanks to comedians Dean Johnson and Tony V for that last line! www.boston.com/sidekick)

The picture that caught my eye was one of a small airplane with whales painted on it. In the foreground a man and his son are standing at a microphone. The small caption under the picture read - "IFAW Global Whale Program Manager Patrick Ramage and his 12-year-old son Henry will tour the US to help people learn of the increased threats to the world's whale populations and the urgent
need for their protection."

(It is deja-vu all over again! -

"Save the Whales...still and again!...40 years later!"

Didn't I say the news read like the 60's/70's?!)

Anyway, for the first time in many a morning this was something that really piqued my interest and I eagerly looked for where I might find the accompanying article. I quickly looked directly below the picture itself...no, that would be far too simple to place an article directly related to a picture together in today's newspaper world! I searched to see if they indicated in which section the accompanying article might be located...but, no, again. I stopped my normal skimming through each section one section at a time and just opened up each page of the entire newspaper and searched for the article about this creatively painted plane and the man and his son on a mission to help save the whales.

Now this was the kind of news that woke me up to want to read more. But, alas and alack...there was no article to be found from the front page BIG news, to the back page Obits and colorful Weather maps (but, oh throughout we can read full length articles about how they now have big money Rock-Paper-Scissor tournaments in Las Vegas; or how Ty's been busted for a DUI; or, what's her name is so upset to be going to jail...how will she live?!; and, oh! that big brawl at Symphony Hall...all, really important things to know before you start your day in this world...?)

So, no. Sad to say, there was no further mention of the man, the boy, the whale-painted plane and their mission.

......

Finally had some time this morning to search the Internet and found out the corresponding story.

May 10, 2007 -

"Today Cape Air and IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) take off on the "Whales Need
US"  plane tour; a cross-country trip aimed at bringing heightened awareness to the increased threats to the world's whale populations and the urgent need for their protection....The plane will touch down in major cities across the United States en route to the 2007 International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Anchorage, Alaska where they will deliver "save the whale" artwork and messages from American 4th and 5th graders to delegates from more than 70 nations."

Now, that seems like a good story for people to read about, doesn't it? Maybe even a sort of important story...if nothing else, even just a different story...or, at least a change from the daily pablum that just reads the same day to day.

Anyway, I got my story...so, I'm sharing it with you...and I hope Mr. Ramage and son, Henry will get better press coverage than they did here in Boston. Maybe we'll actually be able to read about their trip and their efforts to help the whales...before another 40 years go by.

http://www.stopwhaling.org/site/c.foJNIZOyEnH/b.2643209/k.E639/Whales_Need_US__Whale_Plane_Tour_for_Whales__IFAW_US.htm

http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2007/0004585463&EDATE=THU+May+10+2007,+09:00+AM

Mr. Mockingbird

 

I've been enjoying starting my mornings with a half hour or so walk. Some mornings I get to see the brush strokes of pink in the early morning sky as it sweeps faintly across the pale grey pre-sunrise sky. Other mornings it's more of a maroon-dark grey shade that more boldly fills the morning sky. Or, like this morning, I caught a hint of brown in the early morning sky colors.

I'm sure if asked for "colors of the morning sky," I'd never offer up "brown." But, I swear, this morning there was a light brown tinge to the pre-dawn shades as I walked briskly around my morning loop.

Another component accompanying me each morning is a chatty and busy, Mr. Mockingbird. He gives me my first smile of the day as he flits and darts from his staked out territory first sounding like a blue jay, then moving on to his own crow imitation! He seems to like to perch on a large spruce in the area and whenever I turn his corner, he dives down from the great swooping branches and is right there to announce to me his morning jubilation. White bars on his wings flashing as he divebombs a little chickadee to show me that indeed, he is king of this roost. All the while mixing his tune from blue jay to crow...and even threw in a little chickadee-dee-dee to mix up not only me but the chickadee too!

As chatty as Mr. Mockingbird is, he actually has become the quietest part of my day...or the most peaceful, anyway, and definitely has given me my first smile of the day for several days running now.

Thanks for that, Mr. Mocker. May you have a good spring and nesting season...and continue to add a smile to mine and anyone else's day who might notice you and your antics!

* I've learned that older Mockingbirds can have up 200 different "songs" that not only replicate other birds, but can sound like crickets, cats, frogs, even mechanical machinery! Quite a clever adaptation, wouldn't you say?!

* Here's a site where you can listen to a Mockingbird's call...I know it's their little twist of a survival mechanism, but for some reason they crack me up in their efforts to imitate so many other sounds around them. Multi-lingual, I guess!

http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=4

Spaceship Earth

One of the first US astronauts, Walter Schirra, just passed away at age 84.

I love this quote from him that I read in his obituary...

"In one of his last interviews last month with The Associated Press Schirra said he was struck by the fragility of Earth and the lack of borders.

"I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth," he said."

Boy, that just says it all...

http://www.wallyschirra.com/

"Sitting in space

A small blue ball...

It's Home Sweet Home

For us all...

Earth going round

Round and round...

Earth going round

Round and round."