Until I opened up google today, I dinna know it was earth day. It was absolutley amazingly beautiful today. Seventy five degrees, not a cloud in the sky, a light breeze, and all after a few weeks of excessively crappy weather.
Reflecting on the day, here's how I enjoyed the day:
I awoke to screams from the kids--not bad screams, just the kind young kids make early in the morning when bickering. They'd gotten themselves up, turned on the energy-sucking boob-tube, and poured themselves some sugary cereals (made from the sweet, sweet nectar of corn that shoulda oughta been made into ethanol.) They poured the juice of a cow (methane producer/agribusiness bulwark) The let the dog out, where he could add his biomass waste to our already imbalanced local ecosystem, and because he isn't a native species of this area, he surely helped to destroy some of the bacteria and microbes he "eliminated" on.
They let him in, and he proceeded to gnaw on his favorite snack, the broiled thigh bone of a cow, that eviiil bovine whose farts make more icky greenhouse methane than all of the landfills in the world. Meanwhile, I jumped out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of ambition and yawned and stretched and tried to come alive. I relished my coffee (grown in the rich columbian soil where formerly lush rainforests and hundreds of thousands of species of fungus had existed prior to man's decimation in the name of caffeine) and started to make a mental checklist of the things I wanted to accomplish today. Then, since I can't remember diddly beyond seven minutes, I wrote it all down on bleached non-recycled paper, and made several copies because I kept scribbling and editing. After snapping of the tip of my redwood pencil, I tossed it away for a disposable ink pen.
Yardwork was the order of business for today. Good, hot, back breaking salt of the earth (day) labor. I figured I'd do what I could, spend time with the gene pool outside the house, and maybe even Carren would venture outside (she really does love doing the yardwork too, but seldom admits it, especially since we both know it'll take us until Wednesday to recover.) I began with cutting the grass under the kid's trampoline--burning old, processed dinosaur guts and watching it spew blue-gray clouds of ozone-depleting progress into the athmosphere.
I spied with my little eye these beautiful purple blossoms smiling at me from just above the grass I'd already cut during the week. I caught just a whiff, a memory really, of their perfume as I cut the grass benaeth the trampoline. As I cut, I noticed the fragrance growing, and realized that the lawn was nearly covered with purple blooms--my adversary from the previous summer and fall had returned, and thrived over the winter (Scott's winterizer be damned) "Creeping Charlie" (part of the native biosphere flora) was back.
Luckily, Lowes is only 1/4 mile away. I made sure toopen up the windows on my truck to let out the heat, and turned theA/C on full blast to keep cool on my way there. There was a good song on the radio--'Cotton Eyed Joe' by Reddnexx (it's a long story) so I sat and idled in the lot before going in, finishing my cigarette. Lowes sells all sorts of potions to kill off "pesky" nuisance weeds, as well as a host of other things. We had a wooden chest built into the side of the house by the original owner. It had rotting wood and was falling apart. Lowes has plenty of pressure treated lumber, which is certain to leech heavy metals, chlorine, copper, and arsenic into the siol for decades to come. I made sure to get enough to completely replace the top of the box, and plenty of wood stain and protectant to ensure that it will remain beautiful for years to come. If not, there are always more trees to re-replace the boards. I would have bought the new composite lumber; safe, neat, easy to use, never fades. The only problem is, the stuff is only about 1500% more expensive than wood, even pressure treated wood. Plus, it's heavy. Too heavy for a box lid.
(If you haven't figured it out, there isn't a lot of point to this story.)
Where was I? I bought all sorts of chemicals to kill what I don't want, and more to encourage the growth of the lawn, which serves no purpose other than to look pretty and give the dog somewhere to poop (other than on storm drains--with the right training, you never need a pooper scooper!) I am so far in the red on my carbon production into that big beautiful athmosphere, I couldn't possibly balance out... what to do?
Aw Crap. Lets burn some more fossil fuels! I fired up the propane grill, and Carren brought out some big chunks of cow. We cooked them till the fat was sizzling and crispy on the outside, and the blood pooled on top. After supper, we burned even more fossil fuel, to heat the water to bathe the kids, while I burned the boards I had replaced earlier in a toasty bonfire.
All told, I think I'd have done less damage to the environment if I'd charbroiled manatee (the sea cow!) while simultaneously smelting lead over an open coal fire, after changing the truck's oil and pouring it around the yard to kill weeds.
Looking back, I may just hand off a great big steaming pile of poo to my kids' kids' kids, but the steaks were tasty, the house looks less woebegone, and with any luck, the yard'll be free of weeds in a couple days and lush in a few weeks.
Earth Day: Anything you don't earn, you don't appreciate. If we simply give our children's children's children a clean and healthy planet, what will they learn? If we aren't going to use it, who will?
--Chuck
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