If you have seen the video of a wild horse named Ole’ Sister who was run into exhaustion by a Bureau of Land Management helicopter, then you are as horrified as I am. Read more and let your reactions be known.

A petition has been generated and is being sent to demand justice for this defenseless animal. Please add your name to the list of others who won’t stand for this kind of abuse and cruelty.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/13/Demand-Justice-for-Ole-Sister/

Thank You!

Love,
Earth Girl

For months the Gentle Barn was involved in the crisis surrounding horrible living conditions at the Cadiz, Ohio animal shelter. The situation was brought to light originally by actress Alyssa Milano. Ellen DeGeneres and her partner Portia became involved. Gentle Barn’s founders helped tremendously in a place where animal welfare is almost nonexistent. It is a very poor area, and its citizens just cannot do much to improve the lives of animals, and have, in fact been either abandoning their pets on the roads or surrendering them to the pound.

This leaves a heavy burden on one integral person, Robin McClelland, who is the AOSPCA is Harrison County. There is no shelter. There are only a couple of people in this region of Ohio including several counties to rescue, foster, or help in a meaningful way.

Currently there are several (up to 20) dogs in urgent need of vet care, fostering and rescue. They are being surrendered by their owners. Although they have been neglected and need medical care, they are all young and will recover to live long lives. If they are helped.

I’m adding a link to Robin’s Facebook note below detailing this dire situation. She has several ways for caring animal lovers to donate either via PetFinder, Chip In or sending funds directly to the vet. We have sent a donation, as much as we can afford at this time, and pray that you will search the couch cushions, car seats and old coat pockets for any amount of money you can spare to assist Robin do a big but very worthwhile endeavor. If everyone gave just one dollar …

https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=174796129234391

Thank you!

With Love and Gratitude,
Earth Girl

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=premarin&Player=qt

My latest passion is to reject foreign-made stuff in favor of Made in the USA. After all, if we don’t want jobs sent overseas what better way to demonstrate by boycotting foreign-made goods?

I was happy to find out that more than a few things are actually still built or constructed here!

Woot!

I’m going to jump right into a few of the companies and merchandise I found. I’d love to hear from readers knowing of similar finds.

For gorgeous crafts including hand painted accent tables by a very creative artist, contact Lisa Wiffledust here:
www.wiffledustonline.com

For bedspreads made in Maine try the Bates Mill:
http://batesmillstore.com/
We bought one recently on sale and it is just lovely and so well made. It is heirloom quality. I expect to have it for a very long time. I could have bought 2 imported spreads someplace like Penney’s for the price of one American-made Bates but like the one I picked up a few years ago, it would not last.

The Best of New England:
http://www.bestofnewengland.com/default.aspx
They sell walking canes, apparel, home decorations, wooden clothing drying racks (what I’m looking for to dry small quantities of clothes in the sun) and lots more.

For furniture such as pub chairs, barstools and the beautiful hardwood foot stool we bought for only $69 plus $8 shipping when our last one finally broke and couldn’t be repaired, try:
http://www.chairsandstools.us/index.html
http://www.chairsandstools.us/harfootwittu.html

Summer sun is coming! Buy rash guards for the whole family here:
http://www.thebeachdepot.com/
I bought the long sleeve neon pink version for our 5 and 7-year-olds. I suggest ordering a size larger as they run small. The kids love them and will be well protected from the sun this summer. (They will have to absorb Vitamin D through their legs because nothing is going to burn my babies’ tender skin!)

For medical home care supplies:
http://www.themedicalclub.com/Made_In_USA_s/375.htm
Fortunately we don’t need portable toilets yet but ya never know who in your family might! Follow this link to their items Made in the USA!

I always wanted to buy something from the Vermont Country Store. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe because I would like to visit Vermont, or I like country stores but as I browsed their catalog I found very few things actually made in Vermont, or any other American state. Much of their inventory is imported. Ugh.

For adorable pajamas try the Cat’s Pajamas, all lovingly made in the USA:
http://www.thecatspjs.com/about.html
I bought the polka dot flannel set on sale, and their shipping is only $5! I did have to ship back the first pair because they were HUGE on me, but maybe I was just ordering too large so that I wouldn’t have a tight waistband to deal with. Their pants are totally unconstructed with no elastic and a drawstring. So LOTS of give here, girls!

For great reusables try this company:
http://www.reuseit.com/store/index.php?attributes=Country+Of+Origin%7CUSA

I bought the stainless steel Lunch Bots shown above to replace the use of Ziploc Bags in my kids’ lunch boxes and I’ve been very pleased with them. Say goodbye to Ziplocs, baby! I later read that they are not American made but “responsibly made in China.” Oh well, this purchase ruined my recently perfect record but for pete’s sake if they are being “responsible” then it must be ok!

For American-made clocks:
http://www.americansworking.com/clocks.html

Howard Miller clocks were once made in Zeeland, Michigan exclusively. We have one of them. But I am no sure if that is still true today. Their site is not clear, so if you are interested in one of their wonderful mantle clocks and more, email them first to make sure. If they have gone overseas, tell ‘em to kiss your grits!

For oh-so-pretty “green” stationary and notecards:
http://www.greenfieldpaper.com/

For a whole list of things in one place:
http://www.madeinusa.org/nav.cgi?data/gift-4

This is just a very small sampling, to illustrate that even though outsourcing has become so popular among major corporations, many products are still proudly and skillfully made in America! Thank goodness for that!

Happy Shopping!
Love, Earth Girl

Stop what you’re doing for a few moments and watch this. It is compelling.

Love,
Earth Girl

It’s been a little over a month since we sold our suburban pool home in, ahem, the suburbs.

It wasn’t a large home by area standards. Just a nice average-sized rancher with 1942 square feet and .25 acres to oversee. But in terms of my life, the demands upon me, it sometimes seemed like a mansion. A fun place full of memories, absolutely, but often an albatross around my neck.

In March 2009 I decided to transform the turf that never wanted to grow in the backyard to a flower garden and a true passion was discovered! I became instantly drawn into Nature as never before. As someone who for many years enjoyed a relaxing but detached window seat view of the outside world, to suddenly be standing inside its branches, stems, vines, and the sheer gorgeousness of flowers, well, it was nothing less than a rebirth.

What came next was what you might imagine. More work. Aside from caring for the wonderful beings inside the house, and the house itself, I had inherited the regular task of nurturing, tending and controlling the many ups and downs of the garden.

In South Florida gardening isn’t seasonal. It is year-round. It presents a glorious opportunity to be thrust into something delightful but also presents you with enough hard physical labor to bring on exhaustion.

So, for me, our “house and garden” was a benevolent behemoth I faced and — except for the blessing of a fantastic man from the Caribbean to cut the grass — took care of alone. While my spirit soared to be dancing among the enchanting and healing powers of Mother Nature, my very human shoulders began to sag under the weight of what I’d come to see was an enormous effort.

Probably the thing that worsened my load was last year’s hilarious (not) schedule of having two small children attending two different schools with two different arrival and dismissal times. It was a rigorous enough life shuttling our girls to and fro, to and fro, to and fro, and feeling myself becoming an unhappy automaton.

And ghastly things were happening to the 1942 square feet. Dust. Grime. Garden dirt entering whence the woman and caretaker of the house came and went, despite hasty shoe dances at the French doors and myriad attempts to keep the outdoors outdoors. Making their contributions, the two wannabe gardeners emulating Mommy on days off carried through the house their own soil samples, leaf veins, and ugly foundation rocks that they knew were the most beautiful things on Earth. Things really went into overdrive when the Monarchs arrived on the milkweed followed by the spiraling orange and black wings dipping and diving overhead like airborne flower pedals.

We all loved the garden I had created. For my money, it was a huge success. I loved the sight of my husband standing at the window admiring his little piece of heaven. “You really did a great job, baby,” he would say, sliding his hands in his pockets. And although I had injuries, callouses, joint pains and rough hands, my heart soared to know that my effort wasn’t for naught. There was nothing quite like seeing them enjoy my passion along with me.

All the while, our house was for sale. In this flat economy, and even flatter real estate market, we were not seeing success in that endeavor. On three separate occasions we put the For Sale sign out and then took it down. The time wasn’t right, we thought. We didn’t stop trying, though, and finally the day came. We were leaving.

By that time, relieved as I was, I was also utterly worn out. Endless showings. Endless cleaning. Endless exhaustion trying to keep it looking great and keep the garden not only alive but controlling the weeds, bugs and disease without pesticides or insecticides, a practice I am wholeheartedly dedicated to. Our 1942 square feet seemed to swell to 10,000. Being unable to hire anyone to help, I had taken on too much. And it would have surprised me a lot if someone had told me this 6 years ago when we moved in but our house was something I was happy to say goodbye to.

It brought to the forefront of my mind the knowledge that I don’t ever want a big house. I don’t even want the 1942 square feet again, at least not now.

While we await the chance to move to another state, we took an apartment. There are only 1175 square feet here. A bedroom for us and one for the kids. A nice breakfast nook beside a huge picture window boasting a view of a boring but beautifully green hedge and some anemic-looking stretches of ixora that show signs of not knowing the love of human hands. There isn’t nearly enough closet space and U-Haul boxes crowd out the dining area. But after reading the first part of this essay, you may not be surprised to know that we are all quite happy here.

In the house, the kids didn’t use their playroom. They didn’t like being so far from us. They played on unforgiving ceramic tiles and risked major boo-boos rather than play where we couldn’t be seen or even heard several rooms away. They crawled underfoot in the kitchen, taking chances with sharp knives and cast-iron skillets to ensure their nearness to us. The world of a big house, to their way of thinking, was one of separateness, isolation and, possibly, rejection.

In this smaller world of theirs we are together, with a welcome though unfamiliar calmness. We are close at hand. We are a kind of experiment in happiness, coming to our family bosom like people coming to a warm hearth. They are, undoubtedly, feeling more secure. More within easy reach of us. They have not transformed to perfect angels. That would be asking too much, and undesirable. But the acting out has greatly diminished.

I miss only one thing about the house. Of course, the garden. I left a big part of myself there. But I can do that again someday. And definitely will. Hopefully, from behind a smaller house.

Love,
Earth Girl

It’s always interesting seeing what you can find in a typical garden.

Most of all, for me, are the bugs.

Of course that’s the all-purpose term for the endless types of insects, caterpillars, spiders, and the like. And like, that word can describe my feeling towards them all.

Yes, I like bugs. A couple of weeks ago I began to notice these beautiful bright orange hairy caterpillars swarming the large oleander specimen in our front yard. It’s just fascinating how they attract a mate, with an inaudible acoustic call, heard for up to a mile. Then the cycle of life begins. What is equally incredible is the fact that while they are munching out on the leathery leaves in a serious way, they are not poisoned by one of the most poisonous plants on the planet.

And as has become my approach to garden-loving critters, I won’t spray them.

Having not used any insecticides since planting my garden, I don’t see any reason to start now. Nature is such an amazingly efficient system when left alone. Predators do the job of insecticides if only allowed to exist. Spraying the entire garden, we kill the good bugs as well as the “bad” ones. It’s like having an ocean without sharks. They are not “bad” fish but essential predators meant to control populations from exploding.

I’ve seen wasps taking care of the scale and aphids with steady and exacting effort. Thank you! Our thin black garden snakes eat hordes of undesirable bugs and leave behind intact sins shed under the protective shade of plumbagos. Dragonflies that come close to drink from the spray of my hose have reduced the mosquito population down so much that none of us has gotten bitten up.

If a plant has become weakened and ill, unless I can nurse it back to health with TLC, it will be consumed by creepy critters, after which its remains will be removed from its bed for a funeral inside a plastic bag. Sprays and soaps might have saved it but at what expense to the environment?

Hard as it seems to believe, nature has an extraordinary balance. It works marvelously all by itself. It’s only when people see insects as “bad” do we experience problems.

My habit is to take care of my plants as well as possible so that they can fight back from some polite nibbling and avoid it becoming an onslaught of epic proportions. Mainly weakened or damaged plants will be invaded by large numbers of insects, getting what they can like opportunistic looters. Strong plants can sustain themselves through a visit by hungry critters and survive.

As will our beautiful white oleander. The orange hairy caterpillars are inching away from its raggedy-looking canopy to find their perfect spots to transform into spectacular polka-dot moths, dipping and diving along shafts of sunlight and tendrils of cool breezes, amusing and entertaining all who choose to stop and admire.

I’m still in a state of grief over the death of the whale trainer at Sea World.

This did not have to happen and should not have happened but the fact that it did does not surprise me.

How on earth can any people with a shred of compassion believe that a creature the size of a killer whale can find pleasure in being alive while confined to a tank typical of those found at modern day marine parks? The answer is that it simply cannot.

A life for a sentient creature intended to roam (and rule) the world’s oceans now forced to wiggle like a goldfish in a bowl and to boot, perform stupid pet tricks, its only reward the most basic staple of food.

I know why this practice still exists. For only one reason: corporate profit.

Not education, as the owners of this circus would have us believe. Not even the less lofty purpose of entertainment. Because it makes anyone who can grasp the cruelty of it only shudder and cringe for the trapped beasts that want and deserve far, far better.

Freedom.

In this day and age one does not need a marine park to witness the glory of whales. Instead we can witness them in their natural habitats from the sail of a cruise ship, or even in a spacious sanctuary designed to allow the onlooker a chance to catch a coveted glimpse, which brings to mind a magical trip Charlie and I took to a state park in Maine. One early morning we hiked deep into the woods to a foggy-shrouded lake and caught sight of a moose feeding on moss at the lake’s floor. (It looked more like she was washing her hair!) I was awestruck at the setting, and the entire experience of seeking and finding just a faraway sighting of such a beautiful animal.

That’s how it should be. Not at all what you will experience at Sea World.

One of my many jobs was as a salesgirl and photographer at Miami’s Seaquarium many moons ago. It was a summer job and I was 16 years old. I worked in the souvenir shop but one of my other daily tasks was to drive a golf cart loaded with film to sell to tourists. During breaks on my rounds I would often stop in to visit the residents of the facility behind closed doors. The nurse sharks were a favorite. And of course the dolphins.

They, like the killer whales, had excruciatingly miniscule living quarters. A small circular tank in the stark sunlight. It was my habit to come to the tank between shows and hang my folded arms over the edge, awaiting a dolphin that might want to come talk to me.

It was not unusual to be approached by one or another, who swam to me and stopped just a few feet away. Again and again, a dolphin came toward me and turned his head this way and that, the silent gesture of curiosity sometimes shared between species.

It’s also not unusual to mistake a dolphin’s facial expression for a smile. If one is tempted to see a smile, if you look long enough, and deeply enough into a captive dolphin’s eyes — looking as you would from a human being’s perspective — you will only see a terrible and indelible sadness.

In my lifetime I will feel immense happiness when these facilities for profit are closed forever. Maybe then I can stop shaking my head.

In its place was served a chicken of some sort. It was bad. Just awful.

I had eaten my share of poultry during a previous period of a few years in which I had given up red meat and pork. Seeing this particular chicken dinner on my plate, probably the millionth chicken meal I had eaten, I was repulsed.

I truly, by that time, had eaten enough chicken to last more than my lifetime. And I wasn’t going to eat any more. So at first it was simply an overload situation, not an ethical choice. But it fit right into what had become a pattern of refusing to eat animals.

My life has never been without a pet or pets. I have always loved and in fact adored animals. Not until the bad chicken meal were my eyes opened. I could not eat animals anymore. I could not be a hypocrite. I could not be at home loving and cuddling my cats, or birdwatching in my garden, or see a field of cows grazing along the highway without feeling the contradiction, and more than a bit of shame.

How can I separate animals into groups “acceptable to consume” i.e. cows, chickens and pigs, and “unacceptable to eat” i.e. cats, dogs, parrots, etc. An animal is an animal. They all are living creatures, deserving of a happy existence in a way that God intended.

My feeling was that God had given us animals not to eat but to help us plow fields, haul building materials, and other such “beast of burden” chores. If they weren’t helping mankind with the many tasks of life they were here to befriend, to learn how to love and be loved, to make us laugh, and of course, to feed other animals that are their predators.

Mother Nature, you know. It’s a jungle out there.

So eating these God given animals just didn’t make sense, and seemed like a spiritual crime.

It’s like the bear skin rug I may have dreamed of having someday, lying on it fireside in some romantic scenario of younger, more naive days. How would I come to receive this bear skin rug? Did the bear skin rug people just roam the woods looking for bears that died naturally? Or did a person with a powerful gun hunt one down to satisfy that romantic scenario? What harm that closed eyes can cause!

In our society we have many ways of covering up our eyes. We have names like porterhouse, chops, hamburger (not a bit of ham in it), and patties. Euphemisms them all, and many more my weary mind can’t just now recall. When we shop for food, we buy our meat packaged quite nicely, void of anything unpleasant. Filleted professionally and laid out on a Styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic. It’s not a cow. It’s a pretty package. Hell, you could even tie it up with a bow it’s so pretty. lol

Point being that we want our eyes closed. We don’t want to see any hint of the history behind our pretty packages. The animal that stood up for most of its entire life, its head between the bars of a stanchion, unable to turn around. Never seeing the sun or breathing fresh air. Or the sow made to endure pregnancy after pregnancy and have each piglet yanked away from her too soon. The abuse that is common would make even the most devoted carnivore retch.

I can’t paint too much of this picture because it’s too painful for me to elaborate the crimes committed in the many factory farms across this country. They do not have the time for compassion. They are there to satisfy a demand. The animals are only a meal, after all, so why must we treat them well or kindly? We will only be consuming it later on, so why bother to consider its quality of life? It’s just a cow for pete’s sake!

In my very humble opinion, we must do just that. Vegetarians know we won’t convert everyone to our way of thinking. But we can convince them that compassionate farming practices are necessary, and right. If it costs more to buy organic meat, we will. If it means the cattle, cows and chickens are at least living a decent life the way God intended before they must die for us, we should make damn sure of it.

If you are one of the devoted carnivores, you aren’t a bad person. You would benefit greatly by giving up meat, so perhaps health concerns can sway you sometime soon. If you never want to give up meat, please buy only certified organic. Don’t support the factory farms. Don’t give your money to promote the neglect and abuse of God’s creatures.

I grew up eating steaks almost daily. I ate cows, pigs, chickens (please not that!), and anything that everyone else was eating. Until my eyes were opened.

The choice I made to not eat animals has never been regretted.

You are what you eat. A corny catchphrase or truth?

I feel it’s the latter. We ingest drink and solids and it becomes a part of us, our cells, arteries, organs, skin, etc. What we eat nourishes us — in the instance of a person choosing to eat healthily — or destroys us, in the instance of a person choosing to eat poorly.

My favorite public senior citizen, Jack Lalanne likes to say, “Junk in, junk out.” He’s in his mid-90s now and has long been a strict vegan. He hasn’t eaten sugar since 1929. On his recent 95th birthday he performed 95 push ups. Can many of us make that claim even at half that age?

So clearly, what we do and what we eat determines, to a great extent, what kind of health we will enjoy. If longevity is your goal, and it is mine, it seems obvious that we are in a strong position to help make it happen. Surely genes play a role but all the research shows that lifestyle is critical too. In fact, 80% of breast cancers are found in women with no hereditary risk factors.

It’s an American pastime to laugh off our shortcomings or lack of commitment to practice good health habits. It seems almost a birthright. But we’re only playing a bit of the fool.

Eating meat, I feel, is a mistake if your goal is either quality of health or longevity. Animal fat is an inflammatory food. What’s worse is the fact that animals living in factory farms, the vast majority of livestock raised to become food on our plates, is such an enormous business, that humane living conditions and slaughter are impossible. Therefore, the animals that will become your meal, are suffering throughout their lives a kind of abnormal, unnatural, uncomfortable misery for whatever their lifespan will be.

If your idea of farm animals is that of a cow grazing in a green pastureland or a pig happily prancing in a mud bath, it will shock you to know that this is — with the exception of organic farm animals — a thing of the past.

The dairy cows and pigs whose lives are created to become our food are deprived every creature comfort, kept in too-small, filthy, dark wastelands where they never experience a moment of even the most basic of needs. They are enslaved in a life of bearing more and more babies so that the highly mechanized machine can keep churning out breakfast lunch and dinner. They never see the sun, never feel the earth beneath their hooves.

It might seem implausible to some but to my thinking, to eat the flesh of these animals is to take in the final product of their experience. If the stress hormone cortisol is flooding an animals bloodstream on a daily basis, will it exist in its carcass, its flesh? Will that stress hormone — if I eat it — transfer to my body?

Science, to my limited knowledge, hasn’t presented any stats on this but my instinct tell me that yes, the stress an animal experiences from its barren existence will — in the eating of its flesh — become mine.

So I don’t eat meat. Not beef, not pork, not poultry. I do eat wild-caught fish such as Alaskan salmon but not farmed fish, which also suffer similar lifestyles as cows and pigs stuck in fisheries and given antibiotics.

The issues of antibiotics steroids and other things injected into the animals is another post for another day.

For now, if you’re one of the uninitiated, it would pay to educate yourself about how the factory farms work. How they abuse animals that are our country’s main food supply. You must see it with your own eyes to understand it.

The videos are painful to watch, and only make me deeply sad and furious. But to keep our eyes closed is to be ignorant with one’s greatest asset, our health. Visit PETA’s website. Order a vegetarian starter kit. Start a small annual membership with only $16. This group, led by Ingrid Newkirk, is the only organization willing to stick its neck out and dare to inform people. You might not like their methods but they get results. They change living conditions of animals. In turn, they do a priceless public service.

Next time I want to touch on what it’s like to become a vegetarian. As a child of the sixties raised on almost-daily steak dinners, it was a big change for me 9 years ago on my 40th year. But it was also one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and have never regretted.