Tag Archives: earth

Up and Running

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I have been getting up early to run these past few mornings.  I love to do that.  The problem is that it is hard to get up early.  At least, it’s hard to get up early enough to be back in time to get all of us ready for work and school and whatnot.  I’m rising in the dark, and it is only going to get darker.  And then I’ll get all used to the darkness slowly shifting they’ll throw daylight savings at me.  I pretty much hate daylight savings.  Why can’t we just pick where the clocks will be?

Anyway, I’m getting up early.  I have to be all careful so I don’t wake the woman in the bed next to me who has tried so hard to sleep all night.  I have to be quiet as I walk down the hall and down the creeky stairs so I don’t wake the children.  I always step on some toy or bang into some chair left in an odd place.  I rarely get out without some loud crash or bump or screech.  But get out I do.

And when I do, the sun is working on the back side of Camel’s Hump and the sky glows and the low clouds are tinged with pink and the world is just beautiful.  It is hard not to enjoy it when the day starts off with its show.  Cloudy, rainy, clear, snowing, whatever, it is always beautiful.  If you can’t see it you need glasses or something.  Or you live in a place where you can’t see the world around you.  Because the world is just plain old stunning as the sun rises and the wind shakes the dew from the turning leaves and the spider webs grace the goldenrod.  I may be tired but it is so worth it.

Tomorrow morning I will try to rise again, even earlier.  The farther I want to go the earlier I need to rise.  So once I really get to the high mileage I need to get up way early.  But I’m just doing the shorties now–one to five miles–just to get out there and feel the morning and to get moving.  Sure, I’ll train for something sooner or later, and sure, I’ll run later in the day at times, but I need to remember, when I am bleary eyed and tuckered, that the early morning will give me a shot better than any espresso.

My shoes get wet as I walk across the dew-covered grass.  A late bat swoops over the field.  The asters quake in the breeze.  And the smell of fallen leaves mingles with a far off skunk and damp earth.  It makes one appreciate being alive.

Tomato Update

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A bit ago I posted about transplanting tomato plants from small to large pots.  One of them in particular was not doing well.  It sagged.  It hung low.  It looked poorly.  I thought it would kick it.  But check this out:

 

Limp No Longer

Limp No Longer

The plant on the left is the same one that was all droopy before.  A little water, a little sun and bam!  Healthy(ish) plant.

I still am not ready quite yet to pop them in the ground.  Rain showers are forecast for the next four days.  And it is cool.  These puppies like it hot.  Some time this week, hopefully, I will start exposing them to the outside air.  They need to get some experience before they get to the work of growing tomatoes.

I am hopeful that we will get some fruit off these bad boys.  If only it didn’t take so long.  I suppose, however, that that is part of the joy of it–watching fruit burst from a tiny seed.  So I can be patient, even though I can almost taste what will come.  A juicy red slice on a hot summer day?  Now we’re talking.

Plastic Crap

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I have way too much plastic crap.  It is all around me.  This computer is mostly plastic.  I eat off plastic.  I wear plastic.  I drive around in a vehicle made largely of plastic.  I am swimming in plastic.  I mean this, at least occasionally, literally.  Have you ever been to one of those kid play spaces where one can wade through a sea of multi-colored plastic balls?  I have.  It was a nice swim.  And it was lots of plastic.

Seriously.  Look around.  Plastic is everywhere.  And we take it for granted.  If you do a little reading about plastic and if you start noticing, it gets a little scary.  Think about this:  Except for a minuscule amount that has been incinerated, every bit of plastic ever created still exists.  It doesn’t go away.  It doesn’t biodegrade.  It doesn’t go back to the earth.  It sits around and clutters up the place.

Here is something you should know.  In the North Pacific Ocean there is a patch of water that spins slowly around so that everything floating in it eventually comes together.  It is called the North Pacific subtropical gyre, and it contains more plastic than any other place on earth.  It covers the surface of the ocean in an area about twice the size of Texas.  For those of you not familiar with United States geography, Texas is a state and it is, as the locals like to brag, really really big.

And then there is this:  this gyre is one of five.  There are four others.  They are filled with bottle caps and chairs and bags and toy dolls and flip flops and logs of Styrofoam.  All the plastic that gets tossed aside somewhere without being buried eventually makes it to the ocean.  It floats about and floats about.  It never goes away.  Some of it breaks down into smaller pieces but it never loses its molecular structure.  The plastic bag that you used one time to carry a plastic bottle of lotion (that you also used one time) flies out your window and will be around for hundreds of years.  At least.

One woman decided she would try to keep things in check.  She decided to try to reduce her plastic use so that as little plastic as possible was added to her life.  She keeps a blog that I have been reading, and I recommend it.  It is inspiring.  It has made me keenly aware of my own plastic consumption and waste.  She calls it Fake Plastic Fish and its tag line is this:  Fake Plastic Fish… they’re cute, and if we don’t solve our plastic problem, they could be the only kind we have left.

If you want to read a fascinating, albeit disturbing, article about plastic, check out Our Oceans are Turning Into Plastic… Are We? It is a thorough read that should get you thinking.  If you are a thinking person, that is.

I now try even harder to keep plastic out of my house.  I have been an advocate of reducing plastic use for a long time, but these days I have been ever more aware of how much it is a spawn of the deh-vill, as my friend Skip would say.  Look around.  I bet you see plastic everywhere you turn.  My guess is that anyone reading this has plastic on his or her body at this moment.  Fleece?  Watch?  Hair clip?  Buttons?  I dare you to tell me you have no plastic on your body.

Again, I have way too much plastic crap.  All these toys and markers hanging around the house don’t help.  I don’t want to revert back to 150 years ago, when plastic did not exist yet.  Plastic has made a huge difference in all our lives.  Think of medicine and food safety, for a couple examples.  But, since only a small percentage of plastic gets recycled, even that which gets dumped into the blue bins to be recycled, I ask you this:  Is that mocha frappuccino you had recently really worth it?  That plastic cup was molded, packed, shipped, unpacked, pulled from a plastic sleeve, filled with that cold frothy drink and served to you.  You enjoyed it for half an hour, if you are a slow sipper, and that cup’s plastic will outlast your great grandchildren’s great grandchildren.

Makes you want to get a good (stainless steel) travel mug, doesn’t it?