Book Review: Earth Day: An Alphabet Book

Simple is the best way to describe this little book.

Simplicity of design, text, and color earmark a tight little alphabet book that celebrates the earth and all its creatures.

There are no overt messages here about being ecologically aware, or about celebrating the Earth Day holiday. Each two-page spread introduces animals, plants, and insects with fresh, crisp illustrations. Alliteration creates a rhythm for words often grouped in surprising ways, like "bumblebees, bananas, blueberries and beagles." (I have to say I have never considered blueberries and beagles in the same sentence before).

Given the readability rating for a sampling of the text (9.9 on Flesch-Kincaid grade scale) this is a book for reading aloud to a child rather than one which a young child would read alone. Reading aloud offers opportunities to teach early literacy skills on each page. The reader might ask the child, "What other words do you know that start with B?" or, "What color is the elephant?" Large letters at the top of each page can be traced with little fingers to learn the letters' shapes, and the sounds of the letters could be practiced .

A slight disappointment is that some words are not illustrated; there are no raspberries on the page with the "R" words, and no nasturtium on the "N" page, for example, even though these words are included in the text. A young child would probably have no idea what a nasturtium looks like, so a learning opportunity is lost on pages that include words that are not illustrated.

With a title like Earth Day, I would have expected a page or two at the end of the book explaining the Earth Day holiday and its significance, or some suggestions for enjoying nature with a young child. Such information would have enhanced the book's value to caregivers, parents and educators.

Earth Day is a gentle, easy read celebrating the diversity of life. The book's enjoyment can be enhanced with early literacy techniques and activities to develop a child's understanding of language, and with nature activities to extend the awareness of our earth and its living creatures.

Written by Gary Kowalski
Illustrator: Rocco Baviera
Published by Unitarian Universalist Association, May 2009
ISBN-13: 9781558965423
Age Range: 4 to 8
32pages
$12.00

For ideas on exploring nature with a young child check out these websites:

Family Fun Magazine article on outdoor activities

Canadian Child Care Federation's article on Exploring Nature with Children

Exploring Nature.org offers pages of information and activities for children

Project Wild offers a printable brochure of ideas

The Sierra Club's website includes a section that addresses "what can I teach my child about the environment?"

Book Review: Rain Gardening in the South

Rain Gardening in the South is a how-to book for those who are interested in "ecologically designed gardens for drought, deluge and everything in between," according to its cover. That intrigued me.

We've had droughts the past two years and further south the drought has been even longer. This summer I thought I heard old Noah out back measuring in cubits during the many long rainy spells we've had; flooding has been imminent many times. As for the "in between": we've had snows, high winds, late frosts, and a killer ice storm six years back. So certainly a lot of variety in the local climate. I wanted to know what the authors proposed as a solution to the many dangers a gardener faces from the weather.

As it turns out, what I expected the book to be about wasn't exactly what it was about. The authors give step by step instructions for constructing garden spaces that preserve water and drain off excess rainfall in an ecologically healthy way. Double-digging, soil corrections, drains, mulch, contouring and careful selection of plants are the keys to this gardening method. Each chapter covers a different part of the process, from the planning stage to the completed garden. A section on resources and contacts, a chapter on troubleshooting and one on water barrels and cisterns, and an index round out the book's offerings.

The benefits of this method of gardening are manifold. Protection of topsoil and waterways and healthier gardens are the obvious ones. The impact is deeper and wider, however; less water runs off onto hard surfaces and into storm drains; rainfall is filtered before entering storm drains, and stored water is also filtered as it makes its way to the water table. The careful planning and attention to plant selection results in beautiful, hardy gardens that do not need as much maintenance as the traditional method of planting.

What can this method of gardening benefit those who live deep in rural countryside? There are few hard surfaces in the country to worry about runoff, and often nary a storm drain in sight. Even the roads might be gravel and porous enough to handle some run-off. Why would someone in the country want to try rain gardening?

It only takes watching a heavy thunderstorm pass through to realize the answer. Run-off, especially in hilly country, is a real problem. Gullies carve down the hillsides, creeks churn red with washed-out soil. In drought conditions, every drop of rain is precious, yet if we have had a long period of dry weather, the rain that does fall often pounds on hard soil and runs off. So for those who are willing to put in the time, effort and expense of a rain garden installation, the results would a boon to the environment both immediate and further downstream. For anyone who has gardened in raised beds, the methods employed in rain gardening are very similar, and the costs probably comparable. We're not talking thousands of dollars, except perhaps in terms of sweat equity.

The book includes some excellent planning tools and plant selection charts that detail the varieties by height, sun/shade and water requirements, color and other features. Even if you never plant a rain garden, the plant charts are a great resource. I was disappointed that the book did not address vegetable gardens, a topic near and dear to us country types. These plantings are purely ornamental and functional, not edible. Maybe there is another edition in the works for the vegetable gardener.

Rain Gardening in the South: Ecologically Designed Gardens for Drought, Deluge, and Everything in Between by Helen Krause and Anne Spafford. Eno Publishers, 2009
ISBN-10: 0982077106
ISBN-13: 978-0982077108

$19.95

Simple Gifts

I used to hang out my laundry all the time. We didn't have a dryer. Twice I fell while carrying baskets of wet clothes--one fall produced a broken foot (try that when you're pregnant!) and the other a badly sprained ankle. When the dryer came, I quit hanging out clothes thankfully.

Funny how we go full circle sometimes. For the past year I've wanted a clothesline again. We still had the poles but they were in the wrong spot. I kept talking about it. Wouldn't it be nice to have sheets that smell of sunshine? Wouldn't it save on our electric bill? At the same time, I realized that given my limited amount of time at home in the evenings and even on weekends, hanging out laundry might actually be a luxury I could not afford as far as time was concerned.

But one day a few weeks ago, I came home to find that Larry had pulled up and re-set the poles in a new, sunny location. I was thrilled. But the weather didn't cooperate on the weekends I was home--until Sunday.

Sunday I hung out four loads. They dried in less than an hour. The clothes smell wonderful. The dryer didn't run all day (my dryer is not working right, I think, because it takes at least 90 minutes to dry one load--ugh).

Such a simple thing, hanging out laundry. Wooden clothespins, sunshine and a nice breeze, clothes fluttering colorfully in the yard--it was part of my life for a long time, and it is good to have it back. I find that we are slowly simplifying our life by removing some of the "conveniences" we've added over the years. First the TV left, then the dishwasher. Quiet returned in their place. Now the dryer will be silent too, at least some of the time.

We will keep the dryer because I know that there will be many times I will still need it, unlike the TV and dishwasher that are seldom missed. But one more thing is unplugged, one more tiny drop in the electric bill, and one more activity that will take me outside to enjoy the sun and air has been restored.

Simple gifts. They're the best kind.

More Snow

These were taken Saturday on our way to and from town. I took over 100 photos because the snow was just so breathtakingly pretty. They're not in order exactly, just the way I selected them to post.

Along Joe's Run, near the forks of the creek.


Through a windshield brightly.

Front yard sun and shadows.

Sun and shadows from the porch.


And the long view on the way to Ripley. That's our ridge 'way out there somewhere.

What You Can Meet on the Way to Work

The other day I posted the kind of things I usually see on the way to work--turkeys, flowers, deer...

A convoy of ten trucks passed as we waited on the side of the road last week. Our road is one lane--there's no passing these guys.

But this is something we see more and more often on our narrow country road--drilling trucks for gas wells. Right now there are at least two wells in progress. The noise has to be heard to be understood.

These trucks are the ones that come to "frac" (fracture) a well. They blow nitro (I'm not sure what that exactly is) into the drilled hole, and the force fractures the rock far below the surface, allowing the gas to pool into the well--I think that's how it works anyway. The noise is like a high-pressured balloon losing air, loud and prolonged, sometimes lasting several hours. Dust flies, too, something I had not realized until the well about a half mile away was frac'ed this weekend. The dust blew across our land for several hours--probably a combination of steam and dust, actually.

View of the steam/dust from the well on Bucket run

Tonight as Larry and I sat outside enjoying the fire pit and the Little Dipper hanging over our house, another well, several miles away, was being frac'ed--or maybe it was some other process. Every now and then we'd hear a noise like the air brakes being let off a giant truck. A surprising sound out here in the middle of nowhere.

There have been many well drilled along this ridge in the past two years--I'd guess there are at least twenty. These are natural gas wells. Where does the gas go? I don't know, but it's a safe bet that it's out of state.

Who gets the money? If the landowner owns the mineral rights, they get 1/8 of production usually. We own 50% so we get 1/16th. That means that if the well produces $14,000 worth of gas, we might get $900 after the costs that are deducted before we're paid. The landowner might also get free gas for household use.

If the landowner does not own the mineral rights, they get nothing except one "surface disturbance" payment, and perhaps right-of-way damages. They might get a gas tap but have to pay for the gas produced on their land.

However, everyone in the area has to deal with the noise, the big trucks, the damage to the roads, and the runoff into the streams because of inadequate erosion control. Eventually the drilling in this area will be finished (because there are regulations that control how close wells can be drilled to each other). The big trucks will leave, the erosion will slowly end. The road will probably never be fully repaired and we'll always have to deal with the additional traffic of the well tenders on our roads and on our property.

America will have more natural gas, and the lucky landowners will have a little more cash. I wonder though, if it's worth the damage and the change to our environment? I vote no. Even the royalty check and free gas don't make up for the damage to the land (most wells are drilled on prime locations for building, on meadows and good pastureland, or in woodlands that could have had marketable timber).

And nothing can make up for the noise that disturbed an otherwise lovely country evening tonight.

My Carbon Footprint

I've been hearing about "carbon footprints." It's a measure of our personal greenhouse gas emissions, based on our response to a few questions. Today, after attending a Green Building seminar, I checked on my footprint at the Environmental Protection Agency's site.

For a country dweller, the test is a little difficult. Question #1, for example, asks how I heat my house. There are three choices: gas, oil, electric. No category for "other." We heat with wood, so where does that fit?

I left the button pushed on "gas." Well, we will hook up to the free natural gas from our gas well this year, so I'm projecting future use. But wouldn't a wood stove produce some greenhouse gas?

Then I'm asked my monthly gas bill. Hmmm. I don't have one, and won't even when we hook up. But what about the gas and oil for tractor, truck and chain saw? How does that factor in?

So I found this quick test to be a bit of a puzzle. Based on what I decided might be good answers, my score for our household of 2, even with the extensive amount of driving we do, is 31,742. Average for a two-person household is 41,500.

There are other parts of my life that were not included--like, we raise a major portion of our food. That should reduce our footprint because of the costs of transporting food. I buy used--almost all my clothing, furniture, housewares, tools, etc. Shouldn't that be as valuable as, say, recycling paper? I pack my lunch most days, carry my coffee in a reusable cup, recycle food scraps and egg shells to the animals, use wood ash in my gardens, save cottage cheese and yogurt and those plastic "clamshell" containers to re-use in the greenhouse. These activities should have some impact on my footprint, but apparently there is no way to measure all the many "other" categories in my life.

The goal is to have a rating of "0". Maybe one day, when I am finally not driving over 100 miles a day, I can get closer to that goal. Re-calculating to reflect 100 miles a week instead of 100 miles a day, my footprint drops to 11,691.

One day it will happen. It's a goal, not a dream.

Have you checked your footprint lately?


For information on green buildings, go to the EPA's site, or to the US Green Building Council site.