Snowshoeing

Today we went snowshoeing at the Ledgeview Nature Center in Chilton.  It was a nice day for it.  The sun wasn't out, but it was warm and not snowing or raining.  We went to the Ledgeview Nature Center this past summer for an annual event they have called the Fall Harvest Fest.  We decided to go back since we saw on their website that they have snowshoeing.  We enjoyed our time!  We were out there for about 1 hour and it was fun!  Toward the end I was getting pretty tired, realizing that we were going mostly uphill was mentally defeating!  I'm looking forward to getting out on the snowshoes again.  We got our WI state park pass for Christmas from my Mom and Dad like I asked, so we hope to get to a park where we go snowshowing, and attempt to bring the dogs with us. Snowshoeing is fun!  I've lived in Wisconsin my whole life and have always complained about the winter.  I figured I'd better find a reason to enjoy winter, and I think snowshoeing is it! -L

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To our friends and family and blog visitors -  MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

We hope for a happy holiday time with family and friends, and a peaceful 2009!

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." -Indira Gandhi

Delicious Shrimp Dip

Ready for a tasty, calorically sinful shrimp dip recipe?  Try this (makes a BIG party sized batch):

Mix together until smooth and creamy:

24oz. cream cheese (lowfat is what I use)

1 - 6oz. can tiny shrimp with liquid

2 - 6oz. cans tiny shrimp, liquid drained

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onion

1 fresh lemon squeezed

Refrigerate.

Serve on whole wheat crackers, or your favorite cracker.

Say "yum!"

The World's Largest Dump: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I know that I've posted on this before, but I think it's so important for people to understand this.  Here's the story: Floating in the Pacific ocean is a massive island of trash. Now, researchers have decided to map the size, content, and density of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

read more | digg story

A simple idea...

Although some people might describe me as a little on-edge (admitedly I have been in the past!!!), I truly feel that over the past couple of years I have just calmed down. I think most of this is thanks to Tim, who is the yin to my yang! For my level of anxiety, Tim has just that much calmness! I think it's finally rubbing off :) I feel more relaxed. I was just thinking how many people I know are caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. They aren't "done with their shopping", they have so many parties to attend, they dropped $200 on gifts for ONE child...and all of it sounds like work, rather than fun. How miserable, living your life caught up in the expectations of everyone else. My mindset is that we should just keep it simple. Life doesn't need to be complicated and stressful. Let's volunteer ourselves for Simplicity! We should live our lives in a deliberate fashion, in which we make educated choices that are based on what is best for not only us, but for the people around us and the environment! The more simple we are, the better off things will be - at least for me. I don't need to spend a lot of money to feel happy. I don't need to be stretched in several directions in one time, meeting the demands of everyone but myself. I will take life at the pace it delivers, always trying to remember that life is best when it's SIMPLE! -L

Subway Reefs

Subway Reefs - what? I just read an article at NY Times about how we are destroying cold water reefs, which are necessary reefs for sealife reproduction and habitat. Here us humans go destroying things again....but wait?!?! We have a solution. It might sound weird, but what if we sink a bunch of old subway rail cars in the ocean, giving back the sealife a habitat. Apparently after some scientific study the state of Delaware decided to drop 48 old rail cars in to the ocean. I'm being a skeptic about this, but I think that there are probably chemicals galore on these subway cars from paint, etc. But, who am I to judge this to be a bad idea? I'm not a scientist afterall. Well, now Delaware has another problem since they dumped these rail cars into the ocean - growing pains. The good news is that the sealife is actually increasing! However, the area where the rail cars are has a growing traffic problem with fisherpeople. Commercial fishers are are dragging nets across, and their nets are tangling with local anglers who are MAD! Surprisingly, someone must have asked some questions about the asbestos found in the old rail cars. State and Federal officals state that asbestos is not a threat to marine life, and has to be airborne to pose a threat to us innocent humans. Yes, and haven't they also said that DDT was safe, only to change their minds after our countries symbol, the eagle, starting dying off at a rapid pace - directly related to DDT? Yuk! I am so disgusted by the idea of dropping human junk into the ocean. Although the ocean DID need repair, is this really the most reasonable solution? I have an idea, let's put all our old cars, ships, airplanes, buses, and other forms of public transportation in the ocean too. Then we can watch the poison take over the sealife, while we continue to consume it and wonder why we are dying of cancer and other diseases.

I hope you can sense my sarcasm here, I'm feel a bit cheeky today! :) But seriously, doesn't this just seem absurd?! Funny thing is, the place this is all taking place is appropriately called "Slaughter Beach, Del."

Due North!

Tim and I just returned from a little escape to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I have been to the U.P. before, but wasn't there long enough, nor was I quite mature enough to understand the true beauty that the U.P. has.  Where we went was a very northern area of the U.P. - the Keweenaw Peninsula.  It was just amazing!  Pretty much the entire time we were there it was snowing, but it was a light, gentle snow fall - lake effect.  The peninsula has Lake Superior on the west, north, and east side.  We spent time outdoor snowshoeing as well as spending time in the Houghton/Hancock area.  My favorite areas that we visited was the north west and north east side of the peninsula.  It was so beautiful!  Since the population is smaller, taking in the scenery was easy...we didn't have to fight for a picture, and we rarely crossed paths with other people on the road. When we did, they were locals and usually raised their hand to wave.  Some day, when we achieve our dream of having a homestead, we would like to make it in the northwoods (WI or MI).  The Keweenaw Peninsula was surely a fit for our goals. To the right are some pictures from our travels of the Lake Superior area.  Our trip was the perfect scenery of snow, trees, water, and peace.  -L

Getting excited about what we don't know!

Hi everyone!  It seems like a lot of the eco websites and blogs I read are a lot of doom and gloom.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are doing bad things to this planet, but we have to remain hopeful for improving our ways, as well as remain hopeful for that which we do not know.  I was recently reading the December issue of National Geographic and they had a snippet about some of the fieldwork that is being done by scientists, archeologists, and the like.   I read about a group of scientists on the island Vanuatu (which is in the South Pacific).  Over 5-months 150 scientists went over the island studying species.  Over 10,000 species were found, 2,000 of them may be completely new to science.  It is quoted by French mollusk expert Phillippe Couchet that "80 percent of the world's species remain to be discovered."  What an amazing thing to think about since most of the animals, plant life, etc. we hear about are going extinct!  Hopefully we can continue to discover WITHOUT harming natural habitats.    Reading that article made me hopeful for what our future here on earth holds.

In effort to be green...

Funny story about this weekend.  It was an extended weekend due to the Thanksgiving holiday.  So, we had to keep ourselves busy.  One project for Tim was to add insulation to our attic.  It's currently insulated, but no as up to par as it should be.  The insulation up there is something from the 60's.  We decided we would get "Green Fiber" which can be blown in, or dropped in by hand in selected areas.  It's completely recycled material...basically looked like pocket lint.  Why didn't I think of that?  Anyhow, I was taking a shower.  I heard Tim up in the attic and a big noise, but thought nothing of it.  Well, Tim knocked on the bathroom door to inform me that his foot slipped and that it when careening into the attic floor, which happened to be the ceiling in our kitchen.   I looked on the floor, there was a pile of the old insulation on the floor.  Then I looked to the ceiling, where there wasn't a clear break, but obviously sustained some damage due to his foot slipping.  Thankfully, he didn't come crashing through the ceiling, but the work that came next would have been pretty much the same.  Since the ceiling was cracked Tim had to cut it out and replace the hole with drywall.  Nothing like looking at the ceiling in your kitchen and seeing right into the attic!  As an after thought I should have taken a picture of the damage, but all I have is a picture of the drywall replaced, taped, and putty.  Now Tim has a week long project of finishing off the ceiling.  Funny!  It's laughable now, but neither of us were very enthused about it in the first place.

Whatever happened to anti-litter campaigns?

I have a recollection of some anti-litter campaigns, maybe in the 80's?   Maybe some of you readers remember.  I specifically have this memory about  learning about cutting the plastic of six-pack beer or soda rings so that they six-pack rings don't get washed out to waterways and strangle birds and fish.  Seems like I haven't even seen those plastic six-pack rings in ages.  I also haven't seen many environmental campaigns as of late, including anything about not littering.  

Lately I feel like I've had this extra awareness about what littering does to the environment.  I have the benefit of working on the East River, where I watch fish, waterfowl, woodchucks, squirrels and some feral cats enjoy the environment.  However I wonder how much they are enjoying the environment since I also have watched plastic bags, balls, shoes, and a Labatt Blue cooler float up and down the river for the past year and a half since I've worked at my window.   At home, we live on the Fox River, where we've had deli containers, balls, styrofoam, toys, and other junk wash up on our shoreline.  Yesterday on the East River I saw a dead goose float by...maybe it was a natural death.  

Today, I was more disturbed.   I had a half day at work and I decided to take the dogs for a walk mid-afternoon down our road which parallels the Fox River.  About halfway through our walk I heard some fluttering from above.  I looked up and gasped.   I saw a bird's nest and hanging from the bird's nest was a blue jay, completely wrapped up on fishing line which was wrapped around it's head.  It was flapping it's wings, but couldn't go anywhere because it was  being strangled by the line.  I looked like a bird had made a nest in spring, partially with fishing line instead of grass.  The blue jay was by the nest and an unfortunate comedy of errors took place.  I didn't know what to do.  I'm not sure if somehow cutting it down would allow it to survive?  It was in a tree in someone's yard and they are people I don't know.  I continued on the walk just a little more and turned around to go home and call the village offices.  Upon calling the village, I explained the situation and she transferred me to the police department.  They said they would send someone out.  I'm not exactly sure what they ended up doing, but I did see the police drive by.    If some idiot wouldn't have littered fishing line behind, this situation never would have happened.  

In present time humans are littering in ways beyond the obvious.  An obvious way of littering is leaving your trash behind, or throwing something out the car window.  We can see the result of this.  Now, we even litter in ways we are unable to see (and have been for a long time).   We recently watched a PBS special about a nonprofit that treats sea lions and seals  that are left to die on the California coastline.  They have researched these animals that are coming in with similar problems like seizures and brain damage and have found that all that exhibit this behavior have a levels of an acid (that develops by chain reaction) which is essentially caused by fertilizer and sewage that flows into the ocean from area rivers, mostly along the shores where the seals lives.  It is just absurd that although fertilizers are clearly deemed as hazardous chemicals continue to be legal, consumed by people, and dumped all over the environment.  

I wonder what it will take for people to realize this planet is not invincible. For people to realize, this is not OUR planet...we share it will all kinds.