small things

Sometime a few months ago I was taking a shower, soaping down, and it occurred to me that I was probably polluting the ground water (let alone my body) with chemicals. Some communities recycle “gray water” – what comes from household and commercial drains. I wish we did.

I decided then and there to at least use body wash and laundry soap without chemicals. It may seem like a small thing for one house, but I think with each small step, expectations get lifted for the whole community and society. If I demand small measures of myself, I’ll start demanding bigger measures of my culture.

So here’s some free advertising.

Tom's of Maine Moisturizing Body Wash is available at our local drug stores and big grocery chain. The bottle says:

"Products & ingredients tested without the use of animals. No artificial fragrances, colors or preservatives. No synthetic detergents. Biodegradable. No animal fats."

What I love is that it smells like lavender – heavenly!

Ecos laundry detergent, which we buy more cheaply at Whole Foods (half the price, believe it or not!) than Meijer. The label reads:

"Plant-based surfactants, soap bark, chamomile, horsetail plant, lavender, rosemary, based softener (soy), essential oil of lemon grass, purified water, no SLS."

What else I love about it is a) it cleans very well, and b) you don’t have to use fabric softener.

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Water purification project

I’m always interested to hear about how folks are dealing with environmental problems. I especially am gratified when students from my own University are involved.

Four graduate students from MSU are part of a project that has received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop membrane water purifying systems around the world.

They’ll be working with Duke University in the US, and universities in Russia, Ukraine and France on technology that develops membranes for purifying water.

“Membrane-based technologies selectively remove things such as chemicals and particles from water,” said [Tom] Voice, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “They are analogous to filters except they remove things that are smaller and separate on the basis of chemistry and size. Our project is looking at developing new types of membranes and membrane systems that perform better in water treatment applications.”

The MSU students will work on membranes that remove larger molecules in the water.

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Memorial Day parade 2007

Thankfully, it was 20˚ cooler at this year's Memorial Day parade than last year's. Today it was a perfect 70˚F.


The director of the parade told the kids lining up, "This parade is not about you, it's about our veterans." This little guy saw me and my camera across the street and gave me a photo op smile every time I lifted the camera to my eye.




I got choked up when these WWII veterans walked by.




But when these loved ones of a soldier who died in Iraq came, I really lost it. All their t-shirts have a photo of him as well.

When I saw this man's t-shirt, I thought, oh brother! He's a real party-er. But later, after we got home, it dawned on me that his shirt may have been about the US war in Iraq.

Here are Little Mr. Dansville and Little Miss Dansville.

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honeybees: colony collapse disorder

Viruses, fungal infections, suppressed immune systems, pesticides, herbicides, parasites – have they caused honeybees to lose their sense of direction? Why have they disappeared in such alarming numbers?

Some bee farmers have lost 90% of their hives. And usually there are no dead bees around the hives. They’re just gone.

I never knew before this crisis that farmers and orchard owners bring in truckloads of bees to fertilize their crops. I should have known, but I just never thought about how all our crops are fertilized.

Many of those bees are GONE! The effect on our food supply should be drastic! It is very alarming, and the scientists are only guessing what the cause is. They don’t know.


Yesterday I read this great column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Gate, titled “Apocalypse Of The Honeybees: How poetically appropriate that the End of Humanity should come from such a tiny, sweet source.”

He writes, “. . . here's the bottom line: Regardless of whether or not we figure it out, Colony Collapse Disorder is merely one more of those charming warning signs, one of those increasingly frequent messages from the gods writ large across the sky of humanity's arrogance and merciless abuse of nature's integrity. Hell, it's an abuse we've engaged in for so long we don't even really think about it anymore. And therein lies our likely demise.”



On our little farm, we have our own honeybee hive in the hollow of a tree (drat I deleted those photos last year, they were bad, but they would have shown you!), so we’re hoping our own fruit trees will be fertilized.

Rauf tells me there are no bees in India. Women (small fingers) fertilize the crops. Did the same thing happen there? (Thank you, rauf, for the correction.) I miswrote that there are no bees in India. He was talking about "Vanilla, which was not grown in India until recently, and the bees to pollinate the flowers are not found here, it is manually done by farm hands specially ladies, as it is a delicate process."

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Cottage work day

Saturday was the the spring cleaning day at Hukilau, our family cottage. We raked, washed, cleaned, put up screens, put the dock in, drank coffee, ate barbecue pork (thanks, Wilma), talked, dreamed, planned and enjoyed one another -- and the cottage and lake.

Paul and his son Eli raking

Lydia, Eli and Don scrubbing screens for the porch

Ha! These are the screw brackets for the screens/windows. Anyone who has put these up or taken them down can feel the burn from the screws on their fingers and thumbs. Ouch!

Aden and Asher helped by being happy boys who entertained us with their cuteness.

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Sunset at Holland State Park

Last Thursday, after spending the day at Tulip Time in Holland (you can see this week's photos from that day at flying), I left my brothers and their families on 8th Street for the beach.

I wanted to get to the beach to see the sun set, and I barely made it. I pulled into the parking lot, and the chin had already dipped below the horizon.

When I got to the entry booth at Holland State Park, I thought "Drat! Another 5 minutes and he would have been gone, and I wouldn't have to pay." But I bought a parking pass for the season.

I looked in my rear view mirror, and there was a stream of cars behind me! All heading to the beach at the end of the day! Not a stream of cars leaving, they were arriving, like me, to watch the sun set.

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self

My friend rauf and I were chatting about the luxury of getting a portrait taken. He does portraits that are amazing.

Well, just because I was thinking about it, and because I'm a little strange, but mostly because I've never had my portrait taken, I went to the local photobooth and had some shots taken of myself.

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Have you ever had this done? It's peculiar to say the least, because you're sitting there by yourself, posing and making faces. Unless you're there with someone else, which would be more fun. Don and I had one taken in Paris at a photobooth after seeing "Amelie."

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I think it would be a fun blog idea to have everyone post their own self portrait taken at a photobooth on the same day. What do you think?

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