“It’s cold, cold, cold!
And we’ll soon be old.
Alas and alack, it’s a great big world!” — “It’s a Great Big World” from The Harvey Girls
“It’s a small world after all . . .It’s a small world after all!” –Walt Disney’s It’s a Small World attraction, World’s Fair 1964, relocated to Disney World in 1966
As The Physicist says, Earth Day isn’t part of his religion. True enough, but being a good steward of the earth is part of mine.
Seeing so many farms in our area chopped up and turned into housing developments is something I find deeply disturbing. The houses are pretty, but the farms are necessary. Without farms there will be no food.
The Coach bought a house in one of those developments and while the house is lovely and the view is breathtakingly gorgeous, the soil is wretched. The developer stripped off all the wonderful rich topsoil, sold it, and left the new properties with barren earth. The Coach’s wife has been battling to rebuild the soil ever since they moved in. In fact, when she first visited a garden center after moving in, she mentioned that her home was “new construction” and the landscaper winced, saying, “Oh. I am so sorry!” The Coach’s wife has done some beautiful things in her yard but from what she says, it’s a long term struggle.
The place where we live is blessed with good, rich soil, and I am grateful for it.
One of the things I think about is how to use the soil well and best preserve it. My mother, the Nurse (who was also a Girl Scout leader) always told her scout troops, “leave a place better than you found it”. So I think about how to do that. Whether we continue to live here or not, others will live here after us. Some of them (or we) will want (or need) to grow food and flowers here, as we do. Taking care of what we have is part of keeping things simple. Having to repair and completely rebuild something that has been destroyed is harder and much more complicated.
With that in mind I recently began composting kitchen scraps for the first time.
It’s just an ice cream bucket on the counter by the sink, and every couple of days it gets emptied outside onto our big compost pile. But it works.
It feels good to be taking that step at last.
In honor of Earth Day I thought I’d share about my old bucket in it’s new location and ask you, “What are steps you are taking, either big or small, to leave your corner of the world better than you found it?” We live in a great big world but it is “a small world, after all” — and we only get one of them. If we live then someday we’ll be old, and someday we’ll be gone, but chances are that the world will go on long after we’re done. How do you want to leave this world a better place? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Maximum Grace 