CFC BLOG #196: Earth Day-Themed Anti-Pet Peeve Collections - PART 2

PART 2!!! Here are some more earthy anti pet peeves. If you feel compelled to share one or maybe a nature picture, feel free to send my way! And hope you like the pic of me above with my cow friend in a happy pasture #coexist :)  

Enjoy!

- Amanda

Earth Day-Themed Anti Pet Peeves: Part 2

The hummingbirds in my neighborhood buzzing right past me to get to the feeder right after I've filled it, and the amazing sound their wings make up close. - Alex Knight

I love my soap (Sappo Hill, can be purchased on Amazon) and floss (Eco Dent, can be purchased on Amazon) that are packaged in paper without plastic. AND, ever since I read Joel Salatin’s book (I don’t remember if it was "Folks This Ain’t Normal" or "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal”), every time I flush a toilet, I think of his fantastical idea of using red wiggler worms to vermicompost human waste instead of flushing our waste down the drain with precious water and grin that he is so radical. - Ann Chung

My Earth-Day anti-pet peeve is my 1 year old daughter's sweet curiosity and admiration of nature. She just started walking up to trees and flowers and giving them gentle kisses. Last week, she inspired her older (half) sister and they spent a bunch of time together rescuing worms together from the driveway. It was so cute to watch!  - Jaime Posa

Breathing … feeling the air fill the lungs, which especially right now has gotten so much additional meaning… That brings me to the quality of the air - it is like Wine, you can have good and bad wine .. and when you have a good one you know it. Like up in the mountains when you experience the thin, clean, and aromatic air of the alps … or in a forest the heavier, moist, woody fresh air. I feel like we do not appreciate enough the one medium we physically engage with all the time….. - Matthias Hollwich

Reading about achievements in renewable energy and having firm conviction that we will see the end of massive fossil fuel consumption in the near future :) - Jeremy Toeman

Discovering Romaine lettuce stubs will REGROW if you put them in water after you’ve cut and used the stalk. The kitchen window has become a hydroponic garden...Hearing more birds than ever before with the great decrease in car traffic… The smell of spring rain when you can watch from a warm apartment in your pajamas. - Corey Loftus 

My natural anti-pet peeve is compost...    I love it.  I grew up composting and now we do it as a family AND I help manage the compost for our community garden. It’s free.  All you need is time.  It is simple….just add to it and turn it over! 

But my favorite part of it is the metaphor….the things we don’t need or don’t value or use are piled up, heaped together.  Then, over time, they transform from refuse to the very most basic and important nutrients for life.  Out of it grows that which sustains us!

And to me, that is not only true of literal compost, or enriched soil.  It is also true of our hearts and minds.  If I can figure out how to “compost” the things that don’t move my life forward, my shame, my anger, my insecurities, my defenses…these things that are “trash” or refuse, I can often find some useful lesson, some growth in it. I can see fruit borne out of letting them transform and nurture life. 

I wrote a poem about it a few years ago:  https://cincibility.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/these-weeds-of-ours/

 - Tim Vogt

The multitude of Zoom hangouts I am being invited to these days. People clearly need that connection, even if it is virtual. - Bob Winter

Having time to watch my garden unfurl in real time. And… Having my outside goldfish come back from the winter spent in the bottom of the pond. They happily re-emerged this week - hungry and healthy! And.. Having extra time to work on my cartwheels in the soft, and beautifully green, grass. (pictures attached)   - Ellen Sirot

My Earth Day anti-pet peeve is the Birds' Song. When I meditate in the city, I always start with a mindfulness exercise, tuning in to each of my senses and noticing the loudest thing I observe and then the softest. The Birds' Song is always what grounds me most, because even through the hustle and bustle, even in the dead of winter, there is always, somehow, a chirp somewhere in the nook of a building. The Birds' Song sounds different in every place I go, but it is the orchestra playing in the background of every play here on Earth, and I'm grateful for the moments I tune out everything else just to listen. - Christina Posa

My other Earth Day anti-pet peeve is what the Earth holds for us. Last year, my dog passed away on Earth Day. Sam and I were pups together. We grew up racing down the streets in my hometown, playing in piles of leaves in my backyard, sharing sunsets on the Hudson River. We walked together every day, until her last day. Missing her now makes me appreciate the way the Earth holds memories for me. The cracks in the pavement we'd race over. The smell of the leaves in my backyard. The glow of the sun after it's passed beyond the horizon. The Earth reminds me that I'm here, and that here is a place I won't always be. The Earth gives me the gift of present and past together, spaces to hold memories and spaces to make new ones. - Christina Posa

The return of a magnolia tree that suffered frost a few years back...it is the little tree that could… (picture attached) - Jennifer Salopek

-Ellen Sirot

-Ellen Sirot

-Jennifer Salopek