Chris & Joy’s Critterweb

And I will warn you up front that it is hard to watch. It almost made me cry, and brought back some painful memories of Mojo as well. But I think it really brings home some hard facts, and in particular anyone who is thinking of getting a purebred puppy should consider these realities first.

BBC’s Pedigree Dogs Exposed

Someone posted the show in six parts to YouTube and the link above is to the first of the six parts. I am not sure if they had BBC’s permission so the video might not be there long. This is also on BBC’s site but currently you cannot view their online shows unless you live in the UK.

For our donation last month, we thought it would be nice to send a check to On the Wing Again, a bird rehabilitation group back in Texas that took in two baby birds (there’s a picture of one of them in a previous post)we found at different times while we lived there, in appreciation of the work they do. Sadly, it appears that the organization is no longer operating, so we decided to look for a similar group locally. We found Wild for Life, who I’d also like to mention have a very informative web site with some great practical information on what to do if you find an animal that you think needs help. We sent them a donation and have also added their site to our links page.

I’ve hand raised several birds as well as cats, dogs, and pet rats, and it is very messy, round the clock work. It’s always amazed me how helpless birds and many mammals are at birth, and what a great job their parents do raising them just by instinct. A sparrow or rat, for instance, comes out looking like something that wasn’t quite ‘done’ yet - naked, blind, with skin so translucent you can see the organs inside, absolutely helpless. Getting the temperature wrong by just a degree or two either way or not feeding the exact right amount at the right time can doom the little one you are hand raising and yet an animal or bird parent with a brain about the size of a gumdrop can do it (usually in multiples!) perfectly.

Knowing the amount of work that goes into caring for orphaned wildlife, and also the importance of making sure that the babies grow up knowing how to survive in the wild, we have the greatest respect for anyone who takes on such a responsibility. As I write this, I am thinking that in addition to the donation we just made to Wild for Life, I am going to write a letter to the folks who used to run On the Wing again (even though they are no longer operating) to thank them personally. When we found those birds we knew we wouldn’t have the time to give them the care they needed and having that resource available was a wonderful thing. I am sort of feeling a bit ashamed, because at the time I was thinking “we did a good thing, we saved a life” but actually it was someone else who saved a life. We were just kind of in the right place at the right time to help that process along a bit.

I finally had a chance to put up the pictures from the project we worked on Memorial Day weekend, and thought it would be a good idea also to create a new album to put them in, this way we can add pictures of some of the other cool things we’ve found.

We actually finished a furniture project - that in itself is amazing. In the past we’ve been good at starting them but actually seeing it through to completion… not so much.

Now that the album is up, I’ll have to get a picture of desk-zilla uploaded. But that’s another story!

So I have just finished my second month at the new job and all is going pretty good. It’s a lot less stress than my last job and I am actually enjoying the driving. I have to confess that initially I was horrified by the fact that instead of finding a job where I could drive less, I was now doing one where I mostly drive all day. I am still not crazy about that fact but I decided that someone would still be driving my route even if it was not me, so the best thing I could do was try and minimize my impact.

The vehicle I was supposed to be driving was trashed beyond repair by my predecessor, so I got a brand new one… a brand new Chevy Uplander, that is. It’s sort of a minivan with a long nose, or a suburban with a self esteem issue, slinking on its belly. The dealership guys apparently dubbed that model “the platypus” and that fits it well. I was mortified by the big sticker still on the window that proclaimed “16 MPG city/23 MPG Hwy but its not like I have a choice, and I have to carry a lot of equipment. But as I began to get to know my platypus, I noticed it has a cool little feature; a gauge that measures average MPG, and I am proud to say that over the past 1850 miles so far, mine averages 25.1. I drive mostly highway, but not speeding or leadfooting when the light turns green apparently makes a big difference; I know at least one of the other field installer’s Uplander averages 17 also with mostly highway, so I think how you drive must play a big part. So yes, I drive a long, grey, carbon-spewing platapus, but at least it’s spewing about a third less carbon with me at the wheel.

The other big thing I was having a problem with is the huge amount of waste involved. An average day creates a mountain of cardboard, plastic and styrofoam. I break down or re-use everything I can, but the styrofoam was very distressing, especially when I cleaned the van out at the end of the week today and had a stack of it that came up to my chest. I did some research online and found out that there are recycling centers around the country (unfortunately not near us) but also the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers will take the stuff if you mail it to them. Even a large box is pretty light, so it would be fairly inexpensive, I thought…

I was prepared to just send the stuff myself and pay for it out of my pocket, but I figured ‘can’t hurt to ask’ so I emailed my manager, explained what I wanted to do, and asked if I could expense it. He said I could just send it on the company FedEx account as long as I sent it via ground! Very cool, now almost none of the huge mound of junk actually ends up in the trash. I filled two huge printer boxes; one weighed five pounds and the other seven, and I had the added fun of carrying them into the FedEx depot one on top of the other and freaking out the lady at the counter. She hurried to help carry one of the boxes and then looked very confused for a moment.

So, anyway, I may not have the greenest job, but I am doing what I can to make it just a little bit greener.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are trying to set aside a little money each month to donate to a worthy charity. This month we agonized over what that charity would be, since there are so many out there. Joy hit on the idea of finding an organization that helps children experience and understand nature, and after a bit of digging we found The Schoolhouse of Wonder in Durham, NC.

Their vision statement says:

Schoolhouse of Wonder is a consortium of lifelong learners dedicated to celebrating the wonders of the natural world. Through the ongoing study of natural and cultural history we deepen our understanding of the world around us, building a heartfelt relationship with nature and community.

This is exactly the sort of facility we had in mind. The Schoolhouse of Wonder runs year-round day camps and other educational programs for children and teens and we think it’s just a wonderful idea. It holds a special place in my heart, particularly, since a similar program called the Boyne River Natural Science Centre made a very large impact on my life when I was a child in Canada. I grew up in a very rough public housing complex in the city and was fortunate to have been twice selected from my school to spend a week at the Boyne River centre, where we learned skills that most of us otherwise would never have had the opportunity to acquire.

Among the experiences there that stand out in my mind are learning to harvest sap and make maple syrup, overnight camping in tents in the snow (it was unfathomable to me at the time how we could do this and not freeze to death, yet I actually got too hot during the night!) and in the summer session we studied and banded downy woodpeckers, and learned about stream ecology. One entire day was spent knee deep in the water with strainers and basins and nets, taking a census of what lived in the stream, and then analyzing what those populations represented in terms of the health of the stream itself.

Sadly the Boyne River Natural Science center that was so important to my childhood has since been discontinued due to lack of funding. The program made a lifelong impression on me and I’m happy we can give to a similar school… we’re going to keep looking to see if there’s anything similar in our area; I’d love to be able to actually contribute some time as a volunteer in addition to donating money.

The Great Sunflower Project involves taking a moment to join and provide an address for the project organizers to send you free wild sunflower seeds, planting the free sunflower seeds when they arrive, then after the sunflowers are blooming, taking time to sit and log how many bees come to the sunflowers within a specific time frame. This information will be used to create a sort of map of bee populations around the world, in order to help understand the challenges bee populations face.

It’s a great idea all around; the sunflowers are beautiful, provide food for pollinators such as bees (and later, other creatures who eat the seeds) and watching the flowers is a calming activity that will help you get closer to nature.

The link is above but in case this post is read in a printed format, here’s the address:

http://www.greatsunflower.org/

We don’t know if there’s anyone out there who still hasn’t seen An Inconvenient Truth, but if you haven’t, you really should see it. Al Gore now has a new slide show with some updated statistics up on TED. It’s about a half hour long but it’s well worth watching.

Some of the reasons people who have not watched the movie have given (besides those who for whatever reasons of their own still absolutely refuse to believe global warming exists/is our fault) are that ‘it’s depressing’ and ‘there’s nothing we can do about it anyway’ but actually that’s not true. An Inconvenient Truth really brought home to us the fact that there are things that can be done, as individuals, as nations, and as a united planet, but the window of opportunity in which to do these things is disappearing and the longer we keep our heads in the sand the less chance there is that we can change the outcome.

We expected to come out of the theater depressed and defeated when we saw the film back when it first came out, and instead it actually gave us hope; it helped set us on a path of changing the way we see things and do things. As we made these changes, and adapted to new ways of thinking and acting, it made other steps that previously seemed impractical much more approachable. If you try to do it all at once, it seems insurmountable, but the answer is not to throw up your arms and say “it won’t make a difference anyway” but rather to do whatever you can, and add more as you are able. If enough people make little changes, it helps pave the way for the bigger ones that are needed — we have to completely rethink our behavior on a massive scale but this starts with small steps for each person.