Deep in the heart of Texas, Spring looks like a full-blown Minnesota summer!  One good thing about our daughter living so far south on I-35 is that she can share her Texas Spring with us while the temperatures here remind us that winter is not long gone (not to mention the snowy sleet that squalled this morning while I walked the dog and on and off throughout the day.)  Texas Bluebonnets and sunny blanket flowers make the day bright.

The prickly pear cactus, a reminder of the natural semi-arid landscape in that region, is getting ready to bloom.

And this delicate, paper petaled pink poppy is Austin art at its best.

While Minnesota weather is cultivating patience in us as we celebrate our incremental movements toward Spring, Earth Day is upon us!  That means I will be out walking the ditches with a metal pik stik and a big bag, cleaning up trash that has accumulated over the winter.  It is my spring ritual, my contribution to a cleaner Earth.

In my last post, I wrote about a Place called Home.  Most of us can relate to living in a special place that means something to us, a place we love.  Imagine if somebody walked or drove by this special place and dumped their trash every day.  What kind of emotions would that invoke?  Anger, exasperation, frustration?  We generally have a sense of pride and responsibility in caring for the place we call Home.  My challenge to us all is to extend our vision of a place called Home to encompass the whole Earth.  Just because the trash is hauled away from our homes, is it going to a place on Earth that will eventually cause damage?  Is it being dumped in the ocean?  Will it kill ocean creatures?  We need to think about the whole chain of events and see if there’s a way we can make a difference.

Most of the trash I pick up in the ditch is plastic–plastic food wrappers, plastic bottles, and plastic grocery bags.  Two college campuses in our area have chosen to not sell plastic-bottled water in an effort to reduce waste.  And way down I-35 in Austin, Texas, the city has banned the use of plastic bags.  Small efforts that can add up to make a big difference.  So on this 45th Anniversary of Earth Day, buy a reuseable mesh bag for your fruits and vegetables, carry reuseable grocery bags, choose paper over plastic, recycle everything that can be recycled, and participate in community clean-up projects.

Our place called Home, in the Big Picture, is Planet Earth.  Let us all be good stewards, great caretakers, and grand lovers of this place called Earth.

South Dakota Prairie by LAn

Earth Day officially began in 1970 when I was eleven years old, but my celebration of the Earth began when I was very young.  My early growing-up years were on a farm in eastern South Dakota.  Living on a farm tunes one into the land, the weather, growing things, seasons, and animals.  I remember being outside–playing in the tractor tire sandbox, swinging on the tire swing, gathering eggs from the hen house and trying to stay out of the rooster’s way.  I remember tromping through the pasture, ‘helping’ Dad milk the cows and feed the calves, riding the black mustang named Boots after my Dad got the willies out of him, and smelling the silage, the freshly-mown hay, and the wagons of ripened grain.  So many experiences that tied me to the rhythms of the Earth.

A move to Pennsylvania when I was in first grade took us off the farm but not away from Nature.  We lived in the foothills of the Blue Mountains and still had a menagerie of animals.  My playground was the surrounding woods with its boulders, creeks, and tulip poplar trees.  This was the time in my life that the glories of the Earth took on a spiritual meaning.  The Great Outdoors became my church, and God became my constant companion.  I didn’t know much about Him, but I knew He was there.  When the 70’s rolled around, Earth Day was something worth celebrating to me!  This was also the time when our stewardship of the Earth expanded beyond the acre plot of our land.  My Mom and us four kids would go out along Mountain Road and pick up trash–mostly glass pop and beer bottles.  We rode our horses along that road and didn’t want them to step on a bottle and cut their feet or fetlocks.  I felt a satisfaction in cleaning up the ditch–it looked better and was safer for the horses.

This yearly ritual of picking up trash is one that I continue to do.  It just so happens that Earth Day in Minnesota is the perfect time to clean up the ditches around our house–the snow is usually gone, but the grass hasn’t yet started to grow.  Nowadays the trash is mostly plastic–plastic water and pop bottles, plastic wrappers, and lots of white plastic grocery bags.  Much of the trash I pick up is littered by people walking or driving, but just as much along our stretch of road is trash that blows out of garbage bins as the automated arm dumps them into the big green garbage truck.

The Earth on the farm in South Dakota, the Earth in the low foothills of the old eastern mountains of Pennsylvania, the Earth in the rolling hills of western Missouri, and the Earth in the oak and pine-covered granite land of central Minnesota are all a part of me.  I loved the Earth, and Mother Nature loved me back and nurtured me into the person I am today.  And whether we feel it or not, we are all a part of this Earth.  It constantly sustains and nourishes us with its water, its oxygen, its food and many other resources.  Let’s all do our part to take care of the Earth.  Let’s celebrate Earth Day!