Organic Lawn Care is it for Real?

It's that time of year again - we play in the yard, tidy up the yard, let our digs run around in the yard.  But what's in your yard?  Rather, what's on your yard?  If you are like 75% of U.S. households, you use herbicides on your lawn or other forms of pesticides for a variety of unwanted pests and things in your lawn and around your home.  4.4 billion applications a year.  WOW.

Well, being environmentally-focused gals, we can't help but to spread some info about pesticides, a.k.a. poison.  Seriously, that's what pesticides are: poison.  Now, we don't particularly favor dandelions in our lawn, ants in our cupboards or prickly grass.  For us, there was a point in time where the light bulb went off & we asked ourselves "at what cost is our lawn nice?"
Points to consider:

• When it rains heavy, all the pesticides - poisons - from your lawn run off into the storm drains.  Most neighborhoods have a retention pond where some folks fish, ducks gather, your dog drinks after a long walk.  Now think - what's in that water? You guessed it!  Everything that went down the storm drain - including your lawn pesticides.  
• Pesticides have been linked to asthma, learning disabilities, birth defects, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and cancer.
• There are tons of companies that now offer organic lawn care if you're not up for doing it yourself.
• Consider watching Chemical Reaction ; we venture to guess it will be a game changer.  It was for us.

There are lots of statistics that we could throw your way from how many birds die each year because of pesticides (60-70 million - just in the U.S.), to almost 70 million pounds of pesticides are thrown on U.S. lawns each year.  But, in the effort to hold your attention, here's a nifty link for more info: http://www.organiclawncare101.com/

Take a few minutes and see if making one slight change this month can make a difference in your health and that of the planet.

Not a Treehugger? What Earth Day Means for You

You don't have to be a Tree hugger to appreciate Earth Day.

Earth Day, started in the '70s, is really just a day to call attention to: "Hey, you, yes, YOU, you can do a little something to be a more responsible human being". Let's not forget, that no matter what side of the aisle you sit on Global Warming, we cannot deny the fact that humans can help or hurt where they live.  Which picture below do you like?

Earth Day is Every Day. Every day we have a choice: do what's best or do what's easiest.  Let's be honest,   humans boil everything down to two things: money & time.   Check out the list below, most things on there do not require much more money, no more time, but there certainly is a better choice:

• letting water run while shaving or brushing teeth : vs : turn off the water til you need it
• Leaving the TV & lights on when you leave the room (for a long time) : vs : turning them off until you return
• tossing everything in the trash : vs : tossing recyclables in a bin (usually close to your trash can)
• idling your car in the bank line : vs : turning it off until you're ready to leave
• buying fancy coffee form standard growers that burn down rain forest to plant coffee plantations : vs : buying shade grown or earth-friendly coffee
• using whatever paper products (25% of trees are cut down for paper) : vs : buying 100% recycled content.  Now this one does cost a little more, but unless you are on a super-tight-uncomfortable budget, trust me, you can afford it.  Just start out with one product : paper towels, and move on from there.  Ever hear of rags?  No need to have Bounty clean up the gallon of milk that spilled; a rag will do it, rinse it & toss it in the dirty laundry,  it will be fine & it works.

I could go on & on with this list, from little money to more costly, but I think you get the picture.  

Earth Day is about every person can do something and each of those somethings will add up to major changes.  Did your Mom ever yell at you for throwing gum out of the car window? "If everyone did that, we would have gum everywhere!"  And you thought, "Holy cow, it was just a piece of gum, what's the big deal?"  Think about that now, as an adult, if that really did happen. That would be gross.  Piles & piles of chewed gum.  Now do you see...that's the power of a little thing, done by lots of people, having a big impact.  We can use those same actions for the powers of good, and not evil, and pick our "one thing" to do good for the earth.  Hey, it's where you live!

Check out this site for some great tips & visit Be A Better Earthling (that's B.A.B.E!) for continual tips!

http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2011