bumper sticker 2

How green is your valley?

This one has double meaning.

Earth Day is this week. And while it seems to me that EVERY day should be Earth Day, I applaud the efforts of those who struggle to make us aware of what we can do to promote good stewardship of our resources.

Recycling is more than just a commendable idea, we should do it whenever we can. And I'm training a whole raft of cashiers about not using plastic bags for my purchases. Although I will admit that sometimes this causes a slight disconnect in their thought process. For example, the young woman recently who, when faced with the bags I had placed on the counter in front of my groceries, totally ignored what I'd said to her, twice, and told me she couldn't scan those bags because they didn't have bar coded tags. I repeated my request that those bags were for loading the items, not for buying. Took her a minute to figure it out. But then she calmly threw away the plastic bags I had brought with me to use for the freezer items, dropping them into nice new ones instead. Oh, well. Seven out of ten isn't bad.

We can use low flow devices and turn off the water while brushing our teeth or shaving. We can save energy by hanging laundry on a line or rack instead of using the dryer. Turning off the lights in a room when we leave it, no matter how long we're going to be gone, makes a big difference in the kW used column. And have you thought about disconnecting rarely used appliances? There are clocks in every room of my house, but the ones in the spare bedrooms are unplugged. And have you considered turning off the television for an hour so you can enjoy the quiet and actually hear the song of the birds now nesting in the trees?

Which brings me to part two.

There are more shades of green in a Texas spring than on any painter's palette. When we walk through the valley of life, even in the shadow of death, we can still stop, if only for a moment, look around, and glory in our surroundings. How sad that we do not take the time to do so, and that in our hurry to get from place to place we totally miss seeing the work of the greatest artist of them all.

How green is your valley today?