A Retail Shop Turning Its Back on Black Friday

( kurtz ) / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND Many thanks to my friend Another Jennifer, for bringing this story to my attention… In Brunswick, Maine there’s a really neat shop called Shift – Sustainable Home Goods. They sell (clearly) products for home, yard and personal use that are eco-friendly and green. Man, I really wish [...]

Buy Nothing Day and Giving Tuesday

If you read my post last week about how important it is to be thoughtful about what you purchase, then you might be able to imagine how unbelievably ill the holiday season of over-consumption makes me. Particularly the insanity around Black Friday. There’s an alternative – a way to speak out against the mindless mass-consumerism [...]

Climate Change Rant

I was running an errand the other evening, when a song came up on the radio that I hadn’t heard  in quite a while. It’s ‘Ship of Fools’ by the band World Party, and  I never really paid much attention to the lyrics and their meaning before now, although I’ve always liked it. Hearing it [...]

Action Items for Nature Conservation and Sustainable Living

photo: Aken kuvia I had this dream last week – very detailed – about working on my website. I’ve been admittedly absent from it lately, save for the (occasionally late) Windows on Wildlife posts over the past few weeks.  Our household is in transition as we move from a summer schedule to a fall schedule. [...]

The First Fruits of the Harvest

This past weekend I got together with Kate over at the  Crafty Homestead and we made some fabulous peach jam.  The following day was the Peach Festival which my band plays at every year, and guess what we brought home?  Yup, peaches.  Emboldened by our success from the previous day, and now absolutely laden with peaches, Obo and [...]

Gardening Inspired Through Strawberry Picking

I know it’s probably sad that I’ve lived in New England for over a decade and only went strawberry picking for the first time this past weekend. I can’t even say that it was my idea – my Youngest son was invited to a birthday party at a local farm, and strawberry picking and feeding [...]