Happy Earth Day!

I've been green even before there ever was an Earth Day. In a drought ridden childhood natural resource conservation was de rigueur. If you were a water waster you were worse than the devil. My favorite and most rewarding work as a landscape architect has been land restoration (reintroducing native plants into disturbed sites), and effectively planting thousands of trees, through my plans, throughout the world. Those trees will far outlive me, hopefully, and keep pumping out oxygen that someday my grandchildren will inhale. Creating habitat for wildlife has been a priority of mine since making warrens for jackrabbits to hide in from the red-tailed hawks long long ago. Now the vast array of song birds, pheasants, insects, snakes, deer (not always welcome!), raccoons (get out of here you tree branch smashing nasty critters!), and mice (I'd rather not invite them!) enjoy our planted thickets, abundant nectar, pollen, fruit and seed sources. I became a non-red-meat eater in college after reading Diet for a Small Planet, and have never ever wanted red meat ever since. It's funny how the reason for this decision was discussed on NPR today as something new, as a way to help the global warming problem, but global warming/pollution/resource depletion are not new concepts. Eating home grown food has been something I've done since childhood too, but now the eat local movement is taking off. I'm pleased that these sort of notions are getting more attention, but gosh it has taken way too much time to reach this moment of widespread consideration.
Here atop our porch column's capital is a Stellar's Jay nest. Mama sits there all day long, usually only her tail visible. She has built quite a fortress for her babies. She resided here last year, yet atop another capital. Maybe this year's site has a better view. Change can be good, as long as it is headed in the right direction.