Happy Day, Earth

The blooms on this red tip wanna be a tree bush in our yard could almost pass for white lilacs, one of my favorite spring flowers. On my walks from school in Ohio I would pass a small yard with purple lilac trees blooming in full glory, their branches truly laden almost to the ground with sweet scented lavender blossoms. They lined the street side boundary of this modest yard and I would pick an armful of the fragrant flowers to take home to Mom. The owner might mind you doing this it was suggested and so I refrained from the picking but never the admiring.

We do have that promised rain today but it is rather pleasant and maybe an end to the drought.

Today being Earth Day the newspaper is full of articles on the subject. One features the pros and cons of different types of diapers. I don't know that any one out weighs the other as the conservation winner. Statistics are not much help for, as someone once pointed out to us, that number game can be spun to favor any point of view.

Raising five babies, we actually went through the entire litany of diaper choices. With Emily we used cloth which we washed and sun dried. (Donny needs to blog about the one that got away and clogged the septic system in a most unfortunate spot for recovery.) For Donald we switched to paper. Then with Stephen & Andrew we tried cloth via diaper service. And finally for Lewis a wool snap diaper holder that did not need to be washed with every use. It had a cloth liner that could be replaced, so there was less daily washing involved. The seemingly inevitable rashes happened with every single system, therefore my real choice in the summer time when we were home was au natural.

The best we can do is what works for us without forgetting our planet. So perhaps today we can make an Earth Day pledge to make good choices for all types of consumption for ourselves and for our first mother, Earth!