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This Mother’s Day when we
celebrate the person who gave us life, another
mother is celebrated in many cultures:
Mother Earth.
When we look around us and see the beauty of
this springtime, did you remember how very
green grass is? Did you remember in the cold gray
days of winter just how lovely the plum tree
blossoms would be?
Did you dream as I did that yellow Marsh
Marigolds would appear along the streamside?
Living in a place with
woodlands surrounding us helps remind us that all of
the fragility of life on the earth.
When I see the Marsh Marigolds I am comforted
knowing that they only grow in water that is
unpolluted. These
plants are good indicators that we have so far not
polluted the watershed flowing from
Paul
Revere
Village
complex. Also many of the plants growing along the
streams can pull the toxins from the water and even
clean the water as it flows to the river, and to the
sea.
We are not doing such a good
job in all places in Massachusetts and the
surrounding areas. We know this because the fish in
the sea along with animal life have been declining
for some time. The Grand Banks form a shelf off of
New England stretching to Nova Scotia and contained
the most abundant supply of fish and sea life on the
planet. This
supply is now dwindling.
Surely over-fishing is partly to blame. Yet
not all.
Sometimes information about the
environment can make me feel very discouraged. What
is heaven’s name can I do as a single individual
do about this problem.
Well, someone once wrote that none of is a
passenger on this planet earth.
All of us are pilots determining where we are
going.
Let us consider a simple rule
of nature that most of us know.
Diversity is good.
It provides a cushion if one plant dies
another will survive.
Perhaps one plant will survive a drought
better than another. Perhaps another will survive a
particular toxin. Or an insect infestation.
So I ask why insist upon the monoculture of
pure green grass? “No “weeds.” you say?
Is there another way to look at them?
Could we call them diversity plants or
wildflowers? What
happened along the way to have us lament a golden
dandelion?
When I used to see a dandelion
I would eradicate it quickly like a smudge on my
forehead. “Weedbegone”
and many others like it provided a quick solution.
And then I began to think.
These are toxins that destroy life.
And they are going into the water where some
will flow to the sea and some into the ground for me
to drink later. Reading up on the pollution problems
in groundwater it is very easy to see that these
problems are increasing and runoff from toxins that
are put on grass are increasing not decreasing.
The cost of removing the toxins
from the water later could far outweigh the problem
of weeds. I
wonder whether we would change many of our habits if
each package contained the pollution price for
disposing of toxins or cleaning up after they enter
the water shed.
Sometimes weeds grow up between
the cracks in unwanted places and are unsightly.
One suggestion is to use pure white vinegar.
Purchased in any grocery by the gallon, this
is an inexpensive solution to the problem. It is
also an entirely natural product which will not harm
the environment. Also, by the way I am no fanatic.
I will still use a herbicide on a poison ivy
plant which has intruded too close to where I may
brush by it accidentally.
I would not try to remove poison ivy from
every tree with the vine growing on it. The
tree will surely die of the poison and to what end?
A bird will come along and by way of its alimentary
canal drop a new seed along with just enough
fertilizer to have it sprout a healthy plant. In
using any of the herbicides or insecticides one must
use care and thought as well as a scientific
approach as to what will be accomplished.
So on this Mother’s Day, take
a moment to think about the source of all life:
our earth.
I end with a poem derived from the Internet and wish
that everyone has a great Earth Mother’s Day.
Ole
Woodsman |
