Seriously! Easter Sunday and the snow showers were flying around all day, not to mention the all-out snow storm my sister and I drove through the day before Easter on our trip to The Iroquois Museum in upstate New York. All I keep thinking about, besides how tired I am of being cold, is how badly I feel for the flowers that started blooming during the warm snap we had only to be frozen out and weighed down under the new snow ... and they are predicting another 5 plus inches for tonight!
Someone at church yesterday said that Mother Nature was getting her revenge on mankind for all the destruction humans have been doing to the earth and each other. I have a hard time believing that. I don't think that Mother Nature, or God, for that matter, gets even with humans. Instead, I think we reap what we sow, and we've been sowing a whole lot of greed, hate, and destruction. The earth responds to how it is being treated. Pollution, extinction of whole species, extreme cutting down of trees, threatening the ozone layers, and a host of other things are robbing the earth of its ability to thrive. We did this. Is it any wonder that the atmosphere doesn't know what season it is any more?
I know, you're probably thinking, "well, what can I do? I'm only one person." If we took every single person who says that, we'd have a majority of people who can save our planet one plastic bottle, one solar panel, and one tree at a time. Times a few million, that's a lot! I do what I can, little, old, retired me. I recycle. I use cloth napkins, rags, and recycled or sustainably made paper products instead of regular paper whenever possible. I try to buy organically whenever I can. I garden responsibly (no Round-Up and poising in the ground), unplug what I'm not using, use cloth shopping bags, donate to groups that support sustainable living and animal rights, and let my shopping habits speak for the earth. If even half of the earth's population did that, just imagine what we could accomplish! Never, ever believe that one person can't make a difference.
And so it is.
P.S. After many years of writing this blog every week, I've decided to go to a twice-a-month blog post instead. This will allow me to do more exploring on subjects I want to share with you, as well as to free up time to work on my next fiction book, the second in a series devoted to "third age readers." Never fear, however. Flower Bear will still be around to share with you the wonders of this beautiful garden we call earth, and to speak for Mother Nature and all her creation. It is an honor we take very seriously.
Happy gardening!
