Earth Day Fun at Railroad Square Art Park

Today was Peace in the Park at Railroad Square Art Park in Tallahassee.







This was the thing Blaze was most excited about:



We spoke to the man who built the Tardis and he plans to build all of the Tardises from Dr. Who, eventually.

There was lots to see and several kinds of music to listen to.











Does anybody need a guillotine?









 

A mountain of sand!





Sawdust is fun, too!

Happy Earth Day!

Pale Blue Dot - Animation from Ehdubya on Vimeo.

Earth Day Treat

As a special thing for Earth Day, we made Rice Krispies treats that look like little globes.

To do this, you simply follow the directions for making Rice Krispies treats, printed on the Rice Krispies box or on the Rice Krispies website:

Rice Krispy Treat Recipe

After adding the Rice Krispies to the melted marshmallow and butter mixture, split the batch up into two equal portions. To one portion add several drops of green food coloring. To the other portion add several drops of blue food coloring. Stir well to cover all the cereal with color. Dampen hands, so the sticky marshmallow doesn't stick to you. Take a bit of blue mixture in one hand and a bit of green in the other hand. Now, squish the two colors together. Squeeze and shape like you are making a snow ball.



Let them sit for awhile before eating, so that the marshmallow sets up and becomes less gooey.




These are a good size to carry with you, if you are like Blaze and believe that sitting down to eat would be cutting into your valuable play time.

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, these are the books we are reading this week:





The entire book of The Wump World can be found online here:

The Wump World





Reading The Lorax has been a yearly Earth Day tradition in our family for many years now.

The 1971 cartoon of The Lorax:



The Lorax part 2

Corner View : Earth Day

This is the way I'm recycling newspapers for Earth day, I'm using it as weed barrier in my garden.



By overlapping multiple layers of newspaper, the sunlight can't penetrate, so the weeds don't grow. By covering the newspaper with composted cow manure, it looks like well weeded, dark, rich soil.



The entire process takes about 10 minutes per 20 foot row, but it looks like you just spent long hours weeding, plus it's biodegradable and feeds the garden.



For the garden paths, I'm laying out the newspaper and then covering it with cypress mulch.



Now that I've worked up a sweat, I think this will be the perfect Earth Day treat.





This is how Blaze is cooling down:





The Florida Museum of Natural History's Earth Day Celebration is this coming Saturday, April 24, 2010.

Museum Earth Day

While Jane is away this week, Corner View is being hosted by Joyce of A Perfect Beginning. Every Wednesday, Corner View brings together participants from all over, to share what life is like in their corner of the world.

A Day All About The Earth

We followed the music of G Love and Special Sauce to Flavet Field on the U.F. campus last night, and found this free concert going on:

Save My Oceans Tour

After G Love, the local band Third Stone played:





My bouncing boy in the free bounce house:

We returned home with only about 10 minutes to spare before Earth Hour began. That gave me just enough time to find a snack and some candles, so that Blaze and I could play cards by candle light, while DH read for that hour.

Earth Hour 2010

Today, March 27th, 2010, is the day of Earth Hour. People all over the world are asked to turn off their lights for a single hour, between 8:30 p.m. local time and 9:30 p.m., to show that we can all work together to fight climate change.

If you would like to learn more, here is the link to the official Earth Hour website:

Earth Hour

I have added a candle sconce to the footboard of Blaze's bed and plan to spend the hour teaching him to play card games and reading.

Happy Earth Day

Earth Day

I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.

And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.

That's why we
Celebrate this day.
That's why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.

-Jane Yolen




Environmentally friendly things we will be doing for Earth Day

* Make dinner using foods we grew ourselves

* Make desert from blackberries we picked ourselves

* Washing dishes by hand (o.k., we do that every day)

* Give Blaze a T-shirt made out of organic cotton (I bought it from a clearance rack several two months ago and have been saving it) and talk about what "organic" means

* Read The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss



Here is a link to a short Lorax related game:

The Lorax


Look what we found yesterday, the first ripe blackberries of the year! Yum!










We're going out today to pick more.

Recycled Robots

A recycled robot at last year's art museum Earth Day Celebration:




Blaze working on his own recycled robot: