Create a Connection - Getting to Know You

Over at Create a Connection, Holly is hosting "Getting to Know You Day" for the month of July, and she has posed the following questions:

1) What are some of your memories about the "great outdoors?" (games played outside, camping, hiking, bike riding, running in the rain)

Wow, this question prompted a flood of memories for me. My most memorable "growing up" years were spent in LaPorte, Texas, where I spent my summers with the boys - my 3 brothers and my 4 cousins (all boys). Back in the day, the neighborhoods all had shallow ditches running along the streets, and every time it rained and the ditches filled up, we would be out catching crawfish, or crawdads, as we called them. My oldest brother, Brandt, had built a cage of sorts, made of scrap wood and window screen, and we would submerse it enough to keep our catch alive, get as many of the poor critters as we could, then release them all til the next rain. There were many long evenings of play -- usually we wouldn't come inside until Mama called us for supper, and by then our bare feet were filthy and I'm sure we didn't smell so good either! There were also hours of lying on the trampoline, looking at the stars with my cousin John, who knew all the constellations and who made sure I knew quite a few of them too. And then there were the afternoons crabbing from one pier or another, and two weeks of camping with the family every summer... Those really were the good old days!

2) Do you spend a lot of time in the outdoors, or have you lost touch with nature? If you've lost touch with it, how could you incorporate more of the outdoors in your every day life or would you want to?

I don't spend nearly as much time outdoors as I used to, but I haven't lost touch with nature either. I do try to spend as much time as possible in my flower beds, we go to the beach fairly often (it's so close, there's no excuse not to!), and we frequently spend time on the causeway over Mobile Bay. Like Holly, I have some asthma issues, so if the air quality is very poor, I try to stay indoors as much as possible on those days.

3) What small thing can you do (or are you doing) to ensure that the earth and all it's bounty will be here for future generations?

We've been trying hard to minimize our impact on the environment, by carefully planning all our errands and keeping our driving to a minimum, and by recycling. We have also started composting, and I'm amazed at the volume of stuff we were throwing in the trash that we could have been composting. Maybe next summer I'll be growing some vegetables in nutrient-rich compost! I also like to shop for little treasures for my artwork at second-hand shops -- might as well rescue all that good stuff and use it to make something pretty!

4) Can you share one or two links that showcase the great outdoors or some way to help heal the earth?

I love to visit You Grow Girl, where I got the inspiration for my compost bin. I also enjoy reading treehugger.

5) Feel free to share a picture of you in your environment, enjoying the outdoors and just plain having fun.

Well, it's not me, but that's a photo of a special family member, Charley, at the beginning of this post. She's a portly girl....