Earth Day Generation

Speaking of Earth Day,

I believe I am part of the Earth Day Generation

We are open minded
and outspoken

The first Earth Day was in 1970 and it soon become a yearly awareness day in the education system from kindergarten through high school. We learned about landfills and rain forests, reducing and recycling, habitats, ecosystems and life cycles. My cousin Kai, who is in sixth grade now, just was telling me about a week long outdoor class he just finished, where they learned about plants, animals, soil and dissolved oxygen.

But we can't take the credit, we have to thank our parent generation, the baby boomers, the hippies. And now they are making room for us in the workforce and discussions and solutions to climate change!

Make a difference

REUSE

For Earth Day this year, I was set with the task of greening Green Hammer's shop front

Initially, I was planning for trees in planter boxes but at the last minute we decided to go with a climbing vine. The hope is that the vine will climb the window and help shade the bright morning sun in the summer. There was general interest in planting hops but wisteria seemed a bit more elegant, turns out plans changed again last minute, literally sending me to the nursery to exchange wisteria for clematis on the day of the Earth celebration! All and all it looks great.

The boxes are built out of FSC certified Juniper but I had something a little more Earth friendly in mind. REUSE is the second least common of 3 R's, REDUCE being the first, with RECYCLING being the most popular but the least effective. Anyways, I've had this concrete sink in my basement sitting in the corner because it had a crack in the base. And that week at Rejuvenation I saw a concrete sink sitting out side for sale and I got the great idea that it could be infact a perfect planter. Tanner and I quickly gave up on getting it out of our basement, I swear they were probably poured on site! But a couple of the carpenters would not forget the suggestion and three came over and carried that thing out of our house! Now it lives in front of Green Hammer's window and is an excellent example of the unique advantage of REUSING something for new purpose. And I think it compliments the wooden boxes well!