Take care of Mother Earth

Tuesday was Earth Day. Our little Fish Springs community really looked good to me after spending four days in the big cities of Southern California. There was so much traffic, noise, smog and rushing around. Did anyone stop to smell the roses?

It didn't look like it, but as we drove back home through the spectacular High Sierra (where the cost of regular gasoline was $4.59 a gallon in Bridgeport), the world became peaceful once again and golden poppies bloomed along the roadside.

We stopped at a Burger King restaurant in Bishop that was right next door to a little creek that ran alongside a row of big, beautiful lilac bushes. I couldn't resist. I picked a little piece of a gorgeous flower and pressed it between my fingers. Umm...what a marvelous fragrance. I continued to sniff it all the way home.

We arrived home in time to walk around our yard and check all the flowers and fruit trees. The daffodils, tulips and pansies are all in full bloom now and so are some of the fruit trees. There are thousands of little blue and yellow and white wildflowers on the hill just behind our house. Next week the lilac bushes will be blooming. Mother Earth knows when it's time.

We have a windmill that pumps the well water into a 2,000-gallon holding tank and irrigates our large, organic vegetable garden and 15 fruit trees. My husband plants early-maturing vegetable seeds in peat pots in our warm south-facing greenhouse. Our home also has a great solar water system that heats our well water for free, and a very efficient wood-burning stove that keeps us warm in the winter. We have Energy Star appliances and our electric bill was only $55 last month. Mother Earth takes good care of us- as long as we take good care of her.

April showers bring May flowers

In May of 1994 my husband and I were vacationing in the Lake District of England and we came upon a beautiful field of golden daffodils. In the middle of it there was a post with a poem by William Wordsworth:

"The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of golden daffodils beside the lake,

Beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Take time to smell the roses. Take good care of Mother Earth.

-- Linda Monohan may be reached at 782-5802.