Happy Earth Day 2011

Since I trimmed my tree overhang earlier this spring my roses are blooming beautifully! They have never done this before blooming their little hearts out for me to see since I have a fenced in backyard. ALl this has changed since I took these photos earlier this week. They are almost all gone with the flowering as April Showers have taken off almost all of the beautiful petals.

We have had our share of bad weather this past week. Last weekend was the Talledega, AL Nascar Race and it was rained out on Saturday but the Sunday race had awesome weather. Many folks were very upset that had tickets that day in fact we had tornados and bad weather most of the day Saturday along with much of the Southeast.  There is a lot of tree damage all over here and a tornado hit very close in Alabaster, AL south of Birmingham, AL where we live. I heard the sirens but not much to do here except be aware of what is happening. We live on a concrete slab with no underground area around.

This brings me to my Earth Day post, do you celebrate by doing more this year than last?  I recycle everything I can, we have curbside pick-up for newspaper, cardboard, plastic #1 and #2 . No glass is picked up so I take it to the University of Montevallo  where they have large bins for everything  to be put in containers. I usually end up bring home about what I take so an even swap! I find wine bottle along with corks and jars for candles. This time I also found many baby food jars which I will think of some use for. I just love to dig through and see what is available. I never thought I would ever be looking  for garbage glass, but not garbage for me.  I will return what I do not use, some bottles I just soak the labels off and return them. I long ago got my two bottle trees full of colored wine bottles.

So, what will I start new this year? I should compost my banana peels and such for a compost pile but I don;t really have a garden. I do also try to catch rain in bins for my flower watering. I do hope to do better with this one day with much larger rain barrels as they are getting more popular in how to make them and  I think we can handle that at least.

I do put my banana peels in my bathroom with the cat grass growing for my cats and it also has the litter box. I heard it repels the flying gnats and you know what? I don't see as many as I used to anymore. So, it works!
It does!

You can check out what other folks are doing this Earth Day 2011 at Earth 911. I liked them on my Face book page and they are very informative of conserving tips.

Every little bit helps out and adds up. I also found that Lowe's takes old batteries and I take my ink cartridges to Staples. Find out where you can take your used items and share with them for others to learn abut reducing waste.

It is a good thing!  I also worked this week on finding homes for the three kittens born under our wood deck that was added to our back concrete porch and I am VERY happy to say all of that is now behind me. They all have wonderful homes. Now, to locate Mama and Dad and get them fixed for no more litters.
Have a very happy Earth Day and Easter weekend.

I love these images! 

Happy Easter! 

Smiles, Cyndi