Happy Earth Day!!

Living in Northern California my whole life, I've come to appreciate our amazing planet, Earth. I've been surround (literally surrounded) by mountains almost my entire life, and now if I don't have mountains in driving distance, I start to go crazy. I love being able to open my front door and smell fresh air, see big beautiful trees, and hear, well... nothing (except the occasional wind and the birds that bless part of the year with their cheerful voices). I think taking care of the Earth the best that we can is really important. A lot of people agree with me, but there could always be more. A lot of people in rural places like Siskiyou County (where I grew up) are sort of turned off by the whole "Save the Earth" movement. I can understand where they are coming from, because I came from the same place.. Little towns in the middle of National Forests were a lot of times built and thrived off of the Earth. It provided them with their livelihood. For example, my hometown, Happy Camp was started because of Gold Mining, and several years later was continuing because of the BOOMING logging industry. Then, environmentalists in the big cities began to become aware of the world wide affect that logging was having on the Earth. So America (Bill Clinton specifically) decided to take it to the other extreme. Logging was shut down, and many small towns like Happy Camp began slow painful deaths, to put it bluntly. It's hard for the people living in these towns to submit to the legislatures in Sacramento, L.A. etc, when they can look in any direction for miles and miles, and miles, and see nothing but trees! Running out of trees?! We don't think so! But, none of that means that they are completely right either. I think that, like for most disagreements, some middle ground would be good. 
Regardless, the way everyone decides to live and make their own small impact on the Earth can make a difference. I'm getting so excited for some warmer weather (it snowed again two nights ago-not too much though) so we can plant our garden and I can put some flowers in front of the house! I give two thumbs up for recycling and reusing, when you can, if you can. Or, one of my personal favorites, pick up a piece of garbage that's been left on the ground- you'll be surprised how many pieces you can pick up 10 feet away from a trash can!!