I'll be dipped!

Last Summer we repurposed some wooden pallets from the library's loading dock and turned them into vertical gardens behind the Children's Department.

 

Since that time I have seen thousands of projects using recycled pallets.  Who knew?

 

 

It's amazing the creativity that some people have.  When I think of recycling, reusing or repurposing something it is usually something along a much simpler line.  Like this from Mindfully Frugal:

Instead of buying expensive disposable paper cleaning pads for the Swifter, just use old cloth diapers soaked in a little soap and water - throw them in the washer when you are through and reuse. Of course I'm even more frugal...I don't buy the Swifter.  I just get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor with a bucket of soapy water and an old rag. 

 

I've noticed a another repurpose "fad" having to do with cans.  When I was coming up we recycled cans in three ways.

1. We used them to cut out biscuits (or sugar cookies).

2.  We used them as stilts we called "Tom Walkers" - I don't know why we called them that.

3. We used them - along with a gob of Dippity-Do Gel - to curl our hair.

Now, however, people are doing all kinds of crazy things with cans.  Again, who knew?

Starting at the top left and working my way across each row : 

 

Okay, cans as planters isn't a new discovery and I can see how it might be practical to start a plant in one.  Once the plant was thriving, I'd want a pretty clay pot though.

Cans screwed into a piece of plywood and used for storing cooking utensils...I'm not liking. However, I use a big ceramic cookie jar with no lid that just sits on the counter by the stove - so what do I know?

Cans for a kids bowling game? well, kid crafts are usually pretty tacky anyway so who cares.

Painted cans used as planters pegged to a brick wall might be alright if you didn't have the yard space.

Empty - what? paint cans? - used as a chandlier....oh, good Lord.

Painted tin cans bound together with fabric and used as a pencil caddy...not practical because the fabric would eventually become undone and you'd have cans scattered everywhere.

Painted cans as candle holders?  Kinda pretty, but how hot is that tin can going to be if you light the candle?

Soda and beer cans turned into bracelets?  Cool .....if you are eleven years old!

Tin can lids used as wall covering?   Do you WANT people to know just how bad your cooking is?
You'd be telling the world "I only eat out of cans!" This is not to mention the safety factor.  How nasty do you think you'd be cut if you tripped over your little dog and fell into the wall?

 

Now I'm going to show you 4 can projects I don't want you to ever do.  Seriously.  Because if you do, then everyone will know that you have waaaaayyyyy too much free time and they will start asking you to volunteer on fundraising committees or to chair your civic league. You will thank me for this.

 

1.  Knitting or crocheting a cover for a tin can.  Even if you are just cutting off the sleeve of an old sweater you already own and are wrapping it around the tin can - it's too much.

2. Taking an empty tuna can and sticking wooden clothespins on it and then planting grass seed in it.
Really?  By the way, what is it with all this planting of grass seed too?  What about a flower?

3.  They are selling this painted tin can on Etsy for $6.25  ....but wait don't buy it because

you can get FOUR of them for $23.00 .....a savings of $2.00! 
Somebody has hit upon a money-maker!  Are there really are enough foolish people out there who would pay that much money for a painted tin can that someone else ate beans out of.  Please tell me NO.

And finally this ...

That's right, a dipped can.  Everybody is dipping everything.  I say if you dip it, why not just go ahead and paint the whole thing.  Dipped - to me - just looks unfinished.

So go ahead and dip your wooden spoons, your teacups, your hair, salad bowls, dressers, planters, shoes, chairs, wedding dresses, candle holders, necklaces and every big block of raw wood you find.  The only thing that can be improved by dipping is strawberries in chocolate!

Finally, the last part of my rant about repurposing fads is MASON JARS.  Mason jars were invented to hold and store food.  (If you want to make a shelf out of a pallet, go ahead.)

 

Once the food is eaten from jar, you can wash it and drink from it too.  And that's alright.

 

 I've had many a glass of ice tea or lemonade from a Mason Jar --- and YES something stronger as well.

 

If you want to pay $8.00 on Etsy for a mason jar that has been wrapped with a strip of burlap that's been stamped with a pink heart -go ahead- just don't let me see it. 

 

If you want to put your buttons in a jar and make a little padded pincushion on the lid that's kind of cute and I can see where that might work on a shelf next to your sewing machine. 

 

The soap dispenser is silly though - why not just refill the plastic one you already have.  It won't break on the tile floor.

 

Why waste your time dipping mason jars in metallic paint to stick your flowers in...just use a tin can. (see above)

 

Lamps and Chandliers should be elegant.  Go ahead and use a jar for cut flowers or to plant a group of bulbs - a jar is like a vase. 

 

But really - besides food and drink - the only thing a mason jar is good for is to keep matches dry on a camping trip.

 

 

NO, IT'S NOT!!!



Who would do this



 



When you could do this?

                             

 

 There ARE some things that should not be recycled, repurposed or reused.  Just throw it away.

 

From Regretsy Website


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For me, nothing escapes being a paper weight at least once.
 THANK YOU!

 

 

 





 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Evolutionary, my dear Watson!

Most people think "evolution" means the same thing as "progress.  It is even defined that way in the thesarurus - listed with other synonyms like "growth" and "advancement". 

 

However, evolution is NOT a process where species improve themselves.

Evolution is simply an indication that something has changed.

Something somewhere went terribly wrong!
 



With a world as diverse as ours, it would be odd if change didn't occur. In fact, change is inevitable! Nothing stays the same. When something new evolves, it is always built out of old parts. Nature recycles. However, when we change the old forms just a little bit, they may suddenly develop into something entirely unexpected.

" Change is at the very core of evolution and without it,

all creatures would look alike and behave in the same way."  Martin Dansky

 
In medieval times the nobility had large hunting reserves set aside for them. No one else could use the land or build on it.  This policy had the unexpected benefit of preserving these green spaces throughout England and Europe for us today. This is good.

However, an unexpected drawback happened when rabbits were first brought to Australia and New Zealand for food. The rabbit population grew so large that it became a major uncontrollable pest.

"Species evolve exactly as if they were adapting as best they could to a changing world,

and not at all as if they were moving toward a set goal."  George Gaylord Simpson

We are all bound to each other in a million ways. The food we eat is really just Earth, Water and Sun mixed for us by the plants that grow here.  Think about that!  Everything that lives on this planet - animal or plant - is related. We are all siblings descended from that first dividing cell. Therefore, what happens in one place, will have consequences in another.  

Change in one thing leads to change in another.

In science, this is called the Chaos Theory.  It says that when a butterfly moves its wings somewhere in the world, it can cause a tornado in another part of the world!  Or more simply put, that it is the seemingly insignificant moments that alter history and shape the future. And, we aren't always able to predict what will happen!

A road less traveled?

Flash flooding and seasonal droughts are an unintended consequence of people draining or filling in wetlands to plant crops. Wetlands are needed for water purification, flood control, and shoreline stability. Wetlands are a home for a wide range of plant and animal life. We need to protect them. People didn't always understand the importance of swamps and believed that filling them in made "unproductive land" usable.

Thanks to http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Wetlands

Even when we are actively trying to do something good, there may be unintended consequences. Such as, when the French government offered money for ghost nets (nets that have been left or lost by fishermen) in order to help save wildlife, the result was people began to vandalize the nets to collect the reward - creating a problem where none had existed before.

 

"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority,

whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles." James Watson

Humans are always looking for just such "Cause and Effect" type of answers to solve their problems. But, sometimes the problems are just too complex - and no matter what we do or don't do, we can't seem to win!


This is known as a "Revelance Paradox".  It happens whenever we gather information in order to make a good decision, but our choice fails because we also excluded other crucial facts that we thought were irrelevant or unnecessary at the time.

 

In other words, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.



 To help us figure out what to do, I've listed some "Laws" below as a guide:

 

Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.

Hanlon's Razor - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Hofstadter's Law - It always takes longer than you expect. (Even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.)

Hindsight Bias - The inclination to see events that have already occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place. (I KNEW that was going to happen!)
 

Parkinson's Law - Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. (Subcontractors know this one.)

Segal's Law - A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

(It refers to the potential pitfalls of having too much conflicting information when making a decision.)

Sod’s Law - Bad fortune will be tailored to the individual. (Example: Ludwig van Beethoven's loss of hearing)

Sod's Other Law - The degree of failure is in direct proportion to the effort expended and to the need for success. (Ain't this the truth?)

Cope’s Rule – Population lineages tend to increase in body size over evolutionary time. (WHY I'M FAT EXPLAINED?)

Dollo's Law – An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors." (Evolution is not reversible.)

Herblock's Law – If it's good, they'll stop making it. (Twinkies!)

Humphrey's Law – Conscious attention to a task normally performed automatically can impair its performance. (Driving the speed limit when a Police car is directly behind you.)

Kranzberg's First Law of Technology – Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. (Okay, I give up - what the hell is it?)

Muphry's Law – If you write anything criticizing, editing or proofreading another, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written. (Hence the "mispelling" of Murphy's Law)

Shirky Principle – Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.

All of this leads us to the most profound law of all:  Sturgeon's Law –which states that 

" Ninety percent of everything is crud."

 

Amazed by and unable to explain both the universality of the genetic code, and the narrow window of time between the date the Earth cooled enough to be inhabited and life first appeared, Dr. Crick proposed his theory of "Directed Panspermia" - the idea that Earth may have been seeded with life by a rocketship from another planet.

Life is full of surprises. We must expect the unexpected.

Francis Crick

 

However we got here, this we know for certain: We eat from the Earth, we drink water from its rain, and we breathe in its air. We need to take care of Earth. All Earth things live in us and we live in all things on Earth. You can't get more connected than that.

 "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood,

the carbon in our apple pies, were all made in the interiors of collapsing stars.

We are made of starstuff.”   Carl Sagan

 

 

 

DIY Valentines

This is Love


My Valentine     

by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

I will make you brooches 

 

And toys for your delight 

 

 

 

Of bird song at morning 

 

And star shine at night 

 

 

I will build a palace

 

Fit for you and me,

 

 

Of green days in forests

 

And blue days at sea.

 

 

 

Each day is a love letter from planet Earth to us!

How to make a shape poem using Microsoft

HOW TO: Make Your Own Paper from www.thedailygreen.com/

Homemade-Paper Valentines from www.thelongthread.com

Happy Valentine's Day !










 

The Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker



Bird Collection

Doesn’t this picture make you sad?  This is from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. I assume these birds were preserved and labeled for scientific reasons, yet I can’t help feeling depressed to think of all these dead birds!

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -JACQUES DEVAL

I never really thought about it before, but most museums must have storage rooms filled with all sorts of collections…not just birds.  I’d like to believe they communicate with each other and share what they have discovered, but I’m betting that every museum, every aviary, every science lab is doing its own research and killing birds for its own collection. Here is a link listing of some them. 

 CLICK Museums that have bird collections

How many birds, fish, and bugs do they kill when it is all added up?  Well, okay I don’t really care how many bugs they kill.  I'm not overly fond of bugs. 

Birds differ from man because they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was. They don’t mess things up.  I like birds. Birds probably care how many bugs are killed. Or they would if they knew.

The moment a person is concerned with which is  a jay and which is a sparrow,

 he can no longer see birds or hear them sing. – ERIC BERNE

Automated Bird Song
 

In many cultures, birds are thought to be a supernatural link between Heaven and Earth. In India birds represent departed souls; whereas in Christian art, birds are often portrayed as saved souls.  In Greece, the mythical Phoenix represents the resurrection of mortals born again from ashes and in Asia birds are symbols of immortality.

Specific powers are attributed to certain birds too. For instance, in Imperial Rome and in present day United States, the Eagle is a symbol of strength. In China, cranes represent long life. 

CLICK for List of Birds by Common Name 

Angels

In many religions, Angels are depicted as winged humanoids.  They guard mankind and act as mediators between Heaven and the Earthborn (us).  The Egyptian god, Thoth, with the head of an Ibis, was credited with giving mankind the invention of writing.  Prometheus, who gave mankind fire, was punished by Zeus by being bound to a rock, where each day an eagle was sent to eat his liver, only to have it grow back the next day and be eaten again.



Egyptian God Thoth

Birds are scattered throughout our religion, our mythology and our literature. Some examples:

1.   In the ballet, SWAN LAKE a young princess, Odette and her maids are put under a spell where they are transformed into swans.

2.   In the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling, a race of magic creatures called VEELA appear as beautiful women, but turn into scary bird-like creatures when angry.

3.   In Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the bird people of Brontitall evolved from humans who were sick of buying shoes and vowed never to set foot on the ground again. (Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would tire of buying shoes, but this book WAS written by a man.)

4.   In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game, the AARAKOCRA are a race of bird people who dwell in the mountains. 

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. – HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Legend of THE OWLMAN of Mawnan, Cornwall
  

We give birds human characteristics in our children’s stories such as the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky and give humans bird-like features in adult books such as the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. In the movie SPLICE , human and bird DNA are combined to create a new species as seen below.

Dren, the Human-Bird

Birds are important to us in many ways, and I hope that their fate is not as written in the poem below.  I don't want the trays of dead museum birds to be all we have left for our future generations.

 

What They Made from Its Bones     by William Wenthe 
Buttons, of course.
Dagger handles.
Letter openers.
Hairpins, combs.

Powders to cover moles.

Clasps, stays, grommets, bobbins, brooches, splints. 

Rattles, plectrums, rosary beads, and at least one

reliquary for a splinter of the cross.

Cribbage pegs, concertina keys, teething rings, teeth,
Sealing wax.

Fertilizer for cabbages.

Kings, queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns.

Whipstocks, aphrodisiacs, laxatives.

Pipe stems, crossbow ticklers . . .
An extinction so thorough, we find no remains of the bird itself;

only relics of a vanished settlement,

preserved for us in glass museum cases.

Take a look at some of these recycled crafts having to do with birds and follow the LINKS below and in the sidebar on the left.

Tea Cup Feeder

Book Page Art



CLICK to see  Giant Roadrunner from recycled material 

 

Tin Can Bird Feeder

 CLICK HERE to see another Recycled Bird Feeder



Mechanical Bird

 CLICK HERE to see a Recycled Bird Ornament

Kites are like birds

Check out these books at our library:

My Life as a Bird by Warren, Armanda L.

Fine-feathered Death by Johnston, Linda O.

The Conjurer's Bird by Davies, Martin

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy by Woodall, Clive

Skyward by Monroe, Mary Alice

Birds of Bookhaven by Murray, Susan

Little Bird of Heaven by Oates, Joyce Carol

The Bird Woman by Hardie, Kerry

The Tea-Olive Bird Watching Society by Trobaugh, Augusta

The Impossible Bird by O'Leary, Patrick

The Bird Yard by Martin, Wallis J.

The Bird Artist by Norman, Howard 

A Bird in the House by Laurence, Margaret

The Wingless Bird by Cookson, Catherine

The Night Circus by Morgenstern, Erin
Raven Quest by Stewart, Sharon

The Trumpet of the Swan by White, E.B.

Skellig by Almond, David
The Death of a Kingfisher by Beaton, M.C.
The Crocodile Bird by Rendell, Ruth