Simple Suggestion #285... Build a garden blanket fort

Remember playing in blanket forts as kids? I think my mom is the queen of blanket forts. The ones she made with my kids were truly awe-inspiring.

Why am I thinking about this today? Well, it's over 30 degrees outside this afternoon, and that fact reminded me of the online workshop I took a while back that talked about how to climate-proof our gardens. Not that we can really climate proof anything... we're at the mercy of weather patterns that do as they must, that are only getting more and more challenging to live through in so many parts of the planet.

When the weather gets this warm, a garden can easily sunburn, so it's a good idea to move tender plants into the shade when possible. Failing that, we do what we can to soften the burning rays, and my solution this morning was to build backyard blanket forts for my tomatoes and peppers. Everything else will have to tough it out until the sun goes down and I can water again.

Climate change is real, and it's hard to watch the devastation it's wreaking on different parts of the world right now. About the only things we can do are to try to reduce our creation of greenhouse gas emissions, disengage from consumerism as much as possible, and source our food locally when we can in order to build up local producers so that we have them to fall back on as it becomes more challenging to ship food across the globe. I hope. 

Well, actually, there are hundreds of other things we can do, too, if we choose to live more simply. I started this list of Simple Suggestions back in 2011, and it grew and grew... If you haven't checked it out yet, it hasn't gone anywhere, though I've forgotten to add to it for at least a year!

If you're a gardener, I hope you already know this handy tip. For the time being, my tomatoes and peppers are protected until the weather moderates, and I'm trying to keep cool while praying for more temperate weather. 

God, help all the people and places that really need relief.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

An Indigeous prayer for the earth

Continuing with the theme of Indigenous art and wisdom in my last moodling, here's a gorgeous video that tells us to continue past our sorrow and make the necessary changes to save our earth. The first 1:25 is a beautiful prayer, and the rest tells the story of the man praying. I'd love to spend some time chatting with this Cherokee elder, Stan Rushworth, but he's in California, and there are many elders here, too. How many Indigenous folks do you know?

Saving the Eastern Slopes

This past weekend, my love and I were invited to a gorgeous part of our province known as the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, not far from Nordegg. You may have heard a fair bit about the Eastern Slopes lately if you live in the west, as a lot of musicians, ranchers, environmentalists, First Nations leaders, and ordinary joes and jills like me have been raising a bit of a ruckus about protecting them.

The Alberta Government quietly changed its coal policy back in June of 2020, and has granted too many coal leases to foreign companies, who will come and strip mine the coal beneath our mountains, leaving a huge mess and allowing all sorts of other chemicals (like selenium) to be released and washed down the slopes into our creeks and rivers. Even one lease is too many.

Before I rant any further, let me show you the beauty that Lee and I enjoyed for the last two days:

A view of ranchland...

Those amazing, wispy cirrus clouds...

The North Saskatchewan River on its way to our hometown...

A gorgeous picnic site overlooking so much beauty...

This last picture is of the North Saskatchewan River as it flows toward Rocky Mountain house. It's the river that supplies water to many cities and towns on its way to join the South Saskatchewan River and flow on towards Hudson Bay. Unfortunately, one of the coal leases people like me are opposing is situated just on the other side of the slope going up from the river on the left side of this picture. 

So this morning I wrote a letter to the people in charge of Alberta's Coal Policy, to let them know that they need to change their policy, period. If any of my readers are interested in adapting what's below to send their own letter to the Alberta Government's coal policy strategists, I'd highly encourage it, as they are accepting emails and submissions until September 19th, and the more of us who speak up, the more likely they are to listen. 

Even if you're not from Alberta, feel free to send an email to  energy.coalpolicy@gov.ab.ca. Especially if you live downstream! The fact of the matter is that coal projects in Alberta aren't really necessary, but they'll affect people all over the globe if we don't get a handle on coal-burning caused climate change. Every person on our planet is part of the web of life affected by short-sighted decisions that allow for coal leases.

Here's my version of the letter, but it's always good to personalize your own! 

To whom it may concern,

My husband and I just spent the weekend in the Nordegg area, and feel more than ever that the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies need protection from coal projects. We want you to revoke coal leases to protect the water that comes from those slopes through the North Saskatchewan River to so many Alberta communities, ours included. 

The use of coal for industrial processes is already severely reduced as scientists, metallurgical engineers and technologists find less fossil-fuel intensive ways to power industry worldwide. Destroying the beauty of our province now when coal is almost a thing of the past is sheer stupidity.

The AER made the right decision regarding the Grassy Mountain Mining project. I ask you to please put a halt on ALL other coal projects immediately, to protect our water and save our planet from further environmental devastation and climate change. Albertans like me are depending on you to do the right thing!

Why not make yourself a cup of your favourite beverage and send the coal policy folks a note of your own?

A week in Jasper

Lee and I are celebrating 30 years of marriage this summer, and decided to mark the occasion by visiting Jasper, which was the first stop on our honeymoon so many years ago. It was a lovely week except for the ever-present wildfire smoke in Western Canada this summer. Our tent trailer filtered the air a little, but we did sleep and hike in our masks on occasion. 

We had intended to camp for ten days, but on the 8th day, the smoke got so thick that we could hardly tell that we were in the mountains. After breathing varying degrees of smoke for a week, we decided to head home early and give our lungs a break. 

Climate change is here, and we have no choice but to live with it, to accept the challenges it offers and the sacrifices it demands. In the middle of our week away, I participated in an Alberta Beyond Coal walk with our eldest, Christina, who is helping to spearhead the ABC campaign. 

We and a half dozen folks from Jasper strolled up and down Jasper's main drag with signs that say "Protect our Water," and on the whole, people were cheering us on. Nobody in Jasper wants to see rivers full of selenium or the strip mining of mountain beauty of the eastern slopes... but Hinton, a coal town just an hour away, is a different kettle of fish.

Since these moodlings are my way of recording some events in my life as well as sharing thoughts with readers, I post a few pictures and comments here that I can look back on to remember my 30th anniversary week. 

If you've never seen the Rocky Mountains, Jasper is a jewel of a place, worth a visit!

Pyramid Mountain and Lake in the smoke...

and on a clearer day...

Lee at Edith Cavell glacier...

Cavell Lake...

a happy couple...

hiking the long way around Old Fort Point with our kids...

A view of the mighty Athabasca...

my favourite tree...

Saskatchewan Glacier as seen from Parker Ridge on a smoky day...

Who is that masked mountain man?

Lake Edith...

my favourite trailer/home...

and heading for home...

I am grateful for a good week away.

Declaring myself

I just realized that it's been two weeks since my last moodling. Not that I haven't been doing plenty of it in other places while I'm harvesting my garden and working on other special projects. Harvest time is coinciding with a Federal Election, and I've decided that I can't sit on my hands this year when it comes to political participation. Less online moodling, and more action!

So as I'm dealing with produce, I'm also declaring my affiliations and getting active in a local election campaign, and I'm inviting you, my readers (all 16 of you, ha!) to do the same.

My daughter is wearing this t-shirt these days...

You may hate the idea of talking politics, but I'd like to assure you that there has never been a more important time to do so. The human population of our country and our world need to get our act together and step up to the challenge of reducing and adapting to the changes in climate that we are noticing more and more. For most of us in Canada, climate change is not serious yet, but we can't let that lull us into complacency! 

Listen to our scientists -- the people who study what's going on because of their passion for our planet have been telling us that its warming is endangering our survival. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report gave us 12 years to cut our fossil fuel emissions drastically, or we may not last much longer as a species.

But some say that 12 years is optimistic -- already we are seeing mega storms, mega fires, mega floods, mega droughts, mega heat waves and more than 7 million climate refugees looking for safer places to live since the beginning of this year alone... and on it goes.

In my part of the world this summer, we have had one of the coldest and wettest seasons on record, and I've heard lots of people comment, "Global warming? What global warming?"

My response is that it may not be hot here, but Europe saw temps around 45 degrees in some places this summer. Tuktoyaktuk is already losing land due to higher seas. Greenland was warmer than Edmonton a lot of the summer. Stream temperatures in Alaska reached the predicted temperature for 2069, fifty years ahead of time, and spawning salmon can't survive that kind of warmth. The burning of the Amazon is only making things worse. And how about Hurricane Dorian? Dismiss all these things as one-offs, and you're missing the message that our planet is trying to send us all.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm not the kind of person who is a pessimist. But I'm a realist, and I cannot, in good conscience, work for one of our three best known political parties. I'm working for the Greens because they are the only ones who are constant in making climate issues a priority.

I know that a lot of people are worried about vote splitting creating an opportunity for a less appreciated party to come up the middle and win, but this time, voting strategically is not an option for me. I want to see vote shifting -- using our limited resources to get to a greener economy, away from big polluting industries and toward options that care for people and the planet.

I am voting for, and working for, our climate. Sure, there are many other issues, but if we don't have a liveable environment, none of them matter. Though our Alberta government might be in denial, the world is shifting from fossil fuels to greener options, and I want Canada to hurry up and get on that bandwagon. And I'd like to see how the Greens would bring that about, because the other parties don't seem to understand that climate change and moving away from creating greenhouse gases is the main issue for this election and for our survival.

If we we work for our climate, we'll have a better planet overall. If we don't work for our climate, we may not have many more elections to try and fix things. 

We don't have much time. And making positive sacrifices for the sake of the planet right now, when things are relatively okay, will be much easier than adapting to bigger disasters further down the road.

Please, check out your green candidate, or better yet, call them and see if there's something small you can do to shift votes for the climate.

The time to make a difference is now.

We can't wait another 4 years

This election, it is critical to vote for climate change solutions. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives humanity less than 12 years to reduce our carbon emissions and keep the warming of our planet under 1.5 degrees, we need to act now. We just had the hottest July ever, and if we don't do something, the deep trouble we're already in will only get deeper.

The video below is rather tongue-in-cheek, but it points out that kids see the real threat to their future and want to do what we adults have delayed doing for far too long. I would like to see the voting age dropped, maybe not to eight years of age, but you have to admit that it would be interesting to see what would happen in our world if kids could vote.

Today's food for thought. Also a pretty cute website, if you click here -- especially the FAQs! (Toward the bottom.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWf-bBEodSI