Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ramblings and Causes

The last two mornings have been in the 30s down here! 30s! Right now it is 36 degrees and feels like 32! Ugghh! But at least there is not the snow and sleet that everyone up there is contending with right now.

We went to Blythe (pronounced Bl-eye-th) California on Friday for some work. West of town it sure looked like a tornado had touched down with signs blown over and trees split. A gas station that we had to audit had some windows and doors damaged. It is just very fortunate that the tornado did not hit over in Quarzsite with the thousands upon thousands of people in RVs and no where else to go.

Speaking of thousands living in RVs, I thought you would appreciate this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orn7xAEKov4 . It is amazing out west here the amount of people that just pull over on the side of the road and park it and camp. Of course, good weather, or mostly good weather, has something to do with it as well as an abundance of federal land where you can stay anywhere. I imagine it is quite the shock for some people if they head east in their RV to find that there is hardly any land to do that on. Granted we can do that on the national forest land, but how do you get a rig in between all the trees on land that has stumps and hollows....you don't. That is one of the advantages to boondocking in the desert.....lots of flat land to put a rig on.

Bill and I have gotten into gardening rather heavily the last two years before we left by planting fruit trees and adding raised beds out on the Eagles Way side of the property. That is the hardest thing for me being on the road, besides missing my hot tub and king sized bed -- not being able to plan and improve my garden. I have looked into getting a Master's in permaculture which is "a system of perennial agriculture emphasizing the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems". This is definitely a career path I NEVER thought I would be considering! LOL...But I feel strongly that more and more chemicals and genetically altered food is NOT the road we should be on. If you feel the same, here is a link to a free bumper sticker to display in support of the family farm http://action.farmland.org/site/PageNavigator/No-Farms-No-Food/Request_bumpersticker as well as a link to where you can take action and join the campaign against Monsanto http://www.organicconsumers.org/action.cfm

I also wanted to highly recommend a program that Disney has going called "Give a Day. Get a Disney Day". Here is the link http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/WhatWillYouCelebrate/index?name=Give-A-Day-Get-A-Disney-Day. Do a search and find an event or a charity in your area where you would like to volunteer. Sign up through the link on the Disney website. Follow the directions to report that you volunteered and get a 1 day 1 park pass to either Disneyland or Disney World. You can also choose to donate your free visit voucher to a charity such as the Make A Wish Foundation. With the corporate greed and corruption that is all too rampant today, I believe this is an awesome initiative by Disney and a role model for other companies to follow. You win by helping others and getting a day at a theme park, Disney wins by improving their corporate image and of course the charity wins big with more volunteers.

And while I am on my soapbox, please remember the animals of Haiti. Yes, people are important and I know everyone is stretched thin here but if you are looking for a way to help the Haitians, helping the animals is one way. Make sure you are donating to a reputable organization like the Best Friends Animal Society which is part of ARCH, the Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti. As the moderator of one of my RV.net groups put it, "Even if you don't believe that money and effort should be spent on animals when people are suffering, this effort is necessary for the safety and continued economic viability of the PEOPLE of Haiti.Keeping the animal agriculture of Haiti functioning is vital in recovery. The diseases caused by free roaming, injured, uncared for animals include rabies, leptospirosis are a real threat to people.You really can't separate animal health from people health, there are just too many zoonotic diseases to ignore one." If donating to this cause interests you go to https://www.bestfriends.org/donate/Haiti.cfm and know that your donation will be used as it was intended to be used.

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