There's a colonial on my playground!
Current mood: sad

When most people imagine a playground they see swing-sets and slides. When I was a child the woods were our playground. Each day was a new adventure. Streams, climbing trees, missions in the forest. We even had trees we could climb to the top of and jump down. Because we were so little and the trees so strong it would catapult us back up about thirty feet and we would climb down. We called them 'parachute trees.

I work not very far from where I grew up and occasionally jog past my old playground, the woods. It is now under invasion by housing developers. This is not uncommon nowadays, but it is sad. I realize the need and value in owning your own home and am excited to own one in the future. We are taking the environment for granted, however and need to change our ideas about it. Environmentalism is bigger now than it ever was. Most people are burdened by life and overlook the joy that the natural world brings to people. More importantly, it is our survival and salvation. Littering is commonplace because people are careless or indifferent, "someone will pick it up". Most people don't recycle or recycle as much as they could and not many people give thought to using cold water instead of hot when they clean their clothes. It's important to take the extra few seconds to place trash where it belongs, wash out and recycle your fast food containers, choose to use cold water whenever you can. The forest needs us and we need the forest. In America, irresponsible leaders are replaced and the system is fixed. The natural world cannot fix itself, that is the job of irresponsible people. If its inconvenient to take a few moments to care about the environment, how inconvenient will it be when fresh water no longer exists and pollution destroys the world we inhabit. You can start right now. Boycott companies you know have a poor reputation regarding pollution, I boycott Exxon-Mobil unless under dire circumstances. I pick up trash from others a lot and I am a recycling Nazi. I sleep well at night too. Hybrid cars are a great thing but it would be good to push for a hydrogen economy no pollution, no oil wars, no problems! There's a native american saying I like a lot. "Only when the last tree falls dead, only when the last river is poisoned, only when the last fish dies only then will you know that money cannot be eaten". This isn't a sermon to put down the reader. Its an alarm clock that has had the snooze button repeatedly pushed. Its time to wake up. Some day I may have children. I want them to have a forest to play and camp in, where I can show them the natural world before someone decided that trees were in the way of their profitable housing development, that will have streets named after trees (ironic), that could have been substituted by buying real estate that already exists and is for sale. My playground is almost gone, but there are others yet to be saved. Thankyou

______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________

The Chipmunk Spa and Resort
Current mood: chipper

The yellow sun was trying its damnedest to burn the chill out of the air. The heat from last nights dying embers, in the fire, were a memory.The flowing red waves, like a carnival carousel, hypnotized and coaxed me into bed, hungry as I was. A chilly July day (its N.H.), camping and I'm tearing into a case of roasted peanuts I had taken to Franconia Notch or The crotch of the Notch as we all called it. My friends jeremy and keith stumbled out from the tent and we begin tossing them down in a frenzy. Too early to cook just yet. I can't wait for bacon. As we sat cracking shells and munching our food a chipmunk appeared. Everything about him seemed typical except for his close proximity, he was 3 feet away. As a gesture of friendship we tossed a couple of peanuts at him and were amazed that he popped both of them into his mouth at the same time. Don't let a chipmunks size fool you, they could fit your keys in their mouth if they wanted to. A brief moment later we looked up. He was back, this time with friends. They looked like a gang of school children. We continued throwing peanuts at them coaxing them to come closer and close to us ( or were they coaxing us?.who knows.). We had made some good friends and decided to play. I stood upright. They stared but didn't run. I placed a peanut on my shoulder. Just like a gang of kids one of them mustered the courage and scurried up my leg, climbed my torso, grabbed the peanut and ran back down. His little claws tickled as he did this. I continued and soon enough they were all trusting enough to climb on me and grab some food. My friend jeremy put one between his teeth and this, too, they stole away. Our chipmunk circus continued on with minor interruptions when one or another would make way to our tent and we would shoo him/her away. Like a child they would quickly forget why the tent intrigued them and they would focus on the food. If you're an animal being fed you have to focus on the food. If you look away even for a few brief seconds we move on to an animal that's paying attention because that's how feeding animals goes down. We love the attention. Always focus on the food. When we had exhausted our supply of peanuts we decided to close the chipmunk spa and resort, and .. focus on the food, our food. For me, Bacon. The chipmunks however, had a different plan. They sat grouped together starring at us as if they were saying in an English boys accent "Please sir, another peanut, please?". We ignored them, replying "Go home kid, there's none theft". After a pause. The invasion began. A full scale chipmunk invasion. One of them ran back to the tent as a diversion. We shooed him away and saw another dive into our box of corn Chex, knocking it over and spilling the contents onto our picnic table. We ran to get rid of him. It was a riot type situation. The children were ganging up on us now. They investigated cooler hatches as more of their friends showed up. They ran across frying pans, licked butter and rechecked peanut shells. They caused mayhem and destruction, tipping things over and making a mess. They ran up and down tables almost looking as if they were saying, "Where's the damn food". We laughed our asses off trying to chase them out. This continued on for a little while and finally they left. The chipmunk gang had retreated and we held our ground. Three warriors in the sun, with Flemenco music in the backround. This campsite is where we stood proud. It was time now for one thing. Focus on the food..Where's the Bacon.