Happy Earth Day (a few days late)

There were a lot of great nature/wildlife shows on this weekend in celebration of Earth Day. I learned a lot of things. Something that struck me and stayed with me all weekend is this:

We are in a time called the 6th mass extinction. 2 out of every 5 animals on planet Earth are in danger of become extinct. ALL CAUSED BY MAN. This is unprecedented. Once a species is extinct, that is it. We can't get them back.

This is scary to me. I don't want to live in a world with no wolves or polar bears or pandas. And if we get rid of all the wildlife on this planet, what makes people think that we will survive? For instance, if we lose the bees (and we are losing them), we lose a huge group of pollinators that pollinate our crops. What are we going to eat if there is nothing to pollinate the crops?

It is hard to tell, but from what I could research the rarest animal on the planet is the Javan Rhino of Indonesia. There are 60 left in the world. 60 That's it.

And it isn't just foreign places that animals are disappearing. Here in North America, there are only 520 black footed ferrets left. And I don’t mean in one city or state. I mean the whole of North America! That is fewer than the number of people who go to Triangle Town Center Mall on a Saturday. There used to be 500,000 of them at one time. Luckily there are groups that are working to bring them back. But everyone has to get involved to turn what we have done to the Earth around. We humans have to do something and do something NOW! We can't wait, or for species like the Black-Footed Ferret and Javan Rhino it will be too late.

There are a lot of websites that offer information on what you can do. Visit:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/
http://www.defenders.org/
http://www.nwf.org/

Random thoughts for Friday

Sweet Moment: I went over to my brother’s house last night to see my nieces. My niece Mallory and I were playing Go Fish and she looked at me and said “Mimi I am SO GLAD that you came over tonight, I miss playing our card games”. It made me happy to know that someone was glad to see me! Plus, I love a good game of Go Fish!

Funny Moment: Same card game and every time Mallory had to go fish for a card and it is not what she wanted, she said “that’s the bummer that I’m talkin’ about”. How funny is that?

Cute Moment: same visit to my brother’s, and Phoebe getting up out of her chair, walking over to me and saying “MIMI!” when I came in!

Great show: October Road. Just LOVE this show for some reason.

Weird salad topping that I like: Dry roasted peanuts

Favorite thing to eat lately: fresh mozzarella cheese and tomato Panini made by my mom.

Oddest combination of food that I ate this week: Baked Lays Potato Chips with a glass of milk.

Last song added to my MP3 player: Faith, George Michael

Song I am listening to on my MP3 player right now: A Campfire Song by 10,000 Maniacs.

Last DVD that I watched: I watched 3 last weekend while I was in bed sick with allergies, Shut Up and Sing (Dixie Chicks documentary), Marie Antoinette, and The Holiday. All fabulous!

Last thing I ordered off of ebay: White Rabbit Wade Whimsey

Last thing I ate: Baked Ruffles (the breakfast of champions!) Oh and some cheese. That is good for me right? Man I gotta eat better!

Current favorite item of clothing: my big, stretched out Wrightsville Beach t-shirt complete with holes. Yes, I only wear this at home!

Current project: Trying to research homemade diets for my dogs. The pet food recall has just thrown me in to a tizzy!

My plans tonight: Watching the 20/20 special for Earth Day. I am such a nerd!

" You gotta have friends"

Have you ever had one of those of days when you wake up and you know that you should stay in bed, you should call in sick and go back to bed. But then you talk yourself in to going to work. You are a responsible adult, and responsible adults go to work. So I did. MISTAKE! And I knew it the moment I walked in. I don't know how I knew, I just did. I did not know what it was going to be, but I knew it was just waiting...And then it happened. BOOM! And it was not good. Not good at all. But, there was one saving grace for me. My friends. I won't name them by name but they know who they are. And I just want to thank them. Thanks J for calling me tonight (from out of town) because you wanted to make sure that I was ok. Thanks A for letting me go to pieces, giving me good advice, and offering your shoulder. Thanks M for offering me a haven to go to if I needed to. And thanks to W for not "throwing me under the bus". And JJK, I know I haven't told you the whole saga yet, but I will and I know you will be right there for me and completely outraged on my behalf. Thanks. I don't know what I did to deserve such friends, but I am glad I have you. It is good to have friends.

A Man Among Wolves

Last night I watched a truly amazing show on the National Geographic Channel. It was called “A Man Among Wolves”. The man among the wolves is Shaun Ellis, a British researcher. What I found amazing was here was a man who gave up everything; family, money etc to raise 3 abandoned wolf pups. And not just raise them, but raise them like wolves. He taught them to howl, how to hunt fish, I mean just amazing. Several things surprised me, and several I found completely interesting. For instance:

The pack allowed Shaun to be alpha. For almost 2 years. Only when he left for several weeks to go to Poland and the United States for research, did he return to find that he had been replaced.

Next amazing thing is they accepted him back in the pack in another position. As peacemaker. AMAZING.

On occasion Shaun would have to go get stitches because of the nature of wolf life (their skin is A LOT tougher than ours). When he would return, the wolves would take the stitches out and lick the wound. He said that his wounds healed twice as fast. Their licking keeps bacteria out of the wound.

He ate what they ate. He would drag a carcass in and feed right along side the wolves. As alpha, he would let each member of the pack know when they could eat, and what. Before bringing the food in, he would take the liver out, flash cook it, put it in a bag back in the dead animal, drag it in and pick that out. OK, that my friends, is DEDICATION!

Shaun is working on developing a way to keep wild wolves from coming on to ranchers land. It involves playing a tape of wolves howling a defensive howl at certain times during the day. If this were to work it would save many wolves from being killed by ranchers and hopefully change attitudes towards wolves.

If you get the chance to see this show, you should stop and watch it. Just really amazing stuff.

Good Samaritans

On Saturday night I was returning home from pet sitting when traffic slowed to a stop. It was 10:45 p.m. so I was worried it was an accident involving person or animal. So when it was my turn to go, I noticed that it was a black dog walking between the lanes of traffic. So I passed the dog and pulled over, grabbed my cell phone and started toward the dog. (*Ok, let me say one thing here...if you ever decide to stop for a dog or any animal, please know what you are doing. You can really get hurt if you don't. And that is not to say that I do know what I am doing, it is more like when it comes to animals, I have no fear and that is not always a good thing...a 4 foot black snake I picked up at my parent's house 2 years ago comes to mind.. I digress..)
So, as I am walking, someone with no patience or maybe not caring comes about 2 inches from hitting the dog. I then knew I needed to act fast. So, I bent down and yelled " Here Doggie, Come"! And the dog stops, looks at me and comes running right to me. When she gets to me, she about knocks me over with her wiggling, happy body. At this same time a Good Samaritan gets out and comes to help me. It is dark, I have no flash light and the only thing I can see is SADIE on her tag. There is a phone number, I just can't read it. The man who is helping me is then joined by his friend and their 2 wives. We finally get the phone number and I call. No answer. Oh great. So, we move over toward the headlights of our cars just to make sure and I try again. This time the owner answers the phone and says that he will be there. I grab a leash from car, snap it on Sadie and I wait. The people thank me for stopping, I thank them for stopping and they leave. I then stand there with Sadie waiting for her owner. He comes, and there is a happy reunion. I can tell they are truly happy to see each other. He tells me that Sadie dashed out the door past him and got out of the yard. He was getting dressed to go look for her when I called. This can happen to any pet owner, and one of my fears. I went home and hugged my 3, thankful it wasn't one of them.

This story had a happy ending, but the important part of it is this, you never know when you can make a difference in someone or in this case an animal's life. No matter how small, you can make a difference. I hope I can. I am going to try.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."

— Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax

Wilhelm the Polar Bear at the North Carolina Zoo. He was one of the Polar Bears rescued from a Mexican Circus where he and Masha (the other Polar Bear) were horribly mistreated. At least now they are well taken care of; they are fed, have plenty of space and LOTS of water. They deserve to be happy.

These majestic creatures are disappearing from the earth, and it makes me sad to think that one day you only be able to see them in the zoo. So many creatures are disappearing because of global warming, loss of habitat-human created problems. We must find a way to save them. We need to learn to be good stewards of the earth.