Yay or Nay to "No Mow May"?

I’m sitting outside, observing nature, weekend chillaxing, and pondering my words—not an unusual approach to my weekends here at this time of year. Especially as out school days are dwindling. It’s sort of my outdoor office. 

As I gander about at the flowers my green thumb husband has planted to beautify our yard, I’m noticing the heavy doses of rain from the week have made our grass shoot up. It’s time to mow…but it isn’t happening today.

All of which brought to mind the concept of “No Mow May” since we are still here in the middle of that month.

To mow or not to mow…that is the question. And a rather controversial one at that, I’ve come to discover. 

The benefits are striking. By skipping mowing, you …

• Allow your lawn to flourish with wildflowers (preferably native) to provide safe comfort and nectar for pollinating bees and butterflies.

• Promote biodiversity by creating a yard habitat for a variety of wildlife.

• Improve your soil health by letting your grass grow longer, which in turn aids in water retention. 

• Save your own time and effort by letting your lawn go “au naturel.”

• Reduce pollution by leaving your lawn mower in your garage.

• Can create a healthier, more resilient lawn that is more drought resistant.

But the downsides are also numerous:

• If not tended properly, you can inadvertently create an unwelcome pests: ticks, mosquitoes, and rodents, to name a few.

• You grow more weeds than grass or maybe some invasive species take root, which then takes up an unruly life of its own, overtaking the “good grass.”

• You may even get some unwanted tree seed growth that blow your way in the wind. Woody plants over time are harder to get rid of than weeds (should you change your mind later on with the no-mow business).

• Some home owner associations and local municipalities get a little grumbly over the overgrowth. Might be worth checking you HOA rules and bylaws, which might come with fines.

• Long grass gets heavy over time and the blissful meadow you were hoping for may come to look like a neighborhood eyesore and a no-mowed abandoned lot instead. (see HOA above!)

The short term benefits may not be worth the long term costs—to you, your home aesthetics, and the road back to a healthy lawn. So before you make the decision to finish off May in a no-mow-kind-of-way… or if you are pondering jumping on the band wagon for next year, it’s worth doing your research. 

Maybe creating a native plants garden patch in your yard is the best way to get maximum benefits with minimal side effects.!

These are good places to go to learn more:

• Niall Garden's YouTube Video: "No Mow: Yes or No? | Everything You Need to Know! | No Mow May"
• AP New's "No Mow May? Good intentions, bad approach, critics say"  by Jessica Damiano (May 2023)
• Monarch Gardens LLC's "Just Say No to No Mow May" (April 2023)
• Greenwise Team's "No Mow May: Pros & Cons of This Pollinator Movement" (April 2022)
• Rewinding.com's "The Surprising Downside of #NoMowMay" by Sheila Colla (May 2022)

Image from https://wildsight.ca/events/no-mow-may/ and my backyard, grass level

Environmental Elmo

Elmo, of Sesame Street fame, is one pretty well-known and easily recognizable muppet. A regular on Sesame Street since 1980, he's one of our favorite 3-and-a-half-year-old...at least in our house. 

Elmo was a favored beanie baby in our house with our daughter. One particular trip to the Florida Strawberry Festival (many moons ago) brings back an Elmo fear-factor moment when we realized Elmo was once lost, dropped from stroller snuggles. Luckily, with swift retracing of steps, he was miraculously found before our 2 year old even realized he was missing. 

Phew! Crisis averted!

Just like being found in the vast fairgrounds for us, Elmo is always full of surprises. Elmo's latest is an environmental partnership between Sesame Street and Cut Media's HiHo Kids YouTube Channel. This collaboration pairs Elmo with HiHo Kids and their "Kids Meet" Series to create a two-part video series to help build environmental stewardship and curiosity of our natural world through eyes of kids and Elmo! 

In early May 2024, they released "Kids Meet a BeeKeeper," where Elmo does just that: meet a beekeeper. Bees can be a seemingly scary insect-enemy to small children (and let's face it--many adults). But, through their 7:41 short video, they highlight the importance of bees for pollinating our growing world as well as our grocery stores!

Just released this weekend on July 13th, the second in this series was "Kids Meet a Marine Biologist." With Elmo right there with the rest of the HiHo Kids again, they learn all about the importance of of oceans and how the protect the marine life that lives there by striving for clean ocean waters during this 7 minute short.

To get your Environmental Elmo fix, you can watch these two below. Then definitely check out the HiHo Kids YouTube channel to meet more folks with fascinating positions as well as some of their other series like "Kids Try," "Kids Design," "Don't You Dare," "Kids Show & Tell," "What's Popping," and more. You can also find them on the Sesame Street YouTube Channel. Additionally, Elmo & HiHo Kids paired together in 2022 to "Meet a Dancer" & "Meet a Basketball Player" where they discussed sports, wellness, character traits vital to athletes, as well as unique situations and their personal stories of triumph.

Videos from https://youtu.be/iYVguKQekRQ?si=armDfQWHVDqlw9Gh and https://youtu.be/NNItHwcj2no?si=6koBVqGz0TiaoHKE; Human Images from my camera archive. Elmo images from https://www.instagram.com/sesamestreet/reel/C6wPWYBOZlh/ and https://www.facebook.com/SesameStreet/posts/who-are-elmos-new-besties-the-bees-meet-a-beekeeper-with-elmo-and-our-friends-hi/984188723065117/?locale=af_ZA

"Bee" Kind to Bees 🐝

Someday we may be the proud owner of some bees and a bee box (or two). My husband's been looking into it with some county education classes--much to my son's chagrin. (My son will come around one day).

Bees are vital to many areas of our grocery story, yet bees are in decline. So doing what we can to help them is a good thing!

You don't have to join BeeKeepers of America to lend a helping hand to our flying little friends. It can be as simple as what you plant in your own yard. This illustration from Hannah Rosengren gives some great ideas on how to build a bee-friendly yard.

Video from https://youtu.be/r7EpQnzbwA8?si=v7G3zpkDhqKpSwjr and https://youtu.be/LmBUq103u-M?si=jXvIJAZyTSOVjfsW; image from https://www.hannahrosengren.com/help-save-bees

World Bee Day: May 20th

Since 2017, the United Nations has commemorated May 20th as World Bee Day to draw attention to bees (and other pollinators) to showcase how vitally important they are to our food system. The date was chosen to commemorate Anton Janša, a beekeeper and bee expert from Slovenia (born in 1734).

This year's theme is "Engaging in Pollinator-Friendly Agricultural Production" to heighten awareness how valuable pollinators are to flowering plants--many of which are major food items in our groceries such as fruits and vegetables, and even nuts and seeds. A healthy bee population indicates strong biodiversity, which is important in many ways to our planet's ecosystems....not to mention our human health!

In fact, it is estimated that about 75% to 95% of our Earth's flowering plants need help with pollinations. Yes, bees and butterflies too, but also moths, flies, beetles, wasps, bats, and small mammals can help with this task of moving pollen from one plant to another. Potentially this accounts from anywhere from "1.2 and 5.4 billion dollars in agricultural productivity in the United States." 

"Without bees to pollinate crops, yields on about 35% of agricultural land worldwide would suffer, and 87 of the world's leading food crops would be affected."

To further highlight the importance of bees and Unesco's Women for Bees organization, program godmother Angelina Jolie was in a March 2021 photoshoot of National Geographics photographer Dan Winter's to bring attention to the importance of bees. No surprise, it has resurged this year in honor of World Bee Day.

To learn more, check out...

• The United Nations' World Bee Day homepage
• Protecting Bee's website's 25 Facts About American Wild Bees
  
• The International Federation of Beekeepers' Association
• Apimondia’s Trees for Bees Campaign
  
• For a list of pollinator dependent foods, go to Pollinator Partnership's list of over 30 foods.
• Unesco's Women for Bees website 

Image from https://www.apimondia.org/world-bee-day.html, https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day, video from https://youtu.be/5d5BYpyq79c

The Buzz About Bees

Since the spring and the blooming flowers, the bees have been buzzing. Just because we are returning to school doesn't mean they are flying away quite yet. With the first day of fall hitting the calendar earlier this week, fall flowers bring about different reasons for the bees to keep flittering about! Those bees are still vital pollinators, on the move!

Here are some top notch resources sights to bring you the buzz about bees:

Pollinator Resources:

One of the most surprising places I found a wealth of pollinator resources was the Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial commemorating 9/11. They have an entire tab dedicated to environmental education and the pollinators and the native birds that make the memorial their home. In addition to the 9 website resources they list to other sites, they also list two science-based Pollinator Curriculums: one for Kindergarten to Grade 2, and one for Grades 3-5. They also have a "Bee Reading List for Kindergarten to Grade 12."

 

Bee Hotels:

Want to build your own bee hotel? National Geographic to the rescue with a lesson plan for students in grades 3-11. Here's another detailed blue print and guide from Michigan State University's Extension Office if you need it.

Additionally the 1 Million Women Facebook page has a mini movie about bee hotels. It showcases how they are helping to save and protect bees, who in turn are helping us!

Infographics:

These two infographics are a great reminder of just how necessary bees are. Check out "The Bees Knees" and "Bee Conscious" at these links to get a better, closer look.

Video https://www.facebook.com/1MillionWomen/videos/3104380016462070/; Title created at Canva.com

Infographic from https://medium.com/engl462/visual-project-the-bees-knees-9bada146f260 and  https://www.comvita.com/blog-article/why-bees-are-essential/I6700145

Nature's Alarm Clock

The sound of a Canadian goose was my alarm clock this morning (supposing that the honking call is we have this here). The open windows and freshness of spring led to crisp morning air whisper-tickling my skin. Accompanying that was the shifting sunbeam on my face, working its way up and through the slats of my blinds.

Disclosure: I am not a morning person nor do I typically wake up well or easily. Rather I’m a creature of sleep who loves my bed. Always have been. I don’t pounce up, ready to face the world. Rather I wake up tired, wanting to pull the covers over my head, craving more sleep, wanting a good two hours or more. (And this is a girl who has read Shawn Stevenson’s book Sleep Smarter and has purposely tried to go to bed earlier having learned the importance and value of sleep for our health and well-being.)

I know that my slow-to-wake side comes from more than my innate craving for the quiet of the house at the end of the nigh after all go to bed. It’s more than the second wind of creativity I can get in the evening. A lot probably comes from being a working mom with a to-do list that grows faster than it can get all crossed off. Maybe too it’s because I’ve yet to craft that morning routine where that first hour is deliciously mine. Instead, especially on work days, I’m too busy for a morning routine because I’m preoccupied with hitting the snooze button a number of times. Then I’m too busy scurrying around getting ready and organized to get out of the house...frequently running tight on time, hoping not to be late. Clearly we aren’t perfect beings, we have our flaws, and this is among mine.

But I digress—and return to the moment.

Another sunbeam is hitting that sweet spot in the blind, landing it directly on my face. I notice the blessed blue skies and the peeks of green on the trees (almost like a silhouette) through those slats as well. I start to count bird songs I hear, wishing I were more skilled with my identification skills.

I love the early days of spring where all of this is fresh and new, truly waking us up from winter. Hyperaware of it all— in part because we are so grateful winter has finally passed. (My affinity for winter is quite similar to my love of my morning extraction from bed!!)

A sneeze and nose twitxh surprises me, making me aware too of the miscroscopic pollen that is also wafting through my windows on the blowing breeze I feel. But I almost welcome it given it’s a necessary side effect of the beautifully flowered trees that dot my neighborhood and serve as pollination stations for the bees. All good things necessary in this wonderful world of ours.

I’m struck that I’m having an eco-mindfulness moment. And I’m struck that perhaps this indeed is the best way to start the day—filled with a bounty of love. Reminiscent of Earth Day, and the fact that every day should be celebrated as such.

My intention: to go forward through the day maintaining this level of eco-awareness and gratitude, thanking Spring for fully springing.

My hope: I start tomorrow with this same morning mindset! Maybe the new leaves of Spring may help me turn over a new leaf of my own!

Photos from my camera.

Bombas: The Socks That Give Back

For Christmas, despite the family gift exchange, one of my sister-in-laws had a little something for everyone. On the count of 3, we all opened.

Socks! She got us socks!

(Which I will say, as an adult, excites me far more than it ever did when I was a kid.)

And this year, it excited me more, as the socks came with a story. The socks were Bombas socks, and with every pair purchased, another pair is donated to the homeless.

My sister-in-law, with the help of us having feet and needing socks, donated about a dozen pairs of socks to help out the homeless.

The company was the inspired beginning with a Facebook quote that struck Randy Goldberg and Dave Heath: socks are the #1 requested clothing item from homeless people. That reminded me of a series I wrote about a five years ago when a college friend of mine did a 10 day stint at purposeful homelessness to experience what many of his patrons at Illinois' Freeport Area Church Cooperative. After doing the Susan G. Komen 3 Day//60 mile Walk for Breast Cancer, I even have my own personal experience on the importance of socks and footcare--especially in the rain! Good socks are a must!

These 2 videos show Randy & Dave in action, from inspiration, to 1 million socks donated, to 5 million socks donated!

1 Million Pairs of Bombas Socks Donated from Bombas on Vimeo.

 

So as I'm wearing my Bombas, and they are indeed feeling like the most important socks on Earth! Gifts that keep giving are perhaps the best ones to get!


Videos from https://vimeo.com/182428753 and https://bombas.com/pages/about-us; images from https://bombas.com/pages/giving-back and https://bombas.com/pages/million and https://bombas.com/pages/about-us

Bee's Wrap: Sustainable Food Storage

The buzzzz is all around...there's a new kind of food storage in town. It's from Bee's Wrap, a company created by Sarah Kaeck in 2012. And indeed, these new eco food wraps are made from organic cotton infused with beeswax, jojoba oil, and tree resin. It could be a game changer for plastic wrap as it can be washed, reused, and composted--3 things plastic wrap cannot be!

If that's not "the bee's knees," I'm not sure what is! These two videos give you an even closer look to the magic of Bee's Wrap.

 

For a more indepth story about how Bee's Wrap started, check out Sarah's video from her "About Us" page... then check out her website and consider doing some shopping!

Bee's Wrap® - Our Story from Sarah on Vimeo.

Video #1 from https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedVideo/videos/2186480714826132/; Video #2 from https://vimeo.com/218236674; logo from https://www.beeswrap.com/; other image from http://www.designsponge.com/2013/04/bees-wrap.html

Little Known Eco Innovations Leading the Way

I've said it before, and I say it often:  It is through innovation that we will arrive at solutions to our environmental issues.

This video from TechnoNerds shows us 4 innovative ways that people have seen an eco-need, and gone forward to do something about it. It's the heart of today's educational trends of #STEM and the maker movement!


May we all be inspired to go forward, thinking outside the box, being problem solvers to innovate, create, and invent!


Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvKXOY8K9Js; Art created at Canva.com

The Double Mystery of the Missing Bees

Houston, we have a problem.  Actually 2:

Case 1: Buzz is Missing!

Who's Buzz, you're wondering?  Buzz is the name of the bee on the Honey Nut Cheerios box.  And he's visibly absent!  On purpose.

In part of General Mill's Honey Nut Cheerios new awareness & marketing campaign, Buzz is not a smiling feature on boxes in Canada.  #BringBackTheBees and the missing Buzz are to bring awareness to the plight of the pollinator.  Bees are vital to many food sources, and they too seem to be disappearing.  There's a cure for that--planting flowers that bees love!  It really is that simple!

Here's their powerful video about how our buzzing friends need our help.

But wait...there's more:

Case 2: The B's are Missing!

Another company is reporting a case of a missing person.  Er, well...not person, but actually some missing letters to highlight the same plight. Burt's Bee are missing their "B's!"  As they said, it's "A _ig idea from _urt's _ees!"  Add in, they are challenging all to take to social media and share out posts with more missing b's along with the same #BringBackTheBees.


It's exciting to see 2 companies take dramatic marketing moves in order to make a difference. Wouldn't it be exciting if more companies did the same thing.  For the bees and other ways to bring about a better, healthier planet!

Here are 2 infographics that will help you see how vital bees are to us, and how we can do something vital for them!

Honey Nut Cheerios video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbMQUVYuRQ; Burt's Bee's video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L_VSb9rJ_0; plants for bees pic from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdj26z3UEAAiJTZ.jpg; Honey Nut Cheerios pic from http://brandchannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/honey-nut-cheerios-bring-back-the-bees-600.jpg; food from bees pic from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdjNHTJW4AAAqWs.jpg; Burt's Bees pic from https://www.thecloroxcompany.com/corporate-responsibility/blog/bringbackthebees/