Day 208 of our Green Year: Supporting The Big Wild

Today, for our 208th day of the Green Year, we are supporting another cause (yes another one, there are just so many!). This cause is a Canadian one and it is devoted to helping the land of our great nation, by keeping it preserved for future generations.

This cause is The Big Wild. They describe their vision as the following:

"Our vision is to keep at least half of Canada's public land and water wild forever. We are realizing this vision by supporting wilderness conservation campaigns across Canada. The Big Wild helps these campaigns by,

• educating people about the urgent need to protect one of the world’s last remaining wilderness areas – which amounts to 20% of all that’s left on the planet
• raising funds for wilderness protection
• enabling people to show decision-makers they support wilderness protection"

This is a great cause because Canada is a land of amazing landscapes, unbelievable species of life and some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet. It is important that we do everything we can to protect it from harm so that our children and our children's children can enjoy what we have. Too often we take for granted this wide open space and abundance of life.

I urge you all to check out Big Wild and become supporters of it yourself.

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We got some cool gifts from my parent's, who were vacationing in Hawaii the past week. Apparently, one of the towns there requires reusable bags, which is great to see. They also said that nearly everything is organic and everyone supports environmental causes (sounds a lot like Rossland, BC).

They bought me a hemp shirt that echoes my view of the Bush Administration, as well as several reusable bags from Maui.

Me with my shirt and two of the Maui reusable bags.

The front of the T-shirt, which helps everyone determine the difference between good and bad Bush.

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Layla and I were quite surprised to find out we were in the local paper last week. The Stony Plain Reporter was nice enough to do an article on us. Thanks!

Day 120 of our Green Year: Hemp Hemp Hemp

Well we have hit four months into our green year! Four months (120 days) down, eight months (245 days) to go! It has been great so far in these four months and we are looking to eight more filled with success and of course, green messages.

Today, we are going to go green with the pets once again, but this time it is not with their food. In fact, this also concerns Layla and I because we will be going green with our clothing in the same way. How are we doing this? Through hemp of course.

Hemp is a natural, and one of the most ecologically-friendly materials in the world. Of course it has a bad name in some areas because of marijuana, but the truth is that hemp is natural, strong and environmentally-friendly. As a result, Layla and I have decided to go green with our pets and ourselves by using hemp.

First, we bought one of our dogs a collar and lead made of hemp, which is more natural, stronger and looks great. On top of that, Layla and I will be buying hemp clothing for ourselves from now on. It is a bit more expensive but the hemp clothing is not made in a sweat shop and we can be assured that what we buy is good for humanity, and the environment as well.

You can find hemp in several stores in your local city, and you can order them online. I highly recommend them as they are comfortable on your body. Here are just a few tidbits about the great fiber known as hemp.

• Hemp holds its shape with one of the lowest percent elongation of any natural fiber.
• Hemp has the best warmth and softness characteristics compared to other natural fibers.
• Hemp has been around for 8,000 years as something humans use, and as early as 2,000 years ago, it was used as paper in China. Until 1883, as much as 90 percent of the paper on Earth was made with hemp fiber, including an early draft of the Declaration of Independence.
• Hemp is a renewable resources that grows faster than trees, making it very cost-effective. Hemp also produces more pulp per acre than timber.
• Hemp fiber paper resists decomposition and does not yellow as it ages. Hemp paper dating back 1,500 years has been found. You can even recycle hemp paper more times than wood-based paper.

So, in our household, it will be hemp all the way.