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You can help support Trees for the Future just by purchasing your favorite Celestial Seasonings teas. For every box of tea you buy between January 1 and March 31, Celestial Seasonings will sponsor the planting of trees all around the world—up to one million trees in all. You might say we’re planting trees one cup at a time!

You can also plant a tree in their virtual forest. For each virtual tree planted, Celestial Seasonings will sponsor the planting of a real one.

This is sheer nonsense: You can now buy Disney branded eggs. Not free-range, not organic, not anything interesting or relevant. Just stamped with Disney pictures and wrapped in Disney packaging, in the hopes that I will cave under pressure in the dairy aisle. Disney: quit. marketing. to. my. kids.

This is also sheer nonsense: Nature Words Dropped From Children’s Dictionary. This is an article I wrote for Eco Child’s Play; please hop on over and leave me a comment!

The full list of words dropped and added can be found here.

Inquiring minds want to know: Is Ikea green?

Back in the day, before Christmas, I mentioned that Tom’s shoes was attempting to raise 30,000 shoes for kids in need through their buy one, donate one program. I’m happy to report they exceeded their goal, donating 37,000 pairs in Ethiopia!

Good news: Obama lifts SCHIP restrictions:

Ending a two-year effort by Democrats, Obama signed legislation Wednesday that will enable about 7 million children to continue coverage through SCHIP and allow another 4 million to sign up. The president sees expansion of government health insurance to millions of lower-income children as a first step of several to come in providing coverage for all Americans.

The decision by the Commission gives the staff more time to finalize four proposed rules which could relieve certain materials and products from lead testing and to issue more guidance on when testing is required and how it is to be conducted.

This disturbing story comes courtesy of my brother: A father driving his three kids home on a snowy road makes an illegal lane change and sees the flashing lights of a police car behind him. He then slowly pulls to the rightmost lane and looks for a safe place to stop. Decelerating to about 5 mph, he prepares to stop and is rammed by the police officer. He is then arrested at gunpoint and spends two nights in jail.

More details and video of the traffic stop here.

To me, this is a really scary story. I drive like a granny in the snow, and I can assure you I would not be quickly crossing all those lanes of traffic to pull over. And as my brother points out, we’ve often heard that we are supposed to look for safe places to stop, even waiting to find a public place if we are uncertain as to the authenticity of the police vehicle. To be rammed and face an officer’s gun, with small children in the car? Terrifying. Truly.

Finally, I’m sure you know all about the peanut butter recall (full list of recalled products here). Just a reminder to check and see if your pet’s foods and treats are on the recall list, and to take precautions with your backyard birds too.

High of 59 degrees in these parts today, hallelujah!
Pardon me while I head outside.

Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Today was a good snow, a well-behaving snow; light and fluffy and easy to brush off the car. It is quite pretty when it is not turning into ice. If all snows were as eager to please as this one, I should not mind winter quite so much.

This Robert Frost poem was one of the first I ever had to memorize for school. Do children still have to memorize and recite poetry? In spite of my crippling shyness, reciting poetry was always enjoyable for me- not a reflection on who I was or where my talents lie. Just the poetry- “language is fossil poetry“, Emerson said- flowing through me.

Looking back, I suppose I was the only one who felt that way. The other kids were just hearing me recite a poem, like every other kid in the class, but I always felt like I was channeling something ancient and lovely. Something deep and powerful.

How do you feel about poetry? Will it too pass away in this new, non-romantic age?

I was doing some research for the post I wrote today for Eco Child’s Play (about the benefits of pet ownership for children) and I came across this story:

Holy mackerel, I thought. Just last week they were giving dogs away at the local animal shelter (ahem. They were waiving the adoption fee for the first 100 people).

So I jump over to the website of the Humane Society of the United States, where I learn that up to 8 million pets reside in animal shelters each year, a number I suspect we will see increase in the days ahead.

Lo and behold, the HSUS has an official statement on the cloning of pets:

Cloning is an imperfect science and potentially dangerous for the animals involved, including the clone. Many animals cloned thus far have had a wide range of medical complications. Whether a cloned companion animal can lead a healthy and full life remains unknown. In addition, surrogate mothers who bear the cloned embryos until delivery may have to endure surgical procedures due to complications from pregnancy.

For those looking to replace a lost pet, cloning will not create an animal identical to the one who is gone; cloning cannot replicate an animal’s uniqueness. Cloning can only replicate the pet’s genetics, which influence but do not determine his physical attributes or personality. In fact, a pet’s personality, the specific trait that most owners would like to preserve and the attribute that most endears a companion animal to his family, is the trait least likely to be replicated by cloning. In addition, there is no guarantee the cloned companion animal will even physically resemble the original pet.

The cloned dog in question was a yellow Lab named Lancelot (the clone is named Lancelot Encore). Now, I’m not saying that each dog doesn’t have a distinct personality or anything, but I bet there are tons of yellow labs in animal shelters. And every Lab I’ve ever met has been pretty darn nice.

This just seems so ridiculous, so irresponsible… They already own nine other dogs.

Look, it’s been seven months- eight, maybe- since poor old Zooey died, and we’ve gone back and forth about a “new to us” dog. And yes, part of the reason is because no dog will be the wise old man that Zoo was. But if someone offered to clone him for us? Even if it was free of charge, that would be a no-go.

It’s just not right.

P.S. That should read “couple spends $155,000″, shouldn’t it? Don’t they have editors over there at msnbc?