Goat Accused of Attempted Armed Robbery of Mazda 323. Also of practicing black magic.

Read all about it here. And that, my friends, is what they call the “hook”.

Now that I have you here, make yourself comfortable. I found lots of interesting stuff this week.

I’m Mad as a Hatter: High fructose corn syrup, the alleged “natural” sweetener, comes with a side of mercury. I find this highly alarming, as my husband believes that HFCS is a food group. Apparently, the FDA has known about this for years, and I can only hope there is a huge fallout from this.

Also, guess what? BPA in toilet paper. Lovely. Really.

Evidence that a little dirt never hurt anybody; and may, in fact, be good for you:

In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system.

Pledge to Go Veg for 30 Days and PETA will pledge a donation to The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, supporting the planting of fruit trees in poor villages. But hurry! Pledges need to be made by the end of January.

Some libraries are loaning their patrons Kill A Watt meters: A brilliant and practical way to educate homeowners about their power usage. (Learn how you can tweet your numbers on Twitter here.) I don’t see this happening at our local library anytime soon, though, as they have recently tightened regulations for new borrowers. I’d probably have to sign over my firstborn to be trusted with a Kill a Watt. (via Treehugger)

10 Disturbing (alas, fascinating) Facts about Women and Body Image: My boys were blown away by this one:

At 5′9” tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 which is considered severely underweight. Because of her ridiculous proportions (39” bust, 18” waist, 33” thighs and a size 3 shoes!), if she was a real woman, she wouldn’t be able to walk upright – she would have to walk on all fours.

The target market for Barbie Doll sales are girls ages 3 to 12.

Now available on DVD: Blossom: Seasons 1 & 2, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and season-bloody-FOUR of Meerkat Manor . All I can say is: Why?

In local news:

Newark, DE uses a car to store power for the local electric grid:

“Wind tends to blow stronger at night when the electric load is low,” he said. “If electric vehicles charged at night with wind power, the grid operator could use the energy in the batteries, when vehicles aren’t needed for driving and are plugged in, to help maintain grid reliability. The vehicle owner would then be paid for providing these energy services at a greater value than what they paid for the electricity.”

The Greenhill Car Wash is being outfitted with a solar system and water-recycling system, and they use “eco-friendly chemicals”. So if your car, like mine, is covered in salt from the latest wintry mix, consider voting with your dollar and supporting these guys for taking the green initiative.

Finally, 3 Cheap and Easy Formulas for Homemade De-icers. Because I would rather rot at home than manually de-ice my car.

That’s it for this week! What stories did you find?

Clean Green:How To Polish Shoes With A Banana

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

-Henry David Thoreau

So. As you know, I have three children. And if you have paid careful attention, you’ve learned that they have a father, to whom I am married. I don’t speak of him much here, and for months I was strictly under orders not to speak of him at all. Why is this?

Because Jeffrey does not want to play my reindeer games. When I began this blog, he was mortified by my “treehugging bull”. He did not recycle. He went through a can of Lysol a week. He sprayed Raid like it was going out of style. He would wash a single pair of jeans, on hot, and then run it through the express cycle in the dryer. He forbade me to buy any more seed for the backyard birds. “Rats with wings,” he said.

This led, more times than I care to admit, to a mental and ethical crisis when I would sit to write a post. How could I speak of moving towards a sustainable, environmentally conscious life when I lived with someone who cancelled out my every move? I wanted to give up and give in, on all of it- the greening, the caring, the writing- all the time.

But I didn’t. Partially because I’m a contrary pain in the butt and given to a certain level of passive aggressiveness. Partially because you can’t unlearn what you already know, and I knew too much about how little acts add up to bigger change.

But mostly because I think other people’s behavior serves as poor excuse for your own.

So I kept at it. I grew a garden, and Jeff grudgingly helped (otherwise I surely would killed everything. I have a black thumb). I kept recycling, and one day I noticed I was no longer having to pull Jeff’s recyclables back out of the trash. I mentioned that I wanted Jeff to build me a compost bin, and he didn’t immediately dismiss it.

Maverick continued to feed the birds, and to tell his father which birds were at the feeder. Soon Jeff was drinking his coffee at the window watching the feeder, and identifying each bird by name.

On cold days he’ll tsk tsk me for forgetting to feed them.

Sunday was a rare day with nothing scheduled, nothing particular to do, and Jeff was going batty, pacing the house, when there was a loud thwap against the bedroom window. I didn’t even look up from the book I was reading; I knew what that sound meant. We have an enormous window in that room, and almost every day some poor bird flies into it. Cassidy knows the drill; when we hear the noise she goes and checks that all the cats are indoors, and then keeps an eye on the stunned bird until it recovers and flies away.

Jeff, however, is not usually home during the day, and went to investigate. Upon looking outside, he cried out, “Oh, no! Tufted Titmouse is my favorite bird!” He then ran out the door- no coat, no shoes, mind you- and cradled the titmouse in his tough-guy, anti-environmentalist hands.

He held that bird out in the frigid cold and fed it sunflower seeds until it regained its wits and took off.

Why am I telling you all this? I am offering this story as inspiration to take heart and keep going. The bagger at the grocery store may give you the skunk-eye when you pull out your reusable shopping bags, and your husband, like mine, may favor mass-produced non foods like TastyKakes over the all natural, healthier snacks that you labor over. There are many people who don’t understand or don’t care about the green movement- yet.

But they see you. They see that you care.

You are making a difference.

A little bit here, a little bit there. It happens without you even knowing it.

And sometimes, you get to witness the difference you’ve made.

P.S. I feel I should add that after this took place, I sent Jeff to the store to pick up some fruit for lunches. He selected grapes packed in a plastic bag, which he then deposited into a plastic produce bag, which came home bagged in a plastic grocery bag. So we’ve still got a ways to go.

But at least now he likes birds. So much so that he has a favorite.