Petsmart Helping the Earth and Animals

Do you have empty inkjets sitting around your house? Or a cell phone that you no longer use? Do you have a soft spot in your heart for animals? Petsmart will recycle your empty inkjet cartridges and your relatively newer cell phone and the money goes to their Petsmart Charities to help homeless animals.

What you do is visit the nearest Petsmart location, pick up the envelopes to send in your empty inkjets and/or cell phones, place the items in the envelope (certain restrictions do apply, check their website above) and send them off for free. Petsmart charities for animals gets $2-15 donation for each item. It is that easy. I grabbed 4 envelopes while I was there so I don't have to go back repeatedly.

If you don't have a Petsmart near you try Earth911.0rg, they are great resource in finding out where to recycle just about anything.

Help a homeless dog or a stray cat have a happy life. As of today over 3 million animals have been saved. And save the environment too!

Be Green.

Birds and the Bee

This morning I went outside for my daily "water my garden but still kill it" ritual. (I have a brown thumb, everything I have been growing seems to be dying. Or just not growing from seed.) And I was in for a small treat.

As I watered the watermelon plants I noticed a bee still in the flower. Cool! What a great photo opportunity! I haven't been catching the pollination in action this year. But then I noticed the bee was not moving. He was slowly dying. How sad. Well, he died doing what he loves.

Then I noticed my dog, Maggy, watching a mockingbird. The bird was yapping and squawking so much I had to see what the issue was. I looked into my neighbor's yard and there it was-a baby mocking bird. And as I did that my neighbor's dog, Ty, attacked it. My neighbor was outside also so we stopped him and checked on the little fellow. (The picture is to the left.) I will get an update later from my neighbor if the chick is fine.

Last year at this time, my dog was next door visiting her buddy, Ty, when she found and proceeded to half mutilate a baby mocking bird. My neighbor had to place it in a plastic zip look to put it out of its misery. So this year we have been on high alert for mockingbird chicks. Apparently, the mockingbird chicks fall out of the nest when they are ready to fly making it so much easier for ground predators, i.e. Ty and Maggy, to catch the babies. The perps are seen in a picture to the left. They look innocent but they true deviants when it comes to chicks.

On another note. Back on Earth Day I wrote about the city of San Jose, CA welcoming 3 peregrine falcons chicks to their city hall roof. Sadly on June 17th one of the falcon chicks, Cielo, was found dead. Apparently the bird ran into a building. There are still 2 other falcon chicks, Meyye and Mercury, that seem to be doing well and ready to leave the nest some time this summer.

I'm Like Bono

This post is only 20% green but I found it funny.

I have a Dogster page for my dog. Yes, for my dog. It is cute. I love animals and she is my favorite one. Anyway, I took a "test" about what kind of dog are you and I am a Golden Retriever. They are great dogs and I couldn't be more proud to be called Golden Retriever.

But, guess who else is a Golden Retriever? Joe Montana (my all time fav football player!), Julia Roberts (great actres), Robert Redford (Sundance Film and environmentalist) and Bono (do I even need to tell you his accomplishments?). I am in awesome company!! Can you tell I am excited?

So the only green part of my post was mentioning Redford and Bono. I think it could still qualify as green.

Happy April Fools Day

My blog post today has nothing to do with April Fool's Day but I thought I would wish everyone Happy April Fools Day anyway. But today is my dog Maggy's birthday, she is 3 today! And she has pledged to go organic, ha ha. She eats organic food now too! She is trying out Natural Balance Organic. And actually I think she likes it more than her old dog food. She is actually better than I am. I still cheat and go to Starbuck's every so often.

I am starting to get frustrated, though. I am in the bathroom this morning and I want so desperately to get rid of the shampoo, lotions, make-up and cleansers I have there but so many are near full because I not only want to be organic but I want to be frugal. I can't just pour the shower cleaner down the drain. I guess I will wait and finish it off, which may take me a year, and then clean the bottle out really well and replace the cleanser with vinegar and water.

And the same goes for my personal hygiene products. The shampoo is new and full because I don't wash my hair everyday and I use a very small quantity. I am dying to try Burt's Bees or other organic brands but it will be a while. I wonder if I can convince my hairdresser to switch?

Oh! I just want to feel good about what I use and I can't yet! I can replace my feminine products (sorry for being so personal with this subject). That is one product I have no control over the quantity I use. I was reading Allie's Green Answers (not me) this morning and I am glad because that time will be approaching soon. Her subject was which tampons were the safest. I will try her suggestions.