I was visiting my mother on Mother's day, and saw a bright orange and black bird in her garden that I'd never seen before. I mentioned it to some other community gardening folks yesterday, and one of them called it a "redstart". Then, later in the afternoon yesterday, I saw two more of them in a community garden on 17th Avenue S. Has anyone else seen these?
In the same conversation yesterday, someone mentioned seeing a large group of orioles in the city. Corrie Zoll Midtown Phillips ----- Original Message ----- From: "Garwood, Robin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Bruce Gaarder'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 11:37 AM Subject: RE: [Mpls] RE: mowing > Michael's point underlines what I was going to say: if human-power is an > option for accomplishing a given task, it is the best option. All of our > energy comes from somewhere, and the sad fact is that most of our sources > are almost deliriously unpleasant. Given the figures Michael quoted, it is > far, far more responsible to use the dirty gas mower and suffer the blue > cloud yourself, rather than using your electric mower to expand and export > it to the neighborhoods surrounding the Riverside power plant. Unless > you've got solar shingles on your shed to charge your mower. In which case > my helmet is off to you. > > Now, there is an opening here for a cynic to point out that the fuel we use > for human-power is not produced in an especially environmentally friendly > way at present. There are two questions that we must then answer: > a)Does someone using a reel mower actually burn that many more > calories than someone using a gas or electric? > > b)Do you change the amount of food you eat based on whether you plan > on mowing your lawn later? > > OK, that was rather silly. But there is a deeper question in this > discussion that I'd like to explore. It involves the idea of "quality." > Which is a higher-quality lawn, the one with somewhat uneven grass or the > one with toxic chemicals, heavy metals, etc., on, above, below, and all > around it? Which green pepper is of higher quality, the one with a bad spot > or the one soaked in pesticides? > > When I was young, my mother would fly into tornadic, frenzied, stressful > cleaning fits when relatives were coming over. My father would tease her > gently about her ideal of a clean house, saying that her goal was "to make > it look like no one lives here." In our neighborhoods, it seems we seek the > same level of sanitization, but with even worse consequences. I won't list > here what burning fossil fuels has been proven to do to us. > > What are the chances the park board or some other city agency can encourage > folks to use non-powered mowers, blowers and such, as we encouraged people > not to use phosphates on their yards? > > > Robin Garwood > Seward > _______________________________________ > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: > http://e-democracy.org/mpls > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
