Earth Day!!!

It's definitely starting to feel like summer around here - 96 degrees yesterday!!! We're more grateful every day for our new pool, and the wonderful gift of air conditioning. It also seems more and more appealing to get out of the house and into an ocean or a woodsy campground somewhere.

With that in mind, and in honor of Earth Day, here are a couple of nature things that seem timely.

One of the places that Em & I love to go in the summer is Catalina Island. It's so fun to travel somewhere by boat, and even though it's only 26 miles across the sea you really feel like you're in another part of the world - one with buffalo and other questionable beasts. It also really combines two great camping ideals because it's nice and woodsy, plus the ocean is right there, and seems somehow more tropical than at the L.A. beaches. The picture above is from our 2006 trip there where we almost killed Finn by camping out in a crazy dust storm. Heading outdoors is not always perfect, but it always feels like an adventure!

We're going to try to get over there this summer, but in the mean time, I found this great live feed that shows you what a family of bald eagles is doing on Catalina all of the time (except at night - too dark). Actually, they don't really do that much. It seems like bald eagles would be constantly flying majestically around glorying in their freedom and symbolism. But apparently they seem to be pretty content to sit there in their nest for much of the time. However, it's still pretty cool to watch them for a while, and every so often, if you have good timing, they feed their baby bald eagles!!! Trust me that this is worth seeing. Here it is:

Video clips at Ustream

Finally, here's a thought from Edward Abbey, who was writing pretty great books and articles about the environment long before it caught on in the mainstream. I've had my students read some of his stuff in school, and always hope that those super-urban kids might think a little more about nature - stupid hippie. Anyway, I like this one:

"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."

Happy Earth Day!!!