Fall and spring are great times to plant.  The weather is cool and rainy, allowing small sprouts to take root and thrive.  If you’re headed up to the cabin this weekend, why not survey your shoreline and think seriously about naturalizing it? It’s easier than it sounds, you’ll love how it looks, and best of all, you’ll be taking a step to make sure your kids and future generations will be able to enjoy the lake in years to come.

Until this summer, my husband’s parents had a grassy, green lawn running from where their cabin stood down to the rocks which had been placed at the water’s edge many years ago.  Many of the rocks were slipping into the lake, and the shoreline was beginning to tumble into the water too.  Their lake, like many, is susceptible to potentially dangerous blue/green algae blooms, and lawns like theirs contribute to the problem, as fertilizer can flow easily from the lawn into the water.

Last year at the state fair, they spoke with someone who told them they might be able to get a grant through the Atkin County Soil and Water District and the Big Sandy Lakes’ watershed project (originating from the Department of Natural Resources) to help them naturalize their lake shoreline, if they were willing to contribute the labor.  They applied and were able to get a grant, work with a landscaper, and replant their shoreline with plants that will slow runoff, reduce erosion, and filter nutrients that can cause algal blooms in the lake.  The plantings are filling in after being planted in July, and they look beautiful!  Many of the plants have lovely flowers (Lupine, Flox, Columbine) and plants like Swamp Milkweed, which grows close to the water, will be butterfly magnets next summer.

photo taken right after planting

A shoreland buffer strip (also called a filter strip or buffer zone) separates your lawn from the lake. It typically includes taller grasses, blooming plants, shrubs and trees, as well as aquatic plants such as cattails, rushes, and lilies.  The work we did involved killing a strip of grass along the lake shore, cutting pieces of wild willow to bind together and stake at the water’s edge, putting natural mesh along the sloped land next to the lake and planting native plants in the prepared area.  The dead grass served as mulch and my in-laws had a planting party for friends and other residents of the lake who were interested in learning about what they were doing.  I think with 12 people, it took about 3 hours to do all the planting.  Not bad for a day’s work.

If that sounds to intense, according to the  University of Minnesota’s Shoreland Management Resource Guide, “The easiest approach to establishing a buffer strip is simply to do nothing. If you stop mowing, weeding, and raking your shoreland area, many native plants will likely reestablish.”  The link above also lists local nurseries where you can buy native plants and suggests who you can talk to about what to plant on your lake.  Or, get in contact with your local lake association to find out whether they have grant money available to help you naturalize your shoreline.

Our cabin still has a mowed green lawn behind the shoreland buffer strip, but we don’t fertilize it and it’s nice to know that someday our grandchildren may swim in cleaner, safer water and catch butterflies in the swamp milkweed by the lake’s edge.

This morning, a friend and I  headed for the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the “greatest archeological find of the 20th century”, the Dead Sea Scrolls.   A Bedouin goat herder stumbled on the first of the ancient scrolls  in a cave near the Dead Sea in 1947.   Eventually, 10 more caves containing scrolls were discovered near the first cave, and near the ancient ruins of a settlement known as Khirbet Qumran.  Later, more scrolls were found in caves around the Dead sea and the Judean Desert.  Altogether, more than 900 scrolls were discovered.

The scrolls were often contained in pottery jars, and though many of the scrolls are damaged, it is astonishing that so many of them are in good enough condition to read, or piece together.  Two thousand years is a long time for a piece of parchment (animal skin) or papyrus (made from plants) to survive.  Scientists attribute the miraculous preservation to the dry conditions in the caves.  After all, you need moisture for microbe growth and decomposition.

Using radiocarbon testing, which takes advantage of the fact that all living things incorporate Carbon 14 when they are alive, scientists were able to determine that the scrolls dated from the centuries between 250 BCE and 68 CE. One of the first things I noticed in the exhibit was the use of the term BCE (before common era) and CE (common era), which correspond to B.C. and A.D., but are terms used by scientists.

On the scrolls were mostly words of Hebrew scripture, law and even poetry.  Not all of the writing on the scrolls is religious, but the scrolls we viewed were copied from scripts  that would one day appear in the Hebrew Bible and included an Apocryphal Psalm, attributed to King Solomon and to David.  One scroll we saw was a passage from Genesis and all of the scrolls were copied down before the Hebrew Bible had been set in stone.

What fascinated me most about the exhibit was that the scrolls were copied down during such a tumultuous, pivotal time in the heart of a culture experiencing an uprising of the common people and the birth of Christianity.   Archeaologists believe that even as scribes copied the some of the sacred texts onto the scrolls, Jesus was walking through the Holy Land with his disciples.  Rome was gaining power in the region, and the Pharisees, representing the common people of Judea, were beginning to rise up against the Priests, or Sadducees, who tended to come from aristocratic families.  The Pharisees believed in maintaining an oral tradition so that common people, many of whom could not read, had access to “God’s Word”, while the Sadducees believed in a written tradition, which they interpreted very strictly.

Archeologists and Biblical scholars tell us that Jesus was crucified and Christianity was born as modern Judaism was being shaped, the Judeans rose up against the Romans, and the Temple fell, for the second time, in 70 CE, shattering a way of life for many.  Scholars don’t know for sure who hid the scrolls in the caves, or why.  It’s a mystery, but there the ancient manuscripts sat, right before my twentieth century eyes, words marching across the page.  They stared at me from the Minnesota Science Museum, a world away from where they were penned, a testament to a people who would not be forgotten and a time that changed the world.

You may have read in the news that almost 400 million eggs have been recalled after Salmonella sickened hundreds of people. That’s a lot of eggs.

What is this nasty bacteria that makes us wonder whether we should let our kids eat raw chocolate chip cookie dough, even as we sneak several spoonfuls when they’re not looking?

Salmonella enterocolitis is one of the most common types of food poisoning and is caused by the bacteria Salmonella Enteriditis. You can get a Salmonella infection by swallowing  food or water that is contaminated with the salmonella bacteria.  Often, the culprit is surface contamination from raw chicken and raw or undercooked eggs.  In most people, it causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramping, but young children and those with weakened immune systems are at greater risk of dehydration and more serious infections.

Why don’t they just wash the eggs better?  Salmonella bacteria live in the intestinal tracts of animals and birds and can infect the ovaries of healthy-looking chickens.  This allows bacteria to infect the eggs even before the shell is formed and voila- you have a pathogen that can’t be washed off of the egg because it’s inside.  Organic and free range chickens have less disease than factory-”farm” raised chickens, partly because of healthier diets and less crowding.  Cooking eggs until the yolk is solid kills Salmonella bacteria.

How can you make your cookie dough and eat it too?  Buy pasteurized eggs (you can find them at most grocery stores) that have been heat-treated to kill bacteria, but are still essentially raw for all cooking and baking purposes.

Also, remember to wash cutting boards you’ve cut meat on with soap and water before cutting anything else on them, or just have separate cutting boards for meat.  Don’t forget to wash your hands after handling raw eggs!  Pet food and reptiles can also harbor salmonella bacteria, so have your kids wash their hand after handling either!

Bacteria are everywhere.  Some keep you healthy and some make you sick, but making good decisions in the kitchen can keep you and your family from being affected by food-born illness!

The facts speak for themselves:

• Every 20 seconds, a child in a developing country dies of a water-related illness (World Health Organization)
• Waterborne diseases remain the leading cause of illness and death in the developing world. (World Health Organization)
• 46 percent of people on Earth do not have water piped to their homes (National Geographic)
• Women in developing countries walk an average of 3.7 miles to get water (National Geographic)

Shocking, isn’t it?  It should at least give you pause as you fill up your child’s glass with clean tap water, or maybe even filtered tap water.  Now, try to imaging walking 3.7 miles in the dark or the hot sun to bring home water that may or may not make your child sick, or even kill them.  What choice would you have though?  Water is life.

I recently signed up to participate in the Clean Water Blogivation campaign.  If my blog receives the most votes, I could win an opportunity to be a change agent and join Dr. Greg Allgood on a clean water expedition to Africa and a $15,000 donation to my favorite charity tackling water issues.  Much more importantly, each time someone votes for my blog post, P&G will donate a day’s worth of clean drinking water (2L) to a person in need in a developing country. Click on the “vote for this blogger” button above and clean drinking water for a day will be donated each time you vote! (You can vote once a day.)

The task of fetching water defines life for many people on this planet.  National Geographic tells the story of an Ethiopian woman named Aylito who dropped out of school when she was eight to help her mother carry water from a dirty river.  She spends eight hours a day walking to and from the river, up and down a mountain, three times to carry 50 pounds of water on her back.  It is a life almost beyond imagining for most of us who live in developed countries.  However, one can imagine that people who work so hard to get so little water have very little water to spare for sanitation, like hand-washing, or washing clothes.  According to National Geographic, proper hand washing alone can reduce diarrheal disease by 45%.  Many people cannot afford soap though.

What diseases are carried by dirty water?  You name it:  bacterial diseases like E.coli and Vibrio Cholerea, parasites like Guinea Worm,  viruses and protozoa.  Some of these pathogens can be killed by boiling, but for many, firewood is scarce. Sometimes, it’s too much water from flooding that causes drinking water to be unsafe.  (The floods in Pakistan are causing problems right now.)

There’s a fairly comprehensive list of water-born microbes on Wikipedia, and if you’d like to learn more, the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control are great resources.

The obvious question is, “what can I do to help?”   Many aid organizations and churches have programs to help people get access to clean water and proper sanitation, whether it’s by helping dig wells or sending bars of soap.  WaterAid is a U.K.-based international non-profit organization that is helping bring not only clean water, but sanitation and hygiene programs to many villages desperate for clean water.  The organization makes local women an integral part of the process.  Proctor and Gamble, who is running the Clean Water Blogivation campaign, make a PUR powder which can be mixed with contaminated water to make it safe to drink.  They have a Children’s Safe Drinking Water program and have been working with a number of organizations to distribute the PUR powder around the world to those who don’t have access to clean water.

Having grown up in the Flint Hills and tall grass prairie of Kansas, I was in awe when when we moved to Minnesota, with its 10,000 (or 11,842) lakes dotting the landscape.  The fact that I now have a lake within walking distance of my house boggles my mind.  It’s like a dream to live in a state where you don’t have to be a millionaire to own, or spend the weekend, at a cabin by the water.

I don’t think Minnesotans realize how lucky they are.  We take our lakes, and rivers and streams, for granted.  Sadly, instead of being stewards of our precious waterways, many property owners build structures that harm our lakes, allowing chemicals and fertilizer to wash into the pristine water every time it rains, interfering with the natural wildlife and vegetation.  Not only that, people refuse to replace old septic systems which often cause the lakes where our children swim to be contaminated with human waste. Somehow, we expect our lakes to remain clean and healthy, existing purely for our weekend fun.

Recently, we had a chance to make people take more responsibility for keeping our lakes healthy, so it was depressing to read in last week’s Star Tribune that our governor has once again refused to take measures to care for our local treasures.   “It’s like a parting shot out to Minnesota — thumbing his nose at clean water after all these years, which is a dirty legacy to leave,” said Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul and chair of the Senate environment, energy and natural resources budget committee.   In fact, our governor is taking care of his own political aspirations and his friends with environmentally-unfriendly lakeside mansions, while pretending to represent the average Minnesotan.

In the book “The Lorax”, by Dr. Seuss, the Lorax speaks for the trees.  Who will speak for our lakes, so that we can continue to enjoy them?  Who will speak for the natural resources you enjoy with your family?  It’s something to keep in mind come November.

For the next week or so, I’ve decided to blog about water.  National Geographic did an amazing job of writing about water and our world in April, and I’m going to participate in P&G’s Give Health “Clean Water Bloggivation”, not to win the trip to Africa, but because they’ll donate clean drinking water to people who need it, in return for participation in the program.  I’ll also blog about how you can make your own lake-front more environmentally friendly by planting a strip of native plants and grasses beside the water.

It’s August and Minnesota is crawling with Monarch caterpillars!  They’re on the swamp milkweed and the ditch milkweed almost everywhere you look!  We brought one home from the cabin with us last weekend and it’s happily munching milkweed and growing fat on our screened-in porch, soon to be dreaming in a chrysalis.  If you get a chance, check out my post on finding and taking care of your own monarch caterpillar and go on a hunt for your own caterpillar!

Metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly is truly one of nature’s more spectacular exhibits and is absolutely free of charge!

Aug.8th…

Our caterpillar has attached itself to a leaf and is hanging upside down in a J.  We’re watching for it to change into a chrysalis and will try to capture it on film, although it happens very fast!

After spending a weekend relaxing at my parents’ cabin, watching loons, eagles and osprey fishing in the lake, we headed north to Ely and got close up and personal with some much larger Minnesota predators at the North American Bear Center and the International Wolf Center.  Our French visitors were especially excited to experience our wildlife, since bears and wolves have been completely eradicated from their own country.  They informed us that there was only one bear and a few re-introduced wolves left in France.  Fortunately for us, the United States’ depleted wolf and bear populations are coming back thanks to the efforts of organizations like the bear and wolf centers.

At the Bear Center, we watched black bears Ted, Honey and Lucky snack and play from a balcony just above their habitat.  We learned that black bears are much less aggressive than grizzly bears and can usually be scared away from campsites by yelling, clapping, and throwing things at them.  They are also very unlikely to attack people in defense of cubs, which is a grizzly bear trait.  The bears were playful and the 2-year old cub Lucky was especially fun to watch! You can watch these amazing animals live via the “bear cam” on their website at www.bear.org.

Across town, which isn’t very big and is filled with enough canoes and Duluth packs for an army, you’ll find the International Wolf Center.  This organization, whose mission is to advance the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future, has put together an extensive collection of information about wolves in myth and reality (including lots of cool werewolf legend stuff for “Twilight” fans.) Best of all, the facility houses a pack of four wolves living in a viewable habitat behind the facility.

The pack changes over the years, as new wolves are introduced and the pack dynamics change.  Two arctic subspecies of the gray wolf, Malik and Shadow, born in 2000, were recently put into “retirement” when they got older and the younger wolves got too aggressive with them. Currently, the pack consists of Grizzer and Maya-two great plains subspecies born May 5, 2004 and Aidan and Denali, two northwestern subspecies, born on April 27, 2008.  The wolves weren’t too active when we were there, but at one point, two of them came close to be scratched by some wolf center workers and another took a nap right in front of the viewing window.

The wolves looked like leggy huskies close up and we learned that they have  bigger feet (for chasing prey in the snow) and much stronger jaws than domesticated dogs.  We also learned that their bodies are made to survive nearly two weeks without food, since they only bring down their prey thirty percent of the time.  The wolves at the center are only fed once a week, but you can see them eat if you’re there on the right day.  They eat everything except the stomach of their prey, since the stomach contains plants, which they can’t digest.

You can go to www.wolf.org to read more about wolves and watch their wolf pack live on webcams!

We finished the road trip by weaving our way through tall pines and past hidden lakes to the majestic shores of Lake Superior, where we took the scenic highway down the North Shore.  Stopping to play on the rocks and hike down to the lake at Gooseberry Falls State Park was a highlight of the trip, even as rain started to fall.  My husband looked like a kid again as he waded smiling into the frigid water of Lake Superior and stomped around in the waves.  I felt thankful to live in Minnesota and for all the efforts people have made to preserve our wilderness and nurture our native species.

Eat fish.  It’s good for you .

We hear this message over and over, and it’s true.  Fish is good for you.

Most people are also aware that eating to much fish can be bad for you too, if it’s the kind of fish that tend to build up heavy metals and pesticides.  Farm-raised fish can be full of toxins, depending on how they’re raised.  After all, you are what you eat, even if you’re a fish.

Sadly, our appetite for our finny ocean friends has brought many of our favorite fish to the brink of extinction.  The majestic Bluefin tuna  is almost certainly doomed and many other species are in trouble too.  It may not seem like a big deal, but fragile ecosystems hang in the balance.

What can you do to help save our oceans?  Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch website and print off a Seafood Watch Pocket Guide to help you select seafood that is both safe to eat and abundant enough to be well-managed and caught in environmentally-friendly ways.  They even have a sushi guide.

If you want to shop at a grocery store that sells seafood responsibly,  Whole Foods Market seafood department works harder than any other fish market (I know of) to help keep farmed seafood and the environment healthy.  They use the Seafood Watch program for wild-caught seafood and buy the rest from Marine Stewardship Council Certified Fisheries.  I love their seafood department and I can enjoy their sushi without guilt!

In other words, if you do your homework, you can feel even better about eating fish!

The Monterey Bay is one of my favorite places in the world, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is an amazing resource teeming with ocean life.  Click here to go to webcams at the aquarium where you can watch fish, sharks, jellyfish, otters and more!

“Mom!  I caught a big Northern!”  my son screamed at me.  I ran to get the net, excited that he’d finally hooked a big one, right off our dock.

When I got the net around the fighting fish though, I was sure it wasn’t a Northern Pike.  We took pictures of the huge, gray creature and were lucky enough to have it wriggle off the hook before we donned gloves to try to get it off ourselves.  I guessed that it was a bowfin, based on the long fin running down its back and a neighbor’s report of catching one on the same lake.  We confirmed it online when we got home.

Along with gar and sturgeons, bowfin are in an order of primitive, ray-fin fish that have survived since the time of the dinosaurs.  They can grow to 43 inches and weigh up to 21 pounds.  My son’s weighed between 5 and 10 pounds and I’m glad we didn’t have him try to hold it up for a photo, since bowfin have very sharp teeth and will bite anyone who attempts to handle them.  We released the fish and watched him disappear  into the deep.

The kids were a little afraid to swim off the dock after that.  I don’t blame them.  Who wants to go swimming in the lair of a prehistoric monster?

“With great power comes great responsibility.”  Similar quotes can be found all the way back to ancient Greece, like Socrates “rule worthy of might.”

It makes me think of Spiderman.

At any rate, on this Independence Day weekend, as members of the most powerful nation in the world, I think we should all take a moment to reflect on personal responsibility .

We’re a nation of blamers.  We’re all furious at BP.  I rant about the people overfishing our seas and at the farmers feeding antibiotics to animals to make them grow faster, among other things.

But, when I turn the microscope on myself, I see a mom who has spent the week driving her kids from activity to activity, guzzling gas.  I see a foodie who loves eating sushi whenever she gets the chance, not alway checking to see where her fish came from and whether it is sustainable.  I also see someone who occasionally forgets to turn lights off, uses too many paper towels and cleans her toilets with disposable brushes.  That’s only the beginning.

My name is Liz and I’m part of the problem.

What can I do?  I can carpool more and always check where my food is coming from.  I can take two seconds to wring out the dishrag and use it to clean up a mess instead of grabbing a paper towel.  I can take responsibility for my own actions.

What will you do with your great power?