My humble advice...get outside. Enjoy.

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Watch the trees, the animals and all living things, you'll learn more from them than from books."

-Joe Coyhis, Stockbridge-Munsee

Image by Cheryl A. Smith

P.S. - I will be sharing more about this quote in upcoming entries, on Twitter & on Facebook.

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As the weather warmed this spring it lifted the blanket of white exposing the litter that lies along the roadways of our towns. Plastic, aluminum, paper, cardboard, glass and cigarette butts and more blossomed fading my view as I travel around town.

According to the Keep America Beautiful organization "Americans generate over 251 million tons of trash" each year. Well, that's a lot of dumpsters. Some of the waste gets recycled but most ends up in landfills and incinerators and an undetermined amount along our country's roadways.

The Conservation Commission in the town I live in adopted a two-mile stretch of roadway that they maintain several times a year. I asked one member of the Commission recently what seemed to be the largest amount of litter they picked up this spring, "beer cans and fast food wrappers and containers, but we can't pick up all the cigarette butts so they are not included in our assessment."

According to Keep America Beautiful, a volunteer-based community action and education organization, there are 7 primary sources of litter but for the sake of space I'll list 5 that I think closely relate to small towns:

1. Motorists without ashtrays or litter bags in their vehicle.

2. Dumpsters that are improperly covered.

3. Construction sites without proper dumpsters.

4. Trucks with uncovered loads.

5. Household trash scattered before and during collection.

By taking a few simple measures on these sources of litter we as a Americans can improve our views even more as we travel along the roadways of our towns.

Now, here are two things for you to do....

Tell me what marketing message(s) works in this blog entry?

Go to the Keep America Beautiful website and tell me what message you find that makes you want to take action.

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Are you confused with all the different "green" labels?

I am.

As a LOHAS business trying to decide which label best fits can be difficult.

Questions come up:

Which one is most recognized by my audience?

Are some better than others?

Do my customers demand that I be certified?

As many of you know two years ago I wrote the Sunrise Shift which was a guide to help business owners become sustainable. Also, I have been on the journey of reducing my ecological footprint using Jim Merkel's book Radical Simplicity as my guide. Therefore, I often question whether I really need a label for my business from some certification organization.

For those of you who may be wondering the same thing there is a website, Ecolabeling.org to help you decide and narrow down all the labels out there.

I hope you find it useful.

Remember everyday is Earth Day so have an especially great one this Wednesday.

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It has been an interesting few days for me. I met Dafna Michaelson who is on one interesting journey.

Read it here.

The video Tapped is a must see.

I recommend everyone eliminate bottled water in their lives. There are many ways to filter your tap water.

And there are safe alternatives to the plastic bottles, check out Real Green Goods for options.

I heard the news and wondered how could it be? For years, decades, we have stood strong atop this hill for all to see. We have looked over and down the valley and seen the many changes, oh the tales we could tell but, no, we keep them to ourselves-at least for those unwise to the life of a tree.

For here, today, we stand in a broken mess and while many will drive past and state "the ice did them in" it did not. It was you, and you, and yes even you, those of you who flew past with eyes forward and not a glance in our direction as we proudly displayed our beauty, our colors and our strength. We have noticed those of you who take a gander at our delight and for you we thank, we bless.

But now, the sign below shows the fate of our future fore we have lost faith in the two-legged who speak in tongue. We do not understand you but you do speak loudly, deafening in some cases, in your actions and your body language.

Those who do not see us we ask to look beyond yourselves and to us for all we stand for, the years and decades of our history. Our hearts, our branches reach out to as many as we can, but we have grown weary of what we see, we have tried and preserved for years, wishing, hoping and in our own way praying that more of you would see us for the bliss we give to you.

Our hearts and souls have weakened and we find ourselves victims of the two-leggeds who look upon us not with eyes of beauty but with eyes of greed, lust and power. So, we have discussed this in our way and decided that we don't want to become the victim of the torturous chainsaws and dozers. We want to go...in our own way.

And so it is.

And now many who had not seen us before see us now. Yes, we are broken and not so majestic. We wish, hope and pray that, perhaps, you will make a change. You will look upon others like us more frequently with more vision and be aware.

And stop that blank stare.

Image by Cheryl A. Smith taken December 2008

A low-cost way to keep your carbon footprint low (and save on your electric bill) is to switch from an electric dryer to a simple clothesline.

To find out more about this go the New Hampshire's own Project Laundry List and learn how you can save a ton of carbon dioxide from clogging up the atmosphere.