The Journey

It's funny how we become adapted to the environment in which we are accustomed. To many people here, the threat of cities - crime, pollution, and just fear of the unknown is frightening. Of course, being city natives, we navigate the city and all of its bad elements with ease. For us, the elements to fear here have been tornadoes, floods, ice storms and now forest fires. As we were coming home from our 2 mile drive to get the mail yesterday and heading back down the mountain, we could see a huge plume of smoke just beyond our point on another mountain across the lake. It was a scene like we had witnessed in fires shown on the evening news from California. I came home and called the sheriff's department, who calmly said that the volunteer fire department had been sent to fight "the brush fire that got way out of hand." Fire makes us more than a little nervous, even if it is on the next mountain and by the time evening rolled around, the woods on our mountain was full of blue gray smoke. We walked back up the mountain where we could see the other and thankfully, it appeared the "brush fire" had been dowsed. Amazing what a volunteer fire department can accomplish in a few hours.

As for the tip today from "The Green Year," it again involves taking those daily walks and for many of us, that means dragging our four-legged family members along. Two of ours are large enough to take care of themselves in the woods and can go off leash. Our two little ones, though, are kept on leashes mainly for their own protection, again from the unknowns to us in the woods. We don't have to buy leashes often, but next time we do, it will be made of canvas or hemp, as Jodi Helmer suggests in her book.
She says most leashes are produced with nylon, which produces nitrous oxide, a gas associated with global warming. "Replacing all of the nylon pet leashes in the United States would prevent the release of the same amount of greenhouse gases produced by 250,000 households per year."

A quick google search of "hemp dog leashes" produces a ton of websites that sell natural collars, leashes and other dog products.