I use a blog post writing program/platform. I can do the fine tuning, linking, font, format prior to posting the draft to my blog dashboard.

These weblog files don’t get “stored” within my “libraries,” or document files. As well, draft posts range from “ready to post/posted” to just ideas with a line, or link and title/indicator.

So, sometimes I can think I’ve sent to finished draft over to the blog. I finished this in early May; and just realized that I had yet to send it over to my blog dashboard.

I am thankful for things green. 

When leaves first emerge on trees, bushes, shrubs, plants, unfurling and stretching themselves towards the sun, the variants of green seem endless. Then early spring verdant kaleidoscope spins into more homogenous, but still incredible, late spring palette.

In the song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” Kermit the Frog laments:

It’s not that easy being green;
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves.
When I think it could be nicer being red, or
yellow or gold-
or something much more colorful like that.
It’s not easy being green.
It seems you blend in with so many other
ordinary things.
And people tend to pass you over ’cause you’re
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water-
or stars in the sky.

But then, he realizes:

But green’s the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important
like a mountain, or tall like a tree.
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?
Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine,
it’s beautiful!
And I think it’s what I want to be.

He embraces his greenness, just as we should embrace who we each are.

I “met” Kermit in a 1971 CBC co-production of the Frog Prince, with Kermit as the narrator, and his nephew, Robin, as the frog prince. This was not his first appearance on Canadian television. A special “Hey, Cinderella,” filmed in Toronto, and shown first on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in March 1968. Somehow, I missed that one.

Somewhere, tucked away in a box, I have a Kermit puppet – a birthday gift from a friend. I am thankful for Jim Henson’s vision, and sense of whimsy.

And, I am going greener! I already slip my vegetable kitchen scraps into the weekly yard waste pickup; recycle paper, cardboard, plastic and cans; shop with reusable bags, and reuse/repurpose/gift/donate. (image: time.com)

I want to do more so just ordered biodegradable plastic bags for our garbage; shop with an eye to the packaging’s recyclability. Bought gloves so I can pick up litter around town.

A PS: I now have my biodegradable/compostable “dirt bags” – yes that’s the name of the product – which look like grocery store bags, perfect fit for our under-the-sink garbage pail.

There are web sites and videos with advice and stimulating on-line videos advising how to organize clean-ups of local parks and waterways.

I do guerilla gardening; now adding guerilla garbage grabber to my environmentalist resume. Thus, I am thankful I can take at least a small stewardship action.

I am thankful for sharing this exquisite short animated film,  The Man Who Planted Trees.

While following green threads to create this post, I came across the saying: There is no plan[et] b.

I am thankful for those who understand that once a plant, insect, bird, fish, animal is gone, there are no “do-overs;” no turning back the compass and the clock.

So, thankful for the slices of nature I have experienced; to be a citizen scientist; the chance to do some small act of defiance and act as a steward of one half turn of kaleidoscope of nature.

featured image: still from the animated film, The Man Who Planted Trees