2025 Life Logs, Day 112: Earth Day 2025
Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 51, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I took the day off yesterday, but the rest of the world didn’t. Early, early yesterday morning, Heather drove Jed and Ollie to Providence to the train station for their trip to Washington, DC. Ollie will spend the week in DC with his Scout Troop, and Jed will help chaperone a couple of the Scout events and spend time with his mother doing ‘spring chores’ at her home. My sister was released from the hospital yesterday and is adjusting nicely back at her assisted living facility. And I attended the wake of a fellow Encore Board member
I spent my day today doing something I love … trying to solve a sailboat problem. I learned yesterday that Heather and Jed have not had any luck getting people to return their calls about a boom refit or replacement for Ardenna. (Their boom was destroyed in the brush fire that got out of control.) So I asked Heather if I could do a little research and she agreed. This morning, I called the guy in Chatham who is repairing their dodger to see if he had any suggestions. He has a best friend who he thought would know and he offered to call him for us. Half an hour later, he called with suggestions, and I spent the rest of my day traveling to Mattapoisett, Marion, and Wareham (all across the bridge) going from boat yard to boat yard checking things out. I have more checking to do in the morning and am waiting for a return call from Cape Cod Shipbuilding, but I learned so much and think we have a few options. The problem, of course, is time and money. They also need to replace their dinghy and dinghy motor due to the fire and that will be my next project. I am going to Rhode Island on a field trip on Friday morning and will visit boat yards there in search of a dinghy replacement. Boat yards are unbelievable busy this time of year. I went from office to office, but no one was in. I had to walk through the boat yards, the fun part for me, looking for people. All the while, I am sure their phones in those empty offices were ringing off the hook. Going in person is about the only way to get answers.
I celebrated Earth Day #55 by going to the first of three readings of the Cape Cod Climate Action Plan sponsored by the Falmouth Climate Action Network (FalCAN). Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970, and has been celebrated each year since on that same date. It is a time for people to come together to celebrate with environmental education and action, so I chose to spend my evening focused on environmental education. In an article in the NYT this morning, climate experts were asked what the single most important thing each of us can do to for the planet. “First, it’s important to understand that climate change is a symptom of a larger issue: ecological overshoot, or the fact that humans are consuming resources faster than they can regenerate and producing more waste and pollution than nature can absorb.” It went on to say that one of the most effective ways to avoid consumption, and an obvious way to do that is to have smaller families. Or if you do have children, make sure they are aware of their responsibility to help reduce consumption. Reducing consumption requires a whole new mindset about how we live. Another thing you can do according to the expert interviewed if change your diet to being more plant-based. “If the average person in a high-income country skips meat just one day a week for a year, for example, they can save the carbon equivalent of driving 850 miles in a gas-powered car, and enough water to take a shower for 38 hours straight.” What an easy thing to do for the health of our earth.
