Belated post and a change

Some of you may have noticed I didn’t have a post on Saturday. This is the first time I’ve ever done this.

When I started this blog on my own (after previously writing a blog with the support of a writing partner), I wanted to commit to a schedule I knew I could maintain. I wondered if posting once a week was often enough, but I didn’t, realistically, think I could post more often. So I said I’d post every Saturday, and I always have.

For some time now, I’ve been wondering about blogging. About this blog, and blogs in general, and similar things.

And then, coincidentally (or maybe not – maybe fatefully?) I accompanied my son’s class on a field trip last week where we saw a group called Mindil Beach Markets (MBM) put on an environmental presentation called The Jellyfish Project.

This presentation had a major impact on pretty much everyone in the auditorium. It was incredibly well done. It was impactful. It was terrifying and inspiring and motivating. I was scared out of my mind and, also, very worried that my son – sitting down the row from me – would be scared out of his mind.

But these guys are pros and they pulled up at just the right moment. And they told the audience – the kids and the parents, like me – that we can do things. We can make a difference.

And the great thing is, my son believed them right away. He came out of that auditorium jazzed and pumped and convinced he can save an endangered species. He can stop climate change and then reverse it. He just has to decide to do it.

I was less sure. I thought “How can we?” I thought “We’ve gone too far” and “There are too many people who don’t know or don’t care.” I thought, “What can I do? Who will really listen to one person?”

I felt that way for a while and then I realized something. I realized those five guys – just one group in just one hour – made me feel that way. I realized if they can change the way one, or two, or three people think, then why can’t I? I can at least try. They try. They’re a hard-working touring band who has made this message; this mission, part of their life. They do these presentations for free. If these young guys can try, I can try too.

So things may change around here. I may be talking a bit more about the environment. I may not have the voice or the reach I want yet, but I can use the voice and reach I have to give some attention to this important topic. If I can make one person make one change, and then they make one person make one change … well that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?

So, first things first – Project Milkweed. My first effort to make a small change. If you lived at our cottage, you might be forgiven for not realizing there’s a monarch crisis, because butterflies are everywhere. But, then again, so is milkweed. Everywhere.

Over the weekend, while at the cottage, I collected a few beautiful, silky pods of milkweed just bursting with seeds, and I dug up a small milkweed plant and brought it home and planted it in my backyard.

The plant looks a little droopy. I feel badly for it being pulled from a nice big hayfield and being plopped in a backyard garden in the city. But I hope it will live and I hope it will feed a butterfly or two next year.

I’ve already posted on Facebook that anyone who wants them can have some of the seeds I’ve brought back, and two people have already asked for them. So, already, doing something (even this very small something) was better than doing nothing. With luck we’ll have at least three extra backyards in the west end of Ottawa for butterflies to visit next summer.

I hope you don’t mind if I talk a little more about change and inspiration and possibilities and ways I’m trying to figure out to help the planet.

And, of course, if you’d like some milkweed seeds, please let me know!