This past week, armed only with a garden fork, I worked for an hour at making my own soil, mixing together kitchen scraps, shredded papers, and the remains collected in our vacuum. 

This morning at the BlogHer Conference, about 40 "green" and "social change" bloggers, organizations and companies got together for a Birds of a Feather Meetup. I asked folks to give me their cards so I could share who attended with you. Give 'em a click and find out about the work they do (Is anyone except me surprised by how many companies attended?). Abbey McDonald, Debroff Debrief Abby Jaramillo, Urban Sprouts

In 2002, we traded my husband's Ford Escort for a Ford Explorer. Then we had a Ford Explorer and a Geo Prizm. In 2006, the 1994 Geo Prizm got t-boned on a busy street, and we "replaced" the 100,000-mile Ford Explorer with a 2005 Ford Explorer.The 1998 Ford Explorer is still kicking at 140,000 miles three years later. Oops.

Everywhere you turn this summer, conversations, both private and public, seem dominated by the topics of the environment, global warming, carbon footprints, living greener. Besides changing lightbulbs, reducing driving, and saving water, though, what can a crafty person really do? Turns out we can do a lot.We can use our craftivism to spread the word about the importance of the number 350.

If you have a do-good Dad like mine, it can be a challenge to find a Father's Day gift he'll truly enjoy. Here are a few ideas:

iLoveMountains.org is a campaign to stop mountaintop removal for coal mining. What is mountaintop removal you ask? From the iLoveMountains.org web site:

When my son was an infant, people would ask, "Do you use cloth or disposable diapers?" My former husband would jokingly respond, "I'm studying that issue and will get back to you in about 2 1/2 years." For many of us being kind to our environment is a philosophy we endorse until it really makes our lives inconvenient. Of course we support the Green Movement but just don't make me sacrifice ...too much.

The BlogHer contributing editors have been blogging Earth Day all month and doing a really good job of it - and so have the members of our community. If you haven't checked out any of their green friendly, environment friendly posts - you should click into the Green & Eco-Conscious topic area and start reading (comments are cool, too!)

What with the Earth Day and the organic food and the hormone-free milk and the biodegradable condoms (okay, maybe I made that one up), I’ve been thinking about how kids remind us to be our best people. Especially when they catch us not practicing what we preach when it comes to the environment.

It's tricky. Unless you're making your trip by foot or on a bicycle, green travel is a difficult thing to accomplish. Airplane and car travel is notoriously non-green, hotels are full of tiny single use bottles, packing thousands of people into natural and cultural wonders has a decidedly non-green impact in wear and tear, consumption, and waste. Conscientious travelers buy carbon offset or pick sustainable providers, but green-washing has made it hard to tell, when it comes to travel, what's really green and what's marketing.

So we all should be purchasing organic food from farmers markets, adorning ourselves in bamboo and hemp fabrics and convert our homes to clean living domiciles? Hooey! Yes, I said hooey! One of my gripes about the 2008 incarnation of the so called Green movement is the emphasis on being "Green" without the acknowledgement of the expense of trying to implement a "Green lifestyle" on a fixed or stretched to the bone budget. Or trying to do that living in urban areas or places far away from Los Angeles or New York.

Hey, it's Earth Month, have you heard? Thank goodness we only have to think about the little rock we cling to that sustains our lives for one month out of the year. In May we can move on to my favorite, Asteroid Belt Month.