Chantale Rivar Deditions

The best way to ensure having as healthy of an environment as possible is to educate children about it. If children are involved each day in activities where they directly involved with the environment, they will gain respect for nature. A great activity for this is gardening. Your children should get involved with gardening for the following reasons:ScienceWhen a child sees a seed grow into a plant, they are taught in a direct way how nature works. They will learn about the plants life cycle and how it won't live if humans neglect it. Children will be curious and enjoy this experience very much.LifeLife should be treated with care. Through gardening, watching a tree grow from a seed into maturity, for example, can help teach kids this. You can explain to them the similarities between the trees growth and their own, or the growth of people in general. In addition, they will see that plants need water, sunlight, air, and soil to live. Through this, they will gain an understanding that in order to live, humans need food, water, shelter, and air. Pulling weeds can show them how to stay away from bad influences that can overtake their lives.RelaxationNo matter [more..]

Every good gardener or small farmer must have a good library to help them in their crop raising endeavors. Information can always be gathered from the internet or the library. Many people do not think to check out their county extension office (in the State of California it is based out of UC Davis) and thus they miss out on some exceptional information. The staff at these offices is up on what are the problems in the local area so doing not miss out on this resource. However, nothing can compete with a book or an electronic book if one is so inclined.First, Garden Insects of North America: The ultimate guide to backyard bugs. Whitney Cranshew. Princention University Press, 41 Williams Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540.This book is HUGE weighing in at almost 600 pages. This is the premiere book on bugs, maybe more than needed by most but extra information never hurt. This book describes the insect, their habitat, sometimes insects that feed on them, and many color photos (many pages have over six). If it flies, stings, bites, burrows, nests, or lops it is found in here. Many hours can be spent just flipping out the hours as [more..]

Housework, it's a dirty job - but somebody's got to do it!It can often be difficult to find the motivation to tackle all the little jobs around the house and garden, especially when we factor-in all the other demands on our time and attention. To make the idea even less attractive, our efforts around the house and garden often go unnoticed or unappreciated by others. No wonder most people detest chores.There is however, a way you can develop a new appreciation for domestic duties. Instead of focusing on the chores themselves, think about the additional physical activity you will get from tackling all that dreaded scrubbing, vacuuming and gardening. You may not realize it, but many household chores actually count as moderate exercise, and some are easily as physically demanding as a brisk walk or jog. Out in the garden, the calorie-burning, muscle-building exercise value of chores can be even more astounding.If you are concerned about your health and wellbeing, as we all should be, putting a bit more effort in around the home and garden can assist in increasing your overall levels of activity and supplement your typical exercise regime. Indeed, you might begin to see housework in a [more..]