Day Ten – Counting Votes for Climate Change Native Habitat Community Gardens in Shell Lake, WI

http://vimeo.com/7327532     Check out Brighter Planent’s short video of a bee and a daisy.

Happy Tonics Environmental Education Intern Tabitha Brown is a student at Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College.  She took the initiative to email the entire student body with permission from the college staff.  Tabitha is also getting out the word out on her MySpace Blog So what’s up?  She is recruiting for friends and students to Sign Up and Vote for Happy Tonics grant proposal at Brighter Planet for Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden in Shell Lake, WI.  We need your votes at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Our Morph Your Mind Environmental Education Program teaches about Colony Collapse Disorder and importance of native wildflowers as pollen sources for bees that need our help.   Seeing Beyond Ourselves, we hope you too will help our friends the native plants, bees and butterflies and the crops that feed us.  All these species are experiencing stress because of climate change.  Help us make a difference in our hometown.  We are a sustainable city but to plant gardens and maintain a Restored Remnant Tallgrass Prairie and butterfly meadow, we need funds to do so.  We are grateful to Brighter Planet for this opportunity.

You are voting for species that cannot speak for themselves.  Bless your hearts.

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Adapting to Climate Change

Please take a minute to REGISTER AND VOTE at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Happy Tonics needs your VOTE to help us do our work.  Officers and Board Members give of their time to educate and implement programs to adapt to Climate Change by promoting Sustainability of Native Plants, Monarch Butterfly and other pollinator habitat.  Our mission is:  Sanctuary for the Monarch Butterfly and Food Safety Issues.

Native bumble bee on autumn sedum

small square foot garden

We are a small grassroots nonprofit that needs your help to WIN our Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake grant proposal.

This is not Happy Tonics first attempt to bring Adapting to Climate Change into national awareness.

We were honored to participate in the Green Effect grant process with National Geographic sponsored by Sun Chips in 2009.  Although other worthy causes won, we believe that each of us must do our part to bring the message of adapting to climate change home.  (National Geographic, Green Effect Winning Ideas for a Better World, November 2009, insert after pg. 6.)

Plant native wildflowers for drought conditions

Won’t you help us now?  Please SIGN UP AND VOTE at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Thank you.

One Meadow at a Time

Blazing star growing in Damian Vraniak's praire in Springbrook, WI, USA.

Good news!  New York City is turning heads.  Here’s a an article about an old railroad bed that is now a garden.  Bravo!

http://mediacompost.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/old-train-tracks-become-green-area-and-public-park-nyc/

Happy Tonics did the same thing in Shell Lake, Wisconsin, USA.  We created a Monarch Butterfly Habitat, a restored remnant native tall grass prairie, where once buffalo roamed and tall grasses grew.  The habitat is alongside of an old railroad bed on a narrow strip of land, on one half acre.  The railroad bed is now a trail for foot travel, bicycle and horses. 

Dennis Van Engelsdorp spoke about the importance of helping the pollinators especially honey and native bees including the beloved bumble bee.  He suggests letting meadows grow.  You can view the video on our Blog re:  A Plea for Bees. 

Let’s get beyond the written world.  I would love to hear from you and learn what you are doing right now to help Green Up your corner of the world.  Let’s turn the abandoned wasteland into something beautiful as a Pay it Forward act of kindness for generations to come.

A Plea for Bees

Bees love sunflowers.

CJA Bradshaw of www.ConservationBytes.com recently emailed this important video on bees which he blogged on his site.  Happy Tonics, Inc. is recruiting for a beekeeper, hopefully one of our local elders, to come and speak at the May 6 Environmental Film Festival and Event at the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College, in Hayward, Wisconsin.  We want to offer students and the community an opportunity to come to Shell Lake and learn about beekeeping from the elders.

I realize that this video is long.  It is worth listening to.  Each of us can make a habitat for the bees.  Happy Tonics created the Monarch Butterfly Habitat in Shell Lake to teach about the pollinators and the plight of the monarch butterfly and now the bees, including our native bees and the beloved bumble bee.

Plant a garden be it crops or flowers and nature will thank you.  One third of the world’s food crop is dependent upon pollination.  Let’s work together to make a home for the bees. 

 CJA Bradshaw