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.

Day Six – PLEASE VOTE for Climate Change Native Habitat…on Brighter Planet

Brighter Planet logo copyright

Please help pump up the votes.  Please Sign up AND VOTE for the Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake grant proposal at Brighter Planet at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Happy Tonics wants to thank Donna Barnes-Haesemeyer, Mayor of Shell Lake, for her VOTE.  The Mayor and I took part in The Natural Step for Communities – How Cities and Town can Change to Sustainable Practices in 2008.  I am proud to announce that Shell Lake is a sustainable city.

Local grown food Famers Market

The mayor has implemented many initiatives to help the city start a Farmers Market, promote community gardens, improve wetlands and increase native habitat.  She is proactive in environmental advocacy work. 

Personally I am proud to live in this small community where so many are trying to protect the lake from invasive species.  We have the cleanest lake in Washburn County and perhaps throughout many areas in Wisconsin.  The Shoreline Protection Committee is reestablishing native habitat at 13 public access areas around the lake. 

The campground with aged cottonwood tree and lake

Native black-eyed Susan at Native Wildflower and Butterfly Garden.

Happy Tonics implemented a Native Wildflower and Butterfly Garden on city land.  Now we are trying to raise funds through Brighter Planet to maintain the habitat and help the community with community gardens.

  Let me tell you way.  Washburn County will shortly be impacted by 8,000 more people who have been taken off the unemployment benefits roll.  This means that food pantries need to gear up to address an ever increasing crisis in food security for citizens.

A community that can feed itself is sustainable.  You are allowed three votes and we are asking for your help.  Please sign up and VOTE for the Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake grant proposal at Brighter Planet at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Thank you for VOTING and proving you care. 

Quote Source:  Cassie McCrow wrote on Nick Vander Puy’s blog: “The genius of hunter-gatherers is that they must live as a part of nature rather than a manipulator of it – playing by nature’s rules, if you will. Part of that is the exchange – gratitude, relationship and respect (all good energies) for food, clothing and shelter.”

Day Five- HELP US GET 100 VOTES Over Weekend Brighter Planet

We are only 14 VOTES away from 100 VOTES.  I know we can do it with your help.  Please REGISTER AND VOTE for Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake at Brighter Planet at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

Wear your passion and show others you care.

We want to thank Salt of the Earth Press at http://www.saltpress.com/

for voting today.  Be sure to check out our beautiful butterfly art wear created by Lindy Casey, owner of Salt of the Earth Press.

 Lindy was kind enough to create butterfly product designed by artist and Happy Tonics former member Kathy Maas at CafePress.  All sales support Happy Tonics’ Monarch Butterfly Habitat and Morph Your Mind Environmental Education Programs. 

Earth Friendly Water Bottle art by K. Maas

We will campaign over the weekend on the blogs to recruit, recruit, and recruit for your VOTES. Be happy voters where ever you are.

Day Four – Ringing the Bell for Brighter Planet Grant

We’re almost there at 81 VOTES at 9:10 p.m.  Only 19 more VOTES to go till we reach 100.  Yeah Team!  If you are watching the results and have voted once, you are entitled to two more votes.  Each voter can vote three times.  If you are new please REGISTER AND VOTE AT http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100 for Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake. 

Got Milkweed? Sign made by Matt with DNR Grant

Wild milkweed meadow Go Wild with Butterflies

I thought you might be interested in the DNR Monarch Butterfly Habitat that Happy Tonics has land use for a seasonal habitat.  Just look at the milkweed.  Native milkweed is the only host plant of the monarch butterfly and this meadow is full of milkweed.   Here is a photo of our sign that Matt made last year with a small grant from the Spooner DNR.

Today we want to thank Paul DeMain, Editor of News from Indian Country, for voting and passing the word along.  Please read Nick Vander Puy’s interview with Dawn White on the Importance of Water. 

Happy Tonics is a co-sponsor of the Environmental Film Festival.   We heard from Belinda Bowling, Owner Innkeeper, Casa Escondida Bed & Breakfast in Chimayo, New Mexico at http://www.casaescondida.com/

Sandy Stein and I had the pleasure of staying at the Casa when we were exhibiting at Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico, in 2008.  Facebook friend Amy Lou Jenkins, author of Every Natural Fact Five Seasons of Open Air Parenting also voted for our grant proposal.  The book has not been released yet but can be pre-ordered.  We like to make friends all along the way.  So many individuals have emailed to say they have voted and we are deeply honored.  You never know who your friends are until you need them.

 Till tomorrow, keep up the good work.  REGISTER AND VOTE for Happy Tonics.  We love hearing from you.

Day Three – Brighter Planet VOTES NEEDED

Day three- The status report is better today.  We still need your votes at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

REGISTER AND VOTE FOR adapting to Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden.  We have 68 votes as I write.  I am pleased.  Only 32 more votes and we’ll be at the 100 mark.  This is a landmark because it means we’ll be in the running to apply again if we don’t reach our goal this time.

We have 12 more days to go and we are campaigning for our cause.  Anything can happen. Just look what happened today.  We received a grant for $250 from Leopold Education Project a Program of Pheasants Forever.  This will help fund a raised bed garden for Girl Scout Troop 4362, Minnesota & Wisconsin Lakes and Pines in Shell Lake.  

Expect the unexpected to happen in life.  Things could change over the next 12 days.  Happy Tonics could gain the notice of some large environmental group that can sway votes our way.  One can only hope.  Remember change has always come from the ground up.  Here’s your chance to prove it.  Thanks!

Till tomorrow insectamonarca friends,

Sending a beautiful sunset your way.

Be happy where ever you are.

Day Two – Brighter Planet Votes that Keep Us Going

Thank you Crossroads Resource Center, MN; La Cruz Habitat Protection Project, Inc., TX; Destination Marketing Organization, WI; Yellow River Advertising and Design, WI; Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad, WI; Dyer Design, VA and countless individuals who are VOTING for our grant proposal at Brighter Planet.  

Brighter Planet copyright by Brighter Planet

 PLEASE REGISTER AND VOTE for Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake at http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100

 Happy Tonics members Patti Gardner, PA; Cindy Dyer, VA and Janice Organ, WI voted.  Friends on Facebook are voting AND writing on their wall to ask their friends to VOTE.  Friends on MySpace are voting.   It takes all of us to implement change in adapting to Climate Change. 

 We are counting on YOU!  

Seed in time regenerates the Earth.

 Happy Tonics is so appreciative to those who are helping us carry our sustainability work forward.  Our Mission:  Sanctuary for the Monarch Butterfly and Food Safety Issues.

Walk in Beauty.  Navajo Morning Prayer.

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.

Montana Energy Corps Weatherization Project · Brighter Planet

Boozhoo (Hello) from the Great North Woods, Wisconsin.  Native people in the USA could use a hand with weatherization.  It is so very cold in many of our States this winter.  Pine Ridge Reservation, in South Dakota, is 50 below zero today.   Imagine your grandmother living in a house that needed more sustainabile heat.  The Montana Energy Corps which includes tribal people is working hard to provide weatherization to those in need.

Please support their efforts to make the lives of others as comfortable as many of we ourselves feel at this moment. 

Miigwetch (thank you).    

via Montana Energy Corps Weatherization Project · Brighter Planet.

Growing Food by Mary Ellen Ryall

Spider web after rain copyright Mary Ellen Ryall

Take a look at Will Allen.  

He walked away from corporate America and sports sixteen years ago to head up a growing business.  His main goal is to grow soil at his working farm Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  It is all about community gardens and we need to get growing in each community.  Visit http://www.growingpower.org/

When we realize that it takes nearly 1 gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of conventionally fed beef (Mooallem, 2009), we might start to realize we need to support local farmers and grazers.  Meat taste like meat when it is wild harvested or grass fed.  Biofuels made from crops have been responsible for up to 75 percent of the 130 percent increase in global food prices in the past six years (Weltz, 2009).  Food is not fuel and should never be taken out of the mouths of people and diverted to another profit making purpose. 

 It is interesting to note that college campuses across the USA are starting to introduce local grown food right into the cafeteria.  Tim Galarneau, is cofounder of Real Feed Challenge, a national campaign, wants to introduce 1,000 universities and colleges to buy 20 percent of their food by 2020.  Tim will still be actively working long after I retire.  It is good to know that youth are stepping up to the issue now.  Communities need to learn how to grow their own food so they can feed themselves in the future.  Josh Viertel, the 31year-old president of Slow Food USA says, “It’s just this incredible outpouring of energy to do the right thing.”  I feel confident that Tim Galarneau and many other young activists will lead the way to sustainability.

 Are we too little too late?

At the same time we need to keep our eyes open and on global food security and climate stress now that climate change is knocking at Earth’s door.  Please take a few minutes to listen to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack speaking on Agriculture and Climate Change in the video at http://vimeo.com/8137485

He spoke at Agriculture and Rural Development Day, on 12 December, 2009, a day-long event at the University of Copenhagen with more than 300 policy makers, negotiators, producers and leaders from the agricultural and climate change scientific community.   Unfortunately many believe that genetically engineered crops are a possible solution to end world hunger and the second Green Revolution has begun.  By listening to this video, we are staying informed and hearing about the world’s challenges to these paramount issues.

 Mooallem, J. (2009, March-April).  Veg-o-might.  Mother Jones, 36-37.

Weltz, A. (2009, March-April).  Trouble on the Limpopo. Mother Jones, 44-47.

Viertel, J. (2009, March-April).  Tray chic, Mother Jones, 47.