Declare your Independence

It's Independence Day, and today Americans everywhere are donning their red, white, and blue, firing up the grill, and chasing around kids with a water bucket, hoping they don't blow off their fingers. On this one day, we can all feel united as one people, one nation, and be pretty darned proud of how awesome our country is. Here are a few ways keep it that way (and make it better).

Monsoon Season and a Call for a Little Help from Our Friends

Photo taken near Tulsa, OK by woodleywonderworks

It's the equivalent of monsoon season here in Green Country. Everywhere, people are exclaiming that, even as temps soar toward the 90s, we are finally out of drought conditions for the first time in... well... a long, long time. The tradeoff is a state hit hard with tornadoes. Lives have been lost. Pets are displaced. Property damage is into the multiple millions of dollars. We've been through hell, I won't lie. And many are going through hell still. Just because the media's attention has turned to other things, doesn't mean the rebuilding stops or that people aren't still trying to piece their lives back together. There is a lot of work still to be done for those hit hardest by these chaotic storms. And we hold you all in our hearts and prayers as we make our donations and make our journeys to come to your aid in any way we can.

Eating Green in the Heartland

Cherry Street Farmers Market by OakleyOriginals

“Food is ecological as well as sociological—that the way we eat is connected to the environment and to the health of the land.” - Michael Pollan

Being an environmentally conscious eater is a strange concept for some people to grasp. Here in the land of Walmarts, Sam's Club, and Warehouse Markets, people tend to look at you funny when you mention your "alternative" shopping habits. Vegans and vegetarians they kind of get, even if they don't necessarily approve, because those diets have been around for awhile and everyone basically knows what they consist of. But you...

World Book Night Give Away: The Worst Hard Time

Just a quick check-in to tell you that the green guardian is a World Book Night giver this year, and I am giving away to one of my lovely readers a free copy of The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan.  Yes, only one.  The rest are going to Iron Gate--a local soup kitchen, some homeless teens via Youth Services of Tulsa, and then to random people on the streets, as is the tradition of World Book Night.  You see, these books are intended to spark a love for reading in light or non-readers, primarily adults and older teens.  But, some of you may not be avid readers, and this book might just change your whole outlook.  In any event, this particular book is a chilling and poignant account of the Dust Bowl which effected Oklahoma and neighboring states.  It was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in our history, and contains some hard-earned lessons for humankind.

A Little Introduction

The first lines of a blank page.  This is always the hardest part, it seems--the introduction.

Many of you have been following TGCG on facebook, so we're not really strangers, are we?  No, I suppose not.  For those of you who haven't been following along, my name is Angela, but I shall henceforth be signing off on these posts with the pretentious title, "the green guardian" (no caps, so as to depretentiousize it), because I like it and it fits and I think you'll forgive me.  Call me a gambler.  I am a little.