Dismally Drizzlin'

Not much for colorful photographs today. Above is a water bottle in our pond that I'll mention later. It has been on and off drizzle and rain all day. While not untypical of a November day, this cool rain made me thankful for our early start with the holiday lights show preparations. Marv and Terry continued to stake up trees for decoration this Saturday and worked on some inside projects as well. Marianne placed lights out by their respective "target trees" and worked on more lights preparations. She prepares back-ups for various luminaries and other lights that may require an entire strand to be replaced during the show. Her organizational skills are second to none. Urban was here to do some pruning, Vern worked on carpentry projects and Dr. Gredler continued to cut greens for the lights show and a winter container class coming up soon. Kay stopped by and we hope to see her this Friday if the weather is ok. Little Jerry worked on pruning and I ran some cords between rain drops.

Plastic bottles, specifically water bottles, bother me. The one above was out in our pond and I can't help but wonder how it got there? It is amazing to see the amount of litter in our botanical garden ranging from cigarette butts, fast food bags, cans, bottles, etc. I can't imagine an mentality that justifies littering the environment with the possible (though not probable) assumption that others will pick it up. Some interesting facts about plastic water bottles in our country:

* The average American spends $400 annually on bottled water
* Americans consume 7 billion gallons of bottled water each year
* Bottled water costs almost 2000 times that of tap water
* 86% of used plastic water bottles end up in the garbage (1500 every second)
* It takes 17,000,000 barrels of oil to produce these bottles (not to mention the fuel consumption associated with delivery of these bottles)
* That many barrels of oil could fuel 100,000 cars for an entire year

Consider the implications of using and accepting certain packaging mechanisms. There are implications!!! Stepping off the soap box...