An Earth Day Post~

Happy Earth Day! It's DoomyPanda again, reporting live from the library where I should be doing work, but just don't want to right now. 

It sure has been a while since I last posted. Probably like many of you, I've been dealing with final projects and just trying to get all my work in before the semester ends. It's annoying how school can sometimes zap you of motivation, but I think I'm still learning a lot about animation, at least.

I'm pretty excited about this summer– if all goes well, I'm going to be spending lots of time outside helping with local wildlife/ecology research C:

So, speaking of which, I thought I'd use this small window of time to share those photos I mentioned from when I visited a desert region last month:

The photo quality better not turn out as bad as it looks in the post editor...

So this right here is a cool nest on top of some cactus! I see a feather so I'm thinking it is a bird's home. Not sure if you can tell, but this nest was actually pretty big– I remember it being like a constructed tunnel with plenty of shade inside. The mud it was lined with probably also helped keep it cool.

And here we have two cool lizards just hanging out and following each other around in the sun. One of them came up to me for a second, actually! I had a metal water bottle with me, so maybe she thought it looked interesting? Ah well, I will never know for sure. 

A bird on a very tall cactus! Not the best photo quality, but I think it would look interesting if it was a painting or something. 

And finally, many frogs. 

–––

When I think about Earth Day, or the Earth in general, I get a bit overwhelmed sometimes. There are so many pressing issues, and so many of them feel so big that I don't even know where to begin. I bet you might feel that way sometimes too!

All of these problems and challenges are simply too big for one person to solve all on their own. Every person has a limited amount of energy to fight back with. 

That's why I think one of the best ways for people who care to make a positive change is to use their own skills and passion to help in the small ways we can, and unite with others who care to combine those skills and passions into a stronger force for change. 

Basically, there are some great things individual people can do to make the world a better place, one small piece at a time, and when we encourage and support each other to make these little changes, those small pieces add up to something big.

That's why one of my interests is planting native plants. You might only have a small amount of space to work with, but you can turn what would otherwise be a boring patch of cut grass into a place where bees and butterflies can have enough nectar to eat. You're helping them survive and thrive!

So, if there was one simple action I'd say is a great way to make the Earth a better place, I recommend you research what wildflowers would be considered native to your area, and see if you can use the space you have to plant some. 

I got some seeds online recently and I can't wait to plant them next week >:)

And if you're interested in this at all and have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comments! ^.^

Once again, happy Earth Day, and I'll see you in Jamaa :)