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First, thank those industrious bees for gracing your garden! Bees are terrific pollinators, and they’re presence in your garden is great news for the flowers you enjoy so much. With so much concern over Colony Collapse Disorder, there are many people who would love to have such a worry.

And, actually, honeybees aren’t likely to bother you unless you disturb them or their hive. You go about your business, they’ll go about theirs (making sure the flowers keep coming back!). Pay attention, and use c…

Making Earth- and people-friendly laundry soap is simple and inexpensive. For starters, try this easy whitening formula from Natural Home magazine:

Bleach/Brightener Substitute
1 cup hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup lemon or grapefruit juice
12 cups water

Store in a labeled plastic jug. Add 2 cups per load.

You also can find great recipes for Washing Powder and Pre-wash Stain Spray here.

A lot of people scratch their heads about this. A good starting place is to consider the great fortune each United States citizen has: We inherit 623 million acres, thanks to the foresight of earlier generations. Those lands come in four varieties: national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges and western areas overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM, the largest of the four).

The Wilderness Act, signed into law in 1964, created the National Wilderness Preservation Syste…

The United States is home to 416 mammal species and about 9 percent of the world’s total, placing us sixth among nations in mammal diversity. Currently 83 mammals are listed under the Endangered Species Act as either threatened or endangered. One-fifth of the U.S. mammals on the list of endangered species are bats, which may surprise many, but not when you consider the fact that bats (order Chiroptera) also represent approximately one-fifth of mammal species worldwide. 

Some of the mammals on the…