Wow, you’ve got to see this!

The April Stash Bust is in full swing, y’all! If you’re not participating, it isn’t too late. Awesome posts and projects have been rolling in, and as promised I’m rounding them up for ya. Ready? Bust it:
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Earth Day only comes once a year so when it happens we like to pay extra attention and raise awareness of the beauty and necessity of a healthy environment. Each Sunday we publish photography celebrating our connection with the Earth. Today we would like to add a twist.

This month we are asking you to vote for your favorite LoveEarthAlways photo from our top ten below.  On EarthDay we will be awarding prizes to ten people who provide feedback. Random.org will choose ten winners. Prizes include our Vermont Photography note cards, our natural cotton tote bags, LoveEarthAlways BPA-free stainless steel water bottles, an autographed copy of Suzan Tyler Decker’s Johnny Green And The Little Green Man, made in Vermont Olivia’s Croutons, and more.

How do you win?

1. Send an email to LoveEarthAlways.com naming your three favorite photographs from the ten shown below.

2. Select your prize preference from the list above if you have one! That’s all there is to it. And we will NEVER give anyone your personal information for any reason.

Make your top three choices now!

1. Addison Meadow

2. Camel’s Hump

3. Mallet’s Bay4. Field & Stream

5. Mallard Pond

6.  Fluffy Trees

7. Lake Marsh

8. Burlington Bay

9. Mt. Mansfield

10. Outstanding In The Field

Image: eling008, Flickr

Want to make a Philly Cheese steak sandwich that is utterly delicious and about as healthy as you can imagine? You think I’m joking, right? Seems like “Healthy Philly Cheese Steak” must be an oxymoron. Red meat, cheese, sauteed onions and peppers on a white roll? Well, THIS Philly Cheese steak sandwich is healthy and will knock your socks off!

It all started with a conversation with my neighbor at our winter chili block party. Someone made chili with seitan and it was delicious, with the consistency and flavor of sandwich steak but none of those bad fats, cholesterol and chemicals. Seitan is wheat guten that is not the most visually appealing food product on the market, but it is very healthy. Kalim, the chef, remarked, “You should try making a Philly Cheese Steak with seitan- it’s fantastic! The simple recipe for seitan Philly cheese steak? (more…)

Vermont Shepherd Farm, Post Oil Solutions & Windham Farm Bureau Sponsor Community Wool Fest & Free Wool Giveaway

Vermont Shepherd farmers, David and Yesenia Major, have between 1500-2000 pounds of wool that they would love to give bags of away for FREE. Post Oil Solutions recognizes an opportunity to perhaps strike a creative spark in the community for the development of a local industry. The Windham Farm Bureau (of which both Vermont Shepherd and POS are members) is interested in doing whatever it can to support local agriculture.

Together, the three are co-sponsoring a Community Wool Fest & Free Wool Giveaway on Sunday, April 11, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, at David and Yesenia’s farm, 268 Patch Farm Road, Westminster, Vermont. Admission is free, refreshments will be available, and Lerna (an area spinner) will be providing music on her hammered dulcimer. (more…)

Create the Good has teamed with the AARP for the Go Green Twitter Sweepstakes. Contest entrants are vying for a trip to Washington, DC for the official Earth Day celebration on April 24-26. A carbon offset contribution will be made once the winner and flight distance are confirmed.

The contest features users tweeting at @createthegood with methods for environmental action by using the #gogreen hash tag. Entrants must submit their tweet by April 6th, and also follow the @createthegood Twitter account.

“Create the Good defines any participation in the sweepstakes as a success,” said Nathan Winters,  @follownathan a social media consultant with Truth + Tribe who is working with the AARP and Create the Good on the effort. “Their goal is to get people thinking about Earth Day (April 22nd) and entice them to act green on a daily basis.

“In addition to giving @createthegood followers a platform to share a diversified commitment to finding ways to ‘go green,’ they hope the incentive of a trip to [Washington,] DC attracts new people to the conversation,” added Winters. “If even one person starts taking action toward a healthier planet as a result of the sweepstakes, Create the Good will consider it a success.”

If you grow up in Vermont you learn about maple sugaring because everyone either does sugaring or knows someone who does.  The tiny state of Vermont is the largest maple syrup producer in the U.S. and second in the world, behind the country of Canada. The labor-intensive work of maple syrup production fits with centuries of the Vermont agricultural work ethic. In order to make maple syrup or “maple sugar” as it is commonly known, holes are drilled into sugar maple trees, and metal pipes or spouts called “taps” are tapped into the tree. Traditionally galvanized buckets collect the sap which needs needs to be emptied and moved to an evaporating pan, where the sap is boiled. Nowadays, many maple sugar producers use plastic tubing to carry the sap directly to storage tanks, which lead to the pan.

This small backyard evaporator consists of a steel drum with a stainless steel pan on top of it. It burns local dead wood to produce heat that evaporates water out of the sap. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of maple syrup. The lightest syrup grade is called “fancy” and it has a very delicate but sweet flavor. The darker grades are Grade A, B and C which are amber and darker amber in color and richer in flavor.

There is nothing quite like the indescribably sweet steamy scent of maple syrup. Larger scale sugar operations have sugarhouses that require a fair amount of maintenance and technical skill to produce maple products. In addition to syrup, many sugar makers cook the syrup until it gets more viscous and serve it on fresh snow, known as “sugar on snow”, cook it further into crystallized maple candy, and formulate recipes into maple butter, fudge and other concoctions. Maple is a delicacy because of it’s refined flavor and intensive time and energy commitment.

Although LoveEarthAlways doesn’t sell Vermont Maple syrup yet, we would sure like to. You can find out more about maple production at http://www.vermontmaple.org/

Every once in awhile a story comes along that warms our hearts here at LoveEarthAlways. This story comes from PeepsResearch.org where doctors report that they have successfully separated conjoined Peeps quintuplets! Anyone who has experience with major surgery and is familiar with the high cost of health care knows that separating conjoined Peeps would be a very expensive proposition. That’s why doctors at Peeps Mountain Healthcare decided to offer the surgery at no charge.

First, the supplies and equipment were assembled and the personnel agreed on a time and location for the complicated surgical procedures. Then the Peeps Quints were sent to “PreOp” for preparation. Next they were sent to transported to operating theater, where they were given anesthetic and surgery began. After the first Peep is separated, wound was cauterized and sutures sealed the tissues. This is repeated with the remaining Peeps. At one point tension arose in the O.R. and a Code Purple was called. In the final step, some reconstructive plastic surgery was necessary, but the Peeps all came through in good shape..

In the end all five patients survived the operation and were recuperating in the Post-Op incubator comfortably. The surgery was completed just in time for Easter morning!

Our guest author, Becky Striepe, from Glue and Glitter is an independent crafter and freelance blogger living in Atlanta, Georgia. Her passion is working with vintage fabric and salvaged materials.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and a few of us crafty types decided to pull together and do something to celebrate! Did you know that we spend $4.2 billion per year on art supplies(pdf alert) and many of them are toxic and harmful to the environment. Instead of buying new, we want to make April a Craft Destash Month! Together, we can have a really big impact on the environment and on our own wallets. For the entire month of the April, let’s pledge not to buy any new craft materials, tools or supplies for the April Stash Bust! Many of us have ginormous stashes with many fun and creative projects waiting to be born. So, we also pledge to make at least one project from our stash using only what we have on hand. For motivation and to show how you can use and repurpose what you already have on had, we’ll have a round up of exciting destash tutorials from: Scoutiegirl Craft Leftovers Dollar Store Crafts Cosa Verde Crafting a Green World Glue and Glitter Swap Bot And to encourage you to do the same we will be hosting an April Stash Bust contest! To enter, take the Stash Bust pledge to not buy any new materials, tools or supplies for the month of April. Place the awesome April Stash Bust badge (created by Liz at cosa verde) on your website or blog (found below). Create a project from your stash using only what you have on hand. Submit your finished project detailing the stash materials you used with a link to your finished project by Earth Day, April 22nd. A crack team of judges will review the projects and choose a winner. So what could you win?! A lucky creative type will receive:

• “Alabama Stitch Book” by Natalie Chanin from Swap-bot.com
• A one year showcase on cosa verde for your repurposed & eco-friendly crafts
• A one year membership from Hello Craft
• A Cup Glove Kit from Glue and Glitter!
• A mini box set of volume 2 of Craft Leftovers zine (issues 1-4)
• A Modeling Chocolate kit from Dollarstorecrafts.com

Other April Stash Bust Events:

• click here to apply by April 5th]
• April Stash Bust craft supply swap at Swap-bot

Want to show off your involvement in the Apri Stash Bust? Here are an array of buttons for you to choose from:

Copy these logos to put on your site, or visit Glue and Glitter to get the code!

A larger/resizable button:

Image: Courtesy Qnet.com

Early this morning a man was brutally attacked by what is believed to be a full-grown 200 pound mountain lion as he walked through City Hall Park in Burlington, Vermont.  The 26 year old man was leaving Vermont Pub and Brewery and walking with a companion when the animal pounced on him from behind some tree cover. The man is listed in serious but stable condition at Fletcher Allen Health Care. Dr. M. Berry Lucky at Fletcher Allen reported that the full extent of injuries is unknown at this time and said, “Mr. Adams had 3 hours of surgery and seems to be recovering and clawing back to health on his own”

Vermont mountain lions (Felis catamountis) or ‘catamounts’ as they are known in Vermont, are rare although there have been several sightings in the state over the past few years but none in the city. The animals are more prevalent in areas where development has encroached on their habitat.

Wildlife Biologist Buck Hickory  of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife says that while mountain lion attacks in the US are rare, it’s too early to scratch them off the extinction list and they have increased dramatically during the past few decades. “Any time you have wild animals without natural predators, living in close proximity to humans, you have the very real possibility that this will happen. These cats are huge powerful killing machines. If you have ever seen your house cat attack a mouse, imagine a 200 pound cat attacking a human. These cats can break bones and even dismember people quickly. The victim is very lucky to have survived and he must have nine lives!” (more…)