Somebody tweeted this CBS News story about the best places to live to raise children with a love of the outdoors.

I've just added a bunch of new links to sites about getting kids outdoors, and wouldn't you know it, that's the topic for today's post in the Sierra Club's Green Life blog.

The annual Great American Backyard Campout happens June 27th. Have fun!

Mark your calendar and plan to do something for a trail near you. National Trails Day is a day of volunteering to maintain and improve trails – it's outdoor fun, community-spirited, and great exercise! Check the American Hiking Society site to find an event near you.

Today's NY Times Well column reports that "The best way to improve children's performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.... "The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better."

But we knew that already :-)

Here's something fun and non-traditional (or start a new tradition!) to do for the Christmas holiday - get involved in the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. Go to the Audubon site for details.

I really need to get this site upgraded to Drupal 5 or 6, fix the image issues, and start posting more often!

America Recycles Day is a project of the National recycling Coalition. I love their slogan, "It all comes back to you." More info at www.nrc-recycle.org.

The National Parks Conservation Association is lobbying to stop a bill that would permit visitors to national parks to carry firearms even when not hunting in a designated area. This is such a bad idea I don't even know where to begin! The parks staff can barely handle the problems they've already got, thanks to underfunding.

You can find out more and send an email to your representatives here:
NPCA Action Center.

I recently decided to unsub from the Sierra Club's general newsletter, and in doing so found their Daily Ray of Hope, which is just a simple nature photo and inspirational quotation by email each day, so I signed up for that. Readers can submit photos via Flickr group, so I decided to sign on to Flickr and contribute a few of my best shots.

And they used this one!

I took it on Scoobymaniac's very first camping experience, at Promised Land State Park in the Poconos, on Labor Day weekend in 2002.

Other interesting events that weekend: I lost my wallet, and despite having (I thought) thoroughly searched for it at the time, I found it in my duffel bag when packing for another trip several years later!

Spring is here, so naturally gardens and gardening are coming up all over (puns intended!). Not that I've done anything with my own garden yet. Slate has a couple of very good, recent articles – one on creating a habitat garden to shelter small creatures, birds, and butterflies, and one on gardening with children. Enjoy, and get some good ideas.