Another Peek At Our Zoo Trip

Moving along from the Australian Exhibit we have some pictures of beautiful foliage. Not what you were expecting is it lol! Actually on of my favorite things at the zoo is all of the different, exotic plants that seem to thrive in spite of being out of their natural habitat. (good job grounds keepers lol). Of course in my back yard the only thing left standing is the occasional blade of grass due to the three large dogs that think they own my yard lol. (apparently they do since I can't grow a darn thing back there!) Any way we move on from the pretty greenery to the giraffes. I am betting this guy is happy it not winter, I don't know how they would unstick his tongue from the pole! Onward to the butterfly house! (Right next to the giraffes) I know, I know, silly thing to get excited about lol! But they are so cool! This first butterfly doesn't look like much color wise but it is bigger than both of my hands together with all five fingers spread out. Now that's butterfly lol! And last but not least for this segment of our zoo trip are these bright colorful birds. I know what they are called, but the name escapes me, mostly because I need to remember it Right Now lol! Any way they are beautiful and you can buy cups of nectar to feed them. They will hop right down and try and take the whole cup from you. They also tend to squabble amongst themselves when presented with only one cup. I hope that you enjoyed this part of our zoo trip. Check back again and I will have another post up. The next one should include the polar bear who was actually up and moving, not curled up in a corner sleeping.

Save a Seed Coalition

I have to say that I love the outdoors. Not the outdoors that I see from my windows at the office or out of the windows of my house, with the concrete and wires everywhere. Don't get me wrong we have beautiful trees that line our street and there are fields and trees across from our office but it is still the city, filled with noise, pollution and, well, ugliness. I crave the wide open spaces outside of the cities, quiet walks in the woods, breathing fresh (as opposed to poisoned) air, where you can actually smell something besides gas fumes from a million cars. The wide open space are getting smaller and I don't even know the going rate of extinction for plant species anymore, I can't make myself look at the numbers. So in an effort to contribute just a little toward reversing some of the damage we humans do because of our lack of care for our environment I am suggesting that everyone check this website out and see if maybe you are motivated to a little something also. Please not this that this does NOT COST YOU ANYTHING! I am copying and pasting since I suck at paraphrasing lol! Do you want to make a difference?

Good Morning SuperForest!

As you can see from our little "fund-o-meter" down on the right, we have now raised more than $1,100 toward preserving a single plant species via the Millennium Seed Bank.

This is wonderful news!

So, thinks we, how to best raise the remaining amount?
Better than that, how to spread the Save-A-Seed meme across the blogosphere and internet in the hopes of raising further awareness and funds?

Our question is this: Can the blogosphere save the world, one cause at a time?

Here is how we're gonna try to find out:

We are hereby setting out on an Attention Generation Excercise! One whose sole goal is to tell people about the Millennium Seed Bank.

Right now, there are 37 people who follow SuperForest. Of those 37, 30 are bloggers. Those 30 bloggers have 49 blogs among them.

If you add in the members of Team SuperForest, you've got over 40 bloggers with approximately 50 blogs between them. So what can you do with 50 blogs?

We're hoping to unite them!

Today, the thirty bloggers who follow SF received the following email or comment on their sites:

"Dear (fellow blogger),

We would like to invite you to join us in a little adventure.

As you may well know, we've started an awareness and fund-raising campaign for the Millennium Seed Bank. In our opinion, the MSB is performing an invaluable service by preserving plant species, all for the incredibly low price of approx. $3000.00 per species. Compared to trying to save a piece of land, or an animal species, 3000 smackers is an absolute bargain.

We think their work will benefit all of humanity and is as far as we can tell, controversy free.

We happily invite you to join us in forming the Save-A-Seed Coalition.

The SASC will be an informal organization of volunteer bloggers with two goals: Tell people about the Millennium Seed Bank. And, tell more people about the Millennium Seed Bank.

We figure that the best way to raise awareness, (and hopefully funds,) for the MSB is by telling as many folks as possible, generating as much interest as we can...

Here is our plan for how we accomplish that:

We here at SuperForest will write a post about the idea of creating the Save-A-Seed Coalition and our plan to reach out to you.
If you decide to join in the fun, you write a post about being asked to join the SASC and whether or not you'll join.

If you join, we write a post about who has joined and we link to you. You write a post about joining up, and you link to us!

(See where this is going?)

Between the 37 folks who follow SF and us, we have over 50 blogs.
With 50 blogs writing about and linking to the Millennium Seed Bank, the Save-A-Seed project and one anothers blogs, we've all of a sudden created a very powerful informational and communication entity.

A sympathetic coalition of bloggers, flexing the blogosphere's infant muscles to help a needy organization sounds like just the sort of elevating content that people are hungry for, and we can all share in the fun!

Our immediate goal is to save one seed, (i.e. raise $3,000 for the MSB.) We are one third of the way there. Our plan is to raise this amount, send them a check, and immediately set to work on saving a second seed.

Micro-donations, collected across the vastness of the internet, could provide the lifeblood for the Millennium Seed Bank, and we hope that this little action will help that come to pass.

And as an added bonus, we all get to "meet" one another and get to know each other and each others work as we work for a worthy cause.

What say you? Will you join us?

With love and respect,

Jackson, Niki, Andrew, Alex, Taylor,
Jaell, Julius, April, Jordan, Iman, Carla, & Spoon

a.k.a Team SuperForest"

Joining the Save-A-Seed Coalition doesn't mean you have to donate money, or raise money, or ever deal with money... To join, you merely have to mention that the SASC exists and link to it.

I repeat: No need to donate, only post and link.

Enough folks mention, enough folks link, and the Millennium Seed Bank is as good as covered. That's what we're hoping.



When enough bloggers get on board, then we can all write posts about the MSB at once, link to each other AND work up a press release about the whole thing thus far. Fun, right?

Let's work together and see if we can improve our environment.
Here's to exploration!

Love to All,

Team SuperForest