What a great time we had with Ms. Jennifer Hansen of the Thurston County Extension Office! Our ‘word of the day’ was conservation and boy did our eager readers learn about that! Our selected book was The Earth Book by Todd Parr – easy ways to help save our planet we can practice every day. Ms. Hansen showed through hands-on activities, how little land is actually used to grow food for the earth, and why we should take care of what we have. She also took us on an “Un-Nature” walk where the children picked up ‘garbage’ and had to estimate how long it would take the item to decompose. Here’s something you may not have known: It takes a paper plate and napkin up to five years to decompose, a microwave popcorn bag about ten years to decompose, and get this – it takes glass over 1,000,000 years to decompose! Those styrofoam cups you like to keep your coffee hot??? NEVER. We should all try to be good stewards of the earth – please do your part and DON’T LITTER! Recycle what and where you can, or re-purpose an item and put it to another good use. For example – look what Cooper Kreikemeier did with an empty milk carton – he made a very colorful and functional bird house! Cooper is very creative and it came out beautifully – well done, Cooper! See, if everyone does their part – we can all help “Build a Better World”. And speaking of which – HOLY COW – what a difference our readers made this week in Marvin’s Garden! They hauled limestone gravel for our pathway and already it looks great, even without the plants! There are no slackers in this bunch, I’m here to tell you! Our plants arrive next week and our Summer Readers will get to plant our beautiful new garden, with the finishing touches on the last week. I’m so excited for you all to see it! So in recognition of their hard work, the library is hosting a “re-dedication” ceremony on Sunday, 30 July, from 2:00 – 4:00 at the library. The library will be closed for ‘normal’ operations but we will have refreshments and snacks, and you can walk the garden to see what our group of readers and volunteers have done. Everyone is invited! I hope you have an opportunity to stop by and see what we have done to “Build a Better World!” right here, at your Snyder Library!
