And what do you do with this leftover goo?...

Both boys have been wanting me to read The Lorax (quoted in the title) countless times this week, and with all the kids' protests about climate change happening on Fridays around the world, I have been feeling we should somehow have an eco Friday.

However, an eco Friday could really mean anything from looking at green energy, the food we eat, protecting our wildlife (or lack of it), to recycling, understanding climate change.. the list is endless. And whilst I quite like the idea of us joining the climate change protesters on a Friday, I think that Ferdy and Gil are too young to understand it all and I have to be careful not to project my own beliefs onto theirs, before they've even had a chance to form them. Better to just incorporate thinking about the environment into our Fridays for the moment.

So we read a few more books focussing on the plight of the environment: The Green Giant and Pesky Plastic, which is about different animals around the world thinking plastic is food. Ferdy's also learning about adjectives at school so we had to shout whenever we read one (who can ignore the The Lorax's rippulous pond and smogulous smoke).

Then, after a trip to the library, we went out to look for some trees at the Buddhist Centre.

On the 50m walk between our car and the entrance, we managed to pick up a bag's worth of people's leftover goo - crisp packets, plastic bags etc on the roadside.

Boy vs. Nature

There are some fine and majestic trees at the Buddhist Centre, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. We tried to climb the trees, bashed them with a litter picker (not quite appropriate for an eco day), gathered leaves and daisies, made friends with a cat, hid behind the trees, got stung by stinging nettles, spotted butterflies and ladybirds, and ate beans on toast in the cafe.

Later on, at Ferdy's request we made some leaf paintings and had a gloomy conversation about a world without trees (we would all die wouldn't we Mummy). 

The Lorax was written in 1971 and we have been destroying our planet every since then. But essentially it ends in hope with the Once-ler (factory man) passing on the very last Truffula Seed to a young boy so he can plant a new Truffula Tree and, 'Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back'.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be complicated with kids, perhaps we can start with small things like picking up litter, appreciating wildlife and nature and thinking about recycling and reusing, borrowing or mending things before we buy new ones. We agreed that we'd all like the Lorax to come back.