What does it mean to “live green?” Does it mean buying organic, locally grown foods, wearing  natural fibers, driving a hybrid, and using the new light bulbs? Or does it mean that you grow your own food, produce your own energy, and ride a bike to work? All of these are “green” activities, but there is another behavior that many West Virginians engage in without considering its environmental impact.

I’m talking about junking, and I do not mean the scrap metal recycling business that is keeping many families financially afloat these days.  Their hard work collecting scrap and taking it to the recycling centers is certainly helping the environment. I don’t know about you, but I like seeing loads of junk heading down the road because I know that another trash pile has been cleared, and someone is going to get some hard cash in their pocket.

The kind of junking I refer to is the kind I engage in regularly: shopping at yard sales, thrift shops, auctions and any other place that sells used. I am always looking for the unique, the old, and the unusual in out-of-the-way places. My whole house is furnished from these places. My adored Tappan Deluxe gas range (c.1950), for example, was sitting on a front porch with a cardboard for sale sign taped to it. My like-new gas dryer came from a Craigslist ad, and the ornate pre-1930′s clayback heater we call “The Beast” because of its phenomenal heating abilities was another resale find. Vintage dishes, stainless cookware, silverplate, crystal, hand-embroidered linens and everything else that finds daily use in my home was once someone else’s unwanted item. Even my clothing is secondhand. I can’t remember the last time I bought something new to wear-besides underwear and socks, that is. A woman has to draw the line somewhere!

While my main reason for buying secondhand (or third or fourth, who knows?) is because I enjoy the hunt for the unusual and the older, better made items, there is another benefit to junking: recycling. This country is awash in clothing; everywhere there are resale shops and yard sales where people try to dispose of their old clothes to buy new. Donation centers get overwhelmed quickly with clothing donations any time there is a natural disaster.

I was horrified last year when we were dismantling an old log cabin (to re-use for an addition to our house) to find that clothing that had been left in the cabin for over 30 years had not deteriorated at all. Think about all the millions of pounds of clothing discarded annually in our landfills. It is sitting there, not rotting away like cotton or other natural fibers, but retaining its shape and color for who knows how long. In the future, will buildings be built on piles on un-rotted clothing? Okay, that’s extreme, but you get my point.  The same is true of almost everything we use: if we discard it, the item is out of sight and out of mind. Yet it has to go somewhere and if it is a synthetic material odds are it will be around for a long time.

So here’s to all the junkers out there: may you live long and prosper, and may your tribe increase. The more of us who prefer to shop the used markets, the less the landfills will have to dispose of and the less oil and other resources will be needed for manufacturing. And that’s better for the planet and for every one of us.

A professional storyteller, Granny Sue has several published works, online at http://www.grannysu.blogspot.com/.

What sounded like the howling of a wolf on a flat part way up the hill reached into his sleep and invoked, for a moment, until he woke, dreams of a large canine monster, huge open mouth full of blood-stained teeth, creeping out of the woods with evil on its mind.   The long drawn out wails continued.  He sat up in bed and listened, pondering the feasibility of a wolf in his back yard.

“Couldn’t have been a wolf.  Aren’t any around here,” said a neighbor.  “Might have been a coyote.”

“They don’t howl, do they?  Sounded like a wolf,” he said.

Subsequent research revealed that male coyotes are indeed given to rendering howls which consist of long rising and falling notes.  This is mostly done in the spring during mating season.

The critter returned a few nights later, just before dawn, and repeated the posting of its notification – spousal rights and sufficient land on which to hunt and forage.  Other coyotes had been warned to stay away.

Mating pairs form strong bonds, are generally monogamous, and often remain together for years.  In early spring they select and defend a territory; males making their wolf-like howls at this time.  A den is dug and used for sleeping and in which females give birth, with an average of six pups per litter.  Both parents feed, protect, and teach their young until fall, when the offspring are pushed off to establish adjacent territories.

Weighing anywhere from 15 to 45 pounds, coyotes have an excellent sense of smell, hearing, and vision.  Eating anything from insects, reptiles, fruit, carrion, frogs, chipmunks, fish, rabbits, snakes, squirrels, birds, mice and rats to deer, they can run at speeds of over 40 mph and are superb swimmers. Prey is generally stalked by smell.  Once located, the hunter stiffens, then pounces like a cat.  Coyotes help keep the populations of smaller animals such as mice and snakes under control.

During the winter, coyotes are non-territorial. The dominant male occasionally calls his pack together with a high pitched howl, punctuated with yip, yelp, and yi-yi.   The chorus is repeated by others as they arrive. Packs typically consist of no more than five or six animals.  Working together enables them to take down larger prey.

In recent years the coyote population in North America has reached an all time high.  This is due to an absence of predators such as wolves and cougars and a clever and adaptable nature.  Considered to be a nuisance by ranchers because of livestock predation, their numbers have continued to increase in spite of substantial extermination efforts.

Coyote attacks on humans are rare and seldom cause injury.  There have only been two recorded fatalities due to these creatures in the history of North America.  One of those was a woman who fell off a cliff after having been bitten.  Habituation to people, along with feeding, can cause problems, especially if the animals lose their natural fear of humans.

Depicted in Indian folklore as savvy and clever, the coyote was reputedly a trickster who stole fire from the gods as a gift to mankind.

Contact  michaelrhonehouse@yahoo.com.

One morning, while drinking coffee and thinking about what to do that day, Uncle Charlie heard a noise coming from the front of his cabin.

“Tap … tap … tap,” with each tap coming a few seconds apart.

“Hmmm?”

Uncle Charlie wondered what it was, so he got up and walked out into his living room.  The sound seemed to be coming from a window which was high up toward the peak of the roof at the front of the room.  He stood still and watched.

“Tap … tap … tap.”

A young male cardinal was flying up to the window and tapping on it with his beak.  It would tap and then fly away to a nearby tree limb, only to come back and tap again.

“Wonder why it’s doing that?” Uncle Charlie thought as he went out to shoo away the bird.

The next morning the cardinal was back.

“Tap … tap … tap.”

On the following day Uncle Charlie got up early and went out and fixed himself a seat behind some bushes where he could see what the bird was doing, but where the bird couldn’t see him.  Uncle Charlie studied reflections of tree limbs in the high-up window while he waited for the bird.

Soon there was the cardinal, swooping in at full speed around the side of the cabin, as fast as it could go, straight at the window.

“Tap … tap … tap.”

Well, after watching a while, Uncle Charlie reasoned that the bird, upon seeing its own reflection, and thinking it was another cardinal, especially one which might be entertaining notions about visiting its mate which was laying eggs nearby, had taken a notion to drive away this intruder at all costs.  In short, the bird was fighting with itself.

This went on for several days, early in the morning and late in the day while Uncle Henry pondered about the problem.  Finally he drove into town and hunted up a large poster of a hoot owl.  Early that evening, just before dark, he took his ladder out of the barn and climbed up to the window.  There he stuck up the hoot owl poster.

The next morning, up early again, Uncle Henry went outside to his hiding spot and waited for the bird to arrive.

Here it came, around the corner of the cabin, full speed, ready to do battle. Suddenly, about twelve inches from the window, it stopped in mid-flight, back pedaled, flapping its wings frantically, feet stretched out straight in front, claws extended, eyes wide, with as startled a look on its face as a bird can get.  Dropping about two feet and turning, the cardinal flew off as fast as it could go, faster even that when it had arrived.

“That’ll fix ‘em,” Charlie said.

And so it did.

Contact Mike at michaelrhonehouse@yahoo.com.

Everybody knows I like yard sales, garage sales, rummage sales and almost everything that looks like a sale. I’ve told you about my friend Frances, who got me hooked on the whole sale agenda. She taught me about what to look for and what prices should be. Now that yard sales are in full swing, I can tell you what she told me sells best at these sales.

There are five categories that women look for, and since most sale goers are women, Frances’ plan works well.

1. Baby clothes and young children’s clothes. The little ones outgrow clothes before they wear out, so mothers are always on the lookout for a bargain.

2. Cookbooks. For some reason, women always tend to be on top of what’s going on with new food ideas. Maybe it’s all that cooking they do.

3. Pots, pans and kitchen utensils. Hmmm. I see a trend here. What goes best with cookbooks? Why, the things you need to cook with, of course.

4. Towels, washrags and bathroom accessories. Since we women tend to change color schemes (something men don’t understand at all), why not buy two or three mix-and-match colors at a time?

5 Sheets, comforters, pillow cases, blankets and bed spreads. All of these items are expensive at the store, but are great yard sale bargains. These also tie in with the color changing concept.

Frances also told me that curtains and coats in good shape work well also. You might want to also throw in some tools in good shape. There are some men who go to sales on their own and actually get out of the car and look around.

Happy bargain hunting! Here’s to yard sale successes.

Judy Wolfram is vice-chairman of the Calhoun County Solid Waste Authority,  Letters can be sent to: Judy Wolfram, Rt. 1 Box 83H, Five Forks, WV 26136.