By JB Lester
It’s time to write my Earth Day column again. This is the 29th time I have done so since the Healthy Planet magazine began publishing in 1997. This year I want to say Thank You to Mother Earth for what she has gifted me and my family over the years. Without her wonders, I would have never been able to:
• Spend year after year with my family enjoying your Oceans and soft sandy beaches. Teaching my children about sand crabs, jellyfish and sea turtles. Marveling at your sunsets and watching the pelicans fly by in formation at dusk.
• Hike and backpack up your mountains, through your deserts and into your forests. Finding that the air is thinner at 12,760 feet and learning to adapt. Smelling your pine-needle forest floor and hearing the loud squawk of a large gray jay. Marveling at the bugle of a bull elk during rutting season and silently watching a mother moose and her calf wade into the shallow water of a mountain lake.
• Canoe through the mangroves in the Everglades, the black waters of the Okefenokee Swamp, and the clear spring-fed rivers in the Ozarks. Camping with my family as a child and learning to enjoy campfire life. Going to summer camp and learning about snakes, frogs and lizards.
• Cross country ski through the frozen northern wilderness of Minnesota and winter trails in Colorado. Downhill skiing once in my life in Colorado and stopping halfway down the slope to propose to my wife Niki. Thank you for your fresh powder snow that cushioned my many falls.
• Bicycle with a friend from London England to the south of France. Learning that people are just people no matter where you go in the world. Spending my 20th birthday at a youth hostel in Brussels Belgium. Living the high life in Amsterdam, Holland.
• Take road trips to Florida with my family and finding out what all the states along the way have to offer. Plenty of pole pines and sphagnum moss along the way. Taking road trips to Colorado to see my sister and finding Kansas has a natural beauty and if you get off the interstate, you might discover a sea of beautiful sunflowers. Take the Blue Highways when you can.
• Work in the garden and enjoy the seasons you offer. Looking for the Monarchs on the butterfly bush, watching a family of praying mantis from year to year. Growing a few tomatoes in my backyard garden. Observing a pair of cardinals make their nest in the branches of a redbud.
• Take a walk around the neighborhood and spotting a family of deer huddled in the brush. More and more deer have appeared in the suburbs. They love hostas, small tree leaves and green grass. We have plenty of opossums and raccoons, too. There are even fox and coyote roaming through once in a while. And I saw some bluebirds in our yard last week. Quite rare in the city.
• Enjoy your storms. I have loved storms since I was a child. My brother and I would go out on the porch in a thunderstorm and marvel at the wind, rain, hail and lightning. Been through a few twisters. I respect your fury Mother Earth and understand that climate change is making you angry.
There is so much more I could thank Mother Earth for on this Earth Day, 2026. I suggest you make a list of the things you have enjoyed at the pleasure of Mother Earth. Once you realize what she has offered you, you will become even more grateful and take the needed steps to keep our planet clean, safe and healthy for generations to come.
We owe her everything!