Easter Sunday - The Final Blog

Easter Sunday 2016!

 Happy Easter - Hallelujah - It's our Final Blog!!!

Hello everyone and first of all, a really big thank you for visiting our blog. We have loved making all the videos - it's been hard at times - but we've learned a lot along the way.

The first attempt at making the video for tonight took us over 10 minutes because really we'd love to talk about all the things we've learned by going on our lent adventure!                              

The main thing we'd like to say is that we discovered how important it is to have a Growth Mindset - to keep on learning and be determined to keep on learning and understand that no-one has all the answers. 

We've learned things we had no idea about, like Palm Oil destroying the rainforests, that factory farming of rabbits even exists (!!!) and that there are lots of things you can do to help causes you care about - like signing petitions, not buying certain products and just spreading the word about important topics, like we have with our blog. We've  learned  that some things are very complicated, like the refugee crisis and that some people would rather not help other people - but that made us more determined to keep going because there are so many people who need help.

There are lots of things we have changed about how we live our lives. We eat less meat, read labels more carefully and think twice about some of the stuff we throw out and how we can save energy.

We hope we've been able to make a difference and that by doing lots of small things, working together, we can change the world and save our planet. Here is a list of some of the things we've tackled on the Blog:

Day 1 - Litter
Day 2 - Sock Apples (recycling!)
Day 3 - Switch it Off
Day 4 - It's About Love
Day 5 - If it's not Dirty was at.... (think about our habits!)
Day 6 - END THE CAGE AGE!!!!!
Day 7 - We're Talking Rubbish
Day 8 - Stay Safe Online (and be Kind!!!)
Day 10 & 11 - Helping Refugees
Day 13 - Helping the Birds
Day 14 - Fight Against Cancer
Day 16 - Saving Our Libraries
Day 18 - Fairtrade Sunday & Thinking Beyond Fairtrade
Day ??? World Book Day - help the world love reading
Meat Free Monday - cutting down to save the planet!!!
Going Organic & Ending Factory Farming
Recycling helps others too
Animal Rescue - our story
Say No to Palm Oil
Cleaning up for Earth Hour
M'on the Bees - Saving our environment - we can all help

It's quite a list and we could have done so much more. If there is one thing we hope though, it's that everyone in the world adopts a Growth Mindset. If we learn every day and we are willing to change our minds about little things, maybe we will change our habits and work together for change.

We did this blog as part of Lent, rather than giving up something, we wanted to do something positive for the planet. We aren't experts about the Bible but we think Jesus would have learned a lot about himself by going into the dessert and fasting for all that time. He had to find the strength to face what he knew was coming because even if he believed he was the son of God, it must have been really hard.

No-one knows for sure if Jesus was the son of God or even if there is a God - that is for everyone to decide for themsleves what they believe. We think though, that the important thing is that he is someone who wanted to make the world a better place for everyone and that he wanted to teach people how to be good and kind to each other and have more love in the world.

We hope that by doing our blog we have tried to follow Jesus' example and play a small part in making the world a better place.

Wherever you are in the world and whatever religion you follow or whether you don't follow one at all, we hope you have enjoyed our blogs and we thank you for visiting our site.

Happy Easter to you all and many many Easter Blessings to everyone,

Amelie and Erin xxxx

Going Organic to Save the Planet

Lent Blog: Week 4 Begins.......

Going Organic to Save the Planet

Hello Everyone - we're into week four and we're going to talk about something which is REALLY important to help save the planet.


People might think that because we are kids that we shouldn't be worried about things like factory farming and organic food - but the thing is, it's our future which will be affected and if we don't try to understand what is going on, it may be too late to fix things by the time we grow up.

Even when we were at nursery we were learning about minibeasts and going on nature trails and we've grown up with stories like James and the Giant Peach, talking about how important bugs and beasties are to our soil. We are also very lucky because we grow our own fruit and vegetables here at home and like to think of ourselves as mini-farmers.

Our soil is alive, not just with creatures but with nutrients and goodness that make it really great for growing things in. We take care of our soil because it is precious - it's the thing that enables us all to live - and if we destroy its goodness, one day we are going to face a really big disaster.

Going organic means that the food which we eat is not sprayed with chemicals that kill all the goodness out of the soil. It is not just the fruit and vegetables you need to look for either but products which come from animals like meat, dairy and eggs, are also best when organic because then you know that the animals have not been fed food which has been sprayed with chemicals.

We try, as little farmers to collect the seeds from the things we grow - that doesn't always work but we are not experts yet. Real farmers are of course experts at this but now, many are not even allowed to collect their own seeds because the companies who sell them their seeds don't allow it. They have to buy the same chemically treated seeds over and over and this is becoming a really big problem for the planet.




We don't really know how the damage done by all these chemicals will affect our health but it is certainly having a very big impact on the environment. Our soil, our insects (especially our bees!) are dying and we don't want to wake up one day and find it is too late to repair all the damage.

We have to do something now and the easiest way to do that is to buy organic food whenever you can. It is more expensive but it is worth it. There is nothing more important than our health and the future of the planet, so I would say it is better to spend a little more on the food we need than on the stuff we don't. 

We have already blogged about wanting to help in the fight against cancer but there is also a lot of evidence that eating lots of meat can add to your risk of getting cancer. The fact that most of the meat available to buy will have been factory farmed and fed food sprayed with chemicals is probably adding to those risks and we want to do all we can to reduce it.

Of course, one of the best ways of going organic is by growing your own fruit and veg....we might do another blog about that later though! It doesn't have to be expensive or take up lots of space, we grow strawberries in buckets, peas along the fence, tomatoes in hanging baskets and even garlic in old wellies! Everything helps.

The point is, if we all do our best to make small changes we can help to stop the destruction of the planet. But we ALL have to work together to do it.

Thanks for visiting, we hope you enjoyed reading our blog and watching our video ;)

Amelie and Erin xxxx

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2987365/almost_all_germans_contaminated_with_glyphosate.html

Link to Important Greenpeace petition.....there are lots out there....

http://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/ 

https://uk.meatfreeweek.org/home 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/may/29/its-time-to-wean-ourselves-off-the-fairytale-version-of-farming 

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/factory-farms-wide-net-pain-and-destruction 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question 

N.B - There are lots of places you can find out about factory farming by doing research yourselves - because this blog is run by the little people though, we don't want to put links which might click you straight onto a picture or video of something really horrible happening to an animal. Just in case a small person clicked it by mistake. Says a lot about the issues though that so many horrible practices take place.

Lent Blog Continues : Meat Free Monday

March 7th, 2016

Meat Free Monday

Hello Everyone, so today we want to talk to you about something that's really important to us. We've already done a few blog posts on trying to save the planet and stop climate change but one of the simplest and most important ways to do that is just to eat less meat.

Not so long ago, eating meat was a treat for most people. It was a lot more expensive to buy and people ate a lot less of it generally. Now it is really cheap to buy meat and you can buy a cheap burger for less than a pound in some places.

There are lots of reasons why this is bad, including for the animals, our health and farmers who produce the meat but to start off with, we want to talk about why it is bad for the planet.

Animals take up a lot of space when they are being kept to make food. They also give off lots of greenhouse gases, which isn't good for the planet either. The amount of space they take up is huge though and in some places, rainforests have even been cleared to make way for them. It is not just the animals, it is the food which is used to feed the animals which is a really big problem.

If we use the space we need to grow food for ourselves to grow food for animals it is going to have a really bad effect of the planet and also on people's ability to buy food who can't buy the meat. 

We really like meat and don't want to become vegetarian just yet but we are definitely trying to eat less of it. We try to do simple things like "Meat Free Monday" and once a year we do "Meat Free Week" just to prove to ourselves that it is easy to cut down on meat.

As Erin said in the video, we also try to buy Organic meat whenever we can but it can be quite tricky to find at times. The only way the supermarkets are going to stock more of it is if people keep asking for it and keep buying it. We'll be talking some more about why Organic farming is important for the animals and for the planet but we'll leave it there for now.

There are some links underneath where you can find out more information about why factory farming is so harmful but also one of our favourite videos of Erin when she wasn't even 2 - you can see, she's always liked her meat!!!

Thanks for visiting - Amelie and Erin xxxx

http://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/ 

https://uk.meatfreeweek.org/home 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/may/29/its-time-to-wean-ourselves-off-the-fairytale-version-of-farming 

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/factory-farms-wide-net-pain-and-destruction 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question 

N.B - There are lots of places you can find out about factory farming by doing research yourselves - because this blog is run by the little people though, we don't want to put links which might click you straight onto a picture or video of something really horrible happening to an animal. Just in case a small person clicked it by mistake. Says a lot about the issues though that so many horrible practices take place.