Thursday, June 21, 2012

Take your family to a pesticide free park- here's how

Greetings and welcome to summer!
    A wonderful friend of mine from gave me a mini broshure with the link to a great summer resource: "Where to find outdoor areas in King County that are either pesticide- free or pesticide reduced sites".  It is finally summer and with summer comes, and I say this with a dash of hope, sunshine and hot weather!
    Originally, I'm from Colorado where we can see about 300 days of sunshine!  After living in the NW for almost 23 years I have come to realize up here sunshine is a gift not a given.  I truly believe we should have spontaneous good weather hooky days.  This is where on any day, if the weather takes a beautiful turn for the better, we have so many allotted days per calendar year where we can close our office doors, shut off the computer and head outdoors.  :-)
    But where do we head?  If we are going to be playing and really enjoying the day we better get grass stains on our knees and dirt in between our toes.  What we don't want is pesticides added to this mix. 
   The Local hazardous Waste Management Program of King County has created this website for us.  All you need to do is click on the website below and type in your city or zip code.  This site will give you a map with little boxes.  The green boxes are for pesticide-free outdoor areas and the brown boxes are for pesticide reduced sites.  If you click directly on each box it will give you the address and site name.. lovely!

Pesticide-Free Places:  Where kids and pets play worry free
http://www.lhwmp.org/home/pfparks/index.aspx
You can also access with this site @  http://www.hazwastehelp.org/pesticide-freeplaces

    If you scroll down a bit further on this same site, you will find additional links including:
      * Why worry about where they play
      *  How to get listed on the map
      *  Make your yard pesticide free
      *  Landscaper help

   In Federal Way, as of this typing, there are three sites.  Not as good as I had hoped but probably an improvement from a couple of years ago. 
   If you have small children, pets, anyone with an impaired immune system or just have a very wise family, locate these sites and take a breath of fresh air with your spontaneous hooky and much needed NW sunshine days.

   As always, wishing you a healthy and happy home and family
  Denise Frakes
   Co-Owner of Blue Sky Services
    Certified Healthy Home Specialist