The amount of junk mail seems to endlessly increase.  Once recycling ceased here for all practical purposes, I became a bit distressed and somewhat obsessed about what to do with all this useless paper.  It took me more time than I planned to discover where and how (hopefully) to at least get rid of some of this useless mail.  Now that I have done all this opting out, they claim I may have to wait several months before the junk mail quits showing up.  I will let you know what happens.

In the meantime if you want to try this for yourself and you live in the US here are some options:

-To remove your name from all catalog mailing lists, email optout@abacus-us.com and give them your name and mailing information.  You will receive a return email explaining that this will opt you out of all catalogs.

-To remove your name from only certain catalogs you do not want to receive, go to catalogchoice.org.  You will have to create an account and can unsubscribe to those catalogs you specifically do not want to receive.

-To opt out of other types of junk mail, you go to http://www.dmachoice.org.  They provide various choices for different types of junk mail you wish to quit receiving.

After doing all this, I decided to take a little hike in the new land of green in which I reside.  I discovered a tree, which I thought the drought killed, slowly leafing out–a rather strange sight in June.  Usually, this occurs a month to six weeks before.  Black foot daisies are blooming everywhere, their small snowy faces showing up boldly in the emerald grass sea.  When I opened the gate to let Rosie out to graze–finally there is enough grass to let her out, she ran and ran and ran and bucked.  Nothing is more glorious than a happy, running horse.  The prickly pear are near the bloom stage and some other cacti are starting to bud magenta blossoms.  When they come out, I will take photos to share.

Rosie–photo taken by my friend, the photographer, Anabel McMillen.