Grandinite is a green blog that goes into some unexplored corners…including uncovering this remarkably simple and rather wonderful idea: PlayPumps.  “It’s a simple idea,” the mysteriously named-and-numbered bloggers tell us.  “As children spin on a merry-go-round, water pumps from below the ground. It is stored in a tank just a few feet away, making a safe, plentiful supply of water available in the community.”  Nearly 700 PlayPumps have been installed in South Africa, providing safe water to a million people living in rural communities, and thousands more PlayPumps will be installed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the many benefits of ready access to clean drinking water to millions of underserved people.

With some help from running blogger Sister Smile at Ceud Mile Failt’, ThisNext just discovered Just Food, an NYC-based community-supported agriculture program accessible online at JustFood.com. The blogger explains:

“Community Supported Agriculture is basically a subscription service for organically farmed fruit, vegetables, eggs, et cetera. If you pay a set price for either a full share or a half share, you’ll receive a box of cheap, organic food each week for approximately 24 weeks.”

Since “you get whatever’s being harvested,” there’s no way to pick and choose which foods get delivered to you. But Just Food allows you to use your wallet to support struggling family farms - all at a cost that’s much lower than what you’d find at - in the words of Sister Smile - “ripoff artists like Whole Foods Paycheck.”

Yes, yes, yes, it’s all well and good to say you’re going to build and maintain an organic garden…but how do you actually do it and have a life as well? Check out Earth Friendly Gardening. Here are the down and dirty details, from plant selection to mulching, from a Caroline Brown, a “freelance writer, rat race refugee, and gardener-in-training” in Rhode Island, who is documenting her own process of discovery about sustainable gardening and all that implies. It includes her about “the interconnectedness of people and their gardens with the earth, water, and sky. Here, I hope to share resources and information on how to garden in a more ‘earth-friendly’ (sustainable) manner. And you’ll also read a lot about sustainable farming and living.” You’ll find all that and more in this useful and rather touching blog.

Jozet’s giddy blog Halushki has a freshness and enthusiasm in her adventures that’s sometimes missing from the entries of us old, gnarled, cynical blogger-types. And the ultra-on-top-of-mommyblogs webring Crazy Hip Blog Mamas saw it, too: she was recently named their “Member of the Week”, for entries like the one on Community Supported Agriculture, her opus to that greatest of all cultural heroes, Speed Racer, and her link to how to give artificial respiration to a goldfish.

There’s no way around it: Halushki is just fun, and worth a top-of-the-heap bookmark.