I live in the midwestern United States, in a suburban area. Although I wouldn’t consider this a rural community, you don’t have to drive far to be “out in the country.”

I consider myself a country girl at heart. I grew up on a wooded lot in rural Wisconsin, and loved playing outside without worrying about traffic. It was nice to sleep with the windows open, and not hear the noise of the neighbors’ televisions. We had room for a big garden (although we hated it when Dad made us pull weeds), and lots of space to explore and play. The ditches along our road were full of berry bushes, and we picked and ate all we wanted in the summer. I think I’d like to move to a nice, quiet piece of land again someday. But for now, we’re stuck in the ‘burbs, conveniently close to shopping and schools, and a little too close to a few obnoxious neighbors…

However, there are a couple of times each year when the country seems very near, and I am taken back to my childhood in my mind. Today, I opened the windows to let in the fresh breeze, and clear out the last of winter’s stale air. The weather is perfect today. The pear trees are in bloom, the daffodils have finally opened, and my purple and yellow pansies are smiling at the sky.

As the gentle current of air swirls through my house, I take a deep breath. Ahhhh.

Wait. What’s that smell? Oh, I know.

Even though I can’t see any fields from my window, I can smell the aroma of agriculture. Somewhere, some farmer is working today. Perhaps he is turning the soil or spraying on some kind of organic fertilizer (manure?). The odor is faint and dilute, but unmistakably earthy, and somewhat sour.

Should I close my windows? No. I will leave them open. Let in the air. Let in the smell of agriculture; the smell of good, honest, dirty work. It may not be an entirely pleasant smell, but the memories it brings are sweet, indeed.

I always feel a twinge of guilt when I throw away an empty inkjet cartridge or broken electronic gadget. If you’re the same way, this program might help ease the pain of tossing your tech junk.

The United States Postal Service recently announced a program for free recycling of inkjet cartridges and small electronics, including PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players. The Mail Back program is being piloted in 1500 Post Office branches around the country, but could go nationwide this fall.

Participating Post Office locations offer free, postage-paid envelopes for consumers to take and use to mail back their recyclable items. The postage is paid by Clover Technologies Group, which refurbishes and resells as many of the devices as possible. Pieces that cannot be reused are broken down for parts, or into recyclable components. Clover boasts a “zero waste to landfill” policy, which means “it does everything it can to avoid contributing any materials to the nation’s landfills.”

I think this program is a great idea. Most people will not go to the trouble and expense of recycling, unless it is cheap and easy. You can bet I’ll bet checking my local Post Office lobby for those Mail Back envelopes. I have an empty inkjet cartridge on my desk right now.

I think these little USB rechargeable batteries are going to be huge. They are NiMH cells, rechargeable at any USB port. You don’t need a cradle and cable. Just charge and go. Not only are they easy to use, but they are nicer for the environment, by preventing the disposal of lots of regular batteries. I don’t remember all the chemistry of batteries in landfills (those grad-school brain cells have been taken over by new bits of information, like the names of all four Wiggles), but batteries in landfills are bad!

In addition to AA cells, they will be available in AAA, 9 volt, and sizes for cell phones and PDAs. Visit usbcell.com for more information.

In honor of “Blog Environmental Action Day” (who comes up with this stuff, anyway?) here is a bit of wisdom that was passed down to me by a family friend when I was a kid. We were visiting a lake cabin with a small septic tank, and were advised not to flush the toilet or put any more water down the drains than absolutely necessary, lest we all find ourselves in a stinky, mucky mess. We were given simple instructions on how to do this:

1. If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down. I believe this is self-explanatory. Once, out of habit, I flushed on a yellow, and was met with “I hope that flush was really necessary,” when I came out. I was embarrassed for having forgotten the rule, and said, “Yeah, it was,” which was equally embarrassing to admit.

2. The shower had a push-button faucet, like a public restroom. One push would turn on the shower for maybe 30 seconds. Each person got two pushes worth of water per shower, which worked like this: Push once to moisten body. Lather up. Push to rinse body. Get out of the shower.

I guess if we all used these Cabin Bathroom rules at home, we’d both conserve fresh water and minimize the amount of dirty water going to treatment facilities, which would be a really good thing for the planet.