Community
Working for Resolutions: A Call to Action
What are you doing, personally, to make living during the COVID pandemic better for others? Anything? Or, are you just complaining? Be honest here. Are you actively trying to make life livable during this crisis? One of the debatable tenants of Environmental Education has become a guide for my life. It is that there MUST…
Slice of Life Tuesday: Time Travel Books
Some of my favorite types of books are those that involve time travel. It’s always been enjoyable for me to read stories that involve characters who move through time. I think this fondness started with reading Wrinkle in Time when I was in grade school in the early 1970s. The whole idea of children traveling,…
Providing Enrichment
Luckily, throughout the formative years of my boys’ education and development, I have been able to provide a great deal of enrichment outside of school. In fact, if you have ever read the tag line for my blog, enrichment is mentioned. “THE APPLES IN MY ORCHARD…….. a reflective blog about enriching youth through education, opportunity,…
Monarch Update: Timing is Everything
Today, I was reminded that in the world of monarch conservation, timing is everything. This has been a slow year for my summer conservation hobby of raising monarchs. The adults were slow to show up in my yard. The ability to find eggs and larva has been arduous at best, depite the plethora of milkweed…
Words Followed by Action
Words need more substance than just inclusion in verbiage. There needs to be meaning AND intent behind them. While in grad school for my Environmental Education degree, we were asked in one of the theory courses whether education (about the environment) is enough (for community members). Is knowing about environmental problems and issues like the…
Fabric Obsessed
Ever since I started making fabric masks for PPE, I am obsessed with fabric! I cannot seem to stay away from the fabric store! And, even if I go there to get something other than fabric – like thread, elastic, interfacing, or another craft item, I come out with fabric! Today was a case in…
Environmental Education on Pause?
This spring I was to engage over 1,500 local youth in presentations regarding our environment. Handouts were ordered. Seeds were collected. Easels were purchased. April, May, and June were to be busy months. Since all those events were canceled due to the pandemic, I found my work as an environmental educator on pause. But, it…
The Cabin
Pride & Sharing our Bounty For the second weekend in a row, we are at our cabin with guests! It’s been a long time coming to reach this point, but I am glad we arrived! Our property is unique. We have two acres on a lake in Northern Wisconsin. It is three hours from…
Free? Why, no, it’s not.
The world of art and non-profit organizations, while separate but sometimes overlapping, share a common conundrum. They both face the expectation of receiving goods and/or services for “free.” I am not a stranger to providing goods or services for free. As you might be aware, I led a garden club once a month for a…