My blog today features a previous post from the summer of 2019 when I worked as the Outreach and Education Manager for a local land trust and had to organize more than a dozen experiences for our members and community participants. One of the most memorable was a tour of some caves in Southwestern Wisconsin…
enrichment activities
An Opportunity for Young Writers
Today, I want to pass on an opportunity for teachers who work with students on their creative writing. Unfortunately, I will not be able to take advantage of this chance to submit student work, but maybe some of you can. Right now, I do not have a group of writers. I am wondering about the…
Poetry Friday: A Tribute
Usually, I am unaffected by a celebrity’s death. I think it’s because I do not have a personal relationship with them. I feel sad but have little sense of loss for myself, more loss for the world in which they belonged, especially when the person who died made valuable contributions. But, in the passage of…
Slice of Life: When Passionate Volunteering is Thanked
Whew, today was a long day! It’s late and I am just starting to think about my blog now. In thinking about what I would write about, I decided to tell you about an unexpected gift I received Sunday when we got home from our cabin. As we drove up the driveway, I saw the…
Foodie Monday: Homemade Pasta
Recently, my husband found a recipe for homemade marinara sauce and meatballs. It is delicious and seems easy. He’s made it three times in the last month and was so delicious we had it for our Christmas Eve dinner. We might never have store-bought sauce again! The meatballs, made separately, are delicious as well and…
Foodie Monday: New Salad Recipe
We tried a new salad for our Christmas dinner this year. Usually, I make a napa cabbage salad with hot bacon dressing that has been our favorite holiday meal salad for years. We just had it at Thanksgiving and usually serving it is repeated at Christmas. But, I wanted something different. In one of the…
Slice of Life: Etiquette
I’ve been trying to scale back my blogging to allow me time to write and accomplish some other goals. This is hard while still having a desire to keep my regular blog readers engaged in my posts. Therefore, some of my posts are becoming shorter. Some might consider this a very good thing! As the…
Holiday Cactus Resource on TpT
Few probably know that I have some classroom resources on the Teachers Pay Teachers website. My user name there is Garden Club Lessons. I taught an after-school garden club for 13 years at the elementary school my boys attended. For the most part, I researched topics and then developed my own lessons. It’s not anywhere…
Slice of Life Tuesday: Cider Making Memories
Yesterday, I had a glass of store-bought apple cider. It was lackluster, watery, and devoid of the depth of flavor that can be in cider. I know this because we’ve made cider for many years, except this one. Our apple trees did not produce enough apples to even attempt the well-loved but time-consuming task of…
National Park Flora & Fauna
We did not see much wildlife in the national parks. Exceptions were elk grazing as we entered the Grand Canyon, causing a flurry of cars to pull off the road to watch these giants eat. While at the Grand Canyon we also saw Pinon Jaybirds and lots of ravens. A tarantula was spotted by the…