When I started Evergreen Garden Club in the fall of 2004, its main purpose was to provide student enrichment through hands-on activities using an outdoor environment such as the school grounds. The first group, now adults in their mid-twenties, researched local butterfly species and host plants to enable a well thought out conversion of an…
Today is a day we wait for all year! Today is the day we will pick our apples! We’re a little late this year, by about a week, but the time has come. The weather is mild, partly sunny, and calm with a temperature in the low 70’s. By mid-morning, my husband had cleaned our…
September 11, 2001 You were in my arms, my baby boy, being rocked to sleep as a five day old needs: warm, sleepy, and safe in your loving human cradle. Daddy at work, a brother at school, and another young brother still asleep in a cozy crib, a routine morning for us in the heartland….
It is raining and generally miserable outside today, so I decided early that it would be a day to try and finish some projects. Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time making fabric face masks and preserving some of our vegetable harvest. But, I started a quilt at the beginning of the pandemic and it…
This summer was like any other summer with respect to my plans to raise more monarch butterflies. It’s a hobby that has kept me occupied for the last seventeen summers. Starting in 2002, raising monarchs has been part of each breeding season. In addition to creating habitat in our yards (2) and school yards (numerous),…
It’s mid-August! This means that it is time to start tagging monarch butterflies! The monarch’s life cycle is amazing! Monarchs undergo what is referred to as a complete metamorphosis, or change in form. This is accomplished through four stages. Stage 1 Stage 1 is an egg. It is a tiny, pale yellow oval, usually found…
This post contains what I would call a true Slice of Life! Our dog has hives! Saturday night my husband was working on his old truck, a 1962 Ford Unibody, in our yard. He let the dog roam around while he worked. We have a large yard, about 3 acres, and the entire perimeter has…
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…