As we head into this holiday weekend, here in the United States, I hope that celebrations are safe and calm. July Fourth is our Independence Day! I cannot help but wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of the state in which we currently find ourselves. Turmoil. Injustice. Inequality. Inequity. Violence. The list goes on….
Last night, something magical happened in our yard! For many years, I raised monarch butterflies. This year, I have yet to see any eggs or larva on our milkweed plants. We have three patches of milkweed in our yard, each a different kind native to our area of the country. For almost two decades, I’ve…
Today, my son and I walked the trails at the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge on Brice Prairie. It is a designated site of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It’s pollinator week and I’m participating in Miles for Monarchs, through Monarch Joint Venture, trying to get in 25 miles of walking…
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…
Today is Poetry Friday. Upon arising, I was not sure I was going to write poetry today. I just “wasn’t in the mood.” Instead, I headed out to the garden to weed with my almost one-year-old Yellow Labrador puppy in tow. She gets bored with such mundane tasks as pulling weeds and soon created some…
Today, tonight actually, I am going to repost a leadership topic on which I have written before; it is that of transparency. Strangely enough, this post was written in February of 2019, less than a month into starting a new job. It is a topic that has interested me for years and is very apropos…
Today is supposed to be 93 degrees. It is going to be hot by anyone’s standard. I was outside by 8 a.m. to water my newly planted flowers and foliage. I knew I had to do it early or risk their demise in the heat of the day. Lots of work goes into planting our…
What do we do about the world today? We sure are in a mess. Since March, the COVID-19 Pandemic has disrupted our communities and systems. Education ceased to be what we knew before. Community groups and gatherings no longer were possible. Things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and elastic became hard to find. Friends stopped…
All photos in this post are copyrighted by Carol Labuzzetta, 2020. No permission to reproduce. Thank you.