Please do something to help our pollinators! Stay tuned this week, Pollinator Week 2026, to read about pollinators, their plight, and what we can do to help them. Since my article in 2021, I’ve become a Certified Pollinator Steward through Pollinator Partnership, planted three native beds, moved to a more rural and Northern Climate, and…
The summer we moved to the Northwoods, I wrote an article about monarch butterflies. My writing was prompted by concern. I had noticed that the milkweed was not being eaten, and we saw only a few adult monarchs flitting around. This started to change my thinking about how we humans should help this iconic species….
I started this morning reviewing some blog articles I wrote in 2012, 2013, and 2014 for a website I made for my elementary after-school garden club students and parents. Reading my own words brought back many fond memories of the years I led this group I founded in 2004. It ended in 2017, but then…
Happy Poetry Friday! Our host for this week’s round-up is Tanita on her blog, Fiction, instead of Lies. For links to more poetry, be sure to visit her page. Many of you know I’ve been staying with my Dad in his home in Brockport New York for the last two-plus weeks. Last week, while I…
I chose to publish my blog on Medium.com today. You can find it here (click the word, here.) I hope you click and read it. It tells a lot about who I am, what I care about, and how I’ve gone about working to preserve a species loved by many. As a preview: here are…
Late yesterday afternoon, I saw my first monarch caterpillar of the year. Really?! Wow, it is late. Five years ago, I saw my first larva on June 19th. We did move three hours north, but we moved to a cabin that we built in 2005 and have visited multiple times a year since. So, I…
Despite the generally cold and wet spring we’ve had, the milkweed has popped up in my gardens. The common milkweed is already about six inches tall and my rose milkweed has germinated even though it is still tiny. An unknowing eye would think it was a weed. I know better and didn’t pull it out….
I’ve forgotten how nice it is to talk to someone (anyone, really) about my conservation work for monarch butterflies. This morning I got to do just that for half an hour! I cannot tell you much yet, but I was interviewed for an upcoming article by a conservation organization. This was something that just came…
This is pollinator week. July 21st – July 27th, 2021, has been designated as a week to celebrate, learn about, and act to help our pollinators. My hope is that by sharing some information about pollinator week, more people will see the need to take action in the field of conservation. When I was in…
Planting for pollinators is currently all the rage! And, rightly so, we need our pollinators more than ever even as their populations have declined. The reason for this decline is multi-factorial. Contributing factors are habitat loss, competition of non-native species, pesticide use, climate change, and disease. Stabilization or reversal of pollinator population losses are essential…