Ten Little Celebrations – May 2017

May was a busier month than April and the change from cold to warm weather still provides a lot of variety…plenty to celebrate.

“Focus on Butterflies” session at Brookside Gardens. Our experience with a photography specific time in the Brookside conservatory with butterflies was very enjoyable. I’m still celebrating the images I managed to capture.

Conowingo. Every time we go it is a celebration that Bald Eagles have recovered from their near extinction from pesticides. We see so many at Conowingo --- along with Great Blue Herons and cormorants.

Hiking with second graders. I thoroughly enjoy the ‘Science of Soil’ hikes with second graders. It seems like every group is excited about the topic…and being outdoors in general!

Two pre-school Nature Tales field trips in one day. Even though it rained all day – both the morning and afternoon group of pre-schoolers enjoyed their field trip. My segment (which I repeated 5 times!) was about trees and butterflies. Their celebration of walking to the nature center in the rain with their boots and rain gear was contagious!

TSA Pre. Every time I see that my boarding pass has ‘TSA Pre’ results in a little celebration. It is such a relief to not have to pack so I can get my laptop and quart sized Ziploc out easily…or wear slip on shoes that can come off…and back on easily.

Family. This month I saw more of my mother’s side of the family than I have in a long time. They are getting older so every time I see them together, it’s cause for celebration.

A lull before a flurry of busy days. With all the travel going on in the last half of the month, I celebrated a day that was a calm beforehand.

Setting up the Monarch Nursery. I thought my strategy to bring Monarch Butterfly caterpillars inside so that I could gradually take the milkweed plants out of the front flowerbed was a good one – and I celebrated when I found most of what I needed in the basement. My first caterpillar seemed to be doing well…but I put him back outside on the milkweed when I left on my travels. I’ll start a nursery again when I am going to be around to give them fresh leaves every day or so.

Wood Ducks as the Neighborhood Pond. Our neighborhood looked so terrible after they cleaned it out….but the wood ducks came anyway. I celebrated their visit.

Skirts. I’ve gotten skirts out again and am celebrating how great they are to wear when the weather is warmer.

Belmont Field Trips

I didn’t get much photography done during the times I was at Belmont for pre-school  ‘Nature Tales’ and 7^th grade ‘BioBlitz’ field trips. I am so focused on the students while they are there….my primary picture taking time is the lull before they arrive or after they leave! The grounds are lush now even though I still miss the huge elm that used to dominate the lawn in front of the manor house.

The pond has a path mowed down to it but I like the taller grass everywhere else.

I took a picture of the horse chestnut in bloom early in May (one of my favorite trees…but this is not a healthy tree, unfortunately).

There were two pre-school field trips on the same day and I had a picnic between the morning and afternoon sessions…and took pictures of birds (mockingbirds and a robin) that came to the lawn in front of the nature center.

I brought of the end of the hiking group through the woods and hurriedly took a picture of a flower along the trail.

And the BioBlitz group found some brightly colored fungi on some rotting wood….while they made their entry in iNaturalist…I got a picture too!

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2017

It’s spring…and there is a lot to celebrate.

Second graders coming to Mt. Pleasant for the Science of Soil field trip. I’ve done two file trips for them so far and both have been a lot of fun – using the soil auger in several places while we hike, talking about rocks looking at the old rock wall dividing the fields, seeing how the stream restoration work done during the winter is greening up and full of puddles after a rain.

Azaleas. There are some in our neighborhood but making the trek to the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden is the day we celebrate the profusion of blooms and colors.

Pre-schoolers on a Nature Tales field trip. I’ve done three of the pre-school field trips at Belmont in April: two that were rainy days and one that we made it to the forest. I’m learning how to keep the younger children listening and participating for the whole 20-30 minutes I have them. There are so many little celebrations in every session because the children are so enthralled with the new things they are seeing and doing….I can’t help be celebrate with them.

Delmarva birding. My husband and I spend a day at the Delmarva Birding Weekend late last week. It was our first time to attend and we enjoyed it. I celebrated that there were so many birds to see (and photograph) not that far from where we live. I’ll be posting more about our experience in the coming days.

Faromir. One of our cats died in April. We celebrated his life…and that he was will us for 13.5 years. He was my husband’s little buddy.

Favorite lipstick available again. I’ve always liked Cover Girl Bronze Glow lipstick and was very disappointed when I couldn’t find it anywhere…but now it is back. I celebrated that Cover Girl has started making it again.

Fitting into smaller jeans. I discovered that I can fit into some jeans that I thought were too small. That’s always something I’ll celebrate. I also celebrated that I hadn’t put them in the giveaway pile last fall.

New blade for old paper cutter. I was thrilled to find a new blade for my 20-year-old rotary paper cutter. When I couldn’t find the replacements in a local store and the new cutters did not look at all like mine, I thought I was going to have to buy a new one….but Amazon had the size I needed.

Roman Art and Archaeology course from University of Arizona. I’m not taking as many course from Coursera as I’ve gotten busy with other things…the few I’ve taken recently have been fabulous. I celebrate the availability of the course as the perfect time (the lull before the ramp up of spring field trips) and the well done videos and other references.

Boxes of old documents shredded. We’ve cleaned out some old boxes full of paper (spring cleaning!) and took 2 to be shredded at a local shredding event. I celebrated getting all that old paper with account numbers and social security numbers securely recycled.

Prius Prime – Month 3

I am still on the first tank of gas in my Prius Prime – over 700 miles and it is finally not quite ‘full’ (although it is not even to the first mark away from it yet)! The around-town trips are almost all within the EV range of the car. I’ve discovered that using the adaptive cruise control as much as possible when I am on any street with a speed limit over 40 mph is the way to maximize the range of the battery power. I will have to take a more substantial road trip to use up the tank of gas.

I have started my volunteer naturalist work with the Howard County Conservancy so the passenger seat of the car is the repository for things I might need – a hat for if its sunny, various jackets in case it is cool, and boots for if it is raining hard.

I’ve put sunscreen and insect repellent in the door pocket.

The next 6 weeks are going to be busy ones…the only requirement to keep the gas tank at about the same level is to remember to plug in the car when I get home!

Previous Posts about the Prius Prime: My New Car – a Prius Prime, Prius Prime – Week 1, Prius Prime – Month 1, Prius Prime and Samsung Galaxy S7.

Pre-K Field Trips at Belmont

Last week I volunteered (with the Howard County Conservancy) for two field trips for pre-kindergarten groups that came to Belmont Manor and Historic Park.  I realized that I’ve learned a lot from these programs that I didn’t learn from my daughter when she was 4! I’ve learned to alternate sitting and moving, talking and quiet, asking questions (that they can answer with a little thinking) and explaining.

I had groups of 10-15 children with their chaperones – in the forest – to learn about the life cycle of a tree.  Since they had a little hike to the activity from the previous one, I had them sit down at the beginning and we talked about trees. They had planned lima beans at their school…so I used that to talk about seeds and roots and sprouting and saplings. Their lima beans had roots and some had sprouted…so they had already been thinking about it. So I moved rapidly to passing around different kinds of tree seeds (with the help of the chaperones. I had a branch from a maple tree with small samaras, some acorns, some sweetgum balls, and some tulip poplar seeds that we picked up from the leaf piles beside the blanket.

Then we all stood up and pretended we were trees sprouting from seeds (crouching down to begin with then reaching up one branch (arm) and then both arms.  I encourage them to look up. I asked them what happened to the little branches when there was a breeze (fortunately there was a breeze and they could see some of the little branches moving….it was clear that many of them had never noticed tree branches moving like that). In the end, I asked if they wanted to pretend like a hurricane wind came – a very strong wind – and that some of the might fall over. Most of the groups had a few children that did want to fall over!

We sat back down and walked about leaves and how the trees were just beginning to get new leaves. Some of them remembered playing in leaves last fall. We picked up some of the brown leaves on the forest floor and looked closely at them.

We took a short hike to look at a little more of the forest and notice there were wild flowers…violets and spring beauties. There was a big tree that had fallen and was rotting. It had a wild flower growing on it…and lots of moss.

And then it was time for them to go to their next activity! It was an intense couple of hours repeating the tree life cycle with each group….and enjoying the children’s reaction to the forest.