Becoming a Missouri Woodland Mentor?

/

The first in a series of 9 webinars (over 9 months) happened in January; they are the first attempt to train a cohort of people to be Missouri Woodland Mentors. The target audience is landowners willing to serve as mentors for other property owners who are exploring forest management practices for the first time. I registered for the series even though my property is only 1/3 acre in a suburban a near Springfield; as a Missouri Master Naturalist I’ve done several tabling type events where my topic was trees – so some I am familiar many of the Missouri native trees. Based on the chat in the first session – I am not the only person in the class that is not looking to make money from growing trees!

As I did the prework for the first course (Show me natural communities and MO Forest Management Guidelines Chapter 1)…

I began to think about what it would take to create a savanna or even a woodland in a suburban environment. The biggest challenge would be overcoming the amount of impervious surface of streets, sidewalks, roofs, and certain amenities (pools, tennis courts, basketball courts).

In my own yard, I am planting at least one more short leaf pine and additional understory trees (witch hazel, buckeye, spice bush, service berry to supplement the 2 pines, 3 hollies, 1 maple and one dogwood (not native unfortunately) that I already have. I am reducing the amount of turf – with violets and American spikenard in shady places….sumac and beautyberry and wild indigo as well as perennials like Missouri evening primrose and goldenrod where there is more sun. I don’t spray or fertilize, and I leave-the-leaves that fall on the yard from the trees…and the pine needles. The amount I mow is reduced significantly both in extant and in the time of year I mow (not much until early summer). I anticipate that as I get more natives established that I would cut back on the amount I watering. What if everyone in the neighborhood was doing that?

Cooper’s Hawk

/

A Cooper’s Hawk caught a European Starling during our recent big snow. When I first saw it, the capture/kill had already happened, and the Cooper’s Hawk was standing over its prey on our patio table very near our feeders. It was easy to see that the prey was a starling.

The hawk carried its prey to the ground behind a clump of grass and almost directly below one of our feeders. It began to pluck the feathers. There was enough breeze that the feathers quickly blew away over the snow. As the hawk started the meal, the other birds began to return to the feeders – secure in the knowledge that the hawk was fully occupied.

The carcass was mostly behind the clump of grass but it was still disconcerting to watch the movements of the hawk with all the other little birds flitting around on the feeders and not that far away on the ground. Knowing that it is part of the ‘circle of life’ did not translate into wanting to watch it all the way through; my husband and I returned to our other afternoon activities within a few minutes.

Snow Days

/

We had some snowy and cold weather last week. I filled our bird feeders before the bad weather arrived, but the feeders were getting low by the time we did our 2-day Feeder Watch.

I put some seed out on trays set on the ground for the second day to supplement the waning food supply in the feeders. The temperature was in the single digits and teens! Once the birds discovered the seed on the ground, there were a lot of bird tracks around the trays; there were no tracks for the two snow days before I put the seed out on the trays!

The view of the pine from my office window became less snowy after the snow stopped mid-way through the second day, since the wind quickly blew the snow from the pine needles; the snow caught in the holly leaves stayed longer.

We got about 6 inches at our house (although there might have been some areas that were deeper because the snow blew around a bit). Our neighbor across the street was the first in the neighborhood to shovel their driveway.

I used my snow blower for the first time; I bought it toward the end of last season after appreciating my neighbor clearing my driveway with his snow blower; my back tends to hurt immediately when shoveling snow. It was a learning experience with the blower. The breeze caused snow to blow onto me, the batteries did not last long enough to clear the whole driveway, and the big pile at the end of the driveway created by the snowplow was problematic. On the plus side – my back did not bother me at all!

I was at home for 4 days. Meetings that were on my calendar for those days were rescheduled or moved to zoom. My husband got out on the 4th morning for a dental appointment, but his car has higher clearance than mine. I got out on the 5th day to buy groceries!

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2026

/

Parts of January were not very wintery but later in the month, we got a significant winter storm that included snow! I celebrated winter activities, food, and scenes –sprinkled with some warmer days.

53rd wedding anniversary. So much of my day-to-day well-being is linked to my marriage that I sometimes just accept it as normal….but my wedding anniversary in January always prompts me to celebrate….be grateful that we’ve sustained our relationship by changing together!

American Beautyberry in winter. I celebrated the wrinkles and color of the berries – often in an otherwise brown bed at the Texas Welcome Center. I’m glad I have some small beautyberry plants in the yard that will be beautiful in a few years.

Big snow. It was a good time to be at home – celebrate the season (and my snow blower).

Dark chocolate for breakfast. I savored dark chocolate first thing in the morning – reverting to my favorite breakfast in the last years of my career. I celebrated that it was tasty and fair trade certified.

Meal in a skillet. Lightly sautéing veggies then adding a couple of eggs to make a ‘sauce’ and provide the protein – I’m getting used to the idea of eating it straight from the skillet. Celebrating food that is quick…nutritious…easy to clean up.

Potato skin. My husband likes the inside of russet potatoes and I like the skin. I always celebrate when there is a potato skin to top a soup or include in a stir fry.

Salmon salad with ginger, lemon, and honey dressing. Small cans of salmon have become a pantry staple for me. This month I celebrated a homemade dressing (fresh ginger, lemon, and honey) that made salmon salad my favorite.

Exercise snacks and treadmill walks. I’ve noticed that my mood and my back are better when I do short spurts of exercise throughout the day – celebrating that something that is good for me overall has some specific benefits that motivate me!

Pruning chainsaw. I celebrated a new tool – realize I should have bought one sooner.

Plastics podcast. The recording of a short message about plastics had been in the works for months – and I celebrated that I finally got it done!

Favorite Chairs

/

My choice of office chair has changed over the years. By mid-career, I knew that I liked ones that didn’t have arms because the arms were never at the right height and seemed to cause poor posture. In my company provided office – I always had an office chair with a back but in my home office I had a Swopper chair with no back at all by about 2010 - a few years before I left my career behind; I can easily move from side to side and bounce. It is much easier to not sit still for too long in a chair like that! My first chair broke after about a decade of heavy use (the spring detached from the other main part of the chair) and I now have two replacements – one for the first floor of the house and the other for the basement garden room where my primary home office is located.

Recently I have discovered that a piano bench is my second favorite chair. I use a bench at a table when I make Zentangle tiles as part of my wind down at the end of the day. I do some back exercises before I start and can sit on the piano bench for more than an hour before I feel like I need to get up and move. Somehow it is easier for me to sit with good posture on the bench than a dining room chair with a back!

It’s a little surprising to me that relatively hard seats without a back are more comfortable for me – maybe it is easier for me to sit straight when I am not relying on a part of the chair to keep me upright!

Project Feeder Watch – January 2026

/

My husband and I enjoy our time watching birds at our home feeders for 4 30-minute segments each week as part of Project FeederWatch. Something interesting always seems to happen – varying numbers and kinds of birds, relaxed feeding and then a round of bird frenzy,  the regulars and then silent/empty feeders (our theory when this happens is that our neighborhood Cooper’s Hawk is somewhere nearby). Our feeders are not situated for optimal photography…but I still take a few pictures.

We often develop profiles of the different birds; for example, the Carolina chickadee and Titmouse are the quick grab and go experts….the starlings come in mobs and bully everyone else!

Snack in Blue Tulip Glassware

/

I’ve had my set of Blue Tulip depression glassware for over a decade now. It is special because of how I got it – from some friends of my parents (from college onward) that collected it when they retired and sold it to me when they downsized from their last house. Although I don’t use the dinner plates very often – I do enjoy the small pieces frequently because they encourage smaller portions. One piece that I have only started using recently is in the shape of a shell with a center area for dip/sauce; I like pumpkin seeds in the center and fruit/veggies around the edge. It is just the right size of a hefty snack (when I am not hungry enough for a full evening meal).

The memories are a bonus – summertime visits with their family which included a daughter my age…observing a career dietician for small hospitals in action and the field work of a soil conservation professional in the 1960s. I remember outings with them to amusement parks and overnight visits to state parks in Oklahoma….digging up salt crystals at the lake near Cherokee, Oklahoma. The friends of my parents and their daughter are gone now – the last one going before my mother; my dad doesn’t remember them. I remember…and the Blue Tulip glassware is a wonderful reminder.

New Tools

/

I have two new tools.

The first one I bought at the end of last winter….and just now unpacked it – a Cordless Snow Blower (SnowJoe 48V 18-inch). The only parts that were separate from the pain unit were the two batteries, charger, and cover. I got it all out of the box then realized I need to read the manual since I haven’t used a snow blower before. I’ll do that in the next few days and be ready if there is snow in our forecast.

The second one was a tool I asked my husband to get for me – a pruning chainsaw (Ryobi 18V 6-inch). My sister had purchased one several years ago and enthusiastically recommended it. It came with a 2ah battery, and we had a 4ah one for our Ryobi weed-eater that will work with the chainsaw as well.

I am going to cut back the crape myrtles that are growing too high in the front flower beds and then work on cutting down the forsythia and Japanese barberry in my back yard. Those are my winter maintenance projects that can be done any day that gets above 60 degrees! I’ve read the manual and had a good first experience on one of the crape myrtles. I will only be cutting very small stems with my hand pruners from now on!

Happy New Year 2026

/

A new year – and the annual thoughts about beginnings – where do I go from here. I am trying to sustain my lifelong optimism, but it is hard with the continuing world turmoil particularly at the Federal level in the US. It is frustrating that our response to the biggest challenges of our time (climate change, plastic pollution) seems to be lost in the chaos, perhaps more in the US that elsewhere in the world.

Sunrise is also a symbolic beginning of more than just the day. This time of year, it is very easy to be up in time to see it…and take a few moments to savor the beauty of it and the natural world….making an effort to imagine a positive path of the future of human endeavors and our home planet.  

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2025

/

December is always a month with a lot of celebrations – Christmas…my birthday…the end of the semester for my daughter…a great time to travel.

Oak wood chips to create a new native plant area. The branches trimmed from daughter’s oak (stabilizing an old tree) were chipped and I celebrated when I got the whole pile moved to my front yard – creating a great bed that I will plant with native plants in the spring.

Sweet potato soup. I celebrated a soup with of sweet potatoes, chicken, apple, fresh ginger, and a little lime…toast cubes on top. It was probably the best soup of the month!

New docking station. I had been having problems with my monitors becoming disconnected from my Mac…and an external drive not being available. There were work arounds that no longer worked consistently to fix the problem. I celebrated when my husband provided a new docking station….and the problems were resolved.

Rorra water filtration system. In my quest to reduce the microplastics in food, I bought the Rorra system and celebrated the step to reduce microplastics (and some other things) in our water. Now I can move on to other aspects of my kitchen/grocery shopping.

Great blue heron from my hotel window. I celebrated that the view from my hotel window in Lewisville included a great blue heron for a second month in a row.

Home before dark. I knew that December was the hardest month for me to get home before dark on my return from Texas…but I managed it…about 5 minutes before sunset.

Dickerson Park Zoo. There were some cold days in December but we took advantage of a day that the temperature reached into the 70s to visit the zoo. I always find something the celebrate there – either an animal seemingly poising for a photography or the different noises they are making (or not).

Daughter’s tenure. The major hurdles in the tenure process for my daughter happened in December. It won’t be formalized until the spring, but we are celebrating this milestone of her academic career.

Christmas time goodies. December is not a diet month. I’ve celebrated with goodies I bought for myself and the ones my sister provided! January will be the diet month.

Another birthday. Celebrating another year…and the experiences that surrounded my birthday this year – several out-to-eat events, a trip to the zoo, a trip to a wildlife refuge. My present was an electric tea kettle made of glass and stainless steel – replacing a coffee maker that had a lot of plastic components.

Happy Holidays!!!

/

Lights and good food…wishing a joyous season and happy new year for all (enjoying old Christmas cards too even though we don’t send or receive them anymore)!

Happy Holidays to all!

My Favorite Pictures from 2025

/

I forced myself to pick 2 pictures from each month to feature in this post. They were taken in my yard, at the Springfield Botanical Garden (and the butterfly house and Japanese Stroll Garden there), my daughter’s yard and during my travels for prairie walks in SW Missouri, to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in NW Missouri, Chicago IL, Branson, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. They are all taken outdoors! Enjoy the slideshow.

Plastics Crisis – Rorra Countertop Water Filtration System

/

After reading a lot about municipal water quality, I realized that the water filtration I have been using the past few years (Brita Elite) was not good enough. Yes, the filters claimed to remove some microplastics (I guess they would be considered ‘Particulates (Class 1)’, but I was unclear what testing had been done on the filter). Then there were the issues of the filter housing (plastic) and the pitcher it was installed in (plastic). I started looking for possible upgrades.

I opted to replace my Brita pitchers with a Rorra Countertop Water Filtration System. It is a 2.5-gallon countertop unit that has stainless-steel parts. I bought the unit along with a filter subscription since it will probably need a new filter every 90 days. The company has results from NSF and NSF/ANSI accredited testing showing that system reduces over 50+ contaminants including Total PFAS, Lead, Microplastics, and Estrone. It is engineered and manufactured in the US.

The set up was relatively easy once I got it out of the box! There were an outer box and several inner boxes. I am still working to segregate the recyclable parts from the (relatively small) amount that is not cardboard. They recommended washing all the parts with soapy water which was a little daunting because of the size (like a large mixing bowl). I had to watch the video a couple of times about how to get the filter in properly but – in the end – it was easy.

I have enjoyed the Rorra so far although I am thinking about moving it to another location around the sink, so I don’t have to reach all the way over the sink to fill it from the top. I have carafes that I am using to put water in the refrigerator and to carry downstairs for use for tea in my office. I also use the carafes to fill the reservoir as needed. The spigot is very convenient!

Looking back, I am glad I started filtering our drinking water several years ago. The water supply to our house is from our municipality and it is hard to address the potential of plastic water pipes in our city, community, and house (they probably would shed more microplastics they older they are)…or the microplastics that come from the source of water to our city (wells). Now – with the Rorra – we are upgrading that filtering. It is an investment for our long-term health – not eliminating microplastics (since there are so many other sources of microplastics in our environment) but a dramatic reduction in this one source is a good thing.

Cooper’s Hawk

/

Most of the time our bird feeder area has a lot of birds…but sometimes there are no birds around at all. I suspect that a hawk is somewhere near when the feeders are empty and the area silent. Sometimes I even see the hawk. One recent afternoon, I looked out the window of my office just as a bigger-than-usual bird flew to perch on the fence. It was looking all around…and stayed in place long enough to be photographed through the screened window. I didn’t even leave my office chair!

A Cooper’s hawk – long rounded tail with wide terminal band, upright posture, red eye, dark cap with paler cheek.  

Our feeders have a lot of cover around them (trees and bushes, a brush pile, grasses). While I have seen the hawk several times – I’ve never seen it catch anything near our feeders. The alarm sounds from the small birds seem to precede its arrival. Hawks do not always catch their prey.

Oak Mulch

/

The tree service finally came to trim my daughter’s oak and to handle a larger branch that fell from her Amur Maple…and they left a substantial pile of (mostly) oak mulch as we requested.

I have big plans for that mulch as part of my plan for transform my front yard with a native plant garden. I had used mulch from a maple there that had to be removed last summer to create three areas in my front yard and with the additional mulch I could make a much more substantial area for planting next spring.

We loaded bins and moved the pile one carload at a time. Even after the first 4 loads the new bed was looking bigger.

After the first big day, I only managed 2 carloads per day. It took 5 days in all (a total of 12 carloads…about 1.5-2 hours per load depending on traffic). On the last day, I was celebrating that my daughter’s driveway was back to normal….even though I still needed to spread the mulch and define the finally shape for the new bed!

I can hardly wait for the native plant sales to begin next spring. I’m going to review my plant list until then to be ready to shop and then plant my new garden in the oak mulch.

Plastics Crisis – Action at the Community Level

/

Over the past month or so, I have begun working with a small group of people to create a Beyond Plastics local group. We chose to call ourselves Beyond Plastics Ozarks to reflect that we are going to be working across a larger area than Springfield MO. We are thrilled to see our pin on the Beyond Plastics map – filling in the southwest Missouri space.

We have met twice and are working on our website; the part of the website that might be worth looking at now is our collection of recent plastics related articles. We are fortunate that we can leverage the efforts of the Show we less plastics project at the state level since they are offering a Plastics learning series (webinars) in the first quarter next year….allowing us to get that message out while we focus on honing our action plans. We have also benefited from the Beyond Plastics guide for setting up a new local group and that they provide a Zoom account for us too. The logo below was created for us by Beyond Plastics. Both state (Show me less plastics) and national (Beyond Plastics) organizations have materials we can use as well. Now for the hard work of picking campaigns that will be effective for our area of Southwest Missouri.

Concurrently we have identified three campaigns and have started exploration/planning for two of them. 2026 is going to be a busy year and I am hopefully that we will find additional people to help…and lots of people that are interested in learning more about the plastics issue.

Treadmill Walks

/

A few years ago, when we moved from Maryland to Missouri, I was reluctant to move our treadmill, but my husband insisted. Now I am glad he did. I am using it daily to increase my daily activity level. There is no excuse to avoid a 30-minute treadmill walk – weather is not a factor! I’ll increase the incline and speed over time – improving my stamina for when I do hike outside. I’m looking forward to being in better shape to enjoy the hikes already scheduled in January and February.

While I walk, I alternate between reading a novel on my iPad or looking out the French door at our deck and hollies…and the neighbor’s trees/roof. Both activities keep it from becoming boring. I’m glad there is a good view to the outside…and that it didn’t require me to move the treadmill from where we had the movers place it!

Now if I can convince my husband to use the treadmill to increase his activity level too…..

Our Missouri Yard – December 2025

/

December had started off with some very cold days with low temperatures in the 20s or teens at night and barely getting above 50 on 3 days (other days the high was in the 40s). Almost all the trees had lost their leaves abruptly in November when we had some very cold days. As I walked around the yard taking pictures for this post, I found myself searching for color and interesting textures.

The Virginia Creeper that had been so beautiful in previous falls (red leaves) had either died back or retained the color for only a few days. Some of the vines retained their leaves – but they are brown rather than bright red.

The crape myrtles have interesting seed pods. I am going to cut them all back when there is a day above 50….they will look better next year if I do. One of them is tall enough to brush against the eve of the house so that one is the priority to get cut. The other one to tackle is the one that has a Callery Pear (wild form of the Bradford Pear) growing with it. The red leaves are the pear so I can (hopefully) cut it very close to the ground.

The bed near our front door has some color – bushes that are bright yellow (that need to be trimmed) and some plants that haven’t succumbed to cold temperatures yet because they are protected. The Japanese Maple in the corner has lost its leaves and may be dying; that corner has not worked well for that small tree.

The places where I put the bark mulch from our last tree trimming are holding up well. I will pull weeds from them and plant new plants into some of them next spring. The one under the Kousa dogwood mulch needs some native ground cover planted there…and maybe some of the lower branches cut.

There are seed heads on the lambs ear and goldenrod and chives…hopefully I will have more of those plants next year.

Our backyard is fenced and I am planting to not mow until early summer - leave the leaves. A lot of the leaves are from our neighbor’s oak and probably contain overwintering insects. The birds will appreciate the bounty – food for their chicks next spring. I am noticing that the circle where the pine needles are falling is enlarged than last year. I will be mowing less of the side yard next year! My long-term plan for the side yard a mowed path….not much grass at all…native plants filling in on both sides of the path (and maybe the path itself which might change from year to year.  

The bed where we removed a pine tree that fell over is more exposed that most of our beds. The plants there had frost. The small cluster of American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) fruit is a pop of color. Hopefully next year the beautyberry will begin to grow more rapidly and become the dominate plant in the bed at some point. I will probably allow a native tree that comes up (bird or squirrel planted)…whichever one shows up first: oak, redbud, or hackberry.

On the west side of the house there is a clover pillow that seems greener than the area around it. Maybe the grass growing there is greener with the extra nitrogen the clover provides in the soil! The witch hazel is still small but I am hopeful I might see a few blooms next year. It is a Missouri native – Ozark Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) which blooms in January/February.

I am watching the forecast for warmer day to get some cleanup done….and to put down a thick layer of mulch for my new bed that will be planting into next spring. My daughter will be getting more mulch when she has her oak trimmed.

Zooming – November 2025

/

The week at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was a big one for photography. It was hard to choose from almost 5000 images for the month. I finally managed to select 26 favorites…birds dominate but there are a couple of dragonflies and three reptiles (a lizard, a snake, and tortoise). I’ve included a picture of Reunion Tower in Dallas as my husband drove us through the city (I opened my window) and a tiled bench at one of the rest stops. We had our first frost at home.

Aurora in Missouri

/

The aurora was visible from the Springfield MO area this past Tuesday! My husband said that he couldn’t see it when he walked outside at our house in Nixa – but his phone certainly did! The picture was taken at 8:20 PM.

Dr. Mike Reed (a colleague of my daughter’s at Missouri State) saw it too – at 9:20 PM.

One of my daughter’s students (Bishwash Devkota, MSU astrophysics senior and president of Ozark Amateur Astronomy Club) went out to Missouri State University’s Baker Observatory and provided 5 photographs taken after 10 PM.

The sky is not particularly dark at our house; seeing the aurora and a few stars demonstrates how good the phone camera is!