Ten Little Celebrations – August 2025

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August was hot…so some of the celebrations were indoors (with air-conditioning) this month!

Naked lady lilies. It was a pleasant surprise that I have three of these plants in my yard – blooming for the first time this August. But I celebrated them because they are a remnant of my mother’s garden from 2023 just before the house/garden was sold.

Spicebush caterpillars. Earlier this summer my young spicebush didn’t have caterpillars…but is does now. I celebrated that the swallowtails have found my plant to lay their eggs.

Beautyberry. While I was pulling grass and weeds in my yard, I discovered that the beautyberry I planted last fall has survived…and is blooming. Time to celebrate!

Dispelling Myths of Native Gardening webinar (from Grow Native!). I celebrated the timing of a panel discussion about native gardening (webinar)…and gleaned some ideas I will apply in the next few weeks as I create a new area of by front yard…with native plants.

Field trip at the Lake Springfield Boathouse gardens. Another well timed opportunity for learning how to better create my new native plant garden. It was hot…but I learned enough to make it all worthwhile.

Roston Native Butterfly House. Celebrating my favorite volunteer gig of the summer…every time I work a shift there.

Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. The big cats are the draw, but I celebrated seeing a juvenile racoon and butterflies!

Two caves in one day – Cosmic Caverns and Onyx Cave. Celebrating caves…cooler than the outside temperature.

Dr. Megan Wolff’s webinar “Plastics and Public Health: the unsettling latest in medical research.” A different kind of celebration…it’s more like FINALLY someone had done a reasonable job to at articulating the rationale in one place about why our plastic creation must change dramatically. Here’s the link to the video. The bottom line is that we can’t “recycle” or “reuse” our way out of the mess.

Lawn mowing – getting it done. It’s been hot this month and I celebrate every time I finish mowing the yard…so glad that it is done for another week.

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2025

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July was a great month to be outdoors – even though it was very hot…plenty to celebrate.

Rescuing a large cecropia caterpillar from the trash. One of my morning shifts at the Butterfly House started with quite a surprise….finding a cecropia caterpillar in the trash while I was cleaning up before opening. I celebrated that I happened to look down before I threw in the messy paper towel…and could easily return the caterpillar to the table display.

Luna caterpillars making cocoons. I celebrated when my 40 or so Luna Moth caterpillars started making their cocoons. When they were all large caterpillars, it was challenging to keep them sufficiently supplied with sweet gum leaves.

More and more cocoons…and then I took the last 4 Luna caterpillars to the Butterfly House. I celebrated some quite days with only rustlings from the pupa inside the cocoons.

The first Luna Moths emerging. The first moths started to emerge…3 males in one day! I celebrated that so many of the cocoons seem viable too…so many more of these beautiful moths will be emerging soon.

A late afternoon barbeque picnic and evening mothing. I celebrated with a great meal with fellow Butterfly House docents…and then seeing how lights and sheets in the evening attract moths.

Dayl ilies at the Botanical. I celebrate the profusion of color and form of the day lilies every year about this time.

Finding S. Fred Prince’s The rainbow in the grass; wildflowers of the Marvel Cave Ozark. I was doing my usual look at botanical books for next month and happened upon this beautiful one from the early 1900s about the wildflowers in the Branson MO area….close to where I live!

Seeing cattle egrets. As I drove north from Dallas, I saw a flock of cattle egrets flying over the highway. It must be a good year for producing young.

Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden. My husband and I always enjoy the plantings around the building…and the walk down toward the field of wildflowers. We went early enough in the day that it wasn’t too hot.

Sunflowers at the assisted living home. My sister planted sunflowers in a big pot (and some of the seeds must have spilled because several plants are growing in the soil next to the pot). I celebrated that they are thriving and the memory that my niece brought a sunflower seedling in a cup home from kindergarten, and my mother propagated them along the alley for years. That niece is getting ready to have her second child soon.

All or Mothing (1)

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Last weekend, Friends of the (Springfield Botanical) Garden offered the docents for the Butterfly House a summer afternoon/evening treat - a potluck (with barbeque provided) and seeing what came to lights/sheets after dark. It was a place I had been for a field trip last fall during my Missouri Master Naturalist training (my posts about it: one, two) and I was excited to visit again. My husband came along this time, and I was glad that we were his car rather than mine (his has a higher clearance). The gravel rutted road that was the last leg seemed longer than I remembered!

There was an extreme heat warning for the day, so we didn’t do any hiking…sticking to the shady area around the cabin.

I photographed the moss on the shingles of the roof over the old well.

I remembered the spice bush from last fall; the fruit was red in the fall…still green now. The yucca pods were still green as well, but they are interesting shapes already.

To be continued…in a few days.

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2025

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Butterflies and birds…visiting a prairie and the place I spent some formative years….lot to celebrate in June.

Butterfly Festival. I volunteered at the Master Naturalist booth for the Butterfly Festival at the Springfield Botanical Garden. It was very well attended, and people seemed to be enjoying filling in the butterfly passport; I began to feel like a recording talking about the spicebush swallowtail as I handed out stickers…but kept going because the children’s excitement was contagious!

1st graders in the Caterpillar Café. 80 first graders and chaperones. I was glad the cabbages had caterpillars on them! The big message of the game I played with them was that most caterpillars don’t survive (i.e. they get eaten…baby birds need them!). I was glad I had prepared well enough that none of them cried!

Morning in the Butterfly House. I always choose the 10 AM to 12:30 PM shift in the butterfly house because it is the coolest time of the day…and, so far, every shift has been something to celebrate…and there are lots of aspects to celebrate: quiet time with butterflies/moths, watching caterpillars munching on leaves (or deciding to go walkabout), the development of fruit on the pawpaw trees, people (local and from around the world) enjoying the place.  

Luna moth caterpillars. This celebration is ongoing because the caterpillars are still growing. I celebrate every time I count and realize that the numbers munching is staying about the same (i.e. not much mortality). Every time they shed their skin and are noticeably bigger, I celebrate their survival and realize that I will have to ramp up the amount of leaves I provide.

Magnolia petals as seasoning. I celebrated my daughter’s introducing me to magnolia petals. I tried slivers in salad and a stir fry. I liked them best in the stir fry (a little strong raw). My son-in-law made kombucha with them…and I am looking forward to trying it.

Schuette prairie. My fourth prairie walk…and probably my last until it begins to cool down. I celebrated that I could identify some of the plants I’d seen on other prairies and saw bunchflower for the first time.

River Bend Nature Center. I visited Wichita Falls – where I attended grades K-10 in the 1960s - and celebrated the new-to-me River Bend Nature Center that is just the kind of place I would like to volunteer. There are aspects of our formative years that we seek to replicate in our lives….but this was an instance where I felt the place was still attuned to what I need now more than 50 years later.

Juvenile robins. I celebrated that the robins seem to spend more time in our yard…and the juvenile robins seemed to congregate in my shade garden. Maybe not using chemicals on the yard and leaving the leaves on the backyard through the winter has made a positive difference!

Missouri evening primrose. I celebrated the large yellow flowers of the native evening primrose I bought last month. It started blooming soon after I planted it and kept getting new buds.  

Hummingbird at our feeder. There is a female hummingbird that comes to the feeder on my office window multiple times a day. She gets a good long drink and seems to look at me before she flies way! I wonder if she is raising young birds nearby. Celebrating a relationship with a bird!

Ten Little Celebrations - May 2025

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So many places close to home to visit…flowers everywhere. Also a new volunteering activity…with butterflies.

Roston Butterfly House. The native butterfly house at Springfield Botanical Gardens opened in May…and I had my first volunteer shift there…celebrating the butterflies and the people that come to visit them!

Butterfly tour for first graders. There are so many little celebrations to observe and participate in on field trips with first graders: their exuberance at being outdoors, their awe of butterflies in general and joy when on alights on their shoulder or finger…celebration frequently rippling through the whole group.

Harold Prairie. I celebrated  visting a narrow swath of never plowed prairie in need of restoration…the flowers beginning to bloom after the recent mowing and the prospect of volunteer hours in the future.

Noah Brown’s Prairie. Getting to see 3 different prairie situations in a short walk is worth celebrating: a never plowed prairie recently burned, a never plowed prairie that is due to be burned in the fall, and a prairie restoration project. There was plenty to see in all three areas!

Linden’s Prairie. Another never plowed area…celebrating seeing some new species and some ones I had seen in the previous prairies.

Ag Academy. I celebrated the 5th grade Ag Academy students that were selling seedlings as a fund raiser….and getting some milkweed, zinnias, and coneflowers to plant in a big pot for my patio.

Irises. Big beautiful flowers…one of the big celebrations in my yard in May.

More native plants. I added an American Spikenard, red buckeye, and native columbines to my yard in May…celebrating that they were easy to find at a local native plant sale and that I got them planted the day after I bought them.

Successful surgery. Often times things that cause a lot of anxiety (like pending surgery) result in a celebration when the best happens…rather than the worst. That happened for my husband this month.

Young robins. I celebrated seeing fledgling/juvenile robins…and realizing what they were…in my newly creating spikenard/hosta garden. They seem to be finding things to eat in the pine needle mulch!

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2025

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April was a busy month….lots of little celebrations to choose from. My top ten are included in this post.

Lots of 300-piece puzzles. I found 23 300-piece puzzles at the used book sale and while I was sorting new donations. I’ll take a few of them each month when I go to Dallas to visit my dad so this will be a prolonged celebration.

Buying and planted spicebush. I celebrated finding spicebush at a native plant sale and bought two of them for my daughter’s yard. We got them planted the day after I bought them.

Another garden room. I savored my daughter’s garden room while ‘house sitting’ while she was at work and arborists were working in her yard.

Cherry cobbler. Cherry cobbler was one of my dad’s favorite desserts…and I celebrated that memory while realizing that it is one of mine too!

Hosta garden. I celebrated that the clumps of hostas in my flower beds were robust enough to divide and create a hosta garden between a pine tree and my patio that is too shady for other plants to grow well.

Clean windows. There was burst of spring cleaning at my house that involved windows! I haven’t done all of them yet but am celebrating the clear views from the ones that are clean.

Onondaga Cave. This is my favorite cave in Missouri (so far). I celebrated the day trip for the destination and that I did it with my daughter.

Tea Bar lunch. My daughter and I had one off-campus lunch after my geology class….to a place we had been to before. It was even better than our first lunch almost a year ago!

Edible violets. I celebrated learning that violets are edible. It is great to have native salad greens from my yard!

Car repair. I had an undercarriage cover that cracked near the front of my car. After thinking it was an easy fix (but it wasn’t) and the dealership ordering the wrong part, I celebrated finally getting it fixed.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2025

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Lots of early spring celebrations in March!

Trout Lilies. One of the high points of our hike at Cedar Gap Conservation area was seeing trout lilies blooming down by the stream…as celebration of the new season.

Bald Eagles. The serendipity of seeing two bald eagles soaring over Springfield was another celebration of our Cedar Gap field trip. They seemed to be heading north so might have been migrating through as eagles do in the spring.

Tenure. My son-in-law was granted tenure at Missouri State University. It’s a major milestone to celebrate.

Pinecones. The wind caused pinecones to fall from our shortleaf pine and I picked up a bag of them for my sister. We both celebrated in anticipation of the fun projects she’ll do with her grandson.

Redcedar. I transplanted a small eastern redcedar that came up in my flowerbed to the place in my yard that I want it grow….and celebrated that it stayed upright even with the high winds that came along in March. It will make a great addition to the bird habitat near our patio!

Physical therapy. I celebrated that the physical therapy my dad is doing seem to be helping him recover his mobility after an illness in February.

Covid booster. My husband and I both got a booster in March…celebrated how easy it is to do at our pharmacy. We both have managed to never have Covid.

Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. Celebrating snow geese and swans…and all the other birds at the refuge.

Orchids. The Missouri Botanical Gardens (St. Louis) Orchid Show is quite a celebration of flowers. It will probably become an early spring tradition for us from now on!

Volunteer opportunities. I am celebrating that there are so many great volunteer opportunities…lots of variety which I will continue to explore this year.

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2025

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February was busier than usual this year – a combination of a class, a new role for me in the Missouri Master Naturalist chapter, and some significant volunteer hours. It all made for plenty of little celebrations.

Owl Pellets. Having 28 children busily dissecting owl pellets – finding and identifying tiny bones. I celebrated that we picked something they all seemed to enjoy doing all the way to the end of our time (and a little beyond).

A new protein drink. Another whey-based protein drink that already has lactase added…worth celebrating for the convenience (and also because it is not as thick or expensive as the one I had been buying).

Niece going to have another baby. My sisters and I celebrated that there will be another baby in the family next fall. My sister that is the grandmother shared the news with us almost as soon as she found out.

Snowy Feeder Watch day. I celebrated the extra birds that came to our feeders when snow was on the ground.

Seeing lots of Northern Harriers. I celebrated seeing Northern Harriers on our field trip to Lockwood MO. We’d seen them before in New Mexico but not as many…and it’s thrilling to see them closer to where we live.

Lunch with my daughter. My daughter and I have been meeting for lunch a Student Union dining room after my geology class. It feels celebratory every time we meet (and we generally have dessert too).

Finding witch hazel. I celebrated when I found a witch hazel in bloom at the Springfield Botanical Garden…even though I was hoping to see more of them.

Grandniece and grandnephew. I celebrated seeing my sister’s grandchildren when I went to Dallas to visit my father. One is just learning to crawl, and the other is reasonably adept at recognizing/saying colors.

Snow day. A day of staying indoors due to weather – always a time to celebrate. The day seems like a serendipity block of time that I had not anticipated.

Soup. Soup is my favorite meal on cold days. I celebrated finding a quick and tasty one made from ingredients in my freezer: turkey meatballs, corn, broccoli, and edamame….a little seasoning and sometimes left over spaghetti sauce…delicious.  

Ten Little Celebrations - January 2025

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January was a relatively quiet month after December…but still plenty to celebrate.

52 years of married life. Every year I marvel that it has been such a long time…and celebrate that it has been an easy accomplishment for us.

A snow day. Now that I am ‘post career’ there are not as many commitments that force me to leave home in inclement weather. It is easy to enjoy snow on the ground from at home! I particularly celebrate watching birds at our feeders on a snowy day…drinking hot chocolate.

Cranberries in oatmeal. I still have frozen cranberries in my freezer from November and December. They are a flavor and color to celebrate in an oatmeal breakfast!

Finding a speaker for the February Missouri Master Naturalist meeting. The person my predecessor as the program chairperson had arranged for February was going to be out of town on the day…so I had an immediate emergency. I celebrated when I found a person to do a talk on Missouri geology and the person originally scheduled for February will talk in March!

Home before the snow started. I can drive in snow but realize that it can be hazardous particularly in hilly areas – so I celebrated that I made it home before it started.

Aquarium at the Boardwalk in Branson. I celebrated a field trip that could be enjoyed on a very cold day.

Leftover baked chicken. An easy stir fry: a few vegetables cut up and chunks of leftover baked chicken – a celebration of flavors in a quick meal.

Shoveling snow…without my back hurting. I am celebrating the success of my physical therapy sessions. One of the success indicators came when I shoveled snow without pain!

Female downy woodpecker. For weeks we saw only a male downy woodpecker….so it was worth celebrating when a female showed up. Maybe they’ll stay in the area and have young this spring.

My daughter in 1st class. My daughter had an awful experience traveling in bad weather – cancelled flights, delays, luggage lost for a few days, getting to the hotel only to have the planned meeting moved to Zoom. We all celebrated when the airline got her luggage to her about 24 hours before she headed home and moved her to 1st class for the longest leg of her return flight. She enjoyed a big breakfast.

52 years

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Another wedding anniversary…

January is the month I got married…52 years ago. There were patches of ice on the ground in much of Dallas on the day, but the roads were clear enough that our small ceremony and larger reception at my parents’ house went as planned.

Looking back at the years, I am a little surprised at how many of them there are! We were among the first of our friends to marry and we survived those early years even better than we expected…being in school for most of the first 10 years.

There are so many positive trends that made our marriage easier than most:

Our careers were enjoyable and well-paying --- more than keeping up with inflation (which was a challenge in the 1970s and 1980s).

Every move to a new home was a better house than the last.

Our daughter was born after 16 years of marriage and still brings joy to our lives.

Our medical expenses were never great (always well covered by insurance through our employers and, now, Medicare).

Travel was always within our budget (we now tend to stay in hotels rather than camp as we did in the early years) and has resulted in many new experiences.

The post-career years have been good (so far).

Of course, there were some choices that might not have been the best, but they didn’t have a long-term negative impact. My philosophy all along has been to live in a way that I will have few regrets….and it has served me well.

2024 in Review - Photography

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Picking two pictures per month of 2024 was challenging….but a joy. The activity reminded me of times in Texas and at home…the solar eclipse…short trips to Arkansas and longer ones to the Texas gulf coast and New Mexico. They are all taken outdoors. I am celebrating 2024 through these images!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2024

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December has so many big celebrations. My little ones ended up not being as associated as usual with the big ones. Half the celebrations were at Festival of the Cranes…perhaps because my husband and I were so glad to be there again after a long hiatus beginning with the COVID years.

First frost. I celebrated noticing frost crystals on a car next to mine in the parking lot of the clinic where I go for physical therapy….and photographing them!

Warm drinks on cold days. Hot chocolate is my favorite, and I celebrated figuring out that the cocoa will dissolve better in a small amount of hot water before adding the other ingredients. I enjoy a cup every morning. Hot cider is my other hot drink on cold days.

PT exercises for the Road. I anticipated asking my therapist for some exercises I could do during our road trip to New Mexico…and celebrated that they worked!

Easier drive than expected to New Mexico. My husband I celebrated that there was no heavy traffic or construction along our route during the long day of driving from Missouri to New Mexico. It was a great beginning for our Festival of the Cranes experience.

Cranes at Sunset. We celebrated two great sunsets photographing cranes. The first one was my favorite because we thought the clouds were going to block too much of the sun at first…and then a hole appeared at the perfect time.

Bluebirds and green heron. Campuses are quiet places in the early morning…great places to see some birds – at least in the case of New Mexico Tech in Socorro. We also saw a great horned owl!

Harris’s hawk. These are probably my favorite raptors because they hunt in groups…are beautiful birds. I celebrated seeing two of them at close range with their falconer.

Sunrise in Tucumcari. As we headed back toward Missouri in the early morning, the sun was rising as we neared Tucumcari, NM. The clouds were in perfect position to keep the sun from shining directly in our eyes and the color (and reflection of color) spectacular.

Red velvet cake. Celebrating just the cake – no icing!

Joplin Mineral and History Museum. A day trip with my daughter…celebrated the time to talk, the museum (interesting display of minerals along with galena which was mined in Joplin), and the Mexican food for lunch.

Elder Care – December 2024

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There is always a flurry of activity during the holidays. My sisters and I are striving to make the activities we do with my dad enjoyable for him – rather than confusing/traumatic which can happen when a person does not understand the world as well as they did previously.

My sisters decorated his room for fall/Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how much he noticed because he didn’t comment about them. But they were decorations from his home before before he moved to assisted living. We all felt that continuing with the decorations was better than stopping the tradition.

He seemed to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast at my sister’s home. Another sister brought him from the assisted living place, there were only 4 other people for the feast, the meal was simpler than our Thanksgiving meals from the past (fewer choices), and he was back ‘home’ in about 3 hours.  I celebrated that the thoughtful accommodations seemed to work!

Now his room has been decorated from Christmas and a version of the display that was on the mantle of his home in previous years in on the mantle at the assisted living home where all the residents can enjoy it. Even if he doesn’t remember it from before – I hope that he enjoys the beauty of it now.

There are some rooms that have become available at the assisted living home; my sisters and I briefly talked about whether we want to move him to a different room – either slightly bigger or with a window with a better view; we decided it was not a good idea. It would be hard for him to adjust to the move …remembering where his new room was located would be challenging for him. He seems to feel secure and comfortable where he is now and knows where his room is from the shared areas of the house.

I’ll see him after Christmas this month!

Gardens Aglow 2024 (1)

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We walked through the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden’s Gardens Aglow the Monday before Thanksgiving. It was the member’s only night and we arrived just at it opened at 5. They were handing out mugs of hot chocolate! We were bundled up but feeling the chill of the first really cold days so the hot chocolate was appreciated.

There was still light in the sky but as we walked around the light displays it got fully dark. I missed last year’s show because I was in Dallas the whole time…so it was a treat to see it again. Every year it is a bit different.

I always enjoy the Japanese lanterns even though they are not draped in lights. My favorite this year was the one with newly fallen ginkgo leaves around its base.

Two big trees were probably my favorites: a rainbow tree and a bald cypress with spots shining upward into its branches.

It really is a great place to spend on hour of our evening. I will be volunteering on 2 nights in December…and we’ll probably go again to see it on another evening.

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2024

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Our area finally is getting some rain. We have been celebrating the rainy days after being very dry for months. We got above the annual average rainfall for the month before mid-November. Of course – there was a lot more to celebrate during the month as well.

 Stems for bees in a bucket…and a small turtle. The yard and neighborhood are making the transition to winter…with lots of leaves flying and the tender leaves of the violets wilting. I celebrated starting a project with stems in a bucket (hopefully becoming a good place for native bees to nest) and seeing a small red-eared slider on a branch in our neighborhood pond.

Friends of the Library. I volunteered twice during the month – sorting/boxing used books at two libraries in the county where I live; the next sale is in the spring. Celebrating the opportunity to contribute to the book availability in my community!

Harris’s sparrow seen during our first FeederWatch observations. My husband and I saw a ‘new to us’ sparrow during our first FeederWatch session! It didn’t appear in subsequent weeks so perhaps it was migrating through. Springfield is on the edge of this sparrow’s winter range…well within the migration area.

Soft peppermints. Peppermint is my favorite winter candy flavor…and the soft ones have become my favorite this year – either eaten or dissolved in a cup of hot tea!

Brilliant red Virginia Creeper. I’ve let the Virginia Creeper become the ground cover of my front flowerbed…and celebrated its brilliant red color this month.

Valley Water Mill for a second day. Celebrating the discovery of a favorite outdoor place near Springfield.

McDaniel Park. The last field session of my Identifying Woody Plants class…celebrating a city park with lots of trees.

Accumulating 40 Missouri Master Naturalist hours. The Missouri Master Naturalist training was over at the end of October which qualified me as an ‘intern’ until I accumulated 40 volunteer hours. I celebrated that I crossed that threshold by the end of November!

Seek app identification (the bug on the Rose of Sharon pods). The Seek app can be very helpful. I forgot to use it in the field (at McDaniel Park) but remembered when I got home…celebrated that I had a ‘good enough’ picture for the app to make a good identification: Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug.

Thanksgiving. Celebrating the day….and the reminder of all that is positive for us right now….that being grateful is easy.

Thanksgiving

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I am thinking of Thanksgiving ahead of time – planning a quite holiday with family with activities planned before and after:

  • The holiday light display is open for Friends of the Garden the Monday before Thanksgiving…so we will enjoy our first walk through of the season unless the weather is wet. I missed seeing them at all in 2023 because I was in Dallas for the later part of the year.

  • I am not a black Friday shopper…but enjoy being outdoors (maybe working off some of the calories from the day before). Our November has been relatively mild…good hiking weather.

There is also plenty in my life to be thankful for right now:

  • My dad is comfortable at his assisted living home; my sisters and I are able to visit him frequently.

  • I have finished my Missouri Master Naturalist training, and the volunteering opportunities seem to be coming along as I expected. There is much to learn and do even during the winter.

  • The Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State is about over…and I thoroughly enjoyed the field trips – learned a lot about great outdoor places close to where I live.

  • Our home is snug – ready for winter…the sprinkler system winterized and the heating system checked.

  • Both cars are performing well. Both have been used for road trips recently. My husband and I both appreciate the driver’s aids on modern cars when we make longer drives.

  • The fall has been prolonged by the milder temperatures. The color might have been muted from less rain in the summer, but the length of the display made up for that.

  • Internet Archive is back online. I missed it a lot while it was down and realize how much I savor browsing through its digitized old books; many of them are not available otherwise.

Life is good….

Pumpkin Art

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My son-in-law hosted his annual pumpkin carving event last week for his research group. I am always impressed with the artful carvings the undergraduate/graduate biology students produce – or maybe my son-in-law is an excellent pumpkin carving coach! (click on the image below to see a larger version)

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2024

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The temperatures were more pleasant in October….I enjoyed the outdoor field trips and classes a lot more.

Pleasant temperature to walk around the Missouri campus during class. We were outdoors longer but it was easy compared to short hikes around campus in August and September!

Field trip to a healthy stream and woodland. Celebrating the water quality and the native species (not overcome by invasives)!

Cut down a Japanese barberry and burned most of it. Celebrated one more non-native (that is sometimes invasive) being gone from my yard.

Geology field trip plans. I celebrated that enough of my Missouri Master Naturalist classmates and chapter are interested in geology field trips to make them a likely late fall/early winter activity.

Getting seeds planted. I got buckeye, Hopi sunflower, common milkweed, and persimmon seeds during the second week of October….and celebrated when I got them planted. Some must go through the cold temps of winter to sprout in the spring.

Volunteering at a fair for homeschoolers…talking about Monarch butterflies. I celebrated by first gig as a Missouri Master Naturalist…and that my iPad-based slideshow of Monarch butterfly pictures was well received.

Owl Pellet. I vaguely remember that I had dissected an owl pellet in some previous training…but I celebrated that I did a more thorough job this time… and found a complete rodent skull…and the backbone…lots of ribs.

First solo Missouri Master Naturalist volunteer gig. I celebrated that the two days spent doing an after-school program with a local school for gift students was positive for them…and for me!

Whataburger. Sometimes I just want to splurge. On the way back from my Dallas trip, I stopped for a Whataburger…celebrated that it tasted just as I remembered - although I won’t do it very often.

Successfully completed my Missouri Master Naturalist training. Hurray! I am celebrating what I learned and that I now have more time to volunteer!

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2024

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It seemed liked the heat of summer lingered into September this year…but we are already savoring a few cooler days and looking forward to fall foliage. There was plenty to celebrate this month:

Places to visit

Butterflies at Botanical Garden of the Ozarks (in Fayetteville). Celebrated finally seeing some of the larger butterflies although it was in Arkansas rather than at home.

A few hours at the Lovett Pinetum. The place is not a park…requires some coordination to visit. I visited as part of my Identifying Woody Plants class (Missouri State University) and celebrated the evergreens…but also the native plants that are growing in the unmanaged areas. There is also a lovely spring feed pond and then stream.

Japanese festival at the Springfield Botanical Gardens. Celebrating big drums and the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden full of people enjoying the fall day. We got ice matcha tea just before the booth was scheduled to close!

La Petite Prairie field trip. Celebrating the experience of walking through a prairie with grass almost as tall as me for the first time….and not getting bitten by anything (maybe because of my permethrin treated gaiters and hat…long sleeves and jeans).

Family ties

Finding puzzles for Dad. Finally…found a used books/puzzles sale that had some 300 piece puzzles. Celebrated and took them down to Dallas for my dad a few days later.

Around our yard

A cooler day. September had some hot days…but there are cooler ones where the high stays in the 70s to celebrate too.

Getting the yard mowed and the brush burning in the chiminea. I celebrated that I got so much yard work done on one of the cooler days…mowed the whole yard and burned a pile of brush that had accumulated during the summer.

Collecting pin oak acorns to sprout. Celebrating finding a video about sprouting acrons in water and starting the process with some carefully selected acorns from my neighbor’s tree that fell in my yard.

Planting pawpaw seeds. So many seeds from 2 pawpaws I got from an earlier master naturalist class! This time I stratified them before planting. I am celebrating that I got them in the ground…and hopefully will celebrate some of them coming up next spring/summer.

American Spikenard seeds turning red. Celebrating that the American Spikenard I planted a year ago has survived and is producing red seeds this September.

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2024

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4th of July. The holiday was full of the poignancy of the First Americans Museum and the Oklahoma City National Memorial (site of the Murrah Building bombing)…and then fireworks observed from our hotel window. It is probably going to be one of the most memorable 4th of July celebrations for me.

 A neighborhood walk before the rain. There is always something to notice on a walk around our neighborhood…I celebrate our robins and dandelion puffs and magnolias in bloom…relatively common things that brighten my day.

A protein drink that already has lactase enzyme in it. I was pleasantly surprised that the protein drink that I can find easily at the truck stops along the way to Dallas includes lactase so that I don’t have to remember to take a Lactaid….and it tastes good. Celebrating!

 Philbrook Museum and Gardens.Celebrating finding a ‘favorite place’ in Tulsa.

 Planting orange daylilies. I ordered 25 daylily roots and planted them around the two maples in my front yard. I am celebrating that maybe I can reproduce the ruff I had around my oak tree in Maryland.

 A robin’s egg. Celebrating finding an eggshell…and realizing – from the color – that it was a robin’s egg.

Springfield Botanical Gardens daylilies and pollinator gardens. Celebrating one of my favorite places in Springfield. There is always something worth seeing there.

Out to lunch with my daughter. My daughter and I are exploring locally owned restaurants for brunch or lunch. All of them have been good experiences….celebrating my daughter and the food.

Friends of the Library. Celebrating my first volunteer gigs in Missouri. I got some additional training this month so I can do more tasks. I enjoy the work and the other volunteers.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.