High Key Flowers

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The day after the rainy-day macro flowers….the sun was out and I enjoyed creating another round of photos of my store-bought flowers – this time High Key images. These are made with bright light behind the flowers and using the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) to compose the image. It’s a very different perspective on the flowers.

The yellow rose bud floating in water in a blue tulip glass cup was my first subject. Sometimes I like the softer focus images! I was sad when I got the bouquet home and discovered the stem on one of the rose buds was broken – but it still looks lovely floating in water and has unfurled a bit.

I took 6 other images of the flowers in the bouquet. I simply left them all in the vase on the windowsill and isolated flowers by zooming in close. I was sitting halfway across the room with the camera stabilized on my knee! Sometimes a bit of the window screen behind the flowers is visible but I decided it was not distracting enough to bother me.  

Our Neighborhood – February 2026

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It was a sunny day in the mid-60s in our neighborhood. As I started my walk around our storm water ponds, I saw two robins – the first ones I’ve seen since last fall!

There seemed to be quite a few eastern white pine cones on the ground and in the trees. The tree in my yard is not old enough to produce cones yet.

There were turtles on the bank and in the water at the place I seem them most frequently.

There was ice on the second (smaller) pond. There were leaves stuck in the ice. One area has a circular center and then branches off that center. The ice would likely be gone by the end of the day.

Further around I noticed ice along the edge of the larger pond. The patterns there were changing…visible melting.

A recently ripped branch of a river birch was in the water, and some curly bark from the same kind of tree was on the shore nearby….both detached from the tree during the recent storm probably. One of the trees has exposed roots damaged by mowers.

A male and female mallard swam out into the pond. The female was eating and posed for a better picture that the male. I wondered if they were the same pair that has been at our pond for the last couple of years…hatching ducklings…and then losing them to the turtles.

Our area has been very dry since a very wet spring in 2025…and the snow earlier last month must have soaked in very close to where it melted. My yard is a little wet (would be muddy if there was vegetation everywhere). The intake channels for our stormwater ponds were dry and the water level in both ponds was low as well. Maybe we’ll have spring rains again soon.

Plastics Crisis - Textiles

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There seem to be plastics everywhere. I’ve come to realize that in my home, the largest source is probably textiles! The carpets that were in the house when we purchased it a few years ago are likely all synthetic fibers (although about 1/3 of the house is tile or vinyl (plastic)). When we vacuum the particles are gray and powdery…the plastic there is already very small.

And then there are clothes. We have some clothes that are cotton or cotton/polyester (plastic)…but some items are 100% synthetic (polyester, acrylic, nylon, spandex). I don’t dry more than half my clothes that are synthetic fibers, but there are enough that the lint from the dryer should probably be considered toxic (probably should put it in a covered trash can so microplastics will not waft from it); I hope washing machine technology will eventually filter their waste water but I’m not sure how to handle what a filter would collect safely).

Back in March 2019 I posted some macro photography of textiles; I’ve copied it below with some commentary afterward.

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I am finally experimenting with my 60x macro lens that I got for my phone. Textiles around the house were an easy project. The lens has a light and I found it handy. With this lens, I use the zoom on the phone to avoid clipping the image to take out the vignetting around the edges. I’d rather compose the image in the camera.

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I liked the simple weave and colors of the worn dishcloth.

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A crocheted hat had brilliant color but was not flat enough to focus well.

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The washcloth had more fuzzy fibers than I expected but

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Not nearly as many as the wool sock.

I got stuck on a tapestry jacket…had a challenge to choose just 3 to include in this post. The last one was from the inside of the jacket.

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The machine embroidery of a silk jacket looked very different than I anticipated.

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The weave of a light-weight jacket was more complex.

I realized that the patterns on t-shirts were painted – but hadn’t thought about what they would look like with the macro lens. The blobs of color stand out on the surface of the cotton knit.

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The most non-fuzzy fabric was microfiber underwear!

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The yarn in the bulky cardigan was almost too big to look interesting at this magnification.

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Machine-made borders look more orderly than the fabric sometimes (the black is thread).

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The eye detects tiny holes in the fabric of the bag for delicate fabrics to go in the washer; with macro lens, it looks like a Zentangle.

After I got back to my office, I looked at two mouse pads with the macro lens. One is a woven surface…the other looks like a paint.

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The macro photographs make it easy to see how easily fibers escape from our clothes and carpets.

Right now I am thinking that at home the 1st priority is to not have any plastic around heat (mostly in the kitchen) and the 2nd is reducing synthetic textiles!

Our Missouri Yard – February 2026

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I put on my river boots to walk around the yard as the snow melted last week. I was glad to see the recently cut stump of the Callery Pear looked like it was rotting; I’ll be continuing to cut it until it is dead; the stems have thorns! The horse nettle fruits from last fall are a bit of color in the flower bed. An oat leaf blown from our neighbor’s tree was a point of interest in a snowbank on the far side of our yard. The forsythia in the northwest corner of our yard is another project where the pruning chainsaw will be used.

The high point of my walk was seeing that my small Ozark Witch Hazel is blooming! This is the time of year for it to bloom, but I hadn’t noticed the blooms before since the young tree kept most of its leaves. I am hopeful that it will take over the southwest corner of my back yard but that might take a few years.

Bulbs are up on the east side of my house, and the metal sculpture is marking something I planted last year (and adding some color). The Hens and Chicks are still doing well in our rock garden. The snow formed hieroglyph type shapes as it melted.

The forecast is for temperatures warm enough this weekend that I might get out to do some winter yard work!

Becoming a Missouri Woodland Mentor?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!!!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.