Ten Little Celebrations – July 2026

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July was hot…making is more challenging to enjoy time outdoors – but I still found plenty to celebrate!

Car chargers on my way to Texas. I noticed that there were car chargers at a place I normally stop along my route between my home and seeing my dad in Texas. That bodes well for me buying an EV next year!

Children in the butterfly house. I enjoy my shifts in the Roston Native Butterfly House – particularly if there are children that enjoy their visit too. Their awe as they follow the flights of butterflies or watch the butterfly get nectar from a flower seems to transfer to everyone in the house!

Spicebush Caterpillar. There was a spicebush caterpillar that disappeared from the plant on the table just as I was leaving….and we weren’t seeing it anywhere. Then as I walked by – I noticed that it was on the other end of the table…crawling along the edge. We all celebrated that it was found and could be put in the pupation cage instead of risking getting squished on the floor.

Gall Webinar. Celebrating an interesting webinar that introduced me to new organisms that I will look for when I am out and about.

Blooming American Spikenard. Celebrating that the plant is bigger and has more blooms than last year. It’s one of the first native plants I added to the yard and probably my favorite.

250th.  It wasn’t as fabulous as I remember the 200th – but still worth celebrating.  

Home alone. My husband was away for almost a week and I enjoyed the time without the television blaring! Then again – I am glad it doesn’t happen very often.

Salmon. I celebrated making a dinner that I wouldn’t make if my husband was home!

Watermelon. It’s the summer food for celebration. I wish we could still buy the big watermelons with seeds that seemed to be even more flavorful.

Missouri Master Naturalist. I celebrated my chapter showing resilience to change….forging ahead.

Tabling at the Butterfly Festival

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The annual Butterfly Festival at the Springfield Botanical Garden was held last weekend. It had rained a lot before the event and was still sprinkling as I was setting up; everyone was relieved when the day was dry after that! The local Missouri Master Naturalist chapter had two tables with several activities/topics: Highway 13 Butterfly trail, trees needed by butterfly/moth caterpillars, a butterfly symmetry craft, bugs, and rotten logs to explore. My collection of bookends worked to keep the items on the table from blowing off the table.

Over the course of the day, we had over 900 people visit our tables! I brought most of the materials in my car and was relieved that I had three helpers for each of the two shifts (9-12 and 12-3). One came early and helped me wrangle the table clothes onto the tables (with the corners tied at the ends to keep them securely on the tables and out of the mud). The pictures above are of the tables before the crowds arrived.

The mosaic below is from the butterfly symmetry craft. We often had a line waiting to make their butterfly and it was a challenge to get a picture of most of the creation before they moved on to the next activity.

The rotten log activity looked more like mulch than logs by the end of the day. We were allowed to leave it under a nearby cedar which made cleanup a simple matter of folding up the tarps.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted…but exhilarated that we had such a great turnout for the Butterfly Festival. I didn’t have time to look at other activities/tables – but they must have been great since everyone that we encountered at our tables seemed to be enjoying the day.

Missouri Master Naturalist Conference Keynote

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The keynote speaker at the Missouri Master Naturalist state conference was Phil Valko – the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability at Washington University. He was an engaging speaker…starting his talk with a Missouri nature trivia quiz (number of springs and caves, etc.) and conservation history.

The major topic of the talk was sustainability at Washington University. I had already noticed the number of native plants in the areas of the campus I encountered during the conference. It was great news that they had successfully reduced the campus energy use and emissions while increasing the campus space! They have electrified their fleet and have solar panels on their charging facility.

The campus as its own thrift store to promote reuse – particularly during student move in and out at the university.

The campus also is an arboretum. It has 133 of the 153 trees native to Missouri and 63 of the 113 shrubs! The arboretum also has many non-natives….and the current logo for the arboretum features the ginkgo.

Washington University created a mobile app (Project Clean Grid) that displays a specific type of grid emissions data called marginal emissions that focus on the real-world impacts of using electricity – which power plants actually respond when you use more or less electricity and how much carbon they emit. By avoiding the dirtiest times (red and orange), high-carbon power plants run a little less. Shifting your usage to the cleanest times (green) makes use of lower-carbon power sources in your region and can even result in more renewable energy flowing onto the grid in regions with significant amounts of clean energy. I downloaded the app and have started to be more aware of the grid where I live.

Benefits of Riparian Corridor

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My second lecture session at the Missouri Master Naturalist state conference was Brian Waldrop’s Benefits of Riparian Corridor. Most of the material was not new to me,  but it was thought provoking.

There was a chart about different types of riparian corridors: forest, grassland, mixed, and wetland. I realized that the one I was most familiar with was forest (most of the time in an urban environment where the corridor was damaged by intermittent intrusion of heavy runoff that often undermined the trees. A stream in a tropical forest was shown with vegetation hanging well over the stream surface.

The wider the buffer, the greater the benefit - starting with bank stabilization and progressing to water quality, flood control, and wildlife habitat. In urban/suburban areas, we often think it is great if we can achieve bank stabilization!

It seemed logical that the type of plants found in riparian zones should be native, flood-tolerant, deep-rooted, and shade-providing. I realized that I don’t know these things about individual plant species. I tend to draw on memories of trees seen frequently along rivers in Maryland and in Missouri – like American sycamores!

The talk ended with some charts about good reverences. I am putting them on my list of books to browse online!

Conservation Planning Tools for Missouri Communities: A Reference Manual (from MDC)

Native Plants for Stormwater Management Projects (from Grow Native!)

Stormwater Smart Outreach Tools (US EPA)

Ecological Practices with Native Plants

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My first lecture associated with the Missouri Master Naturalist state conference was Jean Ponzi’s Ecological Practices with Native Plants. It followed my morning at the Zoo and Center for Hellbender Conservation tour. It was good to spend the afternoon indoors!

I remembered that I could use my phone to photograph some of the key charts. The first was to remind me that Grow Native! has a model ordinance about native plants and urban landscape design. It is unfortunate that is necessary – but modern urban/suburban yard ‘rules’ tend to skew toward shallow rooted turf and result in relatively sterile outdoor spaces….not what we want to sustain the planet. The second photograph was the definition of ‘green infrastructure.’

Doug Tallamy’s work was cited….and the https://homegrownnationalpark.org/ was talked about. I had heard of it before and, now that I am reducing the turf in my yard – maybe I should look into it more.

One of the quotes I liked from this speaker: “Turf is living concrete!”

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2026

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It seemed like a lot of my activities ramped up in May.

Volunteering

Roston Native Butterfly House. The butterfly house season started and I had 4 shifts….the first one on Mother’s Day. I celebrated that there were lots of butterflies….and people coming to see them!

Getting speakers for fall Missouri Master Naturalist core training. It was wonderful that virtually everyone I asked to speak or host a field trip said ‘yes.’ By the end of the month, I was celebrating that the plan for the training was looking more achievable.

Reconnoiter of a new field trip location. I celebrated a first visit to a new field trip location - rejoicing that is it such a rich place for Master Naturalist activities.

Soil field trip. The field trip to soil pits was one that I had arranged months ago. I celebrated that it finally happened….and how good it was.

My Yard

New native plant garden. Only one of the 30+ plants that I planted in my new bed looks like it won’t make it. I am celebrating that the rest are thriving and excited about how great the garden will begin to look as the warm weather continues. Next year it should look even better!

American Spikenard. Every time I look out my office window, I celebrate that one of the first native plants I bought and planted in my Missouri yard was an American Spikenard. The violets growing under it look great too!

Food

Salmon. I have discovered frozen salmon fillets and have been thrilled at how easy it is to thaw and then bake them at 325 degrees while I prepare the sides…..celebrating salmon at home rather than just in restaurants!

Chocolate cake. I stopped at a diner on the way back from my trip to Lewisville this month….and celebrated their version of chocolate cake!

Travel

Missouri Botanical Garden. It’s my favorite place in the St. Louis area. I like their art in the garden exhibits that have special lighting at night. This time I celebrated the garden with my husband and daughter.

Another butterfly house. We visited the Sophie M. Sachs Butterfly House on the morning after the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was only my second time to see it, and I celebrated being a visitor rather than a docent…and seeing some familiar exotic butterflies again.

Field Trip Reconnoiter

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I’ve been busy working on the curriculum of the core training to be offered next fall by my local Missouri Master Naturalist chapter. One of the field trips we had added to the curriculum was unfamiliar to everyone….but had been one the places featured in a 2025 Ozark Public Television production called Wild Ozarks. Four of us participated in a reconnoiter trip to the place last week.

Wow! It is a great place for a field trip.

Easy to get to from Springfield

Springs and sinkholes

Remediated riverbank…and ash trees (dead or dying) replaced with other tree species

Tree cavities

Some invasives but not overwhelming

Road or mowed trail for hiking

Pawpaw patch

And much more!

I loved the handmade tree signs!

We modified the plan to divide the students into 4 groups rather than 3 (so 6-7 students/group) and the topics will be: forest ecology, geology (karst), tree identification (using dichotomous key), and nature journaling/nature observation.

I am looking forward to seeing the place in the fall….and observing the students discovering this special place.

Soil Field Trip

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Last weekend, I participated in a Missouri Master Naturalist Field Trip to soil pits in a forested area maintained by a Springfield High School. A member of our chapter that is a soil scientist led the field trip.

We were concerned about ticks, so everyone was in protective clothing…and sprayed! The initial walk into the forest was full of low growing jumpseed.

At the first soil pit (surrounded by a wire fence), we got a tutorial on soil analysis – textures, structure and color. We passed around lumps of damp soil, so everyone learned to judge soil texture. This was not a ‘clean hands’ field trip!

Our group was subdivided into groups of 3-4 and we went through the process on our own for another pit. Ours had 4 horizons.

After that adventure, we hiked to other pits to see differences in pits that were dug to show soil differences based on terrain and orientation. One had bedrock and another had a lot of sediment (it was in the floodplain of a stream).

As we hiked, we crossed the dry stream; there was a lot of bedrock to see!

I was tired by the end of the field trip, but the adventure was worth it!

Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden

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Volunteering to maintain the Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden is a new type of volunteering for me! So far it has been all about pulling weeds and taking out debris from last season. The goal is to get the garden on the lake side of the boathouse iv prime shape for early summer pictures (the place is popular for weddings). The plants are mostly native, so they grow well if left alone. There are stone paths through the sloped garden to make it easier to reach weeds among the plants we want to thrive.

All the volunteers come with gloves and a bucket…maybe some hand tools. The bucket is for holding what we are taking away from the garden area that gets dumped in a natural area nearby to decay.

The crew of Master Naturalists meets on the same day every week and works for a couple of hours or more. At this point I am still new to the tasks but learning fast; hopefully part of the learning will be figuring out how to do it in a way that my back does not hurt!

Earth Day Tabling

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I volunteered for two Earth Day events last week. The first one was on the grounds of a church; several Master Naturalists and I volunteered at two tables contains skulls and pelts….and exploring rotten logs. That’s not my favorite tabling topics…because with skulls and pelts the question about where they came from always come up; my standard answer is that they are provided to us by Missouri Department of Conservation to use for public or school outreach events. I like to contrast skulls/teeth of carnivores and herbivores with omnivores in-between. I had a coyote and red fox representing carnivores, white-tailed deer and beaver representing herbivore….then racoon as an omnivore.

It was a cold morning so there were not many children at the celebration for the first few hours. The rotten logs did not get a lot of attention from the adults that braved the cold. Shortly afternoon, we had some children start to peel off layers of bark and rotting wood looking for critters --- finding some and having a good time looking at the textures of wood and fungi while they worked.

Our tables were under a large tree with a good view of a neighboring sweet gum tree with lots of last fall’s gumballs still on the ground. I was pleased to see that even the decoration of the bathroom inside the church was nature themed!

My shift lasted for 3 hours and it was just warming up enough to shed my coat when I left; I figure that the shift from 1-4 had a lot more traffic!

Stay tuned for a post on my second Earth Table tabling experience where the topic was plastics.

Table Rock Lake

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One of the Master Naturalist hikes that I planned was at the end of February – hosted by a person that lived near Table Rock Lake. It was a great day for a hike – not a wintery day at all!

There were winter trees to observe in the forest when we started our hike – sassafras, redbud, dogwood, eastern redcedar, honey locust….and a lot of dead ash trees. Anything that had bark sluffing off (or already missing) was probably an ash. Emerald Ash Borer is taking out Missouri’s ashes just as happened on the east coast before we moved from Maryland.

We also looked for minerals in the rocks during our downhill hike.

There were ledges of rock with water dripping in some areas. Moss is the greenest part of the forest this time of year.

When we got down to the lake, it was obvious that the water was low; hopefully the spring rains will begin to fill it again. There were gulls….and double crested cormorants that dramatically flew out of a nearby cove.

On the way back up the hill, we discovered a spring wildflower….coming up through the leaves on the path!

And there were some interesting shelf-fungus and lichens as well!

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2026

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I celebrated getting outdoors in February and a flurry of education related activities!

Melting snow. We had snow on the ground for the last week of January and into February. We all celebrated when it finally melted although it was pretty as long as one didn’t have to get out and about.

Cranberry orange relish. I used my last frozen cranberries to make cranberry orange relish – savored the flavor….and will miss it until the cranberries are in the stores again in the fall.

Ozark Witch Hazel blooming. My small Ozark Witch Hazel I planted last spring is blooming. It retained its leaves so the blooms were a little difficult to see.

Missouri fish and amphibian webinars. There were two webinars that were a pleasant surprise in February – they were very well done.

Salmon salad. I celebrated the flavors of salmon, pear, and cabbage with a lemon honey olive oil dressing – with a feisty lime blend of seasonings.

Training for master naturalists. I celebrated that the training plan for the new cohort of Missouri Master Naturalists in our area seems to be coming together. It looked daunting at first.

Macro and high key flower photography. I celebrated a winter photography project – a purchased bouquet on the windowsill in my office.

Ecoregion maps of Missouri. Looking at maps from an out-of-print Atlas was interesting and I celebrated how great they will fit into a presentation for the master naturalist training next fall – the module I will be presenting.

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. I celebrated the longest hike of the month – interesting place for birds and habitats…and also thinking about history and the way it looked during the Civil War.

Plastics and human health webinar.  I heard a webinar on the same topic with the same speaker from a year ago – and realized that this topic is progressing rapidly. I celebrated that she’ll likely continue to present webinars and include new information.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 14, 2026

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

12/18/2025 Ozark Public Television Wild Ozarks: A Legacy of Conservation – Very well done. I am recommending it to be part of the core training for the next group of Springfield Plateau Missouri Master Naturalists!

2026 Million Marker Test Kit – I’m going to do as much as I can to reduce microplastics…then do this test….probably next summer. It is advertised as the only mail-in test for BPA, BPS, BPF, phthalates, parabens, and oxybenzone.

2/3/2026 Yale 360 China to See Solar Capacity Outstrip Coal Capacity This Year - By the end of 2026, wind and solar will account for nearly half of China’s power capacity. Including hydro and nuclear power, clean energy will amount to nearly two-thirds of total power capacity, while coal will amount to a third. Competing with cheap solar and wind, a large share of coal plants are now operating at a loss.

2/1/2026 Cool Green Science Catching Sharks for Science - On Long Beach Island, volunteer anglers help researchers uncover the hidden journeys of sharks in threatened salt marsh ecosystems.

2/3/2026 Science Daily Even remote Pacific fish are full of microplastics - Even in some of the most isolated corners of the Pacific, plastic pollution has quietly worked its way into the food web. A large analysis of fish caught around Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu found that roughly one in three contained microplastics, with Fiji standing out for especially high contamination. Reef and bottom-dwelling fish were most affected, linking exposure to where fish live and how they feed.

2/1/2026 National Parks Traveler New York Art Teacher Earns 30 National Park Resident Artist Spots In 10 Years – Artist-in-residence at National Park Service sites. Many of the programs are funded by nonprofits, grants, or donations made directly to the Park Service. Categories are broad and include writers, painters, photographers, musicians, dancers, sculptors, and animators. 

1/30/2026 My Modern Met Society of Photographers 2025 Contest Announces Its Astounding Winners – Chosen from over 6,000 photographs submitted!

1/29/2026 BBC From bad omen to national treasure: The rare bone-swallower stork saved by a female army - Known locally as the hargila (or "bone-swallower") for its scavenging ways, greater adjutant storks are unique birds. Roughly 5ft (1.5m) tall, they aren't only imposing but also play a vital role in maintaining the health of a wetland ecosystem. As scavengers that consume and clean up carcasses, they prevent the spread of disease and break down decaying organic matter, recycling essential nutrients back into the soil. They were feared, reviled and in some communities, hunted for their meat which was once widely used in folk medicine as a cure for leprosy or antidote to poison.

1/28/2026 Archaeology Magazine Study tracks wild potato across the Southwest - People carried a small, wild potato known as the Four Corners potato (Solanum jamesii), across the southwestern United States some 10,000 years ago.

1/27/2026 Super Age Wellness Is Finally Admitting It Got the Last Decade Wrong – The article lists 10 trends from the 2026 Global Wellness Report. One of the 10 is “Microplastics are at threat to healthspan.”

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?

Plastics Crisis – Action at the Community Level – January 2026

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The weekly Plastics Crisis posts are dominated by what I am doing as an individual to reduce my plastics exposure – but I am also acting at a community level as well; my plan is to post at least once a month to document those actions. Looking back at January, there was a bigger variety than I anticipated at the beginning of the month.

Beyond Plastics Ozarks is ramping up! We added a few additional members, and I hosted my first zoom meeting for the group. I experimented with annotating the Zoom generated summary rather than writing up my own notes; it seems to work reasonably well but I will still take plenty of notes during the meeting!

I was part of a meeting with a Springfield Councilmember organized by the Show-me less plastic project.

I  recorded a segment of the KSMU Growing the Ozarks podcast about Microplastics in the Environment. It was an adventure for me – going to the recording studio on the Missouri State University campus (taking some pictures as I waited in the foyer) and getting the recording acceptable on the first try thanks to my experienced interviewer.

During my travel to Lewisville TX, I noticed a lot of plastic at the hotel’s breakfast service…and used the survey from the hotel afterward to indicate my concern about Styrofoam plates and plastic utensils with hot food. I had stayed at the same brand/chain in St. Joseph MO and they had used ceramic plates and stainless utensils. The General Manager of the hotel responded: “We truly appreciate your suggestions about reducing single-use plastics and will share them with our leadership team for consideration.” I stay at the same hotel every month when I visit my dad so I will know if they make changes.

I helped with a lunch trash audit at a private school in Springfield organized by the Show-me less plastic project. The teacher was a fellow Missouri Master Naturalist and had done a great job preparing for the event – having the elementary students make posters for the initial sorting: food waste, non-plastic trash, reuse, and plastic trash. After their lunch the students put their trash in the correct bin.

We (the adults) moved to a classroom with tarps over tables and on the floor which would be used for sorting by students over 3 class periods. The third and fourth graders divided into 4 groups and used the tarp covered table for the non-plastic  and plastic trash respectively while the second graders used the floor tarp to sort reuse/recycle.

The sorting of the plastic trash was the most thorough – with a worksheet for each group to categorize pieces of trash as they counted. Some of it was quite small!  

The next action the school is considering is to do a plastic free lunch!

In looking back at January, I am wondering if there will be as much every month or whether January unusual. This type of volunteering has components that are new to me; my strategy is to let it develop rather than try too hard to determine its direction!

Volunteering – November 2025

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October was a lull in regular Missouri Master Naturalist volunteer gigs; the Butterfly House closing at the beginning of the month and Project FeederWatch not yet begun. Project FeederWatch starts in November and will continue until the spring. My husband I enjoy our view of the birds at our feeders through a window…accumulating our count for each week. I looked back at my FeederWatch pictures from last year and created the slideshow below…savoring the images before we really get going on FeederWatch volunteering this year.

The fall festival volunteering bridged September and October and is over until the spring festivals start. The hours to support the MMN chapter continue throughout the year.

I attended the Beyond Plastics Grassroots Advocacy Training so I am ready for that volunteering in the coming months; it will probably be the most significant change in the type of volunteering I do…and I am still exploring the form it will take.

I am still volunteering as a Friends of the Library in the county where I live. It takes the form of sorting used books and then setting up for used book sales. This month there will be a general meeting of the group that I plan to attend.

Overall – the cool season volunteering is beginning and I am looking forward to the change.

Homeschool Fair 2025

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I provided a Missouri Master Naturalist table at an annual Homeschool Fair; the year it was held at the Springfield Botanical Garden. Our original location was not available (a delay in a renovation) so we were on a grassy area under a canopy. I shared my tree table with another Master Naturalist doing a soil filtration demo! The image below is what the table looked like before the crowd.

While we were setting up, it was very foggy, and we wondered if we would get some rain. Fortunately, it didn’t rain although here was a brief time that was blustery, and we had to grab things on the table and legs of the canopy! That was all before the event started.

The event was from 10-2 with a short break for lunch (for me it was only enough time to eat a protein bar). There were over 400 people that came by our table and I gave out all my copies of Missouri Department of Conservation booklets on trees.

Between the Homeschool Fair and the Native American Heritage Celebration, our chapter of Missouri Master Naturalists interacted with about 1000 people! There are some lessons learned to apply to future events:

  • Have at least 2 volunteers per table during peak times

  • Assign the person not doing as much talking to use the clicker…get a good count of people visiting the table

  • Tie the 2 corners of the tablecloth together at each end of the table; the table clothes are extra-large so this helps keep them from dragging on the ground plus reduces the impact of breezes on the tablecloth.

  • The table signs for the chapter take too much room on the table. We need an alternative type of sigh…maybe something that could hand from the canopy.

MDC Partners Roundtable

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I’ve posted about the side trips I did to and from my trip to Jefferson City…but the reason for going was the Missouri Department of Conservation Partners Roundtable! It was a 2-day conference and a learning experience for me as a Missouri Master Naturalist.

There was the usual bling – a canvas tote (I might leave this one in my car to use when I don’t have my regular grocery bags with me), a 2026 MDC calendar (beautiful Missouri pictures…we’ll hang it on the side of our refrigerator in January), and a lanyard. I picked up a small flashlight from one of the tables and won a hammock when I asked a question in the closing session!

My favorite of the Plenary Speakers was Dr. Nadia Navarrette-Tindall from Lincoln University….talking about native plants….edible ones in particular. I stopped by her table after the talk and enjoyed a persimmon. I also picked up a card about a plant with edible leaves -Rubekia laciniata; common names for it are sochan, golden glow, and cutleaf coneflower. There was a native plant sale the weekend after the conference, and I bought golden glow and a pawpaw….so the talk prompted an immediate action. I hope Dr. Navarrette-Tindall will talk at next summer’s Missouri Master Naturalist Conference.

I was asked to play an ‘expert witness’ in a mock trial of an invasive species in one of the sessions the next morning. It was fun…a little stressful in front of a room full of people but worth it for the experience. It was part of a session for Show-me Green Schools.

There was a session where some brainstorming was done, and the organizers said they would send out a summary…but I haven’t received it yet and am disappointed. It was the most strategic session of the conference.

In general – I came away from the conference understanding that there are a lot of good things being done by MDC and their partners…but there does not seem to be much wiggle room for innovation or doing more. That is concerning because climate change and growing plastic pollution…maybe other factors too…are causing changes that existing conservation efforts might not address very well.

On the way home I stopped to get a snack…and scraped the bottom of my car (a concrete berm at the front of the parking spot…a little too high for the front of my car). It didn’t seem like anything was wrong until I was back on the highway. I heard a noise from the front passenger side of the car…stopped…discovered there was a piece of the tire well hanging down/damaged. I used my phone to photograph underneath. The piece could be pushed up but wouldn’t stay so I moved to more secure place on a sideroad rather than on the highway…and called for a tow. It was a very different process to get home than I anticipated!

Native American Heritage Celebration

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I volunteered in the Master Naturalist booth at the Native American Heritage Celebration at Wonders of Wildlife in late September. It was a Friday-Sunday event with school groups coming on the Friday. We had two tables – one for bison (things that were made from bison parts) and trees of Missouri.

The students seemed to enjoy both topics – some spending quite a lot of time touching items and interacting with us. I usually did the tree table…linked trees to Native American heritage with the hedge apple/osage orange wood being used for bows and eastern redcedar (medicine, flavoring, ritual/ceremony). The first year maple-in-a-bottle sparked their interest too…particularly the variety of roots (some hairlike, some stubby, the thick central root).

They looked at different kinds of cones (the egg shaped/sized shortleaf cone being the only one native to Missouri) and talked about things children might do with pine cones – now and before Europeans came.

I was glad that I could put tree related Missouri Department of Conservation publications on a nearby table…they were available but not taking any space away from my tree samples.

Volunteering – August 2023

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I have three areas of volunteering going on this summer: Friends of the Library, Master Naturalist chapter, and Butterfly House (that counts as Master Naturalist hours too).

I volunteer once a month to sort used books at my local library that will be sold in the sales that happen once a year at each branch. Setting up or helping during the sale itself is another volunteer opportunity (I prefer the set up!). This month the sale will be at the branch closest to where I live but I have used the sales as an opportunity to explore other the parts of the county that I am not as familiar with. The monthly sorting usually starts out a bit daunting with tables full of books that have been donated. Two people come in each week but there are certainly times that there is more than two people can sort into shelving by subject or box up within the 2-hour shift. I am always relieved when the table is cleared when I leave…and that the area is air conditioned; sorting books is good exercise.

I am the programs chair for my local Missouri Master Naturalist chapter, so I am doing the behind-the-scenes activity to arrange for speakers…and writing announcements to the chapter about what is happening. The speakers count as advanced training so I create an entry in the tool we have for logging our advanced training so that others can simply select it when they attend…minimizing what they must do to get credit for the training.

The Butterfly House has been my most substantial volunteering this summer…both in the house itself talking to visitors as they enjoy the butterflies and moths there and raising Luna moth caterpillars at home that have been taken to the house as big caterpillars and moths recently. The large cecropia caterpillars on display in the butterfly house recently were the 3 that were raised with my luna caterpillars (because they were mixed in when I was given the bin with a lot of newly hatched caterpillars). 

I’ve enjoyed all the volunteer gigs I’ve had this summer…even the ones that were outdoors on very hot days!