Ten Little Celebrations – June 2017

As I look back over the month, I realize that there was a lot to celebrate.

Home. At the beginning of the month I had just returned home from helping my daughter move from Arizona to Pennsylvania. As usual – returning home was celebrated. I like to travel but coming home again always feels wonderful.

3 box turtles. I didn’t do a lot of hiking in June but was thrilled that it seemed like there were a lot of box turtles around…and I celebrated seeing so many. There were two along the path between Mt. Pleasant and the Patapsco River and the third was in the cemetery at Belmont.

Receiving the Carol Filipczak Award from Howard County Conservancy. Celebrating recognition for volunteering that is love.

Daughter on the east coast. Having my daughter living in the same time zone (rather than in Arizona) is something I am celebrating this month.

Kenilworth Gardens. Lotus, waterlilies, dragonflies, turtles, birds, magnolias…so much to celebrate.

Milkweed flowers. I had so many milkweeds come up in my front flowerbed that I had to cut some of them down….but I cut the globes of flowers first and enjoyed them in a stir fry (after boiling them twice to remove the toxins). Celebrating the taste of wild food!

Peach preserves. Not sure why – but I couldn’t resist it in the grocery store and I am celebrating the decision. I’ve spread it on toast and whisked it into a homemade salad dressing. Yum!

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy. Having butterflies flying around while I’m volunteering at Brookside Gardens…a constant celebration. So beautiful.

CSA. I’m celebrating the fresh veggies from the Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture. It’s easy to eat enough veggies when they taste so good!

Photography with summer campers. I am already celebrating the photography with summer campers that I’m doing for the 3^rd time this summer. I’m in the prep stages but am anticipating the flurry of having 15 or so campers (at one time…a total of 5 groups eventually) all enthusiastic about photographing the natural world around them is going to be one of the highlights of the summer.

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens II-IV

I now have a total of 4 shifts volunteering at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy. I allow about 30 minutes before my 4 hour shift begins to walk around the gardens using my phone to take pictures. (I’m too busy during the shift itself to take any pictures at all.) I’ve never visited Brookside as frequently….and there is still something new to notice each time I am there. Before my second shift, I photographed the conservatory (note the door for staff and volunteers in front of the red car…almost surrounded by foliage),

A view through the tall deer fence into the Brookside Nature Center area,

A cat bird that was close enough to photograph with the phone, and

A cluster for flowers (yellow and pink surrounded by green).

The highpoints of the day included a group of 66 pre-schoolers at the butterfly exhibit. I was at the caterpillar station (which is before the entrance to the conservatory where the butterflies are flying about) when they came through with their chaperones (2 children per chaperone). I showed them the cecropia moth caterpillars (very large), told them to look at the butterflies with their eyes – not to touch, and sent them on to see the butterflies inside the conservatory. Later when I was at the exit station, a very confused butterfly was laying eggs on one of the metal stanchions that designates where to line up for the exit; there were quite a few elementary aged children (and some grandparents) that were there to see the drama too.

Before my third sift, it was sprinkling, but I walked a short distance out the pedestrian gate to take a picture of the plantings and sign at the gate of the gardens.

Then I walked down the gravel path of the anniversary grove (just inside the gate) and found some odd white blobs on a bald cypress. When I got home I did some research and discovered they are made by the Cypress Twig Gall Midge. It will kill the twig but the tree survives.

The highpoints of the day included: a wandering cecropia moth that was determined to leave the branch of black cherry leaves to make a cocoon (the caterpillar was put into a case with a branch where it made its cocoon) and seeing some tiny parasitoid wasps that had emerged from a chrysalis (rather than a butterfly). The containment precautions that are taken with the exhibit are not just for butterflies! Exotic parasitoids could be bad for our local environment too.

Before my fourth shift, I found some developing cones on a bald cypress (to compare with the Cypress Twig Gall that I saw the previous shift (and decided to check the galls each time I go to Brookside…see how they develop), and

Took several zoomed pictures of flowers that look ‘painterly.’

The highlights of the day included a group of Garden Bloggers and a fellow volunteer with Howard Country Conservancy visiting the exhibit with her family.

I’ve grouped the best of the rest of my pictures into themes: benches (aligned with a hedge, covered with lichen and crowded by flowers, and a butterfly bench in the shade.

Of course, there were flowers (and the seed pod of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit hiding under its leaves).

Insects (a bee in a hollyhock, a tiger swallowtail on a cone flower, a dragon fly on a bench, and a gold striped dragonfly…I wished from my better camera for that last one).

Pathways (to the azaleas, new boards in the walk between the Conservatory and the Nature Center, and gravel to the anniversary grove).

On the rainy morning, I got a picture of the metal butterflies without the blinding glare of the sun and savored the water collecting on leaves.

Previous post about Wing of Fancy Volunteering is here.

Prep for New Volunteer Gig – Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens

I’ve been preparing for a new volunteering experience for the past few weeks – to be a flight attendant or ticket taker for the Wings of Fancy (Butterfly exhibit) at Brookside Gardens. I’d noticed the call for volunteers as the first item on the Brookside web page back in May when I signed up for a photographers session in the exhibit; I talked to one of the volunteers during the session and decided that I would enjoy doing it too.

The process was not hard but more involved that I initially anticipated. The first part was online: signing up for training in the exhibit, filling out information to allow a background check (done now for volunteer jobs that interact with the public), and several e-learning modules about Brookside Gardens in general and then about the butterflies specifically. Last Thursday, I went to the training from 6:30-8:30 PM. It was an unusual time for me to be in the gardens and I got their early enough to take some pictures of the area near the conservatory (hence the pictures for this post). I'll probably take a few pictures before or after each shift - so will see a lot more of Brookside Gardens this summer.Horsetails

The two hours of onsite training were informative. Afterwards I felt like I do after most trainings before volunteering: knowing enough to be dangerous but not nearly as much as I will after I do it a few times. The gardens request 10 shifts (of 4 hours each) over the course of the season and told us that it may take as many as 8 shifts before volunteers truly feel ‘experienced’ in the role.

Stay tuned as I begin my journey as a Wings of Fancy Flight Attendant!

Prius Prime – Month 3

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

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

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

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

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

Pre-K Field Trips at Belmont

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

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

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

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

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

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