Missouri Master Naturalist Training – Week 9

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The last session of the Missouri Master Naturalist Training was one lecture followed by graduation and ice cream cake!

The lecture was on invasives. Most of the invasive plants I was familiar with (from Maryland)…except for Sericea Lespedeza which is a warm-season, perennial legume. It is something that was introduced intentionally then escaped and is now widespread – outcompeting native plants. Frustratingly – its seeds are still being sold and attempts to stop that at the state level have failed.

There were some trunk sections of young ash trees killed by Emerald Ash Borer. The widespread death of ashes in Missouri is happening now…just as it did in Maryland several years ago.

The good (so far) news on the invasive insect front is that Missouri does not have Spotted Lanternfly…although it is probably only a matter of time since the insect is in Illinois and Kentucky.

Graduation included a magnetic name badge and a certificate (and some goodies that included milkweed seeds). I splurged and had 2 pieces of ice cream cake!

I am going to miss the rigor of the class but am relaxing a bit – savoring my Identifying Woody Plants class at the university that continues into December!

Birthdays

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The birthdays in my family are almost all in March, April, and May! So – I’m thinking about the way we have celebrated birthdays over the years. The age range for the group of 8 is 2-93 years!

Food has always played a big role in birthday celebrations. Sometimes there was cake – bakery (I remember a few in the 1960s where the cake was in the form of an elaborate dress around a Barbie doll), homemade, or ice cream (strawberry or mint chocolate chip being the most popular flavors). Recently there hasn’t been cake for most adult birthdays since we’re all reducing sugar in our diets. But we do enjoy a meal at a restaurant…or take out…or a special home cooked meal. When I was growing up, my paternal grandmother was the one that prepared most special meals which always included her Czech pastries: buns with raisin centers, kolaches and cinnamon rolls.

If we can’t be at the celebration in person, we at least acknowledge the birthday. These days I send texts …previously we sent emails…and further back there were cards. Since all the people with spring birthdays live in the Dallas area, most of the family manages to participate in the celebration….except for my family who live in Missouri.

As we’ve gotten older, there are less presents exchanged…it’s the time spent together that is the primary component. We tend to get things for each other in a more ad hoc way and try to avoid presents that will simply be ‘stuff’ that accumulates through the years.

The oldest of us (my dad) enjoys a good meal so there will be one on his birthday…but he enjoys the outings to a restaurant so much that we are doing it more frequently. My sisters and I are all keen to discover what he likes…and provide it! We don’t need the excuse of a birthday or other celebration… we are simply in the mode of savoring that he is still with us!

Pumpkins!

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My son-in-law held his annual pumpkin carving event the weekend before Halloween. My daughter doesn’t carve but she does help with buying the carload of pumpkins - one for each person in his research group (almost filling the back of the car).

This year it was raining on the evening the carving was done so the party was moved from outside into their garden room – with a big tarp on the floor to help with clean up later. The students picked the seeds out of the pumpkin guts and roasted them while they carved. The finished carvings were, as usual, spectacular. My son-in-law did the spider one which he later entered in a pumpkin carving contest at the local climbing gym and won a $50 prize!

The student that carved the Yoda pumpkin didn’t have a place to display it, so it stayed with the spider pumpkin through Halloween. A day or so after Halloween, the squirrels started eating the carved pumpkins; the first part to be eaten was one of the Yoda ears.

Meanwhile, there were two uncarved pumpkins left after the carving night. I took one to Carrollton and cooked it the Sunday before Halloween; it was so big I had to cut the top off to fit it into the oven! I made pumpkin soup (topped with pumpkin seeds that I roasted) and then pumpkin cake (made in muffin pans). The pumpkin soup was easy and yummy: pumpkin, picante, canned chicken, arugula…topped with pumpkin seeds and a sprinkle of Everything Bagel seasoning.

I still have a lot of pumpkin puree to use; most of it is in the freezer. The second pumpkin will be cooked in a few days – also will be processed and headed for the freezer. I am enjoying that we have a second refrigerator in our house to store the winter’s supply of pumpkin puree!