Not the Best Day to Be A Butterfly!

I went for a walk at lunchtime recently at Brookside Gardens. This isn't abnormal for me, but I needed it more than usual that day, after two days of back-to-back meetings. I'd fought a headache most of the morning so I hoped that a dose of nature would help me feel better. However, my wildlife encounters were a little more alarming than I quite expected.


First, while I was counting Sachems and other small Skipper butterflies around some zinnias, I spotted a desparate fluttering below one pink flower. As I looked closer I saw a very tattered Monarch butterfly struggling in the clutches of a praying mantis. As if it wasn't enough to be caught and know you were going to become somebody else's lunch, it looked like the mantis was eating the Monarch still alive! I watched in combined fascination & horror for a few minutes, during which time the butterfly never stopped struggling and fighting for its life. It was still fluttering wildly when I walked away.

Amazing to watch the battle between hunger and desperate survival.

I next headed down to our butterfly garden. I anticipated looking for more Monarchs in a happier state, maybe spotting some fat larva munching on succulent milkweed. But then I spotted a faded Tiger Swallowtail struggling on the ground. I leaned down for a closer look and saw that it was battling for its life! The struggle was so vicious I couldn't make out the aggressor very clearly right then, so I took photos to get a better look later. The butterfly was clearly soon to be a goner so I picked it up to hold it for better photos and observation. If that makes me a horrible monster, so be it-- for science! :-)

This shot of the hornet biting into the butterfly is so creepy and fascinating to me.

When I looked at the photos back at my office I saw a Bald-faced Hornet was attacking the butterfly. I had no idea they were even predators let alone would attack a butterfly. I looked for more life history information and found that yes indeed, they do sometimes kill and eat other insects in addition to also eating nectar & pollen, and serving as beneficial predators. Wow.

Yes, I'm heartless sometimes. You have to be, to study nature!

It's great finding new things to see and learn no matter how many times I explore the same bit of territory. I do feel somewhat sad for the butterflies but hope their predators continue to thrive. That's what keeps the balance in the ecosystem.

I spotted the same praying mantis on my way back, now sated and cleaning butterfly gore off its forelegs.

Today's location:

• Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, Maryland

Not Just Straws: My New Understanding of How Butterflies Eat

A few years ago, on one of my first blog posts about butterflies, a commenter asked me whether butterflies that ate mostly nectar had different mouthparts than did butterflies that preferred rotting fruit. At the time I didn’t know for sure, and all the information I could find did not differentiate between species. So I said I thought they all were pretty much the same. In fact it was pretty difficult to find images showing the mouthparts of different butterflies... Until now!

Last month I was delighted to find a blog post on this very subject. It turns out I was wrong, the mouthparts do vary depending on a butterfly’s preferred food source.

I already knew that a butterfly eats through its proboscis, a coiled up tube that is actually made from two mouthparts fused together. The generally accepted way that a proboscis works is like a straw, to suck up liquid.

However, sipping liquid through the straw is not the only thing going on. In fact, it turns out butterflies also have little sponge-like tissues, called legulae, at the end of the proboscis that allow them to absorb nutrients from mud or other sources that aren’t already liquid. It’s this sponge that varies between nectar eaters like Tiger Swallowtails, and non-nectar eaters like Commas.

Even a butterfly that frequents flowers, like this Tiger Swallowtail, can also absorb salts and minerals from mud by using the legulae at the tip of its proboscis.

This Eastern Comma, on the other hand, never visits flowers at all. It has different legulae to absorb minerals from rotting fruit and dung as well as mud.

In fact, some butterflies even eat blood. A friend of mine once watched butterflies flock to the open wound on a dying turtle, and told me how horrific she found it to see these graceful creatures take life from the turtle in its last moments! Yikes.

So, Hannah, I finally found the answer to your question. Butterflies do have different mouthparts depending on what they like to eat. I’m sorry I couldn’t find this in time to be relevant for you, but perhaps you’re still out there looking for the answer. In that case, please go over to Ask An Entomologist  to see some amazing microscopic photographs of different mouthparts. The original paper is also located here if you want to check that out too.

I love learning new things, even if I get proved wrong in the process!

Handmade gift idea: Pretty Seed Packets from your Garden

Seed packets I made for my friend's birthday recently

If you garden, and you have gardening friends, you probably trade seeds from time to time. Wait, you don’t? You really should try it. I’m not just talking about leftover seeds from packets you bought, but also seeds you gathered from your own garden.

I’m only just getting into seed gathering and seed saving. I haven’t yet braved a big seed swap event like the Washington Gardener Seed Exchange, but I have started sharing seeds with my friends. In fact, seeds from your very own garden can make a pretty awesome present. My friends Jon and Hannah recently moved to a house with a great big sunny back yard, and have grand plans for gardening. So when Hannah asked for gardening supplies for her birthday, I knew exactly what I wanted to give her.

She’s really into rainbows, so I actually already had some pretty rainbow scrapbooking paper purchased for her. When I bought it I didn’t know how I’d use it, just that I wanted to make something for her birthday.

Rainbow!

I had five kinds of seeds I wanted to share with her. All were easy to grow and I know they grow well in our area. This was important since she’s a relative beginner in terms of gardening. I always have tons of dill seed every year, plus I gathered marigold, basil, oregano, and echinacea seeds. These have all reseeded before so I know they'll grow true from seed. (Not all plants you may buy will.) 

I turned to a few of my favorite regional gardening books to research planting information. For each kind of seed I wanted to explain how and when to plant, what to expect in terms of size and spacing, and also benefits I know of from my experience. For example, letting basil go to flower attracts tons of butterflies and bees, as do the purple flowers of oregano. Dill of course feeds Black Swallowtail caterpillars, so I wanted to suggest she plant extra to share with the caterpillars.

This Black Swallowtail caterpillar is eating carrot greens, which are related to dill.

Originally I’d hoped to hand-write all the planting notes, but I had too much information for each seed. I typed them up instead, leaving plenty of room for hand-drawn illustrations. I experimented with different label sizes until deciding that about 4x4” was right.

Once I knew how big my labels would be I could make the packets. I wanted some of the paper to show around the label so I created a template for 5x5” packets. In order to make a tidy seal I also allowed for ¼” extra on either side of the first 5”, plus a ½” flap on top. So this meant I cut out rectangles that were 5½” x 10½”, then trimmed off some of the side, like this:

I folded and glued the packets shut, leaving open the top flap. While those dried I drew illustrations of each plant on the respective labels. I’m not a terribly good artist but that wasn’t the point, I just wanted to get something close enough to be recognizable and also colorful. Seed catalogs with pretty pictures are always more fun and inspiring to read, so I wanted to make sure my seed packets would convey the same sense of “Ooh, I want to plant that!” I made sure to illustrate a Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the dill packet too, so she knows what to look for.

Not the best drawing of a BST caterpillar, but probably recognizable!

Next I put generous amounts of seed in each packet and glued the labels on. I added little dessicant packets when I remembered to do so; again this wasn’t crucial since I expect the seed will be planted very soon.

I glued the top flaps shut and let them air dry. When we were ready to go I decorated the bundle with some gold starry tinsel and tucked it into a gift bag with a pair of colorful gardening gloves.

Hannah was very happy to receive the seeds. Jon is also excited to use the herbs in his cooking. I hope they grow well for her! I’ve offered to help break ground for the new bed or give other advice this summer. Since I work in the horticultural resource library at Brookside Gardens, if she has any questions I can’t answer from experience, I can certainly find plenty of answers at work!

I love to spread garden inspiration to my friends and neighbors. I especially have fond memories of helping my parents garden when I was small, so I hope my friends’ children enjoy helping in the garden too. I look forward to spending time in the gardens this summer on my own as well as with my friends.

A Garden Experiment: expanding my butterfly garden

I hope to see more butterflies like this Painted Lady in my yard this year!

This fall I decided I just didn’t have enough area in my yard devoted to butterfly beds. Some of this was inspired by the great gardens I observed on my Big Year excursions, especially the enormous field of zinnias at the Dismal Swamp welcome center in North Carolina. I didn’t have nearly as many butterflies in my yard as were at the zinnia field, nor did I have the diversity of insects that those zinnias attracted. So I decided to add a few beds devoted to flowers for my butterflies and other pollinators.

I spotted this assassin bug feasting on an unlucky honeybee at the Dismal Swamp rest stop's zinnia field. Cool!

I also decided to try an experiment in creating these new beds. Instead of laboriously digging up the existing sod (since these beds were going to replace some lawn in my front yard), I laid out a layer of flattened cardboard boxes on top of the existing grass, wetted them down, then covered them with a few inches of mulch. I had just enough mulch left over from earlier in the summer to cover both new beds, whew!  I left that there all winter to smother the lawn underneath. Mulching them kept them looking neat and tidy, important since they’re in my front yard. Next I’ll layer some dry leaves and mostly-finished compost on top. I’ll probably add some additional soil too, depending on how much compost I have available. Leaving the cardboard in place under these beds should help control weeds in my new flowerbeds, and it will eventually decompose completely.

Here are the new beds in the fall. Soon it will be time to add more layers of soil and compost, then add my plants!

I’ve started seeds for butterflyweed (asclepias tuberosa), pentas, and verbena bonariensis already. I also purchased zinnia seeds, which are direct-sow. I usually like to focus on native plants in my ornamental beds, but am willing to grow non-natives if they are particularly attractive to butterflies & other pollinators. I noticed verbena bonariensis was very popular with butterflies and hummingbird moths at Brookside Gardens, so thought I’d try it. The pentas are also quite popular with butterflies in the Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit, so I thought I’d see if my wild butterflies like them too.

Southern Broken-dash enjoying Verbena bonariensis.

I’ve learned a lot more about butterfly gardening since I started here at this house. I’ve learned that butterflies are very nearsighted and really need big swaths of blooms to attract them, rather than one plant here & there. So I’m only planning a few kinds of flowers in those beds. Lots of bright attractive blossoms during the main part of the summer is my central goal here.

With the butterflyweed I hope also to attract egg-laying Monarch butterflies. It would be really fun to add Monarch caterpillars to my invertebrate menagerie in the summertime! Even if I don’t get caterpillars, the bright orange flowers should attract plenty of hungry bees and butterflies. I think this is my third or fourth time trying milkweed; all the previous times I direct-sowed in the fall and didn’t get any sprouts in the spring. So this time I’m raising the seedlings indoors where I can protect them better. If the first batch of seedlings fails I have more seeds and will try again. The tiny new sprouts look healthy so far, though, so I am feeling optimistic.

Baby butterflyweed with their first real leaves! Also marigold seedlings in the back.

What about you? Are you growing anything new this year, or trying a new technique? It’s fun to experiment in the garden. I’m trying a few new plants in my vegetable garden this year as well; I’ll write about that more in a future post.

Happy gardening! Spring is a mere week away.

Eleven and Counting! My first butterflies of 2016

Phaon Crescent

I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras February 4-10 with a bunch of friends (including of course my husband). That was fun and we thankfully had sunny, not-terribly-cold weather on Mardi Gras itself for our marching in the Rex parade.

We march with a great bagpipe band, Kilts of Many Colours. I'm holding the flag.

Victor & I drove all the way to Louisiana, instead of flying, so that we had road trip options on the way back. In order to try and get my year's first butterflies, we decided to drive down into northern Florida before heading home. Since this was the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend as well, I thought we might also get some pretty nice birds along the way.

First we stopped at Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR, since it was right off the highway. It was clearly far too early for butterflies here, but I hoped for a Sandhill Crane or two. Didn’t get the cranes, but still got some pretty awesome birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count: a Brown-headed Nuthatch, and several Eastern Meadowlarks, along with a Savannah Sparrow. (I’ve seen the latter in Maryland and Virginia before, but it was kind of cool to see them in the habitat they’re named for!)

It was hard to get a decent shot of the meadowlarks, they all kept thrusting their heads into the grass after bugs.

Even cooler though were the carnivorous plants we saw here: a couple species of pitcher plant and dwarf sundew. Very cool! I'd never seen these in the wild before.

I looked closely but didn't see any bugs trapped in the sundew. Too bad.

Next we went to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. It still looked a bit sparse here, with not much blooming yet, but a few things were out and we managed to find the first butterflies of the year: Cloudless Sulphur, Little Yellow, and Carolina Satyr. (A ton of the latter, actually, I’m sure I undercounted them as we walked through a wooded trail.) We also explored an open prairie section where I had high hopes for additional species. We saw no butterflies here, though, and really hardly anything was blooming. But we had our second bald eagle and also found massive piles of bison poop along the trail, which made me giggle.

Little Yellow

I briefly checked some roadsides along our drive and at the motel we stayed overnight, but found no more butterflies until we got down to Saint Petersburg. The western-facing Gulf Coast was much further along than the panhandle area of Florida or even the north-central section. We stayed overnight in Saint Petersburg and spent a giddy few hours birding and butterflying at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve there. I got several more butterfly species here as well as quite a few songbirds, raptors, and so forth.  I've seen Gopher tortoises here before and hoped I'd see another this trip, but Victor was the only one who spotted one this time; it was gone before I caught up. I love those silly tortoises, wish I’d seen one this trip. Maybe next time.

Gulf Fritillary

Our next park was all the way on the other coast of Florida: Orlando Wetlands Park, in Christmas, FL. Unfortunately by the time we got there the day had become almost completely cloudy and quite breezy, not prime weather for butterflies. We tried anyway but only found two: another Phaon Crescent and another Dainty Sulphur. To be honest, though, that was really made up for by the amazing variety of birds we saw though! Tons of charismatic species, both big and little: Roseate spoonbill, bald eagle, painted bunting, various herons, egrets, and ibises; my first-ever American White Pelican (yippee!) and that longed-for Sandhill Crane. The latter we even saw up close as it grazed under the birdfeeder hung near the picnic shelter! So funny.

White Pelican. Later we saw about a dozen flying in formation, pretty cool.

Even Sandhill Cranes like bird feeders, who knew?

On the way home we stopped briefly at Jennings State Forest in Middleburg. Again the weather was not conducive to butterflies, completely cloudy. We spooked a brown something about the right size and shape for an Elfin, but lost it before either of us got a good look. Phooey. However, we still saw some fun birds, including Red-shouldered hawks and another Brown-headed nuthatch. Not bad.

My final trip lists:

Birds
Blue-winged Teal
Pied-billed Grebe
White Pelican
Double-Crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Green Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Killdeer
Least Sandpiper
Herring Gull
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Tree Swallow
Tufted Titmouse
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager? (heard only)
Northern Cardinal
Painted Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Boat-tailed Grackle

Butterflies
Sleepy Orange
Dainty Sulphur
Little Yellow
Cloudless Sulphur
Orange-barred Sulphur
Gulf Fritillary
Phaon Crescent
White Peacock
Carolina Satyr
Long-tailed Skipper
Whirlabout

Other
Pitcher plant sp.
Dwarf Sundew
Raccoon
Gray Squirrel 

Armadillo
Cricket Frog (heard)
Gopher Tortoise
American Alligator
Sweat Bee sp.
Honeybee
Bumblebee sp.

I’d hoped to get maybe 20 butterfly species this trip for the Butterfly Bigger Year, but I’ll be satisfied with 11 to start off.

My Goals & Plans for 2016

Happy 2016, everybody!  It's time to look at what I want to accomplish this year. I always enjoy evaluating my year’s projects and planning new ones for the coming year. My goals usually fall into three main categories, so I’ve grouped them below. I listed smaller targets or subgoals for each main goal, to help me make progress in smaller bites.

Category 1. Science & Nature

Butterflies, butterflies, and more butterflies!

 

Goal 1.1: Do a Butterfly Bigger Year I had so much fun with my Butterfly Big Year last year that I’m doing it again. I learned a lot so I set a very ambitious goal for the project: 120 species, whereas I only saw 81 last year. My goal for the first Big Year was 100, though, so even though I didn’t achieve it I wanted to have a higher target this year.  My minimum goal though is to at least break 100 species, even while aiming for 120 for the Bigger Year.

·       Target 1:  See 25 Butterfly species by May 8 (Mother’s Day); visit at least 5 sites I didn’t butterfly at during the first Big Year.

·       Target 2: Reach 75 species by June 23; visit 5 more sites I didn’t try last year

·       Target 3: 100 species by August 15; continue expanding my sites list.

·       Target 4: Attend National Association for Interpretation's annual workshop in Texas in November and take a couple side trips for butterflying!

Goal 1.2: Record & report observations A broader goal than the really focused Big Year is to be more diligent about recording and reporting my nature observations. I need to keep better records of what I’m seeing, and also report it to appropriate citizen science projects like eBird, e-Butterfly, budburst, etc.

·       Target 1: identify where to report and what information is needed

·       Target 2: create habits of careful observing & recording—and spend more time with nature than with electronics!

·       Target 3: report at least weekly if not daily

·       Target 4: keep looking for new longterm projects that need data, and participate in them.

Goal 1.3: Participate in more citizen science projects Similarly, I want to participate in more organized citizen science projects. I didn’t end up signing up for FeederWatch this year after all, but there are still additional bird events coming up that I could do: Backyard Bird Watch, Big Sit, and so forth. I’d really like to join a local Butterfly Count in July as well—which would probably help me toward my butterfly goals too! Once again I just need to get past some of the confidence issues.

·       Target 1: pencil dates on planner for things like Big Sit, Backyard Bird Watch, etc.

·       Target 2: attend one interpretive program per month at another park (not mine) for networking possibilities

·       Target 3: look into local parks’ participation in bigger projects (e.g. Christmas Bird Count, NABA Butterfly Count, etc.)

·       Target 4: Participate this year in 3 projects I’m aware of already, and 2 that are new to me this year.

Goal 1.4: Get more professional experience as a naturalist—DONE!! If I hadn’t recently been offered a job as a seasonal naturalist at Locust Grove Nature Center (see here) I had decided this would be the year I would try to earn more experience as a naturalist, whether paid or volunteer. It’s so nice to already be able to check this one off!

Category 2. Connection

I hoped this book display would engage and connect with Brookside Gardens visitors.

 Goal 2.1: Connect more. In general I want to connect more with people this year. I need to reach out more, let myself be vulnerable, and also make sure not to let relationships drop dead for lack of attention. Some connection I want to increase is online, e.g. here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Also I want to increase my connection with people (eventually friends) in real life as well.

·       Target 1: Actually converse with folks on Twitter & Facebook rather than just lurking. Need to set a goal of comments/week and find ways to not get drawn into a time suck.

·       Target 2: Continue reaching out to people I don’t know but who share interests with me. Eventually aim to invite local online-only friends to meet for real-life activities: birding or butterflying, perhaps?

·       Target 3: Post original content more often on Twitter rather than just retweeting interesting articles. Also make original comments when retweeting to add personal value.

Goal 2.2: Socialize more I want to be more social this year specifically—go to friends’ parties/events more often, go out dancing more, and maybe even host a gathering at my house sometime this year. I tend to be fairly introverted where Victor is very extroverted, so I know this has stressed him out some lately. If I can get over my initial timidity I hope to be a better partner for him, but also make a better life for myself with closer friends whom I trust and frequently talk with.

·       Target 1: Invite friends out for dinners, hiking, etc. at least one time per month

·       Target 2: Find ways to be comfortable at social gatherings. Collect interesting anecdotes, for example. Also try to journal more often to work on remembering interesting experiences. (Other than the anxiety itself, one of my difficulties is coming up with anything to talk about, even with close friends. If I can work on that maybe parties will get a little less stressful.)

·       Target 3: Go out at least twice per week. Dancing, movies with friends, casual type stuff that still gets me (us) out of the house. Hopefully budget-friendly events.

·       Target 4: Invite friends over for a board games night by the end of the year.

Goal 2.3: Comment on blogs more often. I know I need to comment on other people’s blogs more often. I love it so much when folks leave a comment here, I really need to reciprocate in a general sense. Not only the specific commenters’ blogs, but just into the world of blogging as a whole. I hope this will help me with goal 2.1 as well. 

·       Target 1: Organize my blog reading list better (and make sure to keep adding new ones that I find via Twitter connections).

·       Target 2: Set aside specific blog reading time to catch up with posts each week. Start with once per week, maybe increase later.

·       Target 3: Make value-added comments on at least 5 different blog posts each week. Not just “Cool post!” but adding some kind of insight, an additional resource, or showing some kind of active reflection.

Category 3. Making and creating

Making yummy and beautiful things like the apple peel jelly.

 

Goal 3.1 Blog weekly.  I want to blog at least weekly this year. Last year and previous years I kind of hobbled myself by expecting nearly every post to be fairly long with lots of illustrations. This year I intend to give myself more freedom to post shorter pieces, with a sub-goal of one longish piece per month. So I’m aiming for a minimum of 50 blog posts in total, and 10 long-form posts out of those. (What do you think? Anything you’d like to see more or less of? Let me know in the comments.)

·       Target 1: Create an editorial calendar to make some posts easier. Include monthly topic/theme possibilities.

·       Target 2: Schedule time each week to write and post. Get up earlier a couple mornings to do this? Or find a coffeeshop type locale to visit regularly for writing time.

·       Target 3:  Come up with some repeating topics, e.g. every first Monday post photos of the previous month’s best butterflies and/or other wildlife seen on my walks.

·       Target 4: Create central pages that link to recurring themes or topics, like the Big Year, citizen science, etc., to make the blog friendlier and easier for readers to navigate.

·       Target 5: I could also include posts about my Yearofmaking project. Maybe once per month showing projects I’m working on and their progress or failure. Links and/or instructions would be handy as well. See next goal.

Goal 3.2 Twitter challenge: Year of making. This is a year-long challenge I'm doing on Twitter of making something handmade every day. So far I’ve cut out paper snowflakes, made a short paper chain for the Christmas tree from scraps left over from the snowflakes, made a hollow book to hide secret treasures, made seed tapes for planting in the spring, and done a lot of knitting. I also UNmade on one day, when I had to rip out about 20 rows of the sock I’m working on when I decided a mistake way back was just too bad to ignore. Ugh.                   

·       Target 1: First thing is to get in the habit of low-key crafting in the evenings while watching TV. Knitting straightforward patterns, cutting out paper decorations, etc. Also be on the lookout for other places I could be multitask crafting: knitting while waiting in line at the grocery store, perhaps?

·       Target 2: Try new crafts that look intriguing even if they’re challenging and I’m not sure I will succeed. For example, the secret treasure book which I made for Frances, my grandmother-in-law's roommate at the assisted living home. That was a little difficult but turned out great!

·       Target 3: Organize my craft supplies so I can find and access them more easily. Also make a cleaner, bigger space to craft in (mostly by cleaning stuff off my workspaces when I’m done).

Goal 3.3 knit 3 pairs of socks Last year I learned how to knit in the round (woo-hoo! Double pointed needles were kind of scary but I can do it now), and this year I want to to get much better at knitting socks. I want to finish 3 pairs of socks this year, so six socks in all. That might be a bit of a tall order considering my current glacial pace, but I’m going to try anyway. Sock yarn is so thin, it seems to take forever to make progress. But I did treat myself to lovely batches of handspun and hand-dyed yarn at last year’s Sheep & Wool festival, so I will have awesome socks when I’m done.                 

·       Target 1: finish knitting the relatively simple pattern I started at the end of 2015.

·       Target 2: For the second pair, try a different pattern that might be a little challenging but that will probably teach me something.

·       Target 3: Look into knitting socks on circular needles. Maybe I could go faster if I don’t have the double-pointed needles causing issues.

Goal 3.4: Learn to can I’d also like to learn how to properly can this year, using a hot water bath and everything so that I can make shelf-stable preserved fruits and veggies other than dehydrated ones. I have my grandmother-in-law’s huge canning pot and rack already but haven't had the guts to try using it yet. Canning will be a big step up from where I am now—I mostly have been preserving produce by freezing, dehydrating, or refrigerating the things I make.  It would be really nice to can my own tomatoes and things, though, and not have to take up freezer space for them.

·       Target 1: identify what other equipment I’ll need and figure out how to acquire or borrow it.

·       Target 2: Try canning something I already know how to make, e.g. apple butter or tomato sauce.

·       Target 3: Try making something new specifically to preserve it. Jelly/jam? Pickles? Depends on what’s in season when I get here.

So that's all my goals for 2016. Seems like a lot when I look at it here on the screen. Am I being too ambitions? Maybe, but I certainly won't be bored! I'll have to revisit these goals in a few months to see if I need to change or postpone them.

What are some of your goals this year? Chime in with a comment, I'd love to hear about them!

Hooray! I'm gonna be a professional naturalist

So I haven't been posting as often as I'd hoped this year, at least not so far. As often happens, I'm working on lots of drafts but never get around to finalizing and publishing. There's just so much else going on.

But some of what I've been doing has resulted in really good news: I got a job offer to be a seasonal (part-time) naturalist at Locust Grove Nature Center. Yippee! I'll be working there all week in the summer, but fall through spring I'll be there half the week and still work at Brookside Gardens the other half. I am really happy about that. I want to advance my naturalist career but I would feel bad abandoning the library and volunteer program here.  So now it's the best of both worlds.


I don't yet know when I'll start at Locust Grove, we're still working that out. Probably in the next month or so. An additional benefit to taking this job is now I get to check off one of my 2016 goals and we're not even done with January! I had decided this was the year I would either get a naturalist job or start a regular gig volunteering as a naturalist. Ta-da! All set.

So stay tuned for my adventures at Locust Grove. I'll also be posting soon about my goals and plans for 2016, which include of course writing here more frequently. :-)