Ten Fun Facts about Vernal Pools

So as I look out my window and see the whipping wind, and have the heat on under my desk, it is hard to believe that the peepers are even dreaming of thawing out... I am not sure my hands and feet have yet.  We are anxiously awaiting true spring like weather, but while we are anxiously awaiting, others are already partying like its 65 degrees!

Check out our newest edition of Top Ten Cards. 

Ten Cool Facts about Vernal Pools

So as you walk through our woods, listen to the chirping of the peepers, the quacking of the wood frogs, glad to be unfrozen for the season, and know that there are congresses of salamander's dancing at night in the pools.  They are already celebrating spring, sun or no.

Most importantly, GET OUTSIDE!

Mindful Monday: The Salamaders are Running!

Vernal Pools in Maine. 

This time of year every year all of us who live in Maine breathe a, tentative, but huge sigh of relief. The snow has melted (most of it) and we are hopeful that we have seen the last of it draining away out of our yards.  What makes us breathe this sigh of relief?  The Peepers.

Most of us know that feeling when on the first warm evening, all of the sudden you hear them.  Its like a sign from above that you can put away the parka and get out the wellies.

This year, having a very insecure, and perhaps a little mentally imbalanced lab, we knew the peepers had announced themselves as our dog, frantically turned in circles barking in the direction of the peepers...they would stop, she would take one step and they would start again which launched her into a frenzy of trying to place what and where that sound was coming from.  They may have been messing with her, but hey, after being frozen for a winter, they had some pent up peeping to do.

This is the time of year to put on our boots and go out into the woods to find these amazing habitats that are more common in Maine than most other places. 

This article today, from Forests for Maine's Future tells all about vernal pools... and reminds us to be mindful of their importance and how delicate they really are.

 Teaming with life, these short lived pools in the woods remind us that spring is a rejuvenating time for all of us.  Time to shake off the 14 feet of snow and break out the gardening gloves.  Its time, get outside and be amazed at the way nature takes on spring.

Stay tuned for tomorrows Top Ten Facts about Vernal Pools, and head out to the Emmons Preserve, this surely is the time of year to see them there!

Top Ten Tuesday- 10 Reasons to Garden with Natives

So I am not talking about seeking out your neighbor who was born in Maine and lived here their whole lives... (although most of us who are gardener's need all the help we can get so if they'll weed... bring 'em on!) 

We are talking about Native PLANTS!

Sometimes when the seed catalogues come in we can get caught up in all the beautiful plants, and huge pumpkins, that we loose all common sense about what we have the ability to grow here in Maine... or maybe I should speak for myself!

Here are 10 reasons we should cozy up to our natives and use them in our gardens this year... Stay tuned there may be a list of what those natives are in your near future...

Download:  10 Reasons to Garden with Natives

Thank you  Gail Roller for sharing your passion and this knowledge with us!

Mindful Monday- Is it All or Nothing? The Digital Age and Being Outdoors

So I save articles to read and then go back through them when I have time.   This was one that my intern had sent to me to read. 

It was on Huffington Post.  "Getting Our Kids Active in the Backyard Again."  Ahh interesting I thought to myself.  While the author is talking about backyard games, I think the idea is transferable to being out in nature as well.

Having kids, I have a little of both tendencies in my house.  I have both kids who will go outside and stand in the yard, look around, then look pitiful and come back in and tell me they are bored, and I have one that you could give a string to and say go outside, and he would come back in having had some wild adventure with the string.  I will not venture to say either is good or bad, just a different automatic comfort level with the outdoors. 

To be honest, my comfort level varies with both.  I worry about the inside kids and the fact that they don't like to be outside, but at the same time, it can be disconcerting at times to see string boy hanging out of the tops of tall trees perilously.  I have to remind the helicopter in me, that I did the same thing.  (My mom who spent countless hours figuring out how to get pine sap out of long hair will confirm.)

I am wondering though, how do we feel about mixing technology with the outdoors?

As the education director for a conservation trust, this comes up frequently, and people feel very strongly the way they feel.  Some are purists, and they believe that there should be zero technology out in nature, that nature itself should be enough.  Others say they are realists, and that in the day of "Digital Natives"  if you want to get their attention, you have to mix the two...

In the time of "There's an App for that,"  an entire industry has been created around digital nature.  You can find apps on vernal pools, bird calls, tree leaf ID, even frog calls.  There is a way to find out more information about our earth than ever before, right in the little box that is permanently attached to most teenagers hips. 

That said, there is something about exploring and figuring nature out for yourself.  No app can compare to hearing a whippoorwill for the first time at night, or finding fish eggs and having no idea what they are and having to figure it out.

So what's the answer?  I surely don't know.  Do we lure them into the woods with a promise of QR codes and then hope they find inspiration?  or do we let nature speak for itself and hope that kids wander out into it someday?   Or just maybe, there is an in-between... thoughts?

Top Ten Tuesday- They're Baaaack... Birds to find on our properties or yours.

The birds are back! 

Waking up to more than robins and crows calling is refreshing!  I believe I even heard the peepers yesterday at dusk, or at least my dog did, who was so disconcerted by hearing that long lost sound, that she jumped and barked every time she walked by a patch of them peeping.  That surely is the sign of a long, long winter.

Here is the top ten list for today:  Top Ten Birds to Find on Our Properties.

Get out now and see all those pretty little singers coming back, building nests, preparing for eggs, and finding mates.  The spring is full of new sounds and new colors, it couldn't be a better time to get out and take a walk.  Bring this card with you and see if you can find any of these birds.

While you are out, feel free to check out our Learning Trail at the Emmons Preserve.  There is a sign there where you can scan a QR code and hear the calls of 10 birds... 

 

 

Have Fun and GET OUTSIDE!



To Bag or Not to Bag? That is the big question....

So the plastic bags.  The ones that are everywhere.  Every store you go into, and on the side of most roads.  There is a storm brewing out there about these bags.

There is a movement to rid stores of them, so you either bring your own bags, or figure out how to balance 40 items on your head as you walk out to the car.  Other areas are proposing to just tax the bags.  Hit people in the pocket book.   Of course there are two sides to every story, there always is.  So how do we feel about this?

It started out as a wild idea from California on the west coast. (Here is the article about the state wide ban in California.)  I am not sure anyone thought the next place to adopt this idea would be smack dab across the country in Portland Maine!   But here we go, Portland is doing this now as well, here is the article, and you can read some of the concerns and feedback as well.

So is it a waste of money?  Is it a feel good legislation? or is it a useful way to reduce trash?  You be the judge.  I just like to bring up the topics to see what peoples thoughts are on the subjects...conversations are always the path to awareness.

On a personal note,  it is a huge source of tension in my household.  I am forever buying new reusable bags, (because I forget the 800 of them that I have already bought at the house) and I can't bring myself to get the plastic.  I unload it, and my husband looks at me and rolls his eyes, thinking that even if we were charged $.10 per-bag, we would have made out better than me having to buy new ones all the time!

My husband, never remembers the bags either, but goes for the plastic instead.  I am not judging... I am not, if you walk into my house, I have the typical sock like thing full of plastic bags, and try to make myself feel better about it because we use them in our trash cans.

I just hate the plastic bags to be honest, all environmental thoughts aside, I get frustrated with the fact that all my stuff falls together in them and squishes.  I don't care how you pack those things, you are going to squish your bread, and then you end up with that sandwich that is only 2" wide because you cant ever re-stretch your bread out, believe me I have tried to no avail. 

My favorite complaint however, is when the plastic bags are so flimsy that they can only pack one orange in each one.  You buy 6 oranges and come out with 12 bag because they double bag each one.  I may or may not be exaggerating here, but honestly it can happen close to that.   

For now I can be thankful that Market Basket will give me a box for my stuff if I forget the bags at home... again...

The reality is, there is a question here.  Is it worth trying to get rid of them, or is it a futile battle in which the plastic bag will prevail?  We are faced every day with how we live on this earth and the fact that we have an impact.  We always will.  Where and how we choose to limit those impacts, is certainly where all the questions and legislations are going to brew. 

What are your thoughts?

Top Ten Tuesday: We Did it...Shouldn't Your Kids?

You have seen them, all those FB posts, and blog feeds about how we are lucky that we survived our youth because we drank from the hose, and rode bikes without helmets...  Its true, we did survive.  And it is true, this generation has a lot more rules to follow for sure than we did.

Its hard to imagine many families letting (or ordering) their kids outside for the day, without any tabs, relying on only a ringing bell and a assumption that they would get back in time for dinner.  And though I would not recommend riding a bike without a helmet these days, it is easy to reminisce and think of our childhood as simpler and more fun. 

So while you are actively remembering the epic capture the flag games, and walking to school in the snow and rain, 4 miles, up hill both ways... lets think about the fun things that we did as kids and encourage ours to do the same!

This top ten list, are things that we all did as kids, and maybe just maybe, if we do them with ours we will remember that feeling of wonder and love of the outdoors.

So in honor of all of us surviving the wilderness as children, here is the list for this week:

Ten Things We Did as Kids...Shouldn't Yours?

Mindful Monday: Doom and Gloom, is it working?

I came across an old Blog post today that brought up a topic that is frequently addressed both here in our office, and also with my interns from UNE.  The idea of doom and gloom environmental education.  It was  great commentary on the state of environmental education, and even though it was dated 2 years back, it seems rather timeless. 

Have a read it is short!  Environmental Optimism in an Age of Doom and Gloom

The concerns of the earth and the environment are nothing new.  The earths wavering health has been on the news for as long as I can remember... really since the first earth day... which truly is as long as I can remember (and that is giving this addled brain a whole lot of credit) 

Acid Rain was the big concern in my middle school science class, the greenhouse effect played across the tops of my papers in high school, the depletion of the ozone layer killed the idea of laying out on the quad when I was in college.  It has always been there, but now, there is something new, the overwhelming access to all information, all the time.

We are bombarded with environmental debate, we are reminded that we are headed for crisis daily.  I wonder if young people are just throwing their hands up and saying. OH WELL, we are all going to die anyway and obviously its all so bad we can't fix it, there is no point in trying.

Please don't get me wrong.  It is bad, there are some pretty scary things going on, and so much of it is mind bogglingly big.  But is it past the point of no return?  Do we want this next generation to just say: "the heck with it there is nothing we can do," because that is what they have been told their whole life?

It is a hard balance to strike.  I am in the business of educating kids to love the earth, to want to preserve it and care for it as far into the future as they possibly can.   For the most part that should be an easy sell since it is our home right?  I wonder though, if we are telling our kids that we are so behind in the payments, that they are just going to walk away?

I think in a zealous attempt to scare people into caring we may actually cause the opposite effect.

Let me pan to my grandmother.  In her lifetime, she saw the mainstream of cars, industrialization, cell phones, microwave ovens, computers that went from the size of a building to being hand held...the miracle of flight, and even more impressive, humans landing on the moon.  In no way were any of these things in her vision of the future.  I am sure that she thought that none of it was even possible... much like solving our environmental issues.

I would like to think that if we teach kids to be problem solvers, to be creators, and fill them with hope that they can become inventors, and scientists,  we can solve some of these impossible problems.  Somehow teaching them that being intelligent and having a sense of wonder and love for this place we all live on, could someday save the world as we know it, far more than becoming the next 5 minute wonder from a reality show.  Perhaps we need to encourage our kids to have hope,  and not weigh them down with the reasons that its hopeless.  

Who knows...  maybe we are on the verge of a wonderful era of enlightenment, invention, and problem solving... 

Now that is something to want to be a part of...