Posts related to conservation: of biology, ethics, groups, mindsets, and movements.
Today all the eggs have hatched. I was a bit surprised since they came from different plants, but maybe that single Monarch I saw that appeared to be laying eggs did so all over the back yard.
Sadly, I do not have a good camera to show them off–this shot was the best I could do (and one of them is on the underside of the leaf anyhoo.)
Continue reading “All five itty bitty baby monarch eggs hatched!”
Since I had seen my first Monarch of the year earlier in the week, I knew at some point I should be looking for eggs. Continue reading “Another round of Monarch Guardianship”
Sometimes, I want to kick myself for not remembering to grab a camera…but time is still tight and habits have been lost. Continue reading “Playing pick up sticks after the winds have died down”
I’ve seen very few Monarch butterflies so far this year, and each time I have it’s only been one at a time in the yard. Today, I finally found some eggs. Four eggs are now in their respective containers, and only time will tell how many more eggs I may find this year.
Continue reading “My 2021 attempt at Monarch Guardianship has begun”
“For nearly as long as they’ve been popular, lawns have served as a totem of middle-class vulgarity, conformity, and excess. In her landmark 1962 book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson denounced the wanton use of lawn pesticides. Carson’s contemporary, activist Lorrie Otto, condemned yards as ‘sterile’ and ‘flagrantly wasteful.’ Polemics as cutting as a mower’s blade have proliferated in the decades since, but lawns abide. Spivak and her team come not to bury them, but to adapt them to the insects vital to the entire ecosystem—and our food supply.”
— Tom Philpott,
“Your Perfect Green Lawn Is a Buzz Kill.”
Mother Jones, May 7, 2020
Continue reading “It’s time to change the standard for American lawns”
I’m a bit excited that both some of the rewilding efforts we’ve put in, as well as the lack of time to make things a bit tidier than usual seems to be attracting a broader variety of birds that don’t just simply buzz through our yard heading east to our neighbor that keeps feeders out year round. Continue reading “Observing more birds hanging out this year”
“If your plan is for one year, plant rice.
If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.”
It was only yesterday when I finally got around to setting out the front yard rain barrel, and it’s already full! Continue reading “Our front yard rain barrel is finally in place.”
We recently had what’s known as a “red flag” warning in MA due to high winds and lack of recent ongoing precipitation, and there’s at least one brush fire that happened around then, and then another recently, and then yet another made the news. So it looks like we’re not out of the woods yet despite milder winds. Now it may seem odd to get such when there’s still snow on the ground in many places, but here we are. I remember noticing last year how many evergreens around our neighborhood looked or outright were dying. After the last major windy spell, I found myself picking up yet again more deadfall from the trees on or bordering our property, and that’s when I noticed the die back wasn’t just in other places in the neighborhood.
Continue reading “Long term drought, burning permits, and brush fires”
