July/August Composting Long before memes were cool, and back when chain emails were definitely a thing, I remember being forwarded a massive group message that poked fun at how humans handle yard waste and compost. It took a bit of searching, and it seems no one knows the true origin, but I found a version of the allegory and it goes as follows: God to Saint Francis: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is ...Continue Reading →

June National Parks A couple of springs ago, my family trekked down to spend a week in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. We hiked various trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and marveled at the crowds and at how many unique languages we heard spoken by fellow hikers and vista-viewers. I should have known better, but I didn't believe my dad when he said the Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited of the 61 National Parks. We ...Continue Reading →

May Camping My youth was filled with camping experiences. Whether it was visiting the Grand Tetons and other state and national parks in the 80's with my parents in their custom-built Ford van, or joining the church youth group's pilgrimage to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness each summer, or my one-month backpacking trek up (and back down) Mount Kenya with the National Outdoor Leadership School, you could say I had the opportunity to experience multiple forms of camping, and soak in at least ...Continue Reading →

April Earth Day & Gaylord Nelson I've written a few times about Earth Day (in 2017 and 2016) and thus, have written small bits about the "founding father" of this world-wide event, Gaylord Nelson. I had not, however, done much digging into the policies and legislation Nelson worked to pass as Governor and then as US Senator in the 1960s and 70s. As I did so this month, I was surprised to note the similarity between his ideas and those of today's New ...Continue Reading →

March Maple Syrup Maple syrup is one of the first topics I learned to teach as a new environmental educator. I appreciated then, as I do now, that this Sunday brunch staple reaches into the realms of science, math, history, and Wisconsin commodities. I especially loved asking students, "What do you think the sap looks like coming out of the tree?" I have to admit, as a child I likely would have guessed exactly what most of them do: "sticky, ...Continue Reading →

February Animal Tracking At the Aldo Leopold Nature Center we take many snowy, guided hikes to look for animal tracks. We imagine the tracks as evidence of the lives animals live while we're not looking, a story of the land. Some stories are clear, others take a little investigation, and still others just leave us guessing. Several years ago I was out with a group of after-school students investigating these snowy stories of the animal world. We found the straightforward path ...Continue Reading →

January Ecotourism Last summer, when my cousin was married in Colorado, my extended family and I shared a condo in the mountains for the wedding week. Even though there were no listed instructions for recycling, I was resolute that we sort our trash and I spent more than a few minutes searching the local municipal website to learn where recyclable materials were collected. Because my family loves me - and the planet Earth - they went along with my insistence ...Continue Reading →

December Christmas Bird Count We have a window-mounted platform bird feeder at our house. It is frequented by a Mourning dove whom we've named Larry. He's a stalwart bird and we can tell him from "Mrs. Larry" because he gives us a stare-down as we walk by the window, whereas Mrs. Larry noisily flaps away, as Mourning doves are prone to do. One grey afternoon, as my son and I (and the cat, too) sat watching the feeder, we counted 9 ...Continue Reading →

October Whooping Cranes While on a stroll through my neighborhood last month, I heard the familiar call of cranes approaching from overhead. I slowed my pace but not too much since, you know, Sandhill crane sightings are no big deal these days. (Although, this wasn't always the case - they were considered near extinction in Wisconsin in the early 1900s.) But as the trumpeting duo neared and flapped into view, I could have sworn I saw black-tipped wings, the tell-tale sign of the endangered ...Continue Reading →