2017 Happened Like This

There's no better way to get back into the blogging habit that just starting. I've intended to do this countless times and always got interrupted before I could finish. Now here we are, at the beginning of another new year and I'm long overdue for an update! I've tried to keep up with many of you as you traversed your busy year too, but I know I've missed some of your adventures. Why does life have to move along so quickly?

This blog post is longer than I usually write, but I'll try to briefly recap what I've been up to, with some more detailed blog posts later.

January brought a bathroom remodel that was a year later in coming than we'd planned. We only have one full bath in this house, and it had been 25 years since the last update, so this was kind of a big deal.

I was pretty happy about the updated bathroom, but the really exciting thing that January brought was the culmination of months of work towards the formation of a specialized license plate for the state of Ohio that would benefit the monarch butterfly. It officially was available for sale on January 11^th and I was right there at my local BMV when they opened, to get mine.

This gave me great satisfaction, because it shows you don't have to “be someone” to get things done. With the sale of each monarch organizational plate, Monarch Wings Across Ohio will receive $15 for monarch research. As long as 25 plates are sold each year, they will keep it available to anyone who has a licensed vehicle in the state of Ohio.

Monarchs cling to oyamel fir trees in the Sierra Chincua monarch reserve
in the Transvolcanic mountains of Central Mexico.

The end of February found Romie and me heading south to Mexico to see the monarchs in their overwintering grounds. Beth and Ernie Stetenfeld from Wisconsin joined us for the six-day trip, and I can't say in a brief paragraph what a wonderful experience it was to fulfill this bucket list item. So there will definitely be a few more posts about it.

March ushered in a much anticipated spring and all of a sudden, it was April. This was a roller coaster of an emotional month, as my second book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, was released. On Earth Day, April 22^nd. The Paulding County Carnegie Library hosted a book release party and the event was very successful and a lot of fun.

The Paulding County Carnegie Library threw a fun and fabulous party
celebrating the release of my book.

Later that same day, my 102-year-old grandma passed away. We knew it was coming, and she lived a wonderfully long and full life, but it doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it might be harder, because when you've had a grandma like her for nearly 60 years, you really can't imagine your life without her. But we do have hundreds and hundreds of memories to cherish.

This photo of my grandma and me was taken on Christmas Eve 2016, two
days before her 102nd birthday. It's the last photo I have with her.

When I was writing my book, I consulted with Dr. Lincoln Brower, one of the world's foremost authorities on monarchs. He's in his 80s now and is a research professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. I wanted to meet him and personally give him a copy of my book, so I asked if I could do so. He graciously invited me to his home so Romie, my mom, and I planned a trip for May. We spent the afternoon with him and then we all went to dinner. Meeting him was one of the highlights of my year.

I enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Lincoln Brower when I visited him in
his Virginia home in May.

On this same trip, we stopped in Pittsburgh to visit my publisher's offices – St. Lynn's Press. We learned that the office space was previously held by a company that my husband's employer does business with on a regular basis. It was a “six degrees of separation” moment!

Me, with my St. Lynn's Press #TeamMonarch: Holly Rosborough, Chloe Wertz,
and Paul Kelly. My editor, Cathy Dees, was away, in California.

While in Pittsburgh, we also visited Phipps Conservatory, took a night trip to a location overlooking the city that I learned of from Atlas Obscura, and had dinner with friend, Jessica Walliser, author of several books and radio show host.

Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh

Downtown Pittsburgh at night, as seen from the West End Overlook

We then headed a bit south, where we visited the Flight 93 Memorial. Mom and I had been there twice before, but it was Romie's first time. It's a moving experience, no matter how often you see it.

Continuing on south, we headed to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, for that visit with Dr. Brower. After overnighting at Sweet Briar College's Elston Inn, we kept going south.

My grandma was born here in 1914. Called Ravenwood, it was built in 1849.

Because we were close enough to Crewe, Virginia, birthplace of my grandma that had just passed away, we wanted to try to find the house where she was born. We knew it was still standing. After a really interesting series of conversations with locals, we found it. I wish we would have been able to share the experience with her.

Jacqui Knight, from New Zealand, was an absolute delight, and she came
to the Paulding County Master Gardeners plant sale before continuing on her
journey. I was selling and signing my books at the sale.

Also in May, I was thrilled to have a visit from Jacqui Knight, Trustee with Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust. Jacqui lives in Auckland and was in the U.S. on an ambassador trip, visiting key locations in our country for gathering information about the monarch. She visited Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where she met MW founder, Dr. Chip Taylor. She also stayed with Dr. Brower in Virginia, and was working her way back west when she spent a night with us. 

Just a mile from us, power lines were knocked flat by straight line winds.

We showed her some good old Paulding County  straight line winds, complete with a power outage! Since we had no power, we drove to Van Wert for supper. We didn't regain our power until late that night, but since  you don't need electricity to talk, Jacqui and I had some good conversation about the monarch we both love so much. New Zealand has its own small population of monarchs.

The U.S. Botanic Garden is situated on the National Mall, near The Capital.
See the dome of The Capital just left of center?

Flingers at Hillwood Estate, home Marjorie Merriweather Post.

June brought the annual Garden Bloggers Fling, this time held in the Washington, D.C. area. I'll have more later on the gardens we saw, but one of the highlights of the Fling is getting to be with garden blogger friends that we may only get to see once a year, as well as meeting some for the first time.

This is just part of the spectacular rock gardens at Chris Hansen's home.

We weren't home very long when Mom and I took off again, this time to Holland, MI, where we visited Chris Hansen, breeder of the popular SunSparkler® and Chick Charms® sedums. His gardens at his beautiful home are captivatingly designed and I wanted to spend oodles of time looking at the hundreds of varieties of rock garden plants he has there.

Susan Martin's property is almost entirely in shade, so she has surrounded
her home with a carpet of texture and a kaleidoscope of greens.

We spent a few days at Chris's home, but we also got to visit one of our favorite garden centers, Garden Crossings (why can't all garden centers be like this?), Chris's Garden Solutions business site, the Walters Gardens display gardens, and we also got to have dinner with Susan Martin, as well as visiting her lovely woodland garden.

Always a must-visit at Cultivate is the Peace Tree Farm booth.

July always means a trip to Columbus to attend the Cultivate trade show, where we get to see all kinds of new plants and garden products, as well as talk with industry people. We're fortunate that this is held in our backyard and is an easy trip to our state's capital. Being a member of GWA (Garden Writers Association) has its perks when it comes to this show, too. (Free admission!)

We saw a myriad of garden ideas in the private gardens of Buffalo that we
toured at the GWA Expo and Symposium.

The busy summer wasn't over yet. The annual GWA Expo and Symposium was held in August in Buffalo. Mom and I drove up for it and not only did we get to see some of the fabulous gardens that are part of the famous Garden Walk Buffalo every summer, we took a day and went over the border into Canada, to see Niagara Falls and some gardens there. I'll share more of that in another post, too.

Thanks to our Canadian neighbors for the red, white, and blue display!

Later in the month, Romie and I drove to Nashville to experience the total solar eclipse with our friend, Barbara Wise. I love spending time with Barbara and this was made extra special because of the eclipse. If you've never experienced seeing it in totality, you really must put that on your bucket list. It's nothing like seeing a partial eclipse. Trust me.

August begins the tagging season for migrating monarchs, and this year, we raised and tagged more than 100 monarchs and sent them on their way to Mexico. It was a great year, and all signs point to the numbers in Mexico being up when they do the count down there for the winter.

Speaking of monarchs, at the end of August, we were host to Butterbiker Sara Dykman, who was on her way back to Mexico and was passing through our area. I spearheaded arranging to have her speak in Ft. Wayne at the University of St. Francis as well as our local elementary school students. 

Sara Dykman, a biologist from Kansas City, as she's leaving a two-night
stay at Our Little Are.

Sara recently completed a 10,201-mile round trip from Central Mexico to Canada and back again, following the monarch migration, all on her bicycle, spreading monarch awareness all along the way. She's the only person to have done this.

The time together is never long enough. 💕

We were excited for September to arrive, because our exchange student from Ecuador, who lived with us in 1993-94, Karina, came for a visit, with her husband and two little boys. It was the first time our daughters had seen her since she last visited in 1999. Needless to say, we had an absolute wonderful time and it was fabulous to have her sleeping under our roof again.

Photo courtesy of Jean Persely.

I had a few speaking engagements this fall, including one at the Monarch Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN. Romie and I also traveled to Midland, MI, in October, where I spoke to a wonderful group of Master Gardeners and others from the community.

Also in October, Romie,  grandson Anthony, and I drove down to the Cincinnati Nature Center to hear Monarch Watch founder, Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor, speak about monarchs. Though we'd exchanged a few emails prior to this, we'd never personally met. 

Photo courtesy of Carolyn Turner

Healthwise, the fall wasn't great, as I battled strep twice and bronchitis, but things slow down during that time anyway, with the exception of the holidays. By the middle of November, I was able to get together with several of my fellow dental hygiene classmates (IPFW – Class of 1977), some of whom I hadn't seen for nearly 40 years.

It's amazing how you can be apart for so long, but once you're back
together again, it's almost as if no time has passed at all. (Almost.)

That's pretty much it, along with some book signings and a lot of interviews for podcasts, radio, and TV shows. (More about those later.) It was certainly a busy year, but also a fun one and 2018 is looking pretty good, too. 

My next speaking engagement is the regional Perennial Plant Association regional meeting in Chicago at Morton Arboretum on February 3. I'll be sharing the program schedule with Doug Tallamy, author of the bestselling Bringing Nature Home. Yep, I'm name-dropping and I'm a tad bit nervous about the whole thing, but I'm also looking forward to meeting him and hearing him speak.

Now that you're caught up, I'll do my best to share some details of these fun activities in future posts. And I promise not to go AWOL for so long either. If you're a long-time reader, thanks for hanging in there with me, and if you're new to Our Little Acre, welcome! I encourage you to look through the archives for gardening ideas as well as my ongoing adventures with monarchs. 

And I've got some exciting news on that monarch front! Stay tuned!  🦋

Earth Day 2014

Let us direct our desire for a better world
into the earth itself.
Each seed we plant, however small,
is a tangible wish for growth:
for shoots of tenderness,
for roots of extending kindness.
And may the greenest, most hopeful leaves
be lessons of compassion
taken from our holiest books.

                        - Carol L. Mackay                                                                             

*Excerpted from Garden Blessings: Poems, Prose and Prayers Celebrating the Love of Gardening by June Cotner (Editor), to be released by Viva Editions, May 13, 2014.  I received a review copy of this new book from the publisher. A full review will be published at a later date.

Sustainable Living Project 2011

I'm republishing this post, in celebration of Earth Day, and for my friend Jan's Gardeners' Sustainable Living Project. Please visit her blog, Thanks For 2Day, to see how other gardeners are living more sustainably. She's also giving away many fabulous prizes!





Houston, we have a problem. And it isn’t what you think it is. 

Environmentally speaking, there’s no shortage of ways we can be more responsible. We have the no-lawn groups, the no-chemical gardeners, the recyclers, the natural foodies, and oodles of other worthy efforts to make the world a better place and ourselves in the process.

These are noble causes, but many who are the biggest supporters of them are shooting themselves in the feet. Their over-the-top enthusiasm is working against the very cause they believe in so passionately. I say this, because of where I stand when it comes to issues like these and I refuse to believe that my position is unique.

While I admire those who can be so disciplined and live out their beliefs with such completeness, there are few who manage to do it. There’s a certain amount of guilt that goes along with vowing to change, whether it be environmental issues or eating habits or spending practices.  

I am not an all-or-none kind of person. I may think a cause is the best one in the world and can give you a list of reasons why it’s a great idea, but I also know that I’ll eventually be caught behaving in ways that are inconsistent with my general beliefs. 

A simple example of this is when I go to the grocery store and run into someone that is one of my patients. (I’m a dental hygienist.) Without fail, they’ll peek into my grocery cart and if they see cookies or ice cream or *gasp* candy, I get the look of first horror, then shame, followed by, “I can’t believe you eat that stuff.”

These foods do contribute to tooth decay and it’s part of my job to teach people about how they can avoid it. But I’m not perfect and I don’t claim to be. Should I be less of a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of person? Perhaps. But I refuse to hide my dirty little secret that I, too, like sweets, in spite of knowing they aren’t good for me or my teeth.

I’m the same with other things, like my lawn. I totally get it that lawns can be water hogs and mowing them with gas-powered lawn mowers pollutes the environment and that pesticides and herbicides contaminate the soil and ground water and pose a danger to those that walk in lawns treated with them. But I have a large lawn and I have no intention of getting rid of it completely. (For the record, I don’t water it or spray it with chemicals.)

I no longer feel like I need to explain why I’m not getting rid of the grass and growing a meadow instead. I have my reasons and I feel like they’re valid ones. If you really want to know, e-mail me and I’ll tell you. But there was a (short) time when I felt guilty for having a lawn. No more. 

That said, I truly do support environmental causes, even if I have no intention of jumping in with both feet to do it. That doesn’t mean I can’t jump in with one foot. There are things I can do and I feel good that I’m doing something. Every little bit helps, right? Please don’t tell me it isn’t enough because that only discourages me from wanting to do my part at all. And that’s my point.

Do what you can. Don’t feel guilty that you can’t do it all or even a lot. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t good enough. We are all learning every day and it’s just possible that a year from now or five years from now, you’ll be doing more to help than you are now. Maybe you can even set that as a personal goal.

But those who beat people over the head with “you have to do this” and “you shouldn’t do that” only tells me they care more about the environment than they do the human beings who live in it. Most people, presented with the facts – and please, make sure they’re facts – will form their own opinions and act on them in ways that are realistic for them. And just because they may do less than their neighbor, it's still good.

It's Not An All or Nothing Thing

As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day approaches on April 22, 2010, many people are thinking globally by acting locally to do what they can as an individual to better care for the planet we live on.  We tend to take for granted those things we've got that we've always had.  Our earth is no different, but hopefully we're becoming more environmentally aware and are doing something to help preserve our natural resources.


Jan of Thanks For Today has been hosting the Garden Bloggers Sustainable Living Project for the last couple of months.  Bloggers all over the world are contributing their thoughts on the subject of sustainable living with the hopes of creating awareness and providing suggestions for ways we can all do our part. Please visit her blog, where you can find links to the participating bloggers. And now, my thoughts...

I'm asked all the time how I feel about global warming and if I recycle and if I garden organically and if I save rainwater or compost.  These are issues I never even thought much about until the last few years, as I got serious about my gardening.

Gardening will do that to you.  You start out thinking you'll grow some flowers or some vegetables and that will be that.  Then the butterflies show up.  And the birds.  And the insects, oh, the insects.


Pesticides

When I first started out, I thought nothing of grabbing the strongest thing I could find to kill the nasty bugs. But as I learned more about what I was doing, I sought out a more natural pesticide and fungicide, settling on Neem oil formulas.  They worked and they weren't harmful to the good guys.

Many times I simply use the garden hose and spray bugs off with water. If you do that often enough, the bugs seems to get the message that you don't want them there. And sometimes I just pick them off by hand, like those icky bagworms you see in the photo here.


Composting

As the first summer of my gardening wore on and the garden began to produce as much waste as it did flowers and veggies, it seemed silly not to make use of the deadheaded flowers and the vegetable plants and vines that no longer bore fruit.

I first learned about composting from my Swiss pen pal when Romie and I visited them in Switzerland in 1987.  They explained the pile at the back of their house and how they used it to enrich the garden soil.  It made total sense to me, and though I didn't begin gardening until many years later, in 2005, I remembered that compost pile.  So we started one of our own and Romie later built bins.

Collecting Rain

A couple of summers ago, I grew Pelargoniums in clay pots on our front porch. I had a problem with the leaves yellowing.  We had visitors from California and Mimi asked me if we had sulfur water.  She told me Pelargoniums don't like that.  She would know, because she works as a breeder for a company that grows them.

Mimi suggested I make use of a rain barrel so I could water my Pelargoniums with the collected rain water.  Romie brought home a barrel from work and placed it under our downspout on the pool house and I was amazed at just how quickly that barrel filled up during a short rain.  I started using that water for my Pelargoniums (and other plants) and no more yellow leaves.  So while my motivation wasn't one of saving water, the end result was.

Rain, running into our rain barrel

Inside the house, I recycle water, too.  During the winter, there are about 50 plants overwintering on shelves with lights.  They're on a light watering schedule since it's so much cooler down there and my goal is to just keep them alive and semi-dormant. We run a dehumidifier down there and I use the collected water from it to water the plants.  It always is just the right amount.


Recycling

Classic recycling practices have always been a part of our married life.  The recycling movement in the United States began when I was in junior high and high school.  It was then that collecting pop cans and returning glass pop bottles to the store for two cents a bottle became a way of life.  Then came cardboard, plastic and newspapers.  I almost can't remember when we didn't recycle these things.


Saving Gas

Emissions controls were put into use in cars about the time I started driving.  More attention was paid to gas mileage than ever before because of so-called gas shortages.  I can remember sitting in many a gas line in the mid-70s.

I also learned not to make "jack-rabbit starts" when starting up again from a traffic light and to this day I look ahead to the light as I approach it to see if it has turned yellow so I can take my foot off the accelerator and coast to a stop. Old habits die hard, but that's one that is a good habit to have and I'll do it as long as I drive.

We live out in the country, so we can't take public transportation to work or even ride our bicycles, since our workplaces are too far away. But we try to plan errands around our work schedules so we don't have to make unnecessary trips to town.


Global Warming

Now, about global warming. I'm not sure I should state my opinion of it here. Let's just say that I'll acknowledge that it may be happening, but I'm of the mind that the earth is and will always be in a state of change and that there's probably very little that we can do to stop it.

That being said, I feel there's no excuse to be irresponsible and wasteful either.  Whether you are to the left or to the right of the issue of sustainability or somewhere in the middle, and whether or not you think what you can do will make a difference, I urge you to ask yourself if there aren't little things you can do to be less wasteful and more mindful of the space on earth you've been granted the privilege to live upon.

It may seem trite to say, but it's true - every little bit helps.

What Tree Is That? - A Review

In the U.S., Arbor Day is traditionally celebrated on the last Friday of April. Many will plant a tree on this day, but I want to call attention to a new publication about trees that may help you, whether you're planting one or trying to identify one.

So we're walking through the woods again, and there's this awesome tree off to the right. It's got the loveliest white clusters of blooms and we see them every spring. We always wonder what they are and vow to get a tree guide that we can take along on our hikes so we can figure it out, but we never do.

So when What Tree Is That? - A Guide to the More Common Trees Found in North America arrived in the mail the other day, I let out a "Woo-hoooo!" The Arbor Day Foundation puts out this fabulous publication and I have them to thank for helping us identify the tree in question, as well as providing plenty of excellent illustrations and information to allow us to identify plenty more.


The format of the book is well-organized, with such details as:

• water resistant
  
• take-along size
• glossary of terms
• step-by-step approach to identification
• side flaps for bookmarking
• color illustrations for each entry
  

This is the complete North American edition and is well-priced at $14.95. There are many tree guides out there, but the reason I especially like this one is its size (8.5 x 4 x 0.3 inches, 164 pages) and ease of use.




Identification of the trees is done by a process of elimination. (Are the leaves SIMPLE (one BLADE attached to a stalk or PETIOLE)?)


It also has a list of online resources and a Field Notes section at the back, for recording your own observations. Just an aesthetic item of note - they've used a favorite font of mine for the titles and headings - 'Terracotta' by Frank Lloyd Wright.

By no means should this be considered the be-all and end-all of tree identification sources, but it does include the commonly-found trees in the U.S. (and much of Canada). To be any more complete wouldn't allow for the portability that What Tree Is That? has. If I could change anything about it, it might be to make it spiral inside the outer cover. But now we're nit-picking and that wouldn't be fair to such a fine publication put out by our friends at the Arbor Day Foundation.







Where to get it:
Arbor Day Foundation - $14.95 + $4.95 shipping
Amazon - $14.95 - qualifies for Free Shipping on orders over $25

Pamphlets are also available for the Eastern and Western U.S. for $4.95 each from the Arbor Day Foundation.













_________________
The product or merchandise being reviewed in this blog post was the sole compensation for testing and reviewing the product. All opinions expressed here are mine, with no suggestions whatsoever by the manufacturer or distributor. If I like it, I'll say so. If I don't, I'll say that, too.

Earth Day 2009

Earth Day
2009

“There are no passengers on planet earth.
We’re all crew.”

– Marshall McLuhan –