[Better late than never, we’re catching up with contributions!]
Earth Day at the Birds and Bees Wildscape proved to be a banner attendance day for both members and visitors. There were 15 members of the El Camino Real Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist present to visit with the 80+ visitors that came to the site Saturday, April 24.
Some of our group! Catherine Johnson, Donna Lewis, Donna Dworaczyk, Joyce Connor, Kim Summers, Carolyn Henderson, Scott Berger, Alan Rudd
Members visited with visitors and handed out bags full of goodies. There were pamphlets, booklets, posters, wildflower seeds, vegetable seeds, bird feeders, painted rocks, and snacks to be had. They also got to stroll through the wildscape and the bird farm.
Catherine Johnson, event organizer, shares educational material and seeds with a visitor.
The wildscape has quite a few blooming plants. I found Zizotes Milkweed and Butterfly Milkweed that are just starting to bud out. Verbena and Blue Sage were big draws for butterflies and bumblebees. The rose bush was in bloom, and the Malabar Spinach is making a strong comeback.
American Lady on verbena.
Alan Rudd and Scott Berger hung Mason Bee nests, and Alan gave several to members. He’s tracking where the most of them get nested in the area to decide the best places to put them. Alan, I, and a cute little blonde-headed girl also discovered a stinging plant hanging out around the flowers. It really stings (see our recent stinging nettle post!). Ask the little blond-headed girl. Painted rocks and chocolate chip cookies couldn’t even stop her fussing.
Alan Rudd and Scott Berger hand Mason bee nests.
Members got Guinea eggs that had been laid in the wildscape under a plant, and some new native flowers to plant at home. Alan Rudd took many of the eggs to hatch. I hope we’ll get to see pictures here.
Darlene Rynolds, Donna Lewis, Jackie Thornton, Chapter President Sue Ann Kendall
And a word of caution, wear gloves when cleaning out around the flowers, and don’t leave your phone in your back pocket when you go to the outhouse (that happens to be plumbed).
Scott Berger, Liz Lewis, Eric Neubauer, Pamela Neeley Kim and Donna giving the resident donkey some love.
I hope we are all using this forced time at our home’s to look at the beautiful things that nature provides for us. I hope you enjoy these photos of the life in my garden as I share this story.
Earth Day, April 22nd, is coming up. But every day should be Earth Day.
Last evening I had a concert put on by the frogs in my small pond.
In the morning the doves, phoebes, cardinals and purple martins sang to me.
In my garden the bumble bees and Hummingbirds busied themselves with the business of breakfast, paying little attention to my presence.
The breeze started to move the grasses and wildflowers around in the pasture.
Nothing short of magnificent!
Nature goes about her business no matter what is going on with humanity.
The 2019 Earth Day Celebration is in the books! It was a great success, too! Over 70 people and two dogs visited the Community Room on Main Street in Rockdale to see the El Camino Real Master Naturalists and their exhibits. We were joined by local Girl Scouts of Central Texas troops and the Little River Basin Master Gardeners, too. (It helps that many of our members are also Master Gardeners.)
Rosie Johnson did a great job decorating the outside of the Community Room in Rockdale.
Many thanks go out to Donna Lewis and the rest of the Earth Day Committee, who put in a lot of effort and planning to make this event successful. There were so many details, but they were all handled very well!
Donna Lewis takes a break to talk to Catherine Johnson during setup.
And of course, we truly appreciated all the chapter members who took time out of their holiday weekend to join us and talk to the guests about the importance of taking care of our planet.
Yesterday, the Environment and Recycling Ad-hoc Committee’s Earth Day subcommittee met to continue to work out plans. I was glad I could finally attend a meeting, because it was fun to see the team at work. I was joined by Ann Collins, Linda Jo Conn, Joyce Conner, Catherine Johnson, Rosie Johnson (guest and helper), Larry Kocian, Kathy Lester, and Donna Lewis (the leader of the bunch).
Nandina and Texas mountain laurel added beauty and scent too the meetiing.
What’s going on with Earth Day?
The El Camino Real Master Naturalist Chapter’s biggest outreach project each year is to host an Earth Day event, to share ways to protect the planet with the community. This year it will be at:
Rockdale Community Center, 109 N. Main, on Saturday, April 20, 10 am – 2 pm.
We were excited to learn about all the planned activities and tables. Our team leader, Donna Lewis, went over all the topics and who was planned to staff them, and we settled on where a lot of the tables would be. For example, the recycled tote bag giveaway will be at the entrance, so attendees can use the totes to gather information they want to take home. And the seedling giveaway will be at the exit, to keep those baby plants happy.
Donna Llewis explains something to Kathy Lester, while Linda Jo Con looks on. Joyce Connner, Ann Collins and Cathy Johnson study notes.
It’s great news that the local Girl Scouts plan to join us, as well as our friends at the USDA, who had a great display last year.
We have lots to share already, andwere thrilled to see some beautiful models of the lifecycles of insects and other organisms that had been donated by our Master Naturalist friends in Temple. We will get so much use out of them, including at Earth Day.
A silly selfie shows that Larry Kocian and I were also in attendance.
Whenever there’s an event like this, there are a lot of little details to attend to, such as advertising and signage. We’re grateful to have Larry Kocian to get us on the radio, and Cathy Johnson to contact all the newspapers and other media outlets. Donna is goining to check signage regulations and see if the city will make us a banner!
By meeting’s end the team was feeling pretty confident that we will have a great deal of interesting information at our event.
Storage needs
All the lovely supplies we have for our outreach projects are scattered at members’ homes, and we realized it’s a bit risky to do that, because the items might end up being irretrievable. I offered to store things in my company’s soon-to-be renovated church building, and suggested that the facility would be a nice, central location for future trainings and meetings.
Mmm
We shared a wonderful meal, and are very grateful to Cathy Johnson for doing most of the cooking, as well as to everyone who brought additional food. That kept us going!
Earth Day is officially April 22 this year. Join us April 20 in Rockdale! (image source Earth Day Clip Art)
How can you help?
Fellow Milam County Master Naturalists, please let Donna Lewis know if you’ll be helping out, because we still need folks to staff the tables and generally be friendly. And if you have made tote bags, make sure to get them to someone on the committee. We can use more.
Also, the entire report of the meeting will be available in the members’ area of our website. There’s not enough blog space to include all the details from the meeting!
Everybody else, mark your calendars for April 20, and be sure to join us in downtown Rockdale for the event. There are new restaurants, fun shops and lots more that you may not even realize are in the area, so make a day of it!
Nature Along the El Camino Real 