In more ways than one.
Last night the 50+ bloggers and readers gathered at Union Jack’s in Columbia to reconnect. We haven’t had a get together since last spring, so it was great to see everyone. It is amazing that we have a local group, close to 300 blogs written by county residents, that gets together and networks. I like Tales of Two Cities blog about the event.
Our hosts last night were from The 53 and ukdesperatehousewife, Bill from the former, and Claire, from the latter.
My husband came with me, and really enjoyed the conversations. Lots of fun, even on a really rainy evening. It looks like we will be doing more of these in the future.
As for the second way to be a social butterfly, I am about to do my refresher training for the spring field trips at the Conservancy. One of the spring topics, for second graders, is Wings, Stings and Leggy Things. I love the butterfly part of this activity. The Conservancy has huge amounts of milkweed, which attracts monarchs. We will even rescue, nurture and tag emerging butterflies to track their journeys. It was a highlight of my first fall there. Tagging butterflies and releasing them. In the spring we talk about how they return here for the summers, and how we have created a welcoming habitat for them to thrive.
I like our training sessions. A one hour refresher course, a hike to rehearse what we do with the school children, and then, of course, the social part of it, we have a potluck on the last Thursday of training. I blogged yesterday about the training. Come out and be a social butterfly with those of us who love the outdoors, enjoy teaching the little ones all about the earth science around them, and who want to make a difference in our own small way.
My third reference to social butterfly today, that of home gardener, getting ready for the 2013 season. We pruned the butterfly bushes. I am learning how to find and rescue monarchs from the milkweed in the meadow. I blogged last fall about finding it out there. I intend to rescue as many larvae as I can, in order to protect them from predators.
This is a tiger swallowtail. We have lots of those every year. I know my butterfly bush isn’t native, but it certainly attracts a large number of them.
Spring has sprung, at least for most of what I am doing. Tomorrow, I will be starting my spring greens planting and putting together a salad table. All that, after my social butterfly attendance at Conservancy training.
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AnnieRie Unplugged 