I haven't written here in a long time. Has it really been since January? And now my blog, although still here, has had to have the format changed (why? I don't know- ask blogger.com), but I lost all my pictures when the blog transfer happened. At least I think? All that is left is the stupid X in the corner of a box. Who invented that dumb X anyways? No one wants to see that- it is a sign of failure and disappointment. So I apologize for the X's. The pictures were nice once...
Technology's Great and It Sucks- Did I Just Write Suck?!!
I just realized I have been blogging for almost 3 years! That makes me kind of tech-saavy and cool, no? Actually no, not really. I did it originally not because I love new technology but because I was asked to and I kind of like to write. My Mother will tell you I don't like to write, like letters or cards, but I like to type and so I like to blog. I am also good with email, I text here and there, and I don't remember life much before the Internet. How did I EVER cook anything or go on vacation or get anywhere without the Internet? I also enjoy a good session of Wii Fit. Mostly because I love seeing what the Mii's we've created are doing in each game.
But I am not a huge fan of ALL things technology. I don't need the latest gadgets to make my life complete and run smoothly. I have an ipod, but it's not a new one- its the 4th generation? Or the 2nd? I don't know which one for sure. It's purple and plays music while I work out. We have a cheap but workable laptop at home that is *gasp* wireless...but that progress happened in our house only in the past 6 months and I still feel wonder every time I unplug it from the charger/cord thing and take it with me to the bathroom. Yes I do that. My husband won a Kindle in an online giveaway and when it came via UPS I had to look up on the Internet to see what a Kindle even was. We use it here and there but I still like real books a lot more.
I have a cell phone but I don't take it everywhere and I don't check it constantly. I might have when I first got one 10 years ago, but not anymore. It is more of an annoyance than anything. If I forget it at home I feel somehow more free. Our kids don't have cell phones. Not even the teenagers. I know, criminal. But no one is going to convince me that kids NEED cell phones. All of us over 25 survived our childhoods without cell phones, and not only did we survive, I think we were better off. Seeing little kids playing hide and seek or swinging on a swing while texting (I've seen both) is so sad. Watching teens (and younger) looking at their phones 90% of the time instead of actually looking at and communicating with the people actually there with them, is also sad. My husband and I (and thank goodness my ex-husband too) want our kids to have something different. Real conversations, the ability to communicate without just rotflmao. Same goes for the adults- we aren't on our phones all the time, ignoring our kids or their activities while we text, talk, check email, and whatever else people do that I don't really care to know about.
So technology has its place and makes life easier, but I think it can go too far and in some cases, it has- especially with the effect on our kids- and that sucks.
I think there might be a few people that have followed my blog and I am hoping they don't stop even though I have been inconsistent. Our local paper used to print my blog from time to time, which was nice and kept me current. Now they are not so local and they don't print my blog anymore so I've fallen off my routine of writing. But not having the newspaper print my blog gives me some freedom to wander from my normal format and write on other things. Not to say I won't write about nature still, but I would like to expand Notes on Nature to include other topics of (my and hopefully some of yours) interest. I think most anything can be related to nature, even human stuff even though we tend to think we aren't part of nature (which is why I believe we allow ourselves to mess the earth up so well).
I would like to write about kids and other family relationships and friends and work and general observations about life. I hope I'm not boring, but I'm not particularly worried about that either because I write to purge all the stuff in my brain, not to really please other people, although I hope that is a happy by-product. See you soon!
Yes, it has been a long time since I have blogged. But I felt compelled today as it is getting close to Thanksgiving and I, not surprisingly, keep thinking about turkeys. I see Wild Turkeys often in my neighborhood, my yard, and on my way to/from work. They haven't always been so easy to see as they haven't always been in New York. Surprised? Me too! My job is to help people appreciate wildlife through understanding and information and it turns out Turkeys have a story for me to tell....
This time of the year Wild Turkeys are avoiding hunters and reducing their ranges. Their activities slow down and they are often seen in large flocks on farms and fields feeding on manure and leftover grain- how glamorous! They also feed on food left from fall like nuts and berries. As winter approaches, turkeys may spend a week plus roosting when the weather is most severe and they can go up to two weeks without food if need be. Although they can scratch through up to 6 inches of snow to find food.
The wild turkeys we see in the Southern Tier of NY are Eastern Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). The tom (male) has a dark blackish-brown body and are around 2.5 feet tall, weighing 18 to 20 pounds on average although they can weigh up to 25 lbs. The hens (females) are rusty-brown and smaller than the males and weigh 9 to 12 lbs.
As I alluded to before, Wild Turkeys have an interesting story/history in New York State, and it is especially interesting in our area. The Eastern Wild Turkey is native to North America and when the Europeans colonized New York State, Wild Turkeys occupied all of the state south of the Adirondacks. It is believed that they were inhabitants of N. America before humans were.
Turkey habitat was lost when forests disappeared as our ancestors cut them down to make space for farms and for timber to build and heat with. Turkeys were commonly killed unchecked for food back then too (there were no regulations on hunting at that time). In the 1840s the last of the original Wild Turkeys disappeared from New York. This was the case until the early 1900's when farms started to decline. 100 years after their disappearance, much of our area of New York was again able to support turkeys as their forest habitat came back.
So where did our current turkeys come from? Around 1948, Wild Turkeys from a small population in northern Pennsylvania crossed the border into our (S. Tier) area of New York. These turkeys did pretty well in the Southwestern part of the Southern Tier and so in 1959 a program was started by the DEC to trap wild turkeys in areas where they were becoming abundant to release them other places in New York. 1,400 turkeys were trapped in Allegany State Park and were spread into appropriate habitats across New York. These 1,400 birds have been the seeds to successfully reestablishing wild populations statewide to today's estimated number of 250,000 to 300,000 birds.
So this Thanksgiving and the rest of the year, keep an eye out for Wild Turkeys and appreciate them for their amazing comeback in New York State!
Come up and visit our main hallway to view 15 beautiful photos taken by various people at Tanglewood. They are part of our Nature Photography Contest and I am impressed by the entries. They range from the quaint bench 1/2 way up the pink trail (my personal favorite) to the spectacular bluff view, to the small flowers and insects that hang about all spring and summer. I have a passing interest in nature photography. I have spent some hours outdoors taking pictures since my college years and although I am not particularly excellent at it, it is still fun to capture things through the lens and see how they print out. It used to be that you'd take rolls and rolls and wait until they were developed to see if you got that one great shot. Now digital photography allows almost instant gratification. My "thing" to photograph lately has been bark. Yes, bark. There are so many colors and patterns in bark and I find it fascinating how it comes out on film. I am sure there isn't a market out there for bark photos, but as in any hobby, if the hobbyist is enjoying themselves, then the value of the hobby remains. These days it is pretty easy to print out a picture, pick up a mat and frame and voila! you have your own "art".
As I sit at my desk, I can hear the sound of a bobcat running into giant bushes and making them into mulch. Not really the sound you'd expect to hear at a Nature Center. But we have been working on getting our grasslands back (see May 2007 post-Men with Chainsaws) and this is part of it. As I have blogged about before, we have Autumn Olive. If you don't know what that is, you are lucky. It is an invasive bush from Asia brought here in the 1800's to help with erosion control and for wildlife habitat. No one apparently knew that it would be so weedy and completely take over entire areas. On our land, it has taken over the native grassland/meadow areas. Our property has been traditionally called Gleason Meadows and we have been losing our meadows! That also means losing grassland birds that use these areas for nesting and food habitat. We have had many species of grassland birds in the past including Bobolinks and Meadowlarks. No longer. We have had Grasshopper Sparrows in the recent past and that's pretty amazing since that species is in decline by 98% in New York. To get the birds back, we need our habitat back. Right now it kind of looks like a tornado ran through here (photo upper right), but you have to have VISION. To know that if we remove the invasives and manage them, we can let the grasses take back over.
The plan is to restore 30 acres and it had been slow-going until this week. Without the correct equipment, we have been hacking away at the tangled mess for several years now with chain saws, loppers, a chipper and A LOT of man hours. But this week, thanks to huge support (to the tune of about $800/day) from the USFWS...we have a Bobcat. Not just any Bobcat but one see aove with a drum and blades on the front and this big metal thing that pushes stuff over. What took literally days before is now taking hours. We only have it for 6 days and so staff and volunteers have been working furiously to get as much done as possible. So if you hike at Tanglewood any time in the near future, please don't panic. We haven't lost our minds or our mission. Know that we are working on something that will be better for wildlife in the future. Kind of like home improvements, you have to make a mess before you get it looking better than ever.
Well I've been on a writing hiatus for the summer. Busy at work and kind of thinking no one really reads my blog, but I have had enough people tell me they miss it that I figured I should get back on it. Summer was busy at Tanglewood, weeks of kids doing the camp thing and now back to school.
We have this recurring discussion in my house about the seasons and our favorite and least favorite months throughout the year. If you have read my blog for awhile you know that I am not fond of winter, especially the later months of Feburary and March. I am also not fond of the "transitional" months- April and September. Those months that aren't quite in a season- is April winter or spring? Is September summer or fall? Before you say who cares- you don't have to care, it's just something we talk about at my house for some reason and I felt like blogging about it.
I wonder if people in the South have these kinds of conversations at all since every day is more or less the same? I lived in Virginia for 4 years and all I remember is there are no specific transition months as it seems every month sort of fades into the next one. Here in NY, each month has a specific "feeling" according to the weather and also to activities in the month- holidays, sports, etc. According to my "feelings" May, June, July and August are great because of the weather, same with October and January. November and December are holiday and family time, so they're pretty great too.
All the other months are just months to get through as far as I'm concerned. I think I need help with my attitude since I am wishing away 1/4 of my year every year! I can find a few redeeming things about September- back to school (which is good and bad), cooler nights and the start of football and soccer. But what about February? Ok, it's short. March and April though? I mean don't tell me there are flowers and hope for better weather in April- not too often here. But maybe the crocuses and one or two warmer days are helpful. March. It all comes down to March. I need to take my extended vacation in March because I can find nothing to look forward to that long month....Anyone, anyone?
I am the Director of Tanglewood Nature Center in Elmira, NY, I love my job the fabulous view out my office window and the people I work with. I have a great family- my firefighter husband, 3 kids, 2 stepkids, a pound puppy and 2 lizards. I am not a huge fan of cell phones and IMing. I think both are ruining our relationships with other people and our social skills. Kids don't need cell phones- not debatable with me so don't try.
