Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

If you look at this blog on a regular basis (or not), you will probably have noticed that I take lots of photographs.  Every once in a while I do something with them besides posting them on here.  Back in June I entered four of my photographs in the 2015 Wild Ones Photo Contest.

Wild Ones is a national not-for-profit organization with local chapters that teaches about the many benefits of growing native wildflowers in people’s yards.  I belong to the Mid-Mitten Chapter which is based out the Chippewa Nature Center.  The national organization holds an annual photo contest for its members.      I entered four photographs this year. The first two were in the category “Flora”.  The first image was taken on 31 July 2014 at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Quigley Creek Natural Area during a flora and fauna survey.  It shows a group of Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) flowers.  Indian Pipe is one of the few plants found in Michigan that lacks the ability to produce its own food - its cells lack the chlorophyll necessary for photosynthesis.  Instead it acts as a parasite toward other plants, stealing sugars from their roots.

Indian Pipe Grouping

The second photograph was taken at in the Native Pollinator Garden at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum on 15 June 2015.  It is a close-up of a Prairie Dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) leaf.  Prairie Dock leaves are massive, this leaf measured approximately 18 inches from stem to tip.  In this picture you can see the network of veins that transport water and nutrients throughout the leaf.

Prairie Dock Infrastructure

I also entered two photographs in the category “Wild Ones in Action – People outside attending events and activities”.  

The first of these photographs was taken at on the CWC's Schaftenaar Preserve at Halls Lake  on 13 June 2014.  It shows CWC Excecutive Director Stan Lilley photographing a Wild Calla (Calla palustris) during a flora and fauna survey.  I titled this photograph "Focus".

CWC Executive Director Stan Lilley focuses on a Wild Calla

The second photograph that I entered in this category was also taken at a CWC property.  This photo was taken at the Peterson Natural Area in Mecosta County on 16 August 2014.  It shows participants of a wildflower walk (Nicole Levasseur, Cathy Murray, and Ralph Crew) using a field guide to identify a Cut-leaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata).  Stan Lilley also appears in the background of this photo.  I titled this photograph "Positive ID" for the photo contest.

Nicole LeVasseur, Cathy Murray, and Ralph Crew look up Cut-leaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata)

Yesterday, to my surprise, I opened my mail to find 1^st Place and 2^nd Place ribbons for the “Wild Ones in Action” category - with "Focus" placing first and "Positive ID" placing second.  In addition to the ribbons, I received gift certificates for $10 and $5 from the Wild Ones Store.  These photographs will probably appear in a Wild Ones newsletter over the next year and may be included in their annual calendar.  More info about Wild Ones can be found at their website http://www.wildones.org/.

Upcoming Event - Mt. Pleasant Area Native Plant Garden Walk (Monday 10 AUG 2015)

Saginaw Chippewa Academy Native Pollinator Garden (31 July 2015)

If you read this blog on a regular basis then you have probably seen posts about the native pollinator gardens that I have helped establish and maintain.  Three of the garden are located on school grounds and the fourth is at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum.  Because these garden are all in public spaces they are potentially seen by hundreds of people every day (especially during the school year).

Next Monday (10 August 2015), I will be leading a tour of these gardens for the Mid-Mitten Chapter of Wild Ones.  Wild Ones is a national organization that teaches people about the benefits of growing native wildflowers in yards and public spaces.  The Mid-Mitten Chapter regularly meets in Midland at the Chippewa Nature Center.

This tour will begin at 6:00PM at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum (5093 E. Remus Road, Mt. Pleasant) with stops at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy, Morey Public School Academy, and Winn Elementary to follow.

At each stop I will be talking about the history of the garden, the challenges (and opportunities) that each site possesses, the plants that can be found in each garden, what has worked out, and what hasn't worked so well.

The public is welcome to attend this walk.  If you are interested in attending please send me an email so I know about how many people to expect.

More information on the gardens and my "gardening philosophy" can be found in this post from 2013 or for all the posts about gardens, type "gardens" in the search box to the right of this page.

Cutting Circles, Pi, and Pie

On Saturday (14 MAR) I joined other members of the Mid-Mitten Wild Ones Chapter at the Chippewa Nature Center to construct wooden oriole feeders, bee nesting blocks made of drilled pieces of lumber, and bee nesting boxes like the one below.

Bee nesting box at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy - Summer 2014

Because this is my design for a bee nesting tower, I was in charge of this part of the construction.  I brought all of the necessary materials and tools to construct seven of these structures.  Three of the structures were purchased by Wild Ones' members, three were purchased by ITC Holdings to place in rain gardens and at their corporate headquarters, and the final structure is being donated to the Chippewa Nature Center.

I wanted to get lots of photographs to detail the build, but I was too busy working most of the time.  Lucy Chargot (Mid-Mitten Chapter President) took a few photos including this one.  I am standing to the left with a drill in my hand - the most tie consuming part of constructing these bee houses is drilling and chiseling out the holes through the 4 x 6 posts.

Working on 4 x 6 posts for the bee nesting boxes - photo by Lucy Chargot

The tubes going through the posts are made of 3" Schedule 30 PVC pipe.  This pipe has an outside diameter of 3.25 inches so I use a holesaw with a 3.25 inch diameter to drill through the posts.  The saw can only cut through about 1.5 inches of the post at a time so it is necessary to use a gouge to chisel out the excess material.

Chiseling out the holes through the wood is the hardest part of the job.

Eventually we had a total of 20 holes drilled/chiseled out on the seven posts - six of the posts had three holes in each, one member wanted a post with only two holes.

Drilling out the holes is a multi-step process - Drill, chisel, Drill, chisel, drill.

The other part of constructing these bee nesting boxes consisted of cutting and gluing up the PVC pipes that fit through the hole.  I cut the pipes at home with a compound-miter saw.  This made it easy to cut each pipe at a consistent angle (30 degrees).  If you are only cutting a few pieces this can easily be done with a hacksaw.  End-caps are glued on using PVC glue.  The outside of the pipes can be sanded or painted with a PVC paint

A pile of the completed PVC pipes waiting to be installed in the posts

After the glue has dried, the pipe can be filled with hollow stems, sections of bamboo, twigs with a hollow center, or in this case cardboard tubes made as bee nesting tubes.

Each piece of pipe was packed with cardboard nesting tubes

The next time I make one of these nesting boxes I plan to take detailed photographs of the process.

One last thing about Saturday.   It was Pi Day!   What that you ask?

Pi is a number - expressed to the ten-thousandths place it read as 3.1415.  The circumference of any circle is its diameter times pi.  The are of any circle is its radius squared time pi.  So what does that have to do with Saturday?

It was March 14th 2015.  3/14/15.  3.1415.  So how did we celebrate, besides cutting lots of circles?  With pie of course!

Happy Pi Day - enjoying some pie